so the way the mosquito deals with the 00:00:00

so the way the mosquito deals with the fact that you can't figure out what's 00:00:02

going on is by producing water of 00:00:03

mosquitoes but the way people figure out 00:00:05

what's going on is by producing lots of 00:00:07

ideas and ideas are the relationship of 00:00:09

ideas to you and the external world is 00:00:15

the same as the relationship of animals 00:00:17

to the environment so there's a 00:00:21

philosopher Alfred North Whitehead who 00:00:22

said human beings evolved to let their 00:00:25

ideas die instead of them now that's a 00:00:28

smart way of thinking because it means 00:00:32

that you can parse off a little sub 00:00:34

personality of yourself maybe it's angry 00:00:37

sub personality or said sub personality 00:00:40

or an entertainer is then forward you 00:00:42

know know the earth exactly ideas 00:00:44

they're more like little spirits that 00:00:46

are partly you they're kind of stupid 00:00:48

because they've only got one direction 00:00:50

but there's still variants of you and 00:00:52

maybe you can present one of those to 00:00:54

someone which you might do if you're 00:00:56

dating someone who do you want to 00:00:58

assuming you still do that if you're 00:00:59

dating someone and you want to impress 00:01:02

them maybe you spin off some little 00:01:03

variant of yourself that you think and 00:01:05

if it doesn't work well then you can get 00:01:10

all heartbroken and let it die and then 00:01:12

maybe the next one you spin off will be 00:01:14

a little more you know together and so 00:01:15

that's how people progress they progress 00:01:18

like dying they're coming back to life 00:01:21

at different levels say I mean maybe 00:01:24

you're just taking some little ratty 00:01:25

mistake and so you can let it go and 00:01:27

you're only ashamed momentarily and it's 00:01:29

only a little pain when that circuit 00:01:31

dies or maybe it's your whole damn 00:01:33

personality that has to go you know when 00:01:35

that happens to people when they 00:01:38

encounter a catastrophe of one form or 00:01:39

another so that might happen to someone 00:01:41

close to you dies or if you lose a limb 00:01:43

or if you get an illness or you know any 00:01:45

of the horrible things that plague 00:01:47

people to very deep levels which might 00:01:49

be pretty much all of you has to go and 00:01:51

maybe you'll actually die but if you 00:01:53

don't well you can let go what's holding 00:01:55

you back and maybe that's your old self 00:01:59

and then you can come back to life and 00:02:01

I'll tell you it's a lot better to do 00:02:03

that voluntarily before it's necessary 00:02:05

then involuntarily in a moment of crisis 00:02:08

and I would say in some ways that's the 00:02:12

lesson of clinical psychology confront 00:02:14

the damn snakes first because it's 00:02:17

really hard to get out of their bellies 00:02:20

once they beat you so the shaman the 00:02:22

shamanic initiation czar death and 00:02:26

rebirth initiations they formalize that 00:02:29

they're often the the rituals themselves 00:02:31

are often accompanied by the use of 00:02:35

different processes of blues legends 00:02:37

which for one reason or another seem to 00:02:39

facilitate at least symbolically the 00:02:41

process of transformation from life to 00:02:44

death and back to life so they're 00:02:46

dramatizations of the process by which 00:02:50

people learn you learn something to 00:02:52

really learn it some presupposition that 00:02:56

you had before that has to crumble and 00:02:58

then the new information comes in and 00:03:00

you can build a new self around it but 00:03:03

that's a painful process and that's part 00:03:06

of why people stick to their ideas or 00:03:08

their past selves you know you could 00:03:10

stick to your past self and that would 00:03:17

be fine except that everything's 00:03:18

changing around you all the time and so 00:03:19

if you don't change then you just get 00:03:21

more and more updated you're more and 00:03:23

more archaic 00:03:25

none of your presuppositions work 00:03:26

anymore and so you're like you're like 00:03:28

this rusty machine cranking around 00:03:30

running into things all the time in your 00:03:33

life because you don't fit the 00:03:35

environment anymore so when I talk about 00:03:37

personality and its transformations 00:03:40

something that you could ask yourself 00:03:42

which is in some way the most 00:03:44

fundamental question you can ask 00:03:46

yourself is are you the thing that stays 00:03:47

the same or are you the thing that 00:03:50

changes and you know the thing that 00:03:53

changes can live in a lot more places 00:03:56

and so that's worth thinking about but 00:04:00

the cost is well when you change you die 00:04:03

a little bit and that's painful or maybe 00:04:05

you die a lot and that's really painful 00:04:08

so if you ever wonder why people don't 00:04:10

change 00:04:13