OJ0UNZFYSnM.srt

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So when you know,
if you watch yourself,

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you say,
well I had a particularly good day at 

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work and what does that mean?
Well,

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it means that you lost your sense of 
time,

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right?
Because when you're having not a good 

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day at work,
it's like first it's one minute to three

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and then it's

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45 seconds to three and then it's 30 
seconds.

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That's what school was like.
For me,

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it was like click.
So funny.

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You know,
I went to,

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I went to my daughter's school,
I used to get in trouble for talking all

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the time,
surprise surprise when I was a kid and I

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was bored stiff in school and so I would
misbehave upon occasion out of pure 

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boredom.
And about 21 years ago I went to my 

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daughter's school to sit for a class.
It was about an hour long and I was 

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sitting there and the teacher had all 
the kids on the floor and was having 

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some of the kids read to the others.
And some of the kids who were reading 

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couldn't read at all.
And I had exactly the same experience I 

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was sitting there.
It was like being like being seven years

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old again and I could see the clock 
going,

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tick,
tick,

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and I thought,
you know,

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if I was in this classroom for three 
days,

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I would misbehave,
fit 40 years old,

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I would misbehave exactly like I did 
when I was when I was six.

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No.
Well,

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that's no place to be right because 
that's.

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You don't want to be in a place that's 
stultifying.

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You don't want to be in a place where 
there's no challenge.

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You might even quit your job if there's 
no challenge.

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Say,
well that's a good job.

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It gives you security and you think,
God,

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I can't stand this.
It's eating away at my soul.

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It's all security and no challenge.
So why do you want to challenge?

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Because that's what you're built for.
That's what you're built for your built 

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to take on a maximal load,
right?

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Because that's what strengthens you and 
you need to be strong because life is 

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extraordinarily difficult and because 
the evil king is always widdling away at

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the structure of the state and you have 
to be awake and sharp to stop that from 

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happening so that you don't become 
corrupt and so that your family doesn't 

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become corrupt and so that your state 
doesn't have to be come become corrupt.

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You have to have your eyes open and your
which sharp and your words at the ready 

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and you have to be educated and you have
to know about your history and you know 

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how have to know how to think and you 
have to know how to read and you have to

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know how to speak and you have to know 
how to aim and you have to be willing to

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hoist the troubles of the world up on 
your shoulders.

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And what's so interesting about that?
So remarkable.

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And this is something that's really 
manifested itself to me as I've been 

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doing these public lectures.
I've been talking about responsibility 

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to people,
which doesn't seem to happen very often 

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anymore.
And the audiences are dead quiet.

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And I lay out this idea that life is 
tragedy tainted by malevolence,

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and everyone says,
yeah,

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well we already always suspected that no
one has ever said it quite so bluntly,

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and it's quite a relief to hear that I'm
not the only person who has those 

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suspicions.

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And then the second part of that is the 
better part,

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and it's the optimistic part,
which is despite the fact that life is a

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tragedy tainted by malevolence at every 
level of existence,

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there's something about the human spirit
that can thrive under precisely those 

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conditions if we allow that to occur.
Because as difficult as life is and as 

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horrible as we are,
our capacity to deal with that 

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catastrophe and to transcend that 
malevolent spirit is more powerful than 

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the that reality itself.
And that's the fundamental issue.

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I think that's the fundamental issue of 
the Judaeo Christian ethic with its 

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emphasis on the divinity of the 
individual.

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As catastrophic as life is and his 
malevolent as people can be.

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And that's malevolent beyond belief.
Fundamentally the person has in spirit 

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the nobility to set that right and to 
defeat evil and that and that.

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More than that and that the antidote to 
the catastrophe of life and the 

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suffering of life and the tragedy of 
life that can drive you down and destroy

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you,
is to take on exactly that 

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responsibility and to say,
well,

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there's plenty of work to be done and 
isn't that terrible and there isn't 

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anything so bad that we can't make it 
worse and certainly try very hard to do 

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so,
but I have it within me to decide that 

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I'm going to stand up against that.

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I'm going to strive to make the world a 
better place.

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I'm going to strive to constrain the 
malevolence that's in my own heart and 

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to set my family's straight and to work 
to work despite my tragic lot,

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for the betterment of anything,
of everything that's in front of me.

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And the consequence of that,
the immediate consequences of that is 

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that when you make the decision to take 
on all of that voluntarily,

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which is to stand up straight,
by the way,

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with your shoulders back,
to take on that,

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all that on voluntarily.
As soon as you make that decision,

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then all the catastrophe justifies 
itself.

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In the nobility of your striving,
and that's what it means to be an 

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individual thing.

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Thank you.