I talk to people very frequently whose
families have provided them with too
much protection and they know it
themselves and that means they’re
deprived of necessity you know one of
the things that you see in the United
States for example is that the children
of first-generation immigrants often do
better than the children than their
children and the reason for that is that
those children are first-generation
immigrants have necessity driving them
and you don’t know how much you need a
necessity to drive you because maybe
you’re not very disciplined and if any
catastrophe doesn’t immediately befall
you if you don’t act forthrightly today
then maybe you never act forthrightly
right because that the gap between your
foolishness and the punishment is is
lengthened by your unearned wealth and
so you never grow up and learn and you
have to get yourself away from your
dependency in order to allow necessity
to drive you forward and that’s to
become independent and to become mature
and I think part of what’s happening in
our culture is that the the the force
that’s attacking the the fourth right
movement forward of young men in
particular is afraid of the power of men
because it’s confused about the
distinction between power and authority
and competence like I’m a man who’s who
has Authority and competence has power
as a byproduct but the authority and
competence is everything and and and
people who can’t understand that fail to
make the distinction between power and
authority of competence and they’re
afraid of power and so they destroy
Authority and competence and that’s a
terrible thing because we need authority
and competence what else is going to
what else is going to allow us to
prevail in the long run and so you get
away from your country and you get away
from your kin and from your father’s
house right and you go out there and you
establish yourself in the world it’s a
call to adventure that’s what this the
first lines enable the Abrahamic story
is a call to adventure so great unto a
land that I will show you well you know
what does that mean you know one of the
things that
I’ve been struck very hard by a number
of writers Karl young obviously among
them I mean he he wrote things like
Nietzsche that if you understand them
they just break you into pieces you know
and and one of the things that Jung
understood in the cycle analysts
understand it’s one of the most
terrifying elements of psychoanalytic
thinking is very tightly allied with
religious thinking which is that you are
not the master of your own house there
are spirits that dwell in you within you
meaning you have a will and you can
exercise a certain amount of conscious
control over your being but there are
all sorts of things that occur within
you that seem to be beyond your capacity
to control your dreams for example
that’s a really good example or your
impulses for example you might you might
think of those as so foreign from you
that they’re not even you don’t even
want them to be part of you but but more
subtly even how about what you’re
interested in what compels you like
where does that come from
exactly because you can’t you can’t
conjure it up of your own accord you
know so if you’re a student and you’re
taking difficult course you might say to
yourself well I need to sit down and
study for three hours but then you sit
down and that isn’t what happens your
attention goes everywhere and you might
say well whose attention is it then if
it goes everywhere because you say it’s
your attention it’s like well if it’s
your attention maybe you’d be able to
control it
but you can’t and so then you might
think well Jen and just exactly what the
hell is controlling it and you might say
well it’s random it’s the well it’s
better not be random I can tell you that
that’s that happens to some degree in
schizophrenia there’s an element of
randomness and that it’s not random it’s
driven by the action of phenomena that I
think are best considered as something
like subpersonalities although even
that’s only a partial description you
can’t make yourself interested in
something interest manifests itself and
grips you that’s a whole different thing
and so what is it that’s gripping you
and and how do you conceptualize that is
that a divine power
well it’s divine as far as you’re
concerned because it grips you and you
can’t do anything about it and so
there’s a calling in you towards what
you’re compelled by and what you’re
interested in is sometimes that
might be very dark and sometimes not but
you’re compelled forward by your
interest and so and so the idea that
what moves you away from your country in
your father’s house and the comforts of
your child at home is is something
that’s beyond you and that you listen to
and hearken to that’s exactly right and
you can say well I don’t want to call
that God it’s like it doesn’t matter
what you call it
exactly it doesn’t matter to what it is
what it’s called
it still is and if you don’t listen to
it that’s the other thing if you don’t
listen to it and I’ve been a clinician
and talked to enough people now as old
as I am to know this absolutely if you
do not listen to that thing that beckons
you forward you will pay for it like you
cannot possibly imagine you’ll have
everything that’s terrible about life in
your life and nothing about it that’s
good and worse you’ll know that it was
your fault and that you squandered what
you could have had so this is not only a
calling forth but a warning unto a land
that I will show thee and that’s it that
I will show thee that and you don’t want
to be too concrete about this you know
there’s all sorts of New Territories
that you can inhabit if you there’s this
abstract and conceptual territories of
guilty University and you study biology
or you study physics or or any
discipline you’re in a territory right
you’re in the territory that all the
