Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000017S
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00:01 - Ever find yourself doing something
00:02 that you don't really want to do, 00:04 but for some reason you feel kind of powerless 00:07 and you just do it anyway? 00:10 Or maybe it's something that makes you feel ashamed, 00:12 out of control, but you know full well 00:15 this won't be the last time you do it. 00:18 Today on Authentic, 00:19 I'm going to show you the big hidden beast 00:21 that's been causing all your problems. 00:24 [soft guitar music] 00:45 Indulge me for a moment and let's play a little mind game. 00:48 I want you to think back 00:49 to some significant experience in your life 00:52 and allow yourself 00:54 to feel the emotions you felt at that time all over again. 00:57 Maybe it was something that made you angry 00:59 or maybe it was something tragic 01:01 that gave you overwhelming sadness. 01:04 Something made you cry. 01:07 Something made you laugh. 01:08 Something made you seize up with panic. 01:11 Whatever it was, take a quick moment 01:13 and just let it play out in your mind one more time 01:17 and I'll give you just a few seconds to do that. 01:23 All right, hopefully that gave you enough time 01:25 to dig around in your memory 01:26 to find something fairly significant. 01:29 Here's what I want you to notice about this. 01:32 It was some kind of external stimulus 01:34 that made you feel that way. 01:36 So let's say you were thinking about something 01:38 that really made you angry. 01:40 What happened to cause that? 01:42 It was some kind of trigger from outside your own mind 01:45 that provoked an emotional response. 01:47 You didn't consciously decide to get angry, 01:51 you didn't sit down 01:52 and reasoned your way into that emotion using your logic, 01:55 something else made you mad. 01:57 And when it happened, 01:59 you didn't seem to have a lot of control. 02:03 The same thing happens when you cry. 02:05 Let's say you're watching old home movies 02:07 and you suddenly see your kids 02:08 the way they were 20 years ago and it moves you. 02:11 You suddenly realize that the incredible experiences 02:15 of early childhood are now gone forever 02:17 and it provokes this feeling of loss. 02:20 So again, it was an external stimulus 02:23 that provoked an emotional response 02:24 and you couldn't seem to help yourself. 02:27 When something funny happens, you laugh. 02:30 You didn't plan to laugh, 02:31 and if you've ever been asked to laugh on cue, 02:34 say as part of a TV audience, 02:36 you know that forced laughter 02:38 doesn't sound at all like the real thing. 02:41 It's an autonomic reaction, 02:43 something you do without thinking. 02:45 It comes from a place of automatic instinct, 02:47 not from a place of careful deliberation and reason. 02:51 And the more you pay attention to this, 02:54 the more you start to realize 02:55 that most of your day to day living 02:57 operates at a basic level of instinct. 03:01 You don't plan to breathe, 03:02 even though you can breathe deliberately for a few minutes. 03:06 You don't plan to blink, 03:07 even though you can force yourself to do that 03:09 for a few minutes. 03:10 You don't plan to jump when somebody scares you, 03:13 it all happens subconsciously. 03:17 So here's the problem that that presents 03:20 for the average human being. 03:21 Over the centuries, 03:23 we've managed to convince ourselves 03:24 that we're mostly rational, 03:25 that we live a very deliberate existence. 03:28 We craft our lives through the power of our reason. 03:32 But in hindsight, 03:33 as you look back over the major events of your life, 03:35 you start to realize 03:37 that even though you did make a number of rational choices 03:40 and you occasionally did control your destiny, 03:43 you were mostly carried forward by unseen forces, 03:47 things that appear to be beyond your control. 03:51 This is where philosophers have spent a lot of time debating 03:54 whether or not you and I actually have free will. 03:58 Are you really the master and commander of your life 04:01 or is your life the master and commander of you? 04:05 I mean, tell yourself all you want 04:06 that you're not going to get mad 04:08 when you're negotiating with somebody unreasonable, 04:10 but you know you're going to get mad 04:11 and it's going to take real effort to control that emotion, 04:15 the basic forces that drive you 04:17 because well, emotions are such a powerful part 04:20 of who you are. 04:22 I'm half tempted to quote REO Speedwagon. 04:25 you know the song, "I can't fight this feeling," 04:27 but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to hear me sing. 04:30 I guess the point I'm driving at is this. 04:33 There's a reason 04:34 we feel like we have to fight our basic emotions. 