rules to the game are better for everyone they're better for the people that win they're better for the people that are coming up they're better for every yes if you actually have real structure and real rules yes and that you're better off being a guy like Wayne Gretzky yes better off being a guy who's respected it plays the game correctly and just does his best and really truly become a champion and loved by all because of it you're better off in every way right right and that's the most state the other thing that's so cool
about that so imagine this this is the antidote to moral relativism okay so the first thing is is that there are real problems and and hierarchical organizations can offer real solutions socially and personally so you can confront the problems courageously and you can solve them so that's real it ameliorate suffering and limits malevolence and so there's nothing morally relative about that the second is that sense of meaning that we discussed that's not some philosophical second-order consequence of thinking it's way deeper than that that sense of meaning tells you when you're Vygotsky Russian psychologist called that
the zone of proximal development which I believe is where the phrase the zone came from and so in the zone of proximal development this is what adults do with children little kids that are learning to talk adults automatically talk to little children who are learning to talk at a level that slightly exceeds their current vocabulary they do that without even knowing it and that puts those kids in the zone right because if you just talk baby talk to kids then all they learn is baby talk and if you just talk like an adult then they
don't understand a word you're saying so you'll find this happy medium in between where the kid mostly understands what you're talking about and that you're pulling them forward so that puts them in the zone and that's a meaningful zone and so you can feel the operation of that zone in your own life that's what the Daoists are on about because they say well you Dow is the way right and that's the pathway between chaos and order that's meaning and you can feel that in your life when you're deeply engaged in something like we have deeply
engaging conversations okay which is part of the reason that we keep having them and I think why they're popular and we're not paying attention to how the clock is ticking or how time is flowing or even to the fact that we're doing what we're doing we're just having a conversation and it's meaningful it's engaged it keeps our eyes focused and our senses concentrated on what and the reason for that is that there's enough information flowing between us so that we're being slightly transformed as a consequence of the discussion right so we're both comfortable we trust
each other we trust that the conversation is aimed at something that's of mutual benefit we a trust each other to tell the truth to the degree that we're capable of doing that and then when you engage in this exchange of information and to the degree that it's breaking you down a little bit and building you up in a different way that's a little death and rebirth there's constant little deaths and rebirths in a meaningful conversation then that keeps you alive and functioning and that that focus is like that that speaks to you so deeply that
that focus happens without any consciousness and that's meaning and that's that line between chaos and order and that's real that has nothing it's it's a it's and I would say here's another thing that's cool so that line between chaos and order that's the same thing that's happening when you're playing a game properly right because you're in the game and you're you're exercising your skill but you're pushing it but you're pushing it in a way that's also a benefit to your teammates and to the progression of the game as such and to being a better general
player you're doing all that at the same time and you're evolved with enough natural intelligence so that the sum total output of your nervous system says to you you're in the right place at the right time doing the right thing and that's what makes your life meaningful and that's real and I think it's more real than anything else I think it's more real than suffering I think it's more real than malevolence because it's the antidote to both of those and so the whole moral route moral relativism issue for me as a non-starter it's just wrong
there's lots of ways of interpreting the world but there aren't very many ways of interpreting it optimally and you can feel when you're doing that it makes you stronger and then the people that come to me after my talks and say well you know I've been putting my life together I've developed a vision I've been trying to be more responsible I've been trying to be more honest and put my relationships together they're all sparkly eyed because of this or crying sometimes because it's really had an impact out the money on them at a deep level
they think oh wow this actually works it's like yeah it actually works it's real it's real and I would say as well that that's associated with the idea of the deep Western idea of the logos which is meaning in action and speech so you know if we have a conversation that's meaningful then that's a manifestation of the spirit of the logos and that's the thing that destroys and and and recreates at the same time because you learn something it destroys something it destroys a little presupposition that you had that was erroneous and replaces it with
