https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=0LRtsoqxvSY
I thought deeply about death and the death of my family members and about funerals And I thought about it partly because I had this weird experience once that I think I told you about where I took one Of my clients to see an embalming which was very strange experience And I had a chance to talk to the funeral directors you know because they have weird jobs. You know There’s this idea Well the Freudian idea that people suffer from this terrible death anxiety and there’s a whole line of social psychological theory Theorizing called terror management theory that’s predicated on the idea that we defend ourselves against death anxiety with our belief systems And like it’s a puppet’s Ernest Becker’s idea He wrote the denial of death which is a great book But there’s a weakness in it because you see some people who aren’t like that you know like emergency room nurses aren’t like that and Palliative care nurses aren’t like that my sister-in-law is a palliative care nurse. That’s a hard job Right because you go in there you’re caring for people you have and they’re in pain They’re in their last legs you’re trying to make them comfortable And you have a relationship with them because how the hell are you gonna make them comfortable if you don’t then they go and die On you and that just happens. That’s what happens every day Right and what’s weird is that people can be palliative care nurses It’s like how do you figure that out because people can actually thrive in the face of death? Strangely enough and like these funeral parlour directors They were interesting to talk to because that’s all they do right they just deal with They deal with death and grief all the time and it was very interesting talking to them because I talked to two of them They found their job extremely meaningful, and I asked them well. You know does that what does that do to your life? You know you’re saturated with death and suffering and there and this is the same answer that I got from the palliative care nurses that it doesn’t Undermine your life it enriches it now who would guess that right? I mean what the hell that just doesn’t make any sense at all But what it does is speak to human possibility because God only knows how tough you are You know I mean if you read history, and you read about what people have done you think wow we’re pretty tough people are I read There is a shipwreck in the antarctica hundred years ago or so and I read the The story It’s not a biography if I remember correctly of the of the captain I might be wrong about that But I’ve got the basic story right well They had a shipwreck in the antarctica was then they were there for a whole year in the antarctica You know and none of them died not one he didn’t lose a single man Not one he kept the morale high and then they took this boat that was on the ship and they crossed like 400 miles of the roughest ocean the roughest frigid ocean in the world Right you don’t go in that ocean And then they went to an island and they walked across the island across these mountains that no one else has ever Climbed since and they went to the city on the other side of the island They got a boat and they went rescued their compatriots and everyone survived It’s like endurance is the name of the book you read that book man you think wow People are really tough you know and if it’s ridiculous So who knows how tough you are and maybe you find out by going out to find out how tough you are right? So you take on a challenge? One that you think you can master just it’s just a bit beyond your grasp And you master it and then you’re a little tougher and you think hey that worked out pretty well And so then you’re more of a monster and then you go out and you find another challenge That’s even bigger and you think well Maybe I can do that too and all of a sudden you can and you get a little bit bigger and God only knows What the limit is of you and you find out by pushing yourself against the world and of course that’s what Abraham is doing