04:37 It's because they are much bigger and much stronger 04:42 than our capacity for calm, reason and logic. 04:47 The bestselling psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, 04:49 compared this basic instinctual part of your brain 04:52 to a really powerful elephant. 04:54 And he said that your logical brain 04:56 is like a tiny little jockey, 04:58 a little rider sitting on the elephant, 05:00 trying to tell it where to go. 05:02 And at the end of the day, 05:03 the elephant is going to do what the elephant is going to do 05:05 because he's bigger and stronger. 05:08 This is the reason 05:10 it's so hard to convince people to change their minds, 05:12 even with a carefully reasoned argument. 05:15 You might be able to persuade them logically, 05:18 that is you might be able to convince 05:19 the tiny rider on the elephant that you're right 05:22 but the elephant is much stronger 05:25 and things like intuition or emotion 05:27 will almost always override your sense of logic. 05:31 So what actually happens 05:33 when we hear something that we don't like 05:35 is that we use that weakling logic 05:37 on top of the elephant to convince ourselves 05:39 that that powerful elephant of emotion must be right. 05:46 Let me read you just a little bit from his book, 05:46 "The Righteous Mind." 05:48 He says, "The rider can do several useful things. 05:51 It can see further into the future 05:53 because we can examine alternative scenarios in our head 05:56 and therefore can help the elephant 05:57 make better decisions in the present. 06:00 It can learn new skills and master new technologies, 06:02 which can be deployed to help the elephant reach its goals 06:06 and sidestep disasters. 06:08 And most important, 06:09 the rider acts as the spokesman for the elephant, 06:12 even though it doesn't necessarily know 06:14 what the elephant is really thinking. 06:16 The rider is skilled at fabricating post hoc explanations 06:20 for whatever the elephant has just done, 06:22 and it is good at finding reasons to justify 06:25 whatever the elephant wants to do next. 06:28 Once human beings developed language 06:30 and began to use it to gossip about each other, 06:33 it became extremely valuable 06:35 for elephants to carry around on their backs 06:37 a full-time public relations firm." 06:40 So I'm sure you can remember a few times 06:44 that you were having an argument with somebody 06:45 and you kind of knew you were wrong, 06:49 but then these deep-seated emotions 06:50 pushed all your pride buttons 06:52 and you kept from admitting you were wrong. 06:55 You allowed emotion and instinct, the elephant, 06:58 to override your reason. 07:00 And that's the way that most of us operate most of the time. 07:06 This was one of the big talking points 07:08 for the 19th century German philosopher, 07:10 Arthur Schopenhauer, who was an unrelenting pessimist. 07:15 He didn't have this convenient metaphor 07:17 of the elephant and the rider, 07:18 but he explored the same concept. 07:21 And as you can see, 07:22 he used an awful lot of pages to do that exploration. 07:26 His major work is called "The World as Will and Idea." 07:31 And I'm not going to even pretend 07:33 that we can summarize this whole book in just a few minutes. 07:35 In fact, I'm not sure I'd want to. 07:38 But here's what Mr. Schopenhauer observed. 07:42 There's a basic force that drives everything around us 07:45 from the lowliest plant to the most rational philosopher. 07:49 And this force is something Schopenhauer called, 07:51 "The will to survive and the will to reproduce." 07:56 Now, when you and I hear the word will, 07:58 most of us tend to think 08:00 of a conscious deliberate thought process, 08:03 but Schopenhauer meant something deeper. 08:06 He was referring to the basic instinct, 08:08 the elephant instead of the rider, 08:10 and that he says "is what drives everything." 08:16 So for example, we're pretty sure that plants and trees 08:18 don't contemplate the future, 08:20 but something still makes them do 08:21 what plants and trees are going to do. 08:24 They grow toward the sun. 08:26 They convert daylight into sugar. 08:28 They produce seeds 08:29 so that we get another generation of plants. 08:32 Nobody apparently plans this. 08:34 Nobody sits down 08:36 and educates the plants on how to do these things. 08:38 It just happens as if there's an invisible force. 08:42 The invisible will of the universe 08:44 pushing the process along. 08:48 Now, of course, you and I are not plants, 08:50 so we're different because you and I actually plan our day. 08:53 In fact, we tend to plan our whole lives. 08:56 We choose things, like our occupations, or our spouses, 09:00 or what we're going to do for a living, 09:02 or where we're going to live. 09:04 Compared to plants. 09:06 we live a very well contemplated existence. 