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Why Being Nice Is Destroying Your Family — Transcript

by Jordan B Peterson · 14,116 words · 2,540 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Hi everybody.
0:01Welcome to the release of the ninth
0:03lecture from my extensive tour archives.
0:06They've been received very well.
0:09I've been happy to have the opportunity
0:11to offer everyone lectures uh
0:15style of YouTube utilization that I
0:18began with uh you know, more than 10
0:21years ago now. I think I started really
0:23in about 2013, maybe even before that.
0:26When YouTube was just cute cat videos.
0:30I've been writing a lot this week. Um
0:33trying to puzzle out
0:35a conundrum. I guess it's the conundrum
0:38of monotheism. It's a topic I refer to
0:40in the lectures fairly frequently.
0:43What unites a culture? What has to unite
0:46a culture?
0:47What hierarchy of values, because values
0:50are comparative, they have to be rank
0:52ordered, what hierarchy of values best
0:55serves a culture? And if it's a
0:56hierarchy, that implies it's a unity and
0:59that there's something at the pinnacle
1:01or reversed, something at the
1:02foundation. I'm trying to puzzle out
1:04what that has to be and why and how
1:07that's related to our religious
1:08thinking.
1:09While doing this writing by the way,
1:12several hours a day now, so I'm pretty
1:14happy about that. I'm using a program,
1:18an app that my son and I developed
1:20called essay.app.
1:22And it's turned into a really elegant
1:24word processor that also teaches you how
1:27to write, to teaches you how to organize
1:29sentences, teaches you how to rewrite
1:31the sentences, to organize the
1:32paragraphs, to rewrite the paragraphs,
1:34to write your first draft, to
1:36do the finessing.
1:38And
1:40I'm finding it very helpful. It's a
1:42mature product now and
1:45it's uh
1:46it's it's flows seamlessly from computer
1:49to telephone. So, if I'm traveling, it's
1:52very easy in the car, for example, to
1:53keep writing and so, and I'm out a bit
1:56now, so
1:57that's been very helpful. Anyways, I
2:00thought I'd put in a good word for
2:01SA.app because
2:03it's quite an elegant program and I
2:05found it really useful. In any case,
2:08welcome to the ninth lecture. I hope you
2:10find it useful.
2:12I hope you find it as useful as I found
2:15it a privilege to be able to deliver it.
2:17I loved being on tour and it was such a
2:20remarkable adventure and such a
2:22remarkable
2:23opportunity to speak with so many
2:25thousands of people on a continuing
2:27basis. So,
2:29on with the show.
2:32Thank you.
2:33>> [applause]
2:36>> I found out
2:38in 2017
2:41when I was doing a lecture series on
2:43Genesis,
2:44Book of Genesis, which was really the
2:46first fully public lecture series that I
2:49had done. We rented a theater, my family
2:52and I rented a theater of about 500
2:54people in Toronto and
2:56it was something I
2:58This series was something I had dreamed
3:00about doing for a long time. I suppose
3:02this
3:03lecture tonight is an extension of that
3:05dream.
3:05I had a ambition to walk through the
3:09the body of biblical stories
3:12publicly
3:14at some point and so that's where it
3:16started and uh
3:18that was in fall of 2017.
3:22Um
3:24Uh my YouTube channel was doing
3:27well.
3:28Um and
3:31uh there had been a lot of political
3:33It was really philosophical scandal
3:35around me, I would say.
3:37Um a lot of what is actually
3:39philosophical scandal in our culture is
3:42masquerading as political scandal
3:44because we don't render unto Caesar what
3:46is Caesar and unto God what is God's.
3:49And so, that means the sacred has
3:51collapsed into the political, and that's
3:54why nobody can talk to anyone anymore,
3:56right? Cuz you tread on sacred ground at
3:59your peril,
4:01and you'll have no doubt experienced
4:03exactly that phenomenon in the inability
4:06that many of you now have to even talk
4:08to close family members or people who
4:10were at once friends.
4:13In any case,
4:16I was interested in
4:17elaborating on these
4:19biblical stories, not least because I
4:22had spent a lot of time lecturing at
4:24Harvard and at the University of
4:25Toronto.
4:26You know, I used to be able to say at
4:28Harvard with a certain sense of
4:33what would you say?
4:35Incredulity that I was that I had the
4:38privilege to teach there, and now I got
4:39to tell you, when I utter that word,
4:42there's some shame.
4:43And that
4:44that's a that's a catastrophe.
4:47That's What happened in DC with Claudine
4:50Gay, with the president of MIT, with
4:52UPenn.
4:53You want to pay attention to that. That
4:55was a catastrophe. It's it's appalling,
4:57and I have launched am launching this
5:00new university endeavor with my
5:02daughter, but I take no satisfaction
5:04whatsoever in the fact that these
5:06truly
5:08these once truly great institutions,
5:11Harvard and MIT, perhaps foremost among
5:14them, have now become
5:16not only
5:17incapable of doing what they are
5:20required to do, but
5:22actually doing the reverse.
5:25Because no education is better than
5:28mis-education.
5:30So,
5:32in any case,
5:34I decided to
5:36embark on this series of biblical
5:38lectures. I really had no idea what was
5:39going to happen. I had been lecturing
5:42about stories for a long time, and I'm a
5:45clinical psychologist, and as a clinical
5:47psychologist, really what you do is have
5:49people tell you their stories and and
5:52listen and see if you can help them.
5:56See if you can provide them a forum
5:59so that they can put themselves together
6:01by telling someone
6:03who they are.
6:05And that's an extremely interesting
6:07endeavor and
6:09one
6:10piece of information you might
6:14leave here
6:15with tonight is this observation which I
6:18certainly
6:21found to be true in my clinical
6:23practice. If the person you're talking
6:25to is dull,
6:27you're not doing a very good job of
6:29listening.
6:31And and if you're tired of your wife or
6:33your husband, you're tired of your
6:35friends,
6:36you find people in general dull,
6:40it's probably not them.
6:43And that's a really useful thing to know
6:45and I would I would say there's a
6:46certain kind of cowardice in that.
6:47There's a certain kind of ignorance, but
6:49there's a certain kind of cowardice
6:50because it's actually the case if you
6:52let people reveal themselves
6:54and they will if you listen. People will
6:57tell you everything.
7:00Everything
7:01if you listen and then they become
7:03unbearably interesting and I think it's
7:06to shield we shield ourselves against
7:08that unbearable connection by failing to
7:12listen.
7:13And so
7:15whenever I was in a clinical session and
7:18I found my mind wandering,
7:20I realized that
7:22I wasn't listening intently enough. I
7:24wasn't asking
7:26searching enough questions to keep the
7:29conversation deep enough so that it was
7:31entirely and thoroughly engrossing.
7:35And you know, I used to my clinical
7:37practice was mostly
7:40not entirely but mostly limited to one
7:42day and I you would see usually about 13
7:44people, which took about 14 hours. It
7:46was a very long day.
7:49I used to go to the restaurant, a little
7:50cheap restaurant with my
7:52my family afterwards, and the rule was,
7:54"Don't say anything to Dad that is more
7:57than one sentence long." Because
8:00I couldn't pay it my I was done by that
8:03point. But, it was fascinating. It was
8:06fascinating to have the opportunity to
8:08walk through people's stories.
8:09The courses I taught
8:11were story predicated. I learned,
8:14especially from the psychoanalytic
8:16thinkers, that
8:18our our personalities make themselves
8:20manifest across time as a story. We're
8:23characters on the stage as as
8:26Shakespeare
8:27um
8:28observed.
8:31And
8:33in those courses, I dealt with a an
8:36array of deep stories, some from the
8:38Daoist tradition, some from ancient
8:40Mesopotamia, some from ancient Egypt,
8:43and then a variety of stories from the
8:45Jewish tradition and the Christian
8:47tradition,
8:48um Hindu stories, Greek, uh
8:51Scandinavian, all of them with something
8:55profound to offer.
8:56And uh
8:58I did a lot of analysis of pop culture,
9:01movies like The Lion King, rap rap
9:03videos,
9:04like
9:06the one Ben Shapiro just released in
9:08this most bizarre of all possible
9:10universes,
9:12and
9:14the Genesis series was a logical
9:15extension of that, and I had I had come
9:18to understand very deeply by that point
9:21that
9:22those stories, they sit at the base of
9:25our culture,
9:26and they're not replaceable. Well,
9:30they're replaceable by idols. That's a
9:32good way of thinking about it, but this
9:34is true culturally, but it's also true
9:36psychologically. Like
9:38although you don't know this, and this
9:40is a realization that I've really come
9:42to
9:42recently.
9:44Um
9:47the biblical corpus of stories is
9:50implicit in the structure through which
9:52you see the world.
9:54Now, that's not much more than saying
9:56that because you're the inheritors of
9:58the Judeo-Christian tradition,
10:00that shaped the way you view the world.
10:03But, you have to think through and
10:05understand what that means. It means
10:07that
10:08within the confines of your imagination,
10:11the imagination that structures your
10:13vision,
10:15are nested
10:17better or worse representations of these
10:20fundamental stories.
10:22They're there.
10:24They guide the way you understand the
10:26world in so far as you're enculturated
10:28in that tradition.
10:30They make it possible for you for
10:32example for you to understand a movie
10:34like uh The Dark Knight with its
10:37antithesis between the hero Batman, the
10:40dark hero, and the Joker because that's
10:42a retelling of Cain and Abel.
10:45Now, I'm not saying if you never heard
10:47the story of Cain and Abel, you wouldn't
10:48be able to understand Batman, although
10:50there's some real truth in that.
10:52I'm saying that
10:54the structure of comprehension that
10:56enables you to understand that
10:59story
11:01is a consequence of your
11:04incorporation in part of the network of
11:07stories that lies at the base of your
11:10culture. Now, the the people who founded
11:12your country knew this because they said
11:15strange things
11:17when founding your culture like
11:21we hold these truths to be self-evident.
11:25Now,
11:27a self-evident truth requires no further
11:30explanation
11:32in some sense by definition, but a
11:34psychologist might ask, "Well, what is
11:37it that makes a truth self-evident?"
11:40And the answer is something like
11:43it emerges out of the corpus of stories
11:46that you take for granted.
11:49Right? And those are the stories that
11:50organize They are the stories that
11:51organize our life. And so
11:55one of the things that you might realize
11:57in consequence of that is that if you're
11:59not fleshed out well on the cultural
12:02side, so for example, if you don't know
12:05the biblical stories and there are other
12:08stories as well that you could and
12:09should know, but if you don't know the
12:11biblical stories
12:13there there are
12:15holes and
12:16the the web of meaning through which you
12:19view the world
12:20is incomplete and tattered and torn. And
12:24other things will move in there to
12:27occupy you.
12:29And that's that's a terrifying thing to
12:31understand.
