Finding Happiness In Being Alive

Hello. Today I'd like to talk about finding happiness in being alive. Um, I guess a lot of the videos I make are about this topic, but there's there's something I want to talk about that is related to two experiences I had recently.

uh one very early this morning when I was still asleep and another one yesterday when I was awake. So the the the first one I want to talk about is a dream I had. I had a dream where I was hanging out with a friend of mine who's been dead for um 16 years.

He was a really cool guy. Um, he sat next to me in class. This was in medical school.

Uh, he had sandy blonde hair that it kind of kind of stuck up a little bit. It looked like he had permanent bed head. Like it looked like he just rolled out of bed every day.

And um his eyelids were just a little bit droopy, but he always had this goofy grin on his face, so it looked like he was high on marijuana like all the time, but I I don't even I don't think he he did. Um I don't think he used marijuana. Um and he was quick to laugh at things.

Um, he didn't take things too seriously and he talked kind of slow and he was really chill. Just really chill dude. Uh, he kind of carried the stereotypical like surfer dude bra kind of yeah man vibe.

Um, which that stereotype I'm not quite sure how that stereotype came about because I I used to live in the central California uh coast and surfers aren't very chill if you ask me. At least the ones I met. Surfers are pretty aggressive and like territorial.

And um I think it comes from I'm digressing a little bit, but this it comes from when you catch a wave, you got to catch it at a very particular spot. Uh and there's only like one real good takeoff spot for each wave. So you got to kind of jostle for it.

Um and if there's too many people out there, then people get aggressive. They aggro. Uh even like to the point where um I heard stories of surfers carrying knives on them and then they will uh if someone is really just getting in their face, they will take their knife out and they'll stab the other guy's surfboard.

And what that does is the surfboard is encased in fiberglass. Uh but if it if the fiberglass breaks like with a knife stab, then the board becomes water logged because there's foam on the inside. Uh then that surfboard's unusable.

Um, but this guy, this my friend, my friend was not like the aggro surfer trying to protect his surf surf takeoff point. Uh, he was like the guy that was like really chill and just happy to be alive, happy to experience things and hang out with people and go through the experience of being in medical school. interesting uh finding interesting things about himself and others and just the experience of being alive.

He was a happy dude from what I could tell. Um he he made me happy uh when I was sitting next to him and I hang out with him like outside of uh outside of school. I wasn't like really close friends with him, but um we had a lot of gatherings outside of med school with you know classmates and you know whenever it was a bigger group and he and I both happened to be there I go over and say hi or he'd come over and say hi and we just hang out and chat and um he brought happiness to my life.

I I I I like the guy. Well, unfortunately, he died. He died uh very shortly after we graduated.

I don't know the exact details of what happened, but um from what I heard, uh he was out he was out with friends. they were he was an intern like I was an intern and we but at a different um different hospital on the other side of the country um and he was drinking with friends and uh got got too drunk and threw up and then this is what I heard he tore a blood vessel that's going up to the brain and had a dissection and a stroke that that just means the lining of the blood vessel gets torn and then it gets clogged up uh and then it clots off. And the thing about the brain is we have four main blood vessels that feed the brain and in most of us there's redundancy between those four.

So if one gets blocked off uh the other three can compensate but not in everybody. uh sometimes not sometimes people don't have the connections to um uh kind of redo the plumbing of the brain if one gets blocked off. Sometimes one blood vessel is supplying a very critical part of the brain and that the other three are not connected to.

So if that one blood vessel gets knocked out, you die. Well, he died. It It really uh made me sad.

Made me sad because like of all the people to die, this is such a cool guy. He Well, last night I actually I saw him in my dream. Uh, I was I was in a passenger van.

Uh, like a van, a small van that you take on a tour. Uh, or that's like shuttling people around, like an airport shuttle van or something. Uh, I was sitting in the second row on the the the v the sliding door side behind my friend.

My friend, my friend was sitting in the uh front passenger um seat and uh there was another guy driving and he he's actually a guy that I who's still alive. He actually lives not too far from me who um is an orthopedic spine surgeon that that I collaborated with uh when I was working. Um, so he he's still alive, but he was sitting in the drive he was driving the van and my my dead friend was in front of in front of me, but he was alive in my dream.

Um, and we were driving over this dusty hill. Rocky, well, maybe not dusty. It was rocky.