09:10 Except that we don't. 09:13 In hindsight, you'll notice that most of what happens to us 09:16 is outside of our control. 09:18 You might head into your early 20s 09:19 full of optimism and enthusiasm 09:21 convinced that you've got the world by the tail, 09:24 but get to the end of your life and look back 09:26 and it starts to look more 09:28 like the world had you by the tail. 09:30 Most of our time in this world 09:33 is spent being reactive instead of proactive 09:36 and most of our reactions appear to be instinctual. 09:40 I may not, I'd love to pretend 09:42 that every decision I've ever made was driven by pure logic, 09:45 pure foresight, but you and I know that's not true. 09:49 The hard wiring in our brains 09:50 that gets there during our early years 09:53 and the basic instincts of day-to-day existence 09:55 usually play a bigger role than calm, collected reflection. 10:00 Now, that's not always bad 10:01 because sometimes your gut instinct 10:02 actually makes a better decision than your conscious brain 10:06 as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out 10:08 in his bestselling book "Blink." 10:10 But right now I've got to take a quick break. 10:12 So stick around and I'll come back to show you what he says. 10:17 - [Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 10:20 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 10:23 but that's where the Bible comes in. 10:25 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 10:29 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 10:30 we've created the Discover Bible guides 10:32 to be your guide to the Bible. 10:34 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 10:36 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions. 10:39 And they're absolutely free. 10:41 So jump online now or give us a call 10:44 and start your journey of discovery. 10:47 - Arthur Schopenhauer argued that most people operate 10:50 by instinct instead of reason 10:52 and we find ourselves hopeless against the forces 10:54 that just kind of seem to carry us along. 10:58 Not that basic instinct is a bad thing 11:01 because sometimes it works better than your logic. 11:05 Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of the famous Getty Museum 11:08 and the day it bought a rare ancient statue in 1983. 11:12 The statue looked remarkably well-preserved, 11:15 it appeared to be priceless. 11:17 So they borrowed it and examined it meticulously 11:20 for 14 months before agreeing to buy it. 11:23 And when you know it, after all that careful deliberation, 11:27 it was a fake. 11:29 Something that one of their trustees actually said out loud 11:32 the first time he saw the statue, 11:33 "Guys, something here doesn't feel right." 11:37 So in that case, 11:38 the elephant was more useful than the rider, 11:40 the instinct was better than the logic. 11:42 And so, sometimes snap decisions actually prove to be better 11:46 than careful deliberation, 11:48 but that would only be true if the elephant is well-trained, 11:51 if your ingrained emotion actually matches the real world. 11:56 "Train up a child in the way he should go," the Bible says, 11:58 "and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 12:03 This is why parenting is such a big responsibility 12:05 because how you train the elephant 12:07 in the first couple of years 12:08 is how your child is going to respond to the world 12:11 for the rest of his or her existence. 12:14 And once the elephant is powerful and fully grown, 12:17 it's very hard to change direction 12:19 because the elephant has a mind of its own. 12:23 So back to Schopenhauer now, 12:26 because when he looked at this battle 12:28 between the unconscious forces that drive you 12:31 in your logical mind, 12:32 he essentially came to the conclusion 12:34 that you and I don't have free will. 12:36 He taught the human beings behave illogically 12:39 because we are driven by the unconscious will to survive. 12:43 One of the examples he gave is our drive to reproduce, 12:46 to create endless new generations of human beings. 12:50 He noticed that some life forms 12:52 are willing to produce as their very final act. 12:54 They actually die the moment they do this, 12:57 like the salmon that swims upstream 12:59 to the place where it was born 13:01 and she lays her eggs and then falls apart. 13:04 If you ever seen a spawning salmon, 13:06 you know what I'm talking about, it's grotesque. 13:09 Human beings, Schopenhauer argued, aren't much different. 13:13 We seem to be willing to exhaust ourselves, 13:16 work ourselves to the bone 13:17 to make sure that our children flourish. 13:20 We have this irresistible drive to reproduce 13:23 and it appears to be illogical 13:24 because we literally die in the process. 