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34 - Oblivion's Sheogorath and Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey there, welcome back. As we get into the philosophy
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of the Shivering Isles, now, I would say that out
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of this entire study that we're doing, looking at all
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the base games of Elder Scrolls three through five, as
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: well as the expansions and blcs, I think that this
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: is probably the most explicitly philosophical, the most explicitly psychological.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And for that reason that even long before I've really
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: intentionally studied these things, the Shivering Isles has always stood
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: out to me. It is my favorite of this series.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That I mean, I am somebody who's obviously interested in
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the lore of the Elder Scrolls. I'm interested in these
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in depth storytelling dynamics that we get in this universe.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But I'm primarily operating from a philosophical background, from a
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: philosophical interest, and so Shivering Aisles just stands out to me.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: This to me like this is peak Elder Scrolls. This
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is my favorite part of the entire series, and so
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I look forward to talking about this from one particular dynamic,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: one particular perspective, even though I could pretty easily spin
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: off an entire series talking about the philosophy of the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Shivering Ales. But today I want to talk first and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: foremost about the Shivering Ales through the lens of the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Danish existentialist philosopher Soaring kirke Guard, and in particular his
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: book The Sickness Unto Death. I did my doctoral dissertation
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: on the psychology of Soaring kirke Guard, looking at his
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: philosophy of self formation, primarily drawing from his the concept
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of anxiety, the sick concent to death, and fear and trembling.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And so that's what I want to get into today. Now,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: if you're watching this, maybe coming at this from the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Elder Scroll's perspective, maybe you're not very familiar with Kirkyguard,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: maybe never even heard his name before. Well, he's somebody
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that you should be acquainted with. He's known as the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: father of existentialism, comes around the eighteen hundred's in Denmark,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: although he's very different in substance from the later existentialists
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that would follow now. Kirke Guard he is a Christian
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: first of all, and what he's responding against primarily is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the kind of the cold Christendom of his day, in
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: which it's understood that if you're born into the Danish
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  Speaker 1: Lutheran State Church by you know, you're born in Denmark, Well,
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  Speaker 1: then okay, you're a Christian right by virtue of being
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a citizen in Denmark, you're a citizen of the church.
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  Speaker 1: And so the way that Christianians understood was primarily through
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: very institutional terms as well as through rationalism, especially by
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: means of Hegeld, and so it's very abstract, it's very logical,
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  Speaker 1: it's very rational as opposed to a lived experience that
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: actually demands a decision of you, that demands personal responsibility
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of you. And so kurity Guard is trying to recover
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that personal responsibility. He's trying to help us to recognize
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  Speaker 1: the decisions not only that we have to make, but
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: recognize the decisions that we are making each and every
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: day regarding how it is that we're putting our life together,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: how are we relating to the world around us, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: how are we relating even to ourselves, and the way
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: that these relations happen, Well, they're not just given realities.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: They're things that we decide to do. They're things that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: we decide to relate ourselves to in particular ways. And
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: so ultimately, you are responsibility. You are responsible for the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: way that your life is put together and he wants
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to help us to recognize that responsibility and in the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: sickness unto death is he's trying to diagnose and to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: some degree to treat the condition of despair, which he says,
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  Speaker 1: to some degree typifies every human, like every human is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: in some degree despair. He says that we tend to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: find the degree of despair that we're willing to tolerate,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: and then we call that happiness. But for gear are,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: despair is not just the same thing as depression. It's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: not the same thing as being sad or just kind
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of bummed out. Despair is what we experience when we're
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: not living in harmony with ourselves, when we're not living
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  Speaker 1: in harmony with who it is that we are supposed
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to be. And that despair can take a number of forms,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: which primarily relate to the kinds of things that he's
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  Speaker 1: criticizing in his own day. On one hand, he has
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  Speaker 1: the Hegelian, the rationalist institutions of the cold Christendom of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: his day. Right, these are the people who live according
