WEBVTT 00:00:27.309 --> 00:00:30.289 When we go through our... day -to -day through 00:00:30.289 --> 00:00:33.070 our day -to -day lives we're usually just too 00:00:33.070 --> 00:00:35.570 busy finishing up the many items on our to -do 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:38.710 list from the basics of living like taking care 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:42.350 of some you know personal hygiene getting access 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:46.350 to basic necessities like food and water completing 00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:48.729 at least the minimum for work school whatever 00:00:48.729 --> 00:00:52.369 else we're committing ourselves to When we aren't 00:00:52.369 --> 00:00:54.990 busy fulfilling our responsibilities, we are 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:59.850 usually consuming something as a way of enjoying 00:00:59.850 --> 00:01:04.310 or maybe escaping life, whether it's social life, 00:01:04.469 --> 00:01:07.709 buying something shiny and new, obsessing over 00:01:07.709 --> 00:01:11.209 some celebrity gossip. I don't know what you 00:01:11.209 --> 00:01:14.010 do in your spare time. Just fill the blank here 00:01:14.010 --> 00:01:16.150 with whatever it is that you do with your free 00:01:16.150 --> 00:01:21.060 time, right? When we step back and ask what it's 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:25.000 all for, all these daily tasks and all the things 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.219 we do to occupy ourselves may start to seem fairly 00:01:29.219 --> 00:01:32.120 meaningless, right? And all the things that we 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:35.340 get excited about just honestly in the long -term 00:01:35.340 --> 00:01:38.719 perspective, like I'm talking like in considering 00:01:38.719 --> 00:01:41.519 the entirety of your life or across generations, 00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:45.239 a lot of the things that we tend to care about 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:49.090 doesn't seem... all that important when we take 00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:52.569 this sort of bird's eye view? Am I really, for 00:01:52.569 --> 00:01:54.730 instance, doing all this work just to do more 00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:56.909 work, to buy more stuff, to continue existing, 00:01:57.230 --> 00:02:00.430 all this to just die at some point? What's the 00:02:00.430 --> 00:02:02.269 point of caring so much about, you know, the 00:02:02.269 --> 00:02:04.810 latest fashion trend, let's say, when all these 00:02:04.810 --> 00:02:07.129 trends eventually die and get resurrected at 00:02:07.129 --> 00:02:09.169 some later point and we just go around and around 00:02:09.169 --> 00:02:11.930 in a circle? Why have kids that'll eventually 00:02:11.930 --> 00:02:15.500 have kids, all of them to just... go down the 00:02:15.500 --> 00:02:18.259 inevitable path of just dying at some point, 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:20.979 right? What's the point of any of this? What's 00:02:20.979 --> 00:02:24.620 the point of living, right? Now, some of you 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:28.099 might immediately respond to such a dreadful 00:02:28.099 --> 00:02:30.659 kind of perspective and think that you have the 00:02:30.659 --> 00:02:33.439 answer, that life is meaningful in the time that 00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:37.219 you are living. That it's something about the 00:02:37.219 --> 00:02:39.860 relationship that you have or the knowledge that 00:02:39.860 --> 00:02:43.580 we build as a community or the way that you grow 00:02:43.580 --> 00:02:47.460 and experience certain things and cultivate certain 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:51.740 virtues through your years. Surely my life feels 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:56.080 very meaningful, doesn't it? But that's exactly 00:02:56.080 --> 00:03:00.360 the point. We believe lives at some, at least 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:04.169 some lives, maybe not all. We believe that. human 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:06.849 lives, to some degree, are meaningful. They're 00:03:06.849 --> 00:03:10.990 worth living, right? But without reflection on 00:03:10.990 --> 00:03:14.370 what it is that gives life meaning or, I don't 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:17.150 know, maybe a sense of purpose, we are doing 00:03:17.150 --> 00:03:20.889 nothing more than just spewing feelings or vibes, 00:03:21.030 --> 00:03:24.310 which may be true, but may also just be mere 00:03:24.310 --> 00:03:27.469 delusions we created for ourselves to keep ourselves 00:03:27.469 --> 00:03:31.639 going every day, right? there's a real possibility 00:03:31.639 --> 00:03:37.460 that our life is meaningless, that it's nonsensical. 