Bite off a little more than you can chew
You get stronger
And you do that in the gym
For example, when you go lift weights, you lift weights that are a little heavier all the time
And as a consequence, you develop yourself physically and you turn into
Who you could be, you turn into more than you are
[Chorus]
More than who – you are
(Who you could be)
More than who – you are
(More than you are)
More than who – you are
(Who you could be)
More than who – you are
(More than you are)
There's a mythological trope that I discuss fairly frequently about rescuing your father from the belly of the dragon
Or the belly of the beast
You see it in the Lion King
You see it when Simba is being initiated by the baboon and he ends up contemplating himself in a dark pool and then his father appears in the sky
And then in the Pinocchio story
When he's trying to become a genuine human being
Instead of a marionette pulled by other people's strings or a liar or a jackass 'cause those are his alternate destinies
He goes down to the darkest place he could find the bottom of the ocean and finds the biggest monster he can look at and inside he finds his father and then rescues him
You get stronger
And you do that in the gym
For example, when you go lift weights, you lift weights that are a little heavier all the time
And as a consequence, you develop yourself physically and you turn into
Who you could be, you turn into more than you are
[Chorus]
More than who – you are
(Who you could be)
More than who – you are
(More than you are)
More than who – you are
(Who you could be)
More than who – you are
(More than you are)
There's a mythological trope that I discuss fairly frequently about rescuing your father from the belly of the dragon
Or the belly of the beast
You see it in the Lion King
You see it when Simba is being initiated by the baboon and he ends up contemplating himself in a dark pool and then his father appears in the sky
And then in the Pinocchio story
When he's trying to become a genuine human being
Instead of a marionette pulled by other people's strings or a liar or a jackass 'cause those are his alternate destinies
He goes down to the darkest place he could find the bottom of the ocean and finds the biggest monster he can look at and inside he finds his father and then rescues him
Okay, so here's a problem
There's a big problem here
The problem is it's true
[Chorus]
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
God only knows why
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
(God only knows why)
Maybe you're too short or you're not as beautiful as you could be
Or your grandparent was a serf
Likely, 'cause almost everybody's great grandparent was
And you know, you're not as smart as you could be, and you have a sick relative, and you have your own physical problem
Frankly, you're a mess
Frankly, you're a mess
And you're oppressed in every possible way, including your ancestry and your biology
The entire sum of human history has conspired to produce victimized you
With all your individual pathological problems
It's like yes
True!
There's a big problem here
The problem is it's true
[Chorus]
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
God only knows why
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
You're oppressed, you're oppressed, you're oppressed
(God only knows why)
Maybe you're too short or you're not as beautiful as you could be
Or your grandparent was a serf
Likely, 'cause almost everybody's great grandparent was
And you know, you're not as smart as you could be, and you have a sick relative, and you have your own physical problem
Frankly, you're a mess
Frankly, you're a mess
And you're oppressed in every possible way, including your ancestry and your biology
The entire sum of human history has conspired to produce victimized you
With all your individual pathological problems
It's like yes
True!
You know, if you take people and you expose them voluntarily to things that they are avoiding and are afraid of
You know, that they know they need to overcome in order to meet their goals, their self-defined goals
If you can teach people to stand up in the face of the things they're afraid of
They get stronger
And you don't know what the upper limits to that are because you might ask yourself
Like if for 10 years if you didn't avoid doing what you knew you needed to do
By your own definitions, right, within the value structure that you've created
To the degree that you've done that
What would you be like?
[Chorus]
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
(If you stop wasting time)
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
(If you spoke your mind)
What would you be like?
You know, that they know they need to overcome in order to meet their goals, their self-defined goals
If you can teach people to stand up in the face of the things they're afraid of
They get stronger
And you don't know what the upper limits to that are because you might ask yourself
Like if for 10 years if you didn't avoid doing what you knew you needed to do
By your own definitions, right, within the value structure that you've created
To the degree that you've done that
What would you be like?
[Chorus]
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
(If you stop wasting time)
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
What would you be like?
(If you spoke your mind)
What would you be like?
[Intro]
Happiness is fleeting
And suffering requires a sustaining meaning
Happiness is fleeting
And suffering requires a sustaining meaning
That place where the meaning and the fact are conjoined
That's the proper place to lecture from
What you wanna do as an academic is tell your students
About something that you've encountered that you've fallen in love with
And to communicate the love that you have for that
And not to say, “Well, you should read this book.”
But to say, “Well, here's this book, and here's what it can open up for you and this is how it does it, this is what you'll gain from it”
There's something in it that's of unbelievable utility, and you have to believe that in order to communicate it
To communicate that commitment you have to beauty and to truth and to literature
Happiness is fleeting
And suffering requires a sustaining meaning
Happiness is fleeting
And suffering requires a sustaining meaning
That place where the meaning and the fact are conjoined
That's the proper place to lecture from
What you wanna do as an academic is tell your students
About something that you've encountered that you've fallen in love with
And to communicate the love that you have for that
And not to say, “Well, you should read this book.”
But to say, “Well, here's this book, and here's what it can open up for you and this is how it does it, this is what you'll gain from it”
There's something in it that's of unbelievable utility, and you have to believe that in order to communicate it
To communicate that commitment you have to beauty and to truth and to literature
Without that beauty, there's no call to higher being
You know and this is also why I've mentioned to people that they should clean up their rooms
That's become quite the internet meme
But I'm really serious about it, 'cause it's really hard to do that
It isn't just that you clean it up
You also make it beautiful
[Chorus]
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Make it – Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
It's really hard to make something beautiful
Make it beautiful
And it's really worthwhile
Make it beautiful
It's really hard to make something beautiful
Make it beautiful
And it's really worthwhile
You know and this is also why I've mentioned to people that they should clean up their rooms
That's become quite the internet meme
But I'm really serious about it, 'cause it's really hard to do that
It isn't just that you clean it up
You also make it beautiful
[Chorus]
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Make it – Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
It's really hard to make something beautiful
Make it beautiful
And it's really worthwhile
Make it beautiful
It's really hard to make something beautiful
Make it beautiful
And it's really worthwhile