12:33You know,
12:34I started to understand this when I was
12:36studying the psychoanalysts deeply
12:38because
12:39Jung, for example, Carl Jung, who was a
12:41compatriot of Sigmund Freud, who was the
12:43founder of the psychoanalytic tradition
12:46Jung was a
12:47uh student of Friedrich Nietzsche. And
12:49Friedrich Nietzsche is the German
12:50philosopher who so famously announced
12:53that God was dead. He could see the
12:57deterioration of our explicit belief in
13:00the
13:01deity of our ancestors within the
13:03confines of the Judeo-Christian
13:05tradition. He could see that
13:07falling apart under the onslaught of the
13:10materialistic, atheistic, rationalists
13:13of the Enlightenment.
13:15And
13:17that's why he made that prophetic
13:19pronouncement. And Nietzsche knew that
13:22there would be dreadful trouble in the
13:24aftermath of the death of God. And he
13:27knew that that would He knew, for
13:29example, that that would produce the
13:30rise of totalitarian superstates like
13:33the Soviet Union and Maoist China, and
13:35that millions of people would die in
13:37consequence. So, when Nietzsche
13:39announced that God was dead, it wasn't
13:40like he was doing it in triumph. He
13:42called us the murderer of all murderers.
13:46And so
13:48And so Nietzsche tried to come up with a
13:50solution to that, and his solution was
13:52that human beings could take it upon
13:54themselves to establish their own
13:57values, that we would have to become the
13:59creatures who
14:01determined the rules by which things
14:03were valued, who determined the moral
14:05order.
14:07And
14:08you know, that sounds
14:10attractive.
14:11It sounds like
14:13captain of your own ship. But even if
14:15you're captain of your own ship,
14:17you're not master of the waves.
14:21And even if you're captain of your own
14:22ship,
14:24you still have to navigate towards some
14:26desirable destination.
14:29And as a consequence of that, you're
14:31locked
14:33in this wrestling, you might say, with
14:36the fundamental structure of existence
14:38itself.
14:40I learned in the 2017 series that
14:45the word Israel,
14:46the chosen people of God, means we who
14:50wrestle with God.
14:51And then you might say, "Well, who are
14:53those people?" And the answer is
14:56well,
14:58do you ever feel like shaking your fists
15:00at the sky in despair and rage? Do you
15:02ever lose hope? Are you ever inspired?
15:05Are you ever in a moral quandary when
15:07you're caught between two terrible
15:10possibilities, both good?
15:13And you're you're you're you're you're
15:17attempting to
15:19wrangle
15:21an estimate of your fate.
15:25Well, you That's life.
15:28Life is wrestling with the domain of
15:30value, with the
15:33with the with this even with the central
15:35essence of value itself.
15:38And there's no escape from that.
15:40And there are worse and better solutions
15:43to that problem.
15:45And part of what I'm trying to
15:46understand is
15:48what is the best possible solution to
15:50that problem?
15:52Is Is there a best solution to that
15:54problem?
15:55And if so, what is the best solution?
15:58And so, that's what this
16:00lecture tonight will be
16:03part and parcel of.
16:04>> Imagine your favorite lecturer, dial
16:07that up on max, put that on steroids,
16:10and then add some cinematic elements to
16:12it. That's the best way I could describe
16:14[music] a Peterson Academy lecture.
16:18>> I went to college because I had to.
16:19>> I go to Peterson Academy because I
16:21[music] want to.
16:21>> I'm still paying off college from 10
16:23years ago, and I'm also still
16:25questioning the value that I got out of
16:26college.
16:27>> universities, a lot of times it's just
16:29pretty dry. They don't bring the same
16:31energy as the professors at Peterson
16:34Academy.
16:34>> And it is a completely different
16:36experience to learn from somebody who
16:37actually wants to teach you.
16:39>> If you've been on the fence about this,
16:41this is the time.
16:42>> That thing that's calling [music] to
16:43you, you won't have an answer for it
16:44unless you enroll and see for yourself.
16:47You have the opportunity to investigate
16:48that calling.
16:57>> Now, Nietzsche said we should create our
16:59own values, but
17:01Jung in particular, Freud first,
17:04noted that
17:06well, we we we can't.
17:09And And you might say, "Well, what What
17:10What did they mean by that?" They They
17:12said, "Well, if you If you contend with
17:14people, if you wrestle with people, what
17:16you find is that they're they're like
17:18demon-filled warehouses.
17:20There's all sorts of things going on in
17:23the background
17:24that
17:25aren't exactly under people's control.
17:29They're possessed by strange ideas or if
17:32not ideas, strange impulses. And
17:35impulses that act contrary to their own
17:37will. And you know this. You know this
17:39because you'll have been in the
17:42situation where you've told yourself to
17:44do something.
17:46And maybe you've told yourself to do
17:47something over and over. And not only
17:49that, you've told yourself to do
17:50something that you know would be good
17:52for you.
17:54And not only do you not do that,
17:57you do exactly the opposite and
17:59repeatedly as if there was something
18:01inside you that was trying to
18:04do its worst.
18:06Well, so then you might say, "Well, how
18:08can a creature as
18:09perplexing and paradoxical as that
18:12possibly hope to in the span of a single
18:15lifetime revalue all values and create
18:19his or her own destiny?"
18:21It's like
18:24maybe what you do is you search for the
18:26implicit moral order and you
18:29align yourself with that.
18:31There's a reason I open these lectures
18:34with music. I spend a lot of time
18:36thinking about music.
18:4040 years ago,
18:41I was obsessed with music from a
18:43psychological perspective for about a
18:45year. I made a piece of art which is on
18:48the cover of my books. Um
18:52it's uh
18:54it's a mandala essentially, a kind of a
18:56fiery geometric explosion of
19:00chaos and order. And I made that over
19:03about 4 months when I was trying to
19:06understand the
19:08ineffable significance of music. And And
19:11the reason I was so interested in music
19:12was because I was interested in
19:13nihilism. I was interested in
19:15meaninglessness and
19:16music seemed to me to be
19:19the inarguable counterpart to nihilism
19:22in that
19:23even the most nihilistic of people
19:26find deep meaning in music. And at about
19:29that time, it wasn't much long The punk
19:31rock movement was still
19:33flourishing at about that time in the
19:35early '80s and I went to a Ramones
19:37concert and it was in a
19:40theater, just a movie theater with sat
19:42about 1,200 people and I was up in the
19:44balcony with my wife right on the first
19:46row and those bloody musicians, the
19:49Ramones, they brought their stadium gear
19:51into that theater and I tell you I
19:53listened to the whole concert with my
19:54ears plugged and it was I was still
19:56ringing, my ears were still ringing 3
19:58days later even though it was tremendous
20:00fun. And beneath us
20:03where we could peer over the balcony,
20:04beneath us was a kind of an empty space
20:07in front of the stage and all these
20:10crazy nihilistic punk rockers were out
20:13there while the concert was going on
20:15slam dancing into each other. They
20:17looked like ants on a frying pan and it
20:20was ridiculously comical because they're
20:22all nihilistic and they hate life and
20:24they have their middle finger up to the
20:25sky and it's screw this and to hell with
20:28that and there's no meaning in life and
20:30yet they're all out there like dancing
20:31away now pretty violently and all that,
20:33but the thing is the music gripped them
20:36nonetheless.
20:38And that was a great mystery to me, you
20:40know, and I started to think about music
20:43and
20:44there is this
20:46conceit that music is a
20:48non-representational
20:50art form because especially a music
20:52without a piece of music without lyrics,
20:54it's hard to say what it's about.
20:56You know, like it can have a sad tone
20:58perhaps if it's in a minor key and it it
21:01can be cataclysmic and thunderous or it
21:02can be
21:04um
21:04puerile like like music in an elevator
21:07which really isn't music. It's it's
21:09music filtered through stupidity. And um
21:15But but but I
21:17I started to try to understand what what
21:20is music exactly what music What is
21:22music exactly? Well, it's it's a
21:24pattern.
21:26Pattern is something that repeats. It's
21:27a pattern with variations.
21:29Uh
21:30it's a layered pattern with variations.
21:33It's layers stacked on top of one
21:36another. And the more sophisticated the
21:37music, the more layers there are stacked
21:40on top of one another. And the more the
21:41layers interplay with one another. Maybe
21:44one instrument per layer or something
21:46like that.
21:47But it's layers of harmonious patterns.
21:50And then I thought
21:53that's what the world is.
21:54As we think the world is a world of
21:56objects because we're implicitly
21:59atheistic, materialist, rationalists.
22:02And so we think the world is made out of
22:05self-evident objects. And by the way,
22:08it's not.
22:10It's made out of patterns.
22:12And it's made out of patterns that when
22:15opt optimally arranged
22:18operate together in a
22:20hierarchy of harmony.
22:22And that's what music tells you.
22:25And it tells you so directly that
22:28it compels you to move to it. And what
22:29the music is doing to you is
22:33inviting you
22:35to align yourselves
22:37with the central pattern of
22:40harmonious being.
22:42And everyone loves that.
22:44And the reason they love that is because
22:46that it's right.
22:49That's what you're called upon to do.
22:52And And that's why And you know that
22:54even though you might not be able to say
22:55it, you know it. And you can tell you
22:58know it because when a great musician
22:59comes to town
23:01you'll pay and take time to go sit with
23:05thousands of people and all do that
23:07together.
23:08And you'll enjoy it and you'll and you
23:11won't regard it as work. And if the
23:13place gets jumping, you're pretty damn
23:15thrilled to be there and you think
23:17well, that was damn near a religious
23:19experience. It's like, yeah.
23:22Not damn near.
23:24Like,
23:25definitely. It was just the kind of
23:27religious experience that the
23:29prideful linguistic intellect can't
23:32criticize out of existence.
23:34That doesn't make it any less real,
23:35quite the contrary.
23:37It speaks of something tremendously
23:39deep.
23:40It speaks of
23:42the spirit of the redeeming story.
23:46That's a good way to think about it. And
23:48that's the spirit that makes itself
23:50manifest in the biblical corpus.
23:52And
23:54well, we'll wander through some of that
23:56tonight.
23:58And I'll do what I can
24:00to explain some of the opening parts of
24:02that story in a way that I hope
24:06makes sense.
24:19In the beginning, God created the heaven
24:21and the earth.
24:23Now, this is an interesting image.
24:25They say a picture's a worth a thousand
24:27words.
24:28We'll see how many words we can get out
24:29of this image.
24:32So, that's an image of God as a father.
24:35Now, what does it mean
24:38What does it mean to
24:40for there to be a father?
24:41First,
24:42this is a father who brings light.
24:46And maybe you were fortunate enough to
24:48have a father that brought light.
24:50Not everybody is. Tammy was. I was.
24:54I know the people that I've interviewed
24:56who've thrived,
24:58almost all of them had a father that
24:59brought them light, who encouraged them
25:02and who stood behind them, who was
25:04dedicated to developing and encouraging
25:06the best in them.