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: to reason, These are people who live according to to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: firm rational categories. To bring this to shivering aisles, I mean,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: this is this jigilag right. From one angle, this is
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: kind of like the denizens of dementia who are so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: limited that they are kind of trapped with them themselves,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and so they're given over to neurosis, that they're given
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  Speaker 1: over to paranoia, to hypochondria, that they are so trapped
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  Speaker 1: infinitude in limitations and boundaries, they don't really have any
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  Speaker 1: air to breathe. And so these might be the hyperrationalists
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: on one side. And like when I say I rational,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily mean insane, right, Like GK. Chesterton makes
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: this point that you can be very rationally, you can
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: be very logical but also be insane, Like you can
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: have a system of thought that logically means that you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: are indeed Napoleon right, that you are indeed the King
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of England whatever, and and any evidence to the contrary,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: we can say, well, of course that's what they would say, right.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: This is how conspiracy theories work, that there's always some
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: reason to believe that the evidence against your position, like
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: there is some way to rationally discount that evidence, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you always have reason to rationally affirm the propositions that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you're trying to affirm. And so just because something is
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: logically valid, doesn't mean that it's true, doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: it's based in reality. You can be logical and still insane, right,
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  Speaker 1: and so this would be largely the denizens of crucible
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: or of a dementia, that they are hyperrational to the
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  Speaker 1: point of insanity. They lack the kind of openness that
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  Speaker 1: leaves room for counterfactuals, that leaves room for evidence, leaves
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  Speaker 1: room for correction, leaves room for change and becoming more expansive.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: In the concept of anxiety, Kurey Guard says that the
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  Speaker 1: hypochondriac is anxious over every insignificant thing until they come
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  Speaker 1: to terms with this significant and at that point, suddenly
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: their life is able to become more expansive. And now
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they're able to actually breathe. They have a little room
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to move, and that's what we need. Right when you
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: are oversaturated with the kind of stability of order that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: prevents change, like things are happening exactly how you expect
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  Speaker 1: them to happen, where you're going to lose lose sight
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  Speaker 1: of the possible. You're going to lose sight of change.
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  Speaker 1: You're going to not recognize the kind of chaos that
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  Speaker 1: can put potentially propel you into a greater degree of
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: order as your world becomes larger, and so this would
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: be this, This is people at dementia. This is people
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: who live in crucible that they are so confined that
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  Speaker 1: they are potentially insane, while also rational as are confined
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  Speaker 1: by finitude. Now on the other side of kickguard, on
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the other side of the other side of the spectrum,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: away from the rationalists, you have the romantics. The romantics
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  Speaker 1: who say that there are no boundaries to human existence,
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  Speaker 1: like there is there's nothing but the unbounded beauty of existence,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and like there's some reality to that. But the problem
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: is that if your world is completely unbounded, where there's
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: no such thing as human nature, like there's nothing that
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: fixed that you ought to aspire to, then you are
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: trapped in an abyss like that. That's what it means
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  Speaker 1: to not have boundaries. It means you're not actually anywhere
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  Speaker 1: at all. Because to be anywhere in particular, well, you
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: need particularity, You need boundaries, You need a healthy degree
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  Speaker 1: of finitude to give you some some some race right,
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  Speaker 1: to give you a pathway that you can follow. But
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a pathway, if all you have
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  Speaker 1: is open infinitude, then there's nowhere you can actually go.
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  Speaker 1: There's no place for the idea of progress because you're
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  Speaker 1: not coming from anywhere in particular. You're not going anywhere
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  Speaker 1: in particular. You're just lost to the abyss. And that's
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  Speaker 1: what Kurckyguard says. He says that the moment everything seems possible, well,
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  Speaker 1: then suddenly you nowhere at all. Right, You are lost.
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  Speaker 1: You are consumed by the void. You're consumed by the
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  Speaker 1: abyss because there's no thing there. If there are not
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  Speaker 1: any particular of finite boundaries, and so on one hand,
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  Speaker 1: you can fall into what he calls the despair of infinitude.