There weren't that many trees. Uh, but we were up on a ridge and it was kind of like I thought it was dawn or the twilight before dawn. Um, but I'm not sure.

It was dark, but down from the ridge in the distance far away, we could see this beautiful city. I thought it was Seattle, but it wouldn't make sense if it's dawn. And this city was like lit up in all these beautiful colors.

orange, purple, yellow, gold, uh, green, blue, uh, violets there. There just but it was a lot of like pink, orange, and yellow. And it seemed like it was coming from the ground and the city itself and the sky.

It was coming from everywhere, but it was really focused around the city. Um, and I've just never seen colors like that. I've never seen something so pretty.

And my my friend had some special camera. I don't never even seen anything like it. It was kind of like square and white and white with metal on it and a big screen.

and he was like holding it like this and looking out onto the u capturing the image of this beautiful I don't even know what you call it. It's like a sunset and a sunrise combined. And and I I I had my iPhone with me and I was like, "Wow, this is so pretty.

I I want to capture this so I can share it on YouTube so people can see how pretty this this city is with this light. Um, so I I took out my iPhone and I tried to take a video of it, but the van window was too tinted. So I I gave it to my friend and I said, "Hey.

" I said his name in my dream. I'm not going to say his name just for privacy because yeah, there's no reason to say his name publicly. I gave it to him.

I said, "Hey, can you get a can you get the picture of this this these beautiful lights? " And he said, "Yeah. " He took my phone and he was trying to get a good picture.

And the van was moving. So, you I was I was hoping that he would get a picture that wasn't blurry. and I woke up.

Well, that dream I'm really grateful for that dream. I I was really grateful to hang out with him again. Yeah, he's a cool guy.

I also think it was maybe he was trying to tell me something. I don't know if people's souls stick around in some way after their body dies. I I I don't know.

There are all these stories of like people contacting people after they died. like maybe not necessarily ghosts, but spirits or some something. Um, I feel like my friend came to tell me something and I think what he was telling me was, "Hey, hey, Gooby, look how beautiful it is to be alive.

And I I saw it. I was like, I've never seen anything so beautiful. I want to share it on my YouTube.

And and coming from my friend, um, you know, he's not alive anymore, but he might still exist somewhere in consciousness. Uh, his spirit may still be around. I I think it is.

I don't know. Maybe it's just part of my memory bringing bringing him back. But, you know, he he's not able to experience life the way that uh you or I can, like real life.

And I think he was telling me how beautiful it is to be alive. Uh, I think he probably misses it. Well, I'm I'm grateful that I'm alive still.

I'm grateful that I get to experience every moment. Like I I can see the leaves, the blue sky, feel the breeze when I walk outside. I got my doggy Dubie.

We share our experiences together. And she sleeps next to me. She sleeps next to my leg.

We actually took a nap. I just woke up from a nap. She was sleeping next to my thigh.

Both napped because um because yesterday I kind of overdid it. Um well that that brings me to the second experience. So the first experience, you know, I was talking about from the perspective of someone who died.

I think being alive is actually something that's just so incredibly beautiful that it's it's something to cherish. And if I think my my dead friend was telling me cherish being alive. The second experience was um I went I went climbing up a mountain um with my wife yesterday and it's one of the volcanoes here, snowy volcanoes uh very tall.

We didn't go all the way to the top because that requires two days. But we made it up to the halfway point uh where people usually camp and then they set out the very next day early in the morning to summit to the very top of the mountain. But we made it to uh the the base camp and it was hard.

I've done this hike three times. That was my third time. I did it once with Doobie.

She she came up there and I did it once with whiskey rye and I did it once with my wife. I've done it with three different people but the same me each time. And it got me thinking about there's a story called um well no before I get there I was thinking gosh I've done this three times.

Uh, well, before I went on this hike, I thought, I've done it twice. I I wonder if I still will like this cuz I'm going up the same mountain path. Like, I've done twice before, and it's with a different person, but it's the same path around the same time of the year.

Will I still enjoy it, or will I think it's boring? I wasn't sure. And it made me think of a story.

Um, it's a myth. There's a myth of Seephus. That's some Greek.

I don't know if Seephus was a god or or or human, but what happened is that story of the myth of Seisphus. I'll explain. and uh and that that's the rest of this talk is um what that has to do with being happy and being alive.

So, Seisphus uh was a person. I'm not sure if they were a god or or human. Uh and they they found a way to imprison death so that humans wouldn't die.

