Episode 160: Everything is Meaningless: The Book of Ecclesiastes

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and

[00:00:14] knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] That's how life works, that's right.

[00:00:19] Sometimes the people with the most shit get to say the least shit.

[00:00:22] And the people with the least shit get to say the most shit.

[00:00:26] So if you want to say most shit, get rid of some of your shit.

[00:00:33] The Queen of Oz has spoken!

[00:00:36] Brains and U.S.

[00:01:01] Anybody can have a brain?

[00:01:09] Very Bad Men

[00:01:13] I'm a very good man.

[00:01:15] Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:18] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:22] Dave, a neuroscientist was arrested for multiple bank robberies in San Diego earlier this week.

[00:01:29] But was it him that really robbed those banks?

[00:01:31] Or was it his brain?

[00:01:34] Only an fMRI study could actually answer that question.

[00:01:40] Yeah, that's true.

[00:01:42] But yeah, as a neuroscientist, there are neuroscientists who get asked to be a witness for the defense.

[00:01:51] If I were him, I would just put up all those Libet studies on free will and like, you know.

[00:01:57] I'm sure he will.

[00:01:59] And be like, notice that the area of the brain that's associated with robbing banks is activated.

[00:02:12] And not only that, but I have the gene for wanting to engage in a series of armed robberies at credit unions.

[00:02:19] So...

[00:02:21] That is a recessive gene.

[00:02:23] I don't think I...

[00:02:24] Yeah, it's like Tasex.

[00:02:27] You should test for it and abort babies if they're going to have it.

[00:02:31] But...

[00:02:32] All right, so today we are going to talk about Ecclesiastes, a book of the Bible.

[00:02:39] The Bible!

[00:02:40] The Bible, which for our many atheistic listeners who might be rolling their eyes right now,

[00:02:49] it's actually...

[00:02:51] It's a fascinating book.

[00:02:54] Whatever your belief system is, because it's not...

[00:02:59] Or at least one way of reading it is that it's nihilistic,

[00:03:02] that it's essentially expressing a Camus-like vision of the world that everything is absurd

[00:03:07] and everything is pointless, meaningless.

[00:03:10] And it doesn't really back down from that in any real way.

[00:03:17] We'll talk about...

[00:03:18] Oh yeah, if you have atheistic leanings, this book is for you.

[00:03:22] Because in fact the whole story of it even being included in the canon is just one of discomfort by all of those who have tried to defend it.

[00:03:33] And definitely one of the things I want to talk about is why is it in the Bible?

[00:03:37] When I've taught it, that's like a question that some students ask.

[00:03:41] Wait, why is this in the Bible?

[00:03:44] How did it make it in there?

[00:03:46] I have a theory about that.

[00:03:49] Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about in the second segment.

[00:03:55] In the first segment, I don't know, Neuroskeptic has been a little bit...

[00:04:00] He's been slacking in terms of giving us opening segments recently.

[00:04:05] So we have to turn to that other gold mine.

[00:04:08] But once again, Eon coming through for us, man.

[00:04:11] It does.

[00:04:13] Let's just...

[00:04:14] Quick caveat, we love Eon.

[00:04:16] We're glad it exists.

[00:04:18] Aside from that we're about to trash something that's on it.

[00:04:24] Opening segments, we like to have fun.

[00:04:26] I know, Tamler, you got a lot of shit for your blatant disregard of the truth of anti-natalism in our previous opening segment.

[00:04:33] I did.

[00:04:34] But...

[00:04:35] I was compared to an Anne Rand fanboy.

[00:04:38] I don't know how that works.

[00:04:41] Exactly.

[00:04:42] But I like Eon magazine.

[00:04:46] I'm really glad that they exist, and even though they give us fodder sometimes for what our Looter Chris claims,

[00:04:53] it's rarely not interesting.

[00:04:56] And it's rarely poorly written.

[00:04:59] Including this piece.

[00:05:00] Including this piece.

[00:05:01] It's well edited.

[00:05:02] I like Nigel Werberten, who's the editor of Philosophy Bytes Guy.

[00:05:07] One of the people responsible for Philosophy Bytes, which is a great resource.

[00:05:13] So, okay.

[00:05:14] All that out of the way, here is this one, which is written by Luke Brunning.

[00:05:20] The title is Imagine There's No Jealousy.

[00:05:23] Imagine there's no jealousy.

[00:05:25] Why we should understand jealousy has nothing more than a vice that ought to be replaced by the new virtue of compersion.

[00:05:34] Tamler.

[00:05:35] I've never heard that word.

[00:05:37] Well, we'll talk about the word.

[00:05:40] It's origins very soon.

[00:05:44] How would you describe...

[00:05:45] What's the abstract of this?

[00:05:47] The abstract is don't think jealousy is a good emotion.

[00:05:50] Jealousy is a very bad emotion.

[00:05:52] And if you really want to cultivate a good emotion for a relationship, it should be not just removing jealousy,

[00:05:58] but introducing a new emotion in your life that allows you to be happy at the romantic and sexual successes of your partner.

[00:06:07] So, I don't know what...

[00:06:10] Like there's no label for that emotion.

[00:06:13] Well.

[00:06:14] Or virtue.

[00:06:15] Well, it turns out there is.

[00:06:18] And that word is compersion.

[00:06:23] Compersion.

[00:06:25] So, what is compersion?

[00:06:27] So, he offers up four definitions.

[00:06:30] I think it's very well captured in the first one.

[00:06:33] The joy at seeing one's partner happily in love with others.

[00:06:37] Feelings of pleasure in response to a lover's romantic or sexual encounters outside the relationship.

[00:06:43] A feeling of joy experienced when a partner takes pleasure from another romantic or sexual relationship.

[00:06:51] So, although this is about jealousy, supposedly it's really about sexual and romantic jealousy.

[00:06:58] Right.

[00:06:59] It's one of the things that researchers sometimes distinguish and maybe people distinguish in everyday life is the difference between jealousy and envy,

[00:07:08] where envy is you want something somebody else has,

[00:07:12] whereas jealousy is, and this is important for the article,

[00:07:15] is feeling threatened that something you have might be taken away from.

[00:07:21] So, jealousy here is the sexual jealousy though.

[00:07:25] It's not jealousy that involves your job or jealousy that involves some other part of your life.

[00:07:33] Right.

[00:07:34] Podcasts like you being jealous when I went on Sam Harris.

[00:07:38] That's right and you soon to be jealous because I went on Freakonomics.

[00:07:42] That's right.

[00:07:44] No, you know what?

[00:07:46] I'm going to feel compersive about you going on Freakonomics.

[00:07:52] You're cultivating it.

[00:07:55] When we have Sam back on we should ask him if he can include compersion as part of the meditative of his app.

[00:08:01] Yes.

[00:08:02] Sam Harris is coming back on the podcast.

[00:08:06] So more details about that later.

[00:08:09] But yes, okay.

[00:08:11] So I wanted to start a little bit by saying actually like the way that Brunning sets the stage

[00:08:19] because I think it's important to get how there's a subtle shift,

[00:08:24] like a sneaky shift in the rhetorical strategy here.

[00:08:27] So he starts off by saying, you know, jealousy can be terrible.

[00:08:32] And like obviously, I think that's obvious, right?

[00:08:34] Like jealousy is actually a really difficult emotion to deal with in a romantic relationship

[00:08:39] and at its extremes I think can give rise to super ugly behaviors.

[00:08:44] Violent behavior.

[00:08:46] Violent behaviors.

[00:08:47] It's, you know, it's a whole, I think a whole lot of, you know,

[00:08:50] once you're feeling that jealous your relationship is probably over

[00:08:53] and you're doing whatever you can to cling on to it.

[00:08:55] It can make us really insecure and clingy and needy

[00:09:00] and like shitty feeling from the inside and shitty acting from the outside.

[00:09:04] Exactly.

[00:09:05] And I think most people can agree with this.

[00:09:08] But I think a lot of people, including us would say, you know,

[00:09:12] having the emotion, at least a bit of the emotion shows that you actually care

[00:09:18] about keeping your relationship and it's sort of a signal.

[00:09:22] And here's where I think error one.

[00:09:26] No, I don't think anybody would argue that a lot of jealousy isn't bad

[00:09:32] in the same way that they wouldn't argue that a whole lot of anger

[00:09:35] or a whole lot of sadness isn't also bad.

[00:09:38] If it is sort of an inappropriate amount or it's directed in an inappropriate way

[00:09:44] or it can have damaging effects, like of course anger is I think a great example.

[00:09:48] Like of course, of course, but a little fear.

[00:09:51] Yeah, fear, but a bit of it is actually like there's a reason we have those emotions, right?

[00:09:56] Like they actually can lead to beneficial outcomes and it just is true

[00:10:02] that most emotions, right, like have some good purpose and good function

[00:10:09] and that they at their extremes would lead to bad shit.

[00:10:12] But it seems really intrinsic to our experience as humans

[00:10:18] that we have even as a byproduct of caring,

[00:10:21] it seems hard to know that you wouldn't, if you really care

[00:10:25] that you wouldn't feel threatened when something you care about might be lost.

[00:10:30] And so, and that's just what we call jealousy, right?

[00:10:32] It seems...

[00:10:33] Yes, right.

[00:10:34] If not constitutive because I don't think necessarily it's a byproduct

[00:10:38] of caring about somebody deeply.

[00:10:41] So then the author Brunning goes through some philosophers who defend jealousy

[00:10:49] in just the ways that we're giving this kind of qualified defense of it

[00:10:54] as a sign of caring and as a sign that you don't want to lose them.

[00:10:58] And then makes this jump to, well, okay, maybe those things are true

[00:11:06] although the author doubts they're as true as the philosophers seem to think.

[00:11:11] However, if you can't just look at jealousy in isolation,

[00:11:17] so you have to look at it holistically,

[00:11:19] you have to imagine a different kind of trait that you could cultivate

[00:11:25] rather than jealousy.

[00:11:26] Now, nobody's saying you should cultivate jealousy.

[00:11:28] People are just defending its presence within us.

[00:11:33] Nobody that I know of is saying you should try to become a more jealous person.

[00:11:38] Although he really seems to attribute this view to some people, but I think...

[00:11:44] But wrongly.

[00:11:47] And but what he's saying is this point I think would still hold

[00:11:51] if you were just defending its existence in our emotional repertoire,

[00:11:55] you know, you can't just look at jealousy.

[00:11:58] You have to think of what could be in its place.

[00:12:00] And in its place, you could imagine this character trait,

[00:12:05] compersion, which is instead of feeling like shit when your wife, husband,

[00:12:10] partner, romantic partner is banging somebody else or just deeply in love

[00:12:17] with somebody else, you should feel great about it.

[00:12:20] That's awesome.

[00:12:21] So this is the first leap that really annoys me, which is he went from saying

[00:12:26] jealousy is bad, jealousy is worse than people think and should never be cultivated,

[00:12:32] which we all agree on.

[00:12:34] This is like saying sometimes anger is really bad, whatever,

[00:12:37] you know, you shouldn't cultivate an angry personality.

[00:12:39] To saying, so what do you do now that we agree that jealousy is bad?

[00:12:43] Not only should you try to remove it,

[00:12:45] you should try to seek this other emotion, compersion,

[00:12:49] which would have as its object a completely different goal.

[00:12:54] Like it would actually just, this is not an emotion you can cultivate

[00:12:59] if what you want to do is maintain your monogamous relationship.

[00:13:02] This is an emotion that he is saying you should cultivate.

[00:13:05] But by the way, by cultivating it will mean that you will be totally comfortable

[00:13:09] with your partner banging somebody else.

[00:13:11] Not comfortable.

[00:13:12] You will be excited about it.

[00:13:14] And not curiously enjoying it, not even in a masochistic way.

[00:13:17] Right.

[00:13:18] Yeah.

[00:13:19] So now where did they get this word?

