Video Transcript

Toggle Timestamps

So today's Thanksgiving 2023 I might actually publish this video today instead of queuing it up, I'm not sure. So I have some raw thoughts this morning and I just need to get some water over the edge of the dam so I can keep focusing on what I'm writing. Uh And it's been quite a stream today but uh not having anything to do with what I'm about to tell you. So, in ancient stories, you'll see, sorry for the frog voice. I'm not sure what's going on. You'll see many instances of stories where someone went through a certain challenging process and in the exchange they received greater knowledge, but it cost them their eye, sometimes both eyes, sometimes they are rendered blind, but most of the time they lose one eye. And there are examples of this like Odin going down to get the ruins, which is an extremely important story uh the rooms. So, so the the Norse language allegedly came to humans because Odin's Odin uh transacted a journey where he visited very difficult to get to a place and traded his eye for written language, I guess spoken language as well. Just language in general and the ruins and these runs had power. So it's by that power that he created what he did and did what he did, but it cost him his eye. And so he couldn't see as much, but he could do much more in other examples. Other stories, the character in question can see even more than they did before, but differently, different things and in different ways anyway, I wanted to share this. This is a very true principle. It's not a mythical principle alone. It's, it's one of many principles that feature in myths that happen to be extremely applicable to our lives. They're embedded, these thematic elements are woven through reality and that's how they end up in stories is that there's something about them typically that's valuable and, or true. So, well, anything that's, that's valuable is true at some level, that's a very interesting phrase, isn't? It turns out truth is hierarchical or as it says in the Doctrine and covenants, I always use the word scope in my head and I need to re translate that to what it says in Doctrine Covent , it says now I can't do it well, if you, if you think of the reference, I could look it up later, but you can too. So just post it in the comments. Um Yeah. OK. So anyway, truth, truth is independent in its scope. That's the principle. I can't remember the exact words from Doctrine and covenants right now, but that's how I remember it. Which means that if you're in different scopes and all scopes are hierarchical. So if you're at a higher scope looking down, you can see why it's true for those scopes. Um, but some of those things aren't true in your scope. And if you reverse the perspectives for different reasons, people will come to the same conclusion and there's no connection down, that's the, that's the difference. So if you're lower looking up, you, you, you won't see how that's true at that scope. If you did, you would be at that scope. It, it would actually draw you up to that scope to see the truth of that idea. But those at that scope, at that level of the hierarchy, they look down and they see how everything below them is true at that scope, even if it doesn't apply to them because it's been subsumed into some higher principle. Anyway, I want to give you an example of how this works in real life. We every once in a while, I mean, we try to do it at the beginning of every month, but I really don't do well with prescribed things at this point. Um Because when you, when you make something a rule, you have to break a principle. This is a gem. And it's really important when you make something a rule, you have to break a principle, you might not know what that principle is. And if you don't, then it might be good to break it because you actually transcend two principles through rules. But, and if this is going over your head, don't worry, I'm gonna write all about it. I have written all about it. It's just not ready yet. Um So, so you, you process from rules to principles, but you can't keep a rule without breaking a principle. It's impossible. That's, they're different in that way. Rules will, can lead you up to principles. But at, at that point when it's revealed, you have to choose one because you can't do both at the same time. So when they're related, obviously, so I can't remember why I started talking about rules. Oh Yeah. Yeah. So at the beginning of each month and that's just a rough heuristic because sometimes things come up and that's one easy way that a rule forces you to break principles. If your principle is to do what is best all the time that can't be described with rules, it turns out because rules have gaps between them. Rules don't map directly to reality. There are gaps in reality. And so if you want to, to, if you want, have you ever seen one of those pictures of function mappings where, so I need a whiteboard here, something like this. And then there are lines between these two things. So you've probably seen this in a math class. You get something like this where f of X maps X to A Y to CZ to D. So then the question becomes, what about B if you're starting from the first column, XYZ and you're mapping to the second, no big deal, right? So if you live your life from your set of rules, no big deal. But if the second column is