13:29 So from Schopenhauer's point of view, 13:30 the collective human race is actually using us. 13:33 He taught that we are slaves 13:35 to the mysterious will of the corporate human species, 13:38 some kind of unseen will of the universe 13:41 that makes us push forward against our own will. 13:45 And that will override our logic every single time. 13:49 So in essence, he taught that you don't actually exist. 13:52 You live under the illusion that you're busy making choices, 13:55 but in reality, 13:57 the universe is making those choices for you 13:59 and making it seem like you're doing it. 14:02 In reality, you're just a pawn in the survival game 14:05 of the whole human race. 14:07 "That," Mr. Schopenhauer argued, 14:09 "makes the world an evil place." 14:12 "At the very best," he said, 14:13 you're going to spend the rest of your life 14:15 just trying to avoid pain. 14:17 And in trying to accomplish that, 14:18 you're going to make a lot of irrational decisions 14:21 and well, avoiding pain 14:23 is about the only pleasure you can hope for." 14:25 It's a pretty bleak point of view. 14:27 Schopenhauer pointed to Dante's "Inferno" 14:30 which was a poetic description of hell 14:32 and he said, "Where did Dante get that? 14:34 From the horror and pain of real life." 14:36 But when it comes to describing heaven, 14:39 we have to do that with our imagination. 14:42 Now I'm about to start picking Mr. Schopenhauer apart. 14:45 But before I do that, 14:47 let me tell you where I think he was right. 14:50 There really is a powerful component to emotion 14:53 and there really is a force that drives us, 14:56 sometimes against our will. 14:58 You find this in the writings of the Apostle Paul, 15:02 and I'm guessing you can probably identify 15:04 with what I'm about to read. 15:06 And we'll read quite a bit of this because it's important. 15:08 Here's what he says. 15:10 "For what I am doing, I do not understand. 15:13 For what I will to do, that I do not practice, 15:16 but what I hate, that I do." 15:18 So you have a situation where something 15:20 keeps overriding your conscious choice, 15:22 the elephant is more powerful than the rider. 15:25 He continues. 15:27 "If, then, I do what I will not to do, 15:29 I agree with the law that it is good." 15:32 He's talking about the moral law of God. 15:34 "But now, it is no longer I who do it, 15:38 but sin that dwells in me." 15:41 So from Paul's perspective, 15:43 the elephant has a name and the name he gives it is sin. 15:48 What the Bible teaches is that you and I are carried along 15:51 by powerful forces beyond our control. 15:54 Something has warped our original constitution, 15:58 making us, well, completely malfunction. 16:01 He continues. 16:03 "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, 16:06 nothing good dwells: for to will is present with me, 16:10 but how to perform what is good I do not find. 16:14 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; 16:18 but the evil I will not to do, that I practice." 16:21 So you see it again. 16:23 The elephant always wins. 16:26 "Now if I do what I will not to do, 16:29 it is no longer I who do it, 16:31 but sin that dwells in me. 16:34 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, 16:37 the one who wills to do good. 16:40 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 16:44 But I see another law in my members, 16:46 warring against the law of my mind 16:48 and bringing me into captivity 16:51 to the law of sin which is in my members. 16:54 O wretched man that I am! 16:56 Who will deliver me from this body of death?" 17:01 So what we have is Paul sitting on the elephant 17:05 and he can't seem to control it. 17:08 His mind wants to obey God, 17:10 he wants to do what's right, 17:13 but the elephant is completely contrary 17:15 to everything that God stands for. 17:18 It refuses to move in God's direction 17:20 because it's been trained by centuries of human rebellion 17:25 to go in the wrong path. 17:27 And if you think that you're going to retrain 17:30 that ill-tempered elephant through sheer determination, 17:34 well, you're in for a rude awakening 17:36 because you're not strong enough. 17:40 The only real hope you have is to get a new elephant, 17:44 one trained by God himself. 17:47 And so we find Paul writing these words 17:50 a little later in the same book. 17:51 This is now over in Romans chapter 12. 17:55 He says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, 17:57 by the mercies of God, 18:00 that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, 18:03 holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." 18:07 Now here comes the big part. 18:09 "And do not be conformed to this world, 18:12 but be transformed," how? 18:14 "By the renewing of your mind, 18:16 that you may prove what is that good 18:19 and acceptable and perfect will of God." 18:23 Okay, we've got to take another quick break 18:25 because that's just the way things work here on the show. 18:28 But when I come back, 18:30 we're going to spend a few minutes 18:31 talking about the way that you and I 18:32 seem to always fail to conquer our temptations. 