25:09Okay, so so what is that exactly? Well,
25:11you you might say that's your father,
25:13but you have to
25:14observe that father is actually a
25:16generic term, right? You don't call your
25:20father his name,
25:21unless you're Bart Simpson.
25:23You you call your father a generic name.
25:28And that means in some sense that you're
25:29referring in your relationship with him
25:33to
25:34you could say a role he's playing.
25:36That's That's one way of looking at it,
25:37a part he's playing. Or you could say
25:40that you're referring to something deep
25:42that's he that he's embodying in so far
25:44as he's a good father.
25:46That's a better way of thinking about
25:48it. Now, here's a way of understanding
25:49that. Imagine you were
25:52you're 3 years old.
25:54And your eyes are open, man, and
25:56everything's coming in at you. You know
25:58how imitative 3-year-olds are? Huh, you
26:01send a 3- or 4-year-old off well-behaved
26:033- or 4-year-old off to daycare and they
26:05come back completely infested with
26:07demons.
26:09And they'll I saw this in my son all the
26:11time. He'd come back from daycare, this
26:13this kid who was reasonably civilized.
26:15He'd only have to be there for an hour
26:16and he'd pick up some
26:18pathological pattern of miserable
26:21misbehavior from some wretched little
26:23brat with parents who were foolish, and
26:25he'd come home and play that out. It was
26:28like,
26:29"What the hell do you think you're
26:31doing?" You know perfectly well that's
26:32not going to go very well. It's like,
26:34"Nope, he's absorbed that sucker and he
26:36was going to see if that was a trick
26:38that would work at home.
26:40It's like, kids are very good at this.
26:42They absorb
26:43spirits. That's a good way of thinking
26:45about it. Now, we're very imitative
26:47human beings. We're unbelievably
26:50imitative. Like if you're socially
26:51skilled, you don't even know this. If
26:53you're socially skilled,
26:55when you're sitting and talking to
26:56someone, you're dancing with them. And
26:58if you recorded your interactions and
27:00you sped it up, you'd see that. Two
27:02people who are really engrossed in a
27:03conversation, they're just dancing.
27:05That's been done with mothers and
27:07babies.
27:08Depressed mothers don't dance with their
27:10babies.
27:12Right? And it's because they're too
27:15They They They've withdrawn
27:17within.
27:18And they're not attending
27:20to the relationship. And the baby suffer
27:22as a consequence.
27:24Um
27:25And so you And so you dance
27:28with someone and you absorb their
27:32spirit or you create a spirit between
27:34you when you're conversing. And if
27:36you're both pursuing the truth when
27:38you're conversing, then you jointly
27:40construct the spirit that pursues the
27:42truth and that inhabits you and that
27:44fills you with enthusiasm.
27:47And that's the logos that Tammy made
27:48reference to earlier.
27:50That Christ described as present if two
27:53or more were gathered in his name.
27:55That's what that means.
27:57Our children are very imitative and it's
27:59really the basis of their knowledge. And
28:01so
28:02when you first start to adapt to the
28:04world, you learn how to move in it,
28:06right? But you learn how to
28:08you learn how to imitate movements in
28:10the world in a complex way. If a child
28:13does something interesting, you'll have
28:14seen this with
28:159-months old, you know, you would try to
28:17feed them
28:19say 13-months. They're in their high
28:21chair, you're trying to feed them and
28:23then they knock something off the
28:25the high chair table and top and
28:28it falls on the ground and that's pretty
28:30interesting. And so then you put it back
28:32on, they knock it off again and that's
28:34pretty interesting. And so you put it
28:35on, they knock it off again. What
28:37they're doing actually is imitating
28:38themselves, right? Cuz they did
28:40something kind of random and it produced
28:42an interesting consequence. And so they
28:44duplicate the interesting consequence.
28:46And so kids copy themselves. Now, you
28:49know that cuz that's how you learn to
28:50play peekaboo with them. Right? You can
28:52get them into an imitative game very
28:54quickly, even if they're very young. My
28:56my granddaughter, when she was 9 months,
28:57not
29:004 months old, I had her on my lap, and
29:03she was standing up, and I She's very
29:05alert, this girl, and extremely
29:07extroverted. She was really like zeroed
29:08in on me, and I thought, I wonder if I
29:10can play a game with this kid. So,
29:12I I I went 1 2 3,
29:16little pause, and bonked her head on
29:18mine, like very lightly, eh?
29:20And then she kind of looked, and then
29:23I was slow and careful with her cuz
29:25babies are slow, you know, which is a
29:26good thing. And
29:29And then I did it again,
29:31and I kept repeating it, and she got she
29:33caught on, eh? She She got the pattern,
29:36right? She was starting to align herself
29:38with it. And then I did it like six
29:40times, let's say, to establish the
29:42pattern, and then the seventh time I
29:44counted, and I didn't bop I moved her
29:46forward, but I didn't bop heads with
29:48her, and she laughed.
29:50And I thought, perfect, she got that
29:53that
29:54theme and variation, right? That's part
29:56of a game. That's what you do when you
29:57play peekaboo, too. And there's mimicry
29:59in that. You You set up a pattern, then
30:02you repeat it, then you repeat it, then
30:03you repeat it, then you vary it, like
30:05interestingly, and that's a game, and
30:07that's a social interaction, and that's
30:09the structure on which all of our social
30:11interactions are predicated.
30:13Right? A certain predictability of
30:15interaction with a leaven of novelty.
30:18There's a something deeply musical about
30:20that. Now,
30:21children will imitate themselves, but
30:23they'll also imitate
30:25their father.
30:26So, now, let's imagine we have kids who
30:28are 4 years old, and uh it's a boy and a
30:31girl, and they're trying to get to know
30:33each other, and so what they are going
30:35to try to figure out is could they play
30:37a game together, which is, by the way,
30:39what you're doing when you you to know
30:40someone, at least under optimal
30:42circumstances, and so maybe the boy says
30:44to the girl, or vice versa, "Would you
30:47like to play house?"
30:49Which means, "Would you like to
30:50dramatically re-represent a domestic
30:53environment spontaneously in your
30:56behavior?" But generally that isn't what
30:574-year-olds say.
30:59Uh they just compress that.
31:01"Would you like to play house?" And uh
31:03the girl
31:05who's invited has to say yes because if
31:07she doesn't do it voluntarily,
31:10then it's not a game, and that's
31:12something you should bloody well learn
31:14when you're four, so you never forget it
31:16for the rest of your life. And so maybe
31:19she says yes, and then you say, "Well,
31:22she he says" the little boy says, "Well,
31:24I'll be the daddy and you can be the
31:25mommy and
31:26hypothetically, although God only knows,
31:30both of them agree that that's
31:31appropriate, and
31:35and then the boy starts to act out
31:37further.
31:38But then you might ask, "This is so
31:40cool. It's so amazing. It's such a
31:43miracle."
31:44You might say, "Well, now he's going to
31:45imitate his father."
31:48But that's not what he does cuz kids are
31:50way smarter than that. Like, if I was
31:52going to imitate someone, I'll imitate
31:54this gentleman right here in the front
31:56row. So, this is what I would do.
32:01And so what I'm doing, and you know,
32:02it's kind of annoying when someone
32:03imitates you directly, even if it's a
32:06little kid, and you can do that as a
32:08joke, but
32:10what imitation means directly is that I
32:12do exactly what you do,
32:15either when you do it or a little later.
32:18But that isn't what kids do, not not at
32:20all. They're so much smarter than that,
32:22and it really is a miracle. What they do
32:24is they
32:25they watch their father
32:28act across repeated instances and
32:31situations, right? Thousands of them cuz
32:34they're watching you like a hawk, and
32:37and they're building a model of you
32:41that helps them understand you, but that
32:43is also the
32:45scaffold on which they build their
32:48masculinity. That's a good way of
32:49thinking about it. And so, they're
32:51watching you like mad, and they're
32:53testing you out, too. They're going to
32:54pull out every trick they can possibly
32:56manage to poke you with just to see how
33:00the pattern that constitutes you will
33:02react to all these different
33:04experiments. That's You might ask,
33:06"Well, why do your children misbehave?"
33:07And the answer is, "Well, it's an
33:09exploratory tool." I mean, that's why
33:11you provoke your wife, and that's why
33:12she provokes you. It's like, "Who the
33:14hell are you, anyways?"
33:16Like, you could ask someone, but like,
33:18what do you know about who you are? It's
33:20like, you're mysterious, just like
33:22everyone else. And so, if you want to
33:24learn get to know someone, you have to
33:27sneak up on them and
33:29do something a little out of the
33:30ordinary and see how they respond. And
33:33so, children are doing that all the
33:34time. And while they're doing that,
33:35they're mapping you like mad, and
33:37they're learning to imitate you. And
33:38then, they're not just doing that by
33:40watching you, they're doing that by
33:41watching other fathers, they're doing
33:43that by watching TV shows about fathers,
33:46they're were doing that by watching
33:47movies about fathers, they're doing that
33:49by being read books about fathers. And
33:51what they're doing is they're extracting
33:53out a representation of the father as
33:57such. And then, when they play, they
34:01embody that spirit, and they experiment
34:04with it in real time.
34:06And if they're good at it,
34:08they can do it in a way that invites the
34:10girl to play, so that she'll keep
34:13playing. And that's what you're doing if
34:15you're married.
34:18I'm really
34:20really And if you're doing it properly,
34:23then you're playing.
34:24And if you say, "Well, my marriage isn't
34:26much of a game." It's like, maybe you're
34:28not that good at playing.
34:32Uh that's a good secret.
34:34It's a good secret to know because one
34:35of the things
34:37that you can extract from that piece of
34:39knowledge is the following. If you
34:41notice
34:42the manner in which you and your wife
34:44interact, let's say, or you and your
34:45husband,
34:47you'll see that sometimes you're
34:48playing.
34:51And then you may see also that when
34:52you're playing, you remember at least
34:54briefly
34:56that this is a person you love and that
34:58you wanted to be with.
35:01And then you get a little glimpse into
35:02what your life could be like
35:05if you got it right all the time.
35:07And then you could be humble enough to
35:09think,
35:12"For whatever reason, I just did
35:14something right there
35:16that's unlike what I often do that leads
35:18to whatever misery characterizes our
35:20relationship. Maybe if I was careful, I
35:23could figure out what that game was,
35:26and I could get better at it."
35:29And that's something to
35:31understand and focus on. And that is
35:34what children are practicing when
35:36they're young because
35:37if the little boy likes the little girl,
35:40or the reverse, what they want to do is
35:44establish a pattern of iterative play,
35:47so play that repeats across many
35:49circumstances that moves upward that
35:52they both want to participate in.
35:55That's a friendship.
35:56A friendship is a chain of games that
35:58are increasing in complexity. And that's
36:01what a marriage should be.
36:03That's what a marriage should be and if
36:05it was conducted properly.