reality, it's called the range in math terms. If the range is reality, you're in big trouble because there will be many things that are between your fixed points of where the rules apply. Now, the world loves this about religion, the world and religion. I'm using in, in a derogatory sense. The world loves that. There's all these holes between the mapping of their religion and reality because that's where they get to do whatever the heck they want and they're evil. So they do evil things and they get away with it. It's like, it's like if I told you you're not allowed to smoke at work, not that smoking is evil. I'm just using this as an example. If, if I tell you you're not allowed to smoke at work, but you're allowed to smoke the rest of the time, you might not have a huge problem with that. Right? But if I tell you, you can't smoke ever, that might be a much harder pill to swallow a much harder rule to comply with, which confuses the issue a bit because of the use of the word rule. So I apologize for that. So, the world's religions , they say here are three things that you can never do and everything else goes in a, in a nutshell. Right. And they, they each have different, a different set of things but they give you a little set of rules and they say everything else free rein here's the thing about people that have a lot of light that doesn't cut the mustard. They look at life and say, you know, what if this were to make sense, what it would be is we'd have to reverse the direction of these arrows. We'd have to start at reality and say we need instructions on all of this. We're trying to optimize reality, not play this subset game where we're just taking a slice of it and pretending like the rest of it doesn't matter because it does matter in these holes that these holes are what eat your lunch. These holes are. You know, you might think that your religion is enough to, to grant you meaning and happiness in this life. But that just means that not only that life hasn't hit you with the doozy yet, but that you're willfully blind to what you can evidently see all around you is the case because maybe you haven't gotten bone cancer yet. Maybe your spouse hasn't died. Maybe you haven't experienced betrayal from every single person, you know, all at once. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. It doesn't mean that you don't see examples of this even really intense things. And so to be honest about life, you have to aggregate all the bad that you see as possible and say, what would I need to contend with that all of it? If everything in that set happened to me all at once, what would I have to be to overcome it? And that's mapping from the other way now, you don't have to do that in the, in the sorrow sense. Like I just explained, you could also do it from the happiness set where you enumerate all sources of joy in life and you point the other direction and say, how do I get that? How do I have to live? So that, that is mine. And if you care about other people, you do the same for all people. You say, how do I have to be? So I can make the greatest possible contribution to all people receiving the greatest possible joy. So these are three different outcomes we'll say, and no normal person will move toward any of the three without exceptional reasons because they're contrary to human nature. Anyway, principles fill in the gaps. That's where I was getting. So these are rules. But if you upgrade to principles, you'll have greater coverage and it's only through principles that you can approach greater coverage. There's actually an even better way than principles, but I won't get into that today. Uh Because I didn't intend to talk about any of that. So as a heuristic towards the beginning of each month and that's just so we make sure we do it, but it's very rarely once a month. It's usually like closer to every two months. It's also so my kids nag me about it because otherwise we might not do it. But I suggested the idea. So we watch home videos on a Sunday. We have every Sunday, this is a rule that we live by unless there's a really good reason to break it, which happens sometimes every Sunday at 2 p.m. we have one hour of prescribed time as a family and sometimes it stretches to three hours. You know, we just go with the flow, but we'll come up with something to do as a family every Sunday at 2 p.m. And um my, my neighbors could attest to this because very frequently that activity is enjoying nature around us. Uh especially when the weather is nice and we'll walk down the road for whatever reason, we'll, we'll, we'll walk down to this river that's close by us or just walk down the road to enjoy um, outside a little bit and they'll see us walk by a little after two every Sunday. So anyway, um, not every Sunday, but one of these activities is watching home videos that we made in the past or looking through pictures. And we started this for many reasons. Someone asked me recently why we do that. Here's one reason that you might not come up with. Otherwise, that's an extraordinarily important idea. The, the glory of God is uh is what we're after and all things testify or, or demonstrate that, testify of or demonstrate that and also point towards that. But what you'll find if you seek for this in life and you develop greater capacity to recognize it, what you will find like a homing