[00:13:22] It came from a non-monogamous commune in San Francisco had a seance

[00:13:31] and the Ouija board gave them this word.

[00:13:35] I guess they were looking for this word and the Ouija board gave them the word.

[00:13:40] Right.

[00:13:41] It's a compersion.

[00:13:43] So somebody sat around the Ouija board.

[00:13:46] And that's the word, the Ouija board.

[00:13:49] An evil demon whispered it in their ear.

[00:13:51] It was like an analytic philosophy Ouija board or something like that

[00:13:55] because that is something that an analytic philosopher would come up with.

[00:13:58] So I got a lot of shit, both of us got a lot of shit for our remarks about polyamorous people.

[00:14:03] But this is why people don't take them seriously

[00:14:06] is because they invent a whole new emotion based on a seance with a Ouija board

[00:14:13] and just as a PR like shit.

[00:14:17] Well, that's, that'd be fair.

[00:14:21] I don't, like we were being lighthearted about polyamory

[00:14:26] and I don't even think it's fair to say that you were mocking polyamorous people

[00:14:30] because there's nothing to mock.

[00:14:32] There's only the expression of that we had, which was a fundamental inability

[00:14:39] to put ourselves in the shoes of somebody who would be okay with that kind of relationship.

[00:14:43] So I actually had a bunch of listeners change my mind about the polyamory remarks

[00:14:50] that we sort of flippantly made in one episode.

[00:14:53] Yeah, you think you flippantly made.

[00:14:57] I defend all of our oppressed listeners from your attacks.

[00:15:02] You might have been worse actually, but...

[00:15:05] Like I'm sure these polyamorous Ouija board demon listening analytic philosophers

[00:15:13] do not speak for the whole polyamorous community and I believe,

[00:15:16] like I'm also convinced, like the entire polyamorous people that they don't experience the jealousy that I do

[00:15:22] and I champion it, it would be an amazing thing to find somebody else

[00:15:26] who felt the way that you did and live a polyamorous life

[00:15:30] and you may even have a feeling that is particularly about the enjoyment that your partner gets.

[00:15:38] Yeah, but I totally buy it and this is how my mind was opened or changed is

[00:15:43] I just, like I think maybe some people are wired differently

[00:15:46] and if you're wired like that, great.

[00:15:49] As long as you find somebody else that's also wired that way.

[00:15:52] Totally, but it's like I just resent that I was on board for the like,

[00:15:58] yeah jealousy is kind of bad and then all of a sudden I'm supposed to be feeling good.

[00:16:03] It's a thought of my partner just being with somebody else.

[00:16:07] Like you can't sneak that agenda into your emotions.

[00:16:10] It's supposed to be a science.

[00:16:11] It's supposed to be something we discover, not something that you invent

[00:16:15] and then tell me I'm supposed to feel like, you know, I have a new emotion that I want to invent.

[00:16:19] I'm going to label it something.

[00:16:21] I've decided what and it is some fucking humility about the claims that you're supposed to make

[00:16:26] about the science of psychology.

[00:16:28] I don't know what that feeling is, but it's a specific kind of humility.

[00:16:31] Let's think of a word for that.

[00:16:36] Anyway, yeah, no, I don't obviously write so,

[00:16:39] but I think the idea is look, you have this really bad like the anger analog is a good one.

[00:16:50] Let's say that you're somebody prone to anger and maybe to be you get angry at the wrong things.

[00:16:57] You might try to work on minimizing how often you get angry and replacing.

[00:17:05] I mean, some other strategy, some other way of responding to your anger triggers or something.

[00:17:12] If you have anger too much, like if it's excessive, if it's causing you to act in ways that are harmful and all like all of that.

[00:17:18] But like, I think you and I have been convinced by the Robert Frank view of emotions that these things sort of develop.

[00:17:25] They probably have their origin in some evolutionary benefit that they confer.

[00:17:30] And part of what makes them so beneficial is that they are pretty automatic, right?

[00:17:35] They're pretty hard to control what he calls commitment devices, which is to say they obviously have some value.

[00:17:46] And we as human beings can choose to regulate these emotions when we think that they're inappropriate, which is all fine and dandy.

[00:17:53] But like...

[00:17:54] Yeah, and minimize its damaging effects.

[00:17:56] If you're someone who's especially jealous or hyper jealous, then absolutely try to like tamp that down a little bit.

[00:18:03] Don't get too paranoid.

[00:18:06] But you know...

[00:18:07] Luke Brenning is just trying to get us to like go to a key party.

[00:18:10] Well, it's like I've been married for a lot of years and like I'm now supposed to all of a sudden because jealousy has these bad effects for a lot of people.

[00:18:20] And maybe like I've been too jealous at certain points in my life.

[00:18:24] I'm now supposed to like cultivate this compersion virtue.

[00:18:29] And it's not...

[00:18:30] I want to be clear.

[00:18:31] It's where I don't think we're straw manning this claim or this article by saying that like, well, this is just if you have the goal of non monogamy, then you should cultivate this because that would be totally fine with.

[00:18:44] No, he would probably be saying like jealousy is wrong.

[00:18:47] You people have been doing this wrong.

[00:18:49] Like you your jealousy is so wrong.

[00:18:52] But your goal is also wrong.

[00:18:54] So like cultivate this new thing.

[00:18:56] So like you're not just saying cultivate the emotion.

[00:18:58] He's saying, dude, chill, like be open to non monogamy.

[00:19:01] You'll love it.

[00:19:02] Come over to my house.

[00:19:03] Have a glass of wine with me and my wife.

[00:19:08] But even if we went to like a key party,

[00:19:11] like that's fine.

[00:19:13] Like, okay, have fun.

[00:19:14] But like you don't have to like really be excited also that your wife is having sex.

[00:19:20] Right?

[00:19:21] Oh, that's awesome for her.

[00:19:22] And I hope it's really, really good sex.

[00:19:25] I hope it's like the best sex she ever had.

[00:19:27] You don't want to go full, full cuckled revideo.

[00:19:30] You don't want to go full.

[00:19:33] Never go full cock.

[00:19:34] Yeah.

[00:19:35] Don't go full cock.

[00:19:36] That was your problem.

[00:19:37] You went full cock.

[00:19:38] All right.

[00:19:39] I also want to know like what the theory of emotion or trait acquisition is here because

[00:19:50] he makes a very strong claim which is we can all it is all in our power.

[00:19:59] If we just read this and are convinced by the argument to become

[00:20:04] compersive to develop the trait of compersion,

[00:20:09] the way we do that, the way we cultivate compersion as a character trait is to understand why we feel jealous.

[00:20:19] Yeah.

[00:20:20] Yeah.

[00:20:21] There's no hiding the normative here.

[00:20:25] Well, this is an empirical claim about how to cultivate a brand new non-existent trait.

[00:20:31] Yeah.

[00:20:32] So his theory seems to be that he says first we can redirect our attention by asking the situation,

[00:20:38] what does this experience mean to them?

[00:20:40] In focusing on their good, we're less likely to focus on beloved's flourishing only in so far as it bears on ourselves.

[00:20:46] So the first one is just like, just focus on your partner's pleasure.

[00:20:50] Like stop being inside yourself.

[00:20:53] Just imagine, just visualize the sex that your partner has had.

[00:20:59] And the second is to resist construing other people as rivals.

[00:21:02] Like stop thinking of that person who's banging your spouse as somebody who's competing with you.

[00:21:07] High five them.

[00:21:09] Just give them a high five.

[00:21:10] This is basketball, it's not tennis.

[00:21:12] This is a team sport.

[00:21:14] And they're on your team.

[00:21:16] Finally we can think empathetically about others.

[00:21:19] So here is where I get the normative sense where it's just like,

[00:21:23] if only you felt empathy, you fucking insensitive Claude,

[00:21:26] you would develop compassion.

[00:21:28] Right?

[00:21:29] I don't know.

[00:21:30] This is where Paul Bloom has been on board like this whole article and then he just jumped ship right here.

[00:21:35] Wait, so we have a different analysis of this.

[00:21:39] I thought we have to think of the source of our jealousy

[00:21:44] and realize that it comes from a sense of entitlement,

[00:21:47] a sense of being possessive,

[00:21:50] and of panic and indignation that stems from that.

[00:21:55] So what he calls irrational attachments, he says like, yeah, sure.

[00:21:59] We're like, we grew up being attached to people,

[00:22:02] but come on, do you really need attachment?

[00:22:04] Right?

[00:22:05] And then he goes on to conflate attachment with just straight up possessiveness.

[00:22:09] Like you're an object that I own.

[00:22:11] But I think you're right.

[00:22:12] So okay, so I was reading it more like cognitive behavioral therapy

[00:22:16] where he's giving us strategies to block the thoughts that we endorse as irrational.

[00:22:22] Yeah.

[00:22:23] So it would be like, every time you think of this,

[00:22:26] take some deep breaths and realize that it's wrong.

[00:22:29] Yeah.

[00:22:30] But you were saying more...

[00:22:32] Like psychoanalysis where you see where the jealousy is truly coming from.

[00:22:38] Like that, oh, here's why I'm acting in this self-destructive way

[00:22:44] because I wanted to fuck my mother or something.

[00:22:47] That's right.

[00:22:48] And then magically on the couch, you'll just stop wanting to do it.

[00:22:51] I'll just stop wanting to do it because I've had that realization.

[00:22:54] Well, I mean, I think it's an element of both.

[00:22:56] Yeah.

[00:22:57] I was going to say maybe this is the power of this approach, Tamler,

[00:23:00] is that you can approach it from any of multiple ways.

[00:23:04] All right.

[00:23:05] Final thoughts.

[00:23:06] There is this new tendency.

[00:23:10] I don't know if it's new because P.F.

[00:23:12] Strossen was complaining about this in Freedom and Resemmment, right?

[00:23:15] Of trying to question basic both emotions and also the interpersonal

[00:23:23] kinds of relationships, how we express the emotions within those relationships.

[00:23:29] Like the very fundamental ways in which we're late,

[00:23:33] trying to just completely overhaul it.

[00:23:36] Like a Stalinist wants to overhaul a society or something like that.

[00:23:42] Is to me, even if the arguments were better, there's something that's

[00:23:48] fundamentally missing for how you understand human nature, human

[00:23:54] relationships and ethics and morality.

[00:23:57] Yeah, I think P.F.

[00:23:58] Strossen is a good...

[00:23:59] Well, first of all, I wanted to say I'll never tire of your hyperbole.

[00:24:02] The P.F.

[00:24:03] Strossen analogy is right.

[00:24:04] I think I was convinced by this that you can have a belief,

[00:24:08] a normative belief about how people ought to act,

[00:24:10] how they ought to make responsibility judgments,

[00:24:12] how they ought to make judgments of blame.

[00:24:15] But the truth of the matter is that there is only so much control

[00:24:20] human beings have over these sorts of reactions.

[00:24:24] And I think that we're doing a good service to say,

[00:24:28] we have more power, we can suspend our reactive attitudes

[00:24:32] to use Strossen's language every once in a while

[00:24:34] when it's very important.

[00:24:35] But good luck trying to turn them off, right?

[00:24:37] Yeah, and we can even revise them.

[00:24:40] I'm sure there are people who are too jealous

[00:24:44] and they should definitely try to diminish the number of times

[00:24:51] and the degree to which they feel jealous

[00:24:54] because it's self-destructive, right?

[00:24:57] But to go from that to just get rid of it entirely,

[00:25:02] replace it with something else,

[00:25:04] that's the thing that Strossen worried about as dehumanizing.

[00:25:09] There is something dehumanizing about what these kinds of arguments try to do.

[00:25:16] Yeah, and even I'm willing to say,

[00:25:18] even if it is the right view in some sense, in some ideal sense,

[00:25:26] it's certainly not going to be a successful one.

[00:25:29] I just don't know what that sense would be.

[00:25:32] I suppose if you were inventing people,

[00:25:35] would you instill jealousy in them?