36:07Now, I understand that
36:08life gets in the way of play,
36:11but that doesn't mean that
36:13life properly mastered wouldn't be play,
36:16right? Maybe you just have to be
36:18sophisticated enough to play the most
36:20difficult of games, and maybe even under
36:22the most difficult of circumstances.
36:25You know, and that's what Tammy was
36:26trying to do, for example, when she was
36:28attempting to set her head straight in
36:30the aftermath of the death of her
36:32father, which is truly a catastrophic
36:35loss, and in the face of the resentment
36:38that she was liable to feel not merely
36:41because of that loss, but maybe because
36:43of the circumstances
36:45surrounding his death weren't
36:49could be deemed suboptimal as they so
36:52often are.
36:54Her
36:56realization was that even under those
36:58circumstances, your best bet is to aim
37:01up.
37:02Is to aim up.
37:04In whatever manner up means to you.
37:08In the knowledge as well that if you aim
37:10up, even if your aim is off to begin
37:12with, if you learn along the way
37:17how you err in your aim when you're
37:19aiming up, all that will happen is that
37:22you learn to aim up better and better
37:24and better and better indefinitely
37:27without end.
37:30Cuz you might say, if you're a cynic,
37:33"Well,
37:34what's better anyways?"
37:36And the proper answer that is, that's up
37:38to you to figure out. Not because you
37:41make your own values, that's up to you
37:42to discover.
37:46Our aim is often
37:49off. That's what's to sin means. To sin
37:52means to miss the target, by the way.
37:54It's derived both in Greek, Hebrew, and
38:00Latin.
38:03The The equivalent word for sin is
38:05always derived from an archery term.
38:08To miss the target. Well, the more you
38:10practice aiming at a target,
38:12the better you get at hitting it, the
38:14farther away you can be from it, and
38:16still have your aim be unerring. To
38:18begin with, you might be so
38:21without skill that you can hardly even
38:23make out the target, but that doesn't
38:26mean that practice won't make perfect.
38:30Back to the child playing with his
38:34would-be girlfriend.
38:36He's embodying the spirit of the father.
38:40He's embodying the spirit of the
38:42benevolent father in so far as he's
38:45entertaining to play with.
38:47He's learning to allow that spirit
38:51which is the essence of what is
38:53repeatable across instances of proper
38:57fatherhood to take residence within him.
39:05When
39:06the insistence is made in the opening of
39:08chapters of
39:10Genesis that
39:13God is the spirit that creates
39:17in the beginning
39:21there's a
39:25there's an insistence that
39:29that's the same thing that makes itself
39:31manifest in the form of the most
39:34benevolent father.
39:37And that's something very much worth
39:39thinking about.
39:40There's a lot of ways of bringing light
39:43and the order that is good into the
39:45world.
39:47A family is a realm of potential.
39:50A family is a realm of unformed
39:53potential.
39:55The spirit of the benevolent father
39:57transforms that into the order that is
40:00good
40:01or very good.
40:03And it does that by
40:06making itself Let's ask, how does it do
40:09that?
40:12Someone says, "My father was great.
40:15He loved me and I loved him."
40:18A great gift for a child to receive.
40:20What does that mean to love someone?
40:25To offer the best in them, the best in
40:27you.
40:30How's that?
40:33See, my father gave me a gift that many
40:36of my friends didn't have.
40:38My father was a very harsh taskmaster,
40:41and it was very difficult for me to do
40:43anything that was good enough.
40:46And there's some You could argue that
40:48there was something about that that's
40:49cutting.
40:50And and that's certainly the case. It's
40:53the cutting that cuts away everything
40:54that isn't worthy. That's what sort of
40:56cutting that is. But at the same time,
40:59he
41:00in his deepest relationship with me,
41:03he communicated to me
41:05that
41:06if I set my spirit to it, there was
41:09nothing I couldn't figure out.
41:12And that
41:14faith took hold within me as an
41:18unshakable conviction.
41:20And
41:23that's a revelation
41:25mediated by my father in so far as he
41:29was a carrier of the spirit of the
41:32benevolent father, of the fact that
41:35human beings are made in the image of
41:37God.
41:39And there's no greater gift than that.
41:41Not least because it's the truth.
41:47Why is it true?
41:50Well, you might ask yourself,
41:53what do you see
41:56when you look at the world?
41:58And the earth was without form and void,
42:00and darkness was on the face of the
42:02deep, and the spirit of God moved upon
42:04the face of the waters.
42:06There's a proposition here. The
42:08proposition is that
42:10the proposition is
42:12a characterization of the unformed
42:16nature of what exists before reality
42:20makes itself manifest. Okay.
42:23What does that mean? What do you see
42:24when you look at someone?
42:26Well, you think you see the person you
42:30know.
42:33And I would say, what makes you think
42:36you know them?
42:38And secondly, I would say
42:40no.
42:42You see a concretized starting point for
42:45a range of potential adventures.
42:48And you might say, well, what do you
42:50mean by that? And I might say, do you
42:52remember when you fell in love?
42:56What did you see?
42:58And you might say, what do you mean by
43:00see? And I mean
43:02the all-encompassing
43:04encompassing seeing.
43:07You saw someone
43:09that for some reason
43:12you could envision
43:14spending time with for the rest of your
43:17life.
43:19And you saw that
43:21as deeply as you could see anything
43:23insofar as you had a sophisticated and
43:27well-developed capacity for love.
43:31And that love that makes itself manifest
43:34when you fall in love is a vision of the
43:37highest possibility that you could
43:39attain if you conducted yourself
43:41properly in the presence of that person.
43:45And that's a gift from God, that vision.
43:49And you can do what it with you can do
43:52with it what you will.
43:55You can
43:57minimize it
44:01as a chemically induced delusion.
44:04You can become bitter about it because
44:06it vanishes because you mistreated it.
44:10You can reduce it in any manner you
44:12choose to see fit, but all that means is
44:15that you've squandered it.
44:18Or you could accept the invitation,
44:21which is in some sense what you do when
44:23you get married, and say, "I'll stake my
44:27life on what I see."
44:31What are you doing if you do that?
44:35You're encountering
44:37the ground of possibility itself
44:41and making the determination,
44:43guided by love,
44:45to bring order, the order that is good
44:48or the order that is very good, to the
44:50part of the world that you have under
44:53your
44:55influence.
44:57And you're doing that,
44:59according to this story,
45:01because you are literally an embodiment
45:06of the process that does that
45:08everywhere, that engenders reality
45:11itself out of the underlying
45:16chaotic possibility.
45:19And there's nothing about that that's
45:22mere superstition.
45:25There's nothing about that that's
45:26archaic or outdated. There's everything
45:30that
45:31about that that's as advanced a view of
45:33the structure of reality as that we
45:35could that we could possibly imagine
45:38that
45:39offers to us
45:41an infinitely expanding adventure
45:45that unites us
45:47psychologically and with other people
45:50in a peaceful, productive, and generous
45:53union and that moves us all eternally up
45:57Jacob's ladder to the highest possible
45:59heights.
46:01And why would that not be not only the
46:04most accurate description of reality
46:07possible, but simultaneously
46:10the most desirable?
46:15Well, the price you pay for that,
46:18you might say, is that
46:20you're called upon to live in accordance
46:22with that spirit.
46:24And you're called upon to take the
46:26responsibility to do so. You're called
46:28upon to act in love, to aim up, and to
46:32step forward with all due care in action
46:36and word.
46:43Here's a proposition.
46:47The spirit of God that descends in
46:49Genesis has been identified in the
46:51Christian tradition as the word.
46:54And the word is
46:56symbolically associated with the person
46:59of Jesus Christ.
47:01This is a very strange
47:07set of meaningful associations. There's
47:09nothing about that that's obvious.
47:12But I'll give you a hint.
47:17Carl Jung described the story of Christ
47:19as archetypal.
47:21And he meant something very specific by
47:23that. He meant something like this.
47:26Imagine you took
47:28a selection of interesting stories, a
47:31large selection of interesting stories.
47:33Stories that were compelling,
47:35and moving, and memorable.
47:38And then
47:39by some mechanism, you were able to
47:40distill out of those stories the story,
47:45the meta story that was most compelling
47:47and moving and interesting.
47:49And you look,
47:51you see a row a range of superhero
47:53movies, and you think some of
47:54one of those movies was better than all
47:56the others.
47:57Now, you know that all of them make a
47:59set.
48:01They make a set of superhero movies. You
48:02know they have similar themes and
48:04similar characterizations.
48:06You have a sense that there's a
48:07qualitative distinction between the
48:08movies and that one of them hit the mark
48:10better than any other.
48:12And that's the one you're most happy to
48:14go see. That's the one you're most
48:15likely to remember. It's the one you'll
48:16recommend to friends. It's the one
48:18that'll get the best reviews.
48:22Well, imagine you took 10,000 superhero
48:24movies and you distilled them to their
48:26essence.
48:27You have a myth.
48:30That's what a myth is.
48:32It's a distillation. It's an
48:33abstraction.
48:34The reason that Jung said that
48:37the story of Christ was archetypal was
48:39because you can't tell a more tragic
48:41story.
48:44It's a limit case.
48:46Why?
48:47Well,
48:50imagine all the terrible things that
48:51could happen to you.
48:54Let's walk through them.
48:57Death.
49:00You might think there's nothing worse.
49:01If you think there's nothing nothing
49:03worse than death, you have had a very
49:06sheltered life.
49:11People aren't generally traumatized by
49:14death,
49:15even their own.
49:17They're often traumatized by
49:19malevolence.
49:22If you want to develop post-traumatic
49:23stress disorder, one of the best ways to
49:25do it is to watch yourself doing
49:27something you couldn't imagine you were
49:28capable of doing.
49:31That often happens to soldiers, naive
49:33soldiers in particular, who are placed
49:35in a battlefield for the first time and
49:37find themselves doing things they
49:38couldn't possibly imagine they were
49:40capable of doing
49:42and maybe even discovering that the
49:44darkest part of them that was still
49:46unrevealed
49:48enjoys that in a way they couldn't have
49:50possibly imagined.
49:51And that's enough to shatter them
49:53because they've had an encounter with
49:55malevolence itself. And so we could add
49:57that to the list. Death and malevolence.
50:01The ultimate symbolic representation of
50:05the encounter with malevolence is a
50:06descent into hell.
50:08And that's what happens in principle in
50:11the story of Christ after the
50:13crucifixion. Three days down.
50:16Right? The harrowing of hell. It happens
50:19in the desert with the encounter with
50:21Satan. And what does that mean for each
50:23of us? It means you're going to have to
50:25contend in your life with the reality of
50:27death and the reality of evil.
50:29One way or another. Kicking and
50:31screaming or voluntarily. Those are your
50:33options. Or I suppose with head firmly
50:37buried in sand, which is probably the
50:40worst of those three options. But that's
50:43not enough.
