A recent theme in a class I held was longevity. Live to over 100. How do you do this? Now in the modern age, this seems to be very, very topical because increasingly, more and more people are living to a ripe old age. So the concept of getting sick when you’re 50 or 60 and dying is really getting to be passe.
Right? But as I’m giving this class, I looked across the street and there was an electronic sign and it had 3 specific advertisements in it and they rolled in sequence. The first one was about a car, an expensive car, whatever it was. And the advertisement suggested that if you bought this car, you were going to be free, and hence, were going to live a long and fulfilling life. The following one was the body focused on something towards women.
If you took this or you wore this particular makeup, you are going to once again be attractive and free. Hence, through association, going to live a long and fulfilling life. And the final one was some type of medicine, some type of potion. If you took this once again, you were going to live a long and fulfilling life. But all of us know that’s nonsense because freedom is not really associated with life at all.
Life is mostly associated with pain. So we have a kind of a curious situation. Don’t we? We are getting older, and yet for many people, it’s confusing because I’m not going to be free for a very long time. And then they’re telling me now, if you want to live to over 100, never retire and of course, keep your dental health.
These are the big things apparently. So how am I going to live a long and fulfilling life? Well, I think the first predicate has to be, like I said earlier, that life is hard. To be happy is really really difficult. To be unhappy is easy.
So if you want to live a long life, you’re going to have to get to work on you. And then we stumble into those three questions. Once again, why am I here? Me. Now, I could have been a rock, I could have been a bee, a bug, a martian.
It just goes on, doesn’t it? But somehow, I ended up to be me and I have this body. Now it could be a tall body, a short body, a fat body, a thin body, could be a man, could be a woman, could be any sort of different color, but somehow I am me. Lucky to be me. Wow.
Then I get to a point that I realize, gosh, why am I here? Why am I here? Why? And I start to realize that I do have a mission as Viktor Frankl tells us. There’s a reason for me to be here.
I have to figure out what the purpose of my life, of course, is. And then finally, the third question, what happens when I leave here? Now I’m a deep believer in finding a relationship, your relationship with God, Gaia, or the universe. And I’ve read and I’ve experienced it myself. A person’s far happier when you’ve come to your own decision about life, life after I leave here.
Even if it’s as simple as Pascal’s wager that you believe in God, but maybe not. Maybe God doesn’t exist, but I’ll believe for my lifetime. Right? And then I think having answered those questions, get to work on you. Now freedom, of course, is not offered through things.
Now I I was thinking the other day, there’s a fellow by the name of Edward Bernays, and he’s the so called father of propaganda. And what he did was very clever. At the beginning of the century, he starts to talk about products, but products in a different way. So you think to yourself today, Mercedes Benz. When I buy a Mercedes Benz, I think of the feeling that the Mercedes Benz give me.
Not the product, but the feeling it gives me, perhaps, social status, perhaps a feeling of arrogance, superiority, whatever it is. This was followed by Goebbels during the 2nd world war, doctor Goebbels, and he really, to a large extent, tricked the whole German nation to follow Nazism. Right? And once again, propaganda. So if I really want to be free and I’m a smart person and I want to live a long and fulfilling life, I have to stand back and realize that I’ve gotta work on me as I’ve said, and more importantly, I can’t be tricked by the societal nonsense that’s swirling around me.
My life is not just to go to school, and many people now get a master’s degree. But of course, virtually everyone has a master’s which suggests educational inflation, of course. It suggests that the master’s isn’t worth very much. And, of course, if you read what PhDs are publishing in all sorts of areas, social science or perhaps sexuality or God knows what else. You go, wait a moment.
These aren’t very smart people. Maybe they have PhDs but they don’t seem to really be doing something that’s worthwhile for the society. But I wanna do something. I want to make a contribution. Okay.
Then improve yourself and be a model because you can’t change anyone. You can only change yourself. I was speaking with a young woman this morning. She owns a large company, and she has real poise, real presence when she enters a room. And that’s a skill set that all of us can nurture.
Right? If we take a little bit of time, we can become a gentleman or a lady and people will respect us and then our ideas, positive ideas, God willing, then are listened to and are reflected upon. We just don’t dismiss people. We then believe that they are real leaders. And gosh, the world at the moment is really desperate for real leadership, isn’t it?
Not just anger and frustration leading to betrayal and war and God knows what else. We need a situation of understanding and thoughtfulness and peace. And then the human population, the human corpus, can go forward and blossom, can’t it? And we can live fulfilling lives. Many of us then can go past a 100 and really enjoy our existence.
And you know what they say you know what they say. Critical thinking is truly necessary if we’re going to develop our lives, develop society, live past a 100, and critical thinking is great. It’s truly great. So you take care. Have a wonderful evening. God bless. Bye bye.