something that's healthier and every time you have a meaningful conversation that happens it's like a little tweak now I wasn't quite right here kick that moves and something new takes its place so and that's a little death and rebirth instead of the catastrophic death and rebirth that you might have to have if you weren't paying attention so that's all tied together it's all tied together with that phenomena of meaning and that's the same as the adoption of responsibility that all ties together so not so nicely they have a concept of meaning like what is important
that it's so it's so huge to people but so fleeting it's so difficult to like what is meaning well you know there's a simple ones right like family and loved ones and companionship and community and finding something that you enjoy doing that you know you can do that it seems bigger than you or bigger than yourself but but meaning like the meaning of life what is meaning and it's one of the things that gives people so much existential angst and I think is the cause of a lot of despair because there's well you can question
it yes but the thing is is that that's one of the dangers of rationality is that see the Egyptians associated the Catholics did this to some degree too they associated ration rationality with a proclivity to malevolence partly because rationality tends to fall in love with its own productions intelligence has this like inbuilt arrogance and the Egyptians in particular were really insightful they tried to replace the idea of intelligence as the highest virtue with the idea of attention as the highest virtue is something eldest Huxley knew he wrote a book called island the island was an
island that was populated by had a lot of birds on it and the birds could talk and all they did was say pay attention to remind everybody on the island to pay attention all the time but you you can under my your sense of meaning and you can question it but the best thing to do is to actually pay attention to when it manifests itself because it's a it's a phenomenon like like color or like or like love or like beauty it exists it isn't something you create it's something that you discover and you can
discover it you just have to watch like you're ignorant about yourself you think okay well I'm gonna I told my clinical clients to do this and my student says watch yourself for two weeks just watch like you don't know who you are and notice when you're doing something that you're engaged in it's like you'll see it maybe it's only ten minutes because your life is pretty out of balance but you'll see that oh man I was engaged in something there for ten minutes it's like why what was what did you do that was right that
engaged you you were in the right place at the right time doing the right thing for a few minutes what was it what were the preconditions there's this line in the New Testament Christ says the kingdom of God is spread across the earth but men do not see it and that's what it refers to is that you you you wander into paradise now and then when you're engaged and you're deeply engaged in something but you don't notice it you don't think oh look I'm in the right place and everything's working out right now it means
I've got it right somehow and then I need to practice being there more and more and more which is well that's the appropriate thing to try to practice and that's to make that's to come to some negotiated what would you call it it's do it it's to come to a negotiation with that intrinsic sense of meaning and to realize it as a fact rather than then just as an opinion or or something that's secondary because it's no eyein concept for people though to be so aware of who they are and what they're doing that they
could recreate that hmm so when they do feel that feeling of meaning that they could figure out a way to get back into this date and what were all the extenuating circumstances and where where's my head at what caused me to have this this feeling like things were right yes well it's like someone gives you a gift and you think well I'd like that gift again it's like yeah well you have to figure out what it was that you did to deserve it so to speak and yeah I know it requires a fair bit of
it requires a fair bit of careful reflection but it also requires that ignorance is you have to think well I don't know who I am I'm gonna find some things meaningful what are they they might not even be things you want to find meaningful they might be things that you might even be ashamed of you know because sometimes people are interested in things that they don't think that they should be interested in like maybe you'll have a guy who was who was this kind of a cliche but who was you know socialized to be real
tough guy and he finds out that he's kind of interested in art or aesthetics it's like while he's ashamed of that because maybe it's too feminine or whatever well it doesn't matter because that's actually speaking that that's actually something that's speaking to him from the core of his genuine being he's gonna have to pursue that or you might find you know that someone who's really agreeable and kind of a pushover stands up to someone just once at work says what they really think and then they realize afterwards wow you know that was exactly right then
they think oh my god you know I've decided when I was a little kid maybe they had a harsh father and they decided been there before I'm never gonna be angry in my whole life there's something wrong with aggression so they've gone out of their way their whole life to be free of conflict then they find out the one day they stand up for themselves that that whole domain that they'd parsed off as inappropriate is actually contains exactly what they need to put themselves together what do you find what you need where you least want
to look that's the old alchemical dictum in sterk wiliness infinite or right