50:44That's not bad enough. Bad as it is. Um
50:47how about how about betrayal? How about
50:50betrayal at the hands of someone you've
50:52done nothing but be good to and who is
50:54your best friend? How about betr- how
50:58about justice delivered by the mob? How
51:01about justice delivered by the mob in
51:04alliance with a tyrant who oppresses
51:06your people?
51:09Etc. etc.
51:11The Christian story is the panoply of
51:15catastrophe
51:17with a redemption at the end.
51:20It's the pattern of human adaptation
51:23as such.
51:26Why?
51:30Because to live properly you have to
51:32hoist all that on your shoulders.
51:37And so what does that have to do with
51:39the word of God that makes itself
51:40manifest at the beginning of time?
51:44If you confronted the realm of
51:46possibility
51:48in the manner
51:50that would generate the order that was
51:52good or very good,
51:55you would do that by confronting,
51:57voluntarily, everything that comes your
52:00way in your life.
52:03And that's the explanation, at least in
52:05part, for the Trinitarian vision of
52:08Christianity.
52:10That That capacity to face whatever
52:15comes at you,
52:17no matter its form,
52:19with head held high and eyes gazing
52:23upward, speaking the truth,
52:27that's equivalent to the embodiment of
52:29the spirit that generates reality
52:31itself, not only at the beginning of
52:33time, but continually and forever,
52:37in eternity.
52:40And to understand that and to live it
52:43out is to
52:45take your proper role as a son of God.
52:49And that's equivalent to re-entry into
52:53the paradise that was barred to Adam and
52:55Eve.
52:57And so that's what all that means.
53:02And I would say further, and you can
53:04think about this for yourself,
53:08one of the pieces of
53:10one of the suggestions that I've made
53:12online is that young men could strive to
53:15develop their character so that they
53:17could be the strongest person at the
53:18funeral of their father. And many young
53:21men have come to me and said
53:23that that was a very helpful piece of
53:25orienting advice, because one of the
53:27things
53:28you don't know what to do.
53:31One of the situations where you might
53:33not know how to act is in the face of
53:35death itself, especially in the face of
53:37the death of someone you love, because
53:39in some ways there's not much that can
53:41be said about it.
53:43Right? Because everyone at a funeral
53:45confronts the abyss
53:47simultaneously.
53:49And so then you might ask yourself,
53:51well, how best to confront the abyss?
53:53And that's no different in the deepest
53:55possible sense than how to confront the
53:57deepest problems in your life. And you
54:00might say,
54:02could you under those circumstances be
54:04of great service to others? Could you be
54:07the staff upon which they lean? And if
54:10you were capable of doing that,
54:13despite or even incorporating your own
54:16grief into the effort,
54:19is it possible that that would be the
54:21best possible way through that that
54:23particular
54:25valley of the shadow of death?
54:29Well, think about this.
54:34I interviewed this monstrous character,
54:37Jocko Willink,
54:39multiple times. And Jocko, he's about
54:424 ft wide and about 3 ft thick and
54:48he eats tough guys for breakfast. And
54:52and Jocko knows perfectly well that had
54:55he made a few inconvenient decisions
54:58when he was a young man, that he could
55:00have been one criminal monster.
55:03And he went to the military instead.
55:08A civilized form of
55:10possibility for mayhem.
55:12And he learned there that
55:15he, cuz he had the opportunity to foster
55:18the development of young men as an
55:20emerging leader. He was a special forces
55:23guy, not an easy thing to manage. And
55:27he was mentoring young men and he's he
55:29found that
55:32more interesting than causing trouble,
55:35which is a good definition of a deep
55:37interest, because causing trouble is
55:40extremely interesting. And so, if you
55:42find something better than that, you're
55:43pretty damn fortunate.
55:45He found that if he conducted himself
55:49as someone that
55:50younger men looked up to, who could
55:52serve as a model, and who could pull
55:53them forward, who could encourage them
55:55develop
55:56who could help them
55:58who who he could encourage and help to
56:00develop, that there was nothing that
56:02spoke more directly, even to his savage
56:05soul.
56:07There's no difference between that and
56:08being the staff that people rely on at a
56:10funeral.
56:12And you know, we know that the more you
56:15focus on yourself, the more miserable
56:17you are. We know as psychologists that
56:19there's no difference between being
56:21miserable and being self-conscious. And
56:23you might say, "Well, what's the
56:24antidote to miserable
56:26self-consciousness?" It's all about me
56:28and all of my pain and my terrible
56:31suffering and what I want right now. And
56:33that's a pathway to misery. And the
56:35antithesis of that isn't to stop doing
56:39that. The antithesis antithesis of that
56:41is to do everything you can to be of
56:44utility, productive, generous, utility
56:47to others, particularly when they're in
56:49need. And that is something that you
56:51could do at a funeral. And if you were a
56:53master at that, maybe the funeral would
56:56be a celebration.
56:57And I'm not trying to be naive about
56:59that.
57:00I know there's a loss in it.
57:04But there is
57:06in that grief, there is also an element
57:08of the celebration of the fact that the
57:10person that you love existed. And
57:13perhaps that sentiment could take
57:14predominance even in those dismal times.
57:17And perhaps the most appropriate manner,
57:20perhaps the surest pathway to that
57:22possibility realizing itself is to
57:25take time even in the midst of your own
57:27grief to make sure everyone else is
57:29welcome
57:32and comfortable.
57:34to make sure that you're grateful for
57:35their presence, to make sure that you
57:38attend to their grief.
57:43And to
57:44find the meaning, the deep meaning
57:47that's available to you
57:49in the deepest of all possible service
57:52at the most inopportuned possible
57:54moment. And then you might also ask
57:56yourself, you tell me, you tell me
57:58if you would not admire someone who
58:00could do that.
58:02Right? And then you might think, well,
58:04imagine that you could do that. And what
58:05would you not imagine as well that you
58:07were then allied with something that you
58:09found deeply admirable. And I mean from
58:12the core, right? I don't mean as a
58:13rational interpretation.
58:17You'd walk away from a situation like
58:18thinking, "Well, that was really
58:20something. That's really something to
58:22think about. That was really inspiring.
58:25That was really something to aim for."
58:28And that's something that's calling,
58:29that's a manifestation of something that
58:31calls to something inside you that's a
58:34looking for that pathway forward.
58:37That's what admiration is.
58:40Admiration is the instinct to imitate.
58:43It's more than that. It's an instinct to
58:45imitate the central animating spirit of
58:48the benevolent father. That's a very
58:50good way of thinking about it.
58:52And the spirit of God moved upon the
58:54face of the waters. You can feel that
58:58when
58:59you're inspired, when something occurs
59:02to you, when you have a flash of
59:03insight, when you find your way, when
59:05you see where to put your foot down next
59:08on firm ground.
59:10When you're sure of your step, when
59:12you're precise with your words, when
59:14every syllable lands.
59:18When you're saying exactly what's right
59:19in the right time and the right place.
59:23The
59:28If you do that, if you have the grace to
59:31do that,
59:32it's because you've
59:38you've had the good fortune and possibly
59:40the humility to allow
59:43what's best about the human tradition
59:47to take residence within you and speak.
59:52Your conscience will tell you how to do
59:54that.
59:55Or at least when you aren't.
59:58That's a
59:59messenger of God. That's Hermes. That's
1:00:02the winged messenger of the gods. It's
1:00:04one of them.
1:00:06Your conscience is one of those
1:00:07autonomous spirits that makes mockery of
1:00:09the notion that you can create your own
1:00:11values.
1:00:13Because your conscience your conscience
1:00:15is the voice of suffering itself.
1:00:19It tells you that you're on the wrong
1:00:21path.
1:00:23It tells you that you've slipped off the
1:00:25golden path upward and that you've moved
1:00:27on to the path of perdition.
1:00:30And you can do what you can to ignore
1:00:33that and to rationalize it away and all
1:00:35that will do is make things worse and
1:00:38every single person who's ever been born
1:00:41knows that.
1:00:46When else do you feel that moving? When
1:00:49something grips your attention, when
1:00:51something calls to you and compels you
1:00:53forward.
1:00:54When something elicits your interest,
1:00:56when some gateway to something new makes
1:00:59itself manifest, when you have a plan
1:01:01that's inspiring, when you have a vision
1:01:03that's
1:01:05inviting.
1:01:09That dichotomy of forces, conscience and
1:01:11calling.
1:01:13That's the voices within, the two
1:01:15pillars of God you might say that
1:01:18guide you through the desert.
1:01:22And modern people
1:01:24Carl Jung said, "Modern people don't see
1:01:27God cuz they don't look low enough.
1:01:30They're not humble enough." That's a
1:01:31good way of thinking but they're waiting
1:01:33for the miraculous manifestation.
1:01:35They're waiting for God to break the
1:01:36rules of time and space so that their
1:01:38doubt can be alleviated.
1:01:41Well, that's a lot to ask for.
1:01:44It's a lot to ask for the laws of
1:01:46reality it themselves to be suspended
1:01:49for any moment just to
1:01:52eliminate your faithless doubt.
1:01:55And it's especially a lot to ask for
1:01:57when it's crystal clear that even if
1:01:59that happened a week later you wouldn't
1:02:02believe it anyways.
1:02:10This is a Greek representation of the
1:02:12same kind of idea.
1:02:14You know what it's like in life when
1:02:16everything gets out of control?
1:02:20That's too much possibility and not
1:02:23enough actuality. That's too much chaos
1:02:25and not enough order. It's too much
1:02:27potential even
1:02:29because too much potential makes itself
1:02:32manifest as nothing but potential for
1:02:34trouble.
1:02:37You know the story of the Hydra? It's a
1:02:39terrible serpent. If you cut off one
1:02:41head, seven more grow.
1:02:43Right? And it's very straightforward and
1:02:46likely that you It's very likely that
1:02:49you'll be in a situation like that in
1:02:51your life and fairly often. Well,
1:02:54there are echoes of this imagery in the
1:02:57opening sections of the Genesis
1:03:00narrative. There's the insistence as God
1:03:03describes much later to Job that it was
1:03:06the spirit that
1:03:09made order out of chaos that
1:03:15defeated the primordial Leviathan.
1:03:20That's an echo of the old hero story of
1:03:22the the hero against the dragon.
1:03:25The hero who cuts the dragon into parts
1:03:27and makes the world. That's a
1:03:29that's a that's a hunting myth, you
1:03:31might say.
1:03:33And that's part of the spirit that
1:03:35inhabits us, that capability of human
1:03:37beings to go out into the vast
1:03:40wastelands and
1:03:42encounter that which is most terrifying
1:03:45and transform it.
1:03:48And by taking up arms, let's say,
1:03:52eradicate the predator and bring home
1:03:54the beast.
1:03:56And that's part of the same collection
1:03:59of ideas that speaks to the
1:04:02courageous human capacity to confront
1:04:04potential
1:04:05and create the order that is good.
1:04:07That's the origin of the dragon myth,
1:04:10right? That's the Harry Potter story.
