The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 12 Rules Hamilton： Courage

00:00:00.000 Oh, Maya. Maya. She loves being cool. 21 degrees is her favorite number. God, she's the coolest, especially at night. So I raise the temp at 10 p.m. because she gets chilly when she sleeps. Maya loves using less energy. And I love Maya. We're basically besties.

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00:00:30.000 What is the future of energy? Find out on Energized, a new podcast from GZero Media's Blue Circle Studio and Enbridge. I'm JJ Ramberg, and I'm hosting the series with Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:44.240 Welcome to Season 2, Episode 8 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson, Dad's daughter and collaborator.

00:00:59.020 Today, we're presenting Dad's lecture at the First Ontario Concert Hall in Hamilton, Ontario, recorded on July 20th, 2018.

00:01:07.740 Many of you guys know, Dad announced on YouTube that my mom had had surgery this week, so we've been dealing with that.

00:01:14.700 This has probably been the most stressed out period of my entire life, and Dad kind of looks like he's been hit with a bus.

00:01:20.720 So that's been our week.

00:01:21.540 But we're staying positive, and it looks like everything went well so far, thank God.

00:01:26.900 There's been an outpouring of support, which I know has helped me with this fairly difficult time, so thanks everybody for that.

00:01:34.780 That's why, again, Dad's not part of this intro, so we'll see how long that lasts, but it looks like things are looking up, so thank goodness.

00:01:43.120 When we return, Dad's 12 Rules for Life lecture in Hamilton, Ontario.

00:01:55.680 Please welcome my father, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

00:01:58.240 Thank you all very much for coming tonight.

00:02:08.360 It's a real pleasure to be here, back in Canada.

00:02:11.580 And on the second part of my...

00:02:16.980 I have a nine-city Canadian tour.

00:02:19.580 This is the second city, and I just came back from Dublin and London.

00:02:23.680 I talked to Sam Harris and Douglas Murray, so that was very interesting, and hopefully those videos will be out in August.

00:02:31.860 That's the plan, once they're all properly edited, for sound quality and all of that.

00:02:36.100 They're not going to be edited for content, just for quality.

00:02:39.580 That's the plan, anyways.

00:02:40.840 So, it's very nice to see all of you here, and to partake in what I hope will be a serious and hopefully useful and meaningful talk.

00:02:54.080 I wanted to talk to you tonight.

00:02:56.100 I thought I'd take you through 12 Rules for Life through the lens of courage.

00:03:01.160 It's a nice virtue to contemplate, a good entry point into the content of the book.

00:03:12.260 And I use these lectures as an opportunity to think past what I've already written and to try to make it more coherent

00:03:19.520 and to try to push my thinking in new directions so that it stays fresh and vital and so that I learn something.

00:03:29.040 Because you can learn something by thinking, which is generally why people do it.

00:03:36.000 So, I wanted to tell you some things, first of all, about fear.

00:03:42.600 Fear is an instinct.

00:03:44.880 We have a separate neural circuit for fear.

00:03:48.500 It's the circuit that's affected by drugs that you might take, like alcohol.

00:03:53.560 Because alcohol is a very powerful anti-anxiety agent.

00:03:57.020 Anxiety and fear are very similar.

00:03:59.280 Technically, people think of anxiety as a fear of something that's somewhat non-specific.

00:04:04.260 You know, you might feel anxiety about going to a party or about a new job or something like that.

00:04:08.620 Where you might have a phobia, might be afraid of spiders or snakes or mice or elevators.

00:04:17.420 Or being exposed out in the outside world.

00:04:21.040 That would be agoraphobia.

00:04:21.860 So, fear is usually of something specific and anxiety is of something more general.

00:04:27.420 But, in any case, we have a fear circuit.

00:04:30.780 It's very old.

00:04:31.960 It's designed to stop us from being damaged.

00:04:34.340 So, essentially, you become afraid of things that might damage you, that might hurt you.

00:04:39.600 You become afraid of things that might punish you.

00:04:43.440 And you have a separate circuit for pain, too, which is a response to punishment.

00:04:47.180 So, pain is usually a signal that something's about to damage you in some manner.

00:04:51.820 Or something is damaging you in some manner.

00:04:53.760 That's more accurate.

00:04:54.660 And pain can be staved off with opiates, right?

00:05:02.540 Those are technically analgesics.

00:05:04.780 And fear and anxiety can be staved off by anxiolytics, technically speaking.

00:05:10.580 And those include alcohol and benzodiazepines like Valium, Xanax and so forth.

00:05:15.760 And barbiturates, which are not very commonly used anymore medically or for non-medical, say, recreational purposes.

00:05:25.520 But alcohol is a drug that people really like because it dampens fear and anxiety.

00:05:31.100 Which is why people...

00:05:32.620 It's one of the many reasons that people use alcohol in social circumstances.

00:05:36.520 Alcohol has a variety of neurochemical effects that vary substantially depending on who it is that's drinking.

00:05:43.420 Because people are differentially sensitive to the neurochemical effects of alcohol.

00:05:48.080 Some people, especially people with social anxiety, who are sensitive to the anxiolytic properties,

00:05:53.440 like to drink if they are in a social circumstance because it makes them less afraid, less anxious.

00:05:58.960 Other people also get a stimulant kick out of alcohol.

00:06:03.100 If you're one of those people that has a hard time stopping when you start drinking,

00:06:07.940 then you probably get a stimulant kick from alcohol.

00:06:10.800 That's dangerous.

00:06:11.620 That's one of the things that can easily predispose you to alcoholism.

00:06:15.240 So if you have that response, beware.

00:06:17.800 But it also means that you really enjoy alcohol.

