so I think I'll tell you what I've
learned over the last year I've traveled
to about a hundred and sixty cities
since last January with my wife Gannon
and spoken to about three hundred
thousand people that live events and so
the first thing I learned was that for
some reason I can travel to 160 cities
and speak to 300,000 people and that was
a shock in itself that it's a continual
shock that everywhere we go there's a
massive hunger for whatever it is that I
happen to be talking about and you know
I think about that constantly when I'm
discussing what I'm discussing with my
audiences trying to understand what it
is that's driving this I do that a
variety of ways you know one of the
things that do is listen for silence if
you have thirty five hundred people in
the auditorium and they all fall dead
silent what that means is that you've
touched on something of that's of
universal importance in that moment
anyways because it it supersedes the
topic supersedes anything else that's
being considered right it supersedes the
desire to shift your position in your
chair supersedes the desire to whisper
to your neighbor it it grips your
attention completely and enforces the
silence and it's a very interesting
thing to to to listen for that because
you see that people are in the grip of
something and then you have to puzzle
out what it is that
they're in the grip of I can tell you
some of some about that you know there's
this idea that became very popular in
the 1960s I just talked to Bishop a
bishop
Bishop Baron about a week and a half ago
for my youtube video channel and for my
podcast and I told him that I was a
strange psychologist because I never
told my audiences that and now I speak
to individuals in the audience I never
tell someone that they're OK the way
they are you know there's this idea that
came up in the 60s that you're OK the
way you are yeah and well I like that
idea very much and I think it's a very
bad idea especially when you're talking
to young people who are lost and
nihilistic and depressed and suffering
and aimless and ideologically possessed
and prematurely cynical because they're
not okay the way they are and if you
tell them that they are then they think
well this is it that's it that's life
it's like I've hit the pinnacle at 18 I
don't know anything about the world I
haven't contributed anything to it but
there's no up because I'm okay the way
they are the way I am it's like you're
not okay the way you are especially if
you're 18
you've got 60 years to put yourself
together and you better you better be
better at the end of that than you were
at the beginning or something has gone
seriously wrong and so it's not an
optimistic thing to tell people that
they're okay the way they are it's a
pessimistic thing because what you do is
denigrate what they could be for what
they are and and I know that is a
terrible idea technically speaking from
a psychological perspective because it's
who you could be that imbues your life
with meaning it's not the only thing and
you have your friends in your family but
they expect something from you to you
know expect the best from you they
expect a certain amount of improvement
especially if you have children but even
if you're our child you might
some improvement from your parents as
well but that's what you hope for is you
hope that the person can manifest what's
best in them and if they don't do that
then you're disappointed in them just
like you would be inexorably or are
inexorably disappointed in yourself if
you don't manifest what's best in you
and I think that that's very interesting
moral law you know I talk a lot to my
audiences about what I believe to be
incontrovertible facts and and I think
that the fundamental in contrary
incontrovertible fact is that life is
suffering and I think that that's why
that's a primarily primary axiom of
religious belief in some sense almost
regardless of the faith and the life is
suffering and everyone knows that
although they don't necessarily like to
admit it or to talk about it I mean you
don't have to scrape beneath the surface
very far in someone's life to find a
tragedy lurking if the person that
you're speaking with doesn't have
something pretty awful happening to them
right at the moment economically or
socially or within their family or
physically or mentally the probability
that someone they love has a problem of
that sort is extraordinarily high and if
you happen to be among the fortunate
minority for whom that isn't true well
all you have to do is wait and it will
be true soon enough and sooner than you
think and and worse than you imagined
and so and everyone knows that and so
it's easy to understand why people
become cynical and bitter and hurt and
nihilistic know I think there's a
progression in life you know if you're
naive you think that
life will be easy and that people are
basically good and then you have some
experiences if you're not sheltered too
much and that gets taken away from you
because you betray yourself or other
people betray you or or you encounter a
tragedy and then your naivety is
shattered and the most likely place that
you'll go from there is into something
approximating cynicism because you don't
know the alternative and your initial
faith which was not faith but naivety is
shattered by the terrible reality of
what you encounter and then you as a
cynical person you're more wise than you
are as a naive person and then that's a
strange thing because you're worse in
some sense than you were you know you're
not as optimistic and you're not as
filled with hope and your life is more
difficult and you're probably harder on
other people and with more of a tendency
towards cruelty and none of that seems
positive but there's a wisdom and
cynicism that the naive lack but the
problem is there that cynicism is not a
useful antidote to let's say tragedy and
malevolence because there are places
that you go past cynicism as you
approach wisdom and it's wisdom that you
need in order to fabricate yourself this
sort of vessel that will keep you afloat
during stormy times and so I talk to you
my audience is about wisdom and I think
I tell them other things that I believe
to be true it's like well life is
difficult and it's tainted by
malevolence and it's cast in tragedy and
you need something to offset that
because otherwise it embitters you and
if you're embittered then you become
vengeful and cruel inevitably and then
you make everything
that's made you worse worse in turn and
there's no bottom to that you know as as
anyone who's Steven them moderates
student of history soon comes to