[00:25:37] I don't know.

[00:25:38] But that's again, it's that approach that, yeah.

[00:25:41] And I don't know.

[00:25:43] If I was a sociologist or had those kinds of ambitions,

[00:25:48] you might try to figure out why these kinds of things

[00:25:51] are propping up more in the modern age than they are in previous years.

[00:25:56] It's because they want to attack people who think like you.

[00:26:00] No, I think it has something to do about a social disconnect.

[00:26:05] It is a weirdly sort of rationalist.

[00:26:08] Time was everybody thought most emotions should be gotten rid of,

[00:26:14] but then we sort of at least in psychology,

[00:26:19] there was very much this rationalist thought,

[00:26:22] maybe this is just the content of me coming out,

[00:26:25] but that emotions were generally not a source of good.

[00:26:29] That they were a source of bad things.

[00:26:33] It was what made us like the beasts,

[00:26:35] but the ability to reason and overcome these emotions are what makes us good.

[00:26:40] They distorted the truth in every way.

[00:26:43] But in this case, it's not reason that's going to bring you to the good life.

[00:26:49] It's another emotion, comparison.

[00:26:53] Alright, well, we will be right back to talk about Ecclesiastes.

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[00:31:26] Okay, so Ecclesiastes. Dave, how did you get introduced to this?

[00:31:30] Probably in a different way than I did.

[00:31:32] Yeah, very different way.

[00:31:34] You know, as many of our long-time listeners know,

[00:31:38] I was raised in a very religious household.

[00:31:41] Specifically, I was raised Seventh Day Adventist.

[00:31:44] Seventh Day Adventists, they're my people.

[00:31:47] I love them.

[00:31:48] One of the things that they very much like to do is read the Bible.

[00:31:52] So as a kid, I was very encouraged to read the Bible.

[00:31:55] But you know, if you're a kid and you're a nerd

[00:31:57] and you are told to read something, you really, really read it.

[00:32:02] So I really, really read the Bible.

[00:32:05] In fact, one of my favorite pastimes was to find

[00:32:08] really fucked up texts in the Bible.

[00:32:10] So whenever somebody asked me to say a text for worship,

[00:32:13] for like Sabbath worship, I would pull out like really...

[00:32:16] Like what?

[00:32:18] Oh man, like there's a verse in Ezekiel

[00:32:22] that talks about the...

[00:32:25] It's a metaphor of Israel being God's woman.

[00:32:30] And he says that,

[00:32:31] you left and you cheated on me.

[00:32:33] You went to seek lovers in Egypt who have genitals

[00:32:36] the size of donkeys and emissions the size of horses.

[00:32:39] That's great.

[00:32:42] It's like Ezekiel 23.

[00:32:44] Genitals the size of donkeys and what was it?

[00:32:47] Emissions the size of horses.

[00:32:49] Emissions.

[00:32:50] Yeah, I might get the wrong.

[00:32:52] That's the King James version.

[00:32:55] So, but Ecclesiastes early on, I remember just...

[00:32:59] You know, I don't remember at what point I realized how cool it was,

[00:33:02] but I think that I really realized it when I was in college

[00:33:06] in my existential sort of dabbling with the existential literature.

[00:33:11] And I realized that this book just was.

[00:33:15] I like to think that it was because I was being really deep,

[00:33:18] but I was probably being emo and fake deep at the time.

[00:33:21] But like, I thought, man, this is really wisdom.

[00:33:24] This is...

[00:33:26] It seemed to me even back then like it was a deep truth.

[00:33:31] It resonated with me.

[00:33:33] And I think it does with a lot of people.

[00:33:35] I think this is...

[00:33:37] It touches people from, you know,

[00:33:40] both really religious people,

[00:33:42] but also people who have strayed from it

[00:33:45] or who have abandoned it or rejected it.

[00:33:47] There is something deeply meaningful, beautiful about it

[00:33:52] that is...

[00:33:54] That it just resonates in terms of my...

[00:33:57] What you said about right now that beautiful part.

[00:33:59] Yes, I didn't say that, but it's beautiful.

[00:34:02] Yeah.

[00:34:03] It is.

[00:34:04] And which is funny given how bleak the message...

[00:34:07] It can be interpreted as unrelentingly bleak,

[00:34:11] but there is something beautiful and almost...

[00:34:15] I don't know.

[00:34:16] Like there's something comforting about it in a weird way,

[00:34:20] which may be why it's included in the Bible.

[00:34:24] We can speculate about that later.

[00:34:27] I'm sure maybe, you know, in Hebrew school,

[00:34:31] we talked about it, but I have no memory of it.

[00:34:35] And in this great books course that I team teach,

[00:34:39] it was put on the syllabus.

[00:34:41] And I...

[00:34:43] A lot of the Bible stuff that we do,

[00:34:47] I always enter in with deep caution and wariness.

[00:34:52] And I had never heard of Ecclesiastes,

[00:34:54] and then I started reading it in preparation

[00:34:57] for talking about it with my students.

[00:35:00] And I was just blown away by it.

[00:35:02] I couldn't believe it.

[00:35:03] Like you said, it's like Camus.

[00:35:06] It's like Nagel the Absurd.

[00:35:08] Exactly.

[00:35:09] But written, you know, fucking, you know,

[00:35:12] like 400 years before Christ or whatever.

[00:35:15] Yeah.

[00:35:16] And it was just mind-boggling to me that this was in the Bible

[00:35:19] and that that was, you know, in the Jewish tradition,

[00:35:24] you read every portion of the Bible on the same date

[00:35:27] and you always read it on Sukkot,

[00:35:29] which is one of the major holidays,

[00:35:31] comes right after Yom Kippur.

[00:35:33] And, you know, just the idea that that's like a celebration.

[00:35:37] That's a day of celebration.

[00:35:39] And this is what they read on that day is fascinating to me.

[00:35:43] And as a text, just even if you separate it from the fact

[00:35:50] that it's in the Bible as a text,

[00:35:52] I think it's really interesting.

[00:35:53] It can be interpreted in tons of different ways.

[00:35:56] It has a kind of a bleak message.

[00:35:59] It has sprinkled within it,

[00:36:01] and especially right at the end, a kind of pious message.

[00:36:04] Right.

[00:36:05] And then it also has this kind of Epicureanism

[00:36:08] laced within it in terms of what we should do

[00:36:12] about the fact that we don't know anything,

[00:36:15] that everything is meaningless, feudal, absurd.

[00:36:20] And there is a sense of enjoy the pleasures of life

[00:36:25] that are given to you.

[00:36:27] All of that is kind of the way it's baked in.

[00:36:30] It's at times poetic.

[00:36:33] It's like third-person narrative sometimes,

[00:36:35] first-person narrative sometimes.

[00:36:37] It's just really interesting as a text.

[00:36:39] Right.

[00:36:40] It lapses into poetry in the middle of the prose.

[00:36:43] Yeah.

[00:36:44] But all of a sudden just some proverbs thrown in there.

[00:36:48] So I guess let's talk about it's the genre.

[00:36:52] So I guess it's part of what people call wisdom literature.

[00:36:56] And it's one of the books of wisdom in the Bible

[00:36:59] along with Job and Proverbs.

[00:37:03] And sometimes Psalms I guess, or some Psalms.

[00:37:06] Yeah.

[00:37:07] Yeah.

[00:37:08] Right.

[00:37:10] I mean this and Job are my favorite books for a reason.

[00:37:16] And yeah, so I actually remember taking a class on the books of wisdom.

[00:37:21] Some of the analysis, despite being very still,

[00:37:25] very God-centered education.

[00:37:29] The professor was good and gave us a lot of good analysis,

[00:37:32] like trains you how to read the Bible as text.

[00:37:36] Right?

[00:37:37] Yeah.

[00:37:38] He's a real scholar.

[00:37:39] And I wanted to mention that one of the reasons I get so much joy

[00:37:44] from reading some of these books is from the ambiguity

[00:37:48] that comes from the translations.

[00:37:50] Right?

[00:37:51] Yes.

[00:37:52] And we talked briefly off before we recorded that there's all these

[00:37:56] different versions.

[00:37:57] You read different versions and it says really, really different things.

[00:38:01] Yeah.

[00:38:02] Including like the key word in this which is vanity in my translation,

[00:38:08] not your translation.

[00:38:09] Right.

[00:38:10] So here's how it starts.

[00:38:11] The words of the teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

[00:38:15] In my translation, vanities of vanities says the teacher.

[00:38:19] Vanities of vanity, all is vanity.

[00:38:23] And that just is a motif that repeats.

[00:38:26] This is vanity.

[00:38:27] That's vanity.

[00:38:28] Everything is vanity.

[00:38:29] Right.

[00:38:30] That's not your translation.

[00:38:31] No.

[00:38:32] So mine says meaningless, meaningless says the teacher.

[00:38:36] Utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless.

[00:38:38] And I think that's just understood to be the better translation.

[00:38:42] I mean because the word vanity has come to mean other things.

[00:38:45] It's come to mean something like a bad character trait.

[00:38:48] Right.

[00:38:49] Like pride overblown, you know?

[00:38:51] Yeah.

[00:38:52] Like no, no comparison.

[00:38:54] No.

[00:38:55] A lack of comparison.

[00:38:57] It's come to mean that.

[00:38:59] No.

[00:39:00] And I think the idea is that it's partly your fault or there's

[00:39:03] some vice that you would have and that's not what.

[00:39:07] So the actual literal word is Hevel.

[00:39:10] It's a Hebrew word and it is literally mere breath or

[00:39:16] mere vapor.

[00:39:17] So the idea is that it's, it's everything is just breath.

[00:39:24] It's like hot air kind of.

[00:39:26] Right.

[00:39:27] It is just.

[00:39:28] Ephemeral.

[00:39:29] It's ephemeral.

[00:39:30] It's ephemeral.

[00:39:31] That's one way of translate.

[00:39:32] You could even translate it that way.

[00:39:35] You could translate it as meaningless.

[00:39:37] You could translate it as futile I think absurd.

[00:39:42] But the idea is that whatever you think you're going to get out

[00:39:48] of the world, you're not going to get.

[00:39:51] Right.

[00:39:52] It's just another thing that has translated different ways.

[00:39:56] Although I think there's a little more consensus chasing the

[00:40:00] wind.

[00:40:01] Yeah.

[00:40:02] You know, that's another recurring theme that it's all,

[00:40:04] that the things that you try to do cultivating riches

[00:40:08] or knowledge, or it's just chasing the wind.

[00:40:12] But I did come across a translation that said shepherding

[00:40:15] the wind.

[00:40:16] Like you're actually.

[00:40:17] You're like herding cats.

[00:40:19] Yeah.

[00:40:20] But it's like you're herding sheep except it's wind.

[00:40:23] So there's no way you can hurt it.

[00:40:25] Like I like that actually.

[00:40:26] I like that image of you're trying to herd something that

[00:40:31] can't be herded.

[00:40:32] Right.

[00:40:34] We should say just sort of as a just to couch the discussion.

[00:40:38] So this is so this is set as the words of a king looking upon

[00:40:45] his life of an old king who has experienced everything there

[00:40:49] is to experience.

[00:40:50] There's an illusion that this is King Solomon,

[00:40:54] son of David, King Jerusalem.

[00:40:56] I think it's understood generally that it couldn't

[00:40:58] have been.

[00:40:59] Yeah.

[00:41:00] The language in it that wasn't that's not traced to the time

[00:41:03] that Solomon is supposed to have lived.

[00:41:05] Right.

[00:41:06] The dates I think are placed, the possible dates are placed

[00:41:10] at between 450 BC or BC and 200 which is fascinating in

[00:41:18] and of itself because it's very different depending on when

[00:41:23] it's written and especially does the writings of Epicurus

[00:41:28] and that school have time to reach the author when

[00:41:32] when they're writing this is a really interesting question.

[00:41:35] If it's 450 then no because Epicurus hasn't lived.

