Veritasium is a Youtube channel I watch sometimes. It's mostly about a guy who is really into science sharing that love with the world. It's made by Derek Muller. He's affable and excitable and honest about what he does and doesn't know (most of the time). Which is great. As a guy who likes science and who enjoys learning about how the world works, I can get behind this channel. You should go watch him now. Learn stuff, people.
The link below is for a different sort of video he made. One on Chernobyl and nihilism and motivation.
In the video, Mr. Muller spends some time in Chernobyl, and it makes him think about life and rocks and permanence and our own impermanence as humans. As a nihilist, he believes that we all die and that's it. You get what you get and then you get nothing. And then he says that this short deadline should motivate use to squeeze as much out of this life as we possibly can before we cease to be. He feels that this short deadline should be a grand motivational force for the betterment of... well, everyone.
And that's where I think that Mr. Muller does not recognize that he is exceptional. Because the knowledge of ones own impermanence does not naturally lead to greater motivation. If we concentrate on that end, on the fact that nothing we do in this life really matters from an eternal perspective, then I see grand scale inaction or bad action being the natural outcome. Rather than our short life spans driving us toward selfless actions that enrich mankind, it would spawn selfish actions that enrich ourselves or, more likely, it would lead to endless thinking about how pointless everything is. The statement, "Everything you do and are is ultimately pointless," is not a generally motivating one.
But if the opposite is true, if the people we interact with on a daily basis are eternal, then our day to day actions are, in a way, eternal. And that can lead to some hesitation (as Mr. Muller points out in his video) about the fear of failure. But it can also lead to grand actions of self sacrifice to make the world better for our immortal children and their children. And even in a Christian context where heaven is just around the metaphorical corner, there is a deadline. We only have so many years on this earth to (a) introduce people to Jesus so they can go to heaven too and (b) experience life as we are experiencing it. This knowledge, that we have this finite time to truly affect people in everlasting ways, should make us get up and move. Because we simply don't have time to be lollygagging around. We have heaven to prepare for and people to help prepare for heaven.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, keep your eyes on heaven and you'll do good things on earth.
Finally, in fairness to Mr. Muller, I want to leave you with a video that is more in line with most of his videos. It has a puzzle you can solve. And it is great.
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