understand oh there's an idea that hell
is a bottomless pit and the reason for
that is that there's no situation that's
so terrible that there isn't some damn
fool thing that some idiot can do that
will make it far worse and it's
reasonably probable that you're that
idiot and so the question is what might
constitute an alternative to that if
there is an alternative and you know I
learned a while back long while back
reading religious mythology mostly that
there's a difference between thinking
and paying attention and of the to
paying attention is much more important
it's it's not the same thing as thinking
like when you pay attention you're
looking for what you don't know like you
you kind of detach yourself and you
watch and you listen and you see if
things are the way you think they are
and you you hope they are because life
is easier if things are the way you
think they are but if you find out that
they're not and you're paying attention
then you can you can weave and you can
Bob and you can adapt and you can learn
and so you have to learn to pay
attention and I just ask people when I'm
speaking to pay attention to what they
already know here's something that
everybody knows you know in a world
that's consists of suffering and
malevolence who is it that you admire or
who is it that you don't admire those
are the same question if you know who
you don't admire well then you have a
negative model and you can go for the
opposite and if you know who you admire
well then you can copy that and the
instinct for admiration is an instinct
for imitation and we're very imitative
creatures and our our instinct for
admiration is the instinct for image
and what would you call it it deeply
biologically and metaphysically rooted
died line to the proper path of life the
question is is there a proper path of
life well there's certainly pathways
that make things worse that's something
to know you could avoid those and if
there's something that if there are
pathways that make things worse then
they're there there are the opposite
pathways even though those might not be
so clear I think that's why we're often
so enamored of of evil characters in in
in fictional representations is because
it's clearer it's easier in some sense
to make what constitutes the dark path
clearer it's easier for people to
understand whereas the path that's
positive is murkier and more difficult
to ascertain but at the very least you
know it's the opposite of that so well
who do you admire or we could start by
who don't you admire
well you don't admire an adult who won't
take responsibility for himself or
herself I could you know I understand
there are people that are so broken and
hurt that they need help constantly
because they can't take responsibility
for themselves or they can in small ways
but not not completely but you don't
admire someone who won't take
responsibility for themselves in fact
you have a sense of contempt for that
and if you happen to be that person then
you'll wake up in the middle of the
night and berate yourself with what's
left of your conscience for failing to
undertake your moral duty your intrinsic
moral duty and you can't escape that and
that's so interesting know that you
can't escape that if you were the
creature who could invent your own
values as Nietzsche suggested as an
antidote to the death of God then you
just forgive your transgressions and you
wouldn't suffer the bitter pangs of
conscience but you do and the reason you
do is because you're doing things that
are wrong and you should stop and you
know it maybe you can't and then well
let's say then the opposite is that you
admire someone who can take
responsibility for
himself or herself that's a start and
then maybe you admire someone even more
if they've forged their character
sufficiently to move past cynicism so
that not only they take responsibility
for themselves but they can take
responsibility for their family knowing
and they're there for the people who
love them when it's necessary and if you
do that then you have something I
wouldn't say necessarily to be proud of
but at least you have one less thing to
abrade yourself with not something and
then you can move past that and you can
say well maybe if you put yourself
together enough carefully enough spoke
the truth enough were courageous enough
and in spite of the reasons you have not
to be that you could also be someone of
benefit to yourself and your family and
your community and you partake in
structuring things in a harmonious
manner by living in that way it's a it's
a it's not an individual focused ethos
it's an ethos of harmony among levels
you should do what's good for you but it
has to be what's good for your family at
the same time and it has to be what's
good for you and your family and your
community at the same time and that
works musically you know what makes all
the levels work in harmony and and you
can tell when that's happening and this
is another thing that's of great utility
to know is that when you're in that
place where you're acting in the proper
manner and you're facing things
courageously and you're speaking the
truth
you're imbued with a sense of
fundamental meaning and that meaning is
the antidote to the catastrophe of life
and it's the it's the antidote
psychologically because you have to have
that meaning because otherwise your life
is too dark and too dreadful and it will
corrupt you so it's the antidote cycle
logically but it's also the antidote
practically because we're not nothing as
human beings you know they say that
we're made in the image of God and it's
hard to say what that means but it means
at least in part to participate in the
process of bringing the good into being
and we can all be that and the opposite
and if we accept our responsibility to
ourselves and to other people and to our
communities
and we lift that load up then we live
lives that are meaningful and that stops
us from being corrupt it it provides us
with the medication against catastrophe
and it also practically improves the
world that's the other thing it's not
just psychological it's you can make
things worse everyone knows that and no
doubt you have in many ways but you can
make things better and they actually get
better and there's reason for hope and
there's something to be said to know
that you're the sort of creature that
can look mortality and catastrophe and
malevolence straight in the eye so to
speak and nonetheless stand up and do
what's right and that all there is in
that is good and that's what I've been
telling people thank you very much
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