Final rule: it's called "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street".
And it's, it's a very- It's the most personal... chapter in the book. It's a lot about my daughter.
And my daughter was very ill, when she was...
Well, when she was a kid, but particularly when she was a teenager.
She had a very terrible time of it.
Um, she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
And, when she was between the ages of 14 and 16 at first,
[it] destroyed her hip, which had to be replaced, and then it destroyed the ankle on her other leg, which had to be replaced.
And she walked around, for two years, on broken legs.
and she was taking massive doses of opiates, and could hardly stay awake.
And, like... and she had this advanced autoimmune disease,
which produced all sorts of other symptoms, that were just as bad as the joint degeneration.
but which are harder to describe.
And so, it's just bloody brutal.
You know, and as a test of your faith - there's almost nothing, that's more direct than a serious illness, inflicted upon an innocent child, right?
And so, the chapter is a meditation on that, and also on... well, what to do in a situation like that.
Because everyone is going to have a situation like that, in some sense, you know?
Because, you'll be faced with illness in the people that you love, and in the crisis.
And so, it's a practical guide to coping with those sorts of things.
Like, and one of the things you do, when you're overwhelmed by crisis, is you shorten your time frame.
You know, it's like: you can't think about next month.
Maybe you can't even bloody well think about next week, or maybe not even tomorrow.
You know, because "now" is just so overwhelming, that that's all there is! It's like...
And that's what you do! You cut your timeframe back, until you can cope with it.
And if it's not the next week, that you see how to get through, then it's the next day.
And if it's not the next day, then it's the next hour.
And if it's not the next hour, then it's the next minute.
And you know, people are very, very, very, VERY tough.
And it turns out, that if you face things...
It turns out, that if you face things, that you can put up with - a lot more than you think, you can put up with.
And you can do it without becoming corrupted.
And she did recover, quite... quite fully.
And much as a consequence of her own machinations.
Because she figured out, was wrong with her, and then took the necessary steps to fix it.
Which is nothing short of a bloody miracle, as far as I'm concerned.
And, uh...
Anyways, part of the, the, the cat bit is...
I actually start by talking about our dog, who actually died about a year ago.
But he's still alive in the book, um...
You know, I let people know, because dog lovers love dogs.
And if you love cats, then they think you don't like dogs.
And then they, you know, don't like you. [audience laughter]
So, I also point out at the beginning of the chapter, that you know,
if you wanna pet a dog on the street, that's okay too, so you don't have to get up in arms about it.
But, but the idea is, that you know...
You have to be alert, when you're suffering, you have to be alert to the beauty in life.
The unexpected beauty in life.
And that's kinda what I was trying to get across, with the idea of the cat.
There's this cat that lives across the street from us, called Ginger.
And Ginger is a Siamese cat, and cats really aren't domesticated, they-
Technically speaking, they're still wild animals - but they kina like people.
God only knows why! But they do, you know?
And so, Ginger will come wandering over, and our dog looks at her, but they're friends.
And she rolls over on his back, and Siegel used to, you know, nose her a bit, and...
And then she'd kinda mosey over, and let you pet her, if she was feeling like it that day.
And you know, you have to look for those little bit of s...
that little bit of sparkling crystal in the darkness, when things are bad.
You have to look and see, where things are still beautiful, and where there's still something, that's sustaining and...
You know, you narrow your timeframe, and you'd be grateful for what you have.
And that can get you through some very dark times.
And maybe even successfully, if you're lucky.
But even if unsuccessfully, then maybe it's only tragic, and not absolute hell.
And you can do that, you know?
In the worst situation, you can make it only tragic and not hell.
And there's a big gap between tragedy and hell.
You know, there's nothing worse at a deathbed, than to see the people that are fighting.
The death is bad enough.
But you can take that, as terrible as it is, and make it into something that's absolutely unbearable.
And maybe, I think - and this is sort of what I closed the book with,
is this idea, that if we didn't all attempt to make terrible things even worse than they are;
then maybe, we could tolerate the terrible things that we have to put up with, in order to exist.
And maybe we could make the world into a better place, you know?
And it's what we should be doing, and what we could be doing! Because we don't have anything better to do.
And that's what the book is about, and...
That's the end of 12 Rules for Life.
[applause] Thank you.
[appaluse]