What Does it Mean to be Spirited?
Published April 02, 2021 · 3:21 · 253,919 views
About This Video
The channel's thesis statement in video form. Van does not define spiritedness with a dictionary entry. He defines it by showing it: a child who learned to walk eight weeks ago covering nearly a mile today, a dog who never lost the instinct, a man who read Shop Class as Soulcraft and thought, yeah, that is me. All children are spirited. When they lose it, they are no longer children.
The title's question mark matters. Van is not declaring what spiritedness is. He is investigating it, and the investigation is ongoing. Every subsequent video on the channel is a data point: each repair, each road trip, each philosophical tangent adding texture to an answer that never quite completes itself. I love that about this project.
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