Partial transcipt from above video:
Explaining the gap- Now, a good way to understand it is in terms of our existence. Our existence is bound in purpose. This is something that we've been talking about all the time, like when Jordan Peterson talks about the Cog-Sci idea that what you see in the world are purposes. Like what you see in the world are paths towards action. And so, every identity that you perceive is put into a hierarchy of identity, and a hierarchy of purpose. And things appear as either obstacles or Tools in order to get to your purpose. And so, the very structure of the way reality presents itself seems to have at least the possibility of the Fall in it. And what do I mean by that?
What I mean is that if we see the world in Telos, if we see the world through purposes, that is, you know, I have certain purposes that are important to me as a human and I establish my map of the world, the identities that I perceive, in that hierarchy... first of all, then all my perceptions, all my identities, are participating in the sense of "a distance from purpose".
And so you can see how that is akin to "the Fall" which is the perception that there is a gap between my state, and the state that I want to be in. And this is, of course, what Dante describes in the The Divine Comedy. The way that even classical philosophers talk about the relationship the motor of Eros, right, the motor of desire which moves us in our "lack" towards the Telos that presents itself to us, and we find rest in that movement.
So of course, it sounds very abstract at the outset but it's very very practical. Which is, that you know "I have to go to the store to go shopping. I see the door. And now I experience my purpose as a kind of suffering." That is, a very small suffering, but it's a suffering that is, in the sense that I am now not in line with my purpose, I have to cover the gap between what it is that I'm aiming at in my current state. And you could say that, that is a definition of suffering. Because you're not in control of the situation, right? The aim that you have is not manifested in the world. There's a gap between, so you suffer. And that suffering it's a very small suffering, but it is a suffering of Desire that I suffer. I suffer my distance from the door, and now I move towards the door, and once I reach the door, then I am absolved. Like I am healed. I find rest from that suffering.
Now of course, that suffering, you could say, or that "desire" is embedded in more and more desires, so that, you know, I'm always kind of moving from purpose and Telos and desire into other purposes and telos and desires. And so our very perception of reality, and our very engagement with reality, seems to account for The Gap. That's distance between my state, and the state that I'm looking for. Now of course, we can see that in a proximal way, right? Which is, "you know I need to go to the store" and then I have this this little process of let's say "covering the fall" and moving towards the light, moving towards the reason, and then finding rest in that, in that purpose. But of course, you know all of these you can also see in a more kind of abstract way, which is what is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of my job? Is it just to make money? But then, why am I making money if I want to have pleasure? But then that pleasure is serving what purpose exactly?
There seems to be something in us which is constantly yearning. And so you could describe it in many ways. You could talk about the hole, the god-shaped hole in the human being. And that god-shaped hole is that "Gap". It's the gap between the good that I perceive, even in intimation, these higher Goods that I perceive, and my state of distance between the two.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
...It DOESN'T Fall into it!
Rene Magritte, "Flowers of the Abyss"
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