scholars have established and then as
you master the discipline you move out
beyond the established territory into
the unknown and and that’s a new land
right maybe it’s even a land of your
enemies for that matter but it’s a new
land and the frontier is always in front
of you and so you know when the earth
was less inhabited than it is now the
frontier was the psychological frontier
and the geographical frontier was the
same thing and now they’ve separated to
some degree because there’s not so much
geographical frontier but there’s the
frontier is a place that never
disappears and the land that’s beyond
the land that you know is always there
and it’s always where you should go and
all of that packed into these what four
phrases so well so when I’ve been
thinking about narrative you look at the
world through a story you can’t you
can’t help it and this
the story is what gives value to the
world or or the stories what you extract
from the value of the world you can look
at it either way you’re somewhere and
it’s not good enough right that’s the
eternal human predicament wherever you
are isn’t good enough and to some degree
that’s actually a good thing because if
it was good enough well there’s nothing
for you to do so it’s actually maybe a
good thing that it’s insufficient and
that might be why sometimes having less
is is better than having more and I
don’t want to be a Pollyanna about that
I mean I know that there’s deprivation
that can reach to the point where it’s
no where it’s completely
counterproductive but it isn’t always
the case that starting with little is
you if you start with little you start
with more possibility it’s something
like that
so you moved from always from what’s
unbearable about the present to some
better future right and if you don’t
have that then you have no you have
nothing but threat and a negative
emotion you have no positive emotion
because the positive emotion is
generated in the conception of the
better future and then the evidence that
you generate yourself that you’re moving
towards it that’s where the positive and
fulfilling meaning of life comes so you
want to set up this structure properly
it’s very very important and so what it
means is that you want to be going
somewhere that’s good enough so that the
going is worth the while and you can ask
yourself that and that’s partly what we
tried to build into the future authoring
program which is well we know what’s
wrong with life it’s rife with suffering
and insufficiency and deception and evil
it’s all of that obviously ok what would
make the journey worthwhile or you can
ask yourself that it’s like alright in
order to bear up under this load what is
it that I would need to be striving to
attain and if you ask yourself that
that’s to knock and and the door will
open that’s what that means if you ask
yourself that then you will find an
answer and you’ll think you’ll shrink
away from it you’ll think well there’s
no way I could do that it’s like well
you don’t know what you could do you
don’t know what’s possible and you’re
not as much as you could be and so god
only knows what you could what you could
do and have and give if you sacrificed
everything to it and that’s the reason a
Brougham is constantly making sacrifice
it’s archaic right he’s burning up like
baby lambs but like well they’re alive
you know that’s something and and
they’re valuable and that’s something
it’s you have to admit even if you think
about it as a modern person that the act
of sacrificing something might have some
dramatic compulsion to it you know to go
out into a flock and to take something
that’s newborn and to cut its throat and
to bleed it and to burn it might be a
way of indicating to yourself that
you’re actually serious about something
and it isn’t so obvious that we have
rituals of seriousness like that now and
so it’s not so obvious that we’re
actually serious about anything and so
maybe that’s not such a good thing and
so maybe we shouldn’t be thinking that
these people were so archaic and
primitive and superstitious it’s
possible that they knew something that
we don’t and certainly in the Abrahamic
stories one of the things that maintains
Abraham’s covenant with God is his
continual willingness to sacrifice it
it’s so that sacrificial issue is so
important because you are not committed
to something unless you’re willing to
sacrifice for it
commitment and sacrifice are the same
thing and I think it’s borders on
miraculous that those concepts are
embedded into this narrative at the
level of dramatic action you know
instead of abstract explanation people
are acting this out and then that and
the fundamental conception is so
profound that it’s really quite it’s
quite or inspiring it’s it’s
breathtaking really when you understand
what message is trying to be conveyed
you have to make sacrifices and what do
you have to sacrifice you have to
sacrifice that which is most valuable to
you currently that’s stopping you and
god only knows what that is it’s
certainly the worst of you it’s
certainly that and god only knows to
what degree you’re in love with the
worst of you so well so you moved from
the unbearable present to the ideal
future and and you can’t help that you
have to live in a structure like that
that’s your house that’s another way of
thinking about it and if you want to get
your house in order and if you want it
to be a place that you can live properly
then you have to plan the future that is
perfect and then I think well what does
that mean and it means it’s good for you
right and one of the things that I’m I
do all the time with my clinical and
consulting clients is try to figure out
what would be good for them but we do
more than that we try to think okay well
what how can we set this up so it’s
really good for you and that all the
side consequences of that are things
that are good for other people there’s
this idea in union psychology called the
