My grandfather Verus
Character and self-control
My father
Integrity and manliness
My mother
Her reverence for the divine
Her generosity
Her inability not only to do wrong
But even to conceive of doing it
My great-grandfather
To avoid the public school
Hire good private teachers
And accept the resulting costs
As money well-spent
My first teacher
Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing
This fighter or that in the games
To put up with discomfort and not make demands
Do my own work
Mind my own business
And have no time for slanderers
Do my own work
Mind my own business
And have no time for slanderers
Diognetus
Not to waste time on nonsense
Not taken in by conjurors
Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting
Or other crazes like that
To hear unwelcome truths
To practice philosophy, study
To write dialogues as a student
And to choose the Greek lifestyle
The camp bed
And the cloak
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
Rusticus
The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character
Not to be sidetracked by interest in rhetoric
Not to write treatises on abstract questions
Or deliver moralizing little sermons
Or compose imaginary descriptions
Of ‘The Simple Life’ or ‘The Man Who Lives Only for Others’
To steer clear of oratory
Poetry
And belles lettres
Not to dress up just to stroll around the house
Write straightforward letters
To behave in a conciliatory way
When people who have angered us want to make up
Read attentively
Not to be satisfied with “just getting the gist of it”
And not to fall for each smooth talker
Apollonius
Independence and unvarying reliability
To pay attention to nothing
No matter how fleetingly
Except the logos
To be the same in all circumstances
Intense pain
Loss of a child
Chronic illness
To see clearly
That a man can show both strength and flexibility
His patience in teaching
To have seen someone who clearly viewed
His expertise and ability as a teacher as the humblest of virtues
And to have learned how to accept favors
From friends without losing your self-respect
Or appearing ungrateful
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
Sextus
Kindness
An example of fatherly authority in the home
What it means to live as nature requires
Gravity without airs
To show intuitive sympathy for friends
Tolerance to amateurs and sloppy thinkers
His ability to get along
With everyone
To investigate and analyze
With understanding and logic
The principles we ought to live by
Not to display anger or other emotions
To be free of passion and yet full of love
To praise without bombast
To display expertise without pretension
Literary Critic Alexander
Not to be constantly correcting people
Not to jump on them when they make an error
But just answer their question
Or add another example
Or debate the issue itself
Not their phrasing
Or make some other contribution to the discussion
Fronto
To recognize the malice
Cunning and hypocrisy that power produces
And the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from “good families"
Alexander the Platonist
Not be constantly telling people
I’m too busy
Not to be always ducking my responsibilities
Cos of “pressing business.”
Catulus
Not to shrug off a friend’s resentment
Even unjustified resentment
But try to put things right
To show your teachers
Ungrudging respect
And your children
Unfeigned love
(Instrumental Bridge)
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
Character and self-control
My father
Integrity and manliness
My mother
Her reverence for the divine
Her generosity
Her inability not only to do wrong
But even to conceive of doing it
My great-grandfather
To avoid the public school
Hire good private teachers
And accept the resulting costs
As money well-spent
My first teacher
Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing
This fighter or that in the games
To put up with discomfort and not make demands
Do my own work
Mind my own business
And have no time for slanderers
Do my own work
Mind my own business
And have no time for slanderers
Diognetus
Not to waste time on nonsense
Not taken in by conjurors
Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting
Or other crazes like that
To hear unwelcome truths
To practice philosophy, study
To write dialogues as a student
And to choose the Greek lifestyle
The camp bed
And the cloak
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
Rusticus
The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character
Not to be sidetracked by interest in rhetoric
Not to write treatises on abstract questions
Or deliver moralizing little sermons
Or compose imaginary descriptions
Of ‘The Simple Life’ or ‘The Man Who Lives Only for Others’
To steer clear of oratory
Poetry
And belles lettres
Not to dress up just to stroll around the house
Write straightforward letters
To behave in a conciliatory way
When people who have angered us want to make up
Read attentively
Not to be satisfied with “just getting the gist of it”
And not to fall for each smooth talker
Apollonius
Independence and unvarying reliability
To pay attention to nothing
No matter how fleetingly
Except the logos
To be the same in all circumstances
Intense pain
Loss of a child
Chronic illness
To see clearly
That a man can show both strength and flexibility
His patience in teaching
To have seen someone who clearly viewed
His expertise and ability as a teacher as the humblest of virtues
And to have learned how to accept favors
From friends without losing your self-respect
Or appearing ungrateful
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
Sextus
Kindness
An example of fatherly authority in the home
What it means to live as nature requires
Gravity without airs
To show intuitive sympathy for friends
Tolerance to amateurs and sloppy thinkers
His ability to get along
With everyone
To investigate and analyze
With understanding and logic
The principles we ought to live by
Not to display anger or other emotions
To be free of passion and yet full of love
To praise without bombast
To display expertise without pretension
Literary Critic Alexander
Not to be constantly correcting people
Not to jump on them when they make an error
But just answer their question
Or add another example
Or debate the issue itself
Not their phrasing
Or make some other contribution to the discussion
Fronto
