# Understanding & Coping With Nihilism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jar8Pd5oo_s

[00:03] [Music]
[00:22] If you haven't heard already, I released a second actualized channel called Actualize Clips with short snippets of my long videos.
[00:30] Make sure you go check that out.
[00:31] Subscribe if you'd like those.
[00:33] Link down below.
[00:37] Alright, now let's get to the main topic of understanding and coping with nihilism.
[00:42] So here we're going to tackle really two strands of this problem.
[00:47] First of all, just what is nihilism, understanding it culturally, historically, where it came from, its meaning.
[00:54] And then we're going to be taking a look at what nihilism gets correct about reality, what it gets incorrect.
[00:59] It's a mixed bag.
[01:01] There's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding that we're gonna address here.
[01:04] Today, and then at the very end, I'm gonna — you wanna make sure you stay for the end.
[01:07] Because at the end, after we cover what nihilism is and some of its mistakes and proper understandings, I'm going to talk about how to actually cope with it.
[01:19] Specifically, I'm going to talk about how to deal with that spiral dynamic stage green relativism, which leads to a sense of meaninglessness in life, and how I coped with it in my youth.
[01:32] And I'll share some pointers, very practical pointers, for how you can cope with it yourself and then get beyond it.
[01:40] All right, so this is not just empty philosophy here; there's gonna be practical implications for all this stuff, as always with everything I talk about.
[01:49] So, what is nihilism? Well, nihilism is a very much misunderstood word in our culture.
[01:53] It's often used pejoratively, in a negative way, to demonize or dismiss some set of ideas or beliefs, and that's a problem because there's...
[02:05] Something deeply true about nihilism, which we're going to explain, but also there's problems with nihilism.
[02:12] So it's not so simple.
[02:13] It's not so black and white.
[02:15] It's a gray area.
[02:17] Even most professional philosophers don't really understand the implications of nihilism.
[02:23] It's treated too much as just some sort of historical artifact.
[02:31] And no serious philosopher tells you how to actually apply it in your life, and what you should do with it, and also what the mistakes of it are.
[02:39] So today we're going to clear this whole thing up.
[02:41] All right.
[02:42] So the common meaning of nihilism: there's sort of like two parts to the meaning.
[02:45] There's like a common meaning, and then there's a technical definition you might get from a philosophy professor.
[02:52] We're going to be going over both of those.
[02:55] But the common meaning of the word, the way it's used colloquially in our culture, is to mean something like godlessness or meaninglessness or pointlessness to life, the rejection of morality, depression.
[03:05] Disillusionment, negativity, pessimism, anarchy, cynicism, skepticism, belief and nothing, atheism, indifference, destruction, isolation, feeling lost, even perhaps misanthropy and despair.
[03:23] Now, a lot of negative aspects to that, and that's actually one of the problems that our culture has with the word nihilism is that they tend to use it very pejoratively and negatively, and we'll be looking at why that is.
[03:36] There's some very deep psychological reasons for that.
[03:39] Here are some dictionary definitions of nihilism to get us started in the right direction.
[03:44] The first definition I found is the rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.
[03:52] A second one is extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.
[03:59] A third one is a world view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and...
[04:05] Useless.
[04:07] And a fourth one is a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.
[04:16] So that gets you a pretty good sense of it, but I also want to read some detailed descriptions of it from Wikipedia and from certain online encyclopedia sources.
[04:26] Because I, in researching this topic, I really liked what they had to say, and it's going to set the foundation for everything we talk about, and it'll show us some of the limitations of these definitions.
[04:40] Because even when you go to Wikipedia or to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or whatever, and you read through their descriptions of nihilism, they're going to give you more of like a historical account, and then it'll leave you scratching your head as to like, well, is it true?
[04:56] Which parts of it are true?
[04:59] Which are false?
[05:03] How do you fit it in with personal development work?
[05:05] How do you actually make it useful and practical?
[05:08] What are its limitations and strengths?
[05:11] And uh, what is it missing perhaps?
[05:16] All right, so Wikipedia says the following quote:
[05:19] Nihilism, from the Latin neil or nothing, is a philosophy or family of views within philosophy, expressing negation towards general aspects of life that are widely accepted within humanity as objectively real, such as knowledge, existence, and the meaning of life.
[05:40] Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist.
[05:50] German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used the term to describe the western world's disintegration of traditional morality.
[05:59] End quote.
[05:59] Quote:
[05:59] For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it.
[06:05] Penetrating the facades buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values...
[06:09] Are baseless and that reason is impotent every belief, every considering something true, Nietzsche writes, is necessarily false because there is simply no true world.
[06:21] For him, nihilism requires a radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning.
[06:27] Nihilism is not only the belief that everything deserves to perish but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plow; one destroys.
[06:36] End quote, and that's from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[06:44] So Nietzsche's work is associated with nihilism quite a bit, although really to call Nietzsche himself a nihilist would be a problem because Nietzsche's philosophy was a little bit more complex than simply that.
[06:59] It wasn't about destroying all values and then leaving it at that; really for him it was about clearing away all of the falsely constructed narratives.
[07:11] and religious systems and so on from the past 2000 years recognizing their limitations and their artificiality.
[07:20] destroying those but then what that leaves is a clearing on top of which one can build an authentic life and become what he would call a super mensch sort of like the uberman the superman.
[07:37] and then you're not living simply by somebody else's social conditioning.
[07:45] you're living by your own values so it's not that nisha didn't really believe in values and he wasn't properly a nihilist.
[07:54] he just believed in nihilism as a means to an end towards actually authenticity and some sort of higher values that come after that which are not socially conditioned.
[08:04] so be careful about that it's easy to forget that additional you know last step.
[08:14] And really in that sense clearing out social conditioning, that's a very good thing.
[08:19] Unless of course you're very attached to your social conditioning.
[08:23] Like if you have a traditional religious orientation, then that might be a problem for you.
[08:26] Because you're attached to it and you don't want that cleared away.
[08:31] And you might be kind of shocked at like, well why would you want to clear away all social conditioning?
[08:35] Well one of the things you discover as you get deep into personal development work and self-actualization is that a lot of the social conditioning and values and norms and morality and religion that you receive from your society has problems to it.
[08:48] And these problems have played themselves out for thousands of years, have led to lots of violence and hatred and judgment and death and inequality and all sorts of things like this.
[08:59] And also, how can you just know that they're true for yourself?
[09:07] If you haven't derived them from first principles, then maybe they're false, maybe they're illusions, maybe they're constructions.
[09:16] See now this last part of this uh quote that I read you, you know where he says that nihilism is sort of the belief that everything deserves to perish, and you should not just kind of hope for it to perish, but you should even push it, it's like to break things down, to destroy.
[09:33] This is a problematic rendition of nihilism, I would suggest.
[09:38] Because after all, here's the problem is that if everything is truly meaningless, if you really believe that everything is truly meaningless, then why would you want to destroy it?
[09:53] You see, that's an additional extra step the mind has to take.
[09:57] And in fact, to actively destroy something, or even to actively dislike something or to hate it, that is already to attach a negative meaning to it.
[10:11] That's one of the problems with nihilism, depending on how you know how you...
[10:18] Construe nihilism because if you construe nihilism as literally just complete meaninglessness to reality, okay.
[10:27] But then if you go one step further, you say, and because of that I have to destroy society and institutions and things.
[10:37] That's a secondary step that I'm not willing to take with you.
[10:40] And I'll show you why that's problematic.
[10:42] That is problematic, but before we get into that, let's continue forward here because we have some more to read.
[10:50] Continuing from the Internet Encyclopedia Philosophy, it says, quote, the caustic strength of nihilism is absolute, Nietzsche argues, and under its withering scrutiny, the highest values devalue themselves.
[11:04] The aim is lacking, and why finds no answer.
[11:08] Inevitably, nihilism will expose all cherished beliefs and sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a defective Western mythos, this collapse of meaning.
[11:18] Relevance and purpose will be the most destructive force in history, constituting a total assault on reality, and nothing less than the greatest crisis for humanity, end quote.
[11:32] So Nietzsche was writing in the late 1800s, and this was right at the turn of the century before World War One and World War Two.
[11:44] And so what was happening in the Western civilized world at that time is that all of the old-fashioned Christian values, Judeo-Christian values, and that worldview was starting to unravel.
[12:03] It was unraveling from the philosophical perspective, but it was starting to also unravel from the scientific perspective, because science was becoming more and more advanced.
[12:14] And materialism — this was we're really talking about the birth of materialism, scientific materialism here.
[12:20] Of atheism stuff like that, it really started with, you might say, with Nietzsche.
[12:23] And then flowered very, very seriously in the next 50 years after that.
[12:31] And then we're living with the fallout from that.
[12:35] And so of course one of the questions back then was like, well, what happens if we lose all our Judeo-Christian values and worldview?
[12:41] What happens if we, as a society, stop believing in God for the most part, or at least act like God is not important, or that God is just some sort of superstitious fairy tale from the past from our ancestors, and we have sort of transcended that with our logic and our rationality and our science?
[13:06] What happens in this kind of society?
[13:07] And then some people claimed, well, it would unravel society and lead to war and to disaster and to all sorts of monstrosities.
[13:13] And perhaps to a certain extent, that is what happened.
[13:15] World War One and World War Two, of course there are many more causes to World War One and World War Two.
[13:21] Than just this, but you could say that this is sort of like the backdrop against which World War One and World War Two occurred and all the stuff that, you know, the atrocities and other uh problems that occurred in between those two wars.
[13:37] Moving on here says quote nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
[13:42] It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.
[13:51] A true nihilist would believe nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than perhaps an impulse to destroy.
[13:57] In the 20th century, nihilistic themes like epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers end quote.
[14:15] So what happened basically within philosophy and also in a certain sense within science as well?
[14:22] Just historically in the context of western intellectual tradition is that many of the axioms and assumptions and frameworks that existed for hundreds of thousands of years that went unquestioned started to be questioned philosophically.
[14:45] Language started to be questioned.
[14:47] Our notions of how language shapes reality.
[14:51] Euclidean geometry was questioned.
[14:54] Even absolute space and time was questioned by Einstein and by quantum physicists.
[15:02] The idea of even there being matter out of which this universe is made started to be questioned.
[15:09] And so as this was happening and everything was being questioned on all these fronts also in logic in mathematics, there started to be questions about the nature of what mathematics is, whether mathematics...
[15:23] Is even logical.
[15:24] There were attempts to formalize mathematics that failed disastrously and conclusively.
[15:29] There were failures within logical positivism, within the sciences, that failed.
[15:36] So mankind's attempts at the turn of the century, at the early 1900s...
[15:43] Mankind was basically getting to the point where we were getting pretty cocky.
[15:46] We were thinking like, okay, I think we got this figured thing figured out.
[15:49] We've got the world figured out.
[15:50] We basically got physics figured out.
[15:52] We've got chemistry almost figured out.
[15:54] We've got biology pretty much figured out.
[15:56] We've figured out evolution now with Darwin's discoveries.
[15:59] So we kind of know where man came from.
[16:01] We know it wasn't from God, so the story goes.
[16:04] And, uh, we've got logic figured out.
[16:08] You know, in the next few decades we're going to have all of logic locked down.
[16:09] We have all of mathematics locked down.
[16:12] And then basically there's even quotes of a famous scientist saying something like, we figured out 98% of everything, and the other two percent we're going to figure out in the next 50.
[16:23] Or 100 years and then there's not going to be any more like even point to doing physics we'll have it all figured out.
[16:31] And once we have physics figured out, since we're just living in this clockwork universe and everything is perfectly deterministic, well then, uh, we'll have everything figured out because everything just boils down to physics in this sort of reductionistic sense.
[16:46] And then also on the cultural front, things were being questioned like art molds were being broken within art with the impressionist movements in Europe.
[16:55] And then with Picasso, you know, he was breaking the mold in terms of what art means.
[16:59] Then abstract impressionism came after that.
[17:02] And then other sorts of weird art movements that completely broke the old classical and neoclassical traditions and they broke with realism.
[17:11] And then of course the social norms and things were being questioned as well with the rise of feminism, early feminism.
[17:17] The patriarchy was being questioned, so all the sort of like the old structures of the Judeo-Christian world were being.
[17:23] Questioned.
[17:25] Um, but then what happened within like within logic, for example, is that that attempt to formalize all of logic by people like Gottlob Frege and Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and others, those were shattered by Gödel's completeness theorem, which I have an episode upon where I discuss its metaphysical and epistemic implications.
[17:55] And so that crashed that endeavor.
[17:57] You can't formalize logic.
[17:59] You can't formalize mathematics.
[18:02] There's actually an infinite number of different kinds of logics, and also with physics we've discovered that we know a lot less about physics than we really do.
[18:09] And so basically what it sort of opened us up to is this: where before we were very well buttoned down a society and we thought we had it figured out, really what we discovered is that no, we were fooling ourselves.
[18:22] We put a bunch of blinders up and we...
[18:24] Made all these constructions where we thought we understood more than we really do.
[18:28] And now we realize how little we really understand in terms of language, logic, mathematics, science, physics.
[18:38] And this kind of opens us up into this unknown chaos, which can feel nihilistic.
[18:43] And our sense of meaning and value is getting eroded as well, because we're losing our faith in God.
[18:48] We're starting to question gender identity and roles.
[18:52] We're starting to question monarchies and other sorts of political systems.
[19:02] And then where does that leave us as individuals?
[19:03] And as a society, where should society be headed?
[19:07] How do we get all of these individuals to agree upon some direction for society in this new, directionless, nihilistic world?
[19:18] Wikipedia also says, quote, the term was also a pejorative for certain value-destructive trends of modernity.
[19:25] Namely the negation of Christianity and European tradition in general.
[19:30] It was also in use during the Middle Ages to denote certain forms of heresy, end quote.
[19:38] And then from the Encyclopedia Britannica.com it says, quote, nihilism represented a crude form of positivism and materialism, a revolt against the established order.
[19:50] It negated all authority exercised by the state, by the church, and by the family.
[19:53] It based its belief on nothing but scientific truth.
[19:59] Science would be the solution to all social problems.
[20:03] All evils, nihilists believed, derived from a single source: ignorance, which science alone would overcome, end quote.
[20:13] So there's actually something very sneaky here going on in this particular formulation of nihilism.
[20:20] Again, see here that what nihilism purports to be and how it...