circumambulation and you only had this
idea that you had a potential future
self which would be in potential
everything that you could be and that it
manifests itself moment a moment in your
present life by making you interested in
things and the things that you’re
interested in are the things that would
guide you along the path that would lead
you to maximal development now it sounds
of like a metaphysical idea or a or a
mystical idea even but but it’s not it’s
it’s not it’s a really profoundly
biological idea the idea is something
like well you’re set up so that you’re
automatically interested in those things
that was fully expand you as a well
adapted creature well like there’s
nothing radical about that idea how else
what else could possibly be the case
unless there’s something fundamentally
flawed about you that is what the
situation would be it’s kind of
interesting to think about how that
would be manifest moment to moment but
the idea is something like well your
interest is captured by those things
that lead you down the path of
development
well that better be the case okay so
that’s fine and so there’s some utility
in pursuing those things that you’re
interested in that’s the call to
adventure let’s say so and the call to
adventure takes you all sorts of places
now the problem with the call to
adventure is like what the hell do you
know you might be interested in things
that are kind of warped and bent and
often it’s the case that when new parts
of people manifest themselves and grip
their interest say they do it very badly
and shoddily and so you stumble around
like an idiot when you try to do
something new that’s where the fool is
the precursor to the savior from the
from the symbolic perspectives because
you have to be a fool before you can be
a master and if you’re not willing to be
a fool and you can’t be a master so so
you’re gonna it’s an error
error ridden process and that’s also
laid out in the Old Testament stories
because the first thing that happens to
all these patriarchal figures when God
kicks them out of their father’s house
when they’re like 84 is that they they
run into all sorts of trouble and some
of its social and some of its natural
and some of it’s a consequence of their
own moral inadequacy so they’re fools
and but but the thing that’s so
interesting is that despite the fact
that they’re fools they’re still
supposed to go on the adventure and that
they’re capable of learning enough as a
consequence of moving forward on the
adventure so that they straighten
themselves out across time and so it’s
something like this this
circumambulation that young talked about
was this continual will return to this
this continual circling in some sense of
who you could be you might notice for
example that there are themes in your
life you know when you go back across
your experiences you see you kind of
have your typical experience that sort
of repeats itself and there might be
variation on it like a musical theme but
it’s it’s like you’re circling yourself
and getting closer to yourself as you
move across time
that’s the circumambulation now you
remember that for a second as well go
back to it okay so imagine that
something glimmers before you it’s an an
interest that’s dawning and you decide
well first of all you’re paralyzed do
you think well how do I know if I should
pursue that it’s probably a stupid idea
and the proper response to that is
you’re right it probably is a stupid
idea because almost all ideas are stupid
and so the probability that as you move
forward on your adventure that you’re
gonna get it right the first time
is zero it’s just not gonna happen and
so then you might think well maybe I’ll
just wait around until I get the right
idea and which people do right so
they’re like 40 year old thirteen year
olds which is not a good idea
so they wait around until it’s waiting
for godot until they finally got it
right but the problem is you’re too
stupid to know when you’ve got it right
so waiting around isn’t gonna help
because even if it the perfect
opportunity manifested itself to you in
your incomplete form the probability
that you would recognize it as the
perfect opportunity is zero you might
even think it’s the worst possible idea
that you’ve ever heard of anywhere
highly likely
highly likely so so you had there’s
niche of nature called data will will to
stupidity which I really liked so
because he thought of stupidity as being
it you know it’s it’s you have to take
it into account fundamentally and work
with it and so and so you can take these
tentative steps on your pathway to
destiny and you can assume that you’re
gonna do it badly and that’s really
useful because you don’t have to beat
yourself up it’s pretty easy to do it
badly but the thing is it’s way better
to do it badly than not to do it at all
and that’s a continual message that
echoes through these historical stories
in Genesis it’s like these are flawed
people they should have got the hell out
of their house way before they did and
they go out and they stumble around in
tyranny and famine and self betrayal and
and violence and but it’s a hell of a
lot better than just rotting away at
home and that’s the that’s great so
that’s good and so why is that well ok
so you you start your path and you think
that you’re heading you know towards
your star and so you go in that
direction and then because you’re here
the world looks a particular way but
then when you move here the world looks
different and you’re different as a
consequence of having made that voyage
and so what that means is that now that
thing that glimmers in front of you is
going to have shifted its location
because you weren’t very good at
specifying it to begin with and now that
you’re a little sharper and more focused
than you were it’s it’s going to reveal
itself with more accuracy to you and so