To recognize the malice
Cunning and hypocrisy that power produces
And the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from “good families"
Alexander the Platonist
Not be constantly telling people
I’m too busy
Not to be always ducking my responsibilities
Cos of “pressing business.”
Catulus
Not to shrug off a friend’s resentment
Even unjustified resentment
But try to put things right
To show your teachers
Ungrudging respect
And your children
Unfeigned love
(Instrumental Bridge)
[Chorus]
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
DEBTS
AND LESSONS
This, I submit
Is the freedom
Of real education
Of learning how to be
Well-adjusted
You get to consciously decide
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
You get to decide
What to worship
Because here’s something else
That’s weird
But true
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life
There is actually no such thing
As atheism
There is no such thing
As not worshipping
Everybody worships
The only choice we get
Is what to worship
And a compelling reason
For maybe
Choosing some sort of god
Or spiritual-type thing to worship
Be it JC or Allah
Be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess
Or the Four Noble Truths
Or some inviolable set of ethical principles
Is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive
If you worship money and things
If they are where you tap
Real meaning
In life
Then you will never have enough
Never feel
You have enough
It’s the truth
Worship your own body
And beauty
And sexual allure
And you will always feel ugly
And when time and age start showing
You will die a million deaths
Before they finally grieve you
On one level, we all know this stuff already
It’s been codified as myths
Proverbs
Clichés
Epigrams
Parables
The skeleton of every great story
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
The whole trick is keeping the truth
Up front
In daily consciousness
Worship power
You will end up feeling weak
And afraid
And you will need ever more power over others
To numb you
To your own fear
Worship your intellect
Being seen as smart
You will end up feeling stupid
A fraud
Always on the verge of being found out
But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful
It’s that they’re
Unconscious
They are default settings
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into
Day after day
Getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing
And the so-called real world
Will not discourage you from operating on your default settings
Because the so-called real world
Of men
And money
And power
Hums merrily along on the fuel of fear
And anger and frustration and craving and worship of self
Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that Have yielded extraordinary wealth
And comfort and personal freedom
The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms
Alone at the center of all creation
This kind of freedom
Has much to recommend it
But of course there are all different kinds of freedom
And the kind that is most precious
You will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of Wanting and achieving and displaying
The really important kind of freedom involves
Attention and awareness and discipline
And being able truly to care about other people
And to sacrifice for them
Over and over
In a myriad heavy unsexy ways every day
That is real freedom
That is being educated
And understanding
How to think
The alternative is unconsciousness
The default setting
The rat race
The constant gnawing sense
Of having had
And lost
Some infinite thing
I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed To sound
What it is, as far as I can see
Is the capital-T Truth
With a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away
You are, of course
Free to think of it whatever you wish
But please don’t just dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon
None of this stuff is really about morality
Or religion
Or dogma
Or big fancy questions
Of life after death
The capital-T Truth
Is about life
BEFORE death
It is about the real value of a real education
Which has almost nothing to do with knowledge
And everything to do
With simple
Awareness
Awareness of what is so real and essential
So hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time
That we have to keep reminding ourselves
Over and over
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
It is unimaginably hard to do this
To stay conscious and alive in the adult world
Day in and day out
Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true
Your education really IS
The job of a lifetime
And it commences
Now
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
(You get to consciously decide)
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
Is the freedom
Of real education
Of learning how to be
Well-adjusted
You get to consciously decide
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
You get to decide
What to worship
Because here’s something else
That’s weird
But true
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life
There is actually no such thing
As atheism
There is no such thing
As not worshipping
Everybody worships
The only choice we get
Is what to worship
And a compelling reason
For maybe
Choosing some sort of god
Or spiritual-type thing to worship
Be it JC or Allah
Be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess
Or the Four Noble Truths
Or some inviolable set of ethical principles
Is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive
If you worship money and things
If they are where you tap
Real meaning
In life
Then you will never have enough
Never feel
You have enough
It’s the truth
Worship your own body
And beauty
And sexual allure
And you will always feel ugly
And when time and age start showing
You will die a million deaths
Before they finally grieve you
On one level, we all know this stuff already
It’s been codified as myths
Proverbs
Clichés
Epigrams
Parables
The skeleton of every great story
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
The whole trick is keeping the truth
Up front
In daily consciousness
Worship power
You will end up feeling weak
And afraid
And you will need ever more power over others
To numb you
To your own fear
Worship your intellect
Being seen as smart
You will end up feeling stupid
A fraud
Always on the verge of being found out