1:04:12That's the story of the Lord of the
1:04:15Rings. That's the story of the movie
1:04:18Jaws, the hero who encounters the
1:04:21terrible beast and discovers the
1:04:23treasure that's buried deep within its
1:04:25lair and brings that back to the
1:04:27community and distributes it. That's
1:04:30equivalent in the symbolic realm, in the
1:04:32narrative realm, to the spirit that uses
1:04:35the word that confronts mortality itself
1:04:38with spirit held high to generate the
1:04:41order that is good. All of that fits in
1:04:44a piece. None of that's accidental.
1:04:47And the reason for that is that it is a
1:04:50direct reflection of what's been
1:04:53captured in imagination about the
1:04:54deepest structure of reality itself.
1:04:58And we're at a point in the development
1:04:59of our culture where we have to begin to
1:05:02understand these things explicitly and
1:05:05consciously
1:05:06so that we can rediscover
1:05:09what they mean.
1:05:26And God said, "Let there be light." And
1:05:28there was light.
1:05:51And God saw the light that it was good,
1:05:52and God divided the light from the
1:05:53darkness. That's
1:05:55um a representation of
1:05:59what you might say it's the most
1:06:01primordial form of moral discrimination.
1:06:04That's a good way of thinking about it.
1:06:08These lines contain references to many
1:06:11things. The Bible, technically speaking,
1:06:13is a deeply hyperlinked text. Virtually
1:06:16every verse refers to multiple other
1:06:18verses.
1:06:20And so, every poetic line is
1:06:26next to an associated web of
1:06:31connotative meanings
1:06:33that amplify the text.
1:06:37What does this mean pragmatically
1:06:39speaking?
1:06:41Look.
1:06:42Think about what you do when you make a
1:06:44decision.
1:06:46If you have any sense at all, at least
1:06:47partly what you're trying to do is to
1:06:50move towards the light or to bring light
1:06:52to the circumstance, to illuminate your
1:06:54circumstance. And more than that, you're
1:06:56actually trying to divide the light from
1:06:58the darkness. What does that mean? Well,
1:06:59don't you think when you're making a
1:07:01decision that you try to figure out
1:07:02what's right?
1:07:04Now, you might
1:07:05fail, and you might think, "How can I
1:07:08what I need right now out of this
1:07:10situation?"
1:07:12Now, I wouldn't recommend that as a
1:07:14standard pattern of approach
1:07:16because
1:07:19it betrays the you that you will become
1:07:22because it's about right now and it
1:07:25makes everyone else subordinate to your
1:07:27immediate whim, which is what a
1:07:292-year-old does.
1:07:31And 2-year-olds can't live by themselves
1:07:34because you can't live with that
1:07:36orientation. And so, what do you do when
1:07:38you make a decision? You divide the
1:07:40light from the darkness. You try to see
1:07:43the pathway forward that glistens and
1:07:45gleams.
1:07:47And you may be wary of that because of
1:07:49the responsibility to take up your
1:07:51cross, so to speak, that accompanies
1:07:54walking down that pathway.
1:07:57But, to the degree that you're wise in
1:07:59the smallest of guises
1:08:01you will attempt to separate the light
1:08:03from the darkness and to dwell within
1:08:06the light.
1:08:08And the moral of this remarkable so far
1:08:13four-line story is that in
1:08:18discriminating the light from the
1:08:20darkness
1:08:21and in walking that path, you replicate
1:08:25the process that generates reality
1:08:28itself the reality that is good out of
1:08:32the chaos of possibility that presents
1:08:35itself.
1:08:38Here's something fun to know.
1:08:42How do you know if you're doing that
1:08:44right?
1:08:46It's meaningful.
1:08:49What is meaning?
1:08:51It's the deepest of orienting
1:08:55instincts.
1:08:57People say
1:08:58"Life has no meaning."
1:09:01This is what they mean.
1:09:04In my intellectual pride and
1:09:06presumption,
1:09:08I have allowed the critical faculty that
1:09:11I'm far too identified with
1:09:15to criticize what's most valuable in me
1:09:20out of existence.
1:09:23That is not a claim to virtue.
1:09:26It's a declaration of alliance with the
1:09:29darkest possible spirit.
1:09:34What's
1:09:35Lucifer?
1:09:38The presumptuous spirit of prideful
1:09:41intellect.
1:09:42The adversary of the spirit of being
1:09:45itself.
1:09:47The spirit that if you allow
1:09:51its residence
1:09:53to be made within you,
1:09:55will demolish your capacity to
1:09:58discriminate light from darkness or
1:10:01entice you to seek out and pursue
1:10:06the darkness.
1:10:08And there's no difference between that
1:10:11and the
1:10:13pathway to hell.
1:10:15And I don't mean that in some far away
1:10:18transcendent space, although perhaps
1:10:21that's also true.
1:10:23I mean that as the most pragmatic and
1:10:27accurate possible advice
1:10:30that could ever be given to anyone.
1:10:33Hence, its position in the opening lines
1:10:38of the book upon which our culture is
1:10:40predicated.
1:10:45And God called the light day, and the
1:10:46darkness he called night, and the
1:10:48evening and the morning were the first
1:10:49day. More differentiation. Let there be
1:10:52a firmament in the midst of the water,
1:10:55and let it divide the waters from the
1:10:57waters.
1:10:58This is the building up of what is
1:11:02concrete and foundational
1:11:06from possibility. That's what you do
1:11:09when you get to know someone.
1:11:11Cuz when you don't know them,
1:11:13they're nothing but who they could be,
1:11:15and that's an infinite realm of
1:11:18possible possibilities and permutations.
1:11:21And as you investigate and discriminate
1:11:24and pursue either the light or the
1:11:26darkness in relationship to them, you
1:11:29differentiate them into
1:11:32solid understanding.
1:11:34And you do that with everything you
1:11:36encounter in the world. And you might
1:11:38say, "Well, that has nothing to do with
1:11:40the creation of being itself." And I
1:11:42would say,
1:11:44"How could you possibly construe the
1:11:46existence of being itself in the absence
1:11:48of a conscious observer?"
1:11:51You certainly act as if your experience
1:11:55is real. Your pain, for example, is
1:11:58real. That reality itself is constituted
1:12:01in consequence of your conscious
1:12:03experience.
1:12:06Maybe that's true.
1:12:09You act like it's true.
1:12:16In your interactions with other people,
1:12:18when you treat them that with the
1:12:20respect that someone made in the image
1:12:24of God is due,
1:12:27they like being around you.
1:12:29If you treat your children that way,
1:12:31they thrive. If you treat your wife that
1:12:33way, she develops. If you treat your
1:12:36friends that way, you have friends and
1:12:38not just henchmen or people to get drunk
1:12:41with.
1:12:44When I say you act this out, I suppose I
1:12:46mean that insofar as your life is
1:12:49successful and flourishing, you act it
1:12:52out.
1:12:54Insofar as you listen to the messages
1:12:56that other people send you about how
1:12:58they want to be treated,
1:13:01you act it out.
1:13:04Insofar as how you Insofar as you acted
1:13:07out, the world of possi- a world of
1:13:10possibilities opens itself up to you in
1:13:12ever-increasing plenitude. That's why in
1:13:15the Gospels,
1:13:17Christ
1:13:19is presented as the
1:13:22the the the man who performs the miracle
1:13:25of feeding from nothing.
1:13:29The loaves and the fishes.
1:13:33The pattern that can provide in the
1:13:36midst of absence.
1:13:38What is that pattern?
1:13:41How about
1:13:43How about your reputation for
1:13:46generous productivity?
1:13:49How about that? How about if you aimed
1:13:51at nothing but that?
1:13:53The generous productivity that you could
1:13:55offer to others.
1:13:58If you were a master at that, do you
1:13:59think you would ever go hungry? Do you
1:14:01think the people that you love would
1:14:03ever go hungry? Don't you think instead
1:14:05that people would be lining up in your
1:14:07hour of need to serve you in the same
1:14:09way that you served them?
1:14:11That's the By the way, the treasure that
1:14:14you store up in heaven that is to be
1:14:16preferred to all earthly treasure.
1:14:18That's the pearl of great price that the
1:14:21wise man sells everything he owns to
1:14:24gather.
1:14:25And that's all a representation of the
1:14:27pattern of existence that's embedded in
1:14:30the first
1:14:32eight lines of this story.
1:14:38And God said, "Let the waters under the
1:14:40heavens be gathered together in one
1:14:41place to bring everything into a unity
1:14:44that's concretized, and let the dry land
1:14:47upon which life can emerge occur. The
1:14:50solidity, the foundation, the foundation
1:14:53upon which the wise man builds his
1:14:55house.
1:14:58And God called the dry land earth and
1:15:00the gathering together of the waters he
1:15:02called the seas. And that's another
1:15:05re-representation of the separation of
1:15:07the order of order that is habitable
1:15:10from chaos, the watery chaos that
1:15:13prevailed at the beginning of time. The
1:15:16realm of possibility and potential
1:15:18symbolized by the oceanic depths from
1:15:21which much nourishment can be drawn.
1:15:24And he
1:15:25And God saw that it was good. Now,
1:15:27that's a hint. That line is repeated
1:15:30multiple times in this text.
1:15:34What is the order that is good?
1:15:37Well, I suppose that's the foundation
1:15:38for the kingdom of heaven. That's one
1:15:40way of thinking about it. How do you
1:15:43participate in the process that brings
1:15:45about the order that is good?
1:15:48How about by aiming at the good?
1:15:52Well, here's a thought for you. Here's a
1:15:54definition for those of you harboring
1:15:56atheistic pretensions.
1:16:00Imagine 10 good things.
1:16:04What do they share?
1:16:06Well, they share that which is in
1:16:09essence good.
1:16:11That's what unites them. The essence of
1:16:13good is what unites good things.
1:16:18God is the essence of good.
1:16:22Do you believe in good?
1:16:24Do you believe in the shared commonality
1:16:26of good things?
1:16:28Well, then at minimum you have an
1:16:30implicit God beckoning to you.
1:16:32And if you had any wisdom, you would
1:16:34make that explicit and
1:16:37abide
1:16:40and open yourself up to its invitation.
1:16:43Unless you don't want what's good.
1:16:45Well, that's what we'll discover.
1:16:50That's what you would discover if you
1:16:51continued in the text to the story of
1:16:53Cain and Abel.
1:16:55Because Abel
1:16:57decides to
1:16:59pursue the order that is good.
1:17:02And God rewards him with that
1:17:05benefit. And Cain, in his bitterness and
1:17:08resentment and his unwillingness to
1:17:10commit, pursues the order that's
1:17:14convenient.
1:17:17And the consequence of that is that his
1:17:19suffering is multiplied to the point
1:17:21where he's depressed and anxious and
1:17:24bitter and resentful and hostile and
1:17:27nihilistic and downcast and murderous
1:17:32and genocidal.
1:17:35And those are the paths that diverge in
1:17:37front of you with every glance you take
1:17:41and every decision that you make.