[20:27] actually behaves in the world
[20:29] can be two different things which can be
[20:31] actually contradictory with each other
[20:33] so for example if you truly wanted to
[20:35] deconstruct everything
[20:37] as a nihilist supposedly does if you
[20:39] wanted to destroy everything
[20:40] well then how could you say that then
[20:43] science will be what remains
[20:46] why didn't you also destroy science
[20:50] why would you rely on science to replace
[20:53] religion
[20:54] or good old-fashioned family values
[21:00] you see and if what you're concerned
[21:02] about is
[21:03] ignorance and you say that all of evil
[21:06] stems from ignorance okay
[21:08] i would agree with you but then what
[21:10] about science
[21:11] how can you say that science will allow
[21:14] you to
[21:14] overcome that ignorance isn't science
[21:16] part of that ignorance
[21:19] you see so there's a question for
[21:20] nihilus as far as how deep are you
[21:22] really willing to go with your nihilism
[21:24] there can be surface level formulations
[21:26] of it and there can be deeper level
[21:28] formulations of it and so i think this
[21:30] just varies
[21:33] upon how deep of a nihilist you are and
[21:36] uh
[21:37] what i see is that most people aren't
[21:38] really willing to go deep into nihilism
[21:41] and the reason that is
[21:43] for very good reason because it's not
[21:44] very useful to your survival to be a
[21:46] nihilist
[21:47] how do you live in the world as a
[21:49] nihilist and
[21:51] this is i think what what most ordinary
[21:53] people would say about nihilism and
[21:54] they would say something like well leo
[21:56] yeah sure i mean this is all nice
[21:57] philosophy and
[21:58] theory and stuff but in the real world
[22:00] if you have children you got to go go to
[22:01] work and feed them
[22:02] so who gives a shit about this stupid
[22:04] nihilistic philosophy
[22:06] it doesn't get us anywhere and you know
[22:08] it doesn't help me grow my business
[22:09] doesn't help me earn more money doesn't
[22:10] help me get sex so what's the point
[22:12] how is it useful it seems antithetical
[22:15] to usefulness
[22:16] and of course yeah nihilism is not
[22:20] useful
[22:22] um or maybe it is because maybe there
[22:25] are things in the world
[22:26] that need to be destroyed structures
[22:29] belief systems social conditioning
[22:31] social norms maybe these are holding us
[22:34] back and then destroying those might be
[22:36] useful
[22:36] maybe it might be useful to clear your
[22:38] mind of all social conditioning
[22:40] and all value systems maybe
[22:44] is it well it depends on how you do it
[22:49] so what we really had going here
[22:54] is we had a deep spiral dynamic stage
[22:57] blue
[22:57] and if you don't know what that is go
[22:59] watch my spiral dynamics series starting
[23:01] with stage blue
[23:04] we had spiraling stage blue that
[23:05] nietzsche came along and he was sort of
[23:07] at the forefront of stage orange
[23:10] which we would say is modern modernity
[23:13] so christianity gave rise
[23:15] after christianity exhausted itself and
[23:17] it became untenable
[23:18] you know after enough scientific
[23:20] discoveries after darwin
[23:22] after evolution after einstein after
[23:24] quantum mechanics after all these sorts
[23:26] of things after electricity and
[23:28] and uh and so on christianity basically
[23:32] became untenable
[23:34] for serious intellectuals which led to a
[23:36] sort of nihilism
[23:38] but then that nihilism very quickly was
[23:40] replaced with
[23:42] scientific materialism and the sort of
[23:44] mechanistic
[23:45] pragmatic approach which is stage origin
[23:51] and this was both good and bad it was
[23:54] good in the sense that we shed a lot of
[23:56] superstition
[23:57] dogma theocracy
[24:01] and very narrow ethnocentric thinking
[24:05] from
[24:06] the past
[24:10] we put an end to holy wars
[24:13] and religious domination of others
[24:16] we got rid of this idea that
[24:17] christianity is the one true worldview
[24:20] and that all other ones are heathen and
[24:21] need to be converted either by sword
[24:24] or by proselyte
[24:28] evangelical proselytation proselytized
[24:31] proselytization
[24:33] that's a that's a mouthful
[24:37] um so we got over that then came a sort
[24:40] of a period of brief nihilism but that
[24:41] nihilism that void to see the problems
[24:43] that nature reports a vacuum as they say
[24:45] and that void quickly gets filled up
[24:46] with with the world view of scientific
[24:48] materialism
[24:49] to the point where today people born
[24:51] today into the scientific materialist
[24:53] worldview
[24:54] they they they can't even imagine that
[24:56] there used to be previous worldviews
[24:58] that our ancestors
[25:00] and scientists and intellectuals of the
[25:02] past for example had
[25:03] idealist worldviews rather than
[25:05] materialist ones
[25:06] or christian worldviews and they took
[25:09] those worldview just as seriously
[25:11] those worldviews just as seriously as
[25:12] you take your materialism
[25:17] so um and then with materialism came
[25:20] sort of a sort of a pragmatic approach
[25:22] to reality you know like
[25:23] if there's no higher order values if
[25:26] there is no god
[25:27] and anything is allowed
[25:30] basically and we're living in sort of a
[25:32] moral relativistic landscape
[25:34] then what is life about then life is not
[25:37] about worshiping or going to church
[25:39] or working towards some beautiful
[25:42] afterlife or heaven or
[25:43] working to avoid the eternal damnation
[25:46] of hell
[25:47] which is what life was for people for
[25:49] thousands of years
[25:51] in europe for example now life is just
[25:54] about
[25:55] what it's about material acquisition
[25:57] it's just about
[25:59] carnal pleasure personal comfort
[26:03] success as much money and sex as i can
[26:05] get
[26:07] the business that i can build the
[26:09] science that i can do
[26:11] and just being practical and normal
[26:14] having fun
[26:15] it becomes about that
[26:18] and that seems like well that's a much
[26:19] better way to live well in a certain way
[26:21] it is
[26:22] in a certain sense but in another
[26:24] certain sense
[26:26] it's a very hollow existence
[26:30] and this is where someone like jordan
[26:31] peterson would come in and say
[26:35] if you take that too far your life just
[26:38] becomes about work
[26:39] and money and you lose touch of
[26:42] something higher
[26:43] than you you lose the spiritual
[26:46] component
[26:48] and then in a sense that is this sort of
[26:52] nihilism or this lack of direction in
[26:54] your life and then because of that
[26:56] society becomes dysfunctional you as an
[26:58] individual become dysfunctional
[27:00] because there's actually something
[27:01] deeply important that was there in the
[27:03] old traditions
[27:04] that is missing from this purely
[27:07] pragmatic
[27:08] materialistic way of living so we need
[27:10] to go back to the old
[27:12] myths and stories and extract the wisdom
[27:14] and lessons of our ancestors
[27:17] and then of course after stage orange
[27:19] like in the 1950s and 60s then came
[27:22] stage green came online and green was
[27:25] even more relativistic
[27:26] and it not only was it you know so far
[27:28] we've been talking about modernity but
[27:30] then
[27:30] it went even beyond that into
[27:32] post-modernity
[27:34] and then there was a lot of very deep
[27:36] questioning of
[27:37] of all morals and and even cultural
[27:39] norms like what does it even mean to be
[27:40] a man or a woman even ask her to be
[27:42] questioned
[27:44] is heterosexuality even correct even
[27:46] that became questioned
[27:49] and basically with sage green the
[27:51] relativistic stage
[27:54] all the remaining foundations of western
[27:56] civilization were undermined
[28:00] there was a loss of this sort of
[28:02] simplistic top-down authority
[28:05] not just of religion which already
[28:07] happened with modernity but now
[28:09] even with science so see a lot of what
[28:12] sort of normies don't like about
[28:16] post-modernism is that post-modernism
[28:18] doesn't just question the old traditions
[28:20] of the ancestors
[28:21] it goes a step further it questions
[28:23] modernity the idea of an objective
[28:25] reality
[28:26] the idea that physics is the one
[28:29] true interpretation
[28:32] and explanation for what reality is
[28:35] post-modernity
[28:36] questions that
[28:40] and a lot of folks in the hard sciences
[28:42] don't like this
[28:43] because they like the authority they
[28:45] have of the
[28:47] hard sciences they want to say no no no
[28:50] yeah this post-modernism stuff this is
[28:51] just from the soft sciences
[28:53] these people they're just kind of
[28:54] philosophers and social critics
[28:56] but what they're talking about this
[28:58] relativism sure maybe there's a
[28:59] relativism of different cultures
[29:01] of morals and norms a hard scientist
[29:04] would acknowledge that
[29:05] and and maybe you know western
[29:07] civilization is not the best
[29:08] civilization maybe there's
[29:10] value in eastern civilization in the
[29:11] middle eastern civilization and all this
[29:14] okay we'll admit that but let's protect
[29:18] the foundation of science the hard
[29:21] sciences
[29:23] physics chemistry biology
[29:26] mathematics and logic these
[29:31] cannot be questioned because these are
[29:33] the deepest source of truth in our
[29:35] society
[29:36] they produce all of our technology look
[29:38] we landed a man on the moon
[29:40] look at the satellites we launched look
[29:41] at the rockets we have look at the
[29:43] nuclear weapons we have
[29:44] you can't deny that that is real it's
[29:46] tangible
[29:47] you can't just say that's relative
[29:52] and so biology truly does say
[29:56] that there's a man and there's a woman
[29:59] and this is based on dna
[30:00] evidence and a postmodernist would say
[30:03] no
[30:05] even that is just a limited
[30:09] and biased way of looking at the world
[30:12] and it is not
[30:13] the absolute truth and it is not the
[30:15] most important and the most objective
[30:19] and so post-modernist for example with
[30:20] level critiques even at the hard
[30:22] scientists by saying stuff like
[30:24] well most of the hard sciences have been
[30:26] done by
[30:28] privileged white men for
[30:32] centuries for millennia and that
[30:35] presents a very
[30:36] certain biased view of the physical
[30:40] world
[30:41] for example when women do science they
[30:43] might have a different way of looking
[30:44] at the world they might have a different
[30:46] epistemology a different metaphysics
[30:48] a different emphasis on what's important
[30:51] to look at
[30:53] because it's not just that you're
[30:54] looking at the physical world as it is
[30:56] really what you're doing is you're
[30:57] picking you're cherry picking data and
[30:59] facts
[31:00] you're running certain kinds of
[31:01] experiments but then it's you
[31:03] who's determining what kind of
[31:05] experiments are worthwhile to run
[31:07] and how to interpret the data and how to
[31:09] frame the data and what it means
[31:11] and then how to decide what kind of
[31:12] society to structure based upon that
[31:14] data
[31:14] what kind of normative rules and
[31:17] guidelines to give to people
[31:19] in a society
[31:22] now of course the hard scientists
[31:25] they're at stage orange they're stuck in
[31:26] stage orange and so they will debate
[31:28] that and so now we have a debate between
[31:30] orange and green and i'm not going to go
[31:32] too deeply into that
[31:34] here because you can debate that for
[31:35] hours there's a there's
[31:38] there's valid points to be made on both
[31:39] sides but in general stage green is
[31:41] above stage orange
[31:43] and if you
[31:47] move to green properly in a solid
[31:49] if you move to green properly in a solid
[31:49] way and you also integrate orange as you
[31:51] move to green
[31:52] then you should still be able to retain
[31:54] the truths of orange
[31:55] the partial truths of orange and then
[31:57] transcend them with green
[32:01] but with green comes a sort of a what
[32:03] ken wilbur calls it
[32:04] a perspectival madness
[32:09] basically when you move into green the
[32:11] reason people are scared of moving into
[32:13] green the reason there's so much
[32:14] backlash against green
[32:16] is because green is actually very
[32:19] difficult on you psychologically
[32:22] and i went through this when i was in in
[32:25] my late teens
[32:26] early 20s really more like
[32:30] late teens i went through it pretty
[32:32] early
[32:33] where i realized that
[32:37] all of the moral systems were just
[32:39] constructions and we're social
[32:41] conditioning and programming
[32:43] whether christian and even science i
[32:45] started to question even
[32:47] science the norms of science the method
[32:49] of science
[32:51] and i started just to see that all of
[32:53] these are just different and very
[32:54] limited and partial ways of
[32:56] of interacting with reality and looking
[32:59] at reality and that they're not
[33:00] absolutely true
[33:01] and when that happened i was left in
[33:03] this sort of uh
[33:06] what i would describe like in the middle
[33:08] of the ocean rudderless
[33:10] not knowing which direction to go
[33:12] because i had all these different
[33:13] perspectives
[33:14] and i couldn't determine which one was
[33:16] right because
[33:17] for me i became sort of a complete
[33:19] relativist and it was like well
[33:23] terrorists are are
[33:26] you know bombing 911 is that good or bad
[33:29] well who should say
[33:32] i mean after all as an american i have
[33:35] biases
[33:36] of course i don't like it as an american
[33:38] but if i was a
[33:39] lived in the middle east and i was an
[33:42] oppressed
[33:43] uh you know muslim maybe that would be a
[33:46] good thing for me
[33:48] and after all you know american
[33:51] capitalism
[33:52] has done a lot of bad stuff in the
[33:53] middle east so who's to say they don't
[33:55] even have a valid point
[33:58] that's one perspective you might take as
[34:01] a relativist
[34:02] um you know another perspective you
[34:05] might take is like well um
[34:13] like on war is the war in iraq a good
[34:17] thing or a bad thing
[34:18] and you can make sort of a case for both
[34:21] and so basically or like another example
[34:24] would be like with the left wing and the
[34:25] right wing
[34:26] at that point in my life when i was in
[34:27] my late teens
[34:29] uh i would watch basically both sides
[34:33] of the political aisle the left and the
[34:35] right and i would treat them totally
[34:36] equally
[34:37] because at that point i didn't have
[34:39] enough discernment to understand i
[34:41] didn't know about spider dynamics
[34:42] i didn't know that there were sort of
[34:43] lower and higher stages of development
[34:46] and so i thought that everybody was just
[34:48] equal and that the left and the right
[34:49] were just two equal sides of the coin
[34:51] and so i watched a lot of conservative
[34:53] media even though i didn't agree with it
[34:55] because i myself was quite quite liberal
[34:57] but like i would watch a lot of bill
[34:59] o'reilly
[35:00] sean hannity i would listen to a lot of
[35:02] right-wing talk radio
[35:04] for hours and hours and hours and even
[35:06] though i didn't agree with with their
[35:07] ideas
[35:09] ultimately i had to say like well but
[35:11] who am i to say that what i agree with
[35:13] or
[35:13] don't agree with is the arbiter of truth
[35:16] what if bill o'reilly is right what if
[35:18] sean hannity makes a good point and so i
[35:20] listened to that
[35:21] in retrospect now i realize how how
[35:24] foolish that was but that was a phase i
[35:25] had to go through
[35:26] because at that point i literally did
[35:28] not have a means
[35:30] for adjudicating or discerning between
[35:33] any kind of value judgments so i was
[35:35] very sort of neutral
[35:37] and i thought that neutrality was the
[35:40] closest to truth
[35:44] but it turns out that there's a there
[35:46] are higher ways of looking at things and
[35:48] that not not every
[35:49] not every side is equally valid
[35:54] so how to deal with this a perspectival
[35:56] madness or this multiplicity of
[35:58] perspectives and views
[36:00] and sorting them out and making sense of
[36:02] which views are
[36:03] more valid than others which ones are
[36:05] more truthful
[36:07] than others which ones are more
[36:08] beneficial and healthy and which ones
[36:10] are more toxic
[36:11] which ones are more in good faith which
[36:13] ones are more in bad faith
[36:15] this is what it took me a good
[36:18] five or ten years to learn of swimming
[36:21] around
[36:22] in this a perspectival madness and i
[36:25] think and it was
[36:26] it was difficult emotionally it was
[36:28] difficult
[36:30] uh you feel lost
[36:34] and i think that this is precisely why
[36:35] people who are raised into a traditional
[36:40] value system like judeo-christian
[36:44] the judeo-christian worldview or any
[36:46] other value system islam or something
[36:48] like that
[36:49] for it's so difficult to get them up
[36:51] into stage green
[36:53] from stage blue because in doing so
[36:57] they become unmoored
[37:02] and they become lost and they don't want
[37:05] to go through that
[37:06] and also you start to question
[37:07] everything
[37:09] you become very skeptical and that's
[37:11] really where i came to nihilism from is
[37:14] from
[37:14] a deep skepticism early in my
[37:17] teenage years i was just i just knew
[37:19] that everything had to be questioned i
[37:21] couldn't take anything on faith
[37:23] because to take something even one thing
[37:24] on faith would
[37:26] would open me to a possibility for deep
[37:29] epistemic error
[37:30] and so basically i questioned everything
[37:32] including science
[37:34] and see most people if they question the
[37:37] religious norms
[37:38] that's easy questioning the scientific
[37:42] norms
[37:43] that's really hard and i fell into that
[37:45] trap too for a while
