Courage, Fear & Danger

1:11 - Courage isn't about a simple absence of fear
3:14 - Courage is a capacity we develop over time
4:47 - Why life itself is already dangerous, and calls for courage
7:25 - Developing a taste for strategically dangerous experiences
9:58 - Developing the courage to be what we are
11:06 - The cold caress of death
13:31 - Facing our most primitive fears: Death, suffering & rejection
16:04 - Our paradoxical fear of being brilliant & powerful
19:07 - What's really the alternative to becoming courageous?
20:20 - Learning to choose growth over fear

[@docjohnson2874]

Yet again, another insightful talk.....but I must take exception....my slippers are NOT pink....everyone know that bunnies are white with little pink ears......as you point out, life is a constant fashion risk .....take the jump!!!

[@ericdodson2644]

Dude... brilliant... I doff my chapeau.

[@johndarnell7917]

​@@ericdodson2644 q1111111

[@projectmalus]

I wish everyone well on their self-actualization path! Being a long time gardener, death is a seasonal affair and really just a shifting of identity, certainly nothing to fear since death is impossible, it's only phase transitions. When fearing for one's loss of identity, keep in mind the constructed nature of that identity...like a flower, part of the beauty is it's ephemeral nature. Thanks for the video.

[@ericdodson2644]

Yeah, I agree that everything is more beautiful and more worthwhile precisely because it's ephemeral. And that would include our lives themselves. And yeah, I imagine that gardening can really bring you into an acute awareness of that. Anyhow, it's good to hear your "voice" again, Proiectus Malus. Eric D.

[@nicoledodson3390]

Good video Babe

[@ericdodson2644]

Thaannkkksss... to the lovely and talented Mrs. Dodson !!

[@jacobstyrlin7169]

I have terminal cancer and I know my time is coming soon. I was only 25 years old when I got my diagnosis, but the scar I got after my surgery made me feel ashamed, because I felt weak. I wanted to save people from feeling bad because I will die so I try to hide it as best I can. But after this video and a lot of self-inspection, I know I have to face life's hard school and become brave. I simply have to open up completely, because I have nothing to lose.

[@joseandrada264]

Nothing to be ashamed of

[@HieuNguyen-bx3lo]

The talk give me methods/skills to deal with my anxieties. Many thanks as always.

[@mattelgin]

I appreciate your commitment to existential truth, and your use of humor. Be well, Eric. Please keep the goods coming.

[@ericdodson2644]

Well, thanks, Matt. It's good to hear your "voice" again. Anyhow, I suspect that you're able to perceive my commitment to existential truth mostly because the same thing resides in your own being. Some of your past comments have certainly led me to think that. Anyhow... good luck with the ongoing adventure. Eric D.

[@mattelgin]

@@ericdodson2644 Thank you, Eric, I am committed to my inquiry, being a witness to the inquiry of others, and I return again and again to your videos for grounding and guidance.

[@Someone-id3qx]

I have seen the light...and it is Eric Dodson....and it is good👍

[@ericdodson2644]

Ha ha... well thanks. But I'm actually a bearer of darkness, too. But in any case, thanks for watching & commenting. Eric D.

[@alie8899]

Hello Eric first time sending you a comment on a video. Finding your channel this year has been a great way to deal with my quarter-life crisis lol. I can't express to you how much these videos and your lecture series have been a blessing to listen to. But I digress, I've recently been thinking a lot about growing older and filling the shoes of my father. With the 30-year looming over, the question of ageism has popped up into my mind. I believe ageism is perhaps one of the biggest unspoken problems we face on a micro and macro level, internally and externally. I feel as though it cuts in both directions, young and old. yet this weird transition I am in makes it feel like I'm lost in the fog. A strange form of limbo I've never experienced, which one I've meditated on explained how a lot of my peers seem to handle this process. Dr. Jordan Peterson talk a lot about the Peter Pan effect. But still I feel like there's something I'm missing here. I would love to hear your perspective on this. Thank you again Eric for reminding me to take care of my soul.

[@ericdodson2644]

Hi Ali. Well, a lot of people struggle with those big birthdays, mostly because they demarcate boundary-lines in our lives. I remember that the one that freaked me out was 25... mostly because it definitely felt like childhood was over. Of course, all of those liminal moments carry a slight reminder of our mortality, too. Each one lets us know a little more definitively that we're here for a limited time, and that the clock is always running. Personally, I just passed the 60-year boundary (last Summer). However, I've discovered that the later big birthdays seem to get easier. Maybe that's just because we get used to them over time. But yeah... I agree that age-ism is a fairly big problem. And I think it's especially problematic insofar as our culture tends not to value getting old, or the benefits that can accrue from having experienced quite a bit of life. In our present day, it usually takes the form of the "Okay boomer" syndrome. But if I had any advice to you, it would be to keep holding onto the bar... to keep enjoying the ride as best you can, with the faith that each decade will have its boons and its banes... and that it's all just part of the human adventure. So, you might as well enjoy it.... Just a thought. Eric D.