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.500 We may have felt that way at times, and we do 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:42.960 things to turn away from it and give our life 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:46.340 meaning, right? I mean, look, you wouldn't have 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:49.939 goals unless you thought that there was a reason 00:03:49.939 --> 00:03:53.639 to have those goals, that those goals meant something 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:58.409 to you, right? But what happens when... All those 00:03:58.409 --> 00:04:02.949 goals no longer exist. It leaves you wondering 00:04:02.949 --> 00:04:08.810 why it is that we find lives meaningful and meaningless 00:04:08.810 --> 00:04:12.389 at times, and sometimes in ourselves and sometimes 00:04:12.389 --> 00:04:16.649 in others. Why we might say that some people's 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:21.269 lives were more meaningful than others. And I'm 00:04:21.269 --> 00:04:23.509 guessing that the answer to these questions matter 00:04:23.509 --> 00:04:27.029 to you since you're the one who's living this. 00:04:27.649 --> 00:04:32.350 meaningful or meaningless life. That there's 00:04:32.350 --> 00:04:34.769 a difference between the meaningful and meaningless 00:04:34.769 --> 00:04:38.550 life becomes fairly evident when you play the 00:04:38.550 --> 00:04:41.430 comparison game, right? Like, look, I'm thinking 00:04:41.430 --> 00:04:43.430 of like certain kinds of lives that, you know, 00:04:43.430 --> 00:04:45.990 when I look at it, I try not to be judgy, but... 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:50.000 It's hard for me to see certain lives as particularly 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:51.819 meaningful. Like I'm thinking of lives specifically 00:04:51.819 --> 00:04:54.120 like the following, right? Like a person who 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:56.279 spends all day doing nothing except watching 00:04:56.279 --> 00:05:00.120 endless reruns of terrible, terrible soap operas 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:03.660 and eating Hot Pockets and Cheetos. Only to eventually 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:07.079 die without any relationships, without any meaningful 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:11.639 impact on the larger world. Maybe they just didn't 00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:13.600 even work, right? They didn't engage with other 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:15.939 people. They just... They were just living off 00:05:15.939 --> 00:05:18.199 of some trust fund that was left on their behalf. 00:05:19.819 --> 00:05:23.220 Or I'm also thinking of a person who dedicated 00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:25.939 their life to what might seem like a meaningful 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:29.040 cause, let's say like cancer research and wanting 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:32.839 to develop a cure for cancer. And they pursued 00:05:32.839 --> 00:05:36.259 this at the cost of relationships, at the cost 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:40.100 of other sorts of pursuits that other people 00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:43.160 might have had, only to find that their research 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:46.779 did not pan out. I'm not just talking like, look, 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:50.040 they didn't find a cure, but then they developed 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:52.779 all kinds of interesting techniques that were 00:05:52.779 --> 00:05:54.899 later used for... I'm not talking like that. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:58.899 Their research produced absolutely nothing. It 00:05:58.899 --> 00:06:01.600 didn't rule out certain possibilities. It didn't 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:05.459 help develop some important information that 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:08.459 was used later on. They didn't contribute to 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.600 the overall body of scientific knowledge on cancer. 00:06:10.779 --> 00:06:15.120 They just... It just had zero impact, right? 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:18.100 I mean, there's something about that life that 00:06:18.100 --> 00:06:21.680 seems fairly meaningless to me, right? I'm guessing 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.699 they, the person themselves, might have questioned 00:06:25.699 --> 00:06:30.120 their life goals. They did all they could. They 00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:31.740 pursued something that they thought was meaningful. 00:06:31.939 --> 00:06:33.600 And at the end of the day, they have absolutely 00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:36.100 nothing to show for it. And then they might start 00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:38.079 asking themselves the question, why did I do 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:40.240 all this? Why did I waste all this time and energy? 