I know how Gods begin Roger we start his dreams then we walk out of Dreams into the land we
are worshiped and loved and take power to ourselves and then one day there's no one
left to worship us and in the end each little god and goddess takes its last journey back
into dreams and what comes after not even we know this is the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar
discussing her experience in the 20th century in this new modern world of secular ideals
and individualism she's just barely able to scrape out an existence working as an exotic
dancer because it's a form of worship right she knows how fragile her power is and it's
made her pretty existential it's a really clever spin on an ancient character ripe with
fascinating questions and scenarios but this is just a snapshot if you want more go read
Neil Gaiman series The Sandman actually this is kind of a thing for Gaiman a lot of deities
appear in his works just look at American Gods that book is literally about dispossessed
and displaced deities and just like the human characters maybe even more than the human
characters he loves to pitch them into these fraught existential scenarios loves to make
them ask what is my role what is my purpose in this life where do my responsibilities
to humanity begin and end my responsibilities to myself do I really have control over my
own life my destiny considering all the many reasons people create deities the functions
they serve for mankind it's really interesting to see these archetypes in relief like this
humanized and forced to ask the same questions as you yes from a narrative perspective but
also from a personal perspective too I think out of all the deities he's toyed with in
his works the group who casts this perspective in the starkest light is a family of Incarnate
Concepts known simply as the endless
[Music] I'm so happy to say that this video is sponsored by Ren perhaps one of the only
legitimate ways to offset your carbon footprint and give back as much as you take definitely
one of our coolest sponsors so far more on that later
I mentioned how Gaiman puts a lot of gods and god-like beings into his works well the
Sandman alone is brimming over with divinity Odin Thor Loki Anubis bastusano Ono Mikoto
the fairfolk Titania Oberon the fates demons and angels of every cast and Creed even more
abstract ideals like Chaos and Order all of these make appearances as characters in the
story but above all of them Destiny death destruction despair desire delirium and dream
all parts of the human experience personified as a family of nigh omnipotent beings their
tasks are a bit nebulous but they sort of oversee the things that they represent death
ushers all those who die into the next life with all her compassion and understanding
desire drives people to pursue their urges fueled by a capricious understanding of what
moves the heart Destiny tends his garden through which the paths of every life wind you get
the idea but in all of this there's an important question that of responsibility in fact that's
one of the most important aspects of dream story he is the Sandman Morpheus of course
he is obsessed with his role as the shaper of Humanity's dreams absorbed by it in many
ways Bound by it but that begins to change when he is imprisoned a magician seeking immortality
hatches a plan to trap death arrest her prevent her from bringing him to the next life but
instead he catches her brother dream and while he's trapped his realm falls into decay it
begins to unravel Dreams and Nightmares enter reality dreamers become trapped in their sleep
and don't wake for years a great deal of damage is done to the dreams and aspirations of mankind
and to his realm the dreaming but when he's finally set free strangely he finds that things
aren't so bad as one might expect he embarks on a journey to set things back in order traveling
through various Realms of reality in unreality cleaning up the mess this meddling magician
created and there is a mess certainly but things have also gone right on working without
him dreams created and forgotten Ambitions birthed and pursued Humanity Being Human all
without him and he has to wonder if that's the case what is he what is he for what's
his purpose it's a question all of them must grapple with and not all of them are as conflicted
about it as dream in fact his brother destruction eventually decides to abandon his post entirely
as mankind steadily refines its capacity for Destruction to the point of developing weapons
so powerful they could destroy themselves outright destruction becomes jaded and despondent
destruction did not cease with my abandonment of my realm no more than people would cease
to dream should you abandon yours he Muses to dream perhaps it's more uncontrolled Wilder
perhaps not but now it's no longer anyone's responsibility people and things are still
created still exist are destroyed they tear down and they build things still change the
only difference is that no one's running it anymore it's nothing to do with me any longer
it's theirs they can make their own destruction it's not my responsibility and it's not my
fault what does it mean to be one of the Endless powerful Beyond imagination if the bounds
of your usefulness begin and end with creatures as fragile as humans if your entire existence
Your Role is prefigured by what humans are already doing doesn't it just kind of turn
you into a scapegoat a person to blame someone to Bear the burden there's a product in the
series that puts a really fine point on this exact crisis after some tip for Tat with Lucifer
over the ownership of some equipment which was stolen from dream during his imprisonment
they slowly develop a more amicable relationship and eventually Lucifer Morningstar decides
that he doesn't want to rule hell anymore he empties it of all the demons all the Damned
and hands the keys of Hell's gates to dream 10 billion years been providing a place for
dead Mortals to torture themselves he says and like all masochists they call the shots
Burn Me freeze me eat me hurt me and we did it can be difficult to Bear the burden of
your own actions thoughts desires feelings the fact that these things belong to you and
that on some level you are responsible for them so humans tend to project them onto others
absolve themselves of their own internal responsibilities however they can and often that means creating
something to carry those burdens Gods deities personifications whether it be mother nature
or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse you can find buried within them the shreds of
self which Humanity needed for whatever reason to pull out of themselves and put into something
someone else Lucifer is right and he goes on to put it into even clearer language as