then you have to take you know it’s
almost like 180 degree reversal but it
isn’t because you know you’ve I mean
you’ve gone this far and that’s a long
ways to get that far but that’s a lot
farther than you would be if you just
stayed where you were waiting and so it
doesn’t matter that you overshoot
continually because as you overshoot
even if you don’t learn what you should
have done you’re going to continually
learn what you should
keep doing and if you learn enough about
what you shouldn’t keep doing then
that’s tantamount at some point to
learning at the same time what you
should be doing so it’s okay so it’s
like this now what’s cool about it
though I think is that as you progress
the degree of overshooting starts to
decline right and that we know that
there’s nothing hypothetical about that
as you learn a new skill like even to
play it play a song on the piano for
example you over shoot madly you’re
making all sorts of mistakes to begin
with and then the mistakes they
disappear there’s a great TED talk I
think it was about this guy set up a
really advanced computational recording
system in his home and recorded every
single utterance his young child made
while learning to speak and then he put
together the child’s attempts to say
certain phonemes and put them in lists
and you can hear the child deviating
madly to begin with and then after
hundreds and hundreds of repetitions
just zeroing right in on the exact
phoneme so you know I you might not know
this but when kids babble because they
start babbling when they’re quite young
they babble every human phoneme
including all sorts of phonemes that
adults can’t say and then they they die
into their language so that after they
learn say English then there’s all sorts
of phonemes they can no longer hear or
pronounce but to begin with it’s all
there
which is really quite interesting but so
they zip as they learn a particular
language they zero in on the proper way
to pronounce that and their errors
minimize and every time you learn
something that’s how it is and that’s
really useful to know too because it
means that it’s okay to wander around
stupidly before you fix your destination
now you see that echoed in Exodus right
because what happens is that the
Egyptians or the Hebrews escaped a
tyranny which is kind of whatever you do
personally and psychologically when you
escape from your previous set of
stupidly held and ignorant and stubborn
axioms it’s like away from that tyranny
it’s like great i freed myself from that
well then what well you think well now
I’m on the way it’s no you’re not now
you’re in the desert where you wander
around stupidly you know and worship the
wrong things until you finally organize
yourself morally again and head in the
proper direction so that’s worth knowing
too because you think well I got rid of
a lot of things baggage excess baggage
that I didn’t need in my life and now
everything’s okay it’s like no it’s not
you’ve got rid of a whole set of
scaffolds that were keeping you in place
even though they were pathological and
now you have nothing and nothing
actually turns out to be better than
something pathological but you’re still
stuck with the problem of nothing and
and that’s well that’s exactly why
Exodus is structured the way that it is
it’s that you escaped from maturity it’s
terrain we’re no longer slaves yeah well
now you’re nihilistic and lost it’s not
necessarily an improvement but it is but
it is the pre see it’s also useful to
know that because you can also be
deluded into the idea that imagine that
you’re trying to become enlightened
which might mean to turn all those parts
of you on that could be turned on you
think well that’s just a linear pathway
uphill you know it’s just from one
success to another it’s no it’s not it’s
like here you are and you’re not doing
too badly and the first step is a
complete bloody catastrophe it’s worse
and then maybe you can pull yourself
together and you hit a new plateau and
then that crumbles and shakes and bang
it’s worse again and so because part of
the reason that people don’t become
enlightened is because it’s punctuated
by intermittent deserts essentially by
intermittent catastrophes and if you
don’t know that well then you’re
basically screwed because you go ahead
on your movement forward and you
collapse and you think well that didn’t
work I collapsed it’s like no that’s par
for the course it’s not indication that
you failed it’s just indication that
it’s really hard and that when you learn
something you also unlearn something and
the thing you unlearned is probably
useful and unlearning it actually is
painful
you know let’s say if you have to get
out of a bad relationship it’s like not
every not any real there isn’t any
relationship that’s a hundred percent
bad and so when you jump out of it well
maybe you’re in better shape but you’re
still lonesome and disoriented and you
don’t know what you’re
wasn’t you don’t know what your present
isn’t you don’t know what your future is
it’s that’s not that’s why people stay
with the devil they know instead of you
know looking for the devil they don’t
know so so anyways the fact that you’re
full of faults doesn’t mean you have to
stop and thank God for that that’s a
really useful thing and the fact that
you’re full of faults doesn’t mean that
you can’t learn and so you can pause it
an ideal and you’re gonna be wrong about
it
but it doesn’t matter because what
you’re right about is positing the ideal
moving towards it if the actual ideal
isn’t conceptualize perfectly well first
surprise surprise cuz like what are you
going to do that’s perfect so it doesn’t
matter that it’s imperfect imperfect it
just matters that you do it and that you
move forward so that’s really that’s
really positive news as far as I’m
concerned because you can actually do
that right you can do it badly anyone can do that so that’s that’s useful
