Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / Time to Get It Done: Don’t Wait for Tomorrow

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Time to Get It Done: Don’t Wait for Tomorrow · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Not only do you have to move from point A
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: to B in life, but point A is often a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: very difficult place to be because we're fragile and bounded
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and mortal and limited, and because we know that. And
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: so one of the implications of that, as many great
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: religious traditions are it pains to illustrate or demonstrate or proclaim,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: is that life is essentially suffering. And I believe that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to be a fundamental truth, but perhaps not the most
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: fundamental truth, because I think the most fundamental truth is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that despite the fact that life is suffering, people can
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: transcend that. And partly the way they transcend that is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: by pursuing things of value, and so that if there
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: is no value proposition at hand, then you have no
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: meaning to justify the difficult conditions of your life. And
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that's brutally difficult for people. No. Nietzsche said, he who
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: has a why can bear anyhow.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And you see, and.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I've certainly seen this as a clinical practitioner, that people
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: who have no purpose in their life are embittered by
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the difficulties of their life, and they become first bitter
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and then resentful, and then revengeful and then cruel. And
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of places to go past cruel. That's just
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: where you start if you're really on a downhill path
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: when engaging in sacrifice, our forefathers began to act out
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: what would be considered a proposition if it were stated
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: in words that something better might be attained in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: future by giving up something of value in the present.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Recall if you.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Will, that the necessity for work is one of the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: curses placed by God upon Adam and his descendants in
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: consequence of original sin. Adam's waking to the fundamental constraints
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of his being, his vulnerability. His eventual death is equivalent
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to his discovery of the future. The future that's where
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you go to die, hopefully not too soon. Your demise
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: might be staved off through work, through the sacrifice of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the now to gain benefit later. It is for this reason,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: among others, no doubt that the concept of sacrifice is
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: introduced in the biblical chapter immediately following the drama of
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the Fall. There is little difference between sacrifice and work.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: They are also both uniquely human. Sometimes animals act as
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: if they are working, but they are really only following
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the dictates of their nature. Beavers build dams. They do
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so because they are beavers, and beavers build dams. They
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: don't think. Yeah, but I'd rather be on a beach
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: in Mexico with my girlfriend while they're doing it prosaically.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Such sacrifice work is the delay of gratification. But that's
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a very mundane phrase to describe something of such profound significance.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: The discovery that gratification could be delayed was simultaneously the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: discovery of time and with it causality, at least the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: causal force of voluntary human action. Long ago, in the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: dim mists of time, we began to realize that reality
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: was structured as if it could be bargain, and with
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: we learned that behaving properly now in the present, regulating
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: our impulses considering the plight of others, could bring rewards
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in the future, in a time and place that did
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: not yet exist. We began to inhibit control and organize
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: our immediate impulses so that we could stop interfering with
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: other people in our future selves. Doing so was indistinguishable
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: from organizing society. The discovery of the causal relationship between
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: our efforts today and the quality of tomorrow motivated the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: social contract, the organization that enables today's work to be
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: stored reliably, mostly in the form of promises from others.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Understanding is often acted out before it can be articulated,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: just as a child acts out what it means to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: be mother or father before being able to give a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: spoken account of.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: What those roles mean.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: The act of making a ritual sacrifice to God was
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: an early sophisticated enactment of the idea of the usefulness
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of delay. There is a law on conceptual journey between
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: merely feasting hungrily and learning to set aside some extra
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: meat smoked by the fire for the end of the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: day or for someone who isn't present.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: It takes a long time to learn to keep anything later.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: For yourself or to share it with someone else, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: those are very much the same thing as in the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: former case, you are sharing with your future self. It
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is much easier and far more likely to selfishly and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: mediately wolf down everything in sight. There are similar long
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  Speaker 1: journeys between every leap in sophistication with regard to delay
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and its conceptualization short term sharing, storing away for the future,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: representation of that storage in the form of records and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: later in the form of currency and ultimately the saving
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of money in a bank or other social institution. Some
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: conceptualizations had to serve as intermediaries or the full range
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of our practices and ideas surrounding sacrifice and work, and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: their representation could have never emerged. Ancestors acted out a drama,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a fiction. They personified the force that governs fate as
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a spirit that can be bargained with, traded with, as
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: if it were another human being. And the amazing thing
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: is that it worked.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: This was in.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Part because the future is largely composed of other human beings,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: often precisely those who have watched and evaluated and appraised
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the tiniest details of your past behavior. It's not very
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: far from that to God sitting above on high, tracking
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: your every move and writing it down for further reference
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: in a big book. Here's a productive symbolic idea. The
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: future is a judgmental father. That's a good start. But
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: two additional archetypal foundational questions arose because of the discovery
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of sacrifice of work. Both have to do with the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: ultimate extension of the logic of work, which is sacrificed
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: now to gain later. First question, what must be sacrificed?
