Shadowing Practice: The Philosophy of Rick Sanchez - Learn English Speaking with Video
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When you know nothing matters, the universe is yours.
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Rick Sanchez is the smartest man in the universe.
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He can see the chemistry behind every feeling, and the conclusion he keeps coming to is that none of it means anything.
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So why bother caring about any of it?
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The problem is, this is also a man in constant obvious pain, and people who genuinely believe nothing matters don't usually hurt this much.
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So this is a video about Rick's philosophy and whether it really is his at all.
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The Rick everyone knows gave up on caring a long time ago, and there's a reason for that.
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We see his backstory in the season 5 finale, Rick Mirai-Jack, where our Rick, Rick C-137, started out as a pretty ordinary scientist with a wife named Diane and a baby daughter.
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And when another Rick from a parallel universe showed up and offered him basically godhood, he turned it down flat.
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You think it's cool being the smartest man on Earth, but once we give you this technology, you become the smartest thing in every conceivable universe.
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The infinite Rick.
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A god.
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Pass.
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That tells us exactly who Rick was before everything went wrong.
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At some point, he genuinely, openly loved his family and chose connection and love over power, and the universe made him regret it.
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The Rick who took that deal, Rick Prime, took it as a personal insult
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that C-137 acted like choosing his family made him better than Rick's who chose power.
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So he opens a portal and yeets a bomb into Rick C-137's garage
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that claims the life of Diane and their little girl.
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And we find out much later in Unmort Ricken that Rick Prime didn't just remove Diane in that one reality.
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He actually used a weapon that wiped Diane out of every dimension at once.
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So there's literally nowhere left in all of infinity where she's still alive.
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If you're seeing this, you're me.
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Except, you know, less.
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But you acted like you were better, so I killed your beloved Diane.
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Which matters because Rick's cosmic nihilism makes him believe that he can replace anything.
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Lose a planet, hop to the next one.
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Lose a person, find them in another timeline.
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But Diane is the only thing he can never ever replace.
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And that's where his whole philosophy comes apart.
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She's gone everywhere, permanently, and his intelligence can't do a thing to change that.
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And for the next 20 years, he cares about one thing more than he's ever cared about anything else, which is finding the Rick who did it.
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He builds the portal gun specifically for this.
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He spends decades burning through the multiverse, killing Rick after Rick, trying to find the right one.
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And you only give 20 years of your life to something if it matters enormously to you.
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Nihilists don't go on revenge quests that often, you know.
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That's kind of the whole point of being a nihilist.
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But C-137 never finds Rick Prime, not for the longest time.
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Every lead goes nowhere, every Rick he catches turns out to be the wrong one, and somewhere in all of those years of failing at the thing he built his whole life around, something in him breaks down.
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The grief stays unresolved, the revenge keeps slipping away, and gradually the guy who cared too much becomes the guy who says he doesn't care about anything.
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Because if nothing matters, then losing Diane doesn't have to mean anything either.
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And that's a much easier place to live than the alternative.
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The nihilism Rick sells is pretty well rehearsed at this point.
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He's got a line for basically everything.
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Nothing is special, because in an infinite multiverse there are infinite versions of everything, so no particular version of anything is really worth getting attached to.
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Feelings aren't real, or at least not as real as they feel, because underneath love or grief or loyalty, there's just chemistry doing whatever job your body assigns to it.
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And caring is a liability, because the thing you care about most is exactly the thing that can be used to hurt you.
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And Rick understands that move better than most, given what happened in that garage.
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Put those together and you get something that sounds like a complete world view.
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A man who looked at how everything actually works, didn't flinch, and kind of made his peace with it.
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Most people around him take it at face value, and honestly so do a lot of people watching the show.
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The problem is that the guy holding this philosophy is actually in constant obvious pain.
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Morty, do you know what wubba lubba dub dub means?
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In my people's tongue, it means, I am in great pain.
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Please help me.
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Morty brushes it off and says that Rick's just being ironic, which is exactly what a lot of us did too.
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But Bird Person knew that Rick was actually in great pain and doing a terrible job of hiding it.
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So holding onto this philosophy is not really doing him any favors, it's arguably doing the exact opposite.
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And the closest anyone in the show gets to pointing this out to him is Dr. Wang, a therapist in season 3.
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And I think it's because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control.
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Dr. Wang isn't exactly telling him his nihilism is wrong, she's telling him that he's using his exceptional intelligence to escape the grief
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that he's carrying and avoiding the necessary journey of self-improvement.