families have provided them with too
much protection and they know it
themselves and that means they’re
deprived of necessity you know one of
the things that you see in the United
States for example is that the children
of first-generation immigrants often do
better than the children than their
children and the reason for that is that
those children are first-generation
immigrants have necessity driving them
and you don’t know how much you need a
necessity to drive you because maybe
you’re not very disciplined and if any
catastrophe doesn’t immediately befall
you if you don’t act forthrightly today
then maybe you never act forthrightly
right because that the gap between your
foolishness and the punishment is is
lengthened by your unearned wealth and
so you never grow up and learn and you
have to get yourself away from your
dependency in order to allow necessity
to drive you forward and that’s to
become independent and to become mature
and I think part of what’s happening in
our culture is that the the the force
that’s attacking the the fourth right
movement forward of young men in
particular is afraid of the power of men
because it’s confused about the
distinction between power and authority
and competence like I’m a man who’s who
has Authority and competence has power
as a byproduct but the authority and
competence is everything and and and
people who can’t understand that fail to
make the distinction between power and
authority of competence and they’re
afraid of power and so they destroy
Authority and competence and that’s a
terrible thing because we need authority
and competence what else is going to
what else is going to allow us to
prevail in the long run and so you get
away from your country and you get away
from your kin and from your father’s
house right and you go out there and you
establish yourself in the world it’s a
call to adventure that’s what this the
first lines enable the Abrahamic story
is a call to adventure so great unto a
land that I will show you well you know
what does that mean you know one of the
things that
I’ve been struck very hard by a number
of writers Karl young obviously among
them I mean he he wrote things like
Nietzsche that if you understand them
they just break you into pieces you know
and and one of the things that Jung
understood in the cycle analysts
understand it’s one of the most
terrifying elements of psychoanalytic
thinking is very tightly allied with
religious thinking which is that you are
not the master of your own house there
are spirits that dwell in you within you
meaning you have a will and you can
exercise a certain amount of conscious
control over your being but there are
all sorts of things that occur within
you that seem to be beyond your capacity
to control your dreams for example
that’s a really good example or your
impulses for example you might you might
think of those as so foreign from you
that they’re not even you don’t even
want them to be part of you but but more
subtly even how about what you’re
interested in what compels you like
where does that come from
exactly because you can’t you can’t
conjure it up of your own accord you
know so if you’re a student and you’re
taking difficult course you might say to
yourself well I need to sit down and
study for three hours but then you sit
down and that isn’t what happens your
attention goes everywhere and you might
say well whose attention is it then if
it goes everywhere because you say it’s
your attention it’s like well if it’s
your attention maybe you’d be able to
control it
but you can’t and so then you might
think well Jen and just exactly what the
hell is controlling it and you might say
well it’s random it’s the well it’s
better not be random I can tell you that
that’s that happens to some degree in
schizophrenia there’s an element of
randomness and that it’s not random it’s
driven by the action of phenomena that I
think are best considered as something
like subpersonalities although even
that’s only a partial description you
can’t make yourself interested in
something interest manifests itself and
grips you that’s a whole different thing
and so what is it that’s gripping you
and and how do you conceptualize that is
that a divine power
well it’s divine as far as you’re
concerned because it grips you and you
can’t do anything about it and so
there’s a calling in you towards what
you’re compelled by and what you’re
interested in is sometimes that
might be very dark and sometimes not but
you’re compelled forward by your
interest and so and so the idea that
what moves you away from your country in
your father’s house and the comforts of
your child at home is is something
that’s beyond you and that you listen to
and hearken to that’s exactly right and
you can say well I don’t want to call
that God it’s like it doesn’t matter
what you call it
exactly it doesn’t matter to what it is
what it’s called
it still is and if you don’t listen to
it that’s the other thing if you don’t
listen to it and I’ve been a clinician
and talked to enough people now as old
as I am to know this absolutely if you
do not listen to that thing that beckons
you forward you will pay for it like you
cannot possibly imagine you’ll have
everything that’s terrible about life in
your life and nothing about it that’s
good and worse you’ll know that it was
your fault and that you squandered what
you could have had so this is not only a
calling forth but a warning unto a land
that I will show thee and that’s it that
I will show thee that and you don’t want
to be too concrete about this you know
there’s all sorts of New Territories
that you can inhabit if you there’s this
abstract and conceptual territories of
guilty University and you study biology
or you study physics or or any
discipline you’re in a territory right
you’re in the territory that all the
scholars have established and then as
you master the discipline you move out