00:06:20.320 So it's harder to be careful under those circumstances because it's such a wonderful drug if that's the situation that you're in.

00:06:28.500 So you have a separate fear circuit.

00:06:30.280 And the point of fear and anxiety is to stop you when you see things that might damage you.

00:06:35.840 Pain signals that you are being damaged.

00:06:39.100 And fear signifies that you might be damaged.

00:06:43.220 And so it's a newer circuit from an evolutionary perspective than the pain circuit.

00:06:48.440 Because it takes a smarter animal.

00:06:50.900 It's one thing to get the hell out of there when you're in pain.

00:06:53.200 But it's another thing to be wary when you might be in pain.

00:06:56.820 That's what fear is for.

00:06:58.440 And so it's a very unpleasant emotion, of course, although perhaps not as bad as pain.

00:07:02.000 And I guess that's the logical substitute, isn't it?

00:07:07.380 It's not so bad an emotion compared to pain.

00:07:10.320 You need fear to protect you because you can be hurt.

00:07:13.420 So, and there's plenty of things to be afraid of and anxious about in the world.

00:07:17.900 Because not only can you be hurt, you know that you can be hurt.

00:07:21.680 And that's one of the things that really distinguishes human beings from other creatures.

00:07:26.000 We have a very, very clear apprehension of our borders and limitations.

00:07:32.540 We know that even if there's nothing that's making us anxious right here and right now.

00:07:37.140 We know that there are things that might come our way that are quite negative in the future.

00:07:41.860 And so to some degree, part of the reason that human beings are always so conscious, so hyper-conscious.

00:07:46.880 Is because we know that safe as we are right now.

00:07:51.160 Now, something is still lurking around the corner that might do us in.

00:07:57.380 You know, if you watch animals like zebras out on the African veldt, they're pretty strange in some ways.

00:08:04.460 Their cognitive resources and their emotional responses are quite limited.

00:08:09.240 You know, a zebra herd can be surrounded by lions.

00:08:12.200 And as long as the lions aren't in a hunting configuration, the zebras don't really seem to mind the lions.

00:08:17.620 Which seems a little bit short-sighted on the part of the zebras.

00:08:20.360 They don't seem to be able to figure out that those sleeping lions are also the same lions that are going to eat them tomorrow.

00:08:27.700 But I guess maybe the advantage of being a zebra and not caring about the sleeping lions is that,

00:08:33.720 well, you don't have to be nervous except when you're being hunted.

00:08:36.060 Whereas human beings in a situation like that would be thinking, 1.00

00:08:39.720 those damn lions, they look like they're sleeping. 0.99

00:08:42.040 But you know what they'll be up to tomorrow. 1.00

00:08:44.640 And, of course, we do know what things will be up to tomorrow.

00:08:47.840 And that means we can protect ourselves against what's coming tomorrow.

00:08:51.980 But it's at the cost of eternal vigilance.

00:08:55.160 And so that's part of the reason why we're susceptible to drugs like benzodiazepines and barbiturates and alcohol.

00:09:01.980 Because those drugs do help us quell our eternal anxiety.

00:09:06.320 Now, when psychologists first started to study fear, they thought about it wrong.

00:09:15.780 But I'm going to go through the way they thought about it.

00:09:17.840 Because sometimes if you think about something wrong, you think about it wrong in an interesting way.

00:09:23.100 And if you think about something in detail wrong, at least then you can learn exactly why you're wrong.

00:09:29.600 And maybe you can figure out how not to be wrong if you keep thinking.

00:09:33.980 Which is part of the reason, by the way, that free speech is so important.

00:09:37.660 Because in order to get to the truth, you have to do a lot of wandering through error. 0.98

00:09:42.480 And so you have to be allowed or even encouraged to be stumbling around and stupid and careless and objectionable and offensive and all of those things in your speech. 1.00

00:09:54.980 Because if you can't stumble around stupidly, you're never going to be able to think anything through. 0.99

00:10:00.560 Because you'd have to know how to speak properly to begin with about something complex if you're going to do it properly. 0.99

00:10:08.560 And you don't know how to do complicated things that you don't understand properly.

00:10:12.720 And so you're not going to speak about them very well.

00:10:14.880 And so if you get to speak about them at all, which you have to, to learn about them,

00:10:18.160 then you have to be encouraged to stumble around badly.

00:10:22.080 I have this program that some of you might be interested in.

00:10:25.140 It's part of the self-authoring suite, which is a sequence of writing programs

00:10:30.080 that my colleagues and I generated to help people clinically, I would say.

00:10:34.560 We were trying to figure out how we could bring clinically powerful technologies to a mass market at a very low cost.

00:10:44.140 And we discovered through reading the relevant literature and through our own scientific research

00:10:49.020 that if you had people write about uncertainty, then that would make them more productive and more engaged and healthier.

00:10:57.260 Many people have done research of that sort.

00:11:00.080 Not all of it, by any means, conducted in my lab.

00:11:03.560 The first program is a past authoring program, and it helps people write a structured autobiography.

00:11:08.540 So it helps you divide your life up into six epochs and then write about the emotionally significant events

00:11:14.300 in each of those epochs or sections.

00:11:17.460 There's a hint, and this is something to really think about,

00:11:19.900 and it's very relevant to the topic of tonight's talk.

00:11:22.020 If you have a memory that's older than about 18 months,

00:11:25.500 and there's a reason for that, by the way, but we'll say 18 months for now.

00:11:31.520 And when you bring that memory to mind, it still causes an emotional reaction.

00:11:36.040 And I'm thinking mostly about a negative emotional reaction.