1:17:45Up Jacob's ladder to the highest
1:17:48possible place or down inside Dante's
1:17:52Inferno to the depths of hell where the
1:17:55ultimate betrayer forever resides.
1:18:02Thank you very much.
1:18:16Thank you.
1:18:25All right, my dear.
1:18:31Thank you for putting up with that.
1:18:44>> How you doing, Bucko?
1:18:47>> [laughter]
1:18:48>> Well, that was, you know, a very strange
1:18:50form of entertainment, but a form of
1:18:52entertainment nonetheless.
1:18:55I liked your talk.
1:18:56>> Thank you.
1:18:57>> Yeah, it was good.
1:18:58>> Thank you.
1:18:59>> Good work.
1:18:59>> Thank you, sir.
1:19:00>> Yeah.
1:19:01>> Okay.
1:19:04Cervantes wrote,
1:19:06"The road is always better than the
1:19:08end."
1:19:10You're on the road again.
1:19:11Do you agree with Cervantes in what you
1:19:14have learned giving these talks?
1:19:16>> Boy, that's a good question.
1:19:18I wish I could give a gold star to the
1:19:19person who asked that question.
1:19:22"The road is always better than the
1:19:24end."
1:19:25Oh man, that's such a great That's such
1:19:27a great line.
1:19:31Okay.
1:19:33So,
1:19:34Dostoyevsky
1:19:36wrote a very famous book called Notes
1:19:37from Underground, and in Dostoyevsky was
1:19:40an absolute prophet. Like Nietzsche, he
1:19:42could see way down into the structure of
1:19:45things, and he knew what was about to
1:19:47happen. He predicted the
1:19:50catastrophe of the communist revolution
1:19:53like 60 years before it happened, which
1:19:55is just a It's absolutely unimaginable
1:19:58feat.
1:19:59He did that in a book called The Devils
1:20:00or The Possessed, and in many of his
1:20:02other books as well, not least in Notes
1:20:05from Underground. He He He He was
1:20:07commenting on this building that that
1:20:09was erected
1:20:11in London at the world's
1:20:14at the at the at the at the I think it
1:20:17was 18
1:20:1918 Late 1800s world exhibition.
1:20:23They built the first
1:20:25modern glass and steel building.
1:20:28It was called something like the Palace
1:20:30of Crystal, and it was it was a vision
1:20:32of a kind of technological material
1:20:35utopia.
1:20:37And Dostoevsky got wind of this and and
1:20:40the utopian schemes that lay underneath
1:20:42it that turned our cities into
1:20:44modern-day wastelands, by the way.
1:20:47Um the modern-day wastelands of uniform
1:20:50glass and steel.
1:20:51And
1:20:53he started to think deeply about the
1:20:55utopian offering.
1:20:58So, imagine that you just had
1:21:01whatever you need.
1:21:03That's the Marxist dream, I suppose.
1:21:07What do you need? Well, Dostoevsky
1:21:08thought, well, what what are our basic
1:21:10requirements fundamentally? He said,
1:21:12well, imagine that you set up a
1:21:13situation and I think he was speaking of
1:21:16California where
1:21:18all you had to do was sit in pools of
1:21:22bubbling hot water
1:21:25and eat sweet cakes and busy yourself
1:21:28with the
1:21:30propagation of the species.
1:21:33And that does sound a lot like
1:21:35Hollywood.
1:21:36And
1:21:38would that suffice?
1:21:42Now, you'd think,
1:21:44well, that in some way that that is
1:21:47everything I need or maybe in some sense
1:21:50even everything I desire.
1:21:53So, what's the problem with that? Well,
1:21:55Dostoevsky said, well, one of the
1:21:56problems is this that people are
1:21:58basically insane
1:22:01in a very curious way and
1:22:03they'll break things into bits even if
1:22:05they're good just because they want
1:22:07something interesting to happen. And so,
1:22:10if you provided
1:22:12a group of people with this
1:22:14garden of hedonistic delights, it would
1:22:16take no time at all until they smashed
1:22:19into pieces just so they could squabble
1:22:21interestingly among the ruins and curse.
1:22:25And
1:22:26that's very funny and very accurate and
1:22:28that was Dostoevsky's observation and
1:22:30that was a devastating critique of the
1:22:32presumptions of materialist utopians.
1:22:35And the reason for that is that's not
1:22:36what we want and the reason for that is
1:22:38we're not overgrown infants.
1:22:41And that's an infantile vision of
1:22:43paradise. You can just lay there,
1:22:45someone will change your diapers because
1:22:47you don't want to have all of the
1:22:49inconvenience of actually having to move
1:22:51when an intravenous flow into your veins
1:22:54could provide you with everything you
1:22:56need. Maybe you don't even have to be
1:22:57conscious.
1:23:00Well, is that what you want?
1:23:07Well, if that isn't what you want, what
1:23:09do you want?
1:23:10How about
1:23:12the great adventure of your life?
1:23:15How about that? In the story of Abraham,
1:23:18Abraham is an overgrown infant. He's a
1:23:21failure to launch. He's like
1:23:2370-something
1:23:25years old. He lives in his dad's tent or
1:23:28his mother's basement. And
1:23:31you know, he's got food, he's got
1:23:34grapes, he's got slave girls, he's or
1:23:36pornography.
1:23:38He's got everything he needs at hand,
1:23:40needs at hand. He's got privilege.
1:23:45And it's undeserved, but there's no need
1:23:47for him to do anything. So, what does he
1:23:49lack?
1:23:50How about the need to do something?
1:23:54How about that? How about How about
1:23:55that's the need that becomes paramount
1:23:58in the land of material plenty?
1:24:01The call to adventure. Well, that's what
1:24:04comes to Abraham. That's what comes to
1:24:05Abraham. That's how God is defined as
1:24:08the
1:24:10That is how God is defined in the story
1:24:12of Abraham. The The biblical corpus is a
1:24:14sequence of stories that contain within
1:24:17them a definition of God.
1:24:19And so, you might say
1:24:21one manner that you could conceptualize
1:24:23God is the God is the manifestation of
1:24:26the spirit within that calls you to
1:24:28broaden yourself in the
1:24:31in the in the in the struggle with the
1:24:33life.
1:24:34It's a definition, do you understand?
1:24:37It's not a proclamation of faith.
1:24:40It's a definition of the highest
1:24:42possible aspiration. Well, now then you
1:24:45ask your ask yourself this.
1:24:48Do you believe in the existence of a
1:24:50spirit that calls you to adventure?
1:24:53Well, if you pursue adventure, then yes.
1:24:59Ask yourself this then. If you devoted
1:25:02yourself to nothing but that pursuit
1:25:06wholeheartedly and with full faith, how
1:25:09great an adventure could you have?
1:25:12Well, that's what God offers Abraham,
1:25:14and Abraham says
1:25:15I'm in, no matter what. And God says
1:25:20okay then.
1:25:21How about if I call upon you to
1:25:23sacrifice your son?
1:25:25And Abraham says
1:25:28I'm all in.
1:25:31No matter what.
1:25:34And that's the ultimate statement of
1:25:36faith. And it's a necessary statement
1:25:38because whether you like it or not, you
1:25:41are all in, no matter what.
1:25:44And you can either do that
1:25:47in the most noble possible manner
1:25:53or you can do it
1:25:55as a second grader.
1:25:57And those are your options. And if you
1:25:59do it as a second grader, all that means
1:26:01is
1:26:02that you have faith in being second
1:26:04rate.
1:26:05And
1:26:07good luck with that.
1:26:09And I would say that too, good luck with
1:26:11that. And why?
1:26:13Because life is far too
1:26:18brutal, far too overwhelming, far too
1:26:22magnificent, far too demanding
1:26:25for you to master it
1:26:28without committing
1:26:30sacrificing
1:26:32the very best within you.
1:26:37And then you might ask yourself, too,
1:26:39life is a veil of suffering.
1:26:43Maybe it's because you don't make the
1:26:45right sacrifices.
1:26:47Now, let's think that through for a
1:26:48minute.
1:26:50When you look back in your life and
1:26:52you're and you're happy with yourself, I
1:26:54don't mean prideful, I don't mean puffed
1:26:57out, maybe you don't even discuss this
1:26:58with anybody. I mean when you're having
1:27:00a colloquy with your conscience and
1:27:02you're trying to decide if there's
1:27:03anything within you of redeeming value
1:27:05whatsoever,
1:27:07what might you point to?
1:27:09How about a time in your past where you
1:27:11encountered something remarkably
1:27:13difficult and managed it with dignity,
1:27:15grace,
1:27:17and productive generosity? Even once or
1:27:20twice when you stepped out of your way
1:27:22to do something for someone else, not to
1:27:25gain the credit, the public credit in
1:27:28relationship to your reputation for
1:27:30doing so, but because you were moved by
1:27:32the spirit that
1:27:34pushed you to
1:27:36extend yourself beyond your limits.
1:27:39And that contemplation of those acts can
1:27:41get you through a very dark time. Well,
1:27:44what if your life was made of nothing
1:27:45but those acts?
1:27:48Maybe there would be no truly dark
1:27:50times.
1:27:51Maybe you would be able to construe
1:27:54whatever came your way,
1:27:57no matter
1:27:59how horrific, as
1:28:04an immense dragon with a commensurate
1:28:06potential reward.
1:28:09That's what happens in the story of Job.
1:28:11Job is tortured almost to the same
1:28:13degree as Christ and Job's insistence
1:28:16during his torment is no matter what
1:28:19happens to me, I will not lose faith.
1:28:22And that's a decision.
1:28:24It's a proclamation, right? It's an
1:28:27orientation. And the orientation is
1:28:31beset by catastrophe though I may be, I
1:28:34will maintain faith in the fundamental
1:28:36goodness of being and myself.
1:28:39And I will act in accordance with that
1:28:40proposition. And I will take whatever
1:28:43comes my way in consequence of that
1:28:45faith.
1:28:48In dire straits, one faith or another
1:28:50will move you forward.
1:28:54The
1:28:56traditional injunction is to maintain
1:28:58your faith in
1:29:00the ultimate goodness of
1:29:02being, becoming, and the human soul.
1:29:06And that's why the road is better than
1:29:08the end.
1:29:09Because we're not built for comfort.
1:29:12We're built for adventure.
1:29:16We're built for the adventure of the
1:29:18truth.
1:29:19To be more precise.
1:29:22So, that's that.
1:29:28Last question.
1:29:38This year
1:29:40This year, my teenage brother has come
1:29:42out as a woman.
1:29:44I'm the only one in the family that
1:29:46doesn't call him by his new name.
1:29:49What should I do?
1:29:58Well, I would say don't fall prey to the
1:30:01machinations of toxic compassion.
1:30:06Leave here.
1:30:15Imagine 10 years from now and
1:30:20your brother and you
1:30:21have the best relationship you can
1:30:23imagine
1:30:25and things have worked out for him.