beyond the established territory into
the unknown and and that’s a new land
right maybe it’s even a land of your
enemies for that matter but it’s a new
land and the frontier is always in front
of you and so you know when the earth
was less inhabited than it is now the
frontier was the psychological frontier
and the geographical frontier was the
same thing and now they’ve separated to
some degree because there’s not so much
geographical frontier but there’s the
frontier is a place that never
disappears and the land that’s beyond
the land that you know is always there
and it’s always where you should go and
all of that packed into these what four
phrases so well so when I’ve been
thinking about narrative you look at the
world through a story you can’t you
can’t help it and this
the story is what gives value to the
world or or the stories what you extract
from the value of the world you can look
at it either way you’re somewhere and
it’s not good enough right that’s the
eternal human predicament wherever you
are isn’t good enough and to some degree
that’s actually a good thing because if
it was good enough well there’s nothing
for you to do so it’s actually maybe a
good thing that it’s insufficient and
that might be why sometimes having less
is is better than having more and I
don’t want to be a Pollyanna about that
I mean I know that there’s deprivation
that can reach to the point where it’s
no where it’s completely
counterproductive but it isn’t always
the case that starting with little is
you if you start with little you start
with more possibility it’s something
like that
so you moved from always from what’s
unbearable about the present to some
better future right and if you don’t
have that then you have no you have
nothing but threat and a negative
emotion you have no positive emotion
because the positive emotion is
generated in the conception of the
better future and then the evidence that
you generate yourself that you’re moving
towards it that’s where the positive and
fulfilling meaning of life comes so you
want to set up this structure properly
it’s very very important and so what it
means is that you want to be going
somewhere that’s good enough so that the
going is worth the while and you can ask
yourself that and that’s partly what we
tried to build into the future authoring
program which is well we know what’s
wrong with life it’s rife with suffering
and insufficiency and deception and evil
it’s all of that obviously ok what would
make the journey worthwhile or you can
ask yourself that it’s like alright in
order to bear up under this load what is
it that I would need to be striving to
attain and if you ask yourself that
that’s to knock and and the door will
open that’s what that means if you ask
yourself that then you will find an
answer and you’ll think you’ll shrink
away from it you’ll think well there’s
no way I could do that it’s like well
you don’t know what you could do you
don’t know what’s possible and you’re
not as much as you could be and so god
only knows what you could what you could
do and have and give if you sacrificed
everything to it and that’s the reason a
Brougham is constantly making sacrifice
it’s archaic right he’s burning up like
baby lambs but like well they’re alive
you know that’s something and and
they’re valuable and that’s something
it’s you have to admit even if you think
about it as a modern person that the act
of sacrificing something might have some
dramatic compulsion to it you know to go
out into a flock and to take something
that’s newborn and to cut its throat and
to bleed it and to burn it might be a
way of indicating to yourself that
you’re actually serious about something
and it isn’t so obvious that we have
rituals of seriousness like that now and
so it’s not so obvious that we’re
actually serious about anything and so
maybe that’s not such a good thing and
so maybe we shouldn’t be thinking that
these people were so archaic and
primitive and superstitious it’s
possible that they knew something that
we don’t and certainly in the Abrahamic
stories one of the things that maintains
Abraham’s covenant with God is his
continual willingness to sacrifice it
it’s so that sacrificial issue is so
important because you are not committed
to something unless you’re willing to
sacrifice for it
commitment and sacrifice are the same
thing and I think it’s borders on
miraculous that those concepts are
embedded into this narrative at the
level of dramatic action you know
instead of abstract explanation people
are acting this out and then that and
the fundamental conception is so
profound that it’s really quite it’s
quite or inspiring it’s it’s
breathtaking really when you understand
what message is trying to be conveyed
you have to make sacrifices and what do
you have to sacrifice you have to
sacrifice that which is most valuable to
you currently that’s stopping you and
god only knows what that is it’s
certainly the worst of you it’s
certainly that and god only knows to
what degree you’re in love with the
worst of you so well so you moved from
the unbearable present to the ideal
future and and you can’t help that you
have to live in a structure like that
that’s your house that’s another way of
thinking about it and if you want to get
your house in order and if you want it
to be a place that you can live properly
then you have to plan the future that is
perfect and then I think well what does
that mean and it means it’s good for you
right and one of the things that I’m I
do all the time with my clinical and
consulting clients is try to figure out
what would be good for them but we do
more than that we try to think okay well
what how can we set this up so it’s
really good for you and that all the
side consequences of that are things
that are good for other people there’s
this idea in union psychology called the
circumambulation and you only had this