[37:46] at first i started to turn my skepticism
[37:49] towards science
[37:50] because i suspected that something there
[37:52] was fishy
[37:53] but as much as i poured my skepticism
[37:56] into it i just couldn't crack the nut of
[37:58] science
[37:59] uh it's too strong it it it defends
[38:03] itself so it has
[38:04] so many ingenious defense mechanisms
[38:07] that get you to believe that it's
[38:09] absolute truth or objective truth or
[38:11] that it's the best
[38:12] method of arriving to truth that we have
[38:15] and it's especially difficult to
[38:16] challenge the hard sciences
[38:18] and i just couldn't wrap my mind around
[38:20] how to do it i wanted to do it
[38:22] as a skeptic but i didn't know how
[38:25] and it would take me probably another
[38:27] decade to succeed in that
[38:31] um but basically i tried to crack the
[38:34] nut
[38:34] of of of science and i couldn't crack it
[38:37] and as a result i sort of was
[38:42] resigned to the truths of science
[38:44] because i couldn't crack them
[38:47] and uh and i was sort of resigned to
[38:49] evolution
[38:50] and i was sort of resigned to atheism at
[38:53] that point
[38:57] because they don't really teach you how
[38:58] to crack the nut of science
[39:01] because our society hasn't progressed to
[39:02] that level yet
[39:04] although i mean they're starting to
[39:06] teach it with stage green
[39:08] in universities and that's precisely
[39:09] what all the backlash
[39:11] to stage green is about is because the
[39:14] stage blue people and the strange orange
[39:15] people
[39:16] the religious people and the scientific
[39:17] people the atheistic people the rational
[39:19] people
[39:19] they do not want their atheism and
[39:21] rationalism deconstructed
[39:23] and they're gonna they're gonna employ
[39:26] every single trick in their
[39:27] in their ego's mind to prevent that from
[39:30] happening
[39:34] so why is nihilism seen as so negative
[39:36] by society
[39:38] fundamentally because it undermines the
[39:40] ego
[39:42] the ego needs to construct meaning and
[39:46] value
[39:47] in order to orient itself and to survive
[39:50] that
[39:51] is what meaning and value are meaning
[39:54] and value are not things
[39:55] found in the outer world this is
[39:57] basically what nihilism is telling you
[39:59] and also to a certain extent
[40:01] post-modernism
[40:03] you don't find meaning and value in the
[40:04] outer world and i mean
[40:06] a good scientist will tell you this too
[40:09] science doesn't prove
[40:11] anything is valuable or meaningful
[40:15] strictly speaking all science does is it
[40:17] measures stuff
[40:18] that's all it does it makes predictions
[40:21] science can tell you
[40:22] where the moon will be next year that
[40:25] doesn't tell you if the moon is good or
[40:26] bad
[40:26] it doesn't tell you whether you should
[40:27] fly to the moon you should mine the moon
[40:29] you should nuke the moon
[40:32] settle the moon it tells you nothing
[40:33] about what you should do but you see
[40:38] us humans were caught in an extra in an
[40:41] existential bind for survival
[40:43] you don't really have an option as long
[40:45] as you're alive
[40:46] you're surviving and in fact not just
[40:48] having an option but
[40:50] you have deep instincts from a billion
[40:52] years of evolution
[40:53] for survival you're instinctually biased
[40:57] towards surviving
[40:58] and against doing airy fairy philosophy
[41:01] and deconstructing meaning
[41:04] you can sit here with me today and
[41:05] deconstruct all the meaning you want
[41:07] and you can even believe it you can even
[41:09] call yourself a nihilist but then
[41:11] tomorrow you're gonna wake up and go to
[41:12] work and
[41:13] earn your paycheck to pay your
[41:15] electricity and to feed yourself
[41:16] because you're hungry and the hunger
[41:18] will override
[41:20] any philosophical considerations of
[41:22] nihilism
[41:24] you see this is the problem so
[41:27] it's easy to call yourself a nihilist
[41:29] but then you don't actually act like it
[41:31] this is one of the deep problems with
[41:33] nihilism
[41:35] is that for you to actually live like a
[41:36] nihilist would be very very challenging
[41:39] and so a lot of nihilists they might
[41:41] call themselves that or might they might
[41:42] fancy themselves that way
[41:43] but that's just some sort of
[41:44] intellectual game they play they don't
[41:46] actually live that way
[41:47] and most humans don't live that way and
[41:49] most humans recognize that that's a bad
[41:51] way to live
[41:55] but nihilism is treated as negative by
[41:58] society at large because society at
[41:59] large
[42:00] is in the business of constructing a
[42:03] civilization
[42:04] it has a bias
[42:09] and the ego hates when its constructions
[42:11] are questioned because the questioning
[42:12] of these constructions which are very
[42:14] useful for
[42:15] survival threatens survival so for
[42:17] example if we start questioning
[42:19] money what money is and we start telling
[42:22] everyone hey you know
[42:23] the us dollar is just imaginary it
[42:25] doesn't have any value or meaning
[42:27] that's going to lead to the destruction
[42:28] of the economy
[42:32] and most people don't want that
[42:35] because most people aren't interested in
[42:37] knowing the dollars imaginary they just
[42:38] want to use the dollar
[42:40] to buy their food
[42:44] see western civilization as it turns out
[42:46] is a house of cards
[42:47] built on an unquestioned foundation
[42:51] of axioms assumptions both metaphysical
[42:53] epistemic
[42:54] religious theological scientific
[42:58] linguistic
[43:02] even the idea of a western civilization
[43:04] as a concept
[43:05] itself is a construction it's a house of
[43:09] cards
[43:11] not to mention the idea that western
[43:12] civilization is the best
[43:15] that too is a is a house of cards you
[43:18] will realize if you question it
[43:20] if you dare to question it
[43:23] and western civilization has this bias
[43:25] of construction
[43:26] or survival
[43:29] which means that western civilization
[43:35] if it finds some useful falsehood
[43:38] it would rather go with the useful
[43:41] falsehood
[43:42] than with the truth
[43:45] because the falsehood is useful
[43:48] whereas the truth what's it going to do
[43:50] for me so see if your attitude is very
[43:52] selfish
[43:53] and all you care about is your own
[43:55] comfort and what things are going to do
[43:57] for you
[44:00] then that opens the floodgates for all
[44:03] sorts of falsehoods
[44:05] fantasies and constructions and
[44:07] illusions
[44:10] and then the problem with that is that
[44:12] as you're building those and you're
[44:13] connecting them together
[44:14] the more of them you connect together
[44:15] the more your illusions take on
[44:21] a an air of reality but this is not true
[44:24] reality it's a
[44:26] pseudo reality it's merely that you're
[44:29] writing a novel
[44:30] and you're adding in so many rich
[44:31] details into this novel that you're
[44:33] writing
[44:33] that eventually you get so lost in your
[44:35] own novel
[44:36] you get so lost in your own bullshit
[44:38] that you forget it was bullshit from the
[44:40] very beginning that it's a fantasy
[44:44] it can be fun it can help you to survive
[44:50] but also the problem with it is that it
[44:52] becomes very vulnerable
[44:55] it becomes vulnerable to deconstruction
[44:57] and
[44:58] to prevent the deconstruction this
[45:00] construct
[45:01] which we might call western civilization
[45:03] it starts adding on
[45:05] additional lies and fantasies as defense
[45:07] mechanisms
[45:09] so for example science
[45:13] is the foundation of today's western
[45:15] civilization in the past it used to be
[45:17] christianity
[45:18] but now it's science and materialism and
[45:20] rationalism
[45:21] and logic and mathematics so that's the
[45:24] foundation
[45:24] if you start to question that you will
[45:27] get so demonized and so attacked
[45:31] because it's virtually impossible to
[45:34] deconstruct that foundation
[45:35] not because you can't
[45:38] and not because it's true but simply
[45:41] because
[45:43] people are so defensive about it that
[45:44] they won't even give you
[45:46] the time of day to listen to you
[45:49] and they won't even want to contemplate
[45:51] it
[45:53] because if you can unravel that you will
[45:55] unravel all of western civilization
[46:00] and i've i've done that in other
[46:02] episodes you can see me doing that
[46:05] see my three-part series deconstructing
[46:07] the myth of science where i go very deep
[46:09] into that uh
[46:13] but anyways see so what happens with
[46:15] nihilism is that nihilism
[46:18] is kind of like a for a very deep part
[46:20] of skepticism um
[46:23] literally literally leads to a
[46:25] disillusionment
[46:27] think of that word dis illusion meant
[46:32] it's the loss of illusion
[46:35] and the ego doesn't like to lose its
[46:37] illusions it doesn't feel good to the
[46:39] ego
[46:40] how do you think a scientist feels who
[46:42] invested 40 years into his phd work
[46:45] and research and
[46:48] into his academic career how do you
[46:51] think he will feel
[46:52] if he realizes that the entire
[46:55] foundation of science
[46:56] and academia is built on illusions and
[46:59] fictions and constructions
[47:04] it's going to lead to an existential
[47:05] crisis
[47:08] it's going to lead to a nihilism he
[47:10] would say
[47:12] and therefore he associates negativity
[47:14] with that
[47:16] but that negativity is not inherent to
[47:18] the nihilism that negativity is simply
[47:20] because
[47:21] you've been building this house of cards
[47:23] you've been constructing this ponzi
[47:24] scheme in your own mind
[47:26] you and collectively with all your
[47:27] friends and colleagues
[47:29] and then now it's getting unraveled and
[47:32] that threatens you
[47:34] threatens your survival threatens your
[47:35] livelihood
[47:37] maybe you won't be able to feed your
[47:38] kids anymore that threatens you that's
[47:40] very scary
[47:41] to you as a matter of life and death
[47:43] you've built your entire identity around
[47:44] this
[47:46] so good luck getting one of these
[47:48] scientists to really do a serious
[47:50] deconstruction
[47:51] of science or academia or logic
[47:56] and of course they're gonna have very
[47:56] good excuses for why leo no no it's not
[47:59] that i don't want to
[48:00] or i can't handle it leo it's just
[48:02] because
[48:04] you're some new ager who has a soft mind
[48:06] and isn't
[48:07] isn't a true scientist that's that's the
[48:09] real reason
[48:13] see you think you're being rational and
[48:16] truthful you're not you're playing games
[48:18] you're playing ego games even when you
[48:20] tell yourself you're being factual and
[48:21] objective and scientific and rigorous
[48:23] and logical
[48:24] and all of that you tell yourself that
[48:27] that's not ego stuff
[48:28] that's objective reality you're being
[48:31] very hard-nosed
[48:32] and what i'm telling you is that no all
[48:34] of that is a story you invented
[48:38] as a defense mechanism by your ego
[48:41] to prevent you from actually really
[48:43] doing a serious investigation and
[48:45] deconstruction
[48:46] of the foundations of your mind in
[48:48] reality
[48:50] and you will say no leah that's some
[48:51] psychobabble bullshit
[48:53] and i would just say that's yeah it's
[48:55] another story you come up with
[48:57] another defense mechanism see you have
[48:59] an endless amount of these defense
[49:00] mechanisms no matter what i say
[49:02] you have a defense mechanism against it
[49:04] so
[49:05] that's how the mind works you have an
[49:06] infinite capacity for denial and
[49:08] rationalization so you will rationalize
[49:10] away
[49:12] any critique i give because you're not
[49:14] an honest actor see you're not
[49:16] interested in truth you're interested in
[49:17] survival
[49:20] and i said no leo is a scientist i'm
[49:21] interested in truth but you aren't
[49:24] because if you were truly interested in
[49:25] truth you would deconstruct science and
[49:26] then you would realize science is not
[49:28] actually truth
[49:31] but no leo says truth well that's the
[49:33] social conditioning you were taught
[49:36] that you never questioned what if
[49:38] science is not truth
[49:40] see but you don't want to go down that
[49:41] road it's too scary the problem is is
[49:43] that
[49:44] you have no clue yet how scary it is to
[49:47] deconstruct science
[49:51] you think it's just like
[49:54] some philosophy here like it's
[49:57] oh it's all fun and games it's just
[50:00] cool ideas no no no it's not cool ideas
[50:03] this will
[50:04] radically send you into a
[50:07] a spiral a nihilistic spiral an
[50:10] existential crisis
[50:12] and then that will be very difficult for
[50:13] you emotionally to deal with
[50:16] the problem here is not not that you're
[50:18] not rational enough although that is a
[50:20] problem your rationality is actually
[50:21] very poor
[50:22] uh you're completely distorting and
[50:24] twisting rationality
[50:26] uh your ego has co-opted it as part of
[50:29] survival
[50:30] but that's not the the main problem the
[50:31] main problem is actually emotional
[50:33] emotionally you actually can't handle
[50:35] the things that i'm saying
[50:37] which is why you deny it all right so
[50:40] let's explicitly tell you
[50:42] how nihilism is right nihilism is
[50:44] correct
[50:45] in that life has no meaning and purpose
[50:48] that's correct
[50:49] how could it all meaning and purpose is
[50:51] relative and
[50:53] completely contingent upon one's ego and
[50:56] what one identifies oneself as all
[50:58] identity is of course
[50:59] also completely relative so
[51:05] what's meaningful to one will not be
[51:07] meaningful to another
[51:09] and this is so obvious just look at
[51:12] look at history look at how mankind
[51:14] behaves look at all the conflict and war
[51:16] it's completely obvious that like
[51:20] to christians jesus is meaningful
[51:23] but to a buddhist jesus is not
[51:25] meaningful
[51:27] to a buddhist buddha is meaningful to
[51:30] christians buddha is
[51:31] the devil not meaningful or meaningful
[51:34] and negative sense
[51:39] to a christian going to church and you
[51:42] know eating a wafer that the priest
[51:44] gives you
[51:45] like in the catholic church the
[51:46] eucharist or whatever it is that's
[51:48] meaningful
[51:49] has a lot of meaning to a buddhist
[51:52] or to a scientist or an atheist it looks
[51:55] silly
[51:56] what does eating this wafer have to do
[51:57] with being spiritual
[52:00] it's completely relative right
[52:04] you might even say well yeah maybe those
[52:05] things are relative those are like
[52:06] cultural
[52:07] things but but but leah what about like
[52:09] science objective truth isn't that
[52:11] meaningful
[52:12] what about um happiness what about
[52:15] living a good life
[52:16] what about life itself isn't that
[52:17] meaningful inherently
[52:19] and the answer is no why would it be why
[52:21] would life be any more meaningful
[52:23] than death why would a good life be any
[52:27] more meaningful than a bad life
[52:29] it's so it's all personal preference
[52:33] some people actually enjoy cutting
[52:34] themselves or suffering
[52:37] in fact most people enjoy their
[52:38] suffering and don't want to give it up
[52:41] as far as purposes in life well you can
[52:42] have whatever purpose you want i mean
[52:44] hitler had the purpose of exterminating
[52:45] the jews
[52:47] that was his purpose that got his juices
[52:50] flowing
[52:52] was that a wrong purpose was it a right
[52:54] purpose it doesn't apply
[52:56] it was a purpose that's what he liked
[53:00] somebody else might have a purpose to
[53:02] evangelize the world you know some
[53:04] christian missionary might travel to
[53:05] to polynesia and convert some heathens
[53:08] there
[53:08] into uh christians is that is that a
[53:11] good purpose is that a valid purpose is
[53:13] that a wrong purpose
[53:15] it's whatever you imagine it is
[53:18] some scientists might might have the
[53:20] purpose to
[53:22] to explore the galaxy and to discover
[53:26] new scientific truth is that a valid
[53:28] purpose
[53:29] i mean it all depends some scientists
[53:32] might have the purpose of building a
[53:33] nuclear weapon
[53:34] is that a good purpose again it all
[53:36] depends there's no good or bad about
[53:38] these purposes
[53:42] it's however your ego structures itself
[53:44] and conceived the world in the end all
[53:45] these purposes and meanings are just
[53:47] functions of the ego all value is
[53:49] created by the ego
[53:52] if you take a look at an object just
[53:54] sitting out an empty space like the moon
[53:56] the moon has no value is that obvious to
[53:59] you that the moon has no value
[54:04] it only has value relative to
[54:07] your ego's survival so for example if
[54:10] you're a
[54:11] a businessman and you want to have a
[54:15] mega yacht and you want to live in
[54:16] beverly hills
[54:18] you know in a 50 million dollar mansion
[54:21] on a hill
[54:22] with a nice view you might get the idea
[54:25] that you can mine
[54:26] minerals on the moon and then sell them
[54:28] to other humans
[54:29] because other humans want them for
[54:30] survival it's useful
[54:32] so you develop some rockets and a space
[54:35] mining you know facility up on the moon
[54:36] to get
[54:37] get it up on the moon there with the
[54:38] rockets and then you mine the minerals
[54:40] and you send them down
[54:41] you mine gold and whatever else is there
[54:44] you sell it
[54:44] and then if the moon becomes valuable to
[54:47] you
[54:48] because you want to extract stuff from
[54:50] the moon
[54:51] so that you can live in your nice
[54:52] mansion with
[54:54] you know you can pay for prostitutes um
[54:57] and you can have nice parties and you
[54:59] can drive a fancy
[55:01] you know mercedes-benz or rolls-royce
[55:05] and you can impress your neighbors and
[55:07] you can feel good about yourself
[55:08] and in that sense the moon is valuable
