The video explores the complex philosophical discussions surrounding the concept of meaning and existence, drawing upon different schools of thought including nihilism, existentialism, and religious traditions. The dialogue between the participants highlights the difficulty many face in finding meaning in life, with considerations on whether essence precedes existence or vice versa, and discusses renowned philosophers like Sartre and Nietzsche who offered distinct views on this subject.

The conversation transitions into a practical approach to understanding life's meaning by breaking it down into simpler questions regarding coherence, purpose, and significance. The speaker emphasizes the need for personal experiences and challenges as a means to find profound answers to these questions, illustrated through anecdotes and personal stories, including the journey of a young man who seeks meaning through hard work, military service, and personal reflection.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. nihilism [ˈnaɪɪˌlɪzəm] - (n.) - A philosophical belief that life lacks inherent meaning or value. - Synonyms: (pessimism, cynicism, skepticism)

nihilism and existentialism....

2. existentialism [ˌɛksəˈstɛnʃəˌlɪzəm] - (n.) - A philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice, suggesting that humans define their own meaning in life. - Synonyms: (humanism, individualism, phenomenology)

nihilism and existentialism....

3. essence precedes existence [ˈɛsəns prɪˈsiːdz ɪɡˈzɪstəns] - (phrase) - The philosophical idea that the essence or meaning of a person is defined before they exist. - Synonyms: (fundamental nature, intrinsic character)

essence precedes existence

4. tabula rasa [ˈtæbjʊlə ˈrɑːsə] - (n.) - The idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and all knowledge comes from experience or perception. - Synonyms: (blank slate, clean slate, open mind)

tabula rasa. Good luck, kid....

5. coherence [koʊˈhɪrəns] - (n.) - Logical and consistent connection or sense. - Synonyms: (consistency, logicality, order)

...which are all about coherence. Why do things happen the way they do?

6. kierkegaard [ˈkɪrkɪˌgɑrd] - (n.) - A Danish philosopher considered to be a major influence on existentialism. - Synonyms: (philosopher, thinker, existentialist)

...Sartre and even to a certain extent, kierkegaard would say that existence precedes essence....

7. discernment [dɪˈsɜrnˌmənt] - (n.) - The ability to judge well, often emphasized as a valuable quality in leaders. - Synonyms: (insight, perception, understanding)

...to go through a process of discernment....

8. platonic metaphor [pləˈtɒnɪk ˈmɛtəˌfɔr] - (n.) - A reference to Plato's allegorical style of literature. - Synonyms: (philosophical analogy, allegory, Platonic allegory)

...they can give you shadows on the cave wall. To get back to the old platonic metaphor....

9. inchoate [ɪnˈkoʊət] - (adj.) - Only partly in existence, not fully formed or developed; vague or unformed. - Synonyms: (undeveloped, unfinished, immature)

...if it's there but it's inchoate....

10. liberty [ˈlɪbərti] - (n.) - The quality or state of being free. - Synonyms: (freedom, independence, autonomy)

...by the way, for those of you outside the United States, he's willing to die for our allies too. Dying for an idea of liberty....

A Practical Guide To Finding Meaning In Life

We identified two, I guess of the legs on the stool. On the stool, Right. Meaning. How should we think about meaning? Meaning is the hard one. Meaning is the hard one. I mean, look, I mean, enjoyment is no joke and satisfaction takes work. But meaning eludes some people their entire lives because they don't know what they're looking for. They're fumbling around for something, they don't know exactly what it is. And a lot of people, they deeply suspect that it doesn't exist, that it doesn't actually exist.

You look at a lot of 20th century and 19th century philosophers and they say it doesn't exist. I mean, there's sort of three schools of thought about meaning. There's the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Christians and the Jews and the Muslims. And it's all kind of based on meaning in the following way. essence precedes existence. Meaning, you have meaning in life that precedes your actual life. And your job is to find it and live up to it. But it's already out there. You just need to go looking for it. Right?

In the 19th and 20th centuries, that was relaxed with two major schools of philosophical thought. nihilism and existentialism. existentialism. You know, Sartre and even to a certain extent, kierkegaard would say that existence precedes essence. In other words, you're born and there is no meaning until you create it. tabula rasa. Good luck, kid. Yeah, good luck. Go make it. And if it's no good, it's on you, man. And by the way, Sartre, he has a very empowering, a very muscular philosophy because he says you have to live up to the responsibility of creating your essence and living according to it. It's sort of Freudian in this way.

And then of course, there's Nietzsche, our old pal Friedrich. You know, a lot of young men love Nietzsche because, by the way, it's unbelievably beautiful prose, a gorgeous writer, including in English. You don't have to go, like, learn German to read it. But you know, the Gay Science, which is one of his most famous texts, where he said, God is dead and we killed them. It's just. It lands right. But his whole point is existence is real, but essence is a figment of your imagination. So don't even try to find it.