[@alie8899]

@@ericdodson2644 We are always in a state of change, transitioning night by night. I do Wonder however if technology has had an impact on that change, or how we humans perceive it, with its rapid evolution. Just seems like things have accelerated to an unnatural degree. With that said I want to thank you for your reply and your advice I will hold on. With great courage and responsibility. Hope the weekend is bright, you certainly made my weekend brighter!

[@mikejarrells431]

Thanks. I've been on this journey a few years. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Enjoy & good luck on your journey!

[@assholejohn]

Read what Marianne Williamson says when she says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but that we are most powerful. You'll love it Eric

[@ericdodson2644]

Well, thanks for the pointer, AHJ. I haven't read her commentary on that poem before, so I'll go find it. Thanks. Eric D.

[@assholejohn]

@@ericdodson2644 You know I was kidding 😂😂. Keep thinking and posting and I'll keep watching.

[@ericdodson2644]

@@assholejohn Oops... sorry... I guess I didn't get the joke.

[@assholejohn]

@@ericdodson2644 17:03 but you yourself were the one to reference it lolll That's why I was kidding.. Hey seriously, Eric, could I ask you a question, either here, or through some text format? I won't take much of your time and I'm sincere. No surprises as I'll let you know upfront that is about the race talk in the world. Thanks.

[@Noise-Conductor]

Wow! I've been saying to myself "I'm gonna be dead one day" for years as a motivator for living a more fuller life.

[@neerajkmanoj90]

Although I have been watching a lot of your contents for the quite some time now, I couldn't resist myself this time from leaving my first comment just to let you know that your actions affect me in a meaningful way. I'm forever grateful for your efforts in bringing to light the obvious truths that we often neglect. Thanking you with all my heart. :)

[@miguelanza8228]

Great Teacher!! gracias

[@ericdodson2644]

Pues... muchas gracias a Ud. por mirar mi video, y por comentar tambien. ¡Agradecimiento! Eric D.

[@miguelanza8228]

@@ericdodson2644 me alegra confirmar tu buen español que ya escuché en alguno de tus vídeos. Gracias de nuevo por tus discursos tan auténticos y recordarnos cuidar nuestro alma en tiempos revueltos. Un abrazo

[@ericdodson2644]

@@miguelanza8228 Si, siempre me alegra hablar español. De hecho, a veces prefiero español a ingles, especialmente porque español es mas logico, casi siempre. A veces me gustaria hablar solo español, porque ingles me parece tan loco. Pero parece que el mundo tiene otras ideas y planes para mi. Ja ja. Supongo que... asi es la vida. Y, si... te mando un abrazo desde los EE.UU. (¿De donde eres tu?)

[@miguelanza8228]

Soy de Navarra, España.. cerca del país Vasco. Pero suelo viajar a Japón porque allí trabajo y hablo el idioma (ahora difícil con el Covid). I feel confortable listening to you in english, but in spanish would be BEST! Jaja el inglés es un idioma divertido y muy flexible. It sharps creativity, in my opinión!

[@benjamindover4337]

Thanks for doing these videos Eric. Such food for thought means a lot to me and I value it greatly.

[@chiefrocca994]

Beautiful wisdom, man. Many, many thanks.

[@robjfulton]

awesome. thank you

[@aminemessak8014]

Hi, Thank you so much for this rich content.Um, Could you please talk about mathematics in your next video, you talked about Latin and how it helped you fulfil your life and acquire a better understanding of many things. I would love if you do the same with maths. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us. :)

[@ericdodson2644]

Well, yes, the topic of Mathematics is definitely on my list. At this point, I'm not sure if I'll do that one next, or the topic of how our dreams & fantasies turn into nightmares. Probably I'll just take direction from the Muses, as usual. In any case, thanks for the cool topic. Gratitude. Eric D.

[@gazrater1820]

Dr D love it 🎯👌

[@reuben9548]

I love these videos so much! I hope you're never discouraged by view count because these mean the world to me :)

[@nasseh3587]

Hi Sir. Hope you are doing well and staying safe during these trying times. I'm a huge fan of the channel. It would be amazing if the audio from your videos on this channel and your lectures could be made available in a podcast format. Would be really good to listen to on walks and commutes.