beacon, you will draw towards people, not just any person though, but people who are more like God than, than most. And so you'll, you'll see this playing out even subconsciously, you'll see this playing out in the set of people. You know, where you will gravitate towards those people that are most like God. But this is only if you're inclined towards light, which most people are not. But as you draw nearer to God and you hunger and thirst more and more for righteousness. What is righteousness? It's similar to, to God . That is the definition. So you will find that you gravitate more towards people. And so our memorial, very important concept, our memorial of the investments we have made in people becomes a rich source of meaning in life. But it's like a treasure that most people just bury in the ground. When that's not the kind of treasure it's meant to be in a after the resurrection. One of the changes in us is that our memories invert what I mean by that is here, sometimes memories will come to you unbidden. They, they are ever present. So the the vacuous emptiness is what's ever present here. And you have to find things to fill it through your own will you have to act to fill them or wait for someone to do something to you. There, it's the opposite. So for example, any moment in your life that I said, for example, this is a slightly different but related idea. Any moment in your life where you experienced something that was exceptionally joyful, it fades through time. And not only do you have to exert effort to remember it. The intensity of the experience usually fades over time. Neither of those two things happen in the resurrection, you can hold to a split second moment in time from your life forever . So I mean, you can say those words, but to really comprehend what that means is something think of, think of the, the Lazarus and the rich man. The parable that Jesus told whether this man Lazarus existed or not, doesn't matter. Abraham did. He's in the parable, but it doesn't actually matter because there are people like this. But imagine being riddled with affliction in life so much so that in your life, you can't describe any part of your life without an overwhelming portion of that description pertaining to affliction. I mean, imagine that your life defined by affliction. And so this man he was covered in sores which any of you that have experienced chronic pain, your life is defined by that and confined to it. There's your, the, the number of doors that are open to you is minimized by the fact that, you know, I think of a computer, think of a computer running windows, which is pretty, pretty close to living in chronic pain, if not one and the same. So you have a machine running windows and what happens. It doesn't matter how beefy the computer is, it's constantly grinding on all these stupid things that windows does in the background and you can open the simplest little application and it takes like 20 minutes to open because so much of the resources are dedicated to these things going on in the background. They're not things you care about, they're not things you want, but you can't stop it. That's chronic pain, right? And it's not just physical pain. People deal with these things emotionally too. Although that's a real blessing. Comparatively speaking, because there are miraculous things that can happen to alleviate the physical pain. There are some changes you could make maybe that aren't miraculous at all that would alleviate it, but not always. But with emotional pain, there's always a cure and that's something that's very important to understand. And if you don't know the key, that's one thing. But I tell you it exists. It's a set of keys, actually, they exist. So anyway, if you're in if you're in uh chronic pain, it defines your life. And this man who was, who was covered with sores, he was also a beggar. He couldn't work because of the pain. He was in all the time and he just sat and begged. And so he was starving too and cold. And so he dies one day and in the, in the parable that Jesus tells, he's in quote unquote Abraham's bosom, which is a really interesting way to describe paradise if for Jesus to have described paradise. And it calls into serious question, most people's ideas about the egalitarian nature of God's kingdom. Anyway, continuing on here in paradise, that man would see his life very differently, very differently because just as Jesus said, many of the first will be last and the last shall be first. Um There's going to be an immense difference in how we see, not just people but ourselves and not just ourselves, but every little facet of our lives from, from from life. Anyway, so you can hold to one moment if that if your life was riddled with pain and one second of your life, you had this thing that maybe the pain was so great that you couldn't even notice it, you know, sunrise or a baby laughing or just a really nice meal once in your whole life that will abound so fully enjoy in the resurrection that you will be overcome with gratitude to God as if none of the other things happened like as if life was only Him giving you gifts beyond your greatest imagination because that's what it is. And this is a shocker for people because many who think they're righteous are going to die and be riddled with guilt, riddled with guilt because they have no idea