That's nihilism, right? We're struggling with these schools of thought and we all suspect it doesn't matter how religious you are, it doesn't matter what your wiring actually happens to be. You kind of wonder if maybe Nietzsche and Sartre were right. So you go in search of it, and it turns out I want to go find the meaning of life is too big a question. You'll never find it by sitting at the mouth of the guru's cave or with the ayahuasca shaman saying, I just want to find meaning in life. You need to boil it down to really sub questions, which are all about coherence. Why do things happen the way they do? I need to believe something about why things happen the way they do. It doesn't have to be religious. It can be completely secular. It might even be nihilistic.

You need a purpose. You need to answer a purpose question, which is, what's the purpose of my life? And what direction am I going? What's the goal of my life? What's the end point of my life? And the last is significance, which is, why does it matter that I'm alive now? I have a test to see if somebody has a meaning crisis in their life. It's really just two questions. And to pass the test, you need incredibly true, honest and compelling answers. There's no right answers. There's only wrong answers or no answers.

So you want to take the test? Sure, why not? Let's go to it. Question number one. This is me. For all the ayahuasca I've done. Go for it. I didn't say there's something wrong with. I just think that's it's. What do we say? It's necessary, but not an opus day myself left it back at the hotel. Yeah. Damn. Why are you alive? Do you have an answer to the question of why you're alive? I mean, I have a very clinical answer for it. Tell me. Well, I mean, there's the physical answer, but metaphysically, why are you alive? Which can be one of two things. Either who created you or what you're put on earth to do. You can answer that in one of two ways. Do you have a strong belief in why you're alive?

I have a strong driver for taking advantage of the fact that I am alive. But I don't have a story of a creator or something along those lines. I don't. Or of strong purpose. It can be a creator or a purpose. I do feel like I have a strong purpose, but it doesn't relate to my birth. That's okay. The why of your life. Our mutual friend Simon Sinek talks about this. Start with why. And the why of your life can be, you know, because of creation, or it can because I exist to, you know, lift other people up and bring them together in bonds of happiness and love. Which, by the way, is the why of my life.

So that's number one. And if it's not, if it's there but it's inchoate, it's not quite clear enough, find out the answer to that and write it down and then perfect it over a six month period. Yeah, I would say that for me, I mean, it's looking at and experiencing thing and things in unorthodox ways so that I can teach. And why do you want to teach? Mostly to alleviate suffering. I would say, in other words, you want to lighten the load for other people. And so in other words, you want to serve your sisters and brothers. Is that fair? Sure. Okay. That's a great why. That's a great way. That's a great answer to the first question. Why are you alive? Yeah, I don't feel conflicted about that.

Okay, so the second one's harder. For what would you be willing to die today? I don't have a ready answer. It's a hard one. It's a hard one. What's your answer? A lot of people don't. For my faith, for my family, for my country, and for you. I am willing to die for others. That's the answer. I mean, I probably won't be called to it, but I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to do it. I've come to the conclusion that I'm actually willing to do it. And here's how I. I learned this from my son. I learned this actually from my son. I mean, I have theoretical answers that are politically correct in the Catholic sphere. I would die for the Catholic church. I would die for my faith. These things are true, by the way. I really would, but it's too pat.

Here's how I learned this from my son. My son was. I had three kids, 25, 23 and 20, and my middle son, his name is Carlos. And Carlos is. He's a kinetic boy. He's a fan of yours. He's probably watching us right now going, oh my. Oh, Dad's going to talk about me right now. Carlos. Sorry, Carlos. And Carlos was having a good old time in high school. Substantial grade problems and academic issues. And my wife's like, at least we know he's not cheating. But the problem was he wasn't really having fun. And I think it was a meaning problem. And in search of the answers to the questions, after high school, he really became an entrepreneur with his life.

And I asked my kids to do a business Plan when they're in high school because they're entrepreneurs and I'm vc. I'm an investor. I deserve a business plan. And when they weren't original, I'd send them back for revisions. Bank of dad. And it's really fun to be my son. You can imagine. So Carlos's business plan for his life, by the time it went through several rounds of revisions, was appropriately unorthodox. He was going to go work on a farm by himself and find the answers to the questions, work hard. And so he actually got a job on a wheat farm in Idaho.

A real job, not some sort of, you know, hobby farm? No, no, no, no. It was an 8,000 acre working wheat farm. He lived in the farmer's basement for the first year. He picked rocks out of the soil. He started at the bottom, made minimum wage, fixed fences, cut down dead trees, ran a combine by himself 16 hours a day. Why did he choose this? How would he explain it? Because he needed to see what he could do. He needed to find out what it meant to be Carlos Brooks, away from his family, away from everybody. Why? Because he was looking for the answers to the questions. They were in Kuwait. They were like, why am I alive? I don't know.

Maybe I'll find it in the cab of a combine. Maybe I'll find it when I dig rocks out of the soil. Maybe I'll find it by doing something hard with my hand. Then he joined the military. He was 19 years old. He joined the Marine Corps. And boot camp is no walk in the park for the US Marine Corps, as we've all heard. But then it got harder from there. He did infantry training battalions and then the INDOC for the Scout Sniper Platoon, which is a branch of the Special Forces and the Marines. Today he's Corporal Carlos Brooks, Marines 35 Scout Sniper Platoon. And he's got answers. Now that's a scary job for me and his mom. He goes on field trips, Right? Field trips. And thank God nothing's happened to him.