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  Speaker 1: This is when you say that anything goes. There's no
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  Speaker 1: fixed identity to me, there's no goals to where I
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  Speaker 1: ought to go. There's no such thing as human nature.
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  Speaker 1: I can be anything I want to be. I can
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  Speaker 1: create myself from the bottom up. This is what Careguards
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: calls the despair of infinitude. And this is exactly what
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  Speaker 1: we see in the denizens of Mania. This is what
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  Speaker 1: we see in the Duke of Mania Theden, who just
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  Speaker 1: gives himself over to excess, well to ecstasy. He gives
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  Speaker 1: himself over to the false expansion provided by the likes
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of Efeldu. And you know, if you become the Duke
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of Mania, that that's how he dies, through an overdose
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of a Feldu, which is basically LSD or something to
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  Speaker 1: that nature. It is something that gives them euphoria, something
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  Speaker 1: that makes him even more expansive and even more open,
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  Speaker 1: to the point where he loses himself altogether. And so
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  Speaker 1: the Mania side of the shivering aisles, it seems very beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: You have golden fields, you have these euphoric golden saints,
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  Speaker 1: you have psychedelic flora. So here possibility reigns, but it
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  Speaker 1: reigns unchecked by the limitations of finitude. There's no anchor here.
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  Speaker 1: And so Theyden likes to paint, but he paints on
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  Speaker 1: infinite canvases without any grounding in reality, which means he's
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: not able to actually express anything beautiful. Because what real
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: beauty does is that it calls the soul up until
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: what is true and what is good. But if you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: don't have those fixed destinations of truth and goodness, then
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: beauty comes down to nothing more than opinion. And if
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  Speaker 1: beauty is nothing more than subjective opinion, then it can't
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  Speaker 1: really take us anywhere. And in fact, we can't even
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  Speaker 1: say it's necessarily good. Now, maybe you want to say that, well, okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: subjective beauty is good, like what you experience as beauty
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  Speaker 1: is good, what I experience as beauty is good. But
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: even still, if we use that kind of language, if
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  Speaker 1: we use that kind of framework that we're saying, then
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  Speaker 1: what we mean by good is nothing more than you
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  Speaker 1: happen to like it. But if you just happen to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like it, well then it's not actually beautiful. And there's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: no reason for us to say that liking something that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: personally liking something is good. It's just something that we're
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: saying like there's no groundwork, there's no framework, there's there's
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  Speaker 1: nothing that enables you to go from one place to
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  Speaker 1: another and to say that where I am now is better.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And this is exactly what Nietzsche says, you know, his
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: parable of the Madman, the madman who declares the death
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: of God. He says that we've unshackled ourselves from all suns.
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  Speaker 1: There's no longer any up, down, left, or right. We
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: are simply floating in in empty space and empty vacuum.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And the implication there is that if we're going to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: go anywhere. Well, we get there, not because it's the
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  Speaker 1: right way to go, but simply out of an exercise
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of our will to power that I am saying, I'm
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: going to declare what my values are, and then those
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: are my values. But there's no reason to say that
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: my values that are necessarily a good thing. And so
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: we've lost any sense of real, genuine beauty. And see
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the artists, he's painting, but not for any particular purpose.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: He just kind of lost in his own creativity. He's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: being esthetic for the sake of esthetics, rather than engaging
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: in aesthetics for the sake of channeling beauty. And so
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  Speaker 1: this kind of infinitude, it is demonic, it's not divine
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: because it lacks the necessity of real grounding that allows
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the expansiveness of beauty to actually be beautiful. And so
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Mania's inhabitants are they're not free. They might see themselves
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: as such, but they're not actually free because they are
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: possessed by possibility. They're not free to do anything. And
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it's really echoes carekey guards, warning that the self in
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: despair wants to be master of itself, but in the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: wrong way. And so they're expansive but in the wrong
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: way because they haven't properly integrated the grounding reality of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: finitude a fixed boundary of limitations, and limitations are necessary
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in order to be free and able to go somewhere,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to be something right. That's the real idea of freedom.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It's not just the freedom to do whatever, but real
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: freedom is the ability to well. It's the ability to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: live the way that you ought to be living. It's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the ability to live in the right sort of way.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And either you agree with me, and I think that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: most of you will like, regardless of what background you