how great what God has already given them is. And they will realize how much of it they should have known and that they didn't know just because they were actively lying to themselves and others about how things really are as far as they are aware. So how great the importance of living up to what you understand, it's very important. And because we are so prone to lie to ourselves, we can so quickly devolve into not being able to even see the truth to the extent that we did before. And an important piece of that is not being able to see that you can't see the truth to the extent you did before because you'll still see some things as true. You'll still have, we'll say moral reasoning, but you will be living in a lie to such an extent that you will be blind to the truth. And a shocking but poignant example of this is the story of Kor, which most Mormons read. It's in the book of Mormon. Most Mormons read as one of many examples to point your finger and say, I'm glad I'm not like that guy. Which is a rammy Upton kind of attitude. But it behooves everyone to read that story and say, Lord, is it I because what you'll find is this obstinate passionate man who stood for a position publicly and actually consumed himself in preaching it. A set of ideas and ideology was confronted by a servant of God who called him out on his nonsense. And instead of recognizing the supreme evidence that this man presented Khor doubled down on his, his willful dishonesty. And it wasn't until he was essentially sentenced to death that uh by becoming deaf, dumb. And um, well, that's it. Deaf and dumb court whore instantly came to his senses and said, yeah, I was basically lying the whole time and I knew it and here's how it happened. I was shown something that was obviously not right. But instead of recognizing that I was enticed by the, the opportunity to be special without actually being good to feel like I was good. No change in character, just change in feeling. And I went for it. And that led me down a path where I repeated and did what I knew wasn't true. Often enough that I lost the ability to detect it as false. Go reread that story and then listen to what I said again and repeat that until it clicks. So how often do people do that? Everyone does that? And that's why that's why you can't come into the kingdom of God until you meet someone who's already there. That's why because we are all already cut off because no person is without sin and sin cuts you off from what is greater, what you already have. We come into life made innocent through the blood of Christ. But we don't stay that way. And the second you turn away from God in the least degree, you also lose light, they have to cour so how do you get back on the path? It can only be through the intervention of someone who's mortal and slapping you in the face and saying, hey man, wake up and that's what Elma tried to do with Kroo. But Khor would listen, it doesn't remove our agency. We still have the choice but we need a mediator in the flesh to come back to God. The extent to which we need. That is a different question, but you need at least one interaction. That's what it takes. This was even true with Adam himself and we read about that in the book of Moses and his interactions with the Lord. Anyway, so I have a little list of idea is to stick on track and we're only on the first bullet that's not good. Although all these things I said are very good. Anyway. So in watching these videos the other day, I guess we've been through two of the bullets because we talked about how the glory of God is maximized in the segment. Of His creation is created in his image. So humans have the greatest capacity to demonstrate the glory of God. And as you draw near to that, you will search out people like that. Although most people will be repulsed by people like that, you'll have a contrary motive, we'll say, OK, so one of these videos from maybe 14 years ago, 13 years ago, I was playing guitar and this stage in my life, I was, I guess a newlywed. Um and we had, my wife had twins on the first go around. So I'd probably been married for a year and a half or two years or something. And so lots of the videos were the little babies and that, that was, you know, we breed dogs and I sure hope no one takes what I'm about to say down to the dirt because it's an exalted thing. It's not a low thing sometimes when we say things, people reverse it, but I'll say it anyway. We have dogs and it's I, I have a friend who keeps animals and he has pointed me towards a lot of truths that are demonstrated through animal husbandry, which is an interesting phrase and you should look up what husband, ding, husband, dr husband, what it means. It's basically to manage in order to make the most of it's to give yourself in order to make the most of, to dedicate yourself to the greatest maximal outcomes involving other creatures. So anyway, he's pointed me towards the animal husbandry as a source of truth. And he's pointed out some really interesting things that are super duper obvious for anyone that's ever kept animals. But quite far from the common understanding in modern society, which is really unfortunate anyway, in, in breeding dogs, one thing that I've learned is, and it's so obvious, it's like it's so stark, it just reaches out and punches you right in the face. Um It's as obvious