Choices. We all have to make them in this life. I'm in Vienna right now, in Austria. And I have just realized that four days is not a long time to be in a city this big. And I have to make a choice. Do I spend all my time making a video about Vienna? Or do I spend my time meeting people and creating memories? And just enjoy my time here. And that's a hard choice. And that's making me reflect on choices in general. There are hard choices, there are easy choices. Sometimes we are aware of the choi
ces we make. Sometimes we are less aware of them. And yeah, that's what I want to spend my time here in Vienna thinking about. When I go somewhere that I have never been before, it makes me feel like I'm a ghost almost. I have no ties to the city. None of these people know me. I have no obligations. I can walk down the street almost like I don't exist. Right until I start talking to someone. Then I become someone again. And you know, that feeling of freedom, of not having to be anyone. It's hard
to be someone. Like all your relations, your profession, your job, your hometown, all these things. They tell a story about who you are, who you are meant to be, what you are meant to be doing. But when I'm down here, I'm no one. And that lets me be anyone. But that feeling of freedom, you know, it doesn't last forever. At some point, it gets overruled by like this feeling of loneliness, I guess. Because if you're not going to be anyone, you're not going to have any relations to anyone. So you
reach a point where, all right, I'm done being a ghost. I'm ready. I'm ready to be a person again. And then you look someone in the eye and you say, hey, I'm here. I'm a person. And I want to hear about your life. And then I can tell you about me. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. It's hard to be someone. Sometimes it's just nice to be a ghost. Maybe just for a little while. It's just... Just so you can appreciate all the things you have a bit more. I think that's why I like tr
aveling by myself. It makes me miss the people I love. It makes me... It makes me want to go home and be who I am again. And that makes me really happy being able to say that here I am in the middle of nowhere, under a bridge, in a city where... I'm no one. You really have equipment. Yeah, I'm always ready. I don't know. I got to a point where I was like... What do you think? I'm just giving the interview right now. But the idea... I don't know. There's something about compatibilism that really
makes sense to me. The idea that free will both exists and doesn't exist. The idea that, yes, hypothetically, we could calculate all of this away until we're all just motion in a biochemical whole reaction in a brain, in a body. But practically speaking, we make decisions. And things change around the decisions that we make. And I don't know. I don't think it's so crazy to think that, in a way, the universe... Responds to our own individuality. There's even theories that the universe is just a f
our-dimensional static painting. And that it's like... I mean, time is just really another dimension. It's a lot of things, but not static. But that's the thing. The whole universe moves. And in the universe, the galaxy moves. And in the galaxy, the planet moves. And the sun moves. Think about a two-dimensional portrait. If you move from the left to the right. Let's just say you're looking... You're looking at a 2D painting and you're moving. Suddenly it looks like it's moving. Even though it's
not really moving, you just have the perception that it's moving. But that's kind of the idea of determinism, right? Is that everything is colliding in each other in a pre-prescribed way. And ultimately, it's all leading to the same fate. If you could calculate this all, we could know exactly the history of the universe. Yeah, and we could exactly predict the future. Exactly. We could exactly predict the future. So, if the universe is all just one big four-dimensional painting that's completely
predictable, then the decisions we make and the people we are, we're basically strokes of color on the painting of the universe. And whatever we do and whatever we become, it's an expression of our individuality. The universe is quite an artsy metaphor. But I mean, that's kind of what it is, right? Like it's a four-dimensional tapestry of, you know, it's fixed in a certain way. Vienna prides itself on its architecture. Vienna is very proud of its rich architecture. Vienna prides itself with its
rich and diverse landscape of architecture, to such a degree that even an idiot like me who knows nothing about architecture can tell something special is going on here. I keep thinking to myself, where are all the normal buildings? Like, especially when you're in like Downtown Vienna It's been four days. I saw some cool places and I met some cool people, but I never really made a decision. I just kept suspending I just kept myself suspended between two possible worlds. The one world where I jus
