Van Neistat, the older brother of popular YouTube star, Casey Neistat, launched a YouTube back in March. Coming from a guy that used to religiously watch the daily vlogs by Casey Neistat, I only knew Van as Casey’s older brother that did a TV show with Casey on HBO and that he lived in California. We didn’t really get too much else about him. Casey might have mentioned in passing how much of an inspiration Van was to him. It wasn’t until Casey made a promotional video about Van’s new channel did you really hear his admiration.
I watched the introduction video on Van’s channel and you could see how much of an influence Van is on Casey for being a filmmaker. You could see the bits and pieces of how they are kind of similar to each other during the video. Then certain things pop out about Van really proving he was the one who made the “Casey Neistat” style vlog that so many people were trying to copy.
Just the other day he came to mind and I wanted to check out his channel to see what he was up to and I really liked his stuff. I think because of those couple of videos that I watched recently, a couple of his videos made their way into my recommendation feed on YouTube. I watched this recent one called “Are YOU Spirited?” and I would recommend you giving it a watch. It’s only 3:20 and is a very entertaining watch. It’s good to have some context.
Watching it put me in a really great mood! He talks about what it means to be a Spirited Man. He opened up the YouTube video by saying “The spirited man knows he is a spirited man. You could say this is the definition of a spirited man. The same goes for the spirited woman.” Such a beautiful way to start off this video. He talks about how all children are spirited and this thought clicks with you unexpectedly. He overlaid that line to watching his kid walk. You see kids and they are spirited. He says that dogs are also spirited and you can also 100% relate to that as well.
It’s also interesting that he says when children lose their spirit, that’s when they stop being children. He’s implying that these spirited men exist as “adult looking” to us, but they still have the spirit that they had when they were a child. They never grew out of it. There is just an overwhelming amount of joy among kids and they exist in their own little universe as happy as can be. As a kid, there are a couple of things in life that get you overly ecstatic about. You can’t comprehend things outside of your own universe and you just love it there.
In terms of the spirited people that I’ve come across in my life, he has to be up there because of this video. To me, he created an interesting archetype of a person that I think most people would strive to be if given the choice. You are extremely true to yourself and live life to the fullest possible. Another example of a Spirited Man, Matthew McConaughey. Read his book, or better yet, listen to his book Greenlights, and try to come away from that saying he isn’t a Spirited Man. Another example, you would say that Serena Williams is a spirited woman. A type of person that is playing the game of being human at a very high level. Just an absolute owner of your own domain, while knowing where you excel and have a healthy respect for what you’re not good at.
I thought this was a good watch and hope you can get some value out of this too. To the Spirited Men and the Spirited Women of the world, keep on doing your thing!