00:11:38.300 That means that you haven't fully processed that memory, and it's still weighing down on you.

00:11:45.220 And, I mean, one of the things your brain is always trying to do

00:11:47.520 is try to calculate how dangerous the current environment is.

00:11:50.840 And the answer to that is something like,

00:11:54.520 your brain assumes the current environment is dangerous

00:11:57.980 in proportion to the number of things that have occurred in your life

00:12:00.980 that you haven't been able to figure out.

00:12:03.280 So the more things that you haven't figured out,

00:12:05.840 the more dangerous your brain assumes the environment is.

00:12:08.420 And the price you pay for that is you're more anxious.

00:12:11.400 And not only that, you produce more stress hormones, especially cortisol.

00:12:15.580 And the problem with producing excess cortisol,

00:12:18.040 you need to produce some, it helps wake you up in the morning,

00:12:20.280 but if you produce excess cortisol, that makes you old.

00:12:25.300 And so it contributes to virtually every degenerative physiological process that we know of.

00:12:31.240 And so cleaning up your past is actually a really good idea.

00:12:34.200 You know, if something that happened to you a long time ago still bothers you,

00:12:39.320 the reason for that is that the emotional systems,

00:12:43.140 the underlying emotional systems that help you process the world,

00:12:45.900 especially the emotions that are associated with fear and anxiety,

00:12:48.660 are telling you that you have encountered something in your pathway,

00:12:53.860 in your past that you did not master,

00:13:01.040 and that still would present a danger to you if you encountered it again.

00:13:05.420 And so it's interesting to contemplate that,

00:13:07.740 because, you know, we don't often think about the purpose of memory.

00:13:11.680 We think, well, the purpose of memory is to remember the past.

00:13:14.480 And that's actually not true.

00:13:15.940 The purpose of memory is to extract information out from the past 1.00

00:13:20.440 so you don't do the same damn stupid thing more than once. 0.99

00:13:23.960 And that truly is the purpose of memory. 1.00

00:13:26.160 That is how your memories are constructed.

00:13:29.000 That's how your mind looks at the past.

00:13:31.100 What you're trying to do is to map out the world,

00:13:34.780 and you use your past experience to elaborate up that map,

00:13:37.920 and then you use that map to orient yourself into the future, right?

00:13:41.500 So that's the derivation of wisdom from the past.

00:13:44.800 And so, you know, once you master fire, you don't have to be burned, right?

00:13:48.720 You can encounter truly dangerous things,

00:13:51.180 and you can learn how to master them.

00:13:52.820 And then when you encounter them in the future,

00:13:55.160 they're not dangerous.

00:13:56.680 And so that's perfect.

00:13:57.820 But if you have something in your past, and it still bothers you,

00:14:01.280 that means that as far as your underlying emotional systems are concerned,

00:14:04.740 you are not master of that event.

00:14:06.600 And that bothersome emotion will never go away

00:14:11.020 until you go back to that memory,

00:14:13.440 and you figure out how it was that you were rendered vulnerable in that situation,

00:14:18.140 and what you would have to do now

00:14:20.000 in order to reconfigure the way you look at the world,

00:14:22.540 or the way that you act,

00:14:24.100 so that that vulnerability would disappear.

00:14:27.140 And so if you do the past authoring program,

00:14:29.040 and you do it reasonably carefully,

00:14:31.240 reasonably thoroughly, let's say,

00:14:32.940 then you can find all those things in your past

00:14:37.540 that you haven't mastered or overcome,

00:14:40.160 and that will update you, right?

00:14:42.980 It'll make your map more differentiated.

00:14:45.420 It'll make you more skillful,

00:14:47.060 and it'll drop your stress levels.

00:14:49.200 And it's also a useful thing to do from a conceptual perspective,

00:14:52.760 because as I said already,

00:14:54.360 partly what you're trying to do in your life is map your way forward, right?

00:14:58.440 Because people are forward-moving creatures.

00:15:00.440 We're always going from point A to point B,

00:15:02.940 we're on a journey or an adventure,

00:15:05.600 and you need to map out your journey or your adventure.

00:15:09.660 Well, you need to know where you're going, obviously,

00:15:12.280 but you also have to know where you are.

00:15:14.240 You know, if you're using a map,

00:15:16.520 like an actual map,

00:15:17.860 it's completely useless to just know where you're going.

00:15:20.660 You also have to know where the hell you are.

00:15:23.220 And if you're scattered all over the place,

00:15:25.540 which is really the case if there's a lot of things in your past

00:15:29.560 that are unresolved,

00:15:30.440 then it's extraordinarily hard to map your way forward,

00:15:33.600 because you don't even know where to start.

00:15:35.840 And so, that's a useful exercise.

00:15:38.580 And I often encourage people to do that exercise badly.

00:15:43.880 And that reflects,

00:15:47.380 that's a reflection of what I just said about speech and about thinking.

00:15:52.220 You have to stumble around a lot if you're going to get to where you're going.

00:15:55.040 And so, if you want to write about your past and bring yourself up to date,

00:15:58.440 you don't have to do it perfectly,

00:16:00.060 but you definitely have to do it.

00:16:01.780 You have to confront those things in your past

00:16:04.420 that are weighing you down and making you bitter

00:16:06.960 and making you resentful

00:16:08.080 and freezing you in place and all of that.

00:16:10.920 And it's also the case,

00:16:13.160 and we'll get to this in more detail as we progress.

00:16:16.320 So, the second part of the self-authoring suite

00:16:20.040 helps you identify your virtues and your faults.

00:16:23.160 And it's a funny way of stating it,

00:16:25.600 virtues in particular.