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She's telling him that it's a choice, and that he could make a different one if he wanted, and the fact
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that he hasn't in 20 plus years says something a lot more uncomfortable about him than any theory of the universe could.
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So, before we take the whole nothing matters package at face value, it's worth looking at what Rick actually does as opposed to what he says,
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because those two things don't match up as nearly as well as he'd like them to.
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Rick built a whole infrastructure around his cosmic nihilism.
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The Citadel runs on a Morty supply chain, an endless stock of grandkids farmed across dimensions
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so their ordinary brainwaves can hide the genius signature of whichever Rick they're attached to.
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Which is exactly as bleak as it sounds.
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Rick helped build the society that runs on this.
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He knows better than anyone what a Morty is worth, which by his own philosophy is about the same as any other Morty, so not much.
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There's infinite of them, which is just another way of saying that he's disposable.
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But as we've seen time and time again, our Morty, Morty Prime, is pretty special to Rick, even though he's technically the grandson of his cosmic nemesis.
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After losing his family, RickC137 moved into
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that empty house years later just to lie in wait in case Prime ever came home.
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Every other Rick out there rotates Morty's the second the current one gets inconvenient.
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Our Rick doesn't.
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When the family reorganizes around Jerry at the end of Season 3 and Rick loses his spot at the center of it, with every reason to cut his losses and just walk into a cleaner setup somewhere else, he stays.
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He stays with a family that isn't originally his, in a life he could replace in an afternoon, and the show never lets him explain it in a way that survives his own philosophy.
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The most honest moment we get on this is in Rust and Rick Laxation, where Rick and Morty go through a detox spa that strips out whatever each of them considers toxic about themselves.
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And one of the things that ends up in Rick's toxic version is his irrational attachments to Morty, specifically.
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You think I give a shit?
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I know you give a shit, dummy.
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Because I know I don't.
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That's Clean Rick explaining to Toxic Rick why threatening him with Toxic Morty is the perfect trap.
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My entitlement, my narcissism, my crippling loneliness, my irrational attachments, they must be somewhere.
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They ain't over here, bro.
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The show pulls the nihilism and the love apart, puts them in two separate bodies, and shows you they were never the same thing.
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He doesn't love Morty the same way someone does when they're at peace with loving a person.
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He loves him the same way someone does whose decided love is a weakness
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and is furious at themselves for having it anyway.
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Which is why it tends to leak out sideways.
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Sometimes it just hides.
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And sometimes it comes out as control.
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In Season 4, Morty gets into writing a heist screenplay, and Beth specifically tells Rick to leave it alone.
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So Rick stages an entire full-scale multi-dimensional heist operation, the whole episode, for the single purpose of making Morty lose interest in heists.
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And the only reason he did it was because he was scared of losing Morty to a life that didn't include him.
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Put that next to season 2's A Rickle in Time, when time fractures and Rick ends up trapped facing a void he can't get out of.
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He has one collar that can stabilize who's ever wearing it, and he gives it to Morty.
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I'm okay with this.
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Be good, Morty.
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Be better than me.
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He says it like a man who has already made his peace with dying.
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It's the same love, but in a completely different flavor, depending on whether he's facing his own death or just the ordinary fear of being left behind.
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Morty isn't the only one carrying this either.
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Beth grew up abandoned by her real father, Rick Prime, and our Rick is the one who slid into that empty chair years later without ever quite filling it.
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When she reaches a point where she genuinely needs his advice, the answer is to offer to clone her.
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I can make a clone of you.
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A perfect instance of you with all your memories, an exact copy in every way.
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She came to him wanting a dad.
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He gave her an engineering problem that he could solve.
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The caring is real, but it keeps coming out as a fix instead of a presence.
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Because presence would mean dropping the whole act, and at this point the act is the only thing holding him together.
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In season 7, Rick finally gets rid of Rick Prime.
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He corners him, takes apart every defense the man has, and beats him to death with his bare hands.
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20 years, the portal gun, the citadel, moving into a dead man's home, all of it aimed at this single moment.
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And before he finishes, Prime tries one last move.
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What's your life without me?
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Let's find out.
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And then it's done.
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Rick walks out, covered in blood, and feels nothing.
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How's it feel?
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Better?
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No?
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Exactly the same?
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Just a man standing in what used to be the entire point of his life, and it's hollow.
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The easy reading of that scene is that it confirms the nihilism.
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He got the thing and it meant nothing.
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Proof that nothing means anything, right?
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But that reading, I think, completely gets it backwards.
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You can only be disappointed by a hollow victory if you expected something real from it.
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is a feeling that exists in someone who can still believe things can matter.
