https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=nXc-zvHa-GA
Is there a purpose to our life and well, that’s a hard question. And then if there is a purpose Well, how is it expressed? And then if there is a purpose and our lives are truncated as they are by death Then how can that purpose have significance? And those are hard questions, but socrates experience seemed to be that he had lived enough In his life so that when push came to shove which it certainly did he was able to gracefully Let it go and that’s And you know he attested to that with his death and and and that’s fairly convincing, you know I mean that’s a fairly convincing argument and it’s one that I find Well, it’s hard to tell if I find it exactly credible, but I don’t find it incredible I mean, I certainly have noticed that as i’ve got older And i’ve done things various I’ve I’ve what would you say? Accomplished isn’t exactly the right word. I’ve participated in many things that i’m pleased to have participated in them But wouldn’t necessarily go back and participate in them again. It’s sort of as if When you do something and you finish it It’s as if it’s done. You don’t have to do it again. And maybe it’s possible who knows that if you finish your life Whatever that might mean if you exhaust your life then Then that’s enough life, you know that that you’ve had enough And I mean that doesn’t mean that I try not to keep myself healthy and that I want to die tomorrow It doesn’t mean any of that. I’m trying to stick around as long as I can but but but there’s still that that that curiosity about The relationship between life and mortality and and the possibility that a life well-lived Exhausts itself in some fundamental sense so that you can be Satisfied let’s say with with what you With what you were There is some psychological evidence that bears on this if you ask people what they regret Especially as they get older What they generally port is things not done So they don’t regret so much mistakes they’ve made although of course people obviously regret mistakes. They’ve made as well, so they don’t exactly Regret sins of commission right errors that they’ve actively made they they miss they they they they they They torment themselves for opportunities that had presented themselves that they Did not let’s say exploit or engage in and I think that’s worth thinking about too because One thing that I have become convinced about with regards to human consciousness Which I think is equivalent to the spark of divinity in some sense that our Fundamental stories insist has been placed within us is that human consciousness is that faculty that? Confronts potential itself. I think there’s good neurological evidence for this by the way for those of you who are scientifically minded because we build Circuits within us for habitual action that we’ve practiced many times that seem to run in a very deterministic fashion and we are a strange combination of deterministic and non-deterministic as far as I can tell but What our consciousness seems to be for is to encounter those things that we have not yet encountered and those things that we have not yet encountered Seem to me to be those things that have not yet been brought into being and so you could say that what our consciousness is for is For the encounter with potential you know that our consciousness is for the it’s not for the past It’s not even for the present It’s to transform the future into the present and then really that that’s what our consciousness does when you wake up in the morning You have a new day ahead of you and the day could take you in very many directions And and the weeks and the years all of that can take you in very many directions and you have some apprehension About what those directions might be you have some apprehension about what rule your choices might make in Transforming that potential into one form of Actuality or another I mean you certainly know that there are dreadful Mistakes that you might be very tempted to make that would produce all manner of hell around you and still be tempted to do it It seems like it’s sitting there right in front of you as a possibility You also know that you know you could haul yourself up out of bed and attend to your duties and do the sorts of things That you’re supposed to set a few things right that day and that week and that likely things would at least not be worse, and they would probably be better and I Believe that I do believe that I don’t understand how this can be the case I don’t understand how it is that consciousness consciousness can function in that way because I think to understand that We would have to understand what it means for the future to be only Potential rather than actuality and who the hell understands that I mean no one and then we’d have to understand how it is That our conscious choices and our conscious ethical choices transform that potentiality into Actuality into reality into the present and the past and we certainly But we certainly act as if we believe that that’s what we do we upgrade ourselves For example when we do a bad job of it We’re upset with our children and those we love if we don’t believe that they’re living up to their potential We’re guilty and ashamed when we make choices that we feel are inappropriate We understand to some degree that the manner in which time lays itself out Has something to do with the ethics of our choice and again, I would say that’s a very deep idea I think it’s a I think it’s I think it’s the most true idea I know that’s very emphasized that idea emphasized in ancient religious stories such as those that are out light in Genesis when Genesis with its strange insistence that You know God is that which? brings order out of chaos formless potential Generates the world out of formless potential and that we’re somehow made in that image Which which seems to me to be the case and that the proper way by the way to go about Acting in that image is to act in relationship to the potential that confronts you With truth and with courage with careful articulation That’s the logos and that if you do that then what you bring forth is is good