wYBViYU7tUE.srt

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You can imagine the flood

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and then you can set yourself straight 
and then you can prepare for it and that

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means maybe you can stave it off,
but it also means that maybe even if you

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don't stave it off,
you could ride it out and that's 

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actually the story of Noah because what 
happens with Noah is that he can see 

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that things are not good and that 
there's a flood coming and God is maybe 

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letting him know and it says in the 
story that Noah walked with God,

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remembering that's what Adam did before 
he got all self conscious about the 

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whole thing.
He walked with God.

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We'll talk about that more next time,
but what that would mean maybe is 

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because Noah was straight and he put 
himself together and his familial 

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relationships were good because it also 
says that it his antenna were working 

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and he could see a little farther into 
the future than someone whose vision was

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completely obscured by,
by fog and chaos.

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And he could tell that things were not 
going to go well.

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And so he prepared for it.
And because he prepared for it.

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Well then things are actually went 
pretty well for Noah even though the 

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flood came and so that's an interesting 
thing because that's an.

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That's an indeterminant issue in human 
existence.

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How big a hurricane would it take to 
wipe out New Orleans if everyone was 

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heard?
Well,

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the,
you're not going to wipe out the Dutch.

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I mean that's going to be a tough one,
man.

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You're going to have to conjure up a 
pretty damn big storm to take out their 

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dykes.
Oh,

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how thoroughly defendant New Orleans be 
if nobody in the municipal municipal and

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state governments was corrupt.

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Well,
end of the hurricane problem because 

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that's something that we could clearly 
deal with.

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We know how to do it and the same 
applies in your own life is that there 

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are floods come and you can bloody well 
be sure of that.

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That's absolutely 100 percent certain.
Some of them are going to be personal,

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some of them are going to be familiar.
Some of them are going to be social and 

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political and economic.
It's like,

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are they going to be catastrophes for 
you or are you going to ride them out?

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Are you going to prepare or the first 
issue might be,

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well,
do you have your act together well 

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enough to see them coming

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with enough advance warning so that you 
can take proper measures maybe just to 

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sidestep it,
maybe just don't go where the flood is 

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going to be.
That's a simple thing,

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but maybe you don't have that luxury.
Right,

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and so it is going to be a catastrophe.
Maybe someone in your family is going to

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get really,
really sick,

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right,
and maybe maybe there's just a tiny 

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pathway through that that everything 
doesn't fall apart.

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It doesn't end in divorce.
It doesn't end in death.

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It doesn't end in sorrow,
doesn't end in catastrophe,

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but the margin of errors like slimmed 
down to virtually zero and every 

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imperfection that you bring to that 
situation is going to increase the 

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probability that that tragedy is going 
to turn it into something 

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indistinguishable from hell.
And that's coming.

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It's coming your way.
Absolutely,

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and so then you might think,
well,

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since it's coming your way,
maybe the best thing to do is to put 

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yourself together so that when it comes,
it can be the least amount of awful 

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possible,
so I'll close with this story.

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This was a very affecting story for me.
My mother in law had frontal temporal 

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dementia and she developed it quite 
young.

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She was about 55,
something like that,

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and her husband who is very extroverted,
man about town guy,

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I grew up in a small town.
Everybody knew him.

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He was charismatic,
drank too much charismatic,

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good businessmen.
Quite a remarkable person,

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a real character,
but not exactly a family man.

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Even though he,
he,

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he provided for his family very well,
but when his wife got sick,

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he really took care of her man.
It was something to see because that's 

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no joke.
Dealing with someone who has Alzheimer's

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for all intents and purposes,
because they get taken away from you 

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piece by piece and that is not pretty,
and then it's also hard,

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right?
Not only is it catastrophic,

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but it's hard,
and Jesus,

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he just stepped into that like perfectly
and it was way less awful than it could 

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have been way.

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It was just a tragedy.
It wasn't hell,

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and then I was there when she died and 
my wife's family are actually pretty 

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good at dealing with death.
As it turns out.

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My wife's sister is a palliative care 
nurse and you have to be pretty tough 

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cookie to be a palliative care nurse,
but you can do it,

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which is pretty interesting because that
means that you can go make relationships

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with people at the last stages of their 
life that are genuine relationships and 

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people just die on you nonstop.
And yet,

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you know she's a competent,
alive,

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alert,
fun person.

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It's like two thumbs up for her man that
someone you can rely on in a tragedy and

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her other sister is a pharmacist and my 
wife has volunteered in palliative care 

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wards and is also very good at taking 
care of people who are genuinely not in 

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good health.

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And so we were there when my mother in 
law died and course you can imagine.

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Here's a,
here's a deathbed situation for you.