00:16:26.980 We talk about faults in the modern world,

00:16:28.860 but we don't often talk about virtues.

00:16:30.460 It's kind of an old-fashioned term.

00:16:32.160 But I picked it specifically for that reason,

00:16:34.260 because virtue is a useful term.

00:16:37.220 And virtue isn't,

00:16:38.880 it's an unbelievably useful term.

00:16:41.120 In fact, it's fundamentally a useful term,

00:16:43.840 rather than a moral term.

00:16:45.120 Because your virtues are precisely that kit of tools

00:16:49.840 that you have at hand

00:16:51.940 that help you contend with the world.

00:16:54.040 It's best to think of virtues as tools

00:16:55.780 rather than characteristics.

00:16:57.640 And so, if you can identify your faults,

00:17:00.140 well, those are the things that are obstacles to your progress.

00:17:02.780 And so, by your own definition, let's say,

00:17:04.740 that's how the exercise is set up, at least.

00:17:06.740 Assuming you want and need something,

00:17:08.880 you're pursuing it,

00:17:09.820 there's going to be elements of your own character

00:17:11.460 that get in the way.

00:17:12.720 You probably want to do something about that,

00:17:14.360 assuming that you want to get to where you're going.

00:17:17.300 And, of course, you do,

00:17:18.180 because if you didn't want to get there,

00:17:19.700 you wouldn't have posited it as a destination to begin with.

00:17:22.840 So, obviously, you want to get there.

00:17:24.420 And if you are,

00:17:25.640 if you do want to get there,

00:17:27.160 and there are things about the way you're behaving in the world

00:17:29.600 that are in the way,

00:17:30.500 then, obviously, it would be better for you to rectify them.

00:17:33.400 So, that's fairly self-evident.

00:17:35.220 And then, equally,

00:17:36.400 it's equally the case that

00:17:37.540 some of the characteristics that you have

00:17:40.060 that will move you forward into the world

00:17:42.040 are going to be useful.

00:17:43.780 And you should know how to capitalize on them.

00:17:46.100 And you should be conscious of that,

00:17:47.520 because why not be conscious of it?

00:17:49.620 It's useful to know yourself,

00:17:51.800 so that you can use yourself more effectively.

00:17:55.340 And then, the final exercise is

00:17:57.380 the future authoring program.

00:17:59.900 And we've had lots of fun with that.

00:18:02.100 I designed that years ago

00:18:04.320 when I noticed in my class,

00:18:06.340 I had this class called Maps of Meaning,

00:18:10.480 which is about a book I wrote a while ago,

00:18:13.660 which just came out in audio version, by the way.

00:18:15.880 If you like 12 rules,

00:18:16.940 you might like Maps of Meaning,

00:18:18.500 except it's a lot harder.

00:18:20.420 But it's also a lot deeper.

00:18:22.000 So, if you want to go deeper,

00:18:23.640 well, that's going to be harder, obviously.

00:18:26.200 But, you know,

00:18:27.320 if you found 12 rules for life useful,

00:18:29.860 then going deeper might even be more useful.

00:18:32.400 And so, the audio version might be good for that.

00:18:36.700 That's a book about the story of your life.

00:18:40.140 Because your life is a story.

00:18:42.640 And a story is a description

00:18:43.960 of how you move from point A to B,

00:18:45.620 and what sort of pitfalls

00:18:46.760 you might encounter along the way.

00:18:48.160 How you fall apart in your journey

00:18:50.760 towards a higher good,

00:18:52.360 and how you put yourself back together.

00:18:54.640 That's a story.

00:18:56.140 And Maps of Meaning is about what stories are,

00:18:58.920 and perhaps what the greatest story is,

00:19:01.020 which is a good thing to know,

00:19:02.260 since you have to act out a story.

00:19:03.920 You might as well act out a great one,

00:19:06.240 since, well,

00:19:07.960 since you don't have anything better to do,

00:19:09.520 fundamentally.

00:19:11.200 Well, it's worth thinking about.

00:19:14.480 So, because Maps of Meaning was about stories,

00:19:17.660 and because I believe that people's lives

00:19:19.580 are best construed as stories,

00:19:21.820 and perhaps even reality itself

00:19:23.780 is best construed as a story,

00:19:25.780 because otherwise we wouldn't use stories

00:19:27.580 to represent it.

00:19:28.980 So, continually,

00:19:30.400 I had people write out,

00:19:32.520 start to write out the story

00:19:33.720 of their future life.

00:19:36.800 And so, it's kind of an interesting exercise.

00:19:40.860 It's related to rule 10

00:19:43.280 in 12 Rules for Life,

00:19:45.280 which is be precise in your speech.

00:19:48.980 And no one's ever told,

00:19:50.080 no one's ever really told

00:19:51.140 why you should be precise in your speech,

00:19:53.460 but the reason is,

00:19:55.080 for the same reason that

00:19:56.480 when you shoot a rifle

00:19:58.460 at a target,

00:20:00.140 you aim at the center.

00:20:02.580 Right?

00:20:03.120 It's not random.

00:20:04.380 You know, just sort of point your gun 0.99

00:20:05.780 and shoot approximately 0.86

00:20:07.580 in the direction of the target.

00:20:09.160 You specify it as precisely as you can,

00:20:12.900 and then you pull the trigger,

00:20:14.460 and you might think,

00:20:15.360 well, it's a strange thing

00:20:17.000 to use a, say,

00:20:18.880 a military analogy,

00:20:21.160 an analogy with weapons.