[00:41:39] Right.

[00:41:40] It's so funny also when you read these datings when

[00:41:42] you're like, well, you know, like we kind of have it narrowed

[00:41:45] down but can you imagine if someone was like, I don't know

[00:41:47] if it was in 1800 or in 2020?

[00:41:50] Yeah.

[00:41:51] How can you not know?

[00:41:53] No, it's and these are this is like the whole Athens

[00:41:57] philosophy like happens.

[00:41:59] That's right.

[00:42:00] That exact period of time and so, you know, all the like

[00:42:04] Western philosophy is born and evolving during this period.

[00:42:08] Right.

[00:42:09] And this is the philosophy.

[00:42:12] This is the bit of philosophy that exists in the Bible.

[00:42:15] Like it really does read like philosophy.

[00:42:17] It really does.

[00:42:18] It's full of it reads like philosophy but I would say

[00:42:21] in some ways it reads more like Eastern philosophy

[00:42:23] in that there's no real unity to the how it's being conveyed

[00:42:30] what the message is and there's a lot of contradictory passages.

[00:42:33] There's so many contrary.

[00:42:35] I want to go deep into some of them but it would,

[00:42:39] the author will contradict will say one thing

[00:42:43] and then the next sentence say something that at

[00:42:46] least seems completely inconsistent with that.

[00:42:49] And it's weird because I don't think until this round of

[00:42:54] reading it that I noticed how inconsistent it is

[00:42:58] because I had never really read it as a, I mean,

[00:43:01] I had in college, I guess, but just reading it,

[00:43:05] it reads sort of like a stream of consciousness

[00:43:08] and it never bothered me that he seems to say

[00:43:11] very different things because both of the things

[00:43:13] that he says are seem true to me.

[00:43:15] You know, even the contradictory.

[00:43:18] And I think that's really an important point is that

[00:43:21] I think we have sides of us that are drawn to many

[00:43:26] of the things, even including some of the contradictory

[00:43:29] things that are in the text and it is a great

[00:43:34] expression of that.

[00:43:35] That's part of the beauty of it and the deep

[00:43:38] philosophical and artistic quality of it is that

[00:43:41] it expresses different sides of yourself that

[00:43:44] aren't necessarily harmonious.

[00:43:46] Right.

[00:43:47] Right.

[00:43:48] So it doesn't, you know, I don't think it matters

[00:43:50] who wrote it and it probably matters little

[00:43:53] unless you're a scholar.

[00:43:54] If you just want to read, if you just want to

[00:43:56] have the meaning, probably doesn't matter

[00:43:59] whether it was a king or not.

[00:44:00] But it does seem to me that this is a person

[00:44:04] who has lived a long life and who's actually

[00:44:09] experienced these things.

[00:44:10] I don't know.

[00:44:11] It seems very experiential.

[00:44:12] Yes.

[00:44:13] And like a long and successful life at least by

[00:44:16] external measures of success.

[00:44:19] That's right.

[00:44:20] And it reads as an old person and I think

[00:44:22] there's actually a lot of text at the end that

[00:44:25] suggests that this is an old person who has

[00:44:28] grown weary with the things that used to

[00:44:31] excite them and doesn't want the young

[00:44:35] people to fail to appreciate some of the

[00:44:41] things that he can no longer appreciate.

[00:44:44] And you know, actually like I have to say

[00:44:47] that reading this as a young person,

[00:44:50] I think it actually helped me.

[00:44:52] Like I think it's easy to forget.

[00:44:54] It's easy to forget all this advice.

[00:44:55] It's easy to forget that you should enjoy

[00:44:57] life more.

[00:44:59] But it did, I think in part some wisdom

[00:45:02] that I think I'm better off having heard

[00:45:05] this.

[00:45:06] I think you also maybe read it differently

[00:45:09] like as a young religious kid and as a

[00:45:13] middle-aged atheist and that's part of

[00:45:18] why it's indelible.

[00:45:21] Yeah.

[00:45:22] All right, so let's talk about it.

[00:45:24] It's not something you can spoil and it

[00:45:26] doesn't have a coherent narrative.

[00:45:28] But it does have a kind of a frame.

[00:45:31] So it starts out as a narrator saying

[00:45:36] here are the words of presumably Solomon

[00:45:39] but it doesn't have to be.

[00:45:41] It could be someone in the line of David,

[00:45:43] someone who is a king in Jerusalem.

[00:45:46] It then goes into a first-person narrative.

[00:45:50] So the frame is third person and then it

[00:45:52] goes into a first-person narrative

[00:45:55] where it's as I the teacher when king

[00:45:58] over Israel in Jerusalem applied my

[00:46:01] mind to seek and to search out by

[00:46:03] wisdom all that is done under heaven.

[00:46:05] It is an unhappy business that God has

[00:46:07] given to human beings to be busy with.

[00:46:10] I saw that all deeds are done under the

[00:46:13] sun and see all his vanity meaningless

[00:46:15] and chasing after wind.

[00:46:17] What is crooked cannot be made straight.

[00:46:19] What is lacking cannot be counted.

[00:46:22] So already just it just starts out as

[00:46:25] wait, God has given human like has just

[00:46:28] made human beings unhappy.

[00:46:31] It's a bad business and what is crooked

[00:46:33] can't be made straight.

[00:46:35] There's nothing to do about that.

[00:46:37] You can't fix that or at least there's a

[00:46:39] way to sort of address the situation

[00:46:41] but you can't fix what's crooked.

[00:46:43] Yeah, what is is what is.

[00:46:45] You can't try as you might to change things.

[00:46:49] Sometimes when I read my students

[00:46:52] papers and they don't get to the point

[00:46:54] for like three paragraphs,

[00:46:57] I'm going to just give them this because

[00:46:59] literally the two second verse meaningless

[00:47:01] meaningless, utterly meaningless.

[00:47:03] Everything is meaningless.

[00:47:05] And it gets right to some of the contradiction.

[00:47:07] So like at first wisdom is

[00:47:09] vexation at least in my translation

[00:47:12] right before the second chapter.

[00:47:15] For in much wisdom is much

[00:47:18] vexation and those who increase knowledge

[00:47:21] increase sorrow.

[00:47:23] And this doesn't you know there are going to be

[00:47:26] passages that go against that.

[00:47:29] Even at the beginning when he says

[00:47:32] I applied my mind to study

[00:47:35] and explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.

[00:47:38] The very authority that he has to be telling us

[00:47:41] is that this comes from great wisdom.

[00:47:44] So it is his wisdom that has

[00:47:47] given these truths and right you know

[00:47:50] a few verses later he's like by the way

[00:47:53] if this is something you want you should know

[00:47:56] for with much wisdom comes much sorrow the more knowledge the more grief.

[00:47:59] Yeah, yeah

[00:48:01] the more grief the more you know just how

[00:48:04] inexplicable everything is and how

[00:48:06] unjust everything is

[00:48:08] and how little you know.

[00:48:10] You start to realize

[00:48:13] how limited your perspective is

[00:48:16] and how much you don't understand about

[00:48:19] including God and everything.

[00:48:22] Right so we have contradiction one

[00:48:24] well maybe not contradiction but at least

[00:48:27] unexpected sort of wisdom

[00:48:30] is probably a bad thing for you

[00:48:33] and then accept that it's not worse than being foolish

[00:48:36] because he says later that being foolish

[00:48:39] is better to be wise than to be foolish.

[00:48:42] So it's like it's not like there's no

[00:48:45] just be prepared to be unhappy.

[00:48:48] It's not like yeah if you're not wise

[00:48:51] then you're fine it's no.

[00:48:53] Like being foolish has its own problems

[00:48:56] being wise has.

[00:48:57] This is not an ignorance is bliss claim

[00:48:59] it's a particular kind of suffering

[00:49:01] you're going to experience when you're wise.

[00:49:04] There's this great thing and this is all in the first chapter

[00:49:07] of cycles like that there's just nothing

[00:49:10] getting done there's just the same cycles

[00:49:12] repeating itself over and over

[00:49:15] a generation comes a generation goes

[00:49:18] a generation comes but the earth remains forever

[00:49:21] sun goes up and down there's people

[00:49:24] discover things but there's nothing nobody

[00:49:27] ever discovers anything new it's all been said

[00:49:30] before and it'll all be forgotten and then

[00:49:32] it'll be discovered again and it'll be

[00:49:34] forgotten again and there's just this

[00:49:36] we think we're making progress but

[00:49:39] we're not and then there'll be generations

[00:49:42] that go through that same thing

[00:49:45] and that seems also that seems deeply true

[00:49:48] for me.

[00:49:49] Yeah everything is a remix.

[00:49:53] Yeah yeah and that's the source of

[00:49:56] that's a source of meaninglessness right

[00:49:58] this is you know we maybe Nagel would

[00:50:01] say that this is a mistaken source of meaninglessness

[00:50:03] like if it didn't go in a cycle

[00:50:05] would it be better?

[00:50:07] But I think this is kind of

[00:50:10] a robust right like yeah it might be

[00:50:12] like if I actually came up with anything new

[00:50:14] maybe it would be worth it

[00:50:17] this is when we go back so he's in the first

[00:50:20] person and he says let me tell you about my

[00:50:23] journey to try to find like what is good

[00:50:26] in life like let me tell you like I've

[00:50:28] just told you life is meaningless let me tell

[00:50:30] you how I arrived at this.

[00:50:32] I started with the most basic

[00:50:34] he says I said to myself come now I will

[00:50:36] test you with pleasure to find out what is

[00:50:38] good but that also proved to be

[00:50:40] what is good in life and what is

[00:50:42] good in life.

