https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=gsZRDpmc9GE
if your objection to life is it’s suffering, adopting an attitude that will make that suffering worse is probably not a reasonable solution. And that’s where that grounds out for me. There’s no construction in there. I mean, there’s nothing affirmative or life giving about that. It’s not making the best of the situation if the situation’s doomsday. So, you know, I’m not for Hallmark cards and delusional optimism, but I mean, in this way, I would say optimism is survival. It’s like, well, okay, if it’s all for… I think optimism is courage, if it’s not naive. And one of the things I liked about your book too was that your optimism wasn’t naive. And, you know, because you had enough harsh experiences so that any naive optimism would have vanished. Even the way you grew up. I mean, it wasn’t traumatic, but it wasn’t… It had its harshness about it. Sure. Yeah, it was immediate. It was physical. The same hands that hugged and the same hands that could harm. Yes, and you all, there was also very little sign of, and maybe none, no sign of bitterness about that. And no sign… I didn’t think of any excuses for it either. Like when you portrayed your father, like you said, he was a man who could hug and hit. And both of them were meant. And they weren’t casual. I never got the impression from your book that your father’s actions were casual. His physical altercations with you and your brothers. It’s a different ethos. That’s not an ethos that’s well understood today, I would say, or one that’s ever appreciated. And I suppose that’s because of its harshness. But I didn’t detect any sign of bitterness from you emanating towards that. No, and I have none. While I choose to maybe give consequences to my children in different ways than my father and mother did, there was absolutely no cashness to why and when he did punish us. None. I talk about in there the values that were instilled even by the antonyms of the words that we got in trouble for saying. To not, to get, first, but whooping for saying I can’t. Oh, geez. Okay. You know, can’t brings the thought of can’t brings pain. Oh, don’t think can’t. Okay. You have trouble. There’s a difference. And to say the second but whooping for saying I hate you to my brother. I didn’t know the hell I hate you meant. I heard it from older kids at school. I thought it might be cool to throw it out there. I hate you. Well, that was my own birthday party. My mom stopped the whole party and said, what’d you say? You don’t ever tell your brother anything. You hate them. Bent me over right there. Embarrassed the heck out of me. Again, the next one for lying. So what do I learn out of those? Don’t say I can’t. Don’t hate. Don’t lie. Boy, when I did those, I felt pain. So what are the antonyms of those? Love instead of hate. Understand you’re having trouble but don’t believe you can’t. And tell the truth, don’t lie. Those are three great values. He was preparing me for you’re going to need this in life. It was also the time when I called him to go to tell him I want to go to film school and said law school. And he tells me, don’t. Yeah. That was a striking story. You know what happened? I’ve realized now many years later, I think what happened in that moment is he heard, and the conversation lasted 25 seconds. What do you got little buddy? Don’t want to go to law school. I want to go to film school. You sure that’s what you want to do? Yes, sir. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Well, don’t half ass it. Boom, sent me into flight. But what he heard in that conversation was his son, who we were brought up in a very structured family, disciplined, you work your way up a ladder, you follow the rules. He heard his son calling him to tell him, he could tell I was asked to call him for permission. He could tell I wasn’t calling well, you know, I was thinking maybe no, he heard my voice. I want to go to film school and so law school. And he said, you also weren’t calling because of failure because you’d worked at law school. Right. But he heard that I was not bluffing. I was not really calling to ask his permission. And in that moment, I think he heard what all parents want to hear. Yes, my child’s going their own way. They broke out the mold. Yeah, well, what you’d hope every parent would want to hear. I hope so. But you know what I mean? You can’t come. I have plenty of times before that, that I asked him for things where I was bluffing and he could tell where dad, can I, will you please give me the skateboard, elbow pads and knee pads? I really want to be a skateboarder. Are you sure, son? Yes, sir. Shit, I did skateboarding for three weeks and then they gathered dust and got cobwebs. Damn it. That was a fad. You know, I talked my dad into doing something and I didn’t follow through on it. But he heard this time a resolve and a clarity in me. And I think on the other end of the line, he was going, that’s what I’m doing. Yeah. Well, for him to make the, to give you the green light that rapidly, the situation must have been set up properly. And for the green light that he gave you to be accepted by you is exactly that as encouragement. Yes. The situation must have been set up properly. Okay. So you talked about playing coal in, in true detective and that