00:20:23.240 But it's not a strange thing at all,

00:20:24.780 because if you think about

00:20:25.980 the things that people do,

00:20:27.360 if you think about

00:20:30.720 the dramatic things

00:20:31.760 that people do,

00:20:33.980 we're trying to hit

00:20:34.960 the center of targets all the time,

00:20:36.460 and we love to see people do that.

00:20:38.040 We do that with hockey.

00:20:38.900 We do that with soccer.

00:20:40.160 We do it with baseball.

00:20:41.680 We do it with basketball.

00:20:43.620 Like, the idea of specifying a target

00:20:45.560 and then hitting the center of it,

00:20:46.840 there's something

00:20:47.180 that we're absolutely obsessed about that.

00:20:50.760 We're so obsessed

00:20:51.460 that we'll gather together

00:20:52.420 in huge stadiums

00:20:53.220 and watch people do it.

00:20:55.380 Right?

00:20:55.920 Right?

00:20:56.200 Without ever really contemplating

00:20:58.680 what we're doing,

00:20:59.440 you see a sports team,

00:21:02.240 it's a cooperative

00:21:03.400 and competitive attempt

00:21:05.140 to specify and hit a target.

00:21:09.740 And we're so excited about that,

00:21:11.220 probably because,

00:21:12.060 at least in part,

00:21:13.140 we're built physiologically

00:21:14.340 on a hunting platform

00:21:15.600 and a throwing platform, right?

00:21:17.700 I mean, human beings can throw,

00:21:19.340 and we can throw a punch,

00:21:20.600 and we can throw a ball,

00:21:21.940 and we can throw a spear,

00:21:23.660 and that's a big deal.

00:21:24.660 That's a big part of what we are,

00:21:26.340 and so we're target-seeking creatures.

00:21:29.260 And so to be precise in your speech

00:21:30.800 is to specify the target,

00:21:32.140 and to specify the target

00:21:33.180 is to have an aim,

00:21:34.080 and to have an aim

00:21:34.760 is to have a purpose,

00:21:36.100 and to aim properly

00:21:37.080 is to attain your purpose,

00:21:38.900 at least in principle.

00:21:40.520 And so partly what you're doing

00:21:41.980 in the future authoring exercise

00:21:43.800 is to specify your purpose

00:21:46.200 with your precise speech.

00:21:47.840 And so we ask people to,

00:21:51.480 well,

00:21:52.320 here's another thing to contemplate.

00:21:55.500 We are aiming creatures.

00:21:57.720 We are built on a hunting platform.

00:21:59.740 We like to hit targets.

00:22:01.120 It's possible that we're good at it.

00:22:03.480 And then what that also means

00:22:04.940 is that,

00:22:05.660 well, if we are good at it,

00:22:07.080 and if that's part of what we are,

00:22:08.700 then

00:22:08.880 if you specify a target,

00:22:11.220 you might be able to hit it.

00:22:13.060 And that's a hell of a thing.

00:22:14.960 There's a statement

00:22:15.920 in the New Testament.

00:22:17.120 It's quite a strange statement.

00:22:19.280 And it's a suggestion.

00:22:22.340 And the suggestion is that

00:22:23.460 if you knock,

00:22:24.560 the door will open,

00:22:25.460 and if you ask,

00:22:26.400 you will receive.

00:22:28.000 And you think,

00:22:28.660 well,

00:22:28.920 that seems highly unlikely.

00:22:30.920 And,

00:22:31.480 well,

00:22:31.760 it does seem highly unlikely,

00:22:33.160 right?

00:22:33.460 I mean,

00:22:33.860 sure,

00:22:34.240 that's the way the world is set up.

00:22:35.740 It's like,

00:22:36.080 you know,

00:22:36.720 that is actually the way

00:22:37.800 the world is set up.

00:22:39.400 It's a very strange thing.

00:22:40.560 And it's not that surprising

00:22:42.180 if you start to think it through.

00:22:44.000 Because,

00:22:44.280 I mean,

00:22:44.480 after all,

00:22:45.000 hypothetically,

00:22:45.660 you're adapted to the world.

00:22:47.260 Evolution has been working

00:22:48.400 three and a half billion years

00:22:50.140 to produce you.

00:22:51.640 And so,

00:22:52.400 you know,

00:22:52.720 I think maybe it could have done

00:22:53.880 a better job,

00:22:54.760 but that's not,

00:22:55.760 but maybe it didn't do

00:22:57.740 such a bad job,

00:22:58.860 man.

00:22:59.380 And so,

00:22:59.820 maybe you could attain your aim.

00:23:01.340 And one of the things

00:23:02.340 I certainly learned

00:23:03.180 as a clinical psychologist

00:23:04.320 was that a lot of the people

00:23:05.660 that I saw

00:23:06.260 who were unhappy

00:23:08.240 with their lives,

00:23:09.080 say,

00:23:09.440 in their 40s,

00:23:10.740 and sometimes earlier than that,

00:23:12.180 and who hadn't attained

00:23:13.800 what they wanted,

00:23:15.520 hadn't attained it

00:23:16.620 often in large part

00:23:17.900 because they never specified it.

00:23:19.840 And the probability

00:23:20.580 that you're going to hit

00:23:21.900 a tiny target precisely

00:23:24.540 without aiming at it

00:23:26.300 is zero.

00:23:27.780 That's not going to happen.

00:23:29.120 And so,

00:23:30.000 well,

00:23:30.360 so what would happen

00:23:31.480 if you would aim at it?

00:23:33.220 That's a question.

00:23:34.060 And how should you best aim?

00:23:35.960 That's another question.

00:23:37.140 And that's part of what

00:23:38.060 12 rules for life is about.