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Your mother in law is dying and 
everyone's at each other's throats,

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so like you think that's uncommon.
Then your eyes aren't open because it's 

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plenty bloody comment and then it's not 
just a tragedy.

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It's hell.
And like maybe you can stand the tragedy

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but you can't stand the hell.
And in this situation that isn't what 

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happened is everybody pulled together 
and what happened was while she died,

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but what was so interesting was the 
family actually came together more 

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tightly as a consequences.
So although there was something taken 

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away,
on the one hand,

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there was something gained on the other 
that wasn't trivial and I'm not trying 

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to be optimistic and you know,
isn't the universe a wonderful place 

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about all this?

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Like someone died in an ugly way and it 
was harsh,

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but God,
it was a hell of a lot better than it 

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could have been and maybe it was good 
enough.

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That's the thing you know,
is that this is something that I 

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constantly wonder is that if people did 
what they could to speak the truth and 

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pay attention,
then maybe the tragedy that's part of 

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life wouldn't have to deteriorate into 
the unbearable hell that doesn't have to

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be part of life and maybe we could 
actually tolerate the tragedy or maybe 

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we could even rise above it and maybe we
could even mitigate it,

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you know,
because we can.

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We do that sort of thing all the time 
and so it's always an open question.

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When the Eliana and put it very well,
are the floods the consequence of the 

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fact that things fall apart or are the 
floods of consequence of the fact that 

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people make mistakes that they know they
shouldn't make and make anyways they 

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sin?

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Right?
And that's to miss the mark,

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right?
Because that's an archery term to send 

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in.
That means maybe they don't even specify

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the damn target,
which is really,

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you're not going to hit it unless you 
specified or having specified it.

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They just say,
Oh,

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to hell with it.
It's not that important.

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It's like you gotta be careful when you 
say something like to hell with it.

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It's not that important because one of 
the things that might happen to you if 

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you say to hell with it,
it's not that important is that you 

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might actually end up in hell for a 
pretty prolonged period of time or maybe

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for the remainder of your miserable 
existence because it's certainly the 

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case that people do exist there and I've
seen them exists there and once you're 

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there,
it's no trick.

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It's no simple matter to get the hell 
out and so it might matter that the 

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things that matter get addressed.

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It might matter that you do what you can
to walk with God.

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Like I said,
we'll talk more about that next time and

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it might be that that is how you build 
an ark in are protected from the flood 

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even if the damn thing comes.
And the thing is it will,

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and this is a funny thing too,
that I've noticed about our education 

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system and the way we teach students and
their trigger warnings and all of that 

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absolute rubbish.
I think in most of my lectures I'd have 

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to have a trigger warning every 15 
seconds.

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So as I tell my students when they're 
young,

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it's like,
look,

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don't fool yourself.
You know you're going to develop a 

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serious illness,
at least one,

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maybe two or three,
and one of them is likely to be chronic 

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and if it isn't you,
it's going to be someone you love.

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It's going to be your husband,
it's going to be your parent,

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it's going to be your kids that's coming
and so as a lot of death and pain and so

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like just exactly what sort of person 
are you going to be when that shows up 

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and that's the right question.
It isn't how are you going to be happy 

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in your life?
It's like,

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good luck with that.
It's a stupid ambition anyways,

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as far as I'm concerned because it's too
shallow,

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you know,
happiness.

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You're lucky that comes,
uh,

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comes and goes,
like the sun coming out from behind the 

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cloud.
If you're happy,

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man,
more power to you,

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enjoy it,
enjoy it.

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It's a,
it's a gift from the cosmos to be happy,

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but at pursuit.
No,

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no.
The pursuit is when the dam flood comes,

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you want to be the person who built arc 
and that's what the story of Noah is 

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about and the thing is the flood is 
always coming.

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That's another thing that's worth 
commenting on with regards to this story

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is you know there's an apocalyptic 
element to the Judeo Christian 

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tradition.

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There's an idea that the end of the 
world is always at hand and that you 

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should prepare to be judged.
And the thing about that is it's true 

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and the reason that's true is because 
the end of your world is at hand and it 

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will certainly come and when it comes,
you will be judged because it will be up

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to you to figure out what to do with the
fact that your world just collapsed.

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And that'll be a moral problem of 
ultimate severity because it'll push you

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right to your limits and you'll find out
exactly where your unaddressed 

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weaknesses lie because that's what 
happens in a crisis.

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And so the reason that that's an 
archetypal reality and it lurks 

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underneath the entire Judaeo Christian 
structure,

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the apocalypse,
the impending apocalypse,

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is because we always live in apocalyptic
times and your world is always in small 

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ways and large ways coming to an end.
And so what do you do?

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You prepare for it,
you prepare for your world to come to an

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end,
and then maybe when the end comes,

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you get another world.
That'd be a good deal.