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  • there two ways of meditating on death.

  • One is the morbid way, which is a kind of avoidance of life, a sense that nothing is worthwhile because it's all going to come to an end.

  • On the other is the creative way of recognizing that that your mortality is a fundamental part of all, that you hope for you when we fall in love with another.

  • When I when one falls in love with another person, when is consciously taking under one's care immortal being?

  • And it's the sense of her fragility and her mortality, which is fundamental to the love that one feels towards her.

  • In my view, on dhe, if you try and exclude the thought of death, then that love is weakened.

  • The set, the sense that you have that she is absolutely dependent on that love on Dhe, of course, will one day escape from it through death.

  • That is absolutely a part of what the love is and why we find in erotic love a kind of redemption.

  • That's, um, that's what I would say.

  • I would say as well that it's an it's an aide to concentration and focus.

  • You don't have much time and there's plenty of problems.

  • And so and and it's going to be a hard road no matter what, and so get at it, You know, for years when I was in my twenties, the first thought I had when I woke up in the morning was life is short, really literally.

  • It happened to me for years and I thought, No time to waste.

  • Then there's there's things to be done.

  • There's things that need doing.

  • Get the hell up, make yourself efficient aim.

  • It's something that makes the transience of life worthwhile, because such things exist.

  • And then and then do everything you can to manifest everything you can within that mortal frame, and it adds the life of a seriousness that would otherwise be absent.

  • Oh, I'll tell you my plumber story, because that makes it concrete.

  • I've done a lot of home renovation.

  • I've worked with lots of workmen and on very creative projects, as a matter of fact, and so that was very entertaining because with carpenters, for example, we built a quite strange and unique third floor on my house in Toronto and I invited the carpenters to contribute.

  • I told him what the overall view was and what we're trying to produce.

  • But if they had creative ideas, then I was welcoming them because I wanted them to.

  • I didn't want to tell them what to do.

  • I wanted to produce something beautiful with them fully on board so that it was likely to manifest itself in the best possible manner.

  • And so that confidence that that I described rather in a rather utilitarian manner is almost immediately transcended by something that's that's more potent and more valuable in the actuality of it.

  • And if you're participating in a project like that and you invite people into a reciprocal relationship, then the relationship begins to transcend the particularities of the of the project.

  • And then the project goes wonderfully well so, and that is a reflection of something that's deeper it.

  • And it touches on something that so Roger mentioned the statement by Christ that if two or three people are gathered together in his name, then he's there and you can you can infuse every relationship you have with precisely that spirit if you're cognizant of it and careful I mean, it's unfortunate and and and far more than that, it's a thing to strive for, and you won't manifest itself perfectly.

  • But that can be there and all the particularities.

  • And so that way you have the singularity of the project itself, the practicality of it.

  • There's a reason that Christ was also a carpenter, right?

  • That's the particular cause.

  • A house that's not built on truth does not stand, you know.

  • And so those particular relationship should partake of that divine, the divinity of ultimate reciprocity.

  • And then both are both are elevated.

  • And so so.

  • The narrowness of, say, capitalist trade is insufficient.

  • But it's embedded in something that when it's not a zero sum game, it's embedded in something that's far deeper than that and far more gratifying.

  • And if and if you're careful about such things than the projects that you involved yourself with, that or even somewhat mundane can take on a much more much, much more beautiful and productive nature.

  • And then that's well, it's not frustrating.

  • It's it's it's compelling and it works.

  • So, yeah, I would just add to that that what Jordan has said really is that in a job rightly done, the divine is imminent in some way.

  • And what George Herbert said in who sweeps the rumors for thy laws.

  • Makes that on the action.

  • Fine.

  • Okay, we leave out these days.

  • The drug makes drudgery divine bit.

  • But you know that Herbert was absolutely right about that.

  • If you ask the question, where does God in tow The ordinary life?

  • It is in that sense of doing something for its own sake, on dhe, on acquiring the habit of doing so and not wanting your reward Beyond the thing which is connects with Aristotle's conception, Water virtue is as well.

  • So, um, one shouldn't despair that there is a moral education available to us, even in a world where there isn't a formalized and shared religion that will bring that aspect of things to bear on human life.

  • What I what I would say is that happiness means ultimately the fulfill your fulfillment as a person on that that isn't the same as gratification of your desires.

  • It is.

  • It means the kind of transformation of your you're being such that you can look on what you are and say for all my faults, I accept that thing.

  • Andi, Andi, when they're occasion comes to rejoice, you accept it and enter it rather than say, asking, Do I deserve it?

  • You know, those that's that avoidance of joy, which many people have is actually itself a kind of narcissism.

  • The happy person goes out and embraces the occasional for rejoicing, and he does so because his own nature is a tease with itself on.

  • You can incorporate this into, Of course, there's a lot more to it there.

  • One has tohave us, Aristotle says.

  • You know, happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.

  • What he meant.

  • Waas.

  • That that if you don't have the virtues, you're trading always on thin ground that you'll fall through that that wonderful moment when it at last she is going to say yes, you know, you turn out your your nature is a predator is revealed to use Jordan's image on new fall irrecoverable e.

  • But in a way that's brief discourse on happiness.

  • Well, I mean for me, like I find a tremendous first of all, there's an alliance between happiness and gratitude, and you touched on that If you're going to accept the tragic reality of life, let's say then it's also reasonable to accept happiness when it comes your way, and to be grateful for it and to be grateful for it, is to accept it and to enjoy it well, it makes its presence felt.

  • It's something that visits, I would say, and you can invite that visitation.

  • I would say I do that primarily by playing.

  • I was very playful with my kids and my wife and still am I mean, most of the time with my kids.

  • It was known stop jokes of one form or another.

  • My daughter can barely say anything that it isn't a joke of some sort, you know, and I hang around with comedians all the time, and I usually have my best discussions with them and my best friends when I grew up, especially when I was a young young man where people who were inveterate Ira, n'est ce and joke tellers and mostly what we did was competitive humor.

  • The whole goal of its social gathering was to see who could say the most outrageously funny thing, and that was unbelievably entertaining.

  • And so that's if that comes along and you can participate in it and you can play, uh, so much the better.

  • And so It's even useful to touch things that are difficult with a playful and light hand.

  • Which is partly why I travel with Dave Rubin in my lecture series because Dave's a professional standup comedian, a swell is a serious person in his own right.

  • But all of the very disturbing lectures that I put forward because I think they are disturbing our lavender with with humor and that there's purpose that's that's purposeful.

  • It's necessary and desirable, so but it's But that doesn't mean that I think that short term happiness is a goal.

  • It's e certainly don't think that it is.

there two ways of meditating on death.

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