18:37 And then I'll talk about what you could do about it. 18:40 - [Narrator] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 18:42 we're committed to creating top quality programming 18:44 for the whole family, 18:46 like our audio adventure series, Discovery Mountain. 18:49 Discovery Mountain is a Bible-based program 18:52 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 18:54 Your family will enjoy the faith-building stories 18:57 from this small mountain summer camp in town. 19:00 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 19:02 and fresh content every week, 19:04 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 19:11 - Jonathan Haidt's metaphor, the rider and the elephant, 19:13 is a really powerful illustration 19:16 because, well, it is kind of how it works. 19:20 For the most part, you and I have a lot of trouble 19:22 overriding the basic instincts 19:25 that just kind of seem to carry us along against our will. 19:30 I mean, just think back to all the times 19:33 you did the wrong thing, 19:34 and come on, admit it, you've done the wrong thing, 19:37 and you did it instinctually. 19:40 You didn't plan to lose your temper, 19:41 you didn't plan to treat somebody brutally, 19:44 it just kind of happened in the flow of the moment. 19:47 And at where it happened, 19:48 the tiny little rider of your reason 19:50 looks back on what you did, 19:53 and he goes full time trying to justify it. 19:56 It's a miserable way to live. 19:58 Now, the downside of Haidt's metaphor comes from the fact 20:01 that it's born from an evolutionary perspective. 20:05 Jonathan Haidt says, 20:06 "The elephant is millions of years older than the rider, 20:09 and so it's more deeply ingrained in your brain." 20:12 Some people would call it the lizard brain. 20:15 The part of your mind that operates by basic instinct. 20:19 "Somewhere along the way," Haidt argues, 20:22 "we developed into this higher, more self-aware being, 20:26 and we developed a capacity for logic and reason, 20:29 but that capacity for reason," he says, 20:32 "is a relatively new skill, 20:34 so it's very weak compared to the elephant." 20:38 Now, that's largely at odds 20:40 with the way that the authors of the Bible 20:42 describe the same phenomenon. 20:44 According to this book, 20:45 you were not designed as a slave to passion, 20:49 and there really is such a thing as free will. 20:52 In fact, once upon a time, we were made in the image of God 20:56 with the capacity to learn about him, 20:58 to purposely and willfully become more like God, 21:02 to reflect his perfect character. 21:05 But then, in a deliberate act of free will, 21:08 we chose a different path. 21:10 We chose to untether ourselves from the one who made us. 21:14 And so, the rider pretty much warped the elephant. 21:18 It was bad reasoning that led to the wrong instincts 21:22 and now we're driven by impulses 21:24 that we were never originally supposed to have. 21:28 The reason you and I get overpowered 21:30 by instinct and emotion isn't because we've been evolving, 21:34 it's actually the opposite. 21:36 You and I are slaves to our passions 21:38 because we've been devolving 21:40 away from the original blueprint, 21:42 and your twisted drive to do the wrong thing happened 21:46 because we chose to corrupt our hearts and minds. 21:49 So now, you and I passed that badly programmed elephant 21:54 on from one generation to the next. 21:57 This is what Christians mean 21:58 when they say, we're all born sinners, 22:01 and it's at least a tiny little part 22:03 of what the Bible is referring to 22:05 when it says that the sins of the fathers 22:07 get passed down to the third and fourth generations. 22:11 The authors of the Bible talk about our deepest nature, 22:15 telling us that something went very wrong 22:18 in the distant past. 22:19 What we essentially did 22:21 was climbed down off of a healthy well-tempered elephant 22:25 designed by God, 22:26 and then we climbed up on this ill-tempered, stubborn beast, 22:31 who is guaranteed to go the wrong direction. 22:34 And because that ill-tempered elephant is bigger than you, 22:38 there's not a whole lot you can do about it. 22:41 So now the way we are, 22:42 we can't really just trust our gut instinct, 22:45 at least not when it comes to issues of morality 22:48 because our perspective has been tragically corrupted. 