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Happiness Is A Side Effect Of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

Happiness is a Side Effect of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

Happiness is a Side Effect of Meaning | Proudly Made in the USA

It's a beautiful day to be alive here at the peak of recorded human history

GO FORTH AND BE MIGHTY!

Lyrics

Now, you may say, "I need some help in this process
And therefore, I am going to find someone else to help me."
It may be a therapist, it may be a clergyman, it may be a guru
It may be any kind of person who teaches a technique of self-improvement
Now, how will you know whether this person is able to teach you?
How can you judge, for example, whether a psychotherapist is effective, or just a charlatan?
How can you judge
Whether a guru is himself spiritually wise, or merely a good chatterbox?
Well, of course, you ask your friends, you ask his other students, or patients
And they're all, of course, enthusiastic
You have to be enthusiastic when you bought something expensive
If you bought an automobile, which turned out to be a lemon
It's very difficult to admit that it was a lemon, and that you were fooled
And it's the same when you buy a religion or an expensive operation
But what people do not sufficiently realize is that when you pick an authority, whether it's a psychotherapeutic one, or a religious one

[Chorus]
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it

In other words
That this fellow, or this book, or this system is the right one is your opinion
And how are you competent to judge?
After all, if you're saying to this other person or other source
"I think you are the authority,"
That's your opinion, so you cannot really judge whether an authority is a sound authority unless you yourself are a sound authority
Otherwise, you may just be being fooled
You may say, for example, I believe that the Bible is the word of God
All right, that's your opinion
I know the Bible says it's the word of God, but it's your opinion that the Bible is not lying
The Church says the Bible is the word of God, but it's your opinion that the church is right
You cannot escape from that situation, it's your opinion

[Chorus]
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it

[Outro]
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it
You chose it
Now, you see, if you do that
You do at least give yourself a chance
And it may be that when you are, in this way, freed from busy bodies, and being out to improve everything, that your own nature will begin to take care of itself
'Cause you're not getting in the way of yourself all the time. You will begin to find out

[Chorus]
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
For example, no great genius can explain how he does it
The great things that you do
Are really happenings

Yes, he says, "I have learned the techniques to express myself because I had something in me that had to come out
If I were a musician, I had to learn how music is produced
If I wanted to describe something, I had to learn a language so that others can understand me
I need a technique
But then, beyond that, I'm afraid I can't tell you how it was that I used that technique to express this mysterious thing I wanted to show you.”
If we could tell people, if we would have schools, where we would infallibly train musical geniuses, scientific miracle minds, and there would be so many of them
We wouldn't know what to do with 'em, geniuses would be a dime a dozen
Then we would say, "Well, these people are, after all, not very ingenious, you know?"
PhDs, how many of them are there?
Because what is fascinating, always, about genius is
The fellow does something we can't understand
He surprises

[Chorus]
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
For example, no great genius can explain how he does it
The great things that you do
Are really happenings

But you see, just in the same way, we cannot understand our own brains
Neurology knows relatively little about the brain, which is only to say that the brain is a lot smarter than neurology
Yet, there is this which can perform all these extraordinary intellectual or cultural miracles
We don't know how we do, but we did
We didn't have some campaign to have an improved brain over the monkeys, or whatever may be our ancestors
It happened
And all growth, you see, is fundamentally something that happens
But for it to happen, two things are important
The first is, as I said, you must have the technical ability to express what happens
Second then, you must get out of your own way

[Chorus]
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
The great things that you do
Are really happenings
For example, no great genius can explain how he does it
The great things that you do
Are really happenings

How am I to get out of my own way?
And if I showed you a system
Let's all practice getting out of our own way
It would turn into another form of self-improvement
See, here's the dynamics of this
We find this problem, you see, repeatedly throughout the entire history of human spirituality
In the phraseology of zen Buddhism, you cannot get this by thinking
You cannot attain to it by not thinking
As getting out of your own way ceases to be a matter of choice
When you see that there's nothing else for you to do
When you see, in other words, that doing something about your situation is not going to help you
When you see equally that trying not to do anything about it is not going to help you
Where are you?
Where do you stand?
You're nonplussed
And you are simply reduced to watching
You can't
You know, you can’t eat 10 roasts of beef in one day
Can't live in six houses at once, can't drive three Rolls Royces at the same time
What are you to do?