But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful
It’s that they’re
Unconscious
They are default settings
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into
Day after day
Getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing
And the so-called real world
Will not discourage you from operating on your default settings
Because the so-called real world
Of men
And money
And power
Hums merrily along on the fuel of fear
And anger and frustration and craving and worship of self
Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that Have yielded extraordinary wealth
And comfort and personal freedom
The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms
Alone at the center of all creation
This kind of freedom
Has much to recommend it
But of course there are all different kinds of freedom
And the kind that is most precious
You will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of Wanting and achieving and displaying
The really important kind of freedom involves
Attention and awareness and discipline
And being able truly to care about other people
And to sacrifice for them
Over and over
In a myriad heavy unsexy ways every day
That is real freedom
That is being educated
And understanding
How to think
The alternative is unconsciousness
The default setting
The rat race
The constant gnawing sense
Of having had
And lost
Some infinite thing
I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed To sound
What it is, as far as I can see
Is the capital-T Truth
With a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away
You are, of course
Free to think of it whatever you wish
But please don’t just dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon
None of this stuff is really about morality
Or religion
Or dogma
Or big fancy questions
Of life after death
The capital-T Truth
Is about life
BEFORE death
It is about the real value of a real education
Which has almost nothing to do with knowledge
And everything to do
With simple
Awareness
Awareness of what is so real and essential
So hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time
That we have to keep reminding ourselves
Over and over
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
This is water
It is unimaginably hard to do this
To stay conscious and alive in the adult world
Day in and day out
Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true
Your education really IS
The job of a lifetime
And it commences
Now
[Chorus]
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
What has meaning
And what doesn’t
(You get to consciously decide)
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
W-W-What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
What has meaning
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
I wish you way more than luck
Biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers
And I can think about how our children’s children will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel
And probably screwing up the climate
And how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are
And how modern consumer society just sucks
And so forth and so on
You get the idea
If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway
Fine
Lots of us do
Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice
It is my natural default setting
It’s the automatic way
That I experience
The boring
Frustrating
Crowded parts of adult life
When I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief
That I am the center of the world
And that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations
In this traffic
All these vehicles stopped and idling in my way
It’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past
And now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them
To get a huge, heavy SUV
So they can feel safe enough to drive
Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick
In the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital
And he’s in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am
It is actually I who am in HIS way
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am
And that some of these people probably have harder
More tedious and painful lives than I do
Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way
Or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it
[Chorus]
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
Do it
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
And if you are like me
Some days you won’t be able to do it
Or you just flat out won’t want to
But most days
If you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice
You can choose to look differently at this fat
Dead-eyed
Over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line
Maybe she’s not usually like this
Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer
Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department
Who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem
Through some small act of bureaucratic kindness
Of course, none of this is likely
But it’s also not impossible
It just depends what you want to consider
If you’re automatically sure
That you know what reality is
And who and what is really important
If you want to operate on your default setting
Then you
Like me
Probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying
And miserable
And miserable
But if you really
Learn
How to think
How to pay attention
Then you will know you have other options
Do it
[Chorus]
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
Do it
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
It will actually be within your power
To experience
A crowded
Hot
Slow
Consumer-hell type situation
As not only meaningful
But sacred
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true
The only thing that’s capital-T True
Is that you get to decide
How you’re gonna try and see it
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
And I can think about how our children’s children will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel
And probably screwing up the climate
And how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are
And how modern consumer society just sucks
And so forth and so on
You get the idea
If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway
Fine
Lots of us do
Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice
It is my natural default setting
It’s the automatic way
That I experience
The boring
Frustrating
Crowded parts of adult life
When I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief
That I am the center of the world
And that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations
In this traffic
All these vehicles stopped and idling in my way
It’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past
And now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them
To get a huge, heavy SUV
So they can feel safe enough to drive
Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick
In the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital
And he’s in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am
It is actually I who am in HIS way
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am
And that some of these people probably have harder
More tedious and painful lives than I do
Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way
Or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it
[Chorus]
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
Do it
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
And if you are like me
Some days you won’t be able to do it
Or you just flat out won’t want to
But most days
If you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice
You can choose to look differently at this fat
Dead-eyed
Over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line
Maybe she’s not usually like this
Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer
Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department
Who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem
Through some small act of bureaucratic kindness
Of course, none of this is likely
But it’s also not impossible
It just depends what you want to consider
If you’re automatically sure
That you know what reality is
And who and what is really important
If you want to operate on your default setting
Then you
Like me
Probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying
And miserable
And miserable
But if you really
Learn
How to think
How to pay attention
Then you will know you have other options
Do it
[Chorus]
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
Do it
Because it’s hard
It takes will and effort
It will actually be within your power
To experience
A crowded
Hot
Slow
Consumer-hell type situation
As not only meaningful
But sacred
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true
The only thing that’s capital-T True
Is that you get to decide
How you’re gonna try and see it
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
On fire with the same force that made the stars
Love
Fellowship
The mystical oneness of all things
Deep down
Here’s another didactic little story
There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness
One of the guys is religious
The other is an atheist
And the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer
And the atheist says
Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God
It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing
Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard
And I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing
And it was 50 below
And so I tried it
I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out
‘Oh, God, if there is a God’
‘I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me’
And now, in the bar
The religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled
‘Well then you must believe now’ he says
‘After all’
‘Here you are’
‘Alive’
The atheist just rolls his eyes
‘No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.’
It’s easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis
The exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people
Given those people’s two different belief templates
And two different ways of constructing meaning from experience
[Chorus]
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief
Nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy’s interpretation is true
And the other guy’s is false or bad
Which is fine
Except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from
Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys
As if a person’s most basic orientation toward the world
And the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired
Like height or shoe-size
Or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language
As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of
Personal
Intentional
Choice
Plus, there’s the whole matter of arrogance
The nonreligious guy is so totally certain
In his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help
True
There are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too They’re probably even more repulsive than atheists
At least to most of us
But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever
Blind certainty
A close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up
The point here
Is that I think this is one part
Of what
Teaching me how to think
Is really supposed to mean
To be just a little less arrogant
To have just a little
Critical awareness about myself and my certainties
Because a huge percentage
Of stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out
Totally wrong
And deluded
I have learned this the hard way
As I predict you graduates will, too
Meaning from experience
Meaning from experience
[Chorus]
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
[Faded]
Meaning from experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness
One of the guys is religious
The other is an atheist
And the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer
And the atheist says
Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God
It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing
Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard
And I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing
And it was 50 below
And so I tried it
I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out
‘Oh, God, if there is a God’
‘I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me’
And now, in the bar
The religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled
‘Well then you must believe now’ he says
‘After all’
‘Here you are’
‘Alive’
The atheist just rolls his eyes
‘No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.’