22:53 And the more we try to tame ourselves, 22:55 the more we try to reign in our very worst instincts, 22:59 the more hopeless we start to feel 23:01 because, well, the elephant's just too big. 23:05 I don't know if you've ever tried to quit an addiction, 23:07 like say smoking, 23:09 but that's a pretty good example 23:11 of how the elephant always seems to win. 23:14 You know you should quit, logically, 23:17 you know that it's killing you, 23:19 and you can figure this out 23:20 by reasoning your way through it. 23:22 But your gut level emotions are bigger 23:24 and stronger than your logic, 23:26 and so you find yourself back out on the back porch 23:29 lighting up yet another cigarette and hating yourself 23:33 for not being able to conquer something 23:35 that appears to be bigger than you. 23:39 That's why the Bible doesn't really talk 23:41 about taming the elephant or taming your worst instincts. 23:45 Instead, what this book talks about 23:47 is letting God kill off the faulty elephant 23:51 and just give you a new one. 23:53 What the Bible suggests is not a retraining program, 23:56 it's more of a replacement program. 23:59 Here, listen to this, again from the writings of Paul. 24:02 He says, "Let nothing be done 24:05 through selfish ambition or conceit, 24:08 but in lowliness of mind 24:09 let each esteem others better than himself. 24:12 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, 24:15 but also for the interests of others." 24:18 Now here comes the really mind-boggling part. 24:21 He says, "Let this mind be in you 24:24 which was also in Christ Jesus, 24:26 who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery 24:29 to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, 24:34 taking the form of a bondservant, 24:35 and coming in the likeness of men. 24:38 And being found in appearance as a man, 24:40 he humbled himself 24:41 and became obedient to the point of death, 24:44 even the death of the cross." 24:48 So here we have an example of someone 24:50 who was not controlled by sinful instinct. 24:54 And Paul encourages us to follow Christ's example. 24:58 Except you know full well 25:00 that you're not going to be able to do that 25:01 just through your own sheer willpower, there's no chance. 25:05 It takes something more. 25:08 What it actually takes 25:09 is admitting that you're out of control. 25:12 It takes confessing your sin and asking God for forgiveness. 25:16 It takes asking God for a new set of guiding principles, 25:20 basically, a brand new elephant. 25:24 And that requires a miracle, 25:26 which is exactly what Paul teaches. 25:29 Remember, "But I see another law in my members, 25:33 warring against the law of my mind, 25:35 and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 25:38 which is in my members. 25:40 O wretched man that I am! 25:42 Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25:45 I thank God," here it is now, 25:47 "through Jesus Christ our Lord!" 25:51 That's the only way out. 25:53 I'll be right back after this. 25:58 - [Narrator] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues. 26:02 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 26:07 If you've ever read Daniel or Revelation 26:09 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 26:12 Our free Focus on Prophecy guides 26:14 are designed to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 26:17 and deepen your understanding of God's plan 26:20 for you and our world. 26:21 Study online or request them by mail 26:24 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 26:28 - You know, I find it really interesting 26:29 that the pessimistic philosophies 26:31 that came out of the 19th century 26:34 basically came on the heels of Charles Darwin. 26:38 We halfway convinced ourselves 26:40 that there's no God out there, 26:43 but we still couldn't shake the notion 26:44 that there's something wrong with the way we live. 26:47 That just living by animal instinct 26:49 doesn't produce a happy life. 26:52 In fact, Arthur Schopenhauer, actually pondered 26:54 whether or not suicide was the only way 26:58 to conquer this powerful force 26:59 that just makes us so unhappy. 27:02 Now, in that regard, 27:04 I have to say Mr. Schopenhauer was completely wrong. 27:08 You and I are flawed, but we can't fix it, not on our own. 27:13 Fortunately, however, the master of elephants, 27:15 the one who made us in the first place, 27:18 well, he says he's got a way out of the mess. 27:22 And I don't know about you, 27:23 but if there's a way out of that miserable existence, 27:25 if there's a way to feel some kind of control again, 27:29 if there's a way to stop doing instinctively 27:32 the things that I don't want to do, 27:34 that seems to me it makes giving this old book worth a try. 27:40 Why don't you pick it up and see what it says? 27:42 I think it's a lot more profound than people think. 27:45 It addresses the core of who we are. 27:49 Thanks for joining me this week, 27:50 I'm Shawn Boonstra 27:51 and this has been another episode of Authentic. 27:55 [soft guitar music] |
Revised 2021-06-02