he laments his role leading up to his own abdication of responsibility why do they blame
me for all their little failings he asked stream they use my name as if I spend my entire
day sitting on their shoulders forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive
the devil made me do it I have never made one of them do anything never they live their
own tiny lives I do not live their lives for them then they die and they come here having
transgressed against what they believe to be right and expect us to fulfill their desire
for pain and retribution I don't make them come here they talk of me going around and
buying Souls like a fish wife come to Market never stopping to ask themselves why I need
no souls no they belong to themselves they just hate to have to face up to it this is
a bit of an education for dream after his humbling entrapment the slow process of understanding
his role in the world draws him inexorably toward the truth that he is not necessarily
necessary none of the Endless are they are Shepherds to the errant psyches and experiences
of human beings which is certainly helpful but sheep can and do live without their Shepherds
dream himself makes this Proclamation when he chides his younger sibling desire for their
meddling in the lives of Mortals we of the Endless are Servants of the living we are
not their masters We Exist because they know deep in their hearts that we exist when the
last living thing has left this universe then our task will be done and we do not manipulate
them if anything they manipulate us from a strictly secular perspective I think this
is true for all deities the act of creating or giving your faith to such a being is itself
a type of manifestation whether the being in question actually exists is immaterial
to the fact that the concept of it a concept which can and does affect the world external
to you the believer is sculpted from the material of your own life in all of its power and influence
it's easy to feel as though it's making you but by adopting it by adding on to it even
just by observing it you are making it the role of a Shepherd is only necessitated by
the existence of sheep all that a Shepherd does is predicated on what sheep do thus are
the endless but the endless are more than that too I see their design highly conceptual
based on aspects of human experience as an overt acknowledgment from Gaiman that this
whole thing isn't really about Divinity it's not about gods and how humans make them it's
about how humans make themselves Divine beings are just one example of how humans use their
creativity to shape their outlook on the world which in turn shapes them you build stories
stories build you there's no morality in it I just find it to be beautiful and Salient
and true when dream confronted destruction about the abdication of his role he called
destruction one of the Endless it was meant to be an invocation a call back to responsibility
but destruction only looked at him across the dim Lantern light against the backdrop
of the countless stars and said the endless the endless are merely patterns the endless
are ideas the endless R wave functions the endless are repeating motifs the endless are
echoes of darkness and nothing more we have no right to play with their lives to order
their dreams and their desires echoes your voice comes back to you in the dark in every
way your creativity defines you this is what the endless have taught me I love this message
in part because it puts so much onus back onto you for your existence it helps reality
to feel a little less circumstantial and a little more directed a little more subject
to your agency in a world that feels in many ways like it's constantly right on the brink
of disaster plagued by problems we can't do much about that feeling is so so precious
actually I do know one other really meaningful way you can feel like you have a little more
control over your existence there's a certain painful nihilism that comes with knowing that
as a human being just the act of living is coming at a cost to the planet that nurtures
you but it feels like there's so little any one person can do about it you kind of throw
your hands up and go I guess I just have to not care which is awful the nihilism starts
creeping in and it's very hard to put to rest but it doesn't have to be that way what if
I told you that there was a way to quantify all the little ways that you're impacting
the world around you to break it down into numbers and then take a passive action that
barely impacts your life at all but still basically erases much of the damage you're
doing just by living a way to absolve yourself of the passive guilt most humans carry around
with them every day to feel a little better about the state of the world well with Ren
it's actually incredibly easy Ren is an app that allows you to track how much carbon your
daily life is releasing into the atmosphere and then gives you options for ways you can
contribute a little bit of money to project two's efforts will offset that damage and
in many cases even outweigh the damage that would have been done it sounds a little too
good to be true which is why so many companies have jumped on this model there are a lot
of services out there offering to do this but unfortunately what a lot of them do just
amounts to greenwashing in a lot of cases they're just outright scams so it's good to
be a little wary of this concept except when it comes to Ren because they are the real
deal they've created a system to actually make this concept work they have a small portfolio
of less than a dozen projects working to bring down carbon impact which they monitor extremely
carefully to make sure they're using the funds in the best way possible and sticking to their
promises that also provides a little bit of security D2 because should something happen
to any one of these projects your contribution will still be able to go out and continue
helping to undo the damage it costs way less than you might expect to virtually erase the
negative impacts your lifestyle has in the world but to be honest living guilt-free is
kind of Priceless this will make such a difference in how you feel about the world your optimism
for the future so if you've ever had these sort of nihilistic agonizing thoughts about
being part of the problem here's an extremely easy way to change all of that and the best
part if you sign up now using the link on screen or down in the description Ren will
cover your entire first month of offsets they'll take the guilt away for free for a whole month
once you know how good that feels I can almost guarantee you'll want to keep it up definitely
follow our link and go give Ren a try at any rate that's all for this video thanks for
watching and keep making stuff up I'll see you next time bye
[Music]
[Music] foreign