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Rick spent 20 years running toward that moment because somewhere underneath everything, he believed that it would give him something, some peace, some sense that the account was finally settled.
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And it didn't.
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So what actually is he?
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There's a concept that fits Rick better than nihilism does, and it comes from the French philosopher Albert Camus.
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He wrote about what he calls the absurd, not absurd meaning ridiculous, but the gap between a human being who needs things to mean something,
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and a universe that stays completely silent on the matter.
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The nihilists answer to that gap is to give up, to decide, fine, nothing means anything, and to stop wanting it to in the first place.
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Camus thought that that was actually a kind of surrender, because you're still letting the silence win.
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His alternative was to look straight at the gap, not flinch, and choose anyway.
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Decide what matters to you, knowing the universe won't back you up, and build your life around it anyway.
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He called the person who does this the absurd hero.
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Rick was doing exactly that for seven seasons while loudly insisting that he isn't.
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Every single thing he's ever committed himself to was a choice he made in a universe that handed him nothing, organizing his life around something he decided was worth it,
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even though deep down he felt that nothing really was.
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That is a man making meaning the only way it's ever actually made, which is by deciding to, and then living like you mean it.
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Leo Tolstoy also went through a version of this.
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He spent years applying his considerable intelligence to the question of what life means, reasoned his way to the conclusion that it probably doesn't mean anything,
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and then noticed something uncomfortable.
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The ordinary people around him, the ones who hadn't thought the whole thing into a crisis, were fine.
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Not because they'd solved the problem, but rather because they never thought it needed solving in the first place.
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Rick has one of those people in his house.
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Jerry Smith has no philosophy to speak of.
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He has a family he decides to love, a life he decides is worth having, and he's fine.
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He's almost aggressively fine.
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That's not because Jerry is smarter than Rick or has figured out something Rick hasn't.
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Far from it.
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Jerry simply has never made the mistake, or never had the ability, to think that understanding something is the same as being okay with it.
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He just decided what mattered and went from there, facing the absurd.
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Rick has spent 9 seasons taking the very long way around to the same conclusion, through a dead wife, a 20 year revenge tour, a grandson he won't admit that he loves,
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and a victory that turned out to be empty.
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The nihilism was never the destination, it was just what the road looked like for a while.
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After Rick Prime dies, for the first time in 20 years, Rick doesn't seem to have anywhere to point himself.
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The revenge was the last thing he let himself want openly, and now it's gone.
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And what season 8 does is show you what a man looks like
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when he finally runs out of excuses to keep the armor on.
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Instead of having a big breakdown or announcing that he's changed, he just slowly, awkwardly starts showing up more in ways he hasn't done before.
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He apologizes to Beth, and it's actually a real apology instead of a workaround or an offer to clone someone.
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And at the end of the season, he leaves himself a note.
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He knows himself well enough to know that he'd find a way to undo it if he's not careful.
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So he documents the decision.
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He writes himself instructions on how to be a person.
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Season 9 doesn't let this get comfortable, which is the right call, because it shouldn't be comfortable.
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The peace is still fragile.
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He's living alone in a small town under a fake name, going bowling, being greeted like a regular, just a guy who shows up on league night and people are glad to see him.
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And he looks, at least for a moment, genuinely okay.
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That's the Jerry life that he decided to give himself for a little bit of time.
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The exact life he spent 9 seasons being too good for and he finally decided to give it to himself.
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It turns out that that's what he reaches for when there's nothing left to perform.
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A little bit of a vacation from himself.
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And then there's what happens with Morty at the same time, which is maybe the most interesting thread the show is currently pulling on.
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After Fear No Mort, Morty starts to genuinely reckon with how much of himself he's organized around Rick, and the question the show is sitting in is what Rick does with that.
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Whether he engineers another heist to keep Morty close, or whether he's finally capable of letting the kid grow into his own person without making it about self-preservation.
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Because that choice, right there, is the whole arc distilled.
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A man who believed nothing mattered would have no problem letting Morty go.
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There'd be nothing at stake.
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But if Rick is starting to let go anyway
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because he actually cares enough to want Morty to be okay and to grow as his own person, that's not nihilism.
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That's the most basic and difficult version of love there is.
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The nihilism Rick performed for nine seasons wasn't wisdom.
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It wasn't even really a philosophy.
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It was what's left of a person after they've decided that caring about things is too dangerous and painful, dressed up in the vocabulary of a man who's thought too hard about the universe.
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And the reason it's so convincing, both to the people around Rick and to the people watching him, is that it sounds like clarity.
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It sounds like someone who's looked at how everything actually works and had the guts to say it out loud.