00:23:40.560 The second rule,

00:23:41.400 for example,

00:23:42.060 is treat yourself

00:23:43.640 like you're someone

00:23:44.460 responsible for helping,

00:23:46.280 which is kind of a nice start.

00:23:47.760 It's like,

00:23:48.040 imagine that,

00:23:50.060 again,

00:23:50.300 if you're aiming a rifle,

00:23:51.360 you have to put yourself

00:23:52.380 in a certain physiological state,

00:23:54.260 right?

00:23:54.460 You might not take

00:23:55.360 some deep breaths

00:23:56.100 and calm down,

00:23:56.940 and you want to make sure

00:23:57.540 your hands aren't shaking

00:23:58.780 and jiggling and so forth.

00:24:00.160 You know,

00:24:00.320 you've got to put yourself

00:24:01.380 in the right frame of mind.

00:24:03.320 And if you're going to

00:24:03.920 take aim with your life,

00:24:04.960 it's the same thing.

00:24:05.920 You have to put yourself

00:24:06.740 in the right frame of mind.

00:24:08.220 And what's the right frame of mind?

00:24:09.920 And it might be something like,

00:24:11.120 well,

00:24:11.280 you could assume

00:24:11.880 that you're actually

00:24:13.060 hypothetically a valuable creature,

00:24:15.860 even though you might not

00:24:16.600 think that about yourself

00:24:17.560 because you're so

00:24:18.400 absolutely knowledgeable

00:24:20.180 about your own flaws

00:24:21.260 and insufficiencies.

00:24:22.320 But independent of that,

00:24:24.140 you might think,

00:24:24.760 well,

00:24:25.140 you could lend yourself a hand

00:24:27.000 and you could do

00:24:27.560 something good for yourself,

00:24:28.680 just out of the goodness

00:24:29.740 of your heart,

00:24:30.860 you know,

00:24:31.100 like you might do

00:24:32.560 for someone

00:24:33.160 that you cared about.

00:24:35.040 And that's actually

00:24:35.840 very difficult for people,

00:24:37.200 you know,

00:24:37.700 like most of us

00:24:38.460 love someone

00:24:39.140 or a couple of people,

00:24:40.460 at least half-heartedly.

00:24:41.780 We at least manage that

00:24:42.700 with our children.

00:24:43.660 Well,

00:24:44.120 you know,

00:24:44.440 it's hard to be fully committed

00:24:45.880 to something,

00:24:46.620 but generally,

00:24:47.680 generally,

00:24:48.580 we do a pretty good job

00:24:49.760 with our partners,

00:24:51.220 our husbands and wives,

00:24:52.520 and a pretty good job

00:24:53.820 with our children,

00:24:54.880 though it's a little more

00:24:55.640 iffy there,

00:24:56.300 and a decent job

00:24:57.440 with our parents.

00:24:58.880 Well,

00:24:59.160 you know,

00:24:59.320 it's 70-30

00:25:00.220 or whatever,

00:25:00.880 but maybe you can

00:25:01.560 elevate it more than that

00:25:03.680 with a lot of effort.

00:25:04.980 But I don't know

00:25:05.660 how good we are

00:25:06.320 about doing that

00:25:07.040 for ourselves.

00:25:08.260 I would say much less so.

00:25:10.140 And part of that

00:25:10.800 is definitely the fact

00:25:11.740 that we're very aware

00:25:13.040 of our own flaws

00:25:13.900 and insufficiencies,

00:25:15.140 personally.

00:25:15.900 You know more about 1.00

00:25:16.640 how wretched and useless 1.00

00:25:17.620 you are, 1.00

00:25:18.480 fundamentally,

00:25:19.500 than about anyone else,

00:25:20.860 and so that's rather

00:25:21.620 disheartening.

00:25:22.480 And given that

00:25:23.720 it's disheartening,

00:25:25.040 then it's not so easy

00:25:26.220 to take care of yourself

00:25:27.220 properly,

00:25:27.760 but it isn't obvious

00:25:28.760 to me that you really

00:25:29.640 have that right

00:25:31.480 not to take care

00:25:32.640 of yourself.

00:25:33.300 I think you have

00:25:34.320 a responsibility

00:25:35.060 to take care of yourself

00:25:36.420 as if you're something

00:25:37.800 of value,

00:25:39.720 which you are.

00:25:42.100 And so that's

00:25:42.880 a responsibility.

00:25:44.360 And so when you fill out

00:25:45.720 the future authoring program,

00:25:48.000 you're asked to adopt,

00:25:52.000 for the sake of

00:25:52.960 experimentation,

00:25:56.200 the frame of reference,

00:25:57.520 a frame of reference

00:25:58.320 within which you

00:25:59.540 give yourself

00:26:01.440 the benefit of the doubt

00:26:02.560 and assume that

00:26:03.300 there's something about you

00:26:04.940 that might be usefully

00:26:06.040 brought forward

00:26:06.700 into the world.

00:26:08.580 And, you know,

00:26:09.460 it's an axiom

00:26:11.880 of our society

00:26:13.000 that there is

00:26:14.580 something about you

00:26:15.300 that would be usefully

00:26:16.260 brought forward

00:26:16.940 into the world

00:26:17.400 because our whole society

00:26:19.040 is predicated

00:26:19.700 on the notion

00:26:20.480 of the sovereign individual

00:26:22.240 or even of the divine individual.

00:26:23.860 And we wouldn't have

00:26:25.880 exceeded political power

00:26:29.880 to each and every one of us

00:26:31.320 if, and that wouldn't work

00:26:33.580 unless there was actually

00:26:34.900 something to the proposition

00:26:36.080 that each individual

00:26:37.800 is in fact

00:26:38.700 something approximating

00:26:40.340 a divine locus of value

00:26:42.200 despite our insufficiencies.

