Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah, it gives you a very visceral sense, and this may sound trite, but it gives you a very visceral sense that death is inevitable. On one hand, as a neurosurgeon, you’re deeply involved in these, just hard to fathom tragedies, young parents dying, leaving a four-year-old behind, say. And on the other hand, it takes the sting out of it a bit because you see how just mind-numbingly universal death is. There’s zero chance that I’m going to avoid it. I know techno-optimists right now and longevity buffs right now would disagree on that 0.000% estimate, but I don’t see any chance that our generation is going to avoid it. Entropy is a powerful force and we are very ornate, delicate, brittle, DNA machines that aren’t up to the cosmic ray bombardment that we’re subjected to. So on the one hand, every human that has ever lived died or will die. On the other hand, it’s just one of the hardest things to imagine inflicting on anyone that you love is having them gone. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had friends that aren’t living anymore and it’s hard to even think about them. And so I wish I had arrived at the point of nirvana where death doesn’t have a sting, I’m not worried about it. But I can at least say that I’m comfortable with the certainty of it, if not having found out how to take the tragedy out of it. When I think about my kids either not having me or me not having them or my wife. Maybe I’ve come to accept the intellectual certainty of it, but it may be the pain that comes with losing the people you love. But I don’t think I’ve come to understand the existential aspect of it, that this is going to end, and I don’t mean in some trite way. I mean, it certainly feels like it’s not going to end. You live life like it’s not going to end. And the fact that this light that’s shining, this consciousness is going to no longer be in one moment, maybe today. It fills me when I really am able to load all that in with Ernest Becker’s terror. It is a real fear. I think people aren’t always honest with how terrifying it is. I think the more you are able to really think through it, the more terrifying it is. It’s not such a simple thing, “Oh, well, it’s the way life is. ” If you really can load that in, it’s hard, but I think that’s why the Stoics did it, because it helps you get your shit together and be like, “The moment, every single moment you’re alive is just beautiful” and it’s terrifying that it’s going to end, and it’s almost like you’re shivering in the cold, a child helpless. This kind of feeling, And then it makes you, when you have warmth, when you have the safety, when you have the love to really appreciate it. I feel like sometimes in your position when you mentioned armor just to see death, it might make you not be able to see that, the finiteness of life because if you kept looking at that, it might break you. So it is good to know that you’re kind of still struggling with that. There’s the neurosurgeon and then there’s a human, and the human is still able to struggle with that and feel the fear of that and the pain of that. Yeah, it definitely makes you ask the question of how many of these can you see and not say, “I can’t do this anymore”? But I mean you said it well, I think it gives you an opportunity to just appreciate that you’re alive today and I’ve got three kids and an amazing wife, and I am really happy. Things are good. I get to help on a project that I think matters. I think it moves us forward. I’m a very lucky person.…

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