you were protected from his dark excesses, let’s say by your faith. Why did that provide you with, in what way did that provide you with protection? It’s a striking thing to say, especially given his, his attitude is, is Mephistophelian. There’s a character in Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles, who’s Satan himself. And his essential credo is that everything that lives should perish because of the, the sin of its existence, essentially. And so that’s coal in a nutshell, right? Yeah. And, and, and, and that’s, it is a, it is, it’s a logically tenable argument, but it’s one that needs to be rejected holistically. I shouldn’t use that word. I hate that word, but you don’t reject that argument rationally because it’s a rationally tenable argument. You have to reject it with your whole being instead and say, well, despite this, I’m going to live and I’m going to try to live in an appropriate manner. Yes. But you said your faith protected you from coal. Well, it was one of the things that, that allowed me to fully go into coal and fully believe coal and get down and live it and, and look at the world through that lens. I had already had year, a few year run of my life where I was quite agnostic. It was, my agnosticism was not about trying to prove the disbelief of God’s existence. My agnosticism was about me going, you sure have been letting yourself off the hook, McConaughey, Mr. Fatalist, I’ll forgive you again, because you’re being a repeat offender and I’m kind of tired of it. Put your damn hands on the wheel, man. Talk to myself. You’re driving here and quit going to this. I can pray and be forgiven, but you repeat offending, cut it out. I had gone through a few years earlier in my life of, of agnosticism where I was not so much trying to prove the non-existence of God as I was trying to have more, understand more self-reliance and self-determination on myself. Cause I’d been letting myself off the hook. Do you ever read the fine print that appears when you start browsing in incognito mode? It says that your activity might still be visible to your employer, your school or your internet service provider. How can they even call it incognito? To really stop people from seeing the sites you visit, you need to do what we do and use ExpressVPN. 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Because you put those together in the way that you’re relating this story. Well, I needed to have, I needed to, I needed to feel like I was wholly responsible for myself and what happened to me. That I was not going to let myself slide. There’s an ideal calling to you then, like when you experience yourself as ashamed by your own behaviors, what that means is that there’s an ideal inside you that’s trying to manifest itself, right? Because you wouldn’t be ashamed if you weren’t comparing yourself to something better. And the question then becomes, well, what is that better thing that you’re comparing yourself to? And it’s an ideal. And then the question becomes, well, what is the ideal? And that’s the sort of fleshing out what that ideal is, is that that’s the function of religious thinking. And so that’s why I was interested in your comment about agnosticism. You know, in Revelation, in the book of Revelation, Christ comes back as a judge, even though he’s a figure of mercy, let’s say he comes back as a judge. And the reason for that, this is from Carl Jung, the reason for that is that any ideal is a judge. And so if you posit the highest ideal, then you put yourself in a position where you’re judged. And that’s when your conscience tortures you. And so you can discover your ideal that way by having a dialogue with your conscience and say, well, I’m not living up to who I should be. Well, who should that be? Like, where does that figure come from? That’s a great mystery that it’s your higher, it’s the higher form of being that you’re capable of manifesting that’s calling to you. And let me say this, it was a version of when my father, mortal father died. I write about this about being less impressed and more involved. I sobered up. I think it was time to become a man. It was time to quit relying on the fact that I knew he had my back. He was above government, above law. I really got in a pickle. And now he’s physically gone. So this was, I’m going to discard my spiritual father and say, we’re racing to the red light, buddy. That’s all it is. So what are you doing while it’s here? There’s one play and you go until you die and that’s it. So what are you going to do? Don’t be giving yourself, let yourself off thinking, well, there may be life after this. Stop it. So that’s what I’ve been, I’ve gone through that. A feeling come out of that and was, and I didn’t feel this till later because I allowed myself to stay in the midst of being really scared of, oh my gosh, am I going to get struck by lightning here? Was that my God was going, thank you. Yes. Wish more of us would put our hands on the wheel. What will we take? We throw this fate card out there really lack sedatedly like, Oh, and shall I say, it’s la vie. I believe, well, you know, okay, if that’s it, then ride around and run all the red lights, get your damn hands on the wheel. Yes, you are supposed to be self-determined. So that got me and woke me up and sobered me up into that position.