as the sun rising from dark, but these female dogs are so much happier with puppies than they were before that in their life. You get a sense of their maximal joy because you see, you know, when are they happiest and how happy are they? It's the weirdest thing to be able to see meaning on a dog's face. But these, these moms are so much happier with the puppies. And it's interesting because we sell the puppies, um, which isn't as cruel as it might sound because as far as the mom goes, because the other thing we've been able to see, we kept two of our first dog's daughters and so the three of them lived together, unfortunately, only two are alive right now because the one uh was the one that I made the videos about having to euthanize. So anyway, we've been able to see how dogs lose their connections over time, uh when they're puppies, they have a certain special relationship and it absolutely fades to nothing. It's a, it's the weirdest thing I was just commenting on that yesterday because my wife actually, uh, she's in charge of all this and she, she tracks the, the puppies over time and she has pictures of all of them at six months. She stays in contact with the owners. That's a conclusion at that point. But for the sake of having somewhere to put it, um, we're up in town, uh , not too long after I put down my dog and I had a kid with me. I, I don't know if I've told this story sometimes I know I've recorded it but I delete videos before they get out if they're not good enough and, or if I say things that aren't wise yet anyway, I was out in town with my, one of my sons. I was following the keep a kid with you. Principle, take a kid with you and we were walking into Walmart and the car drove by with a, a dog in the window and my son looked, and he said that looks like one of our dogs. And I guess the car is driving pretty slow because this all happened in real time. But I turned and I had time to see the dog for a split second too. I said that does look like one of our dogs. And, uh, so we hustled because I don't know why, but the lady parked on the far side of the lot and we had to intercept her before she got out of her car. So we jogged, um, which, you know, sometimes you have to do crazy things in life. People, if you want to find outcomes that are different, a precondition is you're gonna have to do actions that are different. And a lot of times they're not gonna end up going well, but if you don't roll the dice, you can't win the game. So we jogged across the parking lot like we stole something and, um, we got to the lady and then it turned out she was a young lady and she wasn't ugly, which in Missoula, that's a really rare thing. So, uh, anyway, it's true though. So, um, so most people would not speak to a lady. Most men would not speak to a lady these days because you're afraid somebody's gonna call the cops, right? Um, but, um, a lady that's not ugly. It's like you really don't want to mess with that, but I had to know. Right. I had to know if this was one of our dogs and the man, the dog was so cute, just so happy. And, you know, you get a sense for dogs when you've met lots of them and I could tell this is a really good one. Plus having the gift of discernment. It works on animals, not just people. The spirit is ubiquitous, it works on everything. Um, so it's like an infomercial. The, the spirit would be the easiest thing to sell on an infomercial . And you can imagine how that would go. That'd be quite entertaining, um, to see anyway. So I said to the lady, hey, this is gonna sound like a crazy question. Did you get that dog here by chance? And where did you get your dog? And she said, oh, a breeder out in and she named some town that's like , way further out than me. And I was like, are you sure it wasn't? And I told her the, the, where we live, which it's like a regional thing that no one else would understand. We have weird ways of doing landmarks out here. Uh, so anyway, she said, maybe, and I said, did you buy it from a lady with an accent? And she said, yeah, how do you know? I said, because it's my wife. I think that's one of our dogs. And, well, it's her dog now. But, um, and then her whole demeanor changed and she was like, ok, this isn't some creep. So, um, the reason I share all that is and I was like, do you mind if I pet your dog? She's like, absolutely. And, um, the dog was so, so happy. And, uh, for, for, for just a moment, I thought about how much pain I had experienced with these dogs because every time we lose one, you know, I die a little inside and it never comes back. And, I mean, that's, that's how all suffering goes. Really. Once, once you figure it out there are some things that can distract you but it never comes back and what's lost never comes back and much more needs to be said about that. That's not a complete thought, but that's all I can do right now anyway. And I'm not sure how it came out but, you know, I let her know that this, this was actually one of the, one of the babies from the dog that I had to put down. And, uh, anyway, I, for a split second, I could see the joy in all the people that had purchased our puppies. And, um, and the pain was worth it. You know, the pain was worth it. And I knew dogs can't think like this. But if she could, if my dog could think about that, I knew she'd do it. She'd, she'd do that. So, so, anyway, you