It’s easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis
The exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people
Given those people’s two different belief templates
And two different ways of constructing meaning from experience
[Chorus]
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief
Nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy’s interpretation is true
And the other guy’s is false or bad
Which is fine
Except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from
Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys
As if a person’s most basic orientation toward the world
And the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired
Like height or shoe-size
Or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language
As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of
Personal
Intentional
Choice
Plus, there’s the whole matter of arrogance
The nonreligious guy is so totally certain
In his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help
True
There are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too They’re probably even more repulsive than atheists
At least to most of us
But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever
Blind certainty
A close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up
The point here
Is that I think this is one part
Of what
Teaching me how to think
Is really supposed to mean
To be just a little less arrogant
To have just a little
Critical awareness about myself and my certainties
Because a huge percentage
Of stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out
Totally wrong
And deluded
I have learned this the hard way
As I predict you graduates will, too
Meaning from experience
Meaning from experience
[Chorus]
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
[Faded]
Meaning from experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
Experience
Experience
Meaning from experience
I’ve been reading
Recently
A great many medieval works
And these involve, particularly in the Arthurian romance and so forth
Knights in combat with each other
Fiercely in combat
With complete respect for each other
Even
Love for each other
And there is one wonderful line
In Wolfram von Eschenbach
When two
Brothers
Who didn't know they were brothers
Were in combat
One was a Christian
And the other was a Mohammedan
They were in combat
And Wolfram says
If one wished to think of it that one that way, one could say that they were two
Battling
But they have the same father
And they are one
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
But that is the tragic sense
As I say
Life begins, and that’s the first thing the eye sees
Life eating itself
Killing
But that’s life
And the reconciliation
Of consciousness
Which revolts from this
To that
And its affirmation
That is the song of mythology
It has been
It is the song of the religions
And with that little
Affirmative theme
The affirmation of life
As is
I would say
We have the key
To
The
Hopping up
The stepping up
The invigorating of life
Which has been the function actually, the first function
Of mythology
From the time
The old cave men
Asked the bear
To give its body
For their life
For their life
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
[Bridge]
With that little theme
I’ll close with
Thanks to you all
(audience applause fades)
Recently
A great many medieval works
And these involve, particularly in the Arthurian romance and so forth
Knights in combat with each other
Fiercely in combat
With complete respect for each other
Even
Love for each other
And there is one wonderful line
In Wolfram von Eschenbach
When two
Brothers
Who didn't know they were brothers
Were in combat
One was a Christian
And the other was a Mohammedan
They were in combat
And Wolfram says
If one wished to think of it that one that way, one could say that they were two
Battling
But they have the same father
And they are one
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
But that is the tragic sense
As I say
Life begins, and that’s the first thing the eye sees
Life eating itself
Killing
But that’s life
And the reconciliation
Of consciousness
Which revolts from this
To that
And its affirmation
That is the song of mythology
It has been
It is the song of the religions
And with that little
Affirmative theme
The affirmation of life
As is
I would say
We have the key
To
The
Hopping up
The stepping up
The invigorating of life
Which has been the function actually, the first function
Of mythology
From the time
The old cave men
Asked the bear
To give its body
For their life
For their life
[Chorus]
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
And they are one
Battling himself
Out of loyalty
Out of honor
And they are one
Battling himself
And doing himself
Much harm
[Bridge]
With that little theme
I’ll close with
Thanks to you all
(audience applause fades)