1:30:29Act in act towards him in accordance
1:30:31with that spirit.
1:30:34That doesn't mean do what he wants you
1:30:36to do in the moment.
1:30:38Establishing a proper relationship never
1:30:40means
1:30:43doing for someone what they only want
1:30:45in the moment. That is the worst thing
1:30:47you can do to your children.
1:30:49You act in accordance with what's good
1:30:51for them
1:30:53across the widest possible range of
1:30:55circumstances and times.
1:30:57And that's how you entice them into
1:30:58maturity. And so you need a vision. You
1:31:00need a vision of the relationship you
1:31:02could have with your brother.
1:31:05You could tell a story a bit about your
1:31:10decision and determination to
1:31:13establish an appropriate relationship
1:31:15with your father and your siblings. Just
1:31:17tell that briefly what you did and what
1:31:19happened.
1:31:21>> Uh well, my sister and I both my sisters
1:31:24and I they're much older than I. They're
1:31:26five and seven years older than me. And
1:31:28we've always uh
1:31:30since I've been grown, we never seemed
1:31:33to get along much and
1:31:34as my mom was diagnosed with dementia,
1:31:38Jordan tested us and we found out that
1:31:40my oldest sister at 49 was showing signs
1:31:43of dementia. And I said to Jordan, "What
1:31:45do you think I could do to
1:31:48improve my relationship with my sister?"
1:31:50And he said, "You could just listen.
1:31:51Just listen."
1:31:53And so I stopped talking to her.
1:31:56I'd stopped telling her any of my
1:31:57opinions, anything that I thought about.
1:32:00I just listened.
1:32:02And that weekend went a lot better. I
1:32:04got in a lot less trouble.
1:32:07Surprise, surprise.
1:32:09And at the end of the weekend, we were
1:32:11sitting having dinner with her and she
1:32:14started to tell me what she thought of
1:32:16me and she started to say things like
1:32:18what you never did anything on your own.
1:32:21Mom and dad you were spoiled. They did
1:32:24everything for you. Your life was easy.
1:32:27And I didn't say anything cuz that was
1:32:29what I decided and at the end of that
1:32:31she said, but you're a good mother.
1:32:34And I thought that was very strange and
1:32:36over the years that was in 2002.
1:32:39Over the years
1:32:41we've gotten along much, much better
1:32:43because I continued to listen.
1:32:45And we and she didn't bring that up
1:32:47again except for once. Other than that,
1:32:50we got along fine and so
1:32:53I would recommend trying that with
1:32:56anyone that you have a difficulty with
1:33:01their relationship with you is just
1:33:03listen because you're not talking to who
1:33:05you think you are and she had an old
1:33:07memory, you know, that she had never
1:33:08updated and she was talking to me about
1:33:11something from the past, but once she
1:33:13said it
1:33:15she realized that oh, actually I was
1:33:17grown and I was a good mother and none
1:33:19of that was really true.
1:33:21So, I think that's a
1:33:23>> Yeah, well, so what happened in that
1:33:25situation is you stopped trying to
1:33:27impose your will on your sisters in all
1:33:29ways.
1:33:30She stopped looking for respect. She
1:33:32stopped looking for love. She stopped
1:33:34looking for attention.
1:33:37She flipped the
1:33:38game.
1:33:40She decided that she was going to aim at
1:33:43reconciling with her sisters. That was
1:33:45the aim.
1:33:46And then then she was going to watch and
1:33:48listen to see how the pathway to that
1:33:51would make itself manifest. Now, this is
1:33:52so cool. Here's something that's really
1:33:54worth understanding.
1:33:56That's how your perceptions work.
1:33:59You're an aiming mechanism.
1:34:03And so,
1:34:05once you establish an aim,
1:34:11you lay an interpretive filter on the
1:34:13world
1:34:15that only lets through those things that
1:34:18will move you towards that aim,
1:34:20and those things that will stop you, and
1:34:23that hides everything else.
1:34:25And so,
1:34:27the way the world makes itself manifest
1:34:29to you perceptually is literally
1:34:32dependent on your aim.
1:34:34And so, if you aim at reconciliation,
1:34:37let's say, in in the case of the
1:34:39questioner, you want what's best for
1:34:41your brother and for your relationship,
1:34:44and then you wait and watch,
1:34:47the pathway forward to that will make
1:34:51itself available. Now, how do I know
1:34:54that? Well, don't you ever get where
1:34:56you're going?
1:34:58Well, how?
1:34:59Well,
1:35:00the way you get where you're going is
1:35:02you decide
1:35:04what your destination is,
1:35:07and then you see the pathway and the
1:35:10facilitators and the obstacles.
1:35:14And so,
1:35:17this is such a powerful
1:35:21approach
1:35:22that other people will fall under its
1:35:24spell.
1:35:26So, if we meet and I want to
1:35:31understand who you are and I have that
1:35:34goal uppermost in mind, and I attend to
1:35:37you carefully, you will tell me who you
1:35:40are,
1:35:41one way or another.
1:35:44And that's why it says in the Gospels,
1:35:46for example, that if you
1:35:48knock, the door will open, and if you
1:35:50ask, you'll receive, and if you seek,
1:35:52you'll find. And you think, well,
1:35:54there's no way the world can be
1:35:55constituted like that. It's like, if it
1:35:58wasn't constituted like that, you'd
1:36:00never receive if you asked, and you'd
1:36:02never find if you sought. And that isn't
1:36:05how it works.
1:36:07And so, if your aim is
1:36:11pure,
1:36:12and your heart is in the right place,
1:36:15you'll find your way with your brother.
1:36:18And
1:36:19you can wait.
1:36:21You know, you can wait until that way
1:36:22makes itself manifest. You don't have to
1:36:24push it.
1:36:26You can't push it.
1:36:28It's not up to you anyways.
1:36:31The best you can do is
1:36:35hope you can help him find his way.
1:36:38And
1:36:39the best way that you can help anyone
1:36:41find their way is by
1:36:43aiming at what's highest in relationship
1:36:46to the two of you,
1:36:47and then
1:36:50allowing that process to unfold in so
1:36:54far as you're able to facilitate it.
1:36:57And there's a kind of grace and dance
1:36:59with that. And one of the advantages is
1:37:01that, too, is you won't be crushed by an
1:37:04excess of responsibility, cuz you might
1:37:06be tearing out your hair thinking, "Oh
1:37:08my god, you know, what should I do with
1:37:09my brother?"
1:37:11And the answer is, well, if you don't
1:37:12know,
1:37:14recalibrate your aim and wait, and wait.
1:37:19The right time will make itself
1:37:22The right time will make its appearance.
1:37:24The right words will come to mind. You
1:37:26can feel them as you move along.
1:37:28Something you learn to do as a clinical
1:37:29therapist, you know, if you're listening
1:37:31to people constantly, you want to find
1:37:33the right question to draw them out
1:37:35further. You want to ask them the right
1:37:37question to clarify what they've told
1:37:39you, to seek further understanding. And
1:37:42you can feel those questions bubbling up
1:37:44inside you in rela- Those are the tools
1:37:47that are making themselves manifest to
1:37:49you to to attain your aim.
1:37:51The aim, I told my clients, the aim
1:37:54I told my clients when they came to see
1:37:55me, "Well, what's my aim here with you?"
1:37:58My aim is to have the best in me serve
1:38:00the best in you.
1:38:02And that doesn't mean I'm always going
1:38:03to be on your side.
1:38:05Right? Because sometimes the part of you
1:38:07that will be speaking will be your worst
1:38:09enemy.
1:38:11And I'm not a fan of that.
1:38:14And that's not what you want from
1:38:15someone who's a friend, and certainly
1:38:17not from someone who's a counselor or a
1:38:19brother.
1:38:20Now, you're in the terrible circumstance
1:38:22of trying to weave your way forward in
1:38:24an incredibly complicated moral
1:38:26landscape, but
1:38:30get your aim straight and don't lie. And
1:38:33And And act in love, and that's a good
1:38:35start, and you'll
1:38:38even if you're the guy who's wrong for 5
1:38:40years in everyone's minds,
1:38:42that doesn't mean you'll be the guy that
1:38:44was wrong 15 years from now.
1:38:50>> Mhm.
1:39:04Mhm.
1:39:06What's the most important thing I can do
1:39:09to take care of my wife?
1:39:19I didn't make that up.
1:39:20>> Try to remember that you love her.
1:39:23I But I I really mean that. By remember,
1:39:26I mean
1:39:29bring that to mind.
1:39:31Like
1:39:32imagine that.
1:39:34Rekindle it.
1:39:36You know, like
1:39:38people wonder
1:39:40what it means to experience the grace of
1:39:42God.
1:39:43And
1:39:46you could imagine that that's the same
1:39:48question is
1:39:50what does it mean to receive inspiration
1:39:52from within?
1:39:54That's a good
1:39:55analogue.
1:39:57Well, love is a form of grace. You fall
1:40:00in love.
1:40:02Right? You don't
1:40:04It's not something you do to yourself.
1:40:06It's something that comes over you.
1:40:09And
1:40:10I said it's associated with a vision.
1:40:12It's It's associated with a vision of of
1:40:15heaven itself, essentially.
1:40:17That's really what it is. It's a portal
1:40:19to heaven itself. And it's an offering.
1:40:23But it's
1:40:26It's a spirit that descends that has to
1:40:29be made welcome.
1:40:31Else it depart.
1:40:34You have to practice it.
1:40:37Like love is a practice.
1:40:40It's not in its first stages because
1:40:41it's grace. It's offered to you with no
1:40:43effort on your part or little effort or
1:40:45maybe even despite yourself to some
1:40:47degree. But the maintenance of love is a
1:40:50practice. And it's best if it's a
1:40:52conscious practice. And you can practice
1:40:54it. You could You could do this. You
1:40:55have You have husbands. Do this like 10
1:40:58minutes a day. Practice loving your
1:41:00wife. Just pretend that you love her.
1:41:03You know? And and in that game you'll
1:41:06rediscover
1:41:07that spark. And then it'll be there. And
1:41:09then maybe you'll only be able to
1:41:11practice that 15 minutes once a week to
1:41:14begin with. But maybe then it'll be like
1:41:1620 minutes a day. And then maybe it'll
1:41:18be in an hour a day. And then maybe
1:41:19it'll be 90 minutes a day. And
1:41:22you know, maybe you could spend the rest
1:41:23of your life trying to make it 12 hours
1:41:25a day.
1:41:26And maybe you could do that, you know?
1:41:29And then every day would be the perfect
1:41:31date.
1:41:33It Every day would be the the you
1:41:35imagined you might have once.
1:41:38And
1:41:39if you aim at that,
1:41:44there's a reasonable probability that
1:41:46you'll make your wife happy.
1:41:51Thank you very much, everyone.
1:41:57Thank you, my dear.
1:41:58>> You're welcome.
1:42:00>> Thank you.

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