https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=J2XXmLqWJt4
I have a buddy of mine named Lil Duval who’s a comedian. He’s also a mentor, I guess, of mine. He just has this amazing understanding of life, has like no formal background in education or anything. He literally has just learned all these things from observation. And he kept saying something to me, and I’m sure it’s in a lot of books and stuff like that, but it’s something I always like think about. And he goes, he goes, this is all about perspective, man. And he’ll like say very few words. He won’t like explain much to me. He’ll just like say a few words and then just kind of like move on or just like hang up the phone. And he’s like, it’s all about perspective, man. And he had a close friend of his die and of cancer, and they knew he had cancer for, I think it was like two years. He was supposed to have like two months, and then it ended up going for like two years. And he’s like, yeah, man, it was a great gift. I go, what are you talking about? Like your friend had cancer. He goes, yeah, but like you oftentimes don’t know when someone you love a lot is gonna go away. Like we knew and we did everything that we wanted to do those last two years. And for him to look at like the person he loved, like getting cancer as like a gift, you could almost like, oh, this guy’s crazy. But at the same time, like life happens. He would always say this. He’s like, life is gonna happen. How you react to life is gonna dictate your happiness. And I know there’s certain things you just cannot be happy about, of course. But making it seem like it was a choice was like oddly empowering. And I was always curious what you would think about about that. Like how much is it your choice, how you react to these things? Well, it’s always indeterminate. I mean, you know, there’s limit situations where things are so intense that your attitude is, well, it’s very difficult to adjust your attitude about hunger if you’re starving to death. Yeah. I mean, we can all be pushed to the point. We can be pushed past the point, I think all of us, where we can control our reactions if the pain is sufficiently intense, if the situation is sufficiently intense. But, you know, in this new book, Beyond Order, the last chapter is be grateful in spite of your suffering. And it’s, I suppose, a discussion of the possibility of adopting that as a goal, a decision to be grateful. And I think that you can make that a decision to some degree. Yeah. And it’s a fight worth having, because it’s better to be grateful than not to be. And maybe that’s even somewhat independent of your situation. I know when I was particularly ill and I was bitter because of it, then I was worse off than when I was ill and I wasn’t bitter because of it. So, and so I did what I could to adjust my proclivity for bitterness because it didn’t seem helpful. And so, you know, we do have this scope of decision-making that we’re always testing out. It’s a dangerous thing to push too hard because, you know, you don’t want to say to someone who’s suffering from extraordinarily painful terminal cancer, for example, that if they just adjusted their attitude, everything would be okay. Obviously, that’s a little bit on the harsh side, let’s say. But by the same token, we do have the capacity to change the way we look at things and we do the best that we can. I mean, the fundamental ethics, I suppose, that people are encouraged to adopt have a fair bit to do with decision about what attitude you’re going to take. You’re gonna tell the truth or you’re gonna lie? Are you gonna be grateful or are you gonna be bitter? Are you going to try to care for other people as if they’re valuable or are you going to always put your immediate gratification first? These are all, at some level, decisions. There are also articles of faith. People say, well, you should never believe what can’t be proved. But lots of things, there’s lots of decisions you have to make in the absence of proof. So for example, if I say, well, you should be grateful in spite of your suffering, I’m suggesting that you take that as an article of faith rather than anything that could ever be proved because I can’t really see how it could be proved. It’s a decision. Sometimes I feel like religion was designed to trick people into being happy. Right? Yeah, well, you never know. That’s not such a bad trick then, is it? It’s not a bad trick. Like, what if you and your boys figured all these life hacks, they’re just life hacks, and you try to tell people and they don’t seem like they would make sense. You’re just going up to be like, look, if you help people out, you’re gonna feel better. And the average person’s like, man, I’m trying to help me out. Why the hell would I help someone else out? And you’re just like, dude, trust me, if you do it, you’ll feel better. And most people are operating like maybe a little bit empty. They’re just trying to fill their tank a little bit, just trying to fill their tank. So they can’t even put it together in their mind that if they help someone else out, that would fill the tank. They think it would take some gas away from the tank. And what if all these rules, right, or just these very simple life hacks, and in order to get people to be happy, they had to say, oh, no, you’ll go to heaven, or this is from God. What is this? It’s just man-made life hacks. Well, I guess heaven in part is maybe where you end up if you do things right, right? That’s the idea. Well, you have heaven now on earth. You live heaven. You get to enjoy your time here if you live like this. That’s how I always looked at it. But maybe- Well, when you live correctly, in the moments that you live according to the dictates of your conscience, when you’re doing things right, is there any other time that you feel as good as you do then? Not even close. I mean, drugs. Right. Yeah, well. Yeah. That’s the only- But only for a short time. Exactly, yeah. And then you pay the price. I pay the price. That’s the problem there. I remember I did a drug called Molly, right? MDMA, whatever, ecstasy. I’m not a big drug guy. I would go to this thing called Burning Man, but I’ve never been a big drug guy in my life, right? Drink a little bit, but I’ve never done any of the hard stuff. And, but what it does is it gives you this super boost of like, I guess it’s serotonin or something like that. And it was for the first time in my life, I felt like way excess feelings of happiness, right? Like my jar, my tank was full and then some. And the enlightening experience I came out of it with was when I had that excess, I didn’t want to hold it. I literally was calling friends and going, oh my God, I love you. You’re the best. This, that, the other. That’s what I did with my extra. I didn’t store it. I didn’t put in a fucking bank vault. I did nothing but give it away. And I was like, wow, that’s kind of cool that if I can get myself to full, what I’ll do without anybody pushing me is try to get other people to full, you know? And. That’s a hell of a realization. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think a lot of people. I don’t think you are either. I think that’s how it is. So does that mean that we’re inherently good if we can just get to full? Probably. I don’t know. I mean, look, it does seem to me, you put your finger on something that’s exactly right there, I think, is that you had intense enough joy so that you wanted to share it. That’s what happened. You didn’t want to keep it all for yourself. And there is intense joy in making other people happy. I mean, look, you’re a comedian. What are you trying to do? You’re trying to make other people happy. That’s your goal. Why is that so rewarding? I mean, partly it’s because there’s a recognition by the crowd of your value. You’re witty, you’re sharp, you’re creative. You know, and that’s reassuring and flattering. But that isn’t the essence of it. The essence of it has to be that you’re there to serve the audience. You’re paying attention to the audience. You want their approval, but not in a false way. You actually want to be funny. You want to provide something of value. And if that’s genuine, they’re going to see that in you, especially if you work hard at it. And then that is rewarding.