https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=ayTil47VWAY
Well, people don’t take the idea of sacrifice very seriously I’ve looked at the development of the idea of sacrifice in the Old Testament and one of the things I’ve come to realize is that one of the great human discoveries was actually that of sacrifice because it was the discovery of The fact that you could modify the present so the future was different So it signals the discovery of the future by humanity the idea of sacrifice Because you become consciously aware perhaps after acting it out for God only knows how long that You can give up something that you’re deeply committed to in the present something of extreme value and obtain something of even more value In the future. Yeah, and that’s that’s the discovery of an entire dimension the temporal dimension. It’s it’s it’s a cataclysmic discovery It’s on the same order as the emergence of self-consciousness And so and then the I and then mysteries emerge out of that’s well some sacrifices work better than others Well, why well the reaction of being to sacrifice? seems to be reflective of the nature of being and that’s that that’s Definitely the case some sacrifices work and some don’t just like some games are playable and some aren’t and and so sacrifice has value Well, then the question starts to become well What’s of the highest value that you should sacrifice for and what is the ultimate sacrifice? Well, you can give up something that you own you can give up something that you love you can die for something or you can sacrifice your entire life to it and It seems to me that in some sense the latter the last of those is the ultimate sacrifice To to give up your entire life for the sake of the highest ideal and That is the ideal of humanity and then the that is the ideal of humanity and that is what everyone admires And that’s what we all look for in stories. That’s what compels us you said Well, it’s the attract it’s the basis of romantic attraction and I believe that to be the case that Associated with generosity right to share the fruits of your sacrifice and the question arises What is the ultimate sacrifice and what would be the consequences of that and that’s obviously what’s being Investigated let’s say in our religious thinking in the New Testament. There’s no doubt that that’s that’s what’s being investigated Is there a cosmic significance to the idea of sacrifice? and in and I I agree with that completely and I believe that that’s That that’s what is at play when you’re making the sacrifice. There’s this other element of you Faith in it like the person making the sacrifice is Instead of it just being a negotiation Central to the sacrifice it seems to me is is a transforming commitment that the person is being transformed and and what he is giving is transforming it’s like one of the Most commonly quoted lines from Braveheart is every man dies. Not every man really lives and I didn’t By the way, it’s pet peeve of mine the the other another line from Braveheart but besides just the scream of freedom That that people do that comes from the film but is they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom and That quote is on the wall of the United States Air Force Academy But under it is the name William Wallace Although William Wallace never said that I keep wanting to write the English department there and say hey listen guys, but the but the where that quote came from Was me thinking okay. Is it ego? Is it pride? Is it stubbornness that keeps William Wallace in the dungeon? refusing to to submit to the king refusing to ask the king for mercy and Maybe by time in his life so he can survive a while longer and the Queen the future Queen comes to him with that offer and Then she says you’ll die. It’ll be terrible after he has said if I Submit to him if I cry out for mercy then everything that is me is dead already and she says you’ll die. It’ll be awful and I was thinking well What can he answer to that and that was every man dies not every man really lives and And it it became that and it in thinking of say Jesus at Golgotha that if you took a snapshot at Golgotha on the day Jesus was crucified and you said who’s the victor in this picture? You probably wouldn’t be inclined to say the guy on the middle cross But you might if you stared at the picture long enough You you actually might see it human beings may recognize that that this one Here in this way was doing something Beyond all understanding and to me writing a story isn’t just me going What will surprise the audience? It’s I am being surprised by the story Is it’s coming through to me the most notable part of that in Braveheart was I? Reached the end of the story and and I can see this Clearly now although it was more than 25 years ago the the axe is falling toward William Wallace’s throat and I wrote that on the page and then I thought well, we can’t see the axe Contact his throat and sever his head What do we see now? And then I thought well What about to look at this from the point of view of him when he knows? He has fractions of a second to live. What would he look for? Where would he turn his eyes? Would he look at the axe? What would he do? And he would know that his friends were there So I wrote in the last instant of his life William Wallace turns his eyes to his friends who were Stephen and Hamish And I did not know Jordan until that instant That there between them was her the wife he had lost and I wept and I had no sense that Anybody else was going to relate to that story. I have a friend named Jack Bernstein The original ace Ventura and and and jack is different from me in almost every way if you put our traits on paper We’re just polar opposites And he’s the one I I always take my first drafts to and say I know this is a mess, but is there anything here? And he read braveheart and we sat down to have breakfast and And for him to give me breakfast and he said I’m going to have breakfast And he read braveheart and we sat down to have breakfast and And for him to give me his notes and he said this is the best thing of yours i’ve ever read and and I was completely blindsided. I had had no sense that Anybody would like it that particularly him That it had any value but the story surprised me and I think therefore That Revelatory quality was love. I think it happens in music What what makes music magical? It’s not that it’s what we if it’s just the same beat the same monotony the same chord changes We’ve heard the same lyrics we’ve heard It it doesn’t open us up at all But when it’s a when it’s just enough different that we notice the difference and are drawn into it now if it’s too different You know a when I was in school and took music classes and they’re telling us about atonal this and that and abstract It had no life. No heart at all. But when I listened to bethoven I can just feel the feel the swelling of his heart and In in here hundreds of years later