t gave up on making any video and just focused on having a good time in the moment and the world where I would spend all my time learning about Austria and making a little video. And I was unable to choose. I just never did. And that meant that I never really did any of those things. Because I was stuck in the middle. Why is it so hard to choose sometimes? Decisions can really, really keep us from living the life we're supposed to live. Because they keep us stuck right in the middle between them
. Why are decisions so hard? I mean, they can be. Of course, they're not always hard, but... How come they are really hard sometimes? And, you know, this is going to sound a bit crazy, but just go along with me here. I think that doubt, like being unsure of what to do, that feeling, I think it is rooted in some kind of fear of death. Okay. Whenever we have to pick between two things, two possible worlds, two possible futures, two possible lives, we have to let something die. You know? We have to
let a moment go forever. And it becomes unreachable. It becomes something that is forever out of our range. And because of that, I think that... What's up, guys? I'm doing a little video. Sorry? You want to be in it? Yeah, sure thing. Yeah, you have a great night, guys. Yeah. Anyways, back to talking about death. So about the idea that doubt is fundamentally like rooted in a fear of death. It's because every time we have to make a decision, we have to choose what gets to live and what gets to d
ie. And, you know, I know that when you're in the morning, you're choosing, okay, what cereal should I eat today? I know it seems kind of silly to think that you're choosing the cornflakes. You can't choose because you're, you know, scared of dying. But you know why that is the case? Because we can just think to ourselves, okay, if I don't choose the cornflakes, I'll just eat them another day, you know? It doesn't feel like it's something that we can't obtain anymore. Therefore, it's not somethi
ng that has to die. Where in reality, you know, on that specific morning, you will never be able to go back to that day and have those cornflakes. But we don't feel like that because, of course, tomorrow I can just get up and eat my cornflakes. So it's no problem. That's why the decision is easy, you know? Those types of decisions, they don't make us awfully tired and confused and drain our energy. Right? But with decisions like. What am I going to do with my career? You know, what job am I goin
g to pick? What partner am I going to choose in my life? Should I even have a partner in my life? Yeah, I mean, these big decisions, like what country should I live in? Where should I go? Who should I be? And all that. There are a lot of decisions you know that you only get to make once in your life. And we only get to make them once because we only have this one life. That's why it's hard to choose. Because we know we're not getting that other choice back. That is gone forever. So we are facing
our mortality here. We are facing the fact that we only have one life every time we have to make a decision. And sometimes that is more obvious than other times. You know? The easy decisions, we don't really think about that too much because, you know, I can do it next week. And that's why we surround ourselves with, you know, things that are repeatable. We like to have an everyday life where we see friends, we eat things, we do things that we feel like we can do again. Because then it's not so
scary having to do them. It makes us forget that. We have to die. And that's a nice feeling. And we have to do that. You know, that's the only way we can go through it. We can't think about it every day. It would be too much. But that is why when you have to make a hard decision, you have to be brave. You have to be brave. You have to stare death right into its face. And say, you know what, I'm going to live. And I don't care what price it takes. I'm going to pay the price. I'm going to let som
ething die. And I'm going to live. And it's scary. It's fucking scary. It's terrifying. Because life is so beautiful. There are so many great things. And you want to see everything. You want to taste everything. You want to hold everyone. You want to feel it all. But you only get to do one thing every time you have to make a decision. You can't do it all. Yeah, and that's the hardest part. That's the hardest part. But if you don't take that leap of faith, you will be stuck in the middle forever.
So you got to let it go. Feel all the emotions you have to feel. Cry about it. Yell, shout, scream. But you have to make the decision eventually. Because if you don't, you're never going to live. And we have to live. Come on. We have to live. Look at the sky I’m still here I’ll be alive Next year I can make something good Something good Music Vivaldi
The Four Seasons Porter Robinson
Look at the Sky Timelapse by FilmSpektakel
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