[@ralphnisell5008]

Hej Eric! I think I have a suggestion to you regarding a video lecture. It is about the two major driving forces, as I see it, behind all actions and activities as we as humans take and perform. The first word concept is of course “love” and the other is the counterword to love, but it is not hatred, but instead “fear”, I would say. Thus, I think it would be wonderful to hear you discussing and explaining how love and fear (if you agree, but I hope and think you do) are the two true drivingforces (is that the correct word?) behind more or less all our daily actions and decisions. And why it is so. Wish you a good day and hope you will consider this suggestion. If you choose two (or three?) other words I still look forward to hearing to your talk on this subject. Or perhaps have you already performed a video on this topic that I yet have not listened to?! Many Regards, Ralph Nisell, Stockholm Sweden

[@saritajoshi1737]

Have you had experience with what's described in Buddhism as "Jhanas"? If so, can you make a video on it or recommend a book perhaps. Thanks!

[@joseandrada264]

We are so basic, so fragile ,I wonder who designed the human beings...

[@ocamtille9114]

what does the cap mean?

[@ericdodson2644]

Well, it mostly means that my hair is out of control, as it so often is during the Corona Apocalypse. However, it also says, "Meow" on the front. I like that because it seems like such an absurd statement to offer the world. So, from that point of view, it's probably an expression of my offbeat sense of humor.

[@joekhoury17]

Hi, Eric. Me and a creative partner are producing a documentary that investigates the role of technology and AI in our lives and in our society from a phenomenological lens. We think you'd be a perfect interviewee as we make our way through Georgia next month. Do you have a preferred email I can send details to about our film and setting up a potential interview? Thanks.

[@joseandrada264]

Don"t fear the reaper,as the song says ,you are rocker 😂

[@pendejo6466]

How much courage does it take to be a (literal) pendejo? Is pendejo-ism encouraged in academia? Is pendejo-ism nurtured in the womb, or is socially activated?

[@ericdodson2644]

Well, if I remember my Spanish etymology correctly, "pendejo" in its most literal sense refers to a "pubic hair." As such, a literal pendejo would be on the order of an inanimate object, which in turn would mean that pendejos can't be courageous in the first place. It would be like asking if a clump of dirt can be courageous. However, in the case of a *figurative* pendejo... I believe that as with most interesting human phenomena, pendejoism would be the product of *both* nature and nurture -- *both* an innate predilection for it, as well as a favorable environment. As an erstwhile academician, I would say that today's academic world doesn't encourage *generalized* pendejoism. But it *does* encourage the very specific form of pendejoism whose hallmark is self-righteous, ideological zealotry. Anyhow... I hope your travels are going well. Stay safe, my friend. Eric D.

[@WebHackmd]

You see, You've become the Jesus for these searching for meaning people, your religion is gaining ground. Either way, yours remain the prayers of an organism in need of affirmation of life. Courage is precisely a quality of organisms capable of surviving and procreating more than others and it is seen as a value, and it gives meaning, because it presupposes the meaning of existence, if there is someone who struggles and suffers in order to survive, it must mean that it is important to exist. But who knows what it feels like to be a puppet of evolution, it must feels great.

[@ericdodson2644]

Hmm... I'm not sure whether you're espousing some sort sociobiological perspective or not. If so, well, yeah, it's always possible to see life that way. That's not really my kink, but if it's yours, then go for it. As for forming a new religion... well, I'm definitely too lazy for that. Becoming the next Jesus is way too much ambition and hard work for me. Personally, I'm just trying to have a good time, and help a few other people have a good time, too. So it goes...

[@WebHackmd]

@@ericdodson2644 But does yours trying to have a good time has anything to do with reality? It is the truth of the condition of living beings in accordance with well-being if one becomes aware of it? Do you know what are the biases of the existing, of the one who was born to live? One of this could be precisely trying to find an inner balance, which is obtained by correctly responding to psychological and narrative needs, these answers, regardless of whether they are true or false , they are considered true by the organism if they have a positive effect, it is the basis of the creation of myths. But, again, this lingering in the mood states of the organism, is anchored to something true, or are they just stories that the narrator loves to tell himself so much since he came down from the trees and started walking on two legs and making himself a lot stories. To get out of all this mess, one would have to put oneself outside oneself, depersonalize oneself, derealize oneself, and position oneself as an object of the world, as studyable as any other object in the world, governed by its laws. The sensations of pleasure and pain are evolutionary stratagems to guide the organism in its tasks, and the organism mistakenly assumes that these are "its own", that love started for whatever reason belongs to me, is made for my happiness , but this remains a mechanism to guide the organism in carrying out an activity, that is procreation, and to make this activity carry out it must be pleasing to you, therefore the organism remains a puppet guided by pleasures and pain, you seem to be driven by pleasure, it's okay. If the organism were able to free itself from these guides, it would cease to exist, because this is how life is sustained.But the fact remains that all this noise has to do with producing pleasure effects in the organism assuming certain beliefs about existence, but the positivity of effect has nothing to do with reality.The laws that guide the organism are transcendental to the organism, but he mistakenly assumes that they are his own, for the good of the individual, when in reality there is only a puppet that follows ends beyond the self.