So it must Seephice must have been some kind of god. So Seephus wanted to spare humans from dying so that they could stay alive and enjoy being alive. So Sephus found a way to put death in a prison of sorts so death could not visit humans and take them away from life.

Uh but the rest of the gods figured this out and then freed death. Now that death came to Seisphus and it was time for Seisphus to die, but somehow Seephus escaped the underworld, came back to life. And so he just kind of causing trouble.

So the um the gods they had to come up with a punishment for Seisphus for these two very disruptive acts disruptive to the way things work. And so they punished Cisphus by binding him to do a very particular task for eternity. He was tasked with carrying this rock or rolling this rock up this mountain.

But once he gets to the top of the mountain, the rock rolls back down to the very exact same spot it was before. and he has to go walk back down the mountain and then pick up the rock or roll it up to the top. And when he gets to the top, the rock falls down to the same spot for eternity.

So that was his punishment is to um stay alive but in being alive to do what seems like the same task over and over and over and over again. Now, I I I was gonna say the same task because you would think about it as like, okay, well, he's taking a rock from one point to from point A to point B, and point A and point B are the same every time. So, he's doing the same task for eternity.

That that's got to be like the definition of boring. That that was like mental torture. But is it really the same task every time?

And so that this is what I was thinking about because I was climbing this mountain path now the third time. Uh and I don't think it's the same task every time because every moment in life is different. Every moment in life is unique.

It's like all the beautiful colors my friend was showing me of the city. I was climbing up this mountain path for the third time, but it was different this time. I did start from point A to point B.

We went to the exact same spots pretty much, but this time it was a little bit earlier in the year. There was more snow. In fact, the whole thing almost was covered in snow, so it was a little slower going.

Have to be careful not to slip because if we slipped, we could like fall quite a quite a ways and really get hurt, like break a bone or something. Um, and when you when you hike in snow, it's easy to get lost because the trail is not as set. And it's just more effort because when you step the your your foot sometimes plunges even like a foot or more into the snow and then you got to lift it up out and then take another step and it plunges down.

But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes there's like hard pack snow and just crunches. But then the next step you plunge and so it's like you're not quite sure when you're going to have to exert a lot of energy to lift your leg up out of out of a big hole or you don't.

So it's mentally challenging especially climbing up steep mountain slopes and snow because each step your foot kind of gives a little bit. So you take a step up but you slide down a little bit. Um the weather was about the same as the other times.

Uh so and in a lot of ways it was very similar to the other times except for the beginning part was covered in snow, but the ending part is always in snow because it's it's a it's a snowy volcano. It's covered in snow all year round. So the ending part was the same.

Well, kind of. So, I was thinking h I was trying to pay attention to how I feel particularly for the last part that is very similar to the other two times. Like what am I bored?

Am I not happy to be here? Am I just wishing to get the hard part done? Am I like really not liking the fact that I chose to climb up a really steep snow field that requires a bunch of energy?

And uh you know, I live at sea level, but this is up at like I don't know what elevation it is. I think like 6,800 ft or something. So it's above a mile high above above sea level.

So my my body is used to sea level oxygen concentration, but this is much higher. So the oxygen is much lower. So my body feels tired because it's not used to having that thin of air.

Yeah. I was was thinking there are times when I've hiked and and I said, "Oh, I just got to make it the next mile. Just got one more mile.

Okay, I just got to get it next 3/4 of a mile. Oh, this is so tough. I don't feel good.

Just got to make it another half mile. and I I I want to be there, but I'm not there. I don't want to be here.

I want to be there. I was trying to pay attention to that. But this time, I wasn't feeling that.

I was just happy to be outside. I was happy to be walking up a mountain in the snow. I had my ice axe for safety in case I slip and start sliding.

had my waterproof shoes and micro spikes and my sunglasses and hat and I buffed because it's so bright. So bright on the snow. My body was working hard.

I was breathing hard. It was really bright. No clouds.

I was there with my wife. My wife was keeping up. She never done anything that extreme before.

So, I was worried that she would find it too hard, but she did it. I was also worried that she would kick my butt afterwards and be like, "Why the heck did you bring me on that hike? " But she didn't.

She was like, "Wow, that was the most extreme thing I ever did. " And it's a memorable experience, a once-ina-lifetime experience. She made that clear, but she was really happy to do that.