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:44.540 only to produce absolutely nothing. I'm thinking 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.939 of the kind of people who, you know, let's say 00:06:47.939 --> 00:06:50.180 they think that they're impacting the world with 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:54.199 their Instagram stories, only to have, I don't 00:06:54.199 --> 00:06:56.139 know, maybe zero followers, or maybe the followers 00:06:56.139 --> 00:06:59.060 they have do absolutely nothing except doom scroll 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:01.600 all day, so they aren't really, like, didn't 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:03.680 have any impact on their lives or didn't move 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:07.040 them to do anything. Each of these lives that 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:12.560 I'm describing, you know, I'm assuming, like, 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:15.199 look, they themselves might be wanting a meaningful 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:18.660 life, right? But I'm assuming that people who 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:21.839 want to really have a meaningful life would not 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:25.620 want these sorts of lives, generally speaking. 00:07:27.079 --> 00:07:31.199 And it's important for us to kind of reflect 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:34.100 on why it is that we find some of these lives 00:07:34.100 --> 00:07:38.569 to be fairly empty. You know, it becomes clear 00:07:38.569 --> 00:07:41.269 that we do have some standards for what constitutes 00:07:41.269 --> 00:07:44.189 a meaningful life, that it's not just whatever 00:07:44.189 --> 00:07:47.050 you yourself find meaningful makes it a meaningful 00:07:47.050 --> 00:07:49.730 life, right? You could argue that each of these 00:07:49.730 --> 00:07:52.189 people may have found something that they valued 00:07:52.189 --> 00:07:56.470 in what they were doing, but something about 00:07:56.470 --> 00:08:00.350 their life seems to be missing something important, 00:08:00.509 --> 00:08:06.819 right? It seems to matter. Like, forget what 00:08:06.819 --> 00:08:08.560 you think about your own life, right? It seems 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:12.220 to matter whether or not a person's life has 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:16.519 some sort of impact on the world or others or 00:08:16.519 --> 00:08:18.800 themselves, right? It has some sort of impact, 00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:23.000 right? Like, zero impact seems to be a bad thing, 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:26.939 seems to take away something meaningful about 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:32.840 that person's life. Similarly, forming deep, 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:35.919 meaningful relationships seems to matter. Not 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:39.759 the danger of being circular here, right? But 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:44.419 look, relationships of a certain kind seem to 00:08:44.419 --> 00:08:47.860 not be all that meaningful, right? What kind 00:08:47.860 --> 00:08:49.460 of relationship am I thinking? I'm thinking of 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:52.240 the online ones with complete strangers that 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:55.399 you don't share anything deep or personal about 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:58.500 yourselves with. It's just a person that you 00:08:58.500 --> 00:09:01.120 regularly chat with about, I don't know, the 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.580 day. You have small talk and then, you know. 00:09:04.509 --> 00:09:08.250 That's it. Doesn't seem all that meaningful. 00:09:08.809 --> 00:09:13.029 But deep relationships, as you forge with friends 00:09:13.029 --> 00:09:16.730 that are intimate, with family members, with, 00:09:16.889 --> 00:09:19.429 you know, romantic partners, right? These seem 00:09:19.429 --> 00:09:22.750 to carry a kind of weight that other relationships 00:09:22.750 --> 00:09:26.990 don't. You might even think that developing yourself 00:09:26.990 --> 00:09:30.549 in some ways, not devolving, wasting your ability 00:09:30.549 --> 00:09:35.169 by just watching soap operas and eating Cheetos 00:09:35.169 --> 00:09:39.309 all day, that seems to matter. These things seem 00:09:39.309 --> 00:09:47.289 to matter. Look, more importantly, is that I'm 00:09:47.289 --> 00:09:50.570 not sure if humans are designed to live a meaningless 00:09:50.570 --> 00:09:53.509 life. The very idea that you are fine with just 00:09:53.509 --> 00:09:57.490 living a meaningless life honestly would raise 00:09:57.490 --> 00:10:00.169 a lot of questions, at least for me, about your 00:10:00.169 --> 00:10:03.330 mental health. I would wonder whether you have 00:10:03.330 --> 00:10:06.950 certain kinds of experience that has sucked the 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:09.169 life out of you, right? Like the animating force 00:10:09.169 --> 00:10:13.009 within you is just dead, right? There's something 00:10:13.009 --> 00:10:18.179 about... A life that is wanting to wake up, face 00:10:18.179 --> 00:10:21.720 challenges, do something with the day, care for 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:25.259 others, make an impact, right? Like develop something, 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:30.639 be useful. These things all seem to be part of 00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:35.519 what makes life worth living. And people who 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:39.639 don't find any sort of desire to do any of that. 00:10:40.810 --> 00:10:43.230 It sounds like depression. I'm not going to lie. 00:10:43.309 --> 00:10:47.350 It sounds kind of like depression. It sounds 00:10:47.350 --> 00:10:49.450 like there's probably a lot of deep -seated something 00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:51.470 going on that needs to be worked through, maybe 00:10:51.470 --> 00:10:54.289 in therapy, or maybe it's a medical thing. I 00:10:54.289 --> 00:10:58.590 don't know. But a life that you don't find any 00:10:58.590 --> 00:11:00.789 meaning in, honestly, it just doesn't seem like 00:11:00.789 --> 00:11:03.110 a life that you yourself would find worth living. 