bizarre what makes you itch what sort of
a situation would you like let’s suppose
I do this often in vocational guidance
of students they come to me and say well
we’re getting out of college and we
haven’t the faintest idea what we want
to do so I always ask the question what
would you like to do if money were no
object what would how would you really
enjoy spending your life well it’s so
amazing as a result of our kind of
educational system crowds of students
say well we’d like to be painters we’d
like to be poets we’d like to be writers
but as everybody knows you can’t earn
any money that way or another person
says well I’d like to live in out of
doors life and ride horses I said he
want to teach in a riding school let’s
go through with it what do you want to
do when we finally got down to something
which the individual says he really
wants to do I will say to him you do
that and forget the money
because if you say that getting the
money is the most important thing you
will spend your life completely wasting
your time you’ll be doing things you
don’t like doing in order to go on
living that is to go on doing things you
don’t like doing which is stupid better
to have a short life that is full of
what you like doing than a long life
spent in a miserable way and after all
if you do really like what you’re doing
it doesn’t matter what it is you can
eventually turn it you could eventually
become a master of it it’s the only way
to become a master of something to be
really with it
and then you’ll be able to get a good
fee for whatever it is so don’t don’t
worry too much
that’s the everybody’s somebody’s
interested in everything and anything
you could be interested in you’ll find
others along but it’s absolutely stupid
to spend your time doing things you
don’t like in order to go on spending
things you don’t like and doing things
you don’t like and to teach your
children to follow in the same track see
what we’re doing is we’re bringing up
children and educating to live the same
sort of lives we underneath in order
that their will they may justify
themselves and find satisfaction in life
by bringing up their children to bring
up their children to do the same thing
so it’s all retching no vomit it never
gets there and so therefore it’s so
important to consider this question what
do I desire well when we answer that
question in a naive way we figure out
that we want a desire or what we want is
to control everything to create girls
that don’t grow old apples that don’t
rot clothes that never wear out
conveyance is that get from one place to
another instantly so we don’t have to
wait power available to do anything that
you could conceive and do it just
instantly like that to get this funny
technological omnipotence but if you
take time out to think about them and
really go into it with your full
strength of imagination and find out
whether that’s where you want to be you
will soon see that’s not what you want
because the moment you have a situation
where you are really in control of
things that is to say in which the
future is almost completely predictable
you will see as I said last night that a
completely predictable future is already
the past you’ve had it that’s not what
you want you want a surprise you don’t
know what that’s gonna be because
obviously it wouldn’t be a surprise if
you did what a pleasant surprise
I’d like you to say what sort of a
surprise would be pleasant and you can’t
really answer that because you know if
there are to be such things as pleasant
surprises that must also be unpleasant
surprises must be rude shops so you’re
like somebody taking one of those
wishing well boxes you know tubs you
know will you fish in and you bring out
a package and you don’t know whether
you’ve got a dead rat in it or a new
camera then that’s the way that’s that
seems to be the thing that really
excites people but quite certainly there
comes out of this inquiry a feeling of
real disillusionment with the ideal of
power to be in power to be in control is
not something that any sensible person
wants imagine the situation of Big
Brother mr. J Edgar Hoover
Heinrich Himmler to be glued day and
night to a highly defended office with
telephones television screens watching
pinky spying on everyone and anything
getting all this information together
why you could never leave the office I
mean the people characterizes like the
edgar Hoover’s those home in the evening
and but when he’s back home you know
there are guards sitting outside the
door does that hotline telephone going
to something he’s always having to be in
control and so when you think things
through like that you understand who do
not want don’t want to control and
therefore these zen buddhist masters
that I met and others were not super
archivists and very many Westerners who
visited Japan expecting to get a Satori
as a result of which they would know
everything in control everything were
grievously disappointed and said there’s
not much in this after all [Music]
a situation would you like let’s suppose
I do this often in vocational guidance
of students they come to me and say well
we’re getting out of college and we
haven’t the faintest idea what we want
to do so I always ask the question what
would you like to do if money were no
object what would how would you really
enjoy spending your life well it’s so
amazing as a result of our kind of
educational system crowds of students
say well we’d like to be painters we’d
like to be poets we’d like to be writers
but as everybody knows you can’t earn
any money that way or another person
says well I’d like to live in out of
doors life and ride horses I said he
want to teach in a riding school let’s
go through with it what do you want to
do when we finally got down to something
which the individual says he really
wants to do I will say to him you do
that and forget the money
because if you say that getting the
money is the most important thing you
will spend your life completely wasting
your time you’ll be doing things you
don’t like doing in order to go on
living that is to go on doing things you
don’t like doing which is stupid better
to have a short life that is full of
what you like doing than a long life
spent in a miserable way and after all
if you do really like what you’re doing
it doesn’t matter what it is you can
eventually turn it you could eventually
become a master of it it’s the only way
to become a master of something to be
really with it
and then you’ll be able to get a good
fee for whatever it is so don’t don’t
worry too much
that’s the everybody’s somebody’s
interested in everything and anything
you could be interested in you’ll find
others along but it’s absolutely stupid
to spend your time doing things you
don’t like in order to go on spending
things you don’t like and doing things
you don’t like and to teach your
children to follow in the same track see
what we’re doing is we’re bringing up
children and educating to live the same
sort of lives we underneath in order
that their will they may justify
themselves and find satisfaction in life
by bringing up their children to bring
up their children to do the same thing
so it’s all retching no vomit it never
gets there and so therefore it’s so
important to consider this question what
do I desire well when we answer that
question in a naive way we figure out
that we want a desire or what we want is
to control everything to create girls
that don’t grow old apples that don’t
rot clothes that never wear out
conveyance is that get from one place to
another instantly so we don’t have to
wait power available to do anything that
you could conceive and do it just
instantly like that to get this funny
technological omnipotence but if you
take time out to think about them and
really go into it with your full
strength of imagination and find out
whether that’s where you want to be you
will soon see that’s not what you want
because the moment you have a situation
where you are really in control of
things that is to say in which the
future is almost completely predictable
you will see as I said last night that a
completely predictable future is already
the past you’ve had it that’s not what
you want you want a surprise you don’t
know what that’s gonna be because
obviously it wouldn’t be a surprise if
you did what a pleasant surprise
I’d like you to say what sort of a
surprise would be pleasant and you can’t
really answer that because you know if
there are to be such things as pleasant
surprises that must also be unpleasant
surprises must be rude shops so you’re
like somebody taking one of those
wishing well boxes you know tubs you
know will you fish in and you bring out
a package and you don’t know whether
you’ve got a dead rat in it or a new
camera then that’s the way that’s that
seems to be the thing that really
excites people but quite certainly there
comes out of this inquiry a feeling of
real disillusionment with the ideal of
power to be in power to be in control is
not something that any sensible person
wants imagine the situation of Big
Brother mr. J Edgar Hoover
Heinrich Himmler to be glued day and
night to a highly defended office with
telephones television screens watching
pinky spying on everyone and anything
getting all this information together
why you could never leave the office I
mean the people characterizes like the
edgar Hoover’s those home in the evening
and but when he’s back home you know
there are guards sitting outside the
door does that hotline telephone going
to something he’s always having to be in
control and so when you think things
through like that you understand who do
not want don’t want to control and
therefore these zen buddhist masters
that I met and others were not super
archivists and very many Westerners who
visited Japan expecting to get a Satori
as a result of which they would know
everything in control everything were
grievously disappointed and said there’s
not much in this after all [Music]
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