you have to say i'm going to act as if being is good i'm going to act as if truth is the pathway to enlightenment i'm going to act as if i should pursue the deepest meaning possible in my life and there's reasons to do none of those they're real reasons so it's really a decision but you can't find out what the consequence of the decision is unless you make the decision [Music] you know i have done my best with every single thing i've talked to you guys about i have done my best to do what
dostoevsky does in his novels which is i make a proposition and then i spend months or years trying to figure out if i can take the bloody thing apart if there's something wrong with it because i want to find out i want to hit it with a hammer and see if it breaks and what i've been trying to do is to tell you all the things that i've gathered let's say or or laid out or articulated or discovered over the last 30 years that i have not been able to break with the biggest hammer that
i could take to them and i guess that's the fundamental one is that i i believe that the the idea that lurks in these images derived from very different cultures it's the same idea life is suffering right indisputable what do you do about that you voluntarily accept it and then strive to overcome the suffering that's a consequence of that and you do that for you and you do that in a way that makes it better for other people and then that works and one question might be well how well does it work and the answer
is the only way that you can find out is by trying it that's it that's the existential element of it the proof is to be derived by the incarnation of the attitude in your own life no one can tell you how it will work for you it's the thing that your destiny is to discover that and you have to make the decisions to begin with because you can't do this without commitment you have to commit to it first that's the act of faith that the kierkegaard was so insistent upon you have to say i'm going
to act as if being is good i'm going to act as if truth is the pathway to enlightenment i'm going to act as if i should pursue the deepest meaning possible in my life and there's reasons to do none of those they're real reasons so it's really a decision but you can't find out what the consequence of the decision is unless you make the decision i think the same thing happens when you get married by the way if you think you might leave you're not married and then you think well the marriage didn't succeed it's
like well maybe you were never married because the rule is you don't get to leave and there's a reason for that rule now i'm not saying that there aren't situations where there should be exceptions made for that that's not the point the point is that there's some games you don't get to play unless you're all in the other thing that's so interesting about being alive is that you're all in no matter what you do you're all in this is going to kill you so i think you might as well play the most magnificent game you
can while you're waiting because do you have anything better to do really why not pick the best thing possible that you could do why not do that maybe you could justify your wretched existence to yourself that way i think you could that's what it looks like you know people find such meaning in the responsibilities they adopt it stops making them ask questions about what life is for if you have a newborn child for example like unless you're really in a bad way psychotically depressed or maybe your personality really needs some retooling you stop thinking about
anything but ensuring that that baby is doing well and if someone comes along and asks you an existential question about your commitment to that the right response is why are you asking me such stupid questions when this is manifesting itself right in front of your eyes like how blind can you be that isn't a time for for questions about the meaning of life the answer is right in front of you and if you can't see it it's not because life has no meaning it's because you're blind i mean that's what the image of the virgin
mother and the child is all about it's like what's the answer to the meaning of life here's an answer it's like well i'm going to criticize that well go right ahead you're like a termite gnawing on a temple there's no utility in that sort of criticism it's blindness and it's the same thing with regards to the path of the hero it glistens in front of you and you can criticize it it's like fine put the cart before the horse and see how far you get [Music] [Music] you