[55:10] to you
[55:13] but like is the moon valuable to your
[55:15] dog no
[55:17] the moon has zero value to your dog
[55:20] is the moon valuable to a tree no
[55:24] is the moon valuable to the universe as
[55:26] a whole like does the universe value the
[55:27] moon
[55:28] more than it values the earth no
[55:32] obviously not so
[55:35] nihilism is also correct in that all
[55:37] morality is relative
[55:39] because morality is basically just
[55:41] hinged upon value meaning and purpose so
[55:43] if those are relative then morality goes
[55:45] as well
[55:46] what's good what's bad
[55:49] it's it's whatever you decide and if you
[55:52] look through him in
[55:53] human history this is what explains all
[55:55] of the craziness of human history
[55:57] all of the evil and all of the
[55:59] finger-pointing and blaming and all the
[56:01] torture and all the
[56:02] pillaging and raping and and uh
[56:06] spanish inquisitions and all this why
[56:08] did all this stuff happen
[56:09] not only did it happen but all the
[56:10] people who did that stuff they thought
[56:12] they were being the good guys
[56:13] as they were doing it
[56:16] they honestly thought they were the good
[56:18] guys why because
[56:21] good is nothing other than what your ego
[56:24] thinks is good for it that's how you
[56:26] define good
[56:28] there is no absolute good without an ego
[56:38] how can something be bad if
[56:43] you don't care what happens to you see
[56:46] bad stuff only makes sense or has
[56:48] meaning
[56:49] when you define things you don't want to
[56:52] happen happen to you like you don't want
[56:53] to be tortured
[56:54] so you define that as bad but if you
[56:56] didn't care about being tortured
[56:58] then it wouldn't be bad literally
[57:02] people think that badness is baked into
[57:04] the torture no
[57:05] badness is just your reaction and fear
[57:08] and hatred of it or the pain it causes
[57:10] you
[57:10] you might say well leo but but can't we
[57:12] all agree that pain
[57:14] is just bad suffering is inherently bad
[57:17] and the answer is no absolutely not why
[57:20] would pain and suffering be bad
[57:23] if you didn't have pain in your life you
[57:24] would be dead
[57:30] pain is the mechanism you use to stay
[57:31] alive
[57:33] so is suffering so if you want to
[57:36] eliminate all the suffering in the world
[57:37] you're stupid
[57:38] because without suffering all the things
[57:41] you love would be dead
[57:43] they might say ah leo but then we can
[57:44] say death is the is the is the worst
[57:46] thing
[57:47] death is the bad one no
[57:50] who said that
[57:54] you value life because you're alive and
[57:55] you're selfish and that's a bias
[57:58] can you see that there's no reason why
[58:00] you should value life over death
[58:05] science has not proven that death is bad
[58:10] and moreover you can't have life without
[58:12] death so if you condemn
[58:14] death then you also condemn life
[58:18] you must say no no leo in the future
[58:20] science will be able to get us to a
[58:21] point where
[58:22] we will have eternal life and no death
[58:25] there will never be such a future
[58:26] i hate to break it to you
[58:31] everything finite dies
[58:35] the only thing that doesn't die is the
[58:36] infinite
[58:38] but the infinite isn't alive to begin
[58:40] with so doesn't apply
[58:43] the infant includes both life and death
[58:45] and it doesn't uh
[58:46] distinguish between the two and it
[58:48] doesn't value one over the other
[58:50] that's the point so
[58:54] so the idea that death is bad or
[58:56] suffering is bad
[58:58] or pain is bad this is not scientific at
[59:01] all it's also not rational
[59:03] so if you think you're being rational or
[59:04] scientific by holding these beliefs
[59:07] you're not you're just you just haven't
[59:08] thought through it
[59:10] science has no opinion if you do science
[59:13] properly science has no opinion about
[59:15] death or life or pain or suffering
[59:21] in fact science would tell you that pain
[59:24] and suffering
[59:25] these were where they come from through
[59:27] evolution why they evolved because they
[59:29] were useful for life
[59:36] also how nihilism is correct is that all
[59:39] of reality is relative
[59:40] there is no objective world there is no
[59:43] objective external world
[59:46] relativity goes down not just at the
[59:48] culture it's not just at the cultural
[59:49] level it goes
[59:51] way deeper than that it goes to the
[59:53] ontological level to the metaphysical
[59:55] level
[59:58] so you are hallucinating physical
[01:00:01] reality
[01:00:02] i'm not gonna explain why or how i'm not
[01:00:04] gonna prove that to you here i've talked
[01:00:05] about that in many other
[01:00:06] places uh we'll keep going down the list
[01:00:10] um
[01:00:10] nihilism is also correct in that the
[01:00:12] world cannot really be known
[01:00:15] in the way humans try to know it so this
[01:00:16] enterprise of science thinking that you
[01:00:18] can
[01:00:18] sort of just acquire more and more
[01:00:21] knowledge accumulate and eventually
[01:00:22] you'll know the whole universe
[01:00:23] no it'll never work because the universe
[01:00:26] is infinite
[01:00:28] and and your knowledge is always partial
[01:00:30] and limited all your models
[01:00:32] um are just partial perspectives and you
[01:00:35] will never get to the full perspective
[01:00:37] by an accumulation of all of those so
[01:00:39] epistemic nihilism this is called
[01:00:41] epistemic nihilism
[01:00:43] uh sort of a nihilism towards knowledge
[01:00:44] in particular
[01:00:46] the previous point was called we might
[01:00:48] call that ontological nihilism or
[01:00:50] metaphysical nihilism
[01:00:52] uh sort of a denial of the physical
[01:00:55] objective world
[01:00:57] of course all social institutions and
[01:00:59] norms are groundless and self-serving
[01:01:01] every social institution is is pure
[01:01:04] selfishness
[01:01:05] it doesn't care about the truth it's not
[01:01:08] grounded in anything it's just a house
[01:01:09] of cards
[01:01:10] built to perpetuate itself and to serve
[01:01:13] those who are
[01:01:14] associated with it and ultimately
[01:01:17] nihilism is correct in that all beliefs
[01:01:19] are ultimately untrue
[01:01:27] i've also talked about that elsewhere we
[01:01:29] don't have time to to go into an
[01:01:31] in-depth explanation of why that's the
[01:01:32] case but if you are skeptical enough
[01:01:35] you'll realize that all beliefs are
[01:01:36] ultimately untrue
[01:01:39] so so yeah so this is what most people
[01:01:42] would deny
[01:01:44] and this is what nihilism gets right but
[01:01:47] what about what nihilism gets wrong
[01:01:50] this is also very important so let's
[01:01:51] give a list of this
[01:01:55] the biggest way nihilism is wrong is
[01:01:57] that it gives meaninglessness a negative
[01:01:59] meaning
[01:02:01] you have to distinguish here between
[01:02:03] sort of meaninglessness with a lowercase
[01:02:05] m
[01:02:06] versus meaninglessness with the
[01:02:07] uppercase m
[01:02:10] meaninglessness with a lowercase m is a
[01:02:13] sort of meaninglessness which sends you
[01:02:14] into a depression
[01:02:16] and the reason it sends you into
[01:02:17] depression is because you give it a
[01:02:19] negative meaning which of course is
[01:02:20] self-contradicting
[01:02:22] because if you truly realize that the
[01:02:25] world was meaningless
[01:02:26] completely meaningless you couldn't be
[01:02:29] depressed about it
[01:02:30] you couldn't be negative about it and it
[01:02:32] would not be a justification
[01:02:34] for inaction
[01:02:37] do you see why because if you're
[01:02:40] depressed about it or negative about it
[01:02:42] or you want to now use it as a reason to
[01:02:44] destroy things
[01:02:48] but that means you're giving it meaning
[01:02:51] it means something to you that the world
[01:02:53] is meaningless
[01:02:54] but that's not meaninglessness that's
[01:02:56] meaning
[01:03:00] so the problem here is that the nihilism
[01:03:03] doesn't go all the way
[01:03:04] you need to take your nihilism deeper
[01:03:05] until there's a sort of a going full
[01:03:07] circle an inversion
[01:03:09] where you go from the lowercase m to the
[01:03:11] uppercase m
[01:03:12] where you truly realize oh
[01:03:16] it's actually absolutely meaningless
[01:03:20] that's not bad it's not negative
[01:03:23] it doesn't mean i should destroy things
[01:03:25] it doesn't mean even that social
[01:03:27] institutions are bad
[01:03:28] it doesn't even mean that constructions
[01:03:31] are bad
[01:03:31] see if you take nihilism as this sort of
[01:03:38] invitation to destroy things because
[01:03:40] things that are constructed are fictions
[01:03:42] and houses of cards
[01:03:43] and are illusions and that illusion is
[01:03:45] bad you don't get it
[01:03:48] if you think illusion is bad you're
[01:03:50] judging illusion you're giving meaning
[01:03:51] to illusion
[01:03:52] if you think the us government is bad
[01:03:56] because it's just a house of cards built
[01:03:58] on nothing but fantasies and
[01:04:02] you know fairy tales we tell ourselves
[01:04:04] from the money to the constitution
[01:04:06] that's written on a piece of paper
[01:04:07] to the language we used to write it
[01:04:11] you don't really understand how deeply
[01:04:14] meaningless it is
[01:04:17] it's so meaningless that you shouldn't
[01:04:18] be pissed off at anything
[01:04:21] if you're angsty about stuff if you're
[01:04:22] bitter about stuff
[01:04:24] if you hate stuff if you want to kill
[01:04:26] people
[01:04:27] if you're turning into a misanthropic
[01:04:29] person who doesn't like mankind
[01:04:31] all of that you need to recognize is not
[01:04:33] true nihilism
[01:04:34] it is a pseudo-nihilism it is negative
[01:04:37] meaning
[01:04:38] and that is the ego
[01:04:41] that is the ego and in fact it's a less
[01:04:44] functional
[01:04:45] and more toxic ego than the ego of those
[01:04:48] people who are actually constructing
[01:04:49] these illusions and houses of cards
[01:04:56] that is a problem and i think that
[01:05:00] that's
[01:05:00] in something that normal people even
[01:05:01] though that they won't be able to
[01:05:02] articulate this of you you know talk
[01:05:04] with them
[01:05:04] they have that intuition about nihilism
[01:05:06] is that
[01:05:07] your nihilism is like what is it going
[01:05:09] to really do for you it's going to send
[01:05:10] you
[01:05:11] into a depression and it's going to make
[01:05:12] you better at the world that's not a
[01:05:14] good way to live the world and they're
[01:05:15] correct about that
[01:05:18] you don't want to live you don't want to
[01:05:19] live in the world that way
[01:05:24] another thing that nihilism gets wrong
[01:05:25] is that you can't derive an ought from
[01:05:27] an is
[01:05:30] so if you say that reality is
[01:05:34] meaningless that does not mean that now
[01:05:38] you ought to do something
[01:05:40] like destroy an institution or destroy
[01:05:43] science
[01:05:44] or to kill somebody
[01:05:48] or to commit suicide
[01:05:52] no reality could be completely
[01:05:54] meaningless
[01:05:55] and you could enjoy it
[01:05:59] reality could be completely meaningless
[01:06:01] and you can buy a ticket to hawaii
[01:06:02] and go on the beach and sip your pina
[01:06:04] colada
[01:06:06] and enjoy beautiful women sunbathing on
[01:06:10] the
[01:06:10] on the on the beach that's perfectly
[01:06:14] compatible with true nihilism
[01:06:16] but see if you're doing a sort of a
[01:06:18] pseudo-nihilism a false nihilism
[01:06:20] then you might say no that's that's
[01:06:22] you're still part of the game and you
[01:06:24] know you're not
[01:06:25] you gotta actually destroy the system
[01:06:26] man
[01:06:28] no why why destroy why destroy anything
[01:06:33] why is destruction better than creation
[01:06:36] why is creation better than destruction
[01:06:37] see
[01:06:38] if you're truly annihilus you're truly
[01:06:40] left in this
[01:06:41] such a neutral position that it actually
[01:06:44] frees you up
[01:06:45] to behave in any way you want
[01:06:48] and now if you want to destroy if you
[01:06:51] genuinely want to destroy that makes you
[01:06:53] feel good i guess
[01:06:55] okay go for it but does it
[01:06:58] does it make you feel good is that
[01:07:00] really what you want
[01:07:02] if you think about it you'll realize no
[01:07:05] i don't want that
[01:07:06] it doesn't feel good it doesn't make
[01:07:08] others feel good
[01:07:09] so why would i do it now you can say
[01:07:10] well but if it doesn't make me feel good
[01:07:13] so what can't i be a nihilist and
[01:07:15] destroy stuff even it makes me feel bad
[01:07:17] and of course the answer is yes of
[01:07:19] course you can
[01:07:21] because nihilism completely frees you up
[01:07:22] to be any way you want but the question
[01:07:24] is
[01:07:24] do you actually want that in the end
[01:07:27] what it comes down to is just what do
[01:07:28] you want
[01:07:31] you're confused about what you want
[01:07:32] that's the problem
[01:07:34] if you cleared that up you wouldn't be
[01:07:36] destroying things
[01:07:38] or you would be very careful in what you
[01:07:40] destroy because i mean
[01:07:41] certain things do need to be destroyed
[01:07:43] like certain corrupt social institutions
[01:07:45] they need to be questioned and reformed
[01:07:47] parts of them need to be destroyed
[01:07:49] but this sort of like desire to take a
[01:07:52] wrecking ball
[01:07:53] to all of mankind and even maybe to
[01:07:56] yourself and even maybe destroy your own
[01:07:58] life
[01:07:58] this is this is not going to be a life
[01:08:01] that you yourself want
[01:08:03] so that's a dead end
[01:08:07] another thing that's wrong with nihilism
[01:08:08] is that it doesn't complete
[01:08:11] the deconstruction of the ego
[01:08:17] into awakening and god realization
[01:08:22] so the problem is again the same way
[01:08:24] that skepticism is often misused i've
[01:08:25] talked about this in my episode called
[01:08:27] false versus true skepticism
[01:08:29] oftentimes the way skepticism and
[01:08:30] nihilism is used is that it's used to
[01:08:32] destroy all of the
[01:08:33] stuff outside of you and it's not turned
[01:08:37] in towards you
[01:08:38] really what you should be doing you take
[01:08:40] the wrecking ball of nihilism and
[01:08:41] skepticism
[01:08:42] and swing it at yourself swing it at
[01:08:44] that giant ego of yours
[01:08:46] deconstruct that before you go
[01:08:49] deconstructing social systems
[01:08:51] and governments and
[01:08:54] even science deconstruct your own ego
[01:09:00] but see the nihilist doesn't do that
[01:09:02] almost every nihilus that
[01:09:05] i could run into i guarantee you they're
[01:09:06] gonna have a giant ego they're gonna
[01:09:08] have a nihilistic ego in fact
[01:09:09] nihilism itself will become the ego and
[01:09:11] the identity
[01:09:13] but they're not gonna be conscious of
[01:09:14] that so in fact they're contradicting
[01:09:16] themselves
[01:09:17] because see when the nihilism gets so
[01:09:19] deep the nihilism has to destroy itself
[01:09:21] too
[01:09:23] but most nihilists aren't willing to do
[01:09:25] that because that's too threatening for
[01:09:26] the ego to do
[01:09:28] so what the ego does is the ego co-ops
[01:09:30] nihilism is part of its survival
[01:09:31] strategy
[01:09:32] and then what i would say is that the
[01:09:33] survival strategy of nihilism if you're
[01:09:35] going to use it for that
[01:09:36] is very dysfunctional and in this sense
[01:09:39] normies are correct
[01:09:40] jordan peterson is correct nihilism as a
[01:09:42] survival strategy in life
[01:09:45] ain't so good it's not going to work out
[01:09:47] for you but
[01:09:49] there is a deeper truer nihilism which
[01:09:52] leads to awakening
[01:09:53] if you take it that far that means
[01:09:56] deconstructing your ego
[01:09:58] so another thing that nihilism gets
[01:09:59] wrong is that mostly what nihilism is as
[01:10:01] a philosophy
[01:10:02] is it's just stuck at the level of
[01:10:04] belief and concept
[01:10:06] it's not actualized it's
[01:10:09] also turned into a political ideology
[01:10:12] sometimes like maybe anarchism
[01:10:17] that's also an invalid use of of of
[01:10:20] nihilism
[01:10:23] doesn't make any political
[01:10:25] nihilism doesn't make any political
[01:10:25] prescriptions truly
[01:10:28] if you think government is bad and evil
[01:10:30] you're not being a proper nihilist
[01:10:35] and finally what nihilism gets wrong is
[01:10:38] that it overlooks what happens when you
[01:10:40] reach the
[01:10:41] bottom of nihilism if you go all the way
[01:10:44] down down down down the rabbit hole
[01:10:46] of nihilism eventually what happens is
[01:10:48] that you awaken
[01:10:52] everything loses meaning but then after
[01:10:54] that
[01:10:55] you go through the dark night of the
[01:10:56] soul and then the ego dies and then you
[01:10:58] awaken to
[01:10:59] god not as a belief
[01:11:04] not as some christian fairy tale
[01:11:09] god has consciousness consciousness is
[01:11:12] the only real thing
[01:11:14] so what nihilism overlooks is that yes
[01:11:17] the christian versions of god were
[01:11:18] stupid and so are many of the other
[01:11:21] religious versions of god yes religion
[01:11:23] is pretty stupid it's filled with dogma
[01:11:24] and bullshit and so forth and the
[01:11:26] meaning it comes up with is a false
[01:11:27] pseudo meaning but it's missing the very
[01:11:31] soul and heart of reality which is
[01:11:35] that you're god that god is everything
[01:11:37] that god is beauty
[01:11:39] god is love god is divinity spirit
[01:11:42] goodness truth consciousness all as
[01:11:44] absolutes
[01:11:48] so the paradox of meaninglessness is
[01:11:50] that when it completely collapses
[01:11:52] you actually discover infinite love and
[01:11:54] absolute goodness
[01:11:56] which is everything and then you realize
[01:11:58] oh all these
[01:12:00] stupid nihilistic beliefs and
[01:12:01] philosophies i had all these
[01:12:02] philosophers i read