00:26:44.520 and so

00:26:45.340 allowing yourself

00:26:46.700 the benefit of the doubt

00:26:47.760 seems like

00:26:48.760 a philosophically

00:26:50.300 appropriate thing

00:26:51.240 to do.

00:26:52.080 And it takes a certain

00:26:53.060 amount of love

00:26:53.700 and it takes a certain

00:26:54.460 amount of courage.

00:26:55.840 And so

00:26:56.200 we ask people to think

00:26:57.620 okay, well

00:26:58.140 here's a game

00:26:59.340 you can have it

00:27:00.960 if you aim at it.

00:27:03.820 It's a possibility

00:27:04.760 if you aim at it properly.

00:27:08.300 And well that makes sense

00:27:09.040 because if you aim at

00:27:09.780 something improperly

00:27:10.600 you're not going to hit it

00:27:11.340 so you could have

00:27:12.520 what, you could hit

00:27:13.100 what you aim at

00:27:13.840 if you aim properly.

00:27:15.200 The question would be

00:27:16.200 how would you aim properly?

00:27:17.940 The answer might be

00:27:18.600 well

00:27:18.860 imagine you decided

00:27:20.540 to take care of yourself

00:27:22.180 like you were

00:27:22.740 something worth

00:27:23.340 taking care of.

00:27:25.660 So then you could say

00:27:26.700 well

00:27:26.920 if you could have

00:27:28.260 what you wanted

00:27:28.740 three to five years

00:27:29.480 down the road

00:27:30.120 what would it be?

00:27:32.580 Wanted and needed

00:27:33.380 assuming you were

00:27:34.140 taking care of yourself

00:27:34.940 like

00:27:35.140 if you

00:27:35.700 you can think about it

00:27:36.660 like you might

00:27:37.060 take care of a child

00:27:37.900 if you're going to

00:27:39.300 take care of a child

00:27:40.060 you wouldn't just grant

00:27:40.900 him or her

00:27:42.080 his or her

00:27:43.600 every whim

00:27:44.500 that's not care

00:27:46.140 so that isn't how

00:27:47.420 you would treat yourself

00:27:48.400 you have to be

00:27:49.720 more sensible than that

00:27:50.720 but we could say

00:27:51.320 well

00:27:51.520 okay

00:27:51.980 you get to have

00:27:52.820 what you need

00:27:53.400 three to five years

00:27:54.500 down the road

00:27:54.880 what do you want

00:27:55.620 from your family

00:27:56.300 if you could put

00:27:56.860 your family together

00:27:57.600 the way you wanted

00:27:58.320 it to be put together

00:27:59.340 so you had what

00:28:00.340 you wanted from

00:28:00.920 your father

00:28:01.360 and your mother

00:28:01.860 and your siblings

00:28:03.000 and your kids

00:28:03.700 just hypothetically

00:28:05.200 what would that look like?