[00:50:44] I was like I'm going to do this

[00:50:46] I'm going to do this

[00:50:48] laughter is madness and what is pleasure

[00:50:50] accomplished I tried cheering myself with

[00:50:52] wine also wonderful and break an embracing

[00:50:54] folly my mind still guiding me

[00:50:56] with wisdom I wanted to see what was

[00:50:58] good for people to do under the heavens

[00:51:00] during the few days of their lives this

[00:51:02] always struck with me that this talk

[00:51:04] of like just in these few days

[00:51:06] of your lives because as a young man

[00:51:08] that didn't pan out it's all meaningless

[00:51:10] and he goes into

[00:51:12] quite detail as to what

[00:51:14] the pleasures were they tried

[00:51:16] it reminds me of a lot of

[00:51:18] sort of Christian

[00:51:20] come to Jesus sermons

[00:51:22] where people will

[00:51:24] bear testimony to their lives

[00:51:26] and they would talk for like 45

[00:51:28] minutes an hour about like how they

[00:51:30] were fucking everybody and doing

[00:51:32] all these drugs and going to great

[00:51:34] detail and at the very end they're like

[00:51:36] Jesus and don't you want to find Jesus

[00:51:38] too and I'd be like no I want to try

[00:51:40] that other shit you were talking about

[00:51:42] and this is a recurring religious thing

[00:51:44] right Buddha tried this

[00:51:46] like this is you try

[00:51:48] a life of pleasure

[00:51:50] and you have to go through that

[00:51:52] to realize that that doesn't work

[00:51:54] but what's interesting about

[00:51:56] this is nothing really seems

[00:51:58] to work yeah can he try

[00:52:00] to lock planet build houses

[00:52:02] planted vineyards made gardens

[00:52:04] right presup this is a king so he has

[00:52:06] all the resources in the world made

[00:52:08] reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees

[00:52:10] which you would think would give meaning

[00:52:12] to your life but male

[00:52:14] and female slaves and had other slaves

[00:52:16] born in my house owned more herds

[00:52:18] and flux than anyone in Jerusalem before me

[00:52:20] he's almost like a rapper bragging

[00:52:22] about like all the cars yes

[00:52:24] I am asked silver and gold for

[00:52:26] myself and the treasure of kings and provinces

[00:52:28] tamler in your translation

[00:52:30] verse 8 of chapter 2

[00:52:32] where he says

[00:52:34] I acquired male and female singers

[00:52:36] mine has a translation

[00:52:38] that apparently is a matter of interpretation

[00:52:40] he says and a harem as well

[00:52:42] I got singers

[00:52:44] and the and delights

[00:52:46] of the flesh and many concubines

[00:52:48] yeah that's kind of the same

[00:52:50] yeah

[00:52:52] yeah and then I considered all that

[00:52:54] my hands had done in the toilet spent

[00:52:56] doing it and again all was

[00:52:58] vanity or meaningless and a chasing

[00:53:00] after the wind and there was nothing

[00:53:02] to be gained under the sun

[00:53:04] I think that under the sun is interesting

[00:53:06] in what allows people

[00:53:08] to sort of claim that this

[00:53:10] is prefiguring

[00:53:12] Christianity

[00:53:14] there's nothing good

[00:53:16] on this earth right in

[00:53:18] the world to come

[00:53:20] there is

[00:53:22] but I actually

[00:53:24] find that not

[00:53:26] a plausible reading

[00:53:28] of this text but I can see

[00:53:30] why in fact like certain students

[00:53:32] the religiously inclined students

[00:53:34] have said that that's how it was taught

[00:53:36] but this is taught that the earth

[00:53:38] and our life

[00:53:40] is not the thing that's going

[00:53:42] to solve our problems it's the next

[00:53:44] world seems a stretch

[00:53:46] to me I mean it's

[00:53:48] it's flatly denied

[00:53:50] actually in a certain verse

[00:53:52] where he says like

[00:53:54] where it says to enjoy

[00:53:56] the pleasures that you have

[00:53:58] on this earth because where

[00:54:00] we're going there's

[00:54:02] nothing like that

[00:54:04] there's nothing essentially

[00:54:06] so I take under the sun to be a poetic

[00:54:08] way of saying anywhere right

[00:54:10] I agree

[00:54:12] so there's

[00:54:14] even in the line that you read

[00:54:16] like I tried wine

[00:54:18] and I tried

[00:54:20] laughter and that was all bad

[00:54:22] but then later in the text

[00:54:24] you know

[00:54:26] drink and be merry

[00:54:28] and enjoy your wine and enjoy your food

[00:54:30] and

[00:54:32] that's what's good about life

[00:54:34] so

[00:54:36] like what do you make just of that

[00:54:38] little contradiction we can talk about

[00:54:40] some of them but just of that one

[00:54:42] both with toil and with pleasure

[00:54:44] it's that contradiction

[00:54:46] so I

[00:54:49] I made of it

[00:54:51] here's maybe

[00:54:53] why it didn't seem like a contradiction to me

[00:54:55] I feels as if

[00:54:57] the approach to why you're doing these

[00:54:59] things really matters

[00:55:01] if you're

[00:55:03] chasing tail or whatever

[00:55:05] chasing strange

[00:55:07] because you want to feel

[00:55:09] meaning in life

[00:55:11] then you're going to be disappointed

[00:55:15] but given that there is no meaning

[00:55:17] right if you know that

[00:55:19] if you already

[00:55:21] there's no meaning to your work or to this

[00:55:23] seeking of pleasure

[00:55:25] then you might as well

[00:55:27] like take delight in the things that you're doing

[00:55:29] right don't do it like he went

[00:55:31] into doing it

[00:55:33] this is the life that's going to give

[00:55:35] me meaning because then it'll be

[00:55:37] chasing the wind shepherding the wind

[00:55:39] it will be in vain

[00:55:41] like that's actually the

[00:55:43] that's where vanity is

[00:55:45] it is in vain

[00:55:47] that you would do that

[00:55:49] I think that's a great

[00:55:51] actually way of looking at it is

[00:55:53] that this idea

[00:55:55] of recognizing

[00:55:57] what's just kind of intrinsically good

[00:55:59] about those things

[00:56:01] a warm body that you sleep next to

[00:56:03] the

[00:56:05] being with friends

[00:56:07] and the

[00:56:09] kind of just inherent

[00:56:11] sleeping well

[00:56:13] when you do a good hard days work

[00:56:15] and like those things

[00:56:17] that are just in and of themselves

[00:56:19] good but don't expect it

[00:56:21] to bring any kind of

[00:56:23] ultimate purpose or

[00:56:25] meaning to your life because that's chasing the wind

[00:56:27] that's right that's right that's why

[00:56:29] when I do cocaine I do it

[00:56:31] expressly realizing

[00:56:33] there's no meaning in life

[00:56:35] not as a way to try to sort of

[00:56:37] feel it's a very very

[00:56:39] different experience

[00:56:41] it is I think

[00:56:43] if you do it like that you don't get

[00:56:45] that's what

[00:56:47] oh god I gotta do that more

[00:56:49] yeah I think that's right and

[00:56:51] it's contradictory only

[00:56:53] on the face

[00:56:55] maybe some other contradictions

[00:56:57] like there is definitely

[00:56:59] a lot of passages

[00:57:01] that suggest that

[00:57:03] there is no justice

[00:57:05] that's I think one of the key themes

[00:57:07] and one of the things that made this resonate

[00:57:09] with me the most like as

[00:57:11] as a young person

[00:57:13] who is interested in morality and

[00:57:15] in ethics to have this

[00:57:17] hey the race isn't

[00:57:19] to the swift you know

[00:57:21] there is the just and the unjust

[00:57:23] get the same fate so

[00:57:25] right the

[00:57:27] the wise like the fool will not long be remembered

[00:57:29] the days have already come when both have been forgotten

[00:57:31] like the like the fool the wise

[00:57:33] two must die just remember

[00:57:35] like everybody dies

[00:57:37] there is no

[00:57:39] there's no just distribution of gifts

[00:57:41] but what I kind of

[00:57:43] the kind of comforting part of that

[00:57:45] is I think implicit in people

[00:57:47] who complain about injustice

[00:57:49] is that the unjust

[00:57:51] people are getting a better deal

[00:57:53] and what he's saying is no the unjust

[00:57:55] people the fools the like

[00:57:57] corrupt people the oppressors

[00:57:59] they're all like they're not having fun

[00:58:01] either like nobody's having fun

[00:58:03] like you're no worse off if

[00:58:05] you're just then

[00:58:07] unjust it's all

[00:58:09] chasing the wind it's all meaningless

[00:58:11] it's all absurd

[00:58:13] and so you don't have to worry about them

[00:58:15] sort of getting an advantage

[00:58:17] through their injustice

[00:58:19] because that's feudal too

[00:58:21] right don't concern yourself that much

[00:58:23] that toil the toil the work

[00:58:25] part is a is another sort of thing

[00:58:27] that gets repeated over and over again like

[00:58:29] you you're doing work because you think

[00:58:31] you're gonna get something done that's why

[00:58:33] saying there's nothing new under the sun is so

[00:58:35] it's it's so undermining

[00:58:37] because you think you think you're working hard

[00:58:39] to to leave a legacy

[00:58:41] to make a to make a contribution

[00:58:43] you're working your ass off

[00:58:45] but you get nothing from it so again

[00:58:47] I think he's saying like you know just take

[00:58:49] pleasure in what you do

[00:58:51] this is the gift of God but I don't

[00:58:53] I don't think

[00:58:55] that this is praising God too much

[00:58:57] I think just like the book of Job

[00:59:01] God in the book of Job

[00:59:03] is sort of the person who

[00:59:05] brings good and evil to the world

[00:59:07] and

[00:59:09] when he appears to try to answer Job's questions

[00:59:11] he just says shut the fuck up

[00:59:13] I this I have made

[00:59:15] this world who are you to question me

[00:59:17] and I get that same sense

[00:59:19] here when he says

[00:59:21] nothing just whatever

[00:59:23] God made nothing can be added nothing can be taken

[00:59:25] from it it's less a

[00:59:27] isn't God wonderful

[00:59:29] than it is look man he's the

[00:59:31] guy who set up the rules like there's nothing

[00:59:33] you can do that's going to change anything

[00:59:35] so you might as well just take the light

[00:59:37] in that it's the frickin big bang

[00:59:39] exactly right

[00:59:41] but but so here's the thing that I'm

[00:59:43] uh that that I question

[00:59:45] cause on on the same page

[00:59:47] in my translation so earlier

[00:59:49] in chapter two what

[00:59:51] do mortals get from all the toil and strain

[00:59:53] with which they toil under the

[00:59:55] sun for all their days are

[00:59:57] full of pain and their work is a vexation

[00:59:59] even at night their minds

[01:00:01] do not rest this is also

[01:00:03] vanity so like

[01:00:05] that seems to contradict this idea

[01:00:07] that

[01:00:09] it is God's gift

[01:00:11] that all should eat and drink and take pleasure

[01:00:13] in their toil

[01:00:15] unless it's like what you say that there's

[01:00:17] something that they're they're doing it wrong

[01:00:19] or something I think so

[01:00:21] I think that the the toil and anxious

[01:00:23] striving is

[01:00:25] is this this

[01:00:27] view that you're working to

[01:00:29] to make anything permanent

[01:00:31] or to leave a mark or to find meaning

[01:00:33] when you work like that

[01:00:35] you're going to have

[01:00:37] anxious an anxious mind

[01:00:39] you're gonna not be able to sleep at night

[01:00:41] your work is going to bring you grief and bring