[01:12:04] the existentialist nietzsche and all
[01:12:05] this they were all deluded
[01:12:07] and i was just using them as a defense
[01:12:09] mechanism against the realization of
[01:12:10] what i am as god
[01:12:11] infinite love
[01:12:16] and then you're no longer you're no
[01:12:18] longer depressed
[01:12:22] you no longer want to destroy at that
[01:12:25] point
[01:12:27] at that point uh
[01:12:30] you so fall in love with yourself and
[01:12:32] with reality
[01:12:36] that you actually rediscover a higher
[01:12:40] purpose
[01:12:41] and the higher purpose is to help
[01:12:44] mankind
[01:12:46] to awaken not because you have to
[01:12:50] not because someone told you not because
[01:12:53] religion tells you
[01:12:54] not because it's a moral tradition or a
[01:12:56] norm
[01:12:59] but simply because that's what god would
[01:13:01] do
[01:13:02] that's what consciousness does
[01:13:04] consciousness is a
[01:13:05] self-awakening system
[01:13:09] everything that happens within
[01:13:10] consciousness is just
[01:13:12] a means to help consciousness awaken to
[01:13:14] itself in the absolute sense
[01:13:16] in the biggest picture sense and then
[01:13:18] you just
[01:13:19] when you relinquish your selfish needs
[01:13:21] and concerns
[01:13:23] you lose yourself and then when you lose
[01:13:24] yourself you just become a force of the
[01:13:26] universe
[01:13:27] for its own awakening in whatever means
[01:13:30] that might be it might be art it might
[01:13:31] be teaching it might be engineering it
[01:13:33] might be science it might be
[01:13:35] politics whatever there's a million ways
[01:13:38] that you could do that
[01:13:41] and then your life takes on the highest
[01:13:45] and deepest meaning but this meaning
[01:13:47] it's not a constructed meaning really
[01:13:49] it's
[01:13:49] you realize that all meaning is a
[01:13:51] construction
[01:13:53] but awakening is not a construction
[01:13:57] the universe awakening to itself that's
[01:13:59] not a construction that's an absolute
[01:14:02] and so what the nihilist is overlooking
[01:14:04] is the
[01:14:05] the existence of the absolute
[01:14:08] and that's a problem a lot of people
[01:14:09] have when i start talking about absolute
[01:14:11] truth many scientific and atheistic and
[01:14:13] rational people
[01:14:14] they they scratch their heads and they
[01:14:17] just can't open their minds to the
[01:14:18] possibility of the existence of an
[01:14:19] absolute truth
[01:14:22] but consider that you're wrong and that
[01:14:25] absolute truth does actually exist
[01:14:27] not as a concept or a belief but
[01:14:29] absolutely
[01:14:30] this is it you're in absolute truth
[01:14:33] right now
[01:14:34] you just don't realize it so
[01:14:37] criticisms of nihilism as with many
[01:14:39] things like i said before
[01:14:40] that distinction of criticism from above
[01:14:43] or from below
[01:14:46] a criticism of nihilism from below would
[01:14:49] be one coming from
[01:14:50] traditional values and it's fear-based
[01:14:54] it's from someone it's from an ego
[01:14:55] basically so like a christian
[01:14:58] or maybe someone like jordan peterson
[01:14:59] might criticize nihilism on the grounds
[01:15:01] that
[01:15:02] it's going to lead to a bad life uh a
[01:15:05] bad marriage
[01:15:06] and an inability to function in the
[01:15:08] world and it comes that comes from a
[01:15:10] place of fear because it's like it's
[01:15:11] going to be total chaos
[01:15:13] relativity is going to lead to total
[01:15:14] chaos and society will fall apart this
[01:15:16] is a fear-based
[01:15:17] shadow based uh
[01:15:21] criticism from below of nihilism this
[01:15:23] only comes
[01:15:24] because that ego mind that is making
[01:15:26] that criticism has not itself
[01:15:28] actually gone through the nihilistic
[01:15:30] process
[01:15:31] and you can tell because it's avoidant
[01:15:34] and is scared
[01:15:35] of that process that's why it's doing
[01:15:37] the criticizing the criticism is a
[01:15:39] defense mechanism
[01:15:43] this is why traditionally oriented
[01:15:45] people are very fearful of nihilism like
[01:15:47] if you have
[01:15:48] christian parents and you come home with
[01:15:50] a with a with a nihilist
[01:15:52] textbook you're gonna freak them out
[01:15:58] um but then there's criticisms of
[01:15:59] nihilism from above so
[01:16:01] i criticized nihilism a bit in this
[01:16:04] episode
[01:16:05] from above and the difference is that
[01:16:08] i've actually gone through the nihilism
[01:16:09] i was a nihilist with the lowercase n
[01:16:12] and then i became a nihilus with an
[01:16:13] uppercase n
[01:16:18] and then what i realized is that
[01:16:19] nihilism itself is self-defeating and
[01:16:21] it's conceptual
[01:16:22] and that there's something deeper than
[01:16:23] nihilism which is just infinite
[01:16:24] consciousness and love and god
[01:16:30] it's the thing that people like jordan
[01:16:31] peterson think they're defending when
[01:16:32] they're defending traditional values
[01:16:34] against nihilism but actually which is
[01:16:36] paradoxically
[01:16:37] the very thing which is keeping them
[01:16:39] from realizing god and love
[01:16:42] and from understanding religion
[01:16:49] so if i was debating a nihilist i could
[01:16:51] tell him all sorts of
[01:16:52] things he's got wrong about his
[01:16:53] worldview but it would be coming from
[01:16:55] above
[01:16:56] because i went through what he's going
[01:16:58] through i've been where he's been stuck
[01:17:01] and i can see how his nihilism is just
[01:17:03] another
[01:17:04] piece of clothing that the ego has
[01:17:07] adorned
[01:17:07] it's a defense mechanism from
[01:17:09] deconstructing the ego
[01:17:14] it's important before you critique
[01:17:16] nihilism that you first acknowledge
[01:17:18] its core truths the core truths of
[01:17:21] nihilism which are correct
[01:17:23] is that everything is absolutely
[01:17:25] groundless and relative
[01:17:28] the world is inherently devoid of
[01:17:30] meaning in a very radical sense
[01:17:32] and that all value is self-biased
[01:17:38] but the trick is that that all applies
[01:17:40] to nihilism itself too
[01:17:42] there's a deep twisted strange loopy
[01:17:44] self-reflection that happens here
[01:17:46] which most nihilists are not aware of so
[01:17:49] to get to the
[01:17:50] uppercase and nihilism from a lowercase
[01:17:53] nihilism
[01:17:54] you gotta do the self-reflection
[01:17:56] complete the loop
[01:17:58] do the strange loop and realize that
[01:18:00] your own nihilism eats its own tail
[01:18:04] or a boros style
[01:18:08] so the problem with nihilism is not that
[01:18:09] it
[01:18:11] goes too far is that it doesn't go far
[01:18:12] enough
[01:18:17] the ego is never fully deconstructed
[01:18:19] because the nihilism is kept
[01:18:21] at the level of philosophy see the ego
[01:18:24] is so safe with philosophy
[01:18:26] because it's just concepts the ego loves
[01:18:28] to take anything
[01:18:29] actual that will change your life and
[01:18:31] turn it into an idea or a philosophy or
[01:18:32] concept or a model
[01:18:37] so you got to take it below philosophy
[01:18:41] and into
[01:18:42] actual embodiment actual practice
[01:18:47] so the ego is never deconstructed the
[01:18:49] negativity of nihilism is not fully
[01:18:51] deconstructed
[01:18:52] survival itself is not deconstructed
[01:18:54] science and materialism
[01:18:56] are not deconstructed if you deconstruct
[01:18:58] all those
[01:19:00] now you're becoming a true nihilist
[01:19:03] capital n nihilist which is just to say
[01:19:07] you're becoming a mystic
[01:19:12] is just a nihilist who went all
[01:19:15] a mystic is just a nihilist who went all
[01:19:15] the way
[01:19:16] who took it from philosophy to
[01:19:18] embodiment
[01:19:21] it sounds so counterintuitive because
[01:19:22] like for example if i would tell that to
[01:19:24] jordan peterson
[01:19:25] that a mystic is just a radical nihilist
[01:19:29] i'm pretty sure he would disagree with
[01:19:31] me very vehemently he'd have a lot of
[01:19:33] defenses
[01:19:34] and excuses for why that's not true
[01:19:36] because it's just it's so unacceptable
[01:19:39] to a traditionally oriented person to a
[01:19:40] conservative
[01:19:42] that mysticism is literally just
[01:19:45] nihilism actualized
[01:19:47] for example to tell a christian that
[01:19:49] jesus was a radical nihilist
[01:19:51] which he was effectively
[01:19:55] this is the last thing they would accept
[01:19:56] in fact they would they would they would
[01:19:57] call me a
[01:19:58] a satan worshipper or something like
[01:20:02] that
[01:20:08] so spirituality
[01:20:12] is nihilism
[01:20:15] that's the thing everybody is missing
[01:20:17] they think that spirituality nihilism
[01:20:19] are somehow opposed to each other
[01:20:20] they're not
[01:20:21] they're spirituality just nihilism
[01:20:23] actualized
[01:20:26] you see most people's
[01:20:31] attachments to the material world and
[01:20:34] their to their ideas into their ideology
[01:20:36] and to meaning most of this is socially
[01:20:39] conditioned
[01:20:40] they did not create any of it
[01:20:42] consciously they didn't sit down and
[01:20:43] decide it and think it through
[01:20:45] rationally
[01:20:46] they were just born into it and this
[01:20:47] includes science and logic and
[01:20:48] mathematics and all this
[01:20:50] hard stuff this is all social
[01:20:52] conditioning
[01:20:53] the only reason you believe in science
[01:20:55] or an evolution or mathematics or logic
[01:20:57] or anything
[01:20:57] is because it was programmed into your
[01:20:59] mind like religion
[01:21:02] you didn't consciously choose it even if
[01:21:04] you're a scientist you didn't
[01:21:05] consciously choose it
[01:21:08] and so the value of nihilism is that it
[01:21:11] can wipe the slate clean
[01:21:13] of all the social conditioning it allows
[01:21:16] you to deconstruct
[01:21:19] everything and then the value of that
[01:21:23] and this is where nietzsche was right
[01:21:25] is that now you can
[01:21:28] from that clean slate develop your own
[01:21:34] meaning in life your own purpose your
[01:21:36] own system of values
[01:21:42] and when you do that that's going to
[01:21:44] make you more spiritual than any other
[01:21:46] person
[01:21:46] who professes to be spiritual under the
[01:21:49] social conditioning model
[01:21:51] because spirituality is not something
[01:21:53] you can be socially conditioned into
[01:21:55] spirituality only comes from your own
[01:21:57] consciousness
[01:21:59] and your own consciousness is hindered
[01:22:00] by all of the social conditioning
[01:22:02] so it's very paradoxical that
[01:22:06] by questioning and doubting and
[01:22:08] destroying christianity
[01:22:10] and hinduism and islam and even buddhism
[01:22:14] and atheism and rationality and science
[01:22:16] by doing all of that
[01:22:20] you will actually become truly deeply
[01:22:23] spiritual
[01:22:25] and you will become very authentic
[01:22:28] and you will become very grounded and
[01:22:30] strong as an individual
[01:22:32] you will become a powerful leader
[01:22:35] and you will start to become truly
[01:22:36] satisfied with your life
[01:22:38] because you can't be satisfied with a
[01:22:40] life based upon the social conditioned
[01:22:42] values
[01:22:42] of other people which are not authentic
[01:22:44] to you so spirituality is not only
[01:22:46] awakening and deconstructing everything
[01:22:47] but spirituality is also
[01:22:49] discovering what you truly value in life
[01:22:52] now you might say bilio but all the
[01:22:54] values are constructions
[01:22:56] yes but the difference is that once you
[01:22:58] go through the nihilism and you burn
[01:23:00] everything to the ground
[01:23:01] then and you become conscious that all
[01:23:03] of reality is imaginary
[01:23:05] then it's like you're in a dream right
[01:23:08] you realize you're in a dream you
[01:23:09] realize there's nothing to do in a dream
[01:23:11] but to play
[01:23:12] so you're going to be playing games now
[01:23:14] and you can play the game however you
[01:23:15] want
[01:23:16] and you and then and then you can be
[01:23:17] honest with yourself and ask yourself
[01:23:18] okay so how would i play the game
[01:23:20] if i was totally free and unattached and
[01:23:23] i wasn't coming at this game from a
[01:23:24] position of neediness
[01:23:25] or attachment or fear but from a place
[01:23:29] of love and now i can play the game from
[01:23:30] a place of love
[01:23:31] how do i want to manifest my love in the
[01:23:33] world
[01:23:34] according to my own personal preferences
[01:23:36] because you're still gonna have
[01:23:37] preferences
[01:23:39] the difference though is that you don't
[01:23:40] hold your preferences as absolutes
[01:23:42] you don't try to force your preferences
[01:23:44] on others
[01:23:45] see like maybe you don't like eating
[01:23:47] pork but now you're not gonna force
[01:23:49] others not to eat pork
[01:23:53] um you're gonna have sort of a a very
[01:23:55] detached hands-off approach
[01:23:57] to life you can have preferences and
[01:24:00] biases
[01:24:02] even awakened people do but you're not
[01:24:05] going to be
[01:24:06] normative about them you're not going to
[01:24:07] be needy about them you're not going to
[01:24:09] fool yourself into thinking that these
[01:24:10] personal preferences are absolute in
[01:24:13] some sense
[01:24:16] you're not going to fool yourself with
[01:24:17] the idea that western civilization is
[01:24:18] the best one
[01:24:20] or that my religion is the best one or
[01:24:22] that my god is the true one or that my
[01:24:24] science is the only way to look at the
[01:24:25] world
[01:24:27] or that logic is the only way to look at
[01:24:29] the world you're not going to be fooled
[01:24:30] and limited by these
[01:24:32] sorts of ideas anymore
[01:24:36] so you free yourself up you're literally
[01:24:38] liberating your mind
[01:24:44] and again remember when you do the
[01:24:48] nihilism properly
[01:24:50] you're not holding construction and
[01:24:51] illusion as a bad thing
[01:24:55] illusion has a negative connotation in
[01:24:57] our society but it's really not
[01:24:59] illusion is reality illusion is a dream
[01:25:02] it's a play
[01:25:03] you're in a play it's a drama for your
[01:25:05] own entertainment
[01:25:07] maybe this bums you out but you gotta
[01:25:10] get past that and then eventually you'll
[01:25:11] realize
[01:25:12] you'll come out the other end and you'll
[01:25:13] realize how beautiful that is this is
[01:25:15] the greatest gift
[01:25:16] the fact that reality is an illusion is
[01:25:18] not something to be bummed out about
[01:25:19] it's the greatest gift
[01:25:20] because that means there's nothing to
[01:25:22] fear it's a game
[01:25:24] play it enjoy it there's nothing else to
[01:25:26] do enjoy the fucking game
[01:25:29] construct whatever meanings you want and
[01:25:30] be honest with yourself that you're
[01:25:32] constructing it
[01:25:32] construct it consciously rather than
[01:25:34] unconsciously
[01:25:36] that's the only problem that's really
[01:25:38] the key difference
[01:25:44] is that a person with traditional values
[01:25:46] like jordan peterson
[01:25:47] is not consciously constructing
[01:25:52] the value set it's been programmed into
[01:25:54] him and he's unconsciously defending it
[01:25:57] clinging to it now he intuits that it's
[01:26:00] pointing towards something higher
[01:26:02] and he's right about that but he's never
[01:26:04] going to reach that something higher
[01:26:05] until he's willing to let go
[01:26:07] of those social conditions and those
[01:26:10] beliefs
[01:26:11] and those concepts and ideas and the ego
[01:26:13] and identity that's been built around it
[01:26:22] this is how you become nietzsche's
[01:26:24] ubermensch
[01:26:27] the superman
[01:26:30] this is what the superman is the
[01:26:32] superman
[01:26:34] is
[01:26:41] living completely from his or her own
[01:26:43] core
[01:26:45] authentic inner core inner motivations
[01:26:48] that run far deeper than anything that
[01:26:51] society can
[01:26:52] program into you consciousness
[01:26:56] cannot be programmed
[01:26:59] it's not mechanical because it's not
[01:27:02] finite it's infinite
[01:27:04] it's an infinite intelligence so as the
[01:27:06] superman or superwoman
[01:27:08] you're living from this place of deep
[01:27:11] consciousness
[01:27:11] and living presence and intelligence
[01:27:14] which is the god within you
[01:27:16] that animates you that makes you
[01:27:19] passionate
[01:27:20] that makes you enthused which is spirit
[01:27:23] enthusiasm means
[01:27:24] to be filled with the spirit of god to
[01:27:27] be truly
[01:27:28] passionate about life to be driven by
[01:27:31] love
[01:27:32] this cannot be given to you by any human
[01:27:37] because it's a superhuman capacity
[01:27:41] when humans try to give that to you or
[01:27:43] teach it to you those are all
[01:27:46] poor substitutes and facsimiles of the
[01:27:48] actual thing
[01:27:50] you can't turn intelligence and
[01:27:53] consciousness and love into algorithms
[01:27:55] because they're infinite
[01:28:00] you can't encapsulate the truth in any
[01:28:04] system of human design
[01:28:07] because it's infinite so
[01:28:11] what nihilism deeply it is that all of
[01:28:14] the human constructions of society and
[01:28:16] morality and religion all this and
[01:28:17] science even
[01:28:18] is that it's all petty human bullshit
[01:28:24] humans take their own construction so
[01:28:26] seriously when really humans are just
[01:28:28] bullshitters that's what humans are
[01:28:30] they're bullshitting all the time even
[01:28:32] when they're scientists
[01:28:33] they're full of shit it's just that
[01:28:35] simple it's so simple
[01:28:37] it's so obvious once you realize it
[01:28:40] if you go into every human situation
[01:28:42] whether it's a business deal
[01:28:44] a relationship a marriage dealing with
[01:28:47] kids
[01:28:48] dealing with with friends entertainment
[01:28:51] art science academia
[01:28:54] government religion