idea that you had a potential future
self which would be in potential
everything that you could be and that it
manifests itself moment a moment in your
present life by making you interested in
things and the things that you’re
interested in are the things that would
guide you along the path that would lead
you to maximal development now it sounds
of like a metaphysical idea or a or a
mystical idea even but but it’s not it’s
it’s not it’s a really profoundly
biological idea the idea is something
like well you’re set up so that you’re
automatically interested in those things
that was fully expand you as a well
adapted creature well like there’s
nothing radical about that idea how else
what else could possibly be the case
unless there’s something fundamentally
flawed about you that is what the
situation would be it’s kind of
interesting to think about how that
would be manifest moment to moment but
the idea is something like well your
interest is captured by those things
that lead you down the path of
development
well that better be the case okay so
that’s fine and so there’s some utility
in pursuing those things that you’re
interested in that’s the call to
adventure let’s say so and the call to
adventure takes you all sorts of places
now the problem with the call to
adventure is like what the hell do you
know you might be interested in things
that are kind of warped and bent and
often it’s the case that when new parts
of people manifest themselves and grip
their interest say they do it very badly
and shoddily and so you stumble around
like an idiot when you try to do
something new that’s where the fool is
the precursor to the savior from the
from the symbolic perspectives because
you have to be a fool before you can be
a master and if you’re not willing to be
a fool and you can’t be a master so so
you’re gonna it’s an error
error ridden process and that’s also
laid out in the Old Testament stories
because the first thing that happens to
all these patriarchal figures when God
kicks them out of their father’s house
when they’re like 84 is that they they
run into all sorts of trouble and some
of its social and some of its natural
and some of it’s a consequence of their
own moral inadequacy so they’re fools
and but but the thing that’s so
interesting is that despite the fact
that they’re fools they’re still
supposed to go on the adventure and that
they’re capable of learning enough as a
consequence of moving forward on the
adventure so that they straighten
themselves out across time and so it’s
something like this this
circumambulation that young talked about
was this continual will return to this
this continual circling in some sense of
who you could be you might notice for
example that there are themes in your
life you know when you go back across
your experiences you see you kind of
have your typical experience that sort
of repeats itself and there might be
variation on it like a musical theme but
it’s it’s like you’re circling yourself
and getting closer to yourself as you
move across time
that’s the circumambulation now you
remember that for a second as well go
back to it okay so imagine that
something glimmers before you it’s an an
interest that’s dawning and you decide
well first of all you’re paralyzed do
you think well how do I know if I should
pursue that it’s probably a stupid idea
and the proper response to that is
you’re right it probably is a stupid
idea because almost all ideas are stupid
and so the probability that as you move
forward on your adventure that you’re
gonna get it right the first time
is zero it’s just not gonna happen and
so then you might think well maybe I’ll
just wait around until I get the right
idea and which people do right so
they’re like 40 year old thirteen year
olds which is not a good idea
so they wait around until it’s waiting
for godot until they finally got it
right but the problem is you’re too
stupid to know when you’ve got it right
so waiting around isn’t gonna help
because even if it the perfect
opportunity manifested itself to you in
your incomplete form the probability
that you would recognize it as the
perfect opportunity is zero you might
even think it’s the worst possible idea
that you’ve ever heard of anywhere
highly likely
highly likely so so you had there’s
niche of nature called data will will to
stupidity which I really liked so
because he thought of stupidity as being
it you know it’s it’s you have to take
it into account fundamentally and work
with it and so and so you can take these
tentative steps on your pathway to
destiny and you can assume that you’re
gonna do it badly and that’s really
useful because you don’t have to beat
yourself up it’s pretty easy to do it
badly but the thing is it’s way better
to do it badly than not to do it at all
and that’s a continual message that
echoes through these historical stories
in Genesis it’s like these are flawed
people they should have got the hell out
of their house way before they did and
they go out and they stumble around in
tyranny and famine and self betrayal and
and violence and but it’s a hell of a
lot better than just rotting away at
home and that’s the that’s great so
that’s good and so why is that well ok
so you you start your path and you think
that you’re heading you know towards
your star and so you go in that
direction and then because you’re here
the world looks a particular way but
then when you move here the world looks
different and you’re different as a
consequence of having made that voyage
and so what that means is that now that
thing that glimmers in front of you is
going to have shifted its location
because you weren’t very good at
specifying it to begin with and now that
you’re a little sharper and more focused
than you were it’s it’s going to reveal
itself with more accuracy to you and so
then you have to take you know it’s
almost like 180 degree reversal but it
