So you made it through week 1. That is awesome. As you know, in week 1, we talked a lot about what purpose is, the definition of purpose. We are talking about how it's related to, who am I, and also who I value. We related it to some neuroscience, especially how, who am I and what do I value, are connected in a part of the brain called the ventral medial prefrontal cortex. It's really magical guru part of our brain that helps us make better decisions. We'll get into that more a little bit in this week, but a lot more in week 3. But just to let you know, that's really key, that this philosophical concept of purpose in life is related to these two factors, and these two factors are related to a certain part of the brain that becomes active, and when that part of the brain becomes active, then suddenly, a lot of change happens. We're able to better organize our life, we're better able to manage and change our behaviors, which is great. So this week, we are going to talk about how purpose organizes our lives. We have a couple of aims for this week. One is to understand a historical view of purpose. So we're going to go back 500 years and actually start there, and ask this question: did people have the same kind of purposes we do now? Then as we move more toward maybe 150 years ago, we're going to start talking about existentialists' view of purpose, which is really interesting and super relevant to what we'll be talking about. Then we'll start moving toward a method of linking our behaviors to our purpose. In other words, what's the why of our behavior? Then at the same time, we'll start linking our purpose to our behaviors. In other words, the how of purpose, and then how to not get stuck in between. So let's start off 500 years ago. Very different time. So at that time, we were in an agrarian society, so we might have been butchers, or we might have been gardeners, or we might have been restaurateurs, we might have been pharmacists, we might have been playful as well. In fact, we were playful. If we did all of those things well, then we all got to dance, basically. We all got a chance to party and have a good time. These are old Bruegel the Elder paintings, roughly around 500 years ago, and it really described how agrarian life was then. We also were out in the fields very often. So let's go to these three women out in the field, and let's just say that the young one here in the middle talks to the older woman as they're walking out into the field to start raking the hay, and she says, "Yeah, I'm thinking about a new purpose in my life." Just assume that she wasn't happy with her current purpose. Let's say that she had heard from somebody in one of the other villages about this woman named Joan of Arc, and how awesome she was and, "I'd like to be Joan of Arc," she says. That's great. So the older woman says, "Are you crazy? Don't even think of what happened to Joan of Arc. That was horrible. You do not want to be Joan of Arc. You do not want that." Then she may say, "Well, I'm inventive. How about if I invent a new rake? Because I don't like the kind of rakes we have. I'll bet we could do a lot better with a new rake." Then the older woman says, "Look, stop this. This is crazy talk. You don't want to do this. Let me tell you a little bit about the universe here, just for a second." So as they're walking out in the field, she explains, "Look, here is the entire universe. We on Earth, this planet, are the center of this universe. We have this God, and this God tells us what our purpose is. It's as simple as that. We live in the center of the universe, God created us with a purpose, and that is it, and that's what we're supposed to do. If we obey Him, then we get to party. Life is really good if we obey Him. But if we don't, bad stuff happens. Like really bad stuff happens to us. So look at these people. These are people who thought they wanted a new purpose. This is not good for you." So basically, she goes out in the field. I love my purpose. So now, let's move just to about 150 years ago. Life is very different. There is now science. There is an industrial revolution. A lot is changing. We're now starting to explore in a very new way. In fact, now we understand we're not the center of the universe. So when Nietzsche was around, 150 years ago, he understood that science was starting to take over this view that we are the center of the universe, and God had a plan for all of us. At least, that's what he believed. So he said basically, in fact, this is his quote, he said, "God is dead, and we have killed Him." What he meant by that is science has essentially killed off God. So when that happens, he was thinking about people like this in the field going, "Wow, they're going to be lost. Because if there is no meaning, if they're in this vast universe where they're just a tiny speck in the universe, they're going to have to find their own purpose." So in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this is one of the books that he wrote, that Nietzsche wrote, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It's a really thick book, by the way. I don't know if I would read it if I were you. It's up to you if you want to. But in the beginning is this amazing metaphor. It begins with a camel. This camel says, "Load everything up on my back. Load all the joys and the sorrows and the illnesses. I want to experience everything." Think about a college student. I advise a lot of college students, and I think of my college students as camels. Basically, these camels are going, "Educate me. Let me understand the world as much as possible. Load me up." Once this camel is fully laden, fully educated, the camel becomes, metamorphosizes into a lion. The lion goes out into the wilderness and finds this dragon. On this dragon are scales, and on every scale are written the words thou shalt. Now, what does that mean? Well, this is the dragon of religion to Friedrich Nietzsche. This is the dragon of what that community in the agrarian society was saying. This is your purpose. This is the dragon of the government. This is the dragon of parents, of everybody else saying, "You will have this purpose. You shall do this. You shall act that way." The lion, remember the lion was metamorphosized from this camel who became fully educated. The lion basically looks at the dragon and says, "What do you represent?" The dragon says, "I represent the value of all things. All the values of things glitter on me." In fact, this is a really cool quote from Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He said, "The values of 1,000 years glitter on those scales." So he's saying for a long time, we've had the same kinds of values, the same kind of structure. We've all been told what our purpose is. We have no choice, in other words. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the lion slays the dragon and then the lion metamorphosizes one last time. The lion metamorphosizes into a child. This is what Nietzsche says, "Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy yea." So what he's talking about here is how this child now doesn't have the same values that their parents had, or that society had, that religion told this child what to do. This child has completely new, fresh beginning. An opportunity to create their own purpose in life. This is really relevant to modern society now, isn't it? He was saying that in the past, we are all given a purpose, but in order to find your own purpose, you need to first become educated. Once you're fully educated, you become this lion. Then this lion rejects what everybody else is telling him what to do. What Nietzsche's talking about in the innocence of a child, the forgetfulness of the old values, a new beginning with new values that this child-like person starts creating on their own, is building their own demon inside, building their own set of core values, but based on education. Remember, that camel becomes fully educated, then the camel becomes a lion. Then the lion slays the dragon of thou shalt and says, "I am going to build my own life. I'm going to take the resume that my parents gave me and tear it up. I'm going out into the world as a new person to create my own values and my own purpose in life." Wow. Holy yea.