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: might be coming from. The reality is like, you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: some ways of life are better than others. Right, It's
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: better to live a life according to reason and virtue
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: than it is to live according to radical, unchecked vice.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: You know, it's better to maintain a life of discipline
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: than it is to give yourself over to excess of
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: various kinds, whether it be you know food or drink,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: or you know other substances or whatever. It's better to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: have control over your impulses. It's better to direct your life,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to direct your passions rather than letting your base, unconscious,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: beastly passions guide you. It's better if you are in charge,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: and that's what makes you free. Saint Augustine says in
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the City of God that the slave, if he lives
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: in accordance with virtue, if he's directing his life, well
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: he may in fact be free, while the tyrant who
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: lives according to unchecked vices is not free. In fact,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the tyrant, though he reigns, is a slave. And what's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: far worse, he's a slave to as many masters as
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: he has vices. And so it's when we live according
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to our unchecked passions that we are in fact enslaved.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It's when we are guiding our passions, we are uniting
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the various constituents of ourselves toward a common purpose, that
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: we gain freedom. As Kreguard says, purity of heart is
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to will one thing, because that directs all of our
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: passions and directs all of our drives toward a common purpose.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And as we are responsible for choosing what that direction is, well,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that's what makes us free. But the inhabitants of mania,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: they are given over to infinitude, they're given over to
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: such open expansiveness that they lose themselves entirely. Now looking
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: over to dementia, we have rotting swamps. We have paranoid saints.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: We have these paranoid seducers, have these suicidal tendencies. Here,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the self clings to decay, refusing transcendence. They don't recognize
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that there is another way to live. They don't recognize
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that they're capable of change. They don't recognize the expansive
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: world in which they live. And so they are instead
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of being hyper focused on infinitude and possibility like the maniacs,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: they are instead they're obsessed with finitude, with smallness. And
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: so the Duke or I suppose that the Duchess of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: dementia Silm embodies this philistine despair. She's obsessed with control
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: over her crumbling domain and denies the infinite call to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: become more than her little, finite station. Right, so why
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: she clings to control so much, And in fact, there
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: isn't truly a conspiracy that's brewing against her, but this
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is really a conspiracy of her own making. It's something
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of a self fulfilling prophecy. And that she's so controlled
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: about control rolling her station that she's not able to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: control her station. And so while the maniacs suffer from
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: a despair of infinitude. Those who are given over to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: dementia are they suffer from what Kreguard calls the despair
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: of finitude. They are small, they have limitations. Someone's always
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: out to get them. All of reality is about them.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The maniacs lose themselves in transcendence, the citizens of dementia.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: They lose themselves through a hyperfixation on limitation. They lose
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: themselves infinitude. And so by thinking that everything is about them, well,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly everything is about them, right, Everything is a conspiracy.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Every insignificant thing becomes monumentally important because everything is defined
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: in accordance with their own subjective psyching. And so, instead
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: of recognizing that they have a more expensive role to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: play in a more expansive context, everything becomes contextualized within themselves.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And this is why they're given over to hypochond to neurosis,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: to a more obvious form of despair. Well for a
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: curey guard, what's the solution here, Well, the solution is
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: not to give yourself over to the manic. It's not
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to give yourself over to the demented. It's not to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: give yourself over to infinitude or to give yourself over
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to finitude. That moving to either of these extremes actually
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: lands you in the same kind of place. Both of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: them lead you to a saint, a maybe an inverted
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: manifestation of the same fundamental disorder. You're not living in
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the way that you're meant to live, You're not living
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: as an authentic human self. And so his solution is
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: not to go to one side or the other. It's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: not even to hold both intention but rather the role
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the authentic self is to integrate finitude and infinitude together,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to integrate actuality and possibility together. And so we have
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: certain boundaries, like we don't get to fundamentally create our
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: our own existence, we don't get to fundamentally create human nature.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But what we need to do is what we need
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a reason, much as the ancients tended to do. Where