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  Speaker 1: Small sacrifices may be sufficient to solve small, singular problems,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: but it is possible that larger, more comprehensive sacrifices might
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: solve an array of large and complex problems all at
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the same time.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: That's harder, but it might be better.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Adapting to the necessary discipline of medical school will, for example,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: fatally interfere with the licentious lifestyle of a hardcore undergraduate
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: party animal. Giving that up is a sacrifice, But a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: physician can, to paraphrase George W really put food on
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: his family. That's a lot of trouble dispense with over
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a very long period of time. So sacrifices are necessary
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to improve the future, and larger sacrifices can be better.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Second question set of related questions. Really, we've already established
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the basic principle sacrifice will improve the future. But a principle,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: once established, has to be fleshed out. Its full extension
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: or significance has to be understood. What is implied by
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the idea that sacrifice will improve the future In the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: most extreme and final of cases. Where does that basic
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: principle find its limits? We must ask to begin, what
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: would be the largest, most effective, most pleasing of all
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: possible sacrifices, and then how good might the best possible
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  Speaker 1: future be if the most effective sacrifice could be made.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: The biblical story of Cain and Abel Adam and Eve's
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: sons immediately follows the story of.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: The expulsion from Paradise.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Cain and Abel are really the first humans, since their
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: parents were made directly by God and not born in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the standard manner.
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  Speaker 2: Cain and Abel live in history, not in Eden.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: They must work, they must make sacrifices to please God,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and they do so with alter and proper ritual. But
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: things get complicated. Abel's offerings please God, but Caines do not.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Abel is rewarded many times over, but Cain is not.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's not precisely clear why, although the text strongly hints
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that Cain's heart is just not in it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe the quality of what Cain put forward was low.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe his spirit was begrudging, or maybe God was vexed
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: for some secret reasons of his own. And all of
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: this is realistic, including the text's vagueness of explanation. Not
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: all sacrifices are of equal quality. Furthermore, it often appears
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that sacrifices of apparently high quality are not rewarded with
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a better future, and it's not clear why. Why isn't
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: God happy? What would have to change to make him so?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Those are difficult questions, and everyone asks them all the time,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: even if they don't notice. Asking such questions is indistinguishable
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: from thinking. The realization that pleasure could be usefully forestalled
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: dawned on us with great difficulty. It runs absolutely contrary
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to our ancient fundamental animal instincts, which demand immediate satisfaction,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: particularly under conditions of deprivation, which are both inevitable and commonplace.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And to complicate the matter.
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  Speaker 1: Such delay only becomes useful when civilization has stabilized itself
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: enough to guarantee the existence of the delayed reward in
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the future. If everything you save will be destroyed or
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: worse stolen, there is no point in saving. It is
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: for this reason that a wolf will down twenty pounds
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of raw meat in a single meal. He isn't thinking, man,
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  Speaker 1: I hate it when I binge, I should save some
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  Speaker 1: of this for next week. So how was it that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: those two impossible and necessarily simultaneous accomplishments, delay and the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: stabilization of society into the future could possibly have manifested themselves.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Here's a developmental progression from animal to human. It's wrong,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: no doubt in the details, but it's sufficiently correct for
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: our purposes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: In theme. First, there is excess food.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Large carcasses Mammoths or other massive herbivores might provide that
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  Speaker 1: we ate a lot of mammoths, maybe all of them.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: After a kill with a large animal, there is some
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  Speaker 1: left for later. That's accidental at first, but eventually the
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  Speaker 1: utility of for later starts to be appreciated. Some provisional
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: notion of sacrifice develops. At the same time. If I
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: leave some, even if I want it now, I won't
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  Speaker 1: have to be hungry later. That provisional notion develops to
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  Speaker 1: the next level. If I leave some for later, I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: won't have to go hungry, and neither will those I
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  Speaker 1: care for. And then to the next I can't possibly
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  Speaker 1: eat all of this mammoth, but I can't store the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: rest for too long either.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe I should feed some to other people.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll remember and feed me some of their mammoth
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  Speaker 1: when they have some and I have none. Then I'll
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  Speaker 1: get some mammoth now and some mammoth later. That's a
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  Speaker 1: good deal. And maybe those i'm sharing with will come
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to trust me more generally. Maybe then we could trade forever.
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  Speaker 1: In such a manner, mammoth becomes future mammoth, and future
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: mammoth becomes personal reputation. That's the emergence of the social contract.