He's getting out of the military in December of this year. But he's got answers. What types of answers? I mean, I don't want you to. Here's his answers. Yeah, I'll tell you his answers. Carlos, why are you alive? Because God made me. For what are you willing to die? For my faith and for my family and for my friends and for the United States of America. Boom. These are not the answers that a lot of people watching us would give, but these are super solid answers. I'm super proud of my Son, because he earned the answers to his meaning questions.

That everybody watching us has got to earn it. Everybody's watching us. Everybody who's watching us has got to go on a quest, a vision quest for the answers to the meaning questions. There's no other way to do it. Your dad can't tell you, your priest can't tell you. The holy books can give you inklings, they can give you shadows on the cave wall. To get back to the old platonic metaphor, you need to live and to try things, to go through a process of discernment. And the way to do that is to do hard things, is to challenge yourself and to say to yourself, I will not stop until I have answers to these questions to my own satisfaction.

So hearing you describe Carlos experience. Hi, Carlos. And congratulations on the trajectory. He thought he's like, yeah, my dad embarrassed me, but Tim Ferriss just said hi to me on his podcast. So it's all good. It's not easy. I have some friends who are formerly Marine Force Recon. Yeah, that is not. The recon guys are not an easy path. No, it isn't. None of that is easy.

I think I was over processing the. For what would you be willing to die tomorrow? I think it was the tomorrow piece that I fixated on. So family, Right. Close friends. You would die for your family. You just would. Yeah. Family and close friends. I can give that answer. Right, right. I was thinking of it more hypothetically as a. For what happening in the world would you be willing to basically off yourself? Is there an idea for. For which you'd be willing to die?

Is there a truth? Because this is really where it gets super intense. Yeah, that's where it gets intense. Yeah. When Carlos says, I am willing to die for my faith, I am willing to die for the United States of which for him is an ideal of liberty, by the way, for those of you outside the United States, he's willing to die for our allies too. Dying for an idea that's super heavy. I mean, that's like pure grade meaning. Because people are going to say, are you kidding me? Are you nuts? This is not. I'm willing to kill for an idea that's like. That's kindergarten stuff. That's kindergarten stuff.

No, I'm willing to die for something. I'm willing to give my own life. I'm willing to take yours. Yeah, you and every other, you know, half baked, dark triad, malignant narcissist, cancel culture trait, psychopath. I thought you were talking to me for a second. No. How did he get Arthur Brooks got really abusive on my pocket. No, Tim, I love you. I will reiterate negative moments that you're a beautiful man. But I mean, I mean, come on. I mean, it's. Everybody around the world is willing to kill for what they think or cancel or hurt people for what they think. But the real question is, are you willing to sacrifice what you have for an idea? And that's really hard.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's a tough one for me to answer. I think also thinking about what you're willing to die for, let me personalize it. Thinking about what I'm willing to die for. I also want to be very aware if there are things I would be willing to die for that could be manipulated to make me do things that I might not currently be morally aligned with. Totally, totally. For sure. I think the allegiance. I get it, it needs to be very. Or for me, I want to be aware of their things like for instance, faith has been manipulated by politicians. So has patriotism, of course. My goodness. I mean, a lot of people listening say you die for the United States of America. Are you crazy? Which is not to say that it's wrong. It's just very context dependent, very context dependent. And it requires a lot of updating and serious thought. And it's not good enough to just be sort of ra, ra ra. And taking it at face value, it takes serious discernment.

So we have the why were you born? Or for what? Why are you alive? Are you alive? What would you be willing to die for? Yeah. Got any more? Those are the ones. I mean, what those do is that they really kind of wrap up coherence, purpose and significance into two kind of handy dandy questions. And the point is really this. I mean, it's easy for me to, to frame that up is, you know, once you find those, you're all good to go.

All right. But the truth is you're going to go through the rest of your life contemplating these things. And these are the questions to ask on your birthday. Do these, are these still the things that I believe? Have I updated my knowledge? Do I have a better sense of who I am? Have I, have I gone backwards a little bit? Have I lost this sense of what I'm willing to die for? Do I need to go a little deeper at this point? And touching up on those questions turns out to be a really good. It's sort of the same thing when you go to the doctor and they do the same test again and again and again and again. I have a series of tests that I do or these questions that I ask myself, like that, you know, about the reverse bucket list and the meaning questions. And am I pursuing my pleasures socially and making memory with my prefrontal cortex?

I also have, by the way, a spreadsheet of 19 micronutrients that feed into my macronutrients. And I grade myself on tenths of 1% on a 1 to 10 scale weighted with respect to what I what my best estimate of my well being. And when I'm going backwards on those things, I set a strategic plan for my year. So I'm, you know, I know I'm getting crazier by the minute, right? I'm into it. I encourage it. I want to pour gasoline on the fire.

Philosophy, Leadership, Motivation, Meaning Of Life, Existentialism, Personal Growth, Tim Ferriss