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you go back to the ancient Greeks, you go back
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to the ancient Romans, go back to the major figures
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of classical philosophy. And what they're mostly doing is they're
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: recognizing that human nature is a certain way, and that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: certain ways of life work better for us than others.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And so now let's reason through what story, what structure
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: best accounts for, what makes for a good life, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: then how do we follow that consistently? How do we
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: follow that authentically? And this much of Krecard is doing.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: There's a reason why Carecard will often make appeal to Socrates, right,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and so he's very intentionally going back to that that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: kind of mindset. What we recognize there is a certain
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: givenness to human nature. Some things are going to work
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: better for us, some things are going to work worse
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: for us. And one of the unique things about human
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: nature is that we're able to make intentional We're able
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to make spirited decisions for how it is that we're
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: put together, how it is that we relate to our environment. See,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the animals largely act in accordance with reflex according to instinct,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: where a certain environmental stimulus comes to them and then
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: they respond accordingly. Well, what makes this kind of unique
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is that we can actually determine how it is that
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: we're going to relate to the environment around us. We
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: can determine how it is that we're going to relate
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to moving fortune, we can determine how it is that
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we're going to relate to the limitations of circumstance in
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: which we find ourselves. And we always have the possibility.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: We always have a certain degree of infinitude where we
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: can make decisions within the domains of what is offered
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to us. And so maybe you find yourself in a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: situation that, well, it's not very favorable. Maybe you lose
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: your job through the a fault of your own, maybe
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a friend or a loved one betrays you, like something
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: just happens, Chaos enters your life, apparent madness and your life. Well,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of well, I guess there are
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: many ways that you could go about this. How are
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you going to relate to this experience that you're having?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: How are you going to relate to the chaos that's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: entered into your your otherwise seemingly ordered life. Right, things
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: are going the way that you expect them to, and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: then suddenly they don't. How do you react? Well, either
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you can give yourself over to a hyper fatalistic perspective
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and you can say, well, things that can happen as
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: they happen. What was me? I guess I'm just the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: victim here, Well, it is what it is. Or you
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: can say, yeah, this thing happened. There's a certain factuality
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to what has occurred here, to what has happened to me.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I am given certain actual realities. I am affirming the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: finitude in which I find myself, but there's also possibility
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: at play here. I can determine to relate myself to
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this experience in a way that's actually going to make
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: me a more grounded self and while also a more
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: expansive self. I'm not going to let this destroy me,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: but instead, I'm going to use this opportunity to better
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: ground myself in the things that don't change. And one
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: thing that doesn't change is my ability to make decisions,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: including my decision to relate myself to the way that
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the world is presenting itself to me. I can decide
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: how I am relating to the moving wheel of fortune.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: I can't decide what the moving wheel of fortune is
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: going to do. Right, that's finity, that's actuality, that's facticity,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: that's what's provided. But I'm going to affirm what's provided.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But I'm also going to affirm my possibility in determining
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: how I'm relating to the world around me. And so
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to let this destroy me. I'm not
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: going to become a victim here. But what I am
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: going to do is I'm going to become a stronger,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: more grounded, more authentic self as I double down on
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: my freedom to determine how I'm relating to the moving
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: wheel of fortune. And some of you inherit in this
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: will hear echoes of Boethius or even the Stoics, right,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: like Marcus Aurelia's epictet to Seneca, Like they all say
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: things along these lines that real freedom, real human, distinctly
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: human freedom, cannot be taken from you. It's only something
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: that you can surrender. Socrates says this in Plato's Apology,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: when Socrates is standing trial before the court of Athens
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and they're accusing him of corupting the youth because he's
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: practicing philosophy and he's questioning some of their elders, right,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He's questioning some of their leaders. And so they accuse
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: him of corupting the youth, and it's clear that they're
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: going to sentence him to death, and Socrates says that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: you can never do harm to a good man. Yeah,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: maybe you can kill me, but my good is found
