https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=51IciCvDgBo
When you love someone, you love them not only despite their fragility but also because of it. They wouldn’t be who they were if they weren’t fragile and limited in their particular way. When you have a sick kid, it’s like, oh my God, how can the world be constituted so that a child can unfairly suffer in this man? You can’t have them being vulnerable and cute and interesting and small and needing care but striving to develop and grow without them also being prone to pain and destruction and vulnerability. And then what do you do? You teach them to be strong. That’s what you do. You don’t get rid of the vulnerability. You teach them to be strong. You don’t protect your children. In fact, you do the opposite. You expose them to the world as much as you possibly can and you make them strong. That’s the best antidote to their vulnerability. The first noble truth of Buddhism, life is suffering. This is true. And it’s worse than that because it’s suffering, contaminated by malevolence. And so that’s very pessimistic. But the optimistic part is that you are so damn tough, you can actually not only deal with that, you can improve. Well, that’s a horrible situation. But it turns out that I’m armed for the task. Well, that’s a great thing for people to know. I think the fact that we’re armed for the task is even more true than the fact that life is catastrophe, contaminated by malevolence. We’re stronger than things are terrible. And I do believe it’s the case because I’ve watched people do very difficult things like people who work in palliative care wards. So all they’re ever dealing with is pain and death. And they can do it. They get up in the morning, they go to work, and they take care of those people. They lose people on a weekly basis, and yet they can do it. And what that shows is that if you turn around and you confront the suffering voluntarily, you find out that you are way tougher than you think. It’s not that life is better than you think. Life is as harsh as you think. It might even be worse. But you are way tougher than you think if you turn around and confront it. It’s a very good thing to know. And it’s not naive optimism. It’s a very different thing. It’s like, no, things are terrible. They’re brutal. And you are so damn tough, you can’t believe it.