https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=2Sb7p46M0oc
One of the things that I figured out over the last years is this is a good proposition, so You know, it’s pretty self-evident that life has got its rat’s nest of miseries, and that’s for sure Maybe you could even make a categorical statement that life is mostly a rat’s nest of misery You know, you could make a pretty powerful argument for that But then, there’s a counter question which is, well what if you tried not to make it any more miserable than it had to be? Right? Then what would it be like? And my suspicions are is that a lot of that misery, I would suspect that most of that misery would go away Because it’s the unnecessary misery that really brings you down, you know, it’s like Well, if someone has cancer, it’s like, that sucks, but It’s not like It’s not like you can say, if only we had done this differently, then that wouldn’t have happened But when someone’s out like torturing you in a malevolent way, or maybe you’re doing the same, you can always ask yourself Well, is it really? Is this really necessary? Is this just like a useless add-on to the miseries of life? That’s what disheartens people And so even in your own life, if you If you aren’t suffering from self-imposed misery And you’re only suffering from inescapable misery Maybe you could handle that, and you know, you could survive, you could bear it And even maybe without becoming irredeemably corrupt So the goal would be, well yeah, life is a rat’s nest of miseries Maybe it has no ultimate meaning, we could say that, if we’re feeling particularly pessimistic But it still leaves one question open, which is, if you didn’t do everything you could to make it worse How good could you make it be? And the least answer is, well it could be tragedy, but maybe not hell And I think that’s right, I really believe that, that’s the most pessimistic proper statement The worst case outcome, in the worst of all possible worlds, is that your life could be tragic, but not hell And that’s a lot better than hell, right? And you think, I could give you an example of the difference, you’re at your mother’s deathbed Well that’s tragedy Here’s another scenario You’re at your mother’s deathbed and you and all your idiot siblings are arguing Well that’s the difference between tragedy and hell And you might be able to tolerate the first circumstance, and maybe it would even bring you closer together with your family members The second one, no one can bear that You walk away from a situation like that, sick of yourself and sick of everything else too And you know, it’s often the case that tragic circumstances bring out the dragons Because the stress is high and all those things that people haven’t dealt with They don’t have the energy to repress, and all the bitterness comes pouring forward It’s like, seriously man, so that’s actually a good, it’s a rough lesson, but it’s a good hallmark for figuring out whether or not you’re You’ve got yourself adjusted properly And in relationship to your siblings, it’s like If you were all gathered around the bed of someone close who was dying Could you manage it? If the answer is no, it’s like, well put your life together, because it’s gonna happen And you should be the person who’s there that can do it, and do it properly And then maybe you’d find that it isn’t the sort of thing that will undermine your faith in life itself And I’ve seen both of those situations, you know, ugly, ugly, ugly situations You know, murderously ugly situations, and then the opposite, where people have had terrible things happen to them as a family And you know, they pull together and they rebuild their damn ship and they sail away So that seems to me to be a lot better That makes you Noah when the flood comes, right? Well okay, so the same thing, the question emerges, well who are you? Well you could say, you’re this plan That’s what people usually, that’s how people usually identify Maybe they have no plan at all, and they’re just in chaos, right? That’s like being in the belly of the beast, they’re nihilistic in chaos, they have no plan They’re just chaos itself, and that’s a very dreadful situation for people to be in Or maybe they conjure together a plan, that’s their identity, it’s kind of fragile And they’re holding onto that with everything they’ve got It’s their little stick of wood that they’re floating in the ocean, clinging to You know, and so they’re identifying really hard with that plan That’s what happens when you’re an ideologue, is that you’re identifying really hard with that plan The problem is, something comes up to confront it Well, how do you act? Well you can’t let go of the plan, because you drown Then you cling to it rigidly, well that’s no good, because then you can’t learn anything Then if that’s you, you’re a totalitarian, you’re not going to learn anything You’re going to end up in something that’s close enough to hell so that you won’t know the difference And you might drag everyone along with you And that’s happened plenty of times, right? It’s the whole story of the 20th century, it happened over and over and over And it happens in people’s states, it happens in their business organizations It happens in their cities, it happens in their provinces It happens in their states, and it happens in their psyches, all at the same time You can’t blame the manifestation of that sort of thing on any of those one levels It happens when a society goes down that way, it goes down everywhere at the same time It’s not the totalitarians at the top, and all the happy people striving to be free at the bottom It’s not that at all, it’s totalitarianism at every single level of the hierarchy, including the psychological And so you don’t want to be the thing, you don’t want to be in chaos, that’s for sure But you don’t want to be the thing that clings so desperately to the raft That you can’t let go when someone comes to rescue you, right? You don’t want to be that So then you think, well exactly what are you? You’re not the chaos, you’re not the plan Maybe you’re the thing that confronts the obstacle And I would say that’s the categorical lesson of psychology in so far as it has to do with personal transformation That’s what you always teach people in psychotherapy, I don’t care what sort of psychotherapist you are You’re always teaching them the same thing You’re the thing that can, you’re not the plan You’re the thing that can confront the obstacle to the plan And then when you know even further that the obstacle is not only an obstacle, but opportunity itself Well then your whole view of the world can change, because you might think, well I’ve got this plan, something came up to object to it It’s like, it’s possible that the thing that’s objecting has something to teach you That will take you to the place where you develop an even better plan And it’s a nice framework to use, it’s like, are you so sure that this is a problem? Is that the only way that you can look at it? Or is it an opportunity? I mean, I’m not trying to be, you know, naively optimistic There are some things that’s pretty hard to extract gold from some dragons And maybe the death of a family member is a good example of that But even in a situation like that, I can tell you that it’s an opportunity for, it’s an opportunity for maturation, that’s for sure And the thing is, you might say, well, it’s pretty miserable to go, to be digging for gold when someone’s falling into the grave Well if they really love you, first of all, that’s what they’ll want you to do And second, you’re going to make their death a lot more palatable experience for them If you’re someone who can be in the room and be helpful instead of be, you know, quivering in the corner And feeling that the entire world is collapsing in on you I mean, that’s another, you want to be the useful person at the funeral How’s that for a goal? That’s a good goal, man You know that you’ve got yourself together in a situation like that Because you’re going to be at them And maybe you want to be the person on whose shoulder people cry That’d be a good goal It’s kind of, you know, I don’t like being naively optimistic So when I tell you to get your life together, I’m not going to say, roses and sunshine It’s like, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s that’s the witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. All gingerbread and outside to the lost kid. Inside, you feed them candy and make them fat and eat them. Right, that’s Hansel and Gretel. That’s the edible mother. That’s one of Freud’s major discoveries. It’s a major discovery. It’s like the devouring force of love. You want the person to be able to stand on their own and the price you pay for that is that you stand on your own. It’s like, good to have you around. Glad you’re here. But if, if, if tragedies, when and if and when tragedy strikes, either of us, I hope that one of us is standing when it blows past. And, and that, there’s a harshness about that that’s unbelievably cruel. Because, you know, you say, well, if my mother died, I could live. Well, what kind of monster are you exactly? The death of your mother doesn’t do you in? Well, turns out that being a monster is the right thing. You