So, even though I went up the same mountain the third time, same hiking path, it really wasn't the same hiking path. Like, it wasn't the same experience. It was the same path from point A to B, but it wasn't the same experience each time.

First time, second time, third time. And I think in life we can do something similar every day. Like you can show up to the same job Monday through Friday or other days if you work other days.

And it can seem like the same thing every day. Uh but it's not actually the same thing every day because every moment is unique. You're different.

I'm different. Time has passed. The job is different.

The circumstances are different, even if just slightly, but they are different. We don't do the exact same thing every day. Every day I go to sleep.

Well, usually I go to sleep and I wake up and then I eat something. I drink something. I pee.

I poo. I walk around. I um sometimes usually I talk to somebody.

Uh uh but yeah, I do that every day, but every day is different. It's not the same. And that's that's really comforting to me to know that uh every moment in life is unique.

And I it makes me able to appreciate that I have this experience where I get to see and feel and smell and hear and taste, touch. I get to feel different things every day. Like my friend was showing me this the beautiful lights over the city or coming from the city really.

So beautiful those colors. Drams. Yeah, I get to experience dreaming.

That that's that's really cool in itself. Like I don't think we talk about dreams very much in our culture, but we spend like a third of our life asleep. And part of that is spent dreaming.

Draming is so interesting. Uh, dreams are dreams are really cool. I get to experience that.

I never dreamt about hanging out with my dead friend until today. I'm grateful for that. Well, that that myth of Seisphus is something that um this one philosopher uh oh I'm trying to remember his first name.

I think it's Albert. I might be totally wrong of that, but Camu. C A M U S Kamu.

I think he is French. He wrote a book uh I think it was called the myth of Cisphus um where he talked about this character who has to push the rock up the mountain and it falls down and pushes up the mountain and falls down and um I read this book a long time ago but two nights ago I just reread the synopsis because this hike was making me think of it And Kimu says that there is a an absurdity about living. And that absurdity comes from human beings wanting to find meaning in the universe.

But the universe just responds with silence. the universe doesn't respond to our quest for meaning in our lives and that's what's absurd. Um but Camu was saying that in order to in order to to be happy to be happy in this experience of being alive, you have to embrace the absurd the absurdity of this situation fully.

that we want meaning but there is no there is no external meaning imposed on us only our internal meaning. Wow. Uh, Camu was saying that the only way to really fully embrace it is to live.

Not to die, not to give up on life, but to live. Interestingly, he was saying that hope is detrimental to embracing this absurdity fully. I'm not quite sure I understand that, but I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

Why would hope be detrimental to fully living and being happy? Well, I'm going to try to tackle that because I I thought that I we should have hope because I'm going to talk about what I used to think and what I think now. So, what I used to think up until very recently is that hope is good because hope hope is is an optimism that things could be good or better in the future.

But I think I understand why Kimu says that even having a little bit of hope is detrimental uh to living because I think hope comes from a place that says that something in the present is not good. something in the present is bad and should be overcome or uh removed or destroyed uh changed. Um it comes from a place well of duality.

It comes from a place of rejecting something that is the present. Something about the present. You're you're rejecting and then you're hoping for a different life in the future.

But the future doesn't exist. Only the present exists. Um so I think I think I'm understanding a little bit better about how hope can be detrimental.

Interestingly, there's another YouTuber named Andrea P who makes um YouTube videos trying to explain the predicament our civilization is in. Highly recommend her YouTube channel. She's an excellent teacher and and explains things in a way that makes a ton of sense.

So, Andrea P. Uh, one of her videos was talking about how hope is illusory and it leads people to um, not see the reality of of life. And so I immediately thought of her when I was reading about Kimu saying that hope can be detrimental or is detrimental even a small amount.

And and that was kind of going counter to what I was thinking. I was thinking that it's good to have hope so that you keep going and you don't give up. But I think I understand better now.

I'm going to try to put my thoughts together and explain my understanding of being alive and being happy and what if hope has anything to do with it. I I think hope is actually an impediment because it comes from a place of duality. Saying that something about the present is not good and not desirable and that in the future maybe there will be something good and something desirable.

Um that immediately I think makes you unhappy. you're immediately unhappy. Um I I I think that this duality thing um drives people to these states of disease.

Disease And it also comes from a faulty assumption that if you don't if you don't if you don't do something if you don't do some action that um things will stay bad. Um you'll never get what you want. Um you have to do it to get there.