00:11:04.970 --> 00:11:09.210 So what do I mean by talking about all this? 00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:11.289 What am I trying to get at? I'm trying to get 00:11:11.289 --> 00:11:15.350 at the following, right? Which is, look, we all 00:11:15.350 --> 00:11:19.330 want to live meaningful lives. And if we're not 00:11:19.330 --> 00:11:21.889 lying to ourselves and to others, it does seem 00:11:21.889 --> 00:11:25.250 as if they're in the background, maybe not explicitly, 00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:27.909 maybe not something you thought about and reflected 00:11:27.909 --> 00:11:30.490 on, but in the background, there's at least something 00:11:30.490 --> 00:11:35.289 that is guiding your decision -making to formulating 00:11:36.169 --> 00:11:38.950 you know, a life for yourself, creating a life 00:11:38.950 --> 00:11:41.889 for yourself that you yourself find to be meaningful, 00:11:42.070 --> 00:11:46.309 right? And if you don't actually reflect on it, 00:11:46.370 --> 00:11:48.669 then you're just going around doing stuff. You're 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:53.570 just trying things out. I find that, you know, 00:11:53.570 --> 00:11:56.110 people are wanting to find meaning in their lives. 00:11:57.090 --> 00:11:59.899 I think it's a hard thing to do. And I think 00:11:59.899 --> 00:12:03.419 it's made even harder when you're flying blind, 00:12:03.659 --> 00:12:05.879 when you don't know what it is that you're doing 00:12:05.879 --> 00:12:08.399 and you're just trying stuff out. And you're 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:10.539 letting whether or not it feels good in the moment 00:12:10.539 --> 00:12:12.840 dictate whether or not you decide it's meaningful. 00:12:14.379 --> 00:12:18.820 I think when we slow down, take a step back, 00:12:18.899 --> 00:12:21.580 and start looking at not just our own lives, 00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:25.429 but the many lives that are lived. and we start 00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:29.289 seeing a continuity in what we find to be the 00:12:29.289 --> 00:12:31.990 kind of lives that you might want to emulate 00:12:31.990 --> 00:12:36.970 for yourself, the kind of lives you want to serve 00:12:36.970 --> 00:12:40.190 as a guiding light for what kinds of things, 00:12:40.269 --> 00:12:42.769 at least in theory, what kinds of things you 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:45.190 want to accomplish for yourself, you begin to 00:12:45.190 --> 00:12:48.730 gain greater clarity on your own life and what 00:12:48.730 --> 00:12:52.389 makes your own life meaningful. I imagine that 00:12:52.389 --> 00:12:56.470 there are a lot of commonalities for most people. 00:12:57.169 --> 00:12:59.870 Maybe not in substance, but in terms of the general 00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:03.309 framework for what makes life meaningful. But 00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:05.830 I also find that when we don't have these discussions 00:13:05.830 --> 00:13:09.889 out loud, because we want to let everybody find 00:13:09.889 --> 00:13:13.190 their own meaning, right? Then I think we lose 00:13:13.190 --> 00:13:16.450 something. We lose our ability to be able to 00:13:16.450 --> 00:13:21.120 gain clarity for ourselves. on what it is that 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:26.460 we really do find meaning in. We lose clarity 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:30.759 on our own purpose. So I hope that we can have 00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:34.919 this sort of discussion out loud, and not from 00:13:34.919 --> 00:13:37.220 a place of judging one another, but rather as 00:13:37.220 --> 00:13:40.019 a way for us to kind of explore alongside one 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:44.320 another the very things that seem to build a 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:48.139 meaningful life for ourselves. And to take from 00:13:48.139 --> 00:13:51.120 others' experience and, you know, the things 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.200 that drive them, the things that they pursue, 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:57.519 the things that, you know, bring them some sort 00:13:57.519 --> 00:14:01.299 of deeper joy or a sense of content or whatever 00:14:01.299 --> 00:14:05.299 else it might be, that you at least start to 00:14:05.299 --> 00:14:07.980 have a little bit more clarity for yourself on 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:10.159 how it is that you want to shape your life to 00:14:10.159 --> 00:14:13.419 becoming the kind of life that you, you know, 00:14:13.419 --> 00:14:15.600 want to wake up every day and want to live.