know, people in life, they're, they're so much richer a vocabulary then we, uh, tend to experience, we don't use life up to its fullest capacity. It's not even close and it's not so much a matter of us necessarily having to do it any differently, which is the saddest part of all the richness is there. It's just, we don't notice it, we don't appreciate it. And the Lord has ways of helping us with that, but we tend to shut him down every time he tries, but he can take us as individuals, he can take us on a path where we encounter more and more of that richness. But most people would rather not. They'd, they'd rather just keep it less rich, uh, almost monotonous and shallow. And if you need evidence for this propensity in humanity, just look at the degree of use of antidepressants because that's exactly what they do. They just pull everything in to monotony. Everything becomes shallow. And unfortunately, then we apply that assumption of shallowness to God and he is not shallow. And it's, it's such a travesty to see that. There are so many people who think they've got him fig figured out and that there's nothing more to learn that's worth knowing about him. But we ought to hunger and thirst after righteousness because there's so much more so in one of these videos, I was playing the guitar and, uh, what ends up happening is from time to time. It's not frequently, a random tune will come into my head that I've never heard before in life as far as I know. And I'll punch out a, um, a set of notes, a riff, that's the word, a punch out a riff or two. And I'm like this means something, right? Something about this. It's is bigger than me. This, I didn't make this. I discovered it and I know that I will not remember it past that point. And so I'll record myself playing it. I'll record my, my left hand so I can see where the notes are and hear the music. And I have like six of these maybe that have survived. I used to just let it go by the wayside. But I realized that with all inspiration, you have to do whatever you can to stay in it, squeeze out all the juice and then save it and then look at it again some other time. So amongst these baby videos, uh was me playing guitar pause. There's one thing I forgot, I got sidetracked with the whole dog babies thing. I didn't come full circle on that. So as we were watching these baby videos, I'm looking at my wife because perspective wise, we're all crowded around this monitor and I can easily see my wife out of my side view and um she was just beaming. She is so happy and it's funny because I thought that I've seen her happy a bunch of times in recent history and I have, I've seen her laugh and I've seen her smile and I've seen her be, be happy and whatever, but not like that. And it's amazing, right? Because it's the same vibe that comes from the, the mother dogs with their puppies. They're so happy and she was reliving these things from the past. And I felt a lot of joy because I'm largely the instrument behind the fact that we have these videos in the first place is one of many things I've sort of nagged everyone in my family about to make happen because I could foresee the value beyond what they could. And, um, that was really special to see and, you know, that's something that she's going to have in the eternities. And if you want an idea about heaven when the dust settles because the whole judgment thing is over with which it is much more than just the judgment bar or whatever you think about that, there's a process. But once the dust settles and you're in your eternal state, that's going to be hers forever. That's really something that's, you know, someone with that couldn't ask for anything more. So there's your argument for the value of having kids, especially if you're a woman and an argument for the value of making that possible if you're a man because my joy is seeing her joy and that will be mine forever. As long as I don't mess it up and there's still time for that anyway. So this guitar video. So as it starts playing my, my kids, I started making comments like what the dad, I didn't know you could play guitar like that. And my wife said something about, oh, he used to play not all the time. I never played all the time, but I played regularly. I would just start strumming something just for a minute between all the jobs I was doing and um, it was kind of a bittersweet moment because I realized that that was part of the eye that I've lost. There's, there are a lot of movies that have this trope where I'm thinking in particular. There's a really good one with Morgan Freeman. I wish I remembered the name of it. If you've seen it, put it in the comments because it's a good one to watch. Oh, the, it's like The Magic of Bell Isle or something. So, uh it's a good movie. So in it, Morgan Freeman plays a writer who's older and he's handicapped and he's really bitter and his nephew or somebody drops him off at this place where he can stay for a little while and it's real obvious he's just, he's just a hassle for everybody. It comes out, I won't ruin the movie, but it comes out in the, in the movie that he stopped writing because his, his very, very cherished wife died suddenly and he just hasn't been able to write since then. It, it turns out that the way we live, it, it tends to be the case that we weave together all the good. And when