Um but if you don't exert this action then things will stay in a particular configuration or experience. But I think that's wrong too because things change all the time like every moment is different. Everything changes.

So I think it comes from two faulty assumptions. One is that things won't change if you don't do something about it. And then two, which is wrong because things change all the time whether you do something about it or not.

You're always you're always making choices. So you're always doing something about something. Um uh but they're going to change for sure.

They're never going to stay the same. So that that that assumption is wrong. And then the other assumption that uh things are either good or bad, I think is false, too, because I think things are just the way they are.

It's just life. It is this pretty city that's lit up in all these beautiful colors. Can't tell if it's dawn or sunset or twilight.

It's just beautiful. It's not good. It's not bad.

It just is. It's just life. Now there can be times when I suffer.

Um, do I think suffering is good? No. But is it bad?

Not necessarily. Well, I suffered some going up that mountain side yesterday and even this morning. This morning I woke up and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I don't feel good.

" I think I overdid it. I did over I did overdo it yesterday. That's why I was taking a nap with Dubbie.

Um, so yeah, I suffered yesterday and this morning. But was that a bad thing? No.

I mean, yes and no. It was both. It just It just is.

Like I suffered because I wanted to go up the mountain and I had an amazing experience seeing this beautiful mountain with this covered in snow and there's glaciers and there's other people hiking up to reach the top and my wife was there. I've never seen her do anything so tough before. She's a tough lady.

So that suffering helped me get to experience something that was really memorable to me and I appreciate it. So I I'm I'm trying to approach life now not so much from a a point of saying, "Oh, where I am is not good, it's bad. I need to be somewhere else.

" I think that that is a place of unhappiness. Like if I'm climbing up the steep snowfield and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, my legs hurt so bad. I can't breathe very well because air is thin.

Uh I'm so tired. I really don't want to be here. I want to be at the top.

" And I just keep thinking, "I want to be at the top. I want to be at the top. I'm going to be very unhappy the rest of the hike all the way up to the top.

" But I I didn't do that. When I would get tired, I was like, "Oh man, my legs are tired. It's hard to breathe.

I'm going to just take a break, look around. " And like I just rest my legs and I look around and there's Canada all the way in the distance. I can see the valley where Vancouver, the city is.

And it's like, oh, it's so pretty. It's like, wow, I can see so far from this mountain. And then I got my energy back.

I can go a little bit more, you know, stepping in the snow. putting my ice sacks in. And then I'm like, "Oh, I'm really tired.

Got to take a break. " But enjoying every moment of it. Happy that I'm there.

Happy to know that every moment is unique. Well, my friend, I think I think my friend still exists even though his body is dead. His body left us many years ago.

Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's been It's been 16 years. Yeah.

So, even though my friend's body left us, I think he's still around and I got to hang out with him this morning. At least he's around in my memory. But I think I think it's probably more than that.

I there's no way for me to know for sure. Um I think it's more than that. I think he came to tell me something important to my dream or just to hang out and see something really cool.

It was really cool. Even he thought it was really cool. I don't know what he's been up to since he's been dead, but he thought it was cool enough to pull out his weird camera device.

I've never seen anything like it. It's pretty big. It's like it's like this big and he's holding both sides of it and big screen and lens and he was capturing the image.

So he you know he thought it was cool and he's been dead for 16 years. Well, I got to experience that in my dreams with him and I'm grateful. That was really cool.

I got to be on a mountain side with my wife. Never thought I'd do that cuz she likes outdoor stuff, but nothing that extreme. But for some reason, she agreed to do this with me yesterday and that was really neat.

Uh well, so th those are my two stories about finding happiness in being alive. I think comes from a place of knowing that every moment is different. Even if you think you've done something before, you've never done it this way before because every moment is different.

You're different. The situation is different. Even Seephus who carries that rock up the mountain.

Each time he does it, it's the same path. He's different or Yeah. that that God's different.

Oh, and Kamu says, uh, well, I I have to read the actual quote. Um, so here's the ending of Camu's book. He says, "I leave Seisphus at the foot of the mountain.

One always finds one's burden again, but Seephus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. " This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile.

Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that nightfilled mountain in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Cephus happy.

Yeah, I I think so. Well, I imagine you happy, too. Hope you have a good day, good evening, wherever you are.

And uh thanks for watching this video. Bye.