David White is a poet, essayist, and writer. He is also the author of the book, Consolations, and the poetry collection, Constellations. In this episode, we talk about the difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim, and how they are different from each other. And we read from a poem he wrote in preparation of his trip to Santiago de Compostela, which is a place of great beauty and great meaning for him, and why it's important to remember that we all have what we need to go there. We also talk about what it really means to be a "pilgrim," and how the word " pilgrim" is often used to describe a person who travels to a place or a place that is important to them, and what it means to travel to something that is not only important, but also important for them to go to. This episode is brought to you by Sam Harris' excellent podcast, Making Sense, wherever you get your podcasts. The first season of my podcast with Ricky Gervais, Absolutely Mental, has dropped, and 11 episodes are available at AbsolutelyMental.org. As always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't get access to the podcast, so there are 8 new ones available here on the podcast so they can get a free account. No questions asked. I love you, listener! and thank you for letting me know what you think of the podcast. . Sam Harris - The Making Sense Podcast. Make sure to check out the podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, wherever else you re listening to this podcast might be listening to something you might be interested in learning more about what we're doing in the making sense of things like that. If you like what we re doing here, please consider becoming a supporter! - And if you can t afford it, become a supporter of us, become one of our sponsors, and spread the word about us on your friends, and share the podcast on your social media platforms. We don t run a podcast. It helps us out there, and we re making it everywhere. Thank you. - Sam Harris, thank you! Timestamps: 1) 2) 3) What's a good day in the life of a Pilgrim? 4) 5) How do you feel about it? 6) What does it mean to travel?
00:12:40.100But speaking of destiny, not only grants us a sense of our own possibilities, but gives us an intimation of our flaws.
00:12:48.880We sense, along with Shakespeare, that what is unresolved or unspoken in a human character might overwhelm the better parts of ourselves.
00:13:00.380When we choose between these two poles of mythic triumph or fated failure, we may miss the everyday conversational essence of destiny.
00:13:13.940Our future influenced by the very way we hold the conversation of life itself, never mind any actions we might take or neglect to take.
00:13:26.520Two people, simply by looking at the future in radically different ways, have completely different futures from one another awaiting them,
00:13:37.860no matter their immediate course of action.
00:13:40.320Even the same course of action, coming from a different way of shaping the conversation, will result in a different outcome.
00:13:50.520We are shaped by our shaping of the world, and are shaped again in turn.
00:13:57.340The way we face the world alters the face that we see in the world.
00:14:03.560The way we face the world alters the face that we see in that world.
00:14:10.320Strangely, every person always lives out their destiny, no matter what they do, according to the way they shape the conversation.
00:14:21.600But that destiny may be lived out on the level of consummation or of complete frustration, through experiencing a homecoming or a distant sense of constant exile,
00:14:37.220or more likely some gradation along the spectrum that lies between, it is still our destiny, our life.
00:14:47.140But the sense of satisfaction involved, and the possibility of fulfilling its promise may depend more upon a brave participation,
00:14:59.140a willingness to hazard ourselves in a very difficult world, a certain form of wild generosity with our gifts,
00:15:09.100a familiarity with our own depth, our own discovered, surprising breadth, and always a long-practiced and robust vulnerability,
00:15:24.440Our destiny is fated, not only by great powers beyond our beckoning horizon, but by the very way we shape and hold the everyday conversations of a familiar life.
00:15:41.640The idea of destiny, as you point out, is, first, it's a term we don't use very often.
00:16:11.620Nor do we use fate very often, nor do we use fate very often.
00:16:14.500These are kind of unfashionable ideas, although in another mode I think people believe or want to believe that the things in their lives happen for a reason,
00:16:30.020But it is interesting to consider this question of whether things in our lives could have been otherwise.
00:16:38.680I mean, we live with this sense of the possible.
00:16:42.880We're given a choice between various options in every moment, really, and it always seems coherent to ask,
00:16:50.960well, what would life be like had I taken a different path?
00:16:55.880But it's at least possible that what actually happens is the only thing that could have happened.
00:17:03.320I mean, in any case, the counterfactual, the notion of possibility is simply a thought that's occurring to us
00:17:11.180as we travel down whatever path we've actually taken.
00:17:15.220How do you think about this in terms of your own life?
00:17:17.320I do feel it is possible to miss a tide in your life.
00:17:24.340And there are great lines by the great German Port Rilke, you know, where he's looking out at the garden in the autumn as things are dying away.
00:17:33.100And he says, he says, no more things will happen.
00:17:37.180And even the thing, and it's about having Mr. Tide in his life.
00:17:42.480And he says, no more things will happen.
00:17:45.120And even the things that do happen will cheat you.
00:17:49.060Even you, my God, and you are the one who draws him daily deeper into your depths.
00:17:54.880The sense, I do remember, for instance, coming to the end of years of hard work towards a particular goal,
00:18:04.240which was a degree in marine zoology, which was no easy feat for me.
00:22:11.780He said, oh, I walk around doing audits of wild wood in England and Wales.
00:22:20.360And I audit, you know, the carrying capacity of these old woodlands and trees.
00:22:25.640And I basically get the opportunity of spending a lot of time in these wild places, counting everything and then putting it together as to how healthy the system is.
00:22:35.680And I looked at him with my mouth open because it was a representation, in a way, of what I wanted in my life.
00:22:45.080And I said, how did you get work like that?
00:22:48.580And of course, I was asking myself, why have you given up on your own dream?
00:22:56.320Although I wouldn't have consciously known I was asking myself that.
00:24:00.700But there was a little drip from the roof above falling into one corner of the flower box and this little stream going through this tiny landscape.
