What Does it Mean to be Spirited?
Published April 02, 2021 · 3:21 · 253,919 views
About This Video
Van Neistat's definition of spiritedness comes from Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft, but it does not stop there. In 3 minutes and 21 seconds, Van lays out the thesis that drives every video on The Spirited Man: a spirited person knows they are spirited.
The video opens with children. All children are spirited, Van says. This one learned to walk eight weeks ago and will cover nearly a mile today. When children lose that spirit, they stop being children. All dogs are spirited too. The definition is not about age or species. It is about a kind of self-knowledge that either persists or gets trained out of you.
Crawford's passage is the anchor. Van reads it aloud: "Spiritedness may be allied with the spirit of inquiry, through a desire to be master of one's own stuff. It is the prideful basis of self-reliance." The line that lands hardest: "It is characteristic of the spirited man that he takes an expansive view of the boundary of his own stuff." Van heard that and thought, yeah, that is me. That recognition is the whole point. The spirited man knows.
The video ends with a question it does not answer: what of the spirited woman? What of her? Every subsequent episode on this channel, every repair, every build, every philosophical aside is another attempt at the full answer. This 3-minute video is Van Neistat's thesis statement. The rest of the channel is the evidence.
What Van References: Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford (the source of "the spirited man" as a phrase and the self-reliance philosophy that grounds the channel).
Related: The origin story of the channel · The Spirited Woman · The machine dream was never real
FAQ
Where does the phrase "the spirited man" come from? Van Neistat found the phrase in Matthew Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft. Crawford describes spiritedness as the prideful basis of self-reliance and a desire to be master of one's own stuff. Van read the passage and recognized himself in it.
What is The Spirited Man about? The Spirited Man is Van Neistat's YouTube channel exploring what it means to live with spirit: fixing things, building things, and examining the philosophy of self-reliance. The name comes from Matthew Crawford's writing, and this video serves as the channel's thesis statement.
Are all children spirited? According to Van Neistat, yes. All children are spirited, and all dogs are spirited. Spiritedness is the default state. The question is not how to become spirited but whether you manage to keep it. When children lose their spirit, Van says, they are no longer children.
Transcript
the spirited man knows he is a spirited man you could say this is the definition of a spirited man same goes for the spirited woman
the spirited man knows he is a spirited man all children are spirited this little guy learned to walk about eight weeks
ago and he'll walk nearly a mile today when children lose their spirit they're no longer children also all dogs are spirited
the term-spirited man was probably coined by this spirited man in this book though he doesn't specifically define it
this particular spirited man read this book when this particular spirited man got to the spirited man part of this book
this particular spirited man thought to himself yeah that's me i'm like that a spirited man is what i am and a spirited man
is what i want to be i am a spirited man and here's one of the things the spirited man mr crawford said about the spirited man in general
he said spiritedness then may be allied with the spirit of inquiry through a desire to be master of one's
own stuff it is the prideful basis of self-reliance it is characteristic of the spirited man that he takes an expansive view of the
boundary of his own stuff and this particular spirited man read these words about spirited men in general and
thought yes indeed that is the mark of a spirited man and that is who i want to be but there is more to the spirited man there's more to him what more than what of the spirited woman what of her [Music] you
People Referenced
Matthew Crawford
Books Mentioned
- Shop Class as Soulcraft