[01:28:58] go into any of these institutions and
[01:29:02] activities and just go in there with the
[01:29:04] assumption that this whole thing is full
[01:29:05] of shit
[01:29:06] it's all bullshit and you will be right
[01:29:09] 95 of the time
[01:29:14] but but don't tell them that because
[01:29:16] because they'll kick you out
[01:29:18] they don't like being told that because
[01:29:20] it's too true
[01:29:25] it's profoundly true people don't like
[01:29:28] being called on out on their bullshit
[01:29:29] they get offended
[01:29:31] they start attacking you
[01:29:37] so here i'll also connect nihilism with
[01:29:39] uh
[01:29:40] what's a concept from uh from mythology
[01:29:44] and from joseph campbell and also some
[01:29:47] of the stuff that jordan peterson
[01:29:48] teaches
[01:29:48] is you know the hero's journey
[01:29:52] i'm really big on the hero's journey but
[01:29:55] but people
[01:29:56] people like jordan peterson and so on
[01:29:57] they don't even joseph campbell didn't
[01:29:59] didn't understand what the hero's
[01:30:00] journey was really about i have an
[01:30:01] episode called the highest hero's
[01:30:02] journey go check that out
[01:30:04] it's very important i also talked about
[01:30:05] it in my life purpose course go check
[01:30:07] that out it basically
[01:30:08] shows you how to do your hero's journey
[01:30:10] related to your career
[01:30:12] very powerful um
[01:30:15] but uh the hero's journey i explained it
[01:30:17] in that video about the
[01:30:19] highest hero's journey the hero journey
[01:30:21] has these very stages and steps
[01:30:23] that you go through hopefully you still
[01:30:26] remember some of those it's a
[01:30:26] long video that i long time ago that i
[01:30:29] shot that video
[01:30:31] basically the hero sets out on the
[01:30:33] journey then he faces
[01:30:34] threshold guardians it's difficult he
[01:30:36] gets defeated by the threshold guardians
[01:30:37] he perseveres
[01:30:38] he finds the wizard or the wise old man
[01:30:40] who gives him knowledge and wisdom and
[01:30:42] gives him a weapon or some sort of boon
[01:30:44] he takes that weapon or and that wisdom
[01:30:46] and he uses it to to
[01:30:48] face down the threshold guardians and
[01:30:49] defeat them one by one by one eventually
[01:30:51] he defeats enough of those
[01:30:52] and then finally he encounters uh
[01:30:55] the deepest you know his deepest
[01:30:58] obstacle sort of the monster that he's
[01:31:00] trying to destroy here like the final
[01:31:02] boss of the game you might say
[01:31:04] um he he tries to battle this monster
[01:31:07] this final boss he fails he's not strong
[01:31:10] enough and then
[01:31:12] he enters what's called the belly of the
[01:31:14] whale
[01:31:17] the belly of the whale is the lowest
[01:31:19] point in the journey
[01:31:22] it's your deepest turning inwards into
[01:31:25] yourself
[01:31:26] to really figure out do i have what it
[01:31:29] takes to defeat the final boss
[01:31:32] and to defeat the final boss which you
[01:31:34] need is you don't need
[01:31:35] a magic sword it's not the problem it's
[01:31:37] not that your sword is not big enough
[01:31:39] or that you don't have enough health
[01:31:40] potions or something material like that
[01:31:44] the problem the bottleneck ultimately is
[01:31:46] your own
[01:31:47] heart and soul your spirit
[01:31:50] is your spirit steeled enough for the
[01:31:53] battle ahead
[01:31:56] and it's in the belly of the whale that
[01:31:57] really the boss is defeated
[01:32:01] because physically the boss is out there
[01:32:03] you're in the belly of the whale by
[01:32:05] yourself alone
[01:32:06] facing your own self your own weaknesses
[01:32:09] your own ego what happens in the belly
[01:32:12] of the whale is that you
[01:32:14] you finally face your own inner deepest
[01:32:16] inner weaknesses and
[01:32:18] self-esteem issues and all that and you
[01:32:20] you come out of that
[01:32:22] you might call that the dark night of
[01:32:24] the soul
[01:32:25] and then finally you're spiritually
[01:32:28] steeled enough now to go
[01:32:30] fight the final boss and now victory
[01:32:32] against the final boss is
[01:32:33] guaranteed because the true victory was
[01:32:37] already won in the belly of the whale
[01:32:41] so nihilism is the belly of the whale
[01:32:45] but the problem is that the belly of the
[01:32:46] whale is
[01:32:48] the place where very few are willing to
[01:32:50] go
[01:32:52] that's the lowest point
[01:32:55] in the spiritual journey
[01:33:00] that's where the real spiritual work
[01:33:01] happens
[01:33:03] and so people invent all sorts of
[01:33:06] external
[01:33:07] excuses for distractions and doing stuff
[01:33:10] that is not
[01:33:11] actually going and taking them into the
[01:33:13] belly of the whale
[01:33:18] and people might demonize the belly of
[01:33:19] the whale they might say it's dangerous
[01:33:22] it's bad and it is from the standpoint
[01:33:24] of ordinary life
[01:33:25] if you're living your ordinary life
[01:33:26] you're not battling some giant boss
[01:33:28] monster
[01:33:29] then for you entering the belly of the
[01:33:31] whale is uh it's a bad thing
[01:33:34] it's difficult
[01:33:38] but if you come out of it then you'll be
[01:33:41] a true hero
[01:33:46] the hero's journey is just god
[01:33:47] realization that's what the whole thing
[01:33:48] is about
[01:33:49] it's it's a it's a myth it's a mythic
[01:33:52] archetype that shows you how to how to
[01:33:54] reach god realization how to realize
[01:33:55] your own true self
[01:33:57] as god so going through nihilism is
[01:34:01] necessary and it makes you stronger
[01:34:05] it makes your mind stronger
[01:34:08] so don't fear it just go go through it
[01:34:13] you have to be careful because you can
[01:34:14] go through it in a dysfunctional way
[01:34:16] where you end up killing yourself you
[01:34:18] don't want to do that
[01:34:24] i talk about in other videos some of the
[01:34:28] you know the different traps and
[01:34:30] mistakes you can make going on this
[01:34:31] journey
[01:34:32] i have a video called the dangers of
[01:34:33] spiritual work
[01:34:35] which explains some of the there are
[01:34:37] real dangers i mean it's dangerous being
[01:34:39] a hero is dangerous
[01:34:40] fighting a dragon defeating a giant
[01:34:42] final boss dragon monster is dangerous
[01:34:45] it's difficult
[01:34:49] it's a more difficult life than just
[01:34:51] living complacently in mediocrity going
[01:34:53] to your nine-to-five job just
[01:34:54] punching the clock and just doing what
[01:34:56] everybody else in society is doing
[01:34:58] that's the difference between not being
[01:35:00] a hero and being a hero
[01:35:05] so the tragedy for the lowercase and
[01:35:08] nihilus is that they never realized that
[01:35:09] god was nothing nihilism literally means
[01:35:15] nothing
[01:35:16] and what you realize at the end of the
[01:35:17] journey once you defeat the dragons and
[01:35:19] everything
[01:35:20] is that you're left with nothing god is
[01:35:22] nothing
[01:35:25] these nihilists were so close and yet
[01:35:28] they were so far
[01:35:30] and they don't understand what nothing
[01:35:31] is the nihilist idea of nothing is not
[01:35:35] what god actually is god is an infinite
[01:35:39] loving nothing which a nihilist usually
[01:35:42] doesn't comprehend
[01:35:45] the purpose of spiritual practice is
[01:35:47] nihilism
[01:35:49] meditation nihilism
[01:35:52] that's what it is you're trying to shut
[01:35:53] down your mind to zero
[01:35:59] so look at this nihilism in theory as a
[01:36:01] philosophy
[01:36:03] leads to depression angst negativity
[01:36:06] destruction
[01:36:07] and anarchy and chaos
[01:36:10] and a bad life and suffering whereas
[01:36:12] nihilism fully actualized
[01:36:17] not as a philosophy but actualized leads
[01:36:19] to
[01:36:20] enlightenment sainthood god
[01:36:22] consciousness love and truth
[01:36:24] and a playful joyful life
[01:36:29] it also leads to immortality by the way
[01:36:32] because nothing
[01:36:34] what's the one thing that can't die
[01:36:36] nothing
[01:36:39] by the way if you're confused here um
[01:36:42] when i say nothing i'm not talking about
[01:36:45] the nothing you think of
[01:36:46] and i'm not talking about non-existence
[01:36:51] nothingness is not non-existence it
[01:36:54] exists
[01:36:55] nothing exists non-existence does not
[01:36:58] exist
[01:36:58] there's no such thing as non-existence
[01:37:00] there's only existence
[01:37:06] so very counterintuitively
[01:37:13] meaninglessness goes full circle into
[01:37:16] liberation see my episode
[01:37:19] called the theme of things going full
[01:37:22] circle
[01:37:23] and also see my episode called the
[01:37:25] counterintuitive nature of life
[01:37:27] both of those episodes give many
[01:37:30] examples of this sort of
[01:37:33] going full circle effect which leads to
[01:37:35] a lot of counter-intuitive results and
[01:37:37] uh
[01:37:40] conclusions in life a lot of thing a lot
[01:37:43] of times you think you're going towards
[01:37:44] something and then it ends up
[01:37:46] actually leading you all the way back to
[01:37:48] where you started
[01:37:50] in a cyclical or spiral manner
[01:37:54] the really deep irony here is so
[01:37:55] interesting is that those who reject
[01:37:57] nihilism are actually the devils
[01:38:03] because the devil is the ego scared of
[01:38:06] losing all of its constructions
[01:38:08] go check out my episode called what is
[01:38:09] the devil where i explain that one of my
[01:38:12] best episodes
[01:38:14] it'll open your eyes as to how evil
[01:38:17] functions
[01:38:20] huh so ironically it's the christians
[01:38:24] and the muslims and the buddhists and
[01:38:26] the hindus who are the devils
[01:38:28] the atheists are also devils
[01:38:32] the scientists and and rationalists are
[01:38:34] also devils
[01:38:37] metaphorically speaking and that they're
[01:38:39] selfish
[01:38:40] they're not they're not willing to give
[01:38:41] up yourself they're not they're not
[01:38:43] willing to
[01:38:44] give up their constructions the devil is
[01:38:45] busy defending his constructions
[01:38:47] the constructions are always finite and
[01:38:49] they always separate the devil from god
[01:38:51] so the devil is just busy lurking in the
[01:38:53] shadows away from the light
[01:38:54] avoiding the light of god ta-da
[01:38:58] and of course the devil co-opts
[01:39:01] spiritual
[01:39:01] truths to put on a facade
[01:39:05] of spiritual work so some of the biggest
[01:39:09] devils are the people who
[01:39:11] portray themselves to be the most
[01:39:12] spiritual
[01:39:14] which is why you see these sorts of
[01:39:15] scandals with christian evangelicals and
[01:39:18] and other you know religious hypocrites
[01:39:21] and people don't really like religion
[01:39:22] for this reason because
[01:39:24] it's so obvious how hypocritical those
[01:39:26] religious preachers are
[01:39:29] um and that's the reason that is because
[01:39:32] they've got egos that they haven't
[01:39:34] deconstructed and their christianity and
[01:39:35] their religion didn't give them the
[01:39:36] tools necessary to do the deconstruction
[01:39:42] so god is nothing god is void god is
[01:39:45] groundless the ground was ground
[01:39:46] god is shunyata god is emptiness god is
[01:39:49] cessation god is nirvana god is
[01:39:51] mu god is consciousness now you might
[01:39:54] say but leo
[01:39:55] maybe that's true for the buddhists but
[01:39:56] it's not true for the hindus
[01:39:58] the christians the jews the muslims and
[01:40:00] so on
[01:40:02] um actually it is it's true for all of
[01:40:04] them
[01:40:05] what the christians call love it's
[01:40:08] nothingness
[01:40:08] actually what the hindus call shiva
[01:40:12] is nothingness what the jews call einsof
[01:40:16] their name for god is nothingness
[01:40:20] the muslims the sufis they refer to
[01:40:23] um to the deepest spiritual realization
[01:40:28] as
[01:40:28] fana alfana which translates as the
[01:40:30] passing away of the passing away
[01:40:32] it's a nihilism so deep that
[01:40:36] it even erases itself
[01:40:39] it's a self-erasing eraser fauna alfana
[01:40:43] that is
[01:40:44] allah and i have an episode called
[01:40:48] aztec non-duality where i talk about the
[01:40:50] aztec
[01:40:51] religion and uh tayotal
[01:40:55] if you still remember remember tayota
[01:40:58] um that's actually a really powerful
[01:41:00] episode go go watch that one
[01:41:02] it explains a lot about the nature of
[01:41:04] god um yeah toyota there it's explained
[01:41:06] i give a lot of quotes in that episode
[01:41:08] uh it's explained that
[01:41:10] tayota is a infinite shape-shifter that
[01:41:13] has no
[01:41:14] form of its own in other words toyota is
[01:41:16] nothingness or emptiness
[01:41:21] so ask yourself this why are you so
[01:41:24] threatened by nothing
[01:41:26] if your worldview is true
[01:41:29] as you believe it is like if you're a
[01:41:31] scientist
[01:41:32] and you believe your worldview is true
[01:41:34] then why are you so scared of
[01:41:36] deconstructing it
[01:41:39] if it was true deconstruction couldn't
[01:41:42] harm it
[01:41:45] and you wouldn't be so triggered and
[01:41:48] emotional about defending it
[01:41:51] the way you get to truth is you burn
[01:41:53] everything to the ground and then
[01:41:54] whatever remains is the truth
[01:41:58] the problem of course and your ego mind
[01:42:00] intuits this
[01:42:01] is that if you truly do burn everything
[01:42:02] in your life to the ground
[01:42:06] nothing will survive your science won't
[01:42:07] survive your religion won't survive
[01:42:11] uh you know jordan peterson's ideas
[01:42:12] won't survive
[01:42:15] sam harris's ideas won't survive
[01:42:18] your ideas of god won't survive your
[01:42:20] atheism won't survive
[01:42:30] the biggest challenge in this work is
[01:42:31] admitting that everything you knew
[01:42:33] was wrong it takes an
[01:42:36] enormous humility to admit that
[01:42:39] can you just see that the reason most
[01:42:41] people don't do this work is because
[01:42:42] they simply
[01:42:43] don't have the humility to admit that
[01:42:44] everything they believe is wrong
[01:42:46] now see sometimes people criticize me
[01:42:47] and say leo but you're so fucking
[01:42:49] arrogant how dare you talk about
[01:42:50] humility
[01:42:53] i might come across as arrogant
[01:42:56] as though i'm talking down to you
[01:42:57] sometimes that's mostly just a stylistic
[01:43:00] thing
[01:43:02] what people don't understand is that
[01:43:04] deep down epistemically
[01:43:06] i'm extremely extremely humble
[01:43:10] leo that's outrageous how dare you say
[01:43:12] that that's so arrogant of you to say
[01:43:17] i realize the irony in paradox of it um
[01:43:21] how dare you say that you know you you
[01:43:23] give definitive statements about god
[01:43:25] absolute truth and about science you say
[01:43:27] you know all this stuff
[01:43:28] only an arrogant narcissist would say
[01:43:30] such things
[01:43:33] or consider or
[01:43:37] i spent 20 years deconstructing
[01:43:41] my mind and my reality coming from a
[01:43:44] place of deep epistemic humility
[01:43:46] questioning absolutely everything about
[01:43:47] myself to the point where i
[01:43:49] deconstructed it all
[01:43:51] and then what i was left with was
[01:43:53] absolute truth
[01:43:59] and you're and then you say but leo if
[01:44:00] you were truly humble you would even
[01:44:02] question that
[01:44:04] no that wouldn't be humility that would
[01:44:05] be stupidity
[01:44:07] you don't question absolute truth once
[01:44:09] you find it you've found it you've
[01:44:11] arrived that's it
[01:44:12] it's the end of your ideas of being
[01:44:14] humble or arrogant
[01:44:16] it doesn't matter anymore humility and
[01:44:18] arrogance these are just social games
[01:44:19] you
[01:44:20] play again your judgments of me as being
[01:44:23] arrogant or whatever this is just more
[01:44:24] defense mechanisms for you
[01:44:26] it's a convenient excuse for you not to
[01:44:28] listen to what's actually being said
[01:44:30] and pointed to
[01:44:34] which is not to say that i can't work on
[01:44:35] my delivery and make it more appealing
[01:44:38] and
[01:44:38] comforting to your ego and so forth and
[01:44:41] a little less arrogant
[01:44:42] and it's in a style a little less sort
[01:44:45] of
[01:44:45] definitive you see just because i say
[01:44:47] something definitively
[01:44:49] this doesn't make me arrogant ever say
[01:44:54] i'm the biggest skeptic that there is
[01:44:59] it's just that you don't see my
[01:45:00] skeptical process
[01:45:03] because it was done years ago i was i
[01:45:05] was doing skepticism and nihilism back
[01:45:07] in my like
[01:45:08] when i was 17 years old you don't see
[01:45:11] that today
[01:45:12] because this is what you get when you
[01:45:14] sort of come out from the other end of
[01:45:16] the belly of the whale
[01:45:18] okay so now let's get to the part where
[01:45:20] i actually give you some practical tips
[01:45:21] on how to deal with nihilism and
[01:45:23] relativity so
[01:45:25] if you're entering stage green
[01:45:29] and stage green is deep like i said
[01:45:30] before you can go very deep on stage
[01:45:32] green you enter very deep on stage green
[01:45:33] and you start to realize
[01:45:35] that everything is perspective
[01:45:40] you don't know is the left wing more
[01:45:42] right than the right wing
[01:45:43] is the right wing more right than the
[01:45:45] left wing
[01:45:46] what kind of economy should we have are
[01:45:48] the socialists right are the capitalists
[01:45:49] right who's wrong who's right
[01:45:54] you don't even know if if leo is right
[01:45:57] you don't even know if actually.org is
[01:45:59] right
[01:45:59] because if you're truly going through
[01:46:00] this nihilistic process then you might
[01:46:02] say well
[01:46:02] okay leo says all this stuff but he's
[01:46:06] just one guy he could be deluded he
[01:46:08] could be wrong
[01:46:08] it could be just a partial perspective
[01:46:10] what if leo is no better than a