[01:00:43] you pain and and

[01:00:45] like you're gonna be dissatisfied yeah

[01:00:47] yeah yeah and so

[01:00:49] so again it is

[01:00:51] I always read this is a kind of well not

[01:00:53] always because I read this before sycophus

[01:00:55] but as a sort of sycophian

[01:00:57] take on it look you're gonna work

[01:00:59] that work is meaningless

[01:01:01] you might as well embrace it and enjoy it

[01:01:03] you can find I think

[01:01:05] the pleasure that you can find in doing

[01:01:07] work

[01:01:09] is is one

[01:01:11] that the one that will

[01:01:13] come once you realize that it's not what you thought

[01:01:15] it was you know

[01:01:17] yeah I can see that

[01:01:19] reading I think there's a lot for it

[01:01:21] I also think

[01:01:23] this could also be like sometimes

[01:01:25] toil no matter how you approach it

[01:01:27] really does suck

[01:01:29] and that's just

[01:01:31] life like sometimes your work

[01:01:33] is meaningless and it's not

[01:01:35] intrinsically enjoyable

[01:01:37] the real evil is when

[01:01:39] there is work that has

[01:01:41] the potential to be fulfilling

[01:01:43] and you and it's not

[01:01:45] fulfilling because you're approaching it wrong

[01:01:47] so I do think that there is this

[01:01:49] element of no

[01:01:51] like sometimes this

[01:01:53] is just it's just bad

[01:01:55] we're given a bad the dice

[01:01:57] role and

[01:01:59] we're losers you know in that

[01:02:01] in the lottery of our

[01:02:03] toil and effort and

[01:02:05] but there the real evil is when

[01:02:07] people have

[01:02:09] possessions or

[01:02:11] honors or work

[01:02:13] that they could enjoy but they don't

[01:02:15] because they're

[01:02:17] keep chasing after something

[01:02:19] something else yeah yeah

[01:02:21] perhaps it's funny because

[01:02:23] both of us you to a lesser extent

[01:02:25] are trying to resolve the contradiction

[01:02:27] in some way

[01:02:29] and I was just thinking to myself like

[01:02:31] it's so foreign to me

[01:02:33] to be able to like

[01:02:35] just accept

[01:02:37] the contradiction you know

[01:02:39] there must be something there

[01:02:41] two different kinds of work or two different approaches

[01:02:43] to work or

[01:02:45] right

[01:02:47] maybe in some sense it's

[01:02:49] to me that's why I can't accept it but

[01:02:51] in some sense he's saying like work sucks

[01:02:53] but you should work

[01:02:55] like take pleasure in your work yeah

[01:02:57] that's right like I think these are two

[01:02:59] sides of us sometimes that

[01:03:01] he is getting at and maybe with

[01:03:03] no the author has no

[01:03:05] wish to reconcile them because they're

[01:03:07] not totally reconcilable they are

[01:03:09] two aspects of life

[01:03:11] right and

[01:03:13] yeah and I do I had that same

[01:03:15] thought like we're trying to resolve these

[01:03:17] contradictions but maybe

[01:03:19] that's I mean there's certainly one way

[01:03:21] of thinking is that's not what

[01:03:23] we're meant to do here

[01:03:25] right so let me ask you I have a question

[01:03:27] for you as a religious

[01:03:29] person and especially Christian

[01:03:31] I was

[01:03:33] struck by this when I read it

[01:03:35] I said in my heart with regard to human

[01:03:37] beings that God is testing them to

[01:03:39] show that they are but animals for

[01:03:41] the fate of humans and the fate of

[01:03:43] animals is the same as one dies

[01:03:45] so dies the other

[01:03:47] they all have the same breath and humans

[01:03:49] have no advantages

[01:03:51] over the animals for all is vanity

[01:03:53] and there's another passage that

[01:03:55] sort of repeats that idea we're

[01:03:57] all just like animals

[01:03:59] essentially like there's no

[01:04:01] that if there's one thing I associate with

[01:04:03] religion maybe in particular Christianity

[01:04:05] it's no human beings are special

[01:04:07] yeah they're not like animals yeah

[01:04:09] this is why I feel like this was a

[01:04:11] you know after having read the denial

[01:04:13] death for instance where much of the theme

[01:04:15] is that we are simply animals who

[01:04:17] know that we're gonna die

[01:04:19] you know and that's what brings us all this anxiety

[01:04:21] reading this

[01:04:23] oh yeah he was saying this whatever

[01:04:25] you know thousands of years ago but

[01:04:27] how did like your religious

[01:04:29] teachers just deal

[01:04:31] with that so two things that might not be

[01:04:33] satisfying to you one is it was rarely talked

[01:04:35] about right until I was until

[01:04:37] it was forced talk about so I remember

[01:04:39] reading these

[01:04:41] you know sort of as I was beginning to doubt

[01:04:43] things and finding

[01:04:45] some comfort that like finally

[01:04:47] somebody fucking has the balls to say like we don't

[01:04:49] know how do you know if the human spirit

[01:04:51] rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes

[01:04:53] downward like that is our lot on earth to not

[01:04:55] know for sure right even if

[01:04:57] you say you have faith in an afterlife

[01:04:59] there is a deep

[01:05:01] deep truth to saying

[01:05:03] who knows the other thing

[01:05:05] is in my particular religion

[01:05:07] the mental gymnastics

[01:05:09] that was done to get out of this was to say

[01:05:11] some damn just don't believe

[01:05:13] in a separate

[01:05:15] soul from the body

[01:05:17] unlike most Christians don't believe that you go up

[01:05:19] to your spirit goes up to heaven when you die

[01:05:21] they believe

[01:05:23] in bodily sort of

[01:05:25] you really are ashes to ashes and dust to dust

[01:05:27] and it's not until the second coming

[01:05:31] that God reconstitutes your body magically

[01:05:33] and then takes you to heaven

[01:05:35] and so they said like oh this was an insight

[01:05:37] even back then before you know that we

[01:05:39] we actually just

[01:05:41] go down into the ground

[01:05:43] but then Jesus comes along in the second

[01:05:45] half of the Bible for us and like

[01:05:47] saves us from this

[01:05:49] yeah I think this sits better with

[01:05:51] Jewish

[01:05:53] tradition in that it's just not all

[01:05:55] about the afterlife anywhere near

[01:05:57] the extent that it is for

[01:05:59] Christians and especially maybe Catholics

[01:06:01] and

[01:06:03] and the new kind of Christianity

[01:06:05] which really is very heaven

[01:06:07] and hell focused

[01:06:09] I wanted to say in the part

[01:06:11] right before this this this theme we touched

[01:06:13] on it this theme

[01:06:15] where he says verse 16 of chapter 3

[01:06:17] and I saw something else under the sun in the place

[01:06:19] of judgment wickedness was there

[01:06:21] in the place of justice wickedness was there

[01:06:23] I said to myself

[01:06:25] God will bring into judgment both the righteous

[01:06:27] and the wicked for there will be a time for every activity

[01:06:29] a time to judge every deed

[01:06:31] so a lot of this is

[01:06:33] lamenting the injustice of the world

[01:06:35] right like pointing out how

[01:06:37] like how unfair everything is

[01:06:39] some of it seems

[01:06:41] to be just like a

[01:06:43] meditation on it saying like

[01:06:45] you know don't

[01:06:47] like just this is how this world is

[01:06:49] it's just not it's unjust

[01:06:51] here is the one this is

[01:06:53] one of the spots where it seems

[01:06:57] like the author really has some belief that

[01:06:59] God is going to take care of this right so

[01:07:01] unlike the other part where I

[01:07:03] sort of waved it off as like a

[01:07:05] no he's not

[01:07:07] tacked on yeah yeah

[01:07:09] this one seems like he

[01:07:11] has some belief that God is a judge will

[01:07:13] actually bring but

[01:07:15] but then he goes on to say but when you die who knows

[01:07:17] so like we don't know if we go

[01:07:19] up or down or wherever

[01:07:21] yeah but there no I this is why

[01:07:23] I was saying I forget

[01:07:25] where maybe on twitter

[01:07:27] with some somebody who

[01:07:29] tweeted at us about this

[01:07:31] that I think you could make

[01:07:33] an argument that the

[01:07:35] last few verses

[01:07:37] aren't tacked on just

[01:07:39] fear God right follow his

[01:07:41] commandments because

[01:07:43] it because there are sprinkled

[01:07:45] throughout the

[01:07:47] text there's a few other things

[01:07:49] but fear God like you know

[01:07:51] just God will judge you

[01:07:53] God will judge all your deeds

[01:07:55] few people in my

[01:07:57] class when I just taught this an intro

[01:07:59] class said how

[01:08:01] they were taught about it they were not

[01:08:03] allowed to read it until they reached

[01:08:05] a certain age wow because

[01:08:07] they the

[01:08:09] and I think this sounds reasonable

[01:08:11] actually you need a certain level of

[01:08:13] maturity to really appreciate

[01:08:15] what the message is that's

[01:08:17] what they said I thought that was I

[01:08:19] would you ever forbid your kid

[01:08:21] to read something like this

[01:08:23] no yeah but I

[01:08:25] showed

[01:08:27] my daughter you know

[01:08:29] to town

[01:08:31] um

[01:08:33] yeah no you know what I think that my

[01:08:35] because I was I was saying like this

[01:08:37] problem this sounds like it's

[01:08:39] tacked on

[01:08:41] what I realize is that it's not so much

[01:08:43] that there is a person who comes on and says

[01:08:45] they have faith in God and you should

[01:08:47] like it's the real concrete way

[01:08:49] in which they say it where it's like

[01:08:51] there's been no mention of God's commandments

[01:08:53] yeah that seems like the mind of a smaller

[01:08:55] person who's like by the way fall God

[01:08:57] so it lacks the poetry

[01:08:59] it lacks the the sort of

[01:09:01] um it relies on

[01:09:03] almost like a karma if you follow commandments

[01:09:05] everything will go well when we've just been told

[01:09:07] however nothing goes well you know

[01:09:09] but but that's the thing there's so many

[01:09:11] like so many of these

[01:09:13] little contradictions but you're right that

[01:09:15] the tone of

[01:09:17] the last verses which we'll talk about

[01:09:19] is very different we should talk about

[01:09:21] what we're talking about here

[01:09:23] uh you mean the last bit

[01:09:25] yeah yeah sure

[01:09:27] yeah so in verse 12

[01:09:29] sorry chapter 12

[01:09:31] natural place for it to end

[01:09:33] would be verse 8

[01:09:35] vanity of vanities says

[01:09:37] the teacher all is vanity it would give this

[01:09:39] really nice well-rounded

[01:09:41] that's how it starts and that's

[01:09:43] how it ends right like

[01:09:45] and then it goes besides

[01:09:47] being wise the teacher also taught the people

[01:09:49] knowledge weighing and studying and arranging many

[01:09:51] proverbs

[01:09:53] and then it goes on at the end

[01:09:55] the end of the matter all has been heard

[01:09:57] fear God and keep his commandments for that

[01:09:59] is the whole duty of everyone for

[01:10:01] God will bring every deed into judgment

[01:10:03] including every secret thing

[01:10:05] whether good or evil it's like whoa what

[01:10:07] right and my translation

[01:10:09] says something about like

[01:10:11] um uh the conclusion

[01:10:13] of the matter um here

[01:10:15] is the conclusion of the matter now that all

[01:10:17] has been heard fear God and keep his commandments for this is the duty of all mankind