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  Speaker 1: To share does not mean to give away something you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: value and get nothing back. That is instead only what
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: every child who refuses to share fears it means. To
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: share means properly to initiate the process of trade. A
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: child who can't share, who can't trade, can't have any friends,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: because having friends is a form of trade. Benjamin Franklin
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: once suggested that a newcomer to a neighborhood ask a
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  Speaker 1: new neighbor to do him or her a favor, citing
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: an old maxim, he that has once done you a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: kindness will be more ready to do you another than
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: he whom you yourself have obliged. In Franklin's opinion, asking
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  Speaker 1: someone for something not too extreme, obviously was the most
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: useful and immediate invitation to social interaction. Such asking on
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the part of the newcomer provided the neighbor with an
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: opportunity to show him or herself as a good person
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: at the first encounter. It also meant that the latter
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: could now ask the former for a favor in return
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: because of the debt incurred increasingly their mutual familiarity and trust.
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  Speaker 1: In that manner, both parties could overcome their natural hesitancy
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  Speaker 1: and mutual fear of the stranger. It is better to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: have something than nothing. It's better yet, to share generously
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the something you have. It's even better than that. However,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to become widely known for generous sharing. That's something that lasts.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: That's something that's reliable. And at this point of abstraction,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: we can observe how the groundwork for the conceptions reliable, honest,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and generous has been laid. The basis for an articulated
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: morality has been put in place. The productive, truthful sharer
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: is the prototype for the good citizen and the good man.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: We can see in this manner, how from the simple
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: notion that leftovers are a good idea, the highest moral
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: principles might emerge. It's as if something like the following
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: happened as humanity developed. First were the endless tens or
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of years prior to the emergence of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: written history and drama. During this time, the twin practices
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of delay and exchange began to emerge slowly and painfully.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Then they became represented in metaphorical abstraction, as rituals and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: tales of sacrifice told in a manner such as this.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It's as if there is a powerful figure in the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: sky who sees all and is judging you.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Giving up something you value seems to make him happy, and.
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  Speaker 1: You want to make him happy, because all hell breaks
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: loose if you don't. So practice sacrificing and sharing until
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you become expert at it, and things will go well
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: for you. No one said any of this, at least
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: not so plainly and directly, but it was implicit in
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the practice, and then in the stories. Action came first,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: as it had to, as the animals we once were
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: could act but could not think. Implicit unrecognized value came first,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: as the actions that preceded thought embodied value but did
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: not make that value explicit. People watched the successful succeed
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and the unsuccessful fail for thousands and thousands of years.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We thought it over and drew a conclusion. The successful
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: among us delay gratification, the successful among us bargain with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the future. A great idea begins to emerge, taking ever
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: more clearly articulated form in evermore clearly articulated stories. What's
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful? The successful sacrifice?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Things get better as the successful practice their sacrifices. The
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: questions become increasingly precise and simultaneously broader, What is the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: greatest possible sacrifice for the greatest possible good? And the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: answers become increasingly deeper and profound. The God of Western tradition,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: like so many gods, requires sacrifice. We have already examined why,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: But sometimes he goes even further. He demands not only sacrifice,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: but the sacrifice of precisely what.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Is loved best.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: This is most starkly portrayed and most confusingly evident in
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham, beloved of God,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: long wanted a son, and God promised him exactly that,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: after many delays and under the apparently impossible conditions of
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: old age and a long barren wife. But not so
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: long afterward, when the miraculously born Isaac is still a child,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: God turns around and, in unreasonable and apparently barbaric fashion,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: demands that his faithful servant offer his son as a sacrifice.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: The story ends happily. God sends an angel to stay
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Abraham's obedient hand and accepts a ram in Isaac Stead.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing, but it doesn't really address the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: issue at hand. Why is God's going further necessary? Why
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: does he? Why is life impose such demands. We'll start
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: our analysis with a truism, stark, self evident, and understated.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Sometimes things do not go well. That seems to have
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: much to do with the terrible nature of the world,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: with its plagues and famines and tyrannies and betrayals.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: But here's the rub.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when things are not going well, it's not the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: world that's the cause. The cause is instead that which
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: is currently most valued subjectively and personally.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Why.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Because the world is revealed to an indeterminate degree through
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the template of your values. If the world you are
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: seeing is not the world you want, therefore, it's time
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: to examine your values. It's time to rid yourself of
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: your current presuppositions. It's time to let go. It might
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: even be time to sacrifice what you love best so
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that you can become who you might become, instead of
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: staying who you are. Tell your kid here's an impossible thing.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Why don't you go out and fail? You say, here's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: something worth going after. Here's a step you could take