[01:46:13] you know a fundamentalist christian or
[01:46:14] muslim what if actualize.org is just
[01:46:16] another one of those things
[01:46:18] what if it's whatever cult or whatever
[01:46:21] you don't know
[01:46:21] how could you know unless you
[01:46:24] have finished the process
[01:46:28] so you're in this place and then and
[01:46:29] then you also might think like well
[01:46:30] especially if you're young like college
[01:46:32] age
[01:46:32] you might be thinking like well what
[01:46:35] kind of career should i have
[01:46:36] should i be a writer should i be an
[01:46:37] artist should i be a business person i
[01:46:39] pursue money should i pursue my passions
[01:46:41] if i pursue my passions where my will my
[01:46:42] where will i get my money if i pursue my
[01:46:44] money
[01:46:45] then i'll hate it and i won't have my
[01:46:46] passions what kind of major should i
[01:46:48] major in what should i do in university
[01:46:49] should i go to university
[01:46:51] should i go get a job should i go into
[01:46:52] the business world should i go on wall
[01:46:53] street should i chase
[01:46:54] you know stock investing in
[01:46:56] cryptocurrency should i build up a big
[01:46:57] nest egg and then go do my passion or
[01:46:58] show you my passion now
[01:47:00] while i'm you know penniless what should
[01:47:02] i do and then you're lost
[01:47:06] so how do you handle this i went through
[01:47:09] a lot of this
[01:47:10] in late high school and early college
[01:47:15] basically your problem is that you need
[01:47:17] to find yourself
[01:47:18] and you can't find yourself unless you
[01:47:20] lose yourself
[01:47:23] and the reason most people don't find
[01:47:24] themselves is because they're too afraid
[01:47:26] of
[01:47:26] losing themselves and going deep into
[01:47:28] this nihilistic relativistic process
[01:47:37] the way that i handled it in my youth is
[01:47:39] i sort of came to this conclusion
[01:47:42] i was stuck in this
[01:47:43] multi-perspectivalism
[01:47:45] and neutrality non-judgment but then i
[01:47:48] realized okay
[01:47:49] we have to make a distinction between
[01:47:50] absolute truth and relative truth that's
[01:47:52] the distinction i made very early on in
[01:47:54] my
[01:47:54] in my teens and i basically said that
[01:48:05] religion science these sorts of things
[01:48:10] they're not absolutely true but they
[01:48:11] might have relative truths to them
[01:48:14] and even though it might not be
[01:48:15] absolutely true that for example
[01:48:18] right-wing talk radio conservatives are
[01:48:26] are more wrong than
[01:48:30] or right whichever uh then
[01:48:33] liberals and progressives so like maybe
[01:48:36] i can't adjudicate this this conflict of
[01:48:39] ideology and politics at the level of
[01:48:40] the absolute truth
[01:48:42] but i can look at it at the level of
[01:48:43] relative truth for example i can just
[01:48:45] look at
[01:48:46] what will make for a better society like
[01:48:48] for example i could ask myself the
[01:48:49] question
[01:48:49] when it comes to liberals and um
[01:48:52] conservatives i can ask the question of
[01:48:53] like well
[01:48:54] who should i vote for should i
[01:48:57] republican or democrat
[01:48:58] well in the absolute sense from absolute
[01:49:01] perspective you could say it doesn't
[01:49:02] matter
[01:49:03] and i can't know but from the relative
[01:49:05] perspective i can say like
[01:49:09] do i care about the environment do i
[01:49:11] want a cleaner healthier environment
[01:49:13] if i do that i should vote for liberals
[01:49:15] rather than conservatives because
[01:49:16] conservatives don't give a fuck
[01:49:18] um do i think that there's a problem in
[01:49:21] our society if the middle
[01:49:23] class is shrinking from both sides and
[01:49:25] we have this gap between
[01:49:27] the very poor and the very rich at the
[01:49:29] top and that's growing over time
[01:49:31] is that going to lead to a society i
[01:49:32] want to live in that i will
[01:49:34] enjoy and my answer is no
[01:49:37] well which party cares about that
[01:49:41] the liberals the conservatives don't
[01:49:43] give a fuck
[01:49:45] um and so this
[01:49:48] you're thinking more from a survival
[01:49:50] perspective and so basically
[01:49:52] um what i realized is that from the
[01:49:54] absolute perspective i don't really know
[01:49:56] the truth
[01:49:57] but from the relative perspective i
[01:49:58] still have preferences
[01:50:01] like there's things i want out of life i
[01:50:04] want
[01:50:04] to live a passionate life that's
[01:50:06] something i knew i wanted
[01:50:08] not because it's absolutely true not
[01:50:11] because some god is forcing me to
[01:50:13] not because i'm going to go to hell if i
[01:50:15] don't not because i'm going to go to
[01:50:17] heaven and afterlife
[01:50:18] not because science says so
[01:50:22] but simply because i want a passionate
[01:50:24] life and that in and of itself is
[01:50:26] valid it's his own valid thing
[01:50:29] and i and also another another point
[01:50:31] that i made this is very actually
[01:50:32] important very important lesson from
[01:50:34] this
[01:50:34] going through this nihilism is that you
[01:50:36] learn what it teaches you is
[01:50:38] you learn not to rationalize
[01:50:42] and justify your preferences and biases
[01:50:44] in terms of
[01:50:50] objective truths or normative statements
[01:50:53] so what i mean by that is that usually
[01:50:56] when an ordinary human is pursuing
[01:50:58] something in their life
[01:50:59] they're going to try to ground it in
[01:51:01] some absolute truth
[01:51:02] or norm they're going to try to make it
[01:51:04] objective they're gonna rationalize it
[01:51:06] in their mind
[01:51:07] so like if they're pursuing a family
[01:51:10] rather than just saying you know what
[01:51:11] i'm just selfish
[01:51:12] and i just wanna have a family i wanna
[01:51:14] you know i like playing with kids
[01:51:15] i think i'll enjoy that i like having a
[01:51:18] wife i like the companionship of it i'll
[01:51:20] just enjoy that
[01:51:21] and i'm just doing it for selfish
[01:51:22] purposes see instead of being honest and
[01:51:24] admitting that to yourself
[01:51:25] what most people do traditional people
[01:51:26] is to say oh well a family this is good
[01:51:29] for society
[01:51:30] god wants me to have a family and uh you
[01:51:33] know i
[01:51:33] we really need this family to maintain
[01:51:35] our civilization so they come up with
[01:51:36] all these fucking rationalizations
[01:51:41] when really you just want to be honest
[01:51:42] with yourself about your biases you can
[01:51:44] have biases and preferences
[01:51:46] just admit them to yourself
[01:51:50] you might say well leo that makes no
[01:51:51] difference it actually makes a very big
[01:51:53] difference
[01:51:54] because when you admit to yourself that
[01:51:56] what you're pursuing in life is nothing
[01:51:57] other than your own selfishness
[01:51:59] and biases and preferences and you don't
[01:52:01] try to ground it in genetics
[01:52:04] or biology or some sort of story about
[01:52:06] how well
[01:52:07] i'm gonna go in business and i'm gonna
[01:52:09] compete against that business because
[01:52:10] it's survival of the fittest and you
[01:52:12] have this whole story about how
[01:52:13] actually it's the fittest who survived
[01:52:15] fittest deserve to win and this and that
[01:52:17] no just tell yourself you're selfish
[01:52:19] fuck and you want money for sex
[01:52:23] tell yourself that that would be more
[01:52:26] honest
[01:52:27] than coming up with some sort of um you
[01:52:29] know
[01:52:30] survival of the fittest and
[01:52:33] perpetuating the species and and this is
[01:52:36] i mean this is
[01:52:37] it's fucking ridiculous the reality is
[01:52:40] you're horny and you want sex it has
[01:52:41] nothing to do with evolution
[01:52:43] from your perspective
[01:52:49] and um and if you like if if you're
[01:52:52] going to be a christian be a christian
[01:52:53] but then say to yourself
[01:52:55] i'm not a christian because being a
[01:52:56] christian is the absolute truth
[01:53:00] i'm a christian because i was born a
[01:53:01] particular part of the world
[01:53:04] where christianity was popular i was
[01:53:06] indoctrinated with it
[01:53:07] i have these preferences now i'm stuck
[01:53:09] with them
[01:53:11] and i'm gonna go with it this is my
[01:53:13] preference it's purely arbitrary
[01:53:17] it's not about truth it's not about the
[01:53:18] bible this is just purely arbitrary i
[01:53:20] prefer these things
[01:53:21] over let's say hinduism and so i'm just
[01:53:24] gonna i'm gonna do that
[01:53:26] because i prefer i enjoy it i enjoy the
[01:53:29] christian god more than i enjoy the
[01:53:30] hindu gods
[01:53:31] why just because i'm selfish and i'm
[01:53:34] biased
[01:53:35] and that's what i grew up in see if you
[01:53:37] admit that that would be truthful and
[01:53:39] then you wouldn't have to play these
[01:53:40] defensive games anymore
[01:53:42] and you would have freedom from ideology
[01:53:46] likewise with science admit to yourself
[01:53:49] that science is just
[01:53:51] something you were culturally
[01:53:52] conditioned into
[01:53:54] and that you have a preference for it
[01:53:56] but that it's not the best it's not
[01:53:58] the truest there could be important
[01:54:02] truths in christianity that you haven't
[01:54:03] been taught
[01:54:04] in science and so forth and then you'll
[01:54:05] have a much healthier attitude towards
[01:54:06] science
[01:54:09] also an important way to to deal with
[01:54:12] this relativity and nihilism
[01:54:13] is to study lots of perspectives that's
[01:54:16] one of the
[01:54:17] that's one of the things you'll actually
[01:54:19] be doing when you're in this nihilistic
[01:54:20] funk and this period could last for
[01:54:23] two to five years of your life maybe
[01:54:26] more
[01:54:26] very much depends on you and how you go
[01:54:28] about it
[01:54:30] but during this period what you will do
[01:54:32] is you will read lots of books
[01:54:34] if you're doing it properly you'll watch
[01:54:35] lots of videos you'll study lots of
[01:54:36] teachers lots of different traditions
[01:54:38] and you will get different perspectives
[01:54:40] these perspectives will confuse the shit
[01:54:42] out of you
[01:54:43] in the beginning you won't know how to
[01:54:44] make heads or tales of these
[01:54:45] perspectives
[01:54:46] some of these perspectives will be bad
[01:54:48] some of them will be
[01:54:50] better and uh you'll have biases towards
[01:54:54] different ones and you'll have to just
[01:54:55] kind of like
[01:54:56] play around with them and not get
[01:54:58] married to anyone
[01:55:02] and you can play them off each other you
[01:55:04] can cross reference them sort of
[01:55:06] triangulate them
[01:55:08] to get closer to truth what should help
[01:55:11] you is if you make the distinction
[01:55:12] between
[01:55:16] lower quality versus higher quality
[01:55:18] perspectives because not all
[01:55:20] perspectives are equal
[01:55:25] that's the difficulty of really being
[01:55:26] lost in relativity is that you literally
[01:55:29] start to think that all perspectives are
[01:55:31] equal and even when i tell you that not
[01:55:33] all perspectives are equal
[01:55:34] you will say well lia that's just also a
[01:55:35] perspective and it's also equal to all
[01:55:37] the other perspectives
[01:55:38] so the perspective that all perspectives
[01:55:40] are equal and the perspective that
[01:55:43] all some perspectives are not equal to
[01:55:44] others that this itself
[01:55:46] is a sort of a meta perspective and that
[01:55:47] too is
[01:55:49] whatever i don't know how to make sense
[01:55:50] of it see here you get really lost
[01:55:53] in a perspectival madness
[01:55:57] but eventually you have to give
[01:56:00] you have to live your life and what you
[01:56:03] realize is that
[01:56:05] how you're living your life exhibits
[01:56:07] certain biases and preferences you have
[01:56:09] so you can't live life neutrally even if
[01:56:12] you say well
[01:56:13] i'm going to do nothing in my life at
[01:56:14] all because i want to align with perfect
[01:56:16] neutrality
[01:56:17] and perfect relativity i'll do nothing
[01:56:20] but that itself is a choice you've made
[01:56:22] that itself is an action so you're stuck
[01:56:24] in in life in such a way you're situated
[01:56:26] in such a way
[01:56:27] you're in such an existential bind that
[01:56:28] you have to act somehow
[01:56:30] and even non-action is action even
[01:56:32] non-choice is choice
[01:56:34] so when you realize that what you
[01:56:36] realize is well
[01:56:38] choices get made no matter what there's
[01:56:40] a default position no matter what if i
[01:56:42] do nothing something will still happen
[01:56:47] i'm not really at a blank slate i've
[01:56:49] already got ideas programmed into my
[01:56:50] mind
[01:56:51] whether scientific ones religious ones
[01:56:53] christian ones hindu ones buddhist ones
[01:56:54] whatever
[01:56:56] and that is what will be running the
[01:56:58] show
[01:57:01] if i make no changes and i pretend to
[01:57:05] just be neutral
[01:57:06] i won't actually be neutral by being
[01:57:07] neutral see when you really grasp this
[01:57:11] this now starts to help you to actually
[01:57:14] choose things because you realize that
[01:57:17] you can't avoid choosing things
[01:57:21] even if you're going to die
[01:57:24] starve yourself you're still choosing
[01:57:27] that
[01:57:29] so you can't escape making a choice and
[01:57:32] when you realize that
[01:57:33] then you have to realize that
[01:57:37] well what kind of choices do i want to
[01:57:38] make what will make for a good life
[01:57:40] and you realize that basically
[01:57:44] what you want is you want a good life
[01:57:47] that's the point of life is to create a
[01:57:50] good life
[01:57:52] you're free to create whatever life you
[01:57:53] want all of this relativity all of these
[01:57:56] perspectives
[01:57:57] in a sense is sort of like you're a
[01:58:00] little kid and i come to you and i
[01:58:01] dump a giant
[01:58:05] garbage truck load of legos
[01:58:10] in your room like
[01:58:14] literally a metric ton of lego pieces
[01:58:17] of every possible type and color
[01:58:21] and with these lego pieces you can
[01:58:22] construct anything
[01:58:26] and then that's how life is and then
[01:58:29] sort of life asks you
[01:58:30] what are you going to construct
[01:58:35] you might say well what difference does
[01:58:38] it make what i construct i can construct
[01:58:40] a castle or a spaceship or a
[01:58:44] gas station or uh
[01:58:48] a car whatever
[01:58:53] does it matter which one is one better
[01:58:55] than the other
[01:58:57] and if nobody tells me like you might as
[01:59:00] a child you might say well tell me which
[01:59:01] one is the best
[01:59:02] to construct and i'll build it and then
[01:59:05] what if there's no response
[01:59:10] what do you do well you could say well
[01:59:12] fuck it then i'm not going to build
[01:59:13] anything
[01:59:14] okay but then that's what you chose you
[01:59:15] built you have built something
[01:59:17] you've built nothing is that what you
[01:59:20] want is that gonna make you happy
[01:59:22] if it is do that if it isn't why not do
[01:59:25] something that makes you happy
[01:59:27] why make yourself miserable in life so
[01:59:30] see by going through this
[01:59:31] chain of logic you realize oh yeah the
[01:59:33] only thing left to do in life is to make
[01:59:35] myself
[01:59:36] happy but then what makes me happy i
[01:59:39] don't know
[01:59:40] i don't know what makes me happy i think
[01:59:43] i might know but how do i know that what
[01:59:45] i think i know
[01:59:46] will actually make me happy and maybe
[01:59:48] i'll try some of those things and i'll
[01:59:49] realize
[01:59:50] it doesn't make me happy that could be
[01:59:52] useful feedback to figure out what does
[01:59:53] make me happy
[01:59:54] so the point of life is to basically
[01:59:56] play with these legos build different
[01:59:58] things
[01:59:58] and to realize like well yeah i've built
[02:00:00] this castle i don't like castles i built
[02:00:01] a pirate ship i don't like pirate ships
[02:00:03] i built this car i don't like cars i
[02:00:05] built this gas station on a gas station
[02:00:06] so at some point you build something you
[02:00:08] say oh i built something
[02:00:10] i built this unicorn oh i like unicorns
[02:00:12] i like animals so maybe now i should
[02:00:14] start building more animal legos so now
[02:00:15] you build a giraffe it's like oh i like
[02:00:17] the giraffe even more than the unicorn
[02:00:18] okay
[02:00:19] and then you build a dragon you're like
[02:00:20] oh i like dragons even more i like i
[02:00:22] like
[02:00:22] fantastical monsters so now you start to
[02:00:25] build uh you know
[02:00:26] chimeras and manticores
[02:00:30] and goblins and things and now and then
[02:00:32] and then you through this process you
[02:00:33] discover like
[02:00:34] oh this is what i love about life is
[02:00:36] building
[02:00:37] these mystical creatures and the more
[02:00:39] outlandish and mystical they are the
[02:00:40] more excited i get
[02:00:41] and this is what joseph campbell called
[02:00:43] following your bliss
[02:00:45] and through this process you discover
[02:00:46] your life purpose
[02:00:48] i talk about that more in my 25 hour
[02:00:51] life purpose course
[02:00:52] check that out um
[02:00:56] so you see and the trick is that you
[02:00:58] never fool yourself
[02:01:00] in this process that dragons and
[02:01:03] manticores and
[02:01:06] goblins are better than
[02:01:09] anything else
[02:01:14] because the other kids when they're
[02:01:15] playing with their legos what they do
[02:01:17] first of all they're playing with a very
[02:01:18] limited set of legos
[02:01:20] you're playing with like a a dump truck
[02:01:23] full of them
[02:01:24] and they're playing with like 100 pieces
[02:01:26] their pieces are very limited their
[02:01:28] colors are very limited so what they can