[01:10:19] and it's like

[01:10:21] well

[01:10:23] it may or may not be true

[01:10:25] but it definitely isn't summing up what has

[01:10:27] been said yeah actually in that

[01:10:29] case my translation I think is better

[01:10:31] at the end of the matter right

[01:10:33] it could just be that this is

[01:10:35] the new like it has to end

[01:10:37] on one contradiction it's not resolving

[01:10:39] so here's where it happens

[01:10:41] to be ending right

[01:10:43] right um I wanted

[01:10:45] to say to go back to that

[01:10:47] pardon Ecclesiastes 7 when

[01:10:49] he's talking about wisdom being good

[01:10:51] a lot of the things that he's saying about

[01:10:53] wisdom are sort

[01:10:55] of pragmatic goods

[01:10:57] so like it's the case that if you

[01:10:59] have wisdom um

[01:11:01] so he says wisdom like an inheritance

[01:11:03] is a good thing it benefits those

[01:11:05] who see benefits those who see the sun this

[01:11:07] is verse 11 uh wisdom

[01:11:09] is a shelter as money is a shelter

[01:11:11] but the advantage of knowledge is this

[01:11:13] wisdom preserves those preserves those

[01:11:15] who have it

[01:11:17] so I think he's saying many

[01:11:19] times like hey man

[01:11:21] all things being equal like if you have wisdom

[01:11:23] you're gonna do better

[01:11:25] you're gonna be able to stack your chips

[01:11:27] you know

[01:11:29] live a life that is an

[01:11:31] easier life

[01:11:33] and I still

[01:11:36] think it holds that he says

[01:11:38] but like if that's what you think is gonna bring you

[01:11:40] happiness

[01:11:42] then you're still wrong right

[01:11:44] yes um there's a great

[01:11:46] there's a great in this chapter one of my

[01:11:48] one of the great sort of maybe

[01:11:50] sounds almost Hellenistic

[01:11:52] he says chapter I mean

[01:11:54] verse 15 in this meaningless life of mine

[01:11:56] I've seen both of these the righteous

[01:11:58] perishing in their righteousness and the wicked

[01:12:00] living long in their wickedness

[01:12:02] do not be over

[01:12:04] righteous neither be over wise

[01:12:06] why destroy yourself

[01:12:08] do not be

[01:12:10] over wicked and do not be a fool why die

[01:12:12] before your time it's good

[01:12:14] to grasp the one and not let go of the other

[01:12:16] whoever fears God will avoid all

[01:12:18] extremes so that's all of a sudden

[01:12:20] a weird kind of like a balance

[01:12:22] argument where he's like

[01:12:24] you know it's like saying the good die young so don't be too good

[01:12:26] I don't want to do that like

[01:12:28] yeah

[01:12:30] it was and it's the only time I found

[01:12:32] in the book that he's that he's making some sort

[01:12:34] of appeal to like this

[01:12:36] middle way this middle way right

[01:12:38] yeah yeah yeah

[01:12:40] chapter 8

[01:12:42] on this topic

[01:12:44] those sinners do evil a hundred

[01:12:46] times and prolong their lives yet I

[01:12:48] know it will be well with those who fear

[01:12:50] God because they stand in fear

[01:12:52] before him but will

[01:12:54] not be well with the wicked

[01:12:56] neither will they prolong their days

[01:12:58] like a shadow because they do not

[01:13:00] stand in fear before God so this is

[01:13:02] again a little bit like that last

[01:13:04] part where it's like

[01:13:06] you know you got to fear God you got to

[01:13:08] do and being a sinner

[01:13:10] you're gonna get fucked in the afterlife

[01:13:12] but then in chapter 9

[01:13:14] all this I laid to

[01:13:16] heart examining how the righteous and the

[01:13:18] wise and their deeds are in the hands of

[01:13:20] God whether it is love or

[01:13:22] hate one does not know

[01:13:24] everything that confronts them is vanity

[01:13:26] or meaningless since the same

[01:13:28] fate comes to all to the

[01:13:30] righteous and the wicked to

[01:13:32] the good and the evil to the evil

[01:13:34] and the sorry to the clean and the unclean

[01:13:36] to those who sacrifice

[01:13:38] and those who do not sacrifice

[01:13:40] as are the good

[01:13:42] so are the sinners

[01:13:44] those who swear are like

[01:13:46] those who shun an oath

[01:13:48] there is an evil under the sun

[01:13:50] that the same fate comes to everyone

[01:13:52] now I mean

[01:13:54] whoa like how does that

[01:13:56] not completely

[01:13:58] contradict both the end and

[01:14:00] what just came before it in the

[01:14:02] previous verse but like

[01:14:04] that like I

[01:14:06] I'm amazed that that's in there

[01:14:08] I know I know

[01:14:10] I know it's great and

[01:14:12] like yeah one of my

[01:14:14] favorite parts in that theme in the same

[01:14:16] that was verse 1

[01:14:18] go down to verse 11

[01:14:20] I've seen something else under the sun

[01:14:22] this was always I had this

[01:14:24] memorized I used to quote this all the time

[01:14:26] the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong

[01:14:28] nor does food come to the wise

[01:14:30] and the wealth to the brilliant or favor to the

[01:14:32] learned but time and chance

[01:14:34] happen to them all

[01:14:36] that's just truth

[01:14:38] that's just true you know I think

[01:14:40] that it shook me from

[01:14:42] from much of the dogma

[01:14:44] that whether explicitly

[01:14:46] or implicitly taught that if you follow

[01:14:48] God things will go well

[01:14:50] and a lot of people had to learn that lesson

[01:14:52] by having something shitty happen to them

[01:14:54] and I think that I learned it

[01:14:56] this way

[01:14:58] I like to think that I did because

[01:15:00] you know I don't have to be touched

[01:15:02] by evil in order to see

[01:15:04] that there is no justice

[01:15:06] yeah so

[01:15:08] here's what I think if I

[01:15:10] if you had to pick a

[01:15:12] mostly consistent

[01:15:14] message

[01:15:16] of the text

[01:15:18] it's this kind of Epicurean

[01:15:20] recommendation go and

[01:15:22] eat your bread this is also in chapter 9

[01:15:24] it follows the God is

[01:15:26] like the same fate comes to everyone

[01:15:28] whether you're good or bad or evil or wicked

[01:15:30] whether you follow the commandments or not

[01:15:32] go and eat your bread with enjoyment

[01:15:34] drink your wine with a merry heart

[01:15:36] for God has long ago

[01:15:38] approved what you do

[01:15:40] let your garments always be white

[01:15:42] do not let oil be lacking on your head

[01:15:44] so I guess don't

[01:15:46] use don't shampoo

[01:15:48] always

[01:15:50] always enjoy life with your wife

[01:15:52] whom you love

[01:15:54] all the days of your

[01:15:56] vain or futile life

[01:15:58] that are given to you under the sun because that is

[01:16:00] your portion in life

[01:16:02] and in your toil at which you toil under

[01:16:04] the sun whatever

[01:16:06] your hand finds to do

[01:16:08] do with your might for there is no

[01:16:10] work or thought or knowledge

[01:16:12] or wisdom in shale

[01:16:14] shale to which you are going

[01:16:16] that's like the afterlife I mean

[01:16:18] this is like

[01:16:20] yeah don't

[01:16:22] this is like this is a beautiful

[01:16:24] message this is part of the beauty of it

[01:16:26] it's like we go around

[01:16:28] once and it's

[01:16:30] a huge missed

[01:16:32] opportunity if you

[01:16:34] don't take advantage of whatever

[01:16:36] pleasures you're lucky enough

[01:16:38] to be granted by the world

[01:16:40] and I

[01:16:42] you know lived my life in

[01:16:44] sort of this

[01:16:46] my earlier life in this belief that

[01:16:48] you know there was eternity to wait for

[01:16:50] so what you did here was

[01:16:52] just you know like a little small

[01:16:54] snippet and

[01:16:56] I think the reminder that look even if

[01:16:58] if you're 99% sure man you're not

[01:17:00] 100% sure so enjoy this

[01:17:02] world enjoy this life if

[01:17:04] you can because

[01:17:06] you might not be able to because shit happens to everybody

[01:17:08] right but like to the extent that

[01:17:10] you can whatever you find to do do it with all your might

[01:17:12] right because dead people can't do

[01:17:14] shit like that's

[01:17:16] point by the way we skipped over

[01:17:18] the clear anti-natalism

[01:17:20] yes although

[01:17:22] but then goes on to contradict but yes

[01:17:24] a good name is better than

[01:17:26] fine perfume in the day of death

[01:17:28] better than the day of birth that's one of

[01:17:30] I saw the tears of the oppressed and they have no

[01:17:32] comforter power was on the side of their oppressors and

[01:17:34] they have no comforter and I declared that

[01:17:36] the dead who had already died are happier

[01:17:38] than the living who are still alive

[01:17:40] but better than both is the one who has never been

[01:17:42] born who has not seen the evil that

[01:17:44] is done under the sun yeah but

[01:17:46] then later says

[01:17:48] better to be a live

[01:17:50] dog than a dead lion

[01:17:52] that's a clear contradiction

[01:17:54] it's a clear contradiction like

[01:17:56] it's like it's

[01:17:58] no because dead is nothing

[01:18:00] you and this is where this is a

[01:18:02] such an epicurean idea it's like

[01:18:04] you're nothing there so

[01:18:06] the thing to do is to make the most

[01:18:08] of being alive because

[01:18:10] tomorrow is not promised

[01:18:12] so make make the best of it now

[01:18:14] tomorrow is not promised

[01:18:16] tomorrow is not promised you know

[01:18:18] yeah I mean obviously

[01:18:20] this is what I but

[01:18:22] you know like I think it has something for the antinatalist

[01:18:24] and it has something for the

[01:18:26] anti-antinatalist because

[01:18:28] life sometimes

[01:18:30] sucks for people and life

[01:18:32] sometimes is really good for people

[01:18:34] and so

[01:18:36] you have sides of yourself that might

[01:18:38] really wish you had never been born and then you also

[01:18:40] have sides of yourself that's grateful

[01:18:42] for the opportunities

[01:18:44] that you've been granted

[01:18:46] because you're alive

[01:18:48] right

[01:18:50] I think there really is something so

[01:18:52] so important about this

[01:18:54] idea that in this world

[01:18:56] time and chance happen to them

[01:18:58] all so that

[01:19:00] like don't feel too bad

[01:19:02] when shit goes wrong with you it's not

[01:19:04] your fault like you know

[01:19:06] there's not this just world isn't

[01:19:08] like that the world doesn't work with karma

[01:19:10] like it just doesn't

[01:19:12] I found that comforting

[01:19:14] because

[01:19:16] I think it's so tempting to think

[01:19:18] especially as a young person that

[01:19:20] whatever happens you must be a result of what you

[01:19:22] did or what you deserved

[01:19:24] yeah and

[01:19:26] and it seems like he's

[01:19:28] yeah so he wants to disabuse you

[01:19:30] of this idea that it's your fault

[01:19:32] or that there's somehow

[01:19:34] other people are getting

[01:19:36] are getting a better deal because

[01:19:38] they've been more either just

[01:19:40] or unjust is like no

[01:19:42] this is just

[01:19:44] pure lottery this is pure chance

[01:19:46] but the one thing

[01:19:48] that you can do the little bit of control

[01:19:50] that you have is

[01:19:52] to enjoy

[01:19:54] the times where

[01:19:56] the roulette wheel spins your way

[01:19:58] right and not to just

[01:20:00] abandon that too because

[01:20:02] that's the grievous hill that's a recurring

[01:20:04] theme like the worst

[01:20:06] thing is when people who have

[01:20:08] riches or who have knowledge

[01:20:10] and wisdom when they don't enjoy

[01:20:12] those things when they could

[01:20:14] right and even when your toil is hard

[01:20:16] you know it's give a little

[01:20:18] sysiphyan smile

[01:20:20] like that that just

[01:20:22] remember you're alive just remember

[01:20:24] you're like if things are going shitty

[01:20:26] remember it's better to be alive

[01:20:28] yeah but but but I

[01:20:30] would say like to the extent that

[01:20:32] you think Kimu was

[01:20:34] thinking of this as defiant

[01:20:36] or rebellious in some way

[01:20:38] this is more like Nagel no it's

[01:20:40] not like yeah you don't like

[01:20:42] there's no meaning in being defiant

[01:20:44] or rebellious either

[01:20:46] it is just

[01:20:48] that's all we have like it's all we have

[01:20:50] pure except yeah I agree

[01:20:52] should we I think

[01:20:54] it might be just

[01:20:56] wrapping up like just

[01:20:58] just pick some of our favorite

[01:21:00] sure like yeah

[01:21:02] because there's a lot of them already

[01:21:04] yeah I did too yeah

[01:21:06] there's a lot in here that's been become

[01:21:08] just part of like just

[01:21:10] part of culture right so you may not

[01:21:12] you may not realize until you read them that

[01:21:14] like that the whole song

[01:21:16] from the birds to everything

[01:21:18] everyone comes naked from their mother's

[01:21:20] womb and as everyone comes so they depart

[01:21:22] they take nothing from their toil that they can

[01:21:24] carry in their hands

[01:21:26] that coming in naked and leaving

[01:21:28] naked with the recurring

[01:21:30] that really resonates with me is

[01:21:32] at times he