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: in living the sort of life that I'm supposed to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: be living. And that's something that I can only lose
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: if I surrender it if I abandoned it and play
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the coward. But it's not something you can take from me.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: It's only something that I can choose to relinquish. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. And so for Grguard,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the authentic integratedself takes, finitude, takes infinitude, doesn't hold them attention,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: but actually integrates them into a consistent hole, into a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: proper synthesis. Now we should talk a little bit about
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Hiograth here. Now, chio Gorath he embodies what Gereguard calls
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the in despair willing to be oneself. This is a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: defiant despair. This is what ger Guard calls a demonic
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: form of despair. This is when Shiogorath he knows who
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: he is, he knows he is Jigilag, but he is
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: defiantly asserting himself to be something else. He is trying
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to usurp the role of God and determining what kind
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of person he is and determining what human nature or
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in this case, I suppose Deddrich nature like what that
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: fundamentally is. And Gekyard says that ultimately all forms of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: despair really come down to this. He says, the despair
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of defiance is the most intense form of despair. It's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the self that wants to determine what it is. But
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: in despair, it's not willing to be itself as God
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: wills it. So this is the self that it's not
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: affirming its givenness, the givenness of its nature, but trying
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to create itself from the bottom up. Jean Paul Start,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the secular existentialist who comes after a Crickguard, he would
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: definitely embody this form of despair of defiance when he
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: says things like our existence precedes our essence, that there
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: is no giveness to human nature, but it's entirely created
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: from the bottom up. This is what we get in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: schiogor Ath. This is what Carekeguard identifies as despair and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: so starts freedom starts. Authenticity is actually Carekeguard's despair in authenticity. Now,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I would suggest, in the most positive reading of how
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the story plays out, you have your hero, Your character
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: enters into the gates of madness, either by means of
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: mania or by means of dementia. You eventually come to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: meet with chio Gorath, and you know he sends you
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: on these quests to walk the steps that chiogor Ath
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: walks right. He's training you to become chio Goorrath so
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that he can escape the cycle. And so there is
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: this possibility at place, possibility that we can break through
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: this cycle, that things don't always have to be the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: way that they are. And you know, this is the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: possibility of faith, that real change is possible. We aren't
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: stuck in this cycle, we aren't stuck in this condition.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Something can actually happen, change can be had. And I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: would argue that what the champion of Shiagorath does as
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: also being the hero of Cyridyl, like, what this champion
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: does is that they integrate finitude and infinitude. They integrate
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the tendencies of dementia and manium into a singular heroic purpose,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a singular heroic focus. And this is why the hero
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of Cyridl is then able to go forth and end
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the oblivion crisis, and they're not trapped in a cycle
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of madness. They descend into despair that they might take
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the leap of faith that provides purity of heart. They
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: take the leap of faith that affirms finitude, that affirms infinitude,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but takes them together in integrated synthesis. They simultaneously affirm
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and surrender actuality and possibility that they might become an
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: integrated whole, recognizing that we live within boundaries, but within
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: those boundaries things are possible. Change is possible. I can
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: be someone different than I am today, And by affirming
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: my limitations as well as actively engaging in my imagination
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of what could be, I'm able now as a substantial being. Right,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I'm made substantial because I have borders. I have finitude,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: providing boundaries to the substance of my soul. Yet I'm
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: also able to take that somewhere. I'm able to move,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I'm able to do something with that. I'm able to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: instantiate order and chaos, or at least a parent chaos simultaneously.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And that for a Carekeyguard, that is heroism. You're willing
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: to sacrifice everything for the sake of gaining it back
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: anew by faith. And this is not an easy path,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: but it is good. I'm going to end today with
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a quote from Kirkerguard's Fear and Trembling. Here it holds
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: true that only the one who works gets bred, that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: only the one who is in anxiety finds rest, That
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: only the one who descends into the lower world rescues
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the beloved that only the one who draws the knife
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: gets Isaac. Thank you for listening. Until next time, God
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: speaking