we lose some of that, it, it feels like it takes out the rest. And for the most part, that's an illusion, all good leads to all good, all good leads to all better things. But there's no such thing as loss with God. There's just replacement . It's sometimes the replacement process requires time. Uh And it's because it requires things other than time, but it usually occupies time. So it's not the case that when you lose some value in life, you lose all value in life. But it sure feels that way for a really long time until you figure it out . So that it's not like that. But, um, that particular guitar, I ended up giving away to somebody and it, so it's ironic maybe, or maybe this is just an example of things must be what they are. Um But when we moved, I didn't have room in the moving truck to bring the guitar. And so a good man who happened to be there helping us move. I knew he liked to play guitar, but he didn't have one. He didn't have a lot of money at the time. Now he's filthy rich. Um You end up starting a business that exploded down there. It's quite amazing. But uh I said, hey, you want this guitar and he couldn't believe it and I just gave it to him. But a lot of times when we're sending, there are many things that can't come with. And so if you want to go up higher, you're always gonna have to leave things behind. That was even true for Elijah. I mean, he couldn't bring his mantle with him apparently where he was going. So he left it behind and um it's in Second Kings two, I believe. Uh anyway. So I left it behind and it was a while before I got another one and as tends to be the sa the case, it wasn't exactly the same and I really didn't play it that much because this period of my life that's occupied the last 10 years , let's say, has been very different from what came before and in the, in the wake, certain things just couldn't fit in it anymore. And so I have played sometimes it's probably like once a year that I play guitar is all uh maybe like four times a year. But I have to be in a very narrow mindset to do it. And so it shocked my kids because obviously I'm out of practice. But also that, that, yeah, anyway, that I could play that well. And then I was like, yeah, they were like, what song is that? I said, I don't know, I just made it up in that moment and they're like, what? But I guess, I guess I don't really need a concluding point to this because we've covered so much ground. And there are about 100 things in this video that any one of which would absolutely change your life if you extracted and applied the principle. But here's a bombshell for the end. There's a song that I absolutely adore by U two called, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. And that song, the meaning of it for me is very important as we crank through life, our hearts will long for what we don't have that for some reason we believe exists. And the tendency is with each of these cycles, the tendency is to stop lurking . That's the most likely outcome from each iteration. But if you double down and somehow scrounge up even more effort than before and a willingness to make an even greater sacrifice, you will always more move closer to what you're looking for. And if you don't give up, you will find it, you will find it. God is very plain about this in the scriptures. He makes us free to obtain what we want. He gives us everything we need to obtain what we want and it might not be immediate, but he'll put us on the path. And the book I wrote through Faith is all about that. Unfortunately, I, I, I struggled to believe anyone gets it, but it's there and it's, it's plain as day so often I shouldn't say so often for the greatest outcomes in life. As you approach the greatest outcomes in life, you will find it increasingly true that in order that the only way to obtain what you're looking for is to become what you cannot find to become what you cannot find. So Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. That's a great quote. If the whole world lived it, the whole world would be a much better place but there's an even better and even higher truth related to that, which is that all people should become what they cannot find. Coming back to being created in the image of God who you can be is always more important than what you can get. The greatest things cannot be obtained unless you have become the greatest person first. In fact, you can't even see them and you can't appreciate them. So in becoming what you cannot find, there will be many things that you have to leave behind. I mentioned Elijah and as he ascended, he chucked his mantle down or it just came off of him. I don't know. But there is a naked Elijah going up into heaven at some point. And that's just funny to me. I um so what's interesting is on the ground, Elisha who had requested a, you know, this is, this is audacity, but this is the intensity that we have to have to come into the kingdom of God. Elijah said, so he had been stalking Elijah, he would not go away and Elijah kept trying to get rid of him and Elijah just kept doubling down and increasing the sacrifice. And he said like, hey, I'm going wherever you go. And finally Elijah is like, look, you gotta stay, I gotta go. What can I do for you? So that you let me go and Elisha, this is hilarious to me, but we have to emulate this intensity. He says, I want