[01:21:34] complains that human beings are never

[01:21:36] satisfied the eye is not satisfied

[01:21:38] with seeing or the ear

[01:21:40] filled with hearing the lover of money

[01:21:42] will not be satisfied with money

[01:21:44] nor the lover of wealth with gain

[01:21:46] this is also vanity

[01:21:48] but then to follow that up

[01:21:50] with this is what I have seen to be good

[01:21:52] it's fitting to eat and drink

[01:21:54] and find enjoyment in all the toil

[01:21:56] with which one toils

[01:21:58] under the sun the few days

[01:22:00] of the life that God gives us

[01:22:02] for this is our lot likewise

[01:22:04] all to whom God gives wealth

[01:22:06] and possessions and whom he

[01:22:08] enables to enjoy them

[01:22:10] even though he just said

[01:22:12] that the wealthy never enjoy them

[01:22:14] so likewise to all whom God

[01:22:16] gives wealth and possessions and whom

[01:22:18] he and able to enjoy them

[01:22:20] and to accept their lot and find enjoyment

[01:22:22] in their toll this is the gift

[01:22:24] of God if you're lucky enough to get

[01:22:26] a gift

[01:22:28] appreciate the gift

[01:22:30] and that's good

[01:22:32] that's what he's seen that's the one thing

[01:22:34] that this old person has seen to be

[01:22:36] good

[01:22:38] but what if your life sucks

[01:22:40] then you're fucked

[01:22:42] better to be a live dog

[01:22:44] but at least don't feel like

[01:22:46] it's your fault or that

[01:22:48] the unjust people

[01:22:50] don't have that extra bit of resentment

[01:22:52] because their life probably sucks too

[01:22:54] that's right it's a very much

[01:22:56] like an anti resentment sentiment here

[01:22:58] which is like there's no

[01:23:00] point in being bitter nobody

[01:23:02] gets what they deserved anyway

[01:23:04] right

[01:23:06] there is a theme and I think

[01:23:08] I've talked about almost everything that I highlighted

[01:23:10] but there is one

[01:23:12] mini theme that comes across

[01:23:14] in one of the sections

[01:23:16] that my favorite place where he says

[01:23:18] do not be quick with your mouth

[01:23:20] do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything

[01:23:22] or God is in heaven and you are on earth

[01:23:24] so let your words be few

[01:23:26] so he talks about like

[01:23:28] you know I'm not sure what

[01:23:30] to make of it and I get a little defensive

[01:23:32] because all I do is talk a lot

[01:23:34] your words are not few

[01:23:36] that is the very thing that I do

[01:23:38] but

[01:23:40] but there is a theme

[01:23:42] there about like you know what

[01:23:44] better to shut up sometimes

[01:23:46] which I think is just deeply true

[01:23:48] if I can impart wisdom

[01:23:50] to young people it's just like

[01:23:52] if there is something

[01:23:54] that you're not sure about whether to say

[01:23:56] or not sometimes it's just better to not

[01:23:58] say things

[01:24:00] and I also think that this is another message

[01:24:02] of don't try to figure things out too much

[01:24:04] don't try to make

[01:24:06] consistent what can't be made

[01:24:08] consistent don't try to make

[01:24:10] straight what God has made

[01:24:12] crooked don't try to like

[01:24:14] rationalize don't try to just

[01:24:16] yeah shut the fuck up

[01:24:18] you know and that is

[01:24:20] it's like what

[01:24:22] yeah it's like what Mia says

[01:24:24] don't you think sometimes

[01:24:26] it's good to enjoy a silence two people

[01:24:28] can shut the fuck up

[01:24:30] if you've already just gone to the bathroom

[01:24:32] and done like five lines

[01:24:34] get done now fuck tonic okay

[01:24:36] the one theme that we've touched on

[01:24:38] but I wanted to just highlight because

[01:24:40] it comes in towards the end is

[01:24:42] I think this is an old

[01:24:44] man giving young

[01:24:46] people advice

[01:24:48] and you get that

[01:24:50] at the end of Ecclesiastes 11

[01:24:52] verse 9

[01:24:54] rejoice young man while you are

[01:24:56] young and let your

[01:24:58] heart cheer you in the days of your

[01:25:00] youth follow the inclination

[01:25:02] of your heart and the desire

[01:25:04] of your eyes but know that for

[01:25:06] all these things God will bring you into judgment

[01:25:08] banish anxiety

[01:25:10] from your mind and put

[01:25:12] away pain from your body

[01:25:14] and your youth and the dawn of life

[01:25:16] our vanity I mean there's so many just

[01:25:18] kind of internal contradictions there

[01:25:20] but there also is

[01:25:22] this idea that when you're young

[01:25:24] like this is your time

[01:25:26] this is when you're going to

[01:25:28] have the best opportunity

[01:25:30] to appreciate

[01:25:32] your life you're not gonna be

[01:25:34] laid you're not gonna be weighed down by this kind

[01:25:36] of weariness that the author of

[01:25:38] this has

[01:25:40] and so don't

[01:25:42] mess that up

[01:25:44] don't like lose that

[01:25:46] opportunity and then in the

[01:25:48] leading off 12 right after

[01:25:50] that remember your creator and the days

[01:25:52] of your youth before the days

[01:25:54] of trouble come in the years

[01:25:56] draw near when you will say I have

[01:25:58] no pleasure in them

[01:26:00] that whole that whole thing I have

[01:26:02] highlighted because it is

[01:26:04] a beautiful section

[01:26:06] before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark

[01:26:08] and the clouds return after

[01:26:10] the rain when the keepers of the house tremble

[01:26:12] and the strong men stoop when the

[01:26:14] grinder's cease because they are few

[01:26:16] and those looking through the windows grow dim

[01:26:18] when the doors to the street are closed

[01:26:20] and the sound of grinding fades when people

[01:26:22] rise up at the sound of birds

[01:26:24] but all their songs grow faint

[01:26:26] when people are afraid of heights

[01:26:28] and of dangers in the streets

[01:26:30] when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along

[01:26:32] and desire no longer is stirred

[01:26:34] then people go to their eternal home

[01:26:36] and mourners go about the streets

[01:26:38] and say if that is not the most

[01:26:40] beautiful capturing of the end

[01:26:42] of somebody's life like it seriously brings tears to my eyes

[01:26:44] even reading it

[01:26:46] and the dust returns to the earth as

[01:26:48] it was and the breath returns to God

[01:26:50] who gave it vanity of vanities

[01:26:52] as the teacher all his vanity

[01:26:54] they should have ended it there

[01:26:56] they should have ended it there

[01:26:58] besides being wise

[01:27:00] follow your commandments

[01:27:02] wait a hold on a second

[01:27:04] forgot to say this

[01:27:06] absolutely beautiful

[01:27:08] and poetic

[01:27:10] and you know maybe

[01:27:12] just wrap up with a brief discussion

[01:27:14] so I have

[01:27:16] teaching this course like this is

[01:27:18] just a great thing for me

[01:27:20] not having been brought up

[01:27:22] in any religious way besides

[01:27:24] like high holiday stuff but not in any way

[01:27:26] just being

[01:27:28] involved with the Bible

[01:27:30] it does seem to me

[01:27:32] that the Bible is a

[01:27:34] rich source of

[01:27:36] philosophy

[01:27:38] art

[01:27:40] and I say this not as a religious person

[01:27:42] but philosophy and art and

[01:27:44] beauty and just questions

[01:27:46] questions that can

[01:27:48] make life richer

[01:27:50] I know a lot of people already

[01:27:52] believe this

[01:27:54] but I think if you go through

[01:27:56] a kind of

[01:27:58] atheistic phase as I kind of

[01:28:00] did you start to think of the Bible

[01:28:02] as just stupid

[01:28:04] stories that make people

[01:28:06] do bad things

[01:28:08] like you're really missing

[01:28:10] a lot of the complexity of it

[01:28:12] that's fascinating to me that there's so much

[01:28:14] like this that's in there

[01:28:16] I agree and I

[01:28:18] I came to the same conclusion

[01:28:20] coming from the other way

[01:28:22] if all you read it as

[01:28:24] is

[01:28:26] somehow God's instruction

[01:28:28] book right if you read it

[01:28:30] in order to like

[01:28:32] prove whatever it is you believe

[01:28:34] and

[01:28:36] read it as God's words

[01:28:38] and struggle to understand it as that

[01:28:40] then you're also missing out I think on

[01:28:42] right you have to do mental gymnastics

[01:28:44] for Ecclesiastes

[01:28:46] and if you don't you could just enjoy

[01:28:48] it as what it is which is I think

[01:28:50] deeply wise

[01:28:52] sort of pondering about the meaning of life

[01:28:54] you know

[01:28:56] yeah and I think in some of the

[01:28:58] the relationship that I looked at and some of the just the blogs

[01:29:00] of people talking about it

[01:29:02] I was

[01:29:04] really impressed by the sophistication

[01:29:06] of it

[01:29:08] that people

[01:29:10] they saw the threat of it

[01:29:12] in terms of certain deeply held beliefs

[01:29:14] but they were

[01:29:16] totally willing to accept that

[01:29:18] that was part of it like that this is a

[01:29:20] part of life to question God

[01:29:22] to question justice

[01:29:24] and this is an expression of those doubts

[01:29:26] that is that are natural to have

[01:29:28] and that are

[01:29:30] inevitable for a lot of people

[01:29:32] there's a kind of wisdom in that

[01:29:34] yeah yeah I know you're right

[01:29:36] I think that

[01:29:38] I was just raised around a lot of people who wouldn't bother to blog about Ecclesiastes

[01:29:40] so

[01:29:42] who were like well no he didn't mean that

[01:29:44] he didn't mean that he didn't mean that

[01:29:46] he couldn't have meant that

[01:29:48] yeah yeah no

[01:29:50] it's it is a thing of beauty I wanted to say

[01:29:52] really quickly Ecclesiastes 11

[01:29:54] if there's any doubt that this was written by

[01:29:56] a Jew

[01:29:58] he gives you investment advice in Ecclesiastes

[01:30:00] yeah

[01:30:02] ship your grain across the sea after many days

[01:30:04] Ecclesiastes 11 verse 1

[01:30:06] ship your grain across the sea after many days

[01:30:08] you may receive a turn and this is the one

[01:30:10] he's exhorting you to diversify

[01:30:12] your portfolio he says invest in 7 ventures

[01:30:14] yes in 8 you do not know what disaster may come upon

[01:30:16] yeah

[01:30:18] I don't know how

[01:30:20] for some reason I never got this

[01:30:22] Jew Jean

[01:30:24] where I'm good with money

[01:30:26] and like investments and any of that

[01:30:30] alright

[01:30:32] well this was fun maybe we'll do the

[01:30:34] book of Job someday

[01:30:36] someday unless

[01:30:38] everybody hates that we did the bible but I hope

[01:30:40] yeah

[01:30:42] I think this is a hard one

[01:30:44] to hate this I strongly

[01:30:46] recommend people read it

[01:30:48] it's short too

[01:30:50] no it doesn't take hardly any time at all

[01:30:52] although it does take time

[01:30:54] to really read it like just you reading

[01:30:56] that the end of that

[01:30:58] passage in chapter

[01:31:00] 12 like I don't think I fully

[01:31:02] understood until you started reading it

[01:31:04] the rhythm of it

[01:31:06] kind of and the beauty

[01:31:08] in the rhythm

[01:31:10] and I actually really wish that I

[01:31:12] knew Biblical Hebrew

[01:31:14] to be able to appreciate the you lose so much

[01:31:16] of poetry as anybody who's

[01:31:18] translated poetry now does this read

[01:31:20] as somebody who is depressed

[01:31:22] he

[01:31:26] so not clinically

[01:31:28] depressed it didn't but

[01:31:30] like I said what it did give me is the

[01:31:32] impression of an older person who

[01:31:34] everything is a little hard now just

[01:31:36] getting out of fucking bed just

[01:31:38] like your bones are weary

[01:31:40] the things that you used to like

[01:31:42] you don't like anymore like

[01:31:44] the things that you this is something I've noticed

[01:31:46] I can't get

[01:31:48] as excited about certain things as I used

[01:31:50] to when I was a kid

[01:31:52] and I depend sometimes on my daughter

[01:31:54] to like have that

[01:31:56] kind of vicarious joy and excitement

[01:31:58] about things

[01:32:00] like as you get older there's certain

[01:32:02] aspects there's very good things

[01:32:04] about getting older but there's certain

[01:32:06] parts of life that you can't

[01:32:08] that you can't approach with that same

[01:32:10] just unbridled

[01:32:12] enthusiasm and I think he's

[01:32:14] telling the youth not to

[01:32:16] not to

[01:32:18] let that go

[01:32:20] or at least to enjoy it while they have it

[01:32:22] it's always hard advice to tell

[01:32:24] somebody to enjoy youth because it's a whole

[01:32:26] feature it's a feature of

[01:32:28] youth that you're not even really thinking about

[01:32:30] how could you know what you're missing

[01:32:32] yeah I mean youth is wasted on the young

[01:32:34] exactly

[01:32:36] very true cliche

[01:32:38] it is

[01:32:40] and I think this is saying just try to waste it

[01:32:42] a little less than you know

[01:32:44] right

[01:32:46] alright

[01:32:48] join us next time

[01:32:50] if we happen to

[01:32:52] still be alive

[01:32:54] I'm very bad with

[01:33:39] I'm very bad with it