isn’t because you know you’ve I mean
you’ve gone this far and that’s a long
ways to get that far but that’s a lot
farther than you would be if you just
stayed where you were waiting and so it
doesn’t matter that you overshoot
continually because as you overshoot
even if you don’t learn what you should
have done you’re going to continually
learn what you should
keep doing and if you learn enough about
what you shouldn’t keep doing then
that’s tantamount at some point to
learning at the same time what you
should be doing so it’s okay so it’s
like this now what’s cool about it
though I think is that as you progress
the degree of overshooting starts to
decline right and that we know that
there’s nothing hypothetical about that
as you learn a new skill like even to
play it play a song on the piano for
example you over shoot madly you’re
making all sorts of mistakes to begin
with and then the mistakes they
disappear there’s a great TED talk I
think it was about this guy set up a
really advanced computational recording
system in his home and recorded every
single utterance his young child made
while learning to speak and then he put
together the child’s attempts to say
certain phonemes and put them in lists
and you can hear the child deviating
madly to begin with and then after
hundreds and hundreds of repetitions
just zeroing right in on the exact
phoneme so you know I you might not know
this but when kids babble because they
start babbling when they’re quite young
they babble every human phoneme
including all sorts of phonemes that
adults can’t say and then they they die
into their language so that after they
learn say English then there’s all sorts
of phonemes they can no longer hear or
pronounce but to begin with it’s all
there
which is really quite interesting but so
they zip as they learn a particular
language they zero in on the proper way
to pronounce that and their errors
minimize and every time you learn
something that’s how it is and that’s
really useful to know too because it
means that it’s okay to wander around
stupidly before you fix your destination
now you see that echoed in Exodus right
because what happens is that the
Egyptians or the Hebrews escaped a
tyranny which is kind of whatever you do
personally and psychologically when you
escape from your previous set of
stupidly held and ignorant and stubborn
axioms it’s like away from that tyranny
it’s like great i freed myself from that
well then what well you think well now
I’m on the way it’s no you’re not now
you’re in the desert where you wander
around stupidly you know and worship the
wrong things until you finally organize
yourself morally again and head in the
proper direction so that’s worth knowing
too because you think well I got rid of
a lot of things baggage excess baggage
that I didn’t need in my life and now
everything’s okay it’s like no it’s not
you’ve got rid of a whole set of
scaffolds that were keeping you in place
even though they were pathological and
now you have nothing and nothing
actually turns out to be better than
something pathological but you’re still
stuck with the problem of nothing and
and that’s well that’s exactly why
Exodus is structured the way that it is
it’s that you escaped from maturity it’s
terrain we’re no longer slaves yeah well
now you’re nihilistic and lost it’s not
necessarily an improvement but it is but
it is the pre see it’s also useful to
know that because you can also be
deluded into the idea that imagine that
you’re trying to become enlightened
which might mean to turn all those parts
of you on that could be turned on you
think well that’s just a linear pathway
uphill you know it’s just from one
success to another it’s no it’s not it’s
like here you are and you’re not doing
too badly and the first step is a
complete bloody catastrophe it’s worse
and then maybe you can pull yourself
together and you hit a new plateau and
then that crumbles and shakes and bang
it’s worse again and so because part of
the reason that people don’t become
enlightened is because it’s punctuated
by intermittent deserts essentially by
intermittent catastrophes and if you
don’t know that well then you’re
basically screwed because you go ahead
on your movement forward and you
collapse and you think well that didn’t
work I collapsed it’s like no that’s par
for the course it’s not indication that
you failed it’s just indication that
it’s really hard and that when you learn
something you also unlearn something and
the thing you unlearned is probably
useful and unlearning it actually is
painful
you know let’s say if you have to get
out of a bad relationship it’s like not
every not any real there isn’t any
relationship that’s a hundred percent
bad and so when you jump out of it well
maybe you’re in better shape but you’re
still lonesome and disoriented and you
don’t know what you’re
wasn’t you don’t know what your present
isn’t you don’t know what your future is
it’s that’s not that’s why people stay
with the devil they know instead of you
know looking for the devil they don’t
know so so anyways the fact that you’re
full of faults doesn’t mean you have to
stop and thank God for that that’s a
really useful thing and the fact that
you’re full of faults doesn’t mean that
you can’t learn and so you can pause it
an ideal and you’re gonna be wrong about
it
but it doesn’t matter because what
you’re right about is positing the ideal
moving towards it if the actual ideal
isn’t conceptualize perfectly well first
surprise surprise cuz like what are you
going to do that’s perfect so it doesn’t
matter that it’s imperfect imperfect it
just matters that you do it and that you
move forward so that’s really that’s
really positive news as far as I’m
concerned because you can actually do
that right you can do it badly anyone can do that so that’s that’s useful
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