a double portion of your spirit. And that's like gee whiz to ask for the same spirit as Elijah would be enough. That's audacious enough. That's insane. But then to say, I want double. But that's how Elisha was. This dude was intense when he meets Elijah. Probably for the first time. It, it doesn't say anything about him knowing him before he's plowing his fields with his oxen and he's got his plow and that's a whole, that's a whole lifetime worth of capital to be set up that way. It's like you've got it all figured out. You're on easy mode for life. You've got really expensive animals that make your life a billion times easier . You got equipment, you know how to use it. You've got land, you know what to do with it. And basically Elijah says, hey, come follow me and Elisha kills the oxen, sacrifices them, using the equipment as the fire to do it. I, I hope I'm not making that up. That's from memory, but the intensity of that imagery is, is something else. So he wasn't, you know, it was the one guy Jesus was talking about, he says, come follow me and he says, oh, I have to bury my father first. And then Jesus says, let the dead bury their dead. Another guy says, oh, I just got land. I gotta walk across it to make it legal and consummate that. And he just goes through all these excuses people give when it's time. Jesus said, watch and pray always because, you know, not the hour when your master comes and God doesn't work around your convenience. He has a plan and it has a time frame. And usually that time frame includes your inconvenience explicitly. It's needed because he's giving you an opportunity to show what it's worth to you. Not for his sake. But in the end, when all those memories come flooding in for eternity, you'll look back and you'll say, you know, I am a perpetual doofus. And like always, I didn't see the writing on the wall and it turns out that killing the oxen and burning the equipment in a sacrifice, basically sacrificing everything I thought had value before selling everything. I had to buy the pearl of great price. At the time, it seemed like an enormous sacrifice. And now I see that it's just the dumbest little drop in the bucket compared to what I got in return. But at the time, this was costly to me in my ignorance. I was blessed to have the opportunity to make a sacrifice that in knowledge I could not make because it would be obvious. It wouldn't mean anything. It wouldn't cost me anything . You know, if someone put a billion dollars on the table wouldn't fit, have to be a big table. And they, they said, hey, I need everything in your bank account and I this is all yours, you say? Yeah. OK. Fine. Duh. Right. But that's the, it's even bigger than that what God offers. It's infinite. It has no end. And we're given these opportunities to go all in. But we have step and we hold back and we delay and we make excuses and we, the worst part about it is we pretend that we're making the sacrifice. I say, yeah, Jesus, I'll follow you. But first I have to bury my father. No, if you want to bury your father, you can't follow Jesus and vice versa. And there's symbolism and meaning in this, but sometimes it's quite literal. Oh, I can't watch a video, Jesus that you tell me to watch right now. I've got stuff to do, but I'll watch it afterwards. I'm going to queue it up and watch it later. All right . And you won't get as much out of it, right? Or whatever the thing is, it doesn't matter. The point is he has to have primacy in our lives. It's not negotiable. And so often when you're becoming what you cannot find, you have to lose an eye. And what did he say about that? We talked about this too. If your hand offends you cut it off. If your eye offend you pluck it out. If any part of you detracts from where God's taking you, it's gotta go. And most people would say, well, I mean, I mean, by eye and he says, isn't it better to go through life with one eye than to not have life. It would be better to go through life blind than to not have life, eternal life. And until we subordinate everything, our limbs, our eyes, everything to eternal life, we will not have it. And that's the sacrifice that's required just to get in the gate is to yield everything to submit to him in all things. That's how you enter in and then in the, in the process, in the road that follows, he educates you on how you actually haven't given all things yet and he'll take you as far as you're willing to go. But in the beginning, that sacrifice is constrained to your understanding of what all things means. But sometimes as you're going through that you lose an eye, you lose a hand, you lose a leg or you use, lose both of whatever those things are. And there's a really nice proverb that I always remember the sense of but never the words of or the reference and I apologize for that, but mirth only works for fools. So at some point, you have to upgrade from pleasure to joy. And when you do that certain things, there might not be room for certain things and it's not that, that those things are evil, but they certainly impede what God would otherwise do. And so that's, um, that's why I don't really play guitar or drums anymore, even though I really enjoyed both of those things at some time. I have to be in a very, very specific mindset to do that or, or to dance frankly. And that's ok. Well, I will end it at that.