[Chorus]
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know

Well, you just go make more money, put your money back
Invest in something else, it'll make more
You don't give a damn how it's made, so long as they make it
You don't care if they foul the rivers, put oil fumes throughout the air everywhere, kill off all the fish
So what?
So long as you see these figures happening, you're not aware of anything else
So you see, you went out to do a self-improvement thing
Making money, you see, is a measure of improvement, a measure of your economic worthwhileness
Or at least, that's what it's supposed to be, it isn't anything of the kind
But you went out, in other words, for the status, instead of for the actuality

[Chorus]
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know

You do art, you're a musician
Why do you play music?
The only reason for playing music is to enjoy
If you play music to impress an audience
Read about yourself in the newspaper, you're not interested in music
So in the same way, why do I come and talk to you?
'Cause I enjoy it
I like the sound of my own voice
I'm interested in what I'm talking about, and I get paid for it
Now, that's smart in this life
You get paid for what you enjoy
So here's the situation, you see
The whole idea of self-improvement is a will-o'-the-wisp and a hoax
That's not what it's about
Let's begin where we are
What happens if you know, if you know beyond any shadow of doubt that there is nothing you can do to be better?
Well, it's kind of a relief, isn't it?
You say, "Well, now what will I do?"
Because we are so used to making things better
Leave the world a better place than when you found it sorta thing
I want to be of service to other people, and all these dreadfully hazy ideas
But supposing instead of that, seeing that there isn't really anything we can do to improve ourselves or to improve the world, if we realize that that is so, it gives us a breather, in the course of which we may simply

[Chorus]
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know
Watch what is going on
Watch what happens
Nobody ever does this, you know
Nobody ever does this, you know

Therefore, it sounds terribly simple, it sounds so simple that it almost looks as if it isn't worth doing
But have you ever just watched?
Watch what's happening and watch what you are doing by way of reaction to it
Just watch it happen, and don't be in a hurry
To think you know what it is
In other words, people look, so that's the external world
Oh? How do you know?
The whole thing, from a neurological point of view, there's a happening in your head
That you think there is something outside the skull is a notion in your nervous system
That may or may not be, but it's a notion in your nervous system
You think this is the material world
Well, that's somebody's philosophical idea
You think it's spiritual
That too is somebody's philosophical idea
This real world is not spiritual
It is not material
The real world is simply…

So could we look at things in that way, without fixing labels and names and gradations and judgments on everything?
But watch what happens
Watch what we do
But watch what happens
Watch what we do
It's instructive to go to a professional professors' meeting
In my field, which is philosophy, you got to a congress of philosophers
And you'll find, when they all get together in the bar or in the restaurant, in somebody's room
The one thing they don't talk about is philosophy
It is very bad form indeed to show interest in philosophy among your colleagues
The same is exactly true in clergy gatherings. They don't talk about religion
What they both talk about is politics, church politics and academic politics
'Cause it's bad form to be brilliant on a faculty, because it outclasses your colleagues
Therefore, faculty people tend to cultivate

[Chorus]
The studied mediocrity
(Studied mediocrity)
The studied mediocrity
(Studied mediocrity)

And you gotta watch out for that
I mean, if you get mobs of students coming to your lectures
You get pretty black looks from your colleagues
But you see, what it is
It's scholarship about scholarship, and not scholarship
Just as learning because learning is good for you is irrelevant to learning
The whole idea of improving yourself by learning is irrelevant to the learning process
And in the same way, doing business
Is doing business
Doing business, such as manufacturing clothes, is a very good thing to do
I could conceive that it would be extremely enjoyable
Something one could be very proud of to make good clothes
Course you need to sell them, 'cause you need to eat, but to make clothes to make money
Raises another question
Because then your interest is not in making clothes, it’s making money, and then you're gonna cheat on the clothes
And then you get an awful lot of money and you don't know what to do with it

[Chorus]
The studied mediocrity
(The studied mediocrity)
The studied mediocrity
(The studied mediocrity)
So, let's look at this thing from another point of view, which you will at first think highly depressing
Let's supposing we can't do anything to change ourselves
Suppose we're stuck with it. Now, that is the worst thing an American audience can hear
There's no way of improving yourself, because every kind of culture in this country is dedicated to self-improvement
Just take jogging, that deplorable practice
It's a very nice thing to run
And to go dancing across the hills at a fast speed
But these joggers (imitating shoes hitting pavement)
Shaking their bones, rattling their brains, running on their heels
There's a grimness about it. It's determinately good for you
Why do you go to school?
The whole point of coming to school is that you're interested in something
You don't come to improve yourself
The trouble is that the schools got the wrong idea
They gave people honors for learning
The reward for studying French should be the ability to speak French and enjoy reading French
And having fun with French people
But when you get a degree for it, then the degree becomes the point
In a game of one-upmanship
And of course, one-upmanship is the main business of the educational community today
You learn all the rules of how to be a good professor
How to be a good professor

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