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that would push you beyond where you are, but that
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you also have a reasonably high probability of succeeding at right.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: They call that within a time frame with in some timeframe.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: That's the other thing. You have to parameterize it with
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: regards to timeframe. That's right, and that puts you in
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the zone of proximal development. And that's a concept that
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was generated by a guy named Vigotsky. He was a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Russian developmental psychologist and a smart one. It's where the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: idea of the zone comes from. To be in the zone.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And when you're in the zone, you're expanding your skills
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: in a manner that's intrinsically rewarding because you're succeeding. And
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: so you want to set if you're good to yourself,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you think, okay, I need to set a goal, but
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I need to set a goal that someone as stupid
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and useless as me could probably attain if they put
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: some effort into it. And then you got it, then
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you've got it perfectly because it's not so high that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: it's grandiose or impossible that you fail necessarily and then
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: justify your bitterness.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, I.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Could do well, because that happens to people all the time,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you know. It's like, it's, yes, exactly, well, I set
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a goal and I didn't attain it, so I'm not
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: going to set any more goals.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, you set a goal that was inappropriate
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: for the timeframe. That's right.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: You didn't calibrate it properly, and you're playing a trick
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: on yourself because you wanted to fail so that you
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: could justify not having to try. I'd being a victim,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: which ishelpful.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: You're still going to be a victim.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, there's no way out of that, man, So
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you know, because life is this, life is a challenge
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that in some sense can't be surmounted. So there's no
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: way out of your problem, but there are certainly proper
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: ways of dealing with it. There's an old and possibly
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: apocryphal story about how to catch a monkey that.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Illustrates this set of ideas very well.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: First, you must find a large, narrow necked jar just
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: barely wide enough in diameter at the top for a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: monkey to put its hand inside.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Then you must fill.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: The jar part way with rocks so it is too
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: heavy for a monkey to carry. Then you must scatter
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: some treats attractive to monkeys near the jar to attract one,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and put some more inside the jar. A monkey will
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: come along, reach into the narrow opening and grab.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: While the grabbing's good.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But now he won't be able to extract his fist,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: now full of treats, from the two narrow opening of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the jar, not without unclenching his hand, not without relinquishing
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: what he already has.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And that's just what he won't do.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: The monkey catcher can just walk over to the jar
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and pick up the monkey. The animal will not sacrifice
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the part to preserve the whole. Something valuable given up
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: ensures future prosperity, Something valuable sacrificed pleases the Lord. What
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: is most valuable and best sacrificed, or what is at
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: least emblematic of that? A choice cut of meat, the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: best animal in a flock, a most valued possession. What's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: above even that, something intensely personal and painful to give up.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: That's symbolized, perhaps in God's insistence on circumcision as part
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of Abraham's sacrificial routine, where the part is offered symbolically
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to redeem the whole.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: What's beyond that, what.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Pertains more closely to the whole person rather than the part,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: What constitutes the ultimate sacrifice for the gain of the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: ultimate prize. It's a close race between child and self.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: The sacrifice of the mother offering her child to the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: world is exemplified profoundly by Michelangelo's great sculpture, The Pieta.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Michelangelo crafted Mary contemplating her son, crucified and ruined. It's
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: her fault. It was through her that he entered the world,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and it's great drama of being. Is it right to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: bring a baby into this terrible world? Every woman asks
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Mary answers yes, voluntarily, knowing full well what's to come,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: as do all mothers if they allow.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Themselves to see.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's an act of supreme courage when undertaken voluntarily. In turn,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Mary's son Christ offers himself to God in the world
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to betrayal, torture and death, to the very point of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: despair on the cross, where he cries out those terrible words,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: My God, why hast thou forsaken me Matthew twenty seven,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: forty six. That is the archetypal story of the man
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: who gives his all for the sake of the better,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: who offers up his life for the advancement of being,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: who allows God's will to become manifest fully within the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: confines of a single mortal life. That is the model
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: for the honorable man in case, however, as he sacrifices himself,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: God his father, is simultaneously sacrificing his son. It is
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: for this reason that the Christian sacrificial drama of son
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and self is archetypal. It's a story at the limit
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: where nothing more extreme, nothing greater, can be imagined. That's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the very definition of archetypal. That's the core of what
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: constitutes religious pain and suffering define the world of that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: There can be no doubt sacrifice can hold pain and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: suffering in abeyance to a greater or lesser degree, and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: greater sacrifices can do that more effectively than lesser. Of that,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: there can be no doubt. Everyone holds this knowledge in
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: their soul. Thus, the person who wishes to alleviate suffering,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: who wishes to rectify the flaws in being. Who wants
