| What should move forward in time with me
|
| And what should be let go
|
| As if it’s deadwood
|
| The more deadwood that you let go of and burn off
|
| When you have the opportunity
|
| The less it accretes around you
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Here’s something interesting about forest fires
|
| People have been trying to prevent forest fires for a long time,
|
| it’s because forest fires burn up the forest and that can’t b good but here’s
|
| what happens if you don’t lt forest fires burn
|
| Forests collect a lot of dry branches, right 'cause tree branches die and wood
|
| falls on the forest floor and collects
|
| The amount of flammable material keeps increasing with time
|
| And that’s not so bad if it’s wet but if the amount of flammable material is
|
| increasing and it gets really dry and then it burns, then you have a real
|
| problem
|
| The forest fire can burn so hot that it burns the top soil right off
|
| In which case you don’t have a forest at all anymore, you just have a desert
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Lots of trees are evolved to withstand forest fires of a certain intensity
|
| And some won’t even release their seeds unless there’s been a fire
|
| And so a little bit of fire at the right time
|
| Can stop everything from burning to the ground
|
| And that’s also a really useful
|
| Insight a metaphorical insight into the nature of sacrifice, right
|
| It’s also a lot easier to let go of something when you’re deciding to let go of
|
| it
|
| Because you’ve decided yourself that you’re done with that
|
| It’s a weak part of you, it needs to disappear
|
| You do that yourself it’s much better and much easier than it is if it’s taken
|
| away from you forcibly in which case you’re very much likely to fight it
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| As you elevate your aim
|
| You create a judge at the same time
|
| The new ideal, which is an ideal you
|
| That becomes a judge
|
| Because it’s above you
|
| The judge tells you what’s useless about yourself and then you can dispense
|
| with it
|
| And you wanna keep doing that and then every time you make a judge that’s more
|
| elevated then there’s more useless you that has to be dispensed with
|
| And then if you create an ultimate judge which is what the archetypal
|
| imagination of humankind has done, say, with the figure of Christ
|
| You have a judge that says
|
| Get rid of everything about yourself — that isn’t perfect
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| It’s a Phoenix-like process, right
|
| You’re shedding all those elements of you that are no longer worthy of the
|
| pursuits that you’re valuing
|
| And then I would say the idea here is that as you do that, you shape yourself
|
| ever more
|
| Precisely into something that
|
| Can withstand the tragedy of life
|
| And that can act as a
|
| As a beacon to the world, that’s the right way of thinking about it,
|
| maybe first to your friends and then to your family
|
| It’s like it’s a hell of a fine ambition
|
| And there’s no reason that it can’t happen
|
| You know every one of you knows people who are really bloody useful in a crisis
|
| and people that you admire, right, you can think of all those people as partial
|
| incarnations of the archetypal messiah
|
| That’s exactly right
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| Deadwood
|
| And the more that, that manifest‘s itself in any given person then the more
|
| generally useful and admirable that person is in a multitude of situations and
|
| we don’t know the limit to that |