00:24:12.780And, of course, I had nowhere to go, no friends.
00:24:16.660I started working my hands in this ground, you know, and remoulding it all.
00:24:23.060And I must have been there 45 minutes or an hour before one of my flatmates came in and helped me get out.
00:24:30.040But in that time, as my hands were working in that ground, I knew what I was supposed to do.
00:24:36.640And the hardest thing I ever did in the years that followed was walk past my dealer, literally outside the block of flats where we lived, and knock on a friend's door and ask him to take me in.
00:24:49.660And I got taken in, I started doing landscaping, just in a physical way, laboring.
00:24:56.420I went to night school, then I got a degree, and then I got a master's.
00:25:04.400So I do believe, you know, that he could have been wedged in that window and not come to ground.
00:25:11.740And he would have lived out his destiny from the distance of longing through the misery of his addiction to things that represented where he wanted to go on a temporary basis through drug experiences, you know, which can be remarkable in themselves.
00:25:30.020But sustaining them is another discipline.
00:25:32.040But also, I do believe that I could have been sat in front of that fire and not asked him that question.
00:25:43.700And my life, I would have still lived the same life on the way to Santiago, but I would have lived it out through distance and longing and maybe a parallel kind of admiration through reading.
00:25:59.900But perhaps not through consummation, yeah.
00:26:04.400So it's, I mean, I suppose that's what you speak about, Sam, when you talk about volition as opposed to willpower.
00:26:13.960That there's a way of coming into your body, coming into your voice, coming into your speech, in which you have a completely different future than if you didn't do that.
00:26:31.580It just strikes me as fundamentally mysterious.
00:26:36.320I mean, if you pay attention, the mystery never recedes.
00:26:41.100And again, we're always confronted with simply what happens, right?
00:26:47.500The thought that does occur to you, the memory that does arise, the intention that actually becomes effective that leads to action.
00:26:55.580It's like we're driving a car, but we're not looking through the windshield at the future.
00:27:01.520We're looking in the rearview mirror at what's already passed.
00:27:06.020And in some ways, we have more control over the past than the future.
00:27:12.940At least we can change what the past means to us in a way that's decisive.
00:27:18.400And the future is, we really don't know what's going to happen next.
00:27:23.000You know, in this conversation, we have a plan, we have a roadmap.
00:27:26.940You know, I know the words we want to talk about.
00:27:28.760But, you know, thus far, we've talked about very little that has been planned.
00:28:15.980In acting on your environment, you are now creating an environment that is acting back on you, and sometimes in incredibly powerful ways that determine everything.
00:28:27.700Yeah, we have all of these inherited qualities, but we can bring them together in a way which is a kind of catalytic to new possibilities.
00:28:38.180I have one... The only poem that I ever wrote under commission was one commissioned by the Boeing company for the 777 aeroplane after I'd worked with their top leadership.
00:28:51.140And they'd just launched the plane, and they'd won an aerospace trophy, the Collier trophy, and they wanted a poem at the celebratory dinner.
00:29:00.940Yeah. Well, I said to the executive who'd been sent to request it, I said, poets don't do very well under these circumstances, I said, but I'll have a go at it.
00:29:12.540And, you know, I suddenly had this really powerful physical sense of all of the time I'd spent on aeroplanes, you know, in my life of nonstop traveling.
00:29:26.080And the remarkable and biblical scenes you often see out of the window are looking down, you know, over the Mississippi Delta, shining like a national guitar, as Paul Simon said, all of these remarkable scenes.
00:29:41.820And yet, it's equally remarkable how often people have the shutters down, and they're watching something really unremarkable on that little screen in front of them, you know.
00:29:56.420You've hit upon one of my pet peeves here, the fact, admittedly it's been a long time since I've been on an airplane, we're still under the shadow of COVID here,
00:30:04.580but the idea that people would prefer to spend five or ten hours in a dark tube watching their screens when, certainly under conditions of daylight,
00:30:19.140there is a better view of Earth than they have ever seen in any other circumstance unfolding outside that window, it's, yeah, I find that very frustrating.
00:30:29.280Exactly. So, I've often thought that that dynamic is actually because people can't really understand the invisible forces that are holding them in place.
00:30:39.640So, part of the dynamic, it's not the whole dynamic, but part of the dynamic is, I'm actually not here.
00:30:45.700I'm not traveling at 500 miles per hour, 36,000 feet above the ground with no visible means of support, yeah.
00:30:53.820But every now and again, as the airplane drops down, especially as you're coming into land through layers of humidity and temperature,
00:31:04.720you'll often see this solid white line suddenly form around the wing.
00:31:12.540And when you look at that solid white line, you realize that the forces that are holding you in place are actually as solid as concrete.
00:31:20.280But they're actually made up of a conversation between the shape of the wing and the velocity of the air around the wing itself, yeah.
00:31:31.540If you only have the wing, you'll just travel like a missile, you know, and hit your, sorry, if you only have velocity, yeah,
00:31:40.160you'll just hit your destination like a target, yeah.
00:31:44.020If you only have the wing, you'll stall without the velocity, but you put the two together, and you can travel thousands of miles.
00:31:51.540Now, the interesting thing is, that shape has been there since the beginning of time as a potential for human beings.
00:31:59.800The shape of that wing, I forget the technical term for it, but all aerospace engineers know it, yeah.
00:32:07.060Yes, and, but it was only 120 years ago that those two qualities were brought together.
00:32:15.540So this is the piece I wrote, and it's about, it's about holding the conversation at a deeper level so you can travel further, travel to places you never imagined.
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