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to bring about the best of all possible futures, who
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: wants to create heaven on earth, will make the greatest
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: of sacrifices of self and child, of everything that is loved,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to live a life aimed at the good. He will
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: forego expediency, He will pursue the path of ultimate meaning,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and he will, in that manner bring salvation to the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: ever desperate world. But is such a thing even possible?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Is this simply not asking too much of the individual?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: It's all well and good. For Christ, it might be objected,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but he was the veritable son of God. But we
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: do have other examples, some much less mythologized and archetypal. Consider,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: for example, the case of Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: After a lifetime of seeking the truth and educating his countrymen,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Socrates faced a trial for crimes against the city state
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of Athens, his hometown. His accusers provided him with plenty
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of opportunity to simply leave and avoid the trouble, But
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the great Sage had already considered and rejected this course
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of action. His companion Hermogenes observed him at this time,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: discussing any and every subject other than his trial, and
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: asked him why he appeared so unconcerned. Socrates first answered
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: that he had been preparing his whole life to defend himself,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: but then said something more mysterious and significant. When he
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: attempted specifically to consider strategies that would produce acquital by
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: fair means or foul, or even when merely considering his
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: potential actions at the trial, he found himself interrupted by
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: his divine sign, his internal spirit voice or demon. Socrates
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: discussed this voice at the trial itself. He said that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: one of the factors distinguishing him from other men was
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: his absolute willingness to listen to its warnings to stop
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: speaking and cease acting when it objected.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: The gods themselves.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Had deemed him wise above other men, not least for
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: this reason, according to the Delphic Oracle, herself held to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: be a reliable judge of such things. Because his ever
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: reliable internal voice objected to fleeing or even to defending himself,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Socrates radically altered his view of the significance of his trial.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: He began to consider that it might be a blessing
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: rather than a curse. He told hermogenies of his realization
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that the spirit to whom he had always listened might
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: be offering him a way out of life in a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: manner easiest but also the least irksome to one's friends.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: With sound body and a spirit capable of showing kindliness
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and absent the throes of illness and vexations of extreme
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: old age, socrates decision to accept his fate allowed him
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to put away mortal terror in the face of death itself.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Prior to and during the trial, after the sentence was
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: handed down, and even later during his execution, he saw
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that his life had been so rich and full that
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: he could let it go gracefully. He was given the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: opportunity to put his affairs in order. He saw that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: he could escape the terrible, slow degeneration of the advance years.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: He came to understand all that was happening to him
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: as a gift from the gods. He was not therefore
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: required to defend himself against his accusers, at least not
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: with the aim of pronouncing his innocence and escaping his fate. Instead,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: he turned the tables, addressing his judges in a manner
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that makes the reader understand precisely why the town council
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: wanted this man dead, then he took his poison like
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a man. Socrates rejected expediency and the necessity for manipulation
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that accompanied it. He chose, instead, under the direst of conditions,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to maintain his pursuit of the meaningful and the true.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Twenty five hundred years later, we remember his decision and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: take comfort from it. What can we learn from this?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: If you cease to utter falsehoods and live according to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the dictates of your conscience, you can maintain your nobility
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: even when facing the ultimate threat. If you abide truthfully
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and courageously by the highest of ideals, you will be
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: provided with more security and strength than will be offered
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: by any short sighted concentration on your own safety. If
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you live properly fully, you can discover meanings so profound
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that it protects you even from the fear of death.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Could all that possibly be true?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: We're built for struggle, us human beings, not after the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: bubbles of bliss that Dostievski described in Notes from Underground.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: We're built to contend with the world. We're built to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: contend with reality. You want a challenge, and the best
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: way that you can take on a challenge, because a
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: challenge fortifies you. So you don't want to be secure,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: you want to be strong, and you get strong by
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: taking on optimal challenges. And so you lay out your
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: destiny in the world and you take the slings and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: arrows of fate and you make yourself stronger while you're
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: doing so. And you might fail and fortune might do
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you in, but it's your best bet. And you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: people have also people that have extracted unbelievable successes out
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of catastrophic failures and so and I'm not saying that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in a naive way. I know perfectly well what happens
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to people. You know, you're doing fine in life and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: then you get cancer and then six months later you're dead,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and all the heroism in the world isn't going to
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: save you at that point. But that's not the point.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: That's not the point. Life is bounded by mortality, but
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you don't get out there and contend,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and you develop by contending, and you minimize the net
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: amount of suffering in the world. And that's something man,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that's something to do.