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But Rick keeps giving himself away.
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He couldn't let go of Rick Prime.
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He couldn't replace Morty.
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The photo in the wallet.
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The, hey, he finally sends after a whole season of not sending it.
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None of that is the behavior of a man who believes nothing matters.
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All of it is the behavior of a man who put on a costume, and it's for a man for whom things really do matter enormously, but who's spent decades pretending otherwise.
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And I think Camus was right about this.
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The universe is not going to give you a pat on the back to tell you
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that the things you love are worth loving.
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But people build lives anyway by deciding without permission that something is worth it, and putting all of their eggs in that basket, as dangerous as that is.
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The takeaway isn't that nihilism is wrong exactly.
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Sometimes it can be necessary to avoid such pain.
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It's that if you're actually living it, it looks like Jerry, content at dinner, not particularly troubled by the void.
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If it looks like Rick, if it looks like pain and drinking and a catchphrase that really means please help me, then it's probably not a philosophy.
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The braver move that Rick is only now learning isn't opting out of caring about things, but actually deciding what matters, knowing the universe will not back you up, but still going for it anyway.
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The thing nobody really talks about with Rick is what is actually powering all of this.
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The nihilism, the armor, the inability to just let himself be okay, it all runs on one engine, which is a brain that can't stop.
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He sees the mechanism behind every feeling, the code under every connection, and he can't switch it off.
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And at some point, the analysis just consumes everything.
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There was a recent episode of Rick and Morty where his head, or his mind, and his body, or his heart, decide to separate ways for a little bit after an unfortunate accident,
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and they don't want to come back together, because a lot of the time the heart and the brain don't get along too well together.
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But in one body, they kind of have to.
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You might be familiar with this kind of feeling too, that feeling that keeps you up at 3 a.m thinking about something embarrassing you said to your crush.
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It's a loop you can't climb out of.
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You overanalyze what your heart says, and everyone around you keeps saying, just relax, it's fine, just move on to other things.
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But you can't, and you simmer in your emotions.
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Turns out it's not really a flaw, it's a painful way of working on yourself.
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Sitting in your emotions can be dangerous though, and it can often lead to some negative or dark outcomes.
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If you want to know more about that, check out our video here.
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And I just want to say thank you so much for joining us on this journey.
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Remember to like and subscribe, but also, you're taking this journey with me.
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I mean, I'm just a dude in my basement making voiceovers into a camera and a microphone, And you're just a dude watching me.
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Or a dudette.
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Or a non-binary dude.
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But hey, just, I really appreciate it.
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I'll see you in the next video.
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Peace.
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What You'll Learn from Analyzing This Clip
This video is a goldmine for practicing shadow speech—a technique where you mimic a speaker’s tone, pace, and emphasis. You’ll build skills in explaining complex ideas (like Rick’s philosophy) with clarity, using phrases like “the conclusion he keeps coming to” and “that’s where his whole philosophy comes apart.” You’ll also learn to convey emotion through speech, as the dialogue shifts from detached analysis to raw grief. Plus, it’s a great way to practice discussing abstract concepts, which is key for advanced English fluency.
Listen For These Sounds in the Dialogue
Native speakers often link words or reduce sounds, and this clip is full of examples. Notice how “you think it’s cool” becomes “youthink it’s cool” with no pause. Phrases like “didn’t just remove” are reduced to “din’t just remove,” and “he can see” sounds like “he can see” with a soft “n” linking “can” and “see.” Also, listen for the stress in “cosmic nihilism”—the first syllable of “cosmic” and the second of “nihilism” are emphasized, creating a natural rhythm. These details are crucial for mastering connected speech, a skill that makes your English sound more natural.
Say It Like a Native: Mirror the Rhythm and Stress
To practice shadow speak, start by repeating short phrases from the video, focusing on stress and pace. For example, when the speaker says, “Nihilists don’t go on revenge quests that often,” stress “Nihilists,” “don’t,” “revenge,” and “often” to match the emphasis. Notice how the speaker pauses before key points, like “and that’s where his whole philosophy comes apart”—the pause builds tension, making the line more impactful. Use a shadowing site to record yourself and compare it to the original; this helps you spot differences in rhythm and intonation. Over time, you’ll start to naturally adopt the speaker’s flow, making your English sound more confident and native-like. Learning English with YouTube clips like this is a fun, effective way to improve your speaking skills—so hit play, start shadowing, and watch your fluency grow!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who genuinely · else, which is · guy who cared |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've seen · has already made · has figured |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being left · was finally settled · being greeted |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.