[@WebHackmd]

It always seems surprising to me to note how people who are a little studied, and should understand a little more, remaining detached and disenchanted, come to the end, however, to drink all the same things, drunkenness seems to be the inevitable end point of the existing, But I open the video and, sorry for the frankness, I only see a "clown", a machine, and it scares me a little.

[@ericdodson2644]

@@WebHackmd Well, from my point of view, we don't actually know very much about what reality is in the first place. And the idea that we do know enough about it is mostly just one of our typical, self-congratulatory fantasies. Consequently, reality to me is mostly a locus of inquiry into the unknown, and perhaps the unknowable... an ongoing unfolding of mystery. So, I'm not one to buy into the whole, "We're just organisms following the dictates of evolution" position. Yes, at one level that's part of life. But the point is that it's not the whole of life... or even the most important part of it. I of course realize that there's always a skeptical position from which we can see every facet of our lives as an expression of the crudest of nature's forces. But to me, doing that doesn't generate much fruitful understanding of our lives. For instance, if you want to understand the experience of falling in love, is it really best to say that it's just DNA's way of trying to replicate itself... that all of the pleasure, rapture and ecstasy of love is really just a kind of illusory facade for a set of mechanical, deterministic forces? Doesn't that sort of account fail to capture all of the experiential texture, subtlety and charm of the experience -- y'know, all of the stuff that makes it so worthwhile in the first place? And as for clowns and machines... well, is there something wrong with clowns and machines, such that you would be frightened by them? After all, without laughter wouldn't life be severely diminished? And isn't there something clownish about life itself? And without machines, well... would we even be able to have this interchange (via Internet)? Eric D.

[@WebHackmd]

@@ericdodson2644 You try again to make an escapism in "sentimentalisms" and "emotionalisms", you see, the richness of the things that the organism feels is irrelevant, they are made on purpose, human beings follow their direction, not even knowing where these lead, because the animal does not know about the end of sex, it follows the pleasure that if realized it will fulfill the end, and new arrivals come out of it, but the human has developed consciousness, and this should allow him to observe himself, and the things to which lead his own actions, then he might conclude that yes, like the rest of the animal kingdom he is a puppet of evolution, but, unfortunately, he is also gifted with imagination and ability to story-telling, so what he does is to assume that one's own free individual ends coincide precisely with evolutionary ones, indeed, it is just a coincidence, this has been reached deliberately, on the other hand, since the conscious life cannot assert itself otherwise, it ends up coinciding with the unconscious, but denying that it is dominated by it, but masters in this case. In this a thought experiment works very well, imagine if we could create a living being in the laboratory, we would program it so that it will experience heavenly and very rich pleasures while doing the house cleaning, now, he will end up making the programmed will coincide with his own free choice to follow pleasure, not even aware of the fact that in principle that pleasure exists for ends other than the self, for an external purpose, it is irrelevant that it is for the species, for the genes, for the human being, the point is that it is a objective external to the individual, of which he is not even aware. The point is; how can this new living being say that it is meaningful to be a domestic house cleaning, he was built to find these activities meaningful, they do not depend on an illusory inner self. At the end of your commentary you fall back into life-affirming considerations, "'there is something wrong", "the existence of this allows you to experience this", when I try to describe reality detachedly, and have a meta description of it. narrative, because the human being being enmeshed in the narrative does not understand the laws that govern the plot, he simply lives it. I mean, you live in a framework that leads you to see things that way, but I know this framework, and it is predictive of human behavior. My framework is the description of that framework, so elusive to the one who exists. bye, have fun with the new followers, however, they seem a bit inebriated and in need of confirmation and reassurance, who knows why.

[@aussiebeermoney1167]

lol anyone who think we live in 'fearful times' doesn't have a good grip on reality or history. good job destroying your cred with dramatic nonsense

[@ericdodson2644]

Um... are you coming-on to me? If so, I have to tell you that I'm *very* happily married. Sorry.

[@aussiebeermoney1167]

@@ericdodson2644 you don't need to dig that hole deeper

[@ericdodson2644]

@@aussiebeermoney1167 Whew... that's a relief.

[@kevinhornbuckle]

Why such unkindness? These times are something to fear. Disease, civil unrest, poverty, environmental instability. Eric is courageous to publicly speak about the unspeakable.

[@aussiebeermoney1167]

@@kevinhornbuckle oh, so I'm being unkind and you are morally superior for accepting his unfounded dramatisation uncritically. okay.