[02:01:29] build is very limited
[02:01:30] and all that they're building is what
[02:01:32] every other kid around them is building
[02:01:34] so if the kids around them are building
[02:01:35] castles they end up building castles
[02:01:37] even though they probably don't like
[02:01:38] castles but they build it anyways
[02:01:40] because everyone's building castles and
[02:01:41] if i don't build a castle people are
[02:01:43] gonna
[02:01:43] think i'm weird and i'm too weak to
[02:01:45] stand up against that and i haven't
[02:01:47] discovered what i really like to build
[02:01:54] and what i can build is so miniscule
[02:01:58] compared to what that kid can build with
[02:01:59] a dump truck full of different legos
[02:02:02] and when somebody brings some additional
[02:02:04] legos you know in addition to the
[02:02:05] 100 that i'm comfortable with they bring
[02:02:07] another 100 that are totally new and
[02:02:08] unique and different
[02:02:09] and different colors and shapes and
[02:02:11] stuff they bring that to me and i look
[02:02:12] at i'm like oh that's that's that's evil
[02:02:14] that's wrong that's that's not the kind
[02:02:16] of legos we play around with here
[02:02:19] those aren't castle pieces i only want
[02:02:22] castle pieces
[02:02:25] and then now there's a fight and a
[02:02:27] debate about why those are bad
[02:02:29] and these castle pieces are the best and
[02:02:31] these god has ordained these castle
[02:02:33] pieces
[02:02:34] he he hates the the pirate ship cat the
[02:02:36] pat the pirate ship pieces those are
[02:02:38] from the devil
[02:02:42] or those are irrational illogical
[02:02:45] they're too mystical
[02:02:46] these creatures like if if you're doing
[02:02:48] this from a scientific perspective
[02:02:49] you might be building like a spaceship
[02:02:52] right you're building a spaceship you're
[02:02:53] this
[02:02:54] science nerd logic nerd and then i come
[02:02:56] to you and i show you my like
[02:02:58] fantastical lego dragon unicorn
[02:03:02] manticore goblin creatures and you look
[02:03:04] at them and you're like oh my god
[02:03:06] what kind of airy fairy fairy tale
[02:03:09] woohoo stuff is that that's not
[02:03:11] scientific the only thing you can build
[02:03:13] with lego pieces
[02:03:14] is spaceships that's the only valid use
[02:03:16] of of
[02:03:17] lego pieces it has to be rational
[02:03:19] everything has to be perfect squares and
[02:03:21] corners
[02:03:21] it has to be scientifically accurate not
[02:03:24] these fucking monsters that you build
[02:03:28] and then i go well here here's some
[02:03:30] here's some monster pieces
[02:03:31] that you can use to make like organic
[02:03:33] living ships and stuff
[02:03:34] and the guy's like no that's not how you
[02:03:36] build ships those aren't valid ships
[02:03:38] that's not scientific that's not
[02:03:39] rational i don't want to build your
[02:03:41] irrational ships
[02:03:42] i want to build my my little simplistic
[02:03:44] ships
[02:03:47] um the way that all my friends do
[02:03:52] see and so you artificially constrain
[02:03:55] yourself to
[02:03:57] a much narrower life and you get less
[02:04:00] joy from life
[02:04:02] and you know what the funny thing is is
[02:04:03] that you might not even enjoy building
[02:04:05] those spaceships
[02:04:08] you might actually want to build dragons
[02:04:11] but you're too scared
[02:04:13] and your mind is too paradigm locked
[02:04:18] to venture out into that
[02:04:22] space
[02:04:29] so anyways as you're dealing with this
[02:04:32] nihilism
[02:04:33] you want to be studying lots of
[02:04:34] different perspectives
[02:04:37] you have a lot of grist for the mill
[02:04:40] it's going to leave you very confused
[02:04:42] and that's okay i have an episode
[02:04:44] actually called how to deal with
[02:04:45] confusion
[02:04:47] confusion is when the ego mind doesn't
[02:04:49] know how to make sense of reality
[02:04:52] most people are scared of confusion
[02:04:55] and they
[02:04:59] they think it's a bad thing they think
[02:05:01] not knowing is a bad thing you're also
[02:05:03] going to be
[02:05:03] not knowing a lot of stuff and so the
[02:05:06] solution is to just
[02:05:07] embrace not knowing don't view it as a
[02:05:09] negative thing
[02:05:12] embrace confusion and just trust the
[02:05:15] process
[02:05:16] trust that as you're going through life
[02:05:17] and you're studying a lot of different
[02:05:18] perspectives
[02:05:19] first of all this is fun it's fucking
[02:05:21] fun treat it as fun
[02:05:23] play with ideas play with perspectives
[02:05:29] and trust that slowly over time pieces
[02:05:33] like a puzzle will start to fit together
[02:05:38] and you will develop some criteria for
[02:05:41] adjudicating between
[02:05:42] lower perspectives and higher
[02:05:44] perspectives i can give you some of this
[02:05:46] criteria but again you can't just
[02:05:47] believe
[02:05:48] it you have to verify it for yourself
[02:05:51] so in a sense what you're doing is
[02:05:53] you're sort of building up your own
[02:05:54] epistemology from scratch
[02:05:55] by questioning everything this is very
[02:05:57] very healthy to do
[02:05:59] so what are some signs that a
[02:06:01] perspective
[02:06:02] is higher or lower
[02:06:07] fear hatred judgment
[02:06:11] violence rejection of certain parts of
[02:06:15] reality
[02:06:16] and dogma and ideology and clinging an
[02:06:18] attachment these are all telltale signs
[02:06:20] of lower perspectives
[02:06:23] are all those things
[02:06:25] lower perspectives are all those things
[02:06:25] are close-minded they're selfish
[02:06:27] they're fear-based they're hatred-based
[02:06:30] they're based on us versus them
[02:06:34] they're best based on denial of certain
[02:06:37] aspects of reality and the demonization
[02:06:39] thereof they also try to monopolize
[02:06:42] perspective in other words
[02:06:44] when a perspective says that ignore
[02:06:46] other perspectives just focus on me
[02:06:48] just me my perspective is the the best
[02:06:51] one all the other ones are stupid
[02:06:53] when a perspective does that it's a
[02:06:54] lower class perspective
[02:06:59] because it's being selfish
[02:07:03] how about the higher perspectives what
[02:07:05] distinguishes those well basically the
[02:07:06] opposite of that
[02:07:07] higher perspectives are open they're
[02:07:10] non-monopolistic they're interested in
[02:07:12] exploring more perspectives they don't
[02:07:14] lock you down into one perspective in
[02:07:15] fact they
[02:07:16] they imagine a perspective that tells
[02:07:18] you that you should study all the
[02:07:20] perspectives
[02:07:22] they're meta they have a meta quality
[02:07:24] they're selfless
[02:07:26] they're loving they're fearless they're
[02:07:27] courageous they're playful they're
[02:07:30] exploratory
[02:07:32] they're more nuanced and sophisticated
[02:07:33] they're more complex
[02:07:36] they're more systemic they're more
[02:07:38] holistic
[02:07:40] they're more self-aware in other words
[02:07:43] there are some perspectives that are
[02:07:44] aware that they are perspective
[02:07:46] whereas there are other perspectives
[02:07:47] lower perspectives that are not aware
[02:07:49] that they are perspectives
[02:07:52] they treat themselves as reality that's
[02:07:55] dangerous
[02:08:03] so you have to really be careful and
[02:08:05] watch for the how a perspective tries to
[02:08:07] lock you in
[02:08:07] even something like science see everyone
[02:08:10] kind of understands that religion will
[02:08:11] try to lock you in
[02:08:12] but most people don't understand that
[02:08:13] science is a perspective that tries to
[02:08:14] lock you in
[02:08:16] for example science will lock you in and
[02:08:18] try to prevent you from studying
[02:08:19] mystical or new age stuff or paranormal
[02:08:23] stuff
[02:08:23] or religion that already should clue you
[02:08:27] in
[02:08:28] on the dangers of the scientific
[02:08:30] perspective which is not to say you
[02:08:31] shouldn't study it
[02:08:33] also as you're studying all these
[02:08:34] perspectives try to find
[02:08:36] the good in all these perspectives try
[02:08:38] to steal man the perspectives
[02:08:40] so a low quality perspective will try to
[02:08:42] straw man other perspectives where
[02:08:44] it's incapable of steel manning them
[02:08:46] whereas a higher quality perspective
[02:08:48] is capable of steel manning all
[02:08:50] perspectives
[02:08:51] and it's not just being selfish you see
[02:08:53] the steel man straw man thing is just
[02:08:55] really selfishness
[02:08:56] so really the distinguishing
[02:08:57] characteristic between higher and lower
[02:08:59] is
[02:09:00] selfish versus selfless
[02:09:03] and also
[02:09:08] the higher perspective is able to make
[02:09:11] sense of and understand the lower
[02:09:12] but the lower is not able to make sense
[02:09:14] of and understand the higher
[02:09:15] this is a crucial distinction
[02:09:20] so for example a fundamentalist muslim
[02:09:24] probably doesn't understand and cannot
[02:09:27] make a steel man
[02:09:28] out of christianity
[02:09:31] and a christian probably can't do that
[02:09:33] with islam
[02:09:36] but you can find higher perspectives
[02:09:39] which actually
[02:09:40] are able to make steel men out of all
[02:09:42] the religions
[02:09:43] all the religious perspectives and
[02:09:45] they're able to explain them
[02:09:47] and find the good aspects of them but
[02:09:50] also be honest about the
[02:09:51] the bad aspects of them
[02:09:56] you can also find perspectives that are
[02:09:58] able to understand
[02:09:59] both religion and science
[02:10:02] but you can also find perspectives that
[02:10:04] only understand science but can't
[02:10:07] understand religion and you can find
[02:10:10] perspectives that understand religion
[02:10:11] but can't understand
[02:10:12] science so the more powerful perspective
[02:10:14] is the one that can understand
[02:10:15] everything beneath it
[02:10:17] basically it's more inclusive and so
[02:10:19] you're moving towards
[02:10:20] greater inclusivity
[02:10:27] also the higher perspectives are more
[02:10:29] intellectually rigorous and honest they
[02:10:30] have more integrity
[02:10:32] whereas the lower perspectives do not so
[02:10:34] for example one of the ways you can tell
[02:10:36] that right wing talk radio
[02:10:39] is a very low quality perspective
[02:10:43] is because of
[02:10:48] just how little integrity it has
[02:10:53] very little integrity the way they skew
[02:10:56] the facts the way they
[02:10:57] cherry pick data um
[02:11:00] the way they distort stories the sort of
[02:11:04] emotion they throw into it
[02:11:05] the the way they make it ideological the
[02:11:08] way they turn it into a sort of a battle
[02:11:10] um the way they make
[02:11:14] you hate the other side
[02:11:17] this these are all signs that this is a
[02:11:20] low quality perspective
[02:11:22] and that the people themselves speaking
[02:11:23] they have very little intellectual
[02:11:25] integrity
[02:11:29] which is why you find them saying one
[02:11:31] thing one year and
[02:11:32] another you know they're switching their
[02:11:34] positions all the time they use double
[02:11:35] standards all the time the sanders they
[02:11:37] apply to their party
[02:11:38] they don't apply to the other party as
[02:11:39] soon as the other party is out of power
[02:11:40] you know the standards completely change
[02:11:44] this is what you see and i'm not saying
[02:11:46] the left wing is
[02:11:48] immune to that it's not it has that
[02:11:52] but to a much lesser degree than
[02:11:54] right-wing talk radio
[02:11:56] that's some of the worst perspective you
[02:11:58] know some of the lowest quality
[02:12:00] lowest integrity perspectives you can
[02:12:01] find
[02:12:03] and you might wonder at this point well
[02:12:04] leo but how do i know that what you're
[02:12:06] telling me is true i mean all this you
[02:12:07] said is just one more perspective
[02:12:10] yeah that's right you don't know
[02:12:14] i'm telling you the conclusions i've
[02:12:17] come to
[02:12:17] after 20 years of doing this work if
[02:12:20] you're new to this then you don't know
[02:12:21] and you're gonna have to go through
[02:12:23] maybe a 10 or 20 year process to figure
[02:12:25] out and to come to
[02:12:26] conclusions that i came to or maybe
[02:12:28] you'll come to your own different
[02:12:29] conclusions
[02:12:32] but eventually if you're doing this
[02:12:33] process correctly
[02:12:36] you'll realize that what i just told you
[02:12:38] here is gold
[02:12:39] this is gold this is i'm telling you how
[02:12:40] to distinguish truth from falsehood
[02:12:46] in the end the biggest thing that
[02:12:47] distinguishes truth from falsehood is
[02:12:49] fear versus love that's the easiest way
[02:12:53] if a perspective is coming from fear
[02:12:55] it's false
[02:12:57] if a perspective is coming from love
[02:12:59] it's true
[02:13:01] because what you'll ultimately realize
[02:13:03] is that truth is love
[02:13:07] and then there's just many many degrees
[02:13:10] of it
[02:13:13] so in the end what you discover after
[02:13:15] you go through this nihilistic phase
[02:13:18] is that you discover that
[02:13:21] the best way to live your life is to
[02:13:23] live your life like it is a work of art
[02:13:29] live for beauty and live for love
[02:13:33] and live for truth and live selflessly
[02:13:36] not because you have to not because
[02:13:38] somebody told you to do it but simply
[02:13:40] because
[02:13:40] love is its own reward
[02:13:44] what do you want ultimately in your life
[02:13:45] you want to love your life
[02:13:47] you want love in your life you want
[02:13:50] others who love you in your life
[02:13:52] and you want others whom you can love in
[02:13:53] your life that's what you ultimately
[02:13:55] want even if you're a nihilist
[02:13:59] and so the only thing to do is just to
[02:14:01] surrender to love and to align yourself
[02:14:03] deeper with love and to find
[02:14:05] what are the authentic ways of you of
[02:14:07] loving for you of loving
[02:14:09] reality and life and put your focus into
[02:14:13] that love
[02:14:13] work towards that love with courage
[02:14:17] ignore all the distractions and the
[02:14:19] lower consciousness stuff
[02:14:21] and then what's going to happen is that
[02:14:23] you're going to come out of this
[02:14:24] nihilistic funk and relativity
[02:14:26] towards a a life that is actually very
[02:14:30] purposeful
[02:14:31] but it's purposeful in a sort of a
[02:14:32] higher order way in a meta way
[02:14:35] it's a meta purpose it's a purpose with
[02:14:36] a capital p
[02:14:38] beyond uh the lower p purpose
[02:14:42] it's your own authentic purpose and
[02:14:44] really your own authentic purpose is
[02:14:46] just your love for life
[02:14:47] expressed uniquely through you free of
[02:14:51] the distortions and corruptions of
[02:14:52] social conditioning
[02:14:58] and that is how you deal with nihilism
[02:15:02] all right i'm all done here please click
[02:15:03] like button for me and come check out
[02:15:05] actualize.org that's my website you will
[02:15:07] find on there
[02:15:08] my book list you will find the life
[02:15:10] purpose course that i mentioned
[02:15:12] you will find my blog you will find
[02:15:16] the forum you can support me on
[02:15:18] patreon.com
[02:15:19] actualized you can check out my new
[02:15:22] second channel called actualizedclips
[02:15:28] and then
[02:15:31] really what actualize that org is about
[02:15:34] is
[02:15:34] it's about guiding you through this
[02:15:37] nihilistic process
[02:15:40] but in a very practical and positive way
[02:15:45] because truly nihilism is
[02:15:47] [Music]
[02:15:49] the most positive of things when you do
[02:15:52] it properly
[02:15:53] the problem is that most people don't do
[02:15:55] it properly they get stuck
[02:15:59] and so i sort of pioneered this process
[02:16:02] for myself
[02:16:04] from a young age thinking about
[02:16:06] epistemology and metaphysics and
[02:16:08] philosophy very deeply
[02:16:10] and taking it from the point where it
[02:16:11] was just philosophy to the point where
[02:16:14] you're starting to implement it in your
[02:16:15] life and using it to change your life at
[02:16:17] a practical level
[02:16:18] and then it starts to change how you
[02:16:20] feel
[02:16:22] about yourself you stop being a victim
[02:16:24] you stop getting depressed
[02:16:26] you develop a sense of
[02:16:29] meaning in your life that is authentic
[02:16:31] to you
[02:16:32] you're honest with yourself about the
[02:16:34] meaning you're not fooling yourself
[02:16:36] you're not trying to rationalize it or
[02:16:37] grounded in some sort of
[02:16:40] social construct you're freeing up your
[02:16:43] mind more
[02:16:44] your mind gets liberated you're able to
[02:16:46] think more laterally more outside the
[02:16:48] box you're able to be more creative
[02:16:49] you're able to be a better artist
[02:16:52] and and then from this sort of
[02:16:54] foundation you can set up the rest of
[02:16:56] your life
[02:17:00] and then eventually you can you can
[02:17:03] awaken
[02:17:03] and you can reach god realization and
[02:17:05] you can
[02:17:06] break through into infinite love
[02:17:10] and then you can bring it back down to
[02:17:12] earth and
[02:17:13] exhibit it in your practical everyday
[02:17:16] life
[02:17:17] which is really what the hero's journey
[02:17:20] is about
[02:17:22] the hero is not defeating the dragon
[02:17:24] just for the sake of defeating the
[02:17:25] dragon
[02:17:26] the hero is defeating the dragon
[02:17:29] to acquire the holy grail which is
[02:17:31] literally immortality or
[02:17:34] god the hero is
[02:17:38] realizing god realizing love
[02:17:41] and then bringing that holy grail back
[02:17:44] to
[02:17:44] his villagers and helping them to drink
[02:17:48] from the cup of infinite love
[02:17:50] in his own way that is the hero's
[02:17:52] journey that is
[02:17:54] what's most worthwhile to do and that
[02:17:56] cup that love
[02:17:57] is nothing
[02:18:00] perfectly consistent with true nihilism
[02:18:16] you