00:28:06.480 Probably wouldn't

00:28:07.100 look like the situation

00:28:08.120 where you're all around

00:28:09.040 Thanksgiving dinner

00:28:09.840 with your hands around

00:28:10.600 each other's necks

00:28:11.360 squeezing slowly

00:28:12.760 which is the condition

00:28:13.940 that many families

00:28:15.360 are in

00:28:15.880 at Thanksgiving dinner

00:28:17.600 you probably wouldn't

00:28:19.300 wish for that

00:28:20.040 and it would probably

00:28:20.960 not be for the best

00:28:21.900 and then you might ask

00:28:23.340 well

00:28:23.940 what would you want

00:28:25.040 from your

00:28:25.520 intimate partner

00:28:27.220 if you could have

00:28:28.380 what you needed

00:28:29.180 and

00:28:29.440 what would you want

00:28:31.420 from your career

00:28:32.100 and how would you

00:28:33.380 educate yourself

00:28:34.220 if you could do that

00:28:35.100 the way that

00:28:36.040 an optimal way

00:28:37.560 or at least better

00:28:39.120 than you're managing

00:28:39.840 now

00:28:40.180 how would you

00:28:40.900 take care of your

00:28:41.460 mental and physical

00:28:42.260 health

00:28:42.700 what would you do

00:28:44.020 outside of work

00:28:44.780 that would be

00:28:45.220 meaningful and

00:28:45.980 engaging and

00:28:46.780 productive

00:28:47.180 what do you want

00:28:51.800 from your friends

00:28:52.460 that's rule three

00:28:55.000 in 12 rules for life

00:28:56.320 make friends with the

00:28:58.080 people who want

00:28:58.620 the best for you

00:28:59.440 that's a hell of a

00:29:01.100 thing to do

00:29:01.680 that'd be useful

00:29:02.920 you know

00:29:03.840 because it's not that

00:29:04.440 easy to do

00:29:05.120 what's best

00:29:05.920 even though it's

00:29:06.980 best to do

00:29:07.800 what's best

00:29:08.340 by definition

00:29:09.120 it'd be useful

00:29:10.160 perhaps to be

00:29:11.220 surrounded by people

00:29:12.300 who are happy

00:29:13.600 when something good

00:29:14.400 happens to you

00:29:15.080 genuinely pleased

00:29:16.700 because they know

00:29:17.420 that life is bitter

00:29:18.300 and short

00:29:18.960 and tragic

00:29:19.880 and that

00:29:20.980 the probability

00:29:22.260 that good things

00:29:23.000 will happen to

00:29:23.560 people is somewhat

00:29:24.400 low and that

00:29:25.440 as a consequence

00:29:26.620 when they do

00:29:27.360 it's something to

00:29:28.080 celebrate

00:29:28.480 and who would

00:29:29.820 also perhaps be

00:29:30.780 not so happy

00:29:31.480 if something bad

00:29:32.240 happened around you

00:29:33.420 and wouldn't

00:29:33.920 necessarily entice you

00:29:35.280 into such situations

00:29:36.620 so that would be

00:29:38.060 a good thing to

00:29:38.720 consider with regards

00:29:39.760 to your friends

00:29:40.360 and so there's

00:29:41.340 seven things that

00:29:42.180 you could think

00:29:42.680 about

00:29:42.980 how to put your

00:29:44.200 life in the

00:29:45.560 kind of order

00:29:46.140 that would make

00:29:46.680 you actually want

00:29:47.400 to have your life

00:29:48.120 and not be bitter

00:29:48.860 about it

00:29:49.360 and degenerate

00:29:52.600 because of that

00:29:53.340 bitterness

00:29:53.740 and then we ask

00:29:55.740 people to write

00:29:56.360 for 15 minutes

00:29:57.260 and say okay

00:29:58.480 you get to have

00:29:59.100 what you want

00:29:59.700 what does your

00:30:00.620 life look like

00:30:01.260 and so that would

00:30:02.920 be a life that

00:30:03.560 you'd find

00:30:05.360 maximally

00:30:06.960 acceptable

00:30:07.620 let's say

00:30:08.880 but realistically

00:30:09.620 you know

00:30:10.240 and so then you

00:30:11.360 have something

00:30:11.620 to aim at

00:30:12.220 and then

00:30:13.520 we added this

00:30:14.940 after we worked

00:30:15.620 on the program

00:30:16.160 for a while

00:30:16.680 and then we

00:30:17.880 had people write

00:30:18.480 for 15 minutes

00:30:19.400 a counter vision

00:30:20.660 which was okay

00:30:21.520 that's where

00:30:22.880 you're headed

00:30:23.340 that's where

00:30:23.800 you're aiming

00:30:24.220 what you're aiming

00:30:25.260 at and you

00:30:26.140 kind of flesh it

00:30:26.680 out but here's

00:30:27.800 another useful

00:30:29.060 thing to think

00:30:29.840 about

00:30:30.140 so you have

00:30:32.440 bad habits

00:30:33.180 and you're

00:30:34.660 resentful about

00:30:35.320 things and

00:30:35.900 you're not trying

00:30:37.100 as hard as you

00:30:37.660 might in some

00:30:38.620 dimensions and

00:30:39.380 you have weaknesses

00:30:40.640 that might take

00:30:41.420 you apart

00:30:41.900 and pretty much

00:30:42.840 everybody knows

00:30:43.440 what those

00:30:43.840 weaknesses are

00:30:44.660 you know some

00:30:45.540 people would

00:30:46.040 smoke too much

00:30:46.760 pot and some

00:30:47.460 people would

00:30:47.980 drink too much

00:30:48.880 and some people

00:30:49.480 would be unfaithful

00:30:51.380 and have

00:30:52.000 counterproductive

00:30:52.740 affairs and some

00:30:53.960 people would

00:30:54.520 end up on the

00:30:56.140 street because

00:30:56.980 they would

00:30:58.520 degenerate with 0.72

00:30:59.300 regards to their

00:30:59.900 discipline

00:31:00.200 everybody kind

00:31:00.980 of knows how

00:31:01.440 they'd fall

00:31:02.360 apart if they

00:31:02.960 fell apart in

00:31:04.000 their own

00:31:04.440 idiosyncratic and

00:31:05.900 spectacular manner

00:31:06.980 those are the sorts

00:31:08.020 of things that keep

00:31:08.640 you awake at night

00:31:09.420 if you contemplate

00:31:11.940 them deeply

00:31:12.440 where would you be

00:31:15.060 in three to five

00:31:15.620 years if you let

00:31:16.300 everything go

00:31:16.860 directly to hell 0.98

00:31:17.720 that's useful man

00:31:20.600 that's useful

00:31:22.080 because then

00:31:22.700 see it's one thing

00:31:24.460 to motivate yourself

00:31:25.320 because you see

00:31:26.880 that what you're

00:31:27.380 doing is moving

00:31:28.040 you ahead to

00:31:28.600 something that you

00:31:29.180 want but that's

00:31:31.300 hope and hope

00:31:32.520 is a powerful

00:31:33.080 emotion but terror

00:31:35.820 that's even a more

00:31:37.780 powerful emotion

00:31:38.760 and so you know

00:31:41.000 one of the things I

00:31:41.800 often do with my

00:31:42.440 clinical clients is

00:31:43.460 maybe they don't

00:31:44.680 have a job they

00:31:45.800 really like you

00:31:46.920 know and it's

00:31:48.080 grinding away at

00:31:49.020 their soul and

00:31:50.220 it's not like you

00:31:51.260 can just leap out

00:31:52.000 of your job into

00:31:52.800 another job that's

00:31:53.780 actually a really

00:31:54.320 complicated problem

00:31:55.280 right if you don't

00:31:55.800 like your job it's

00:31:56.500 not just a

00:31:57.060 psychological problem

00:31:58.220 you have to have

00:31:59.040 a job otherwise

00:32:00.400 you die and so 0.95

00:32:01.680 it's not just a

00:32:02.640 psychological problem

00:32:03.940 and so just changing

00:32:05.380 jobs isn't a matter

00:32:06.400 of just adjusting

00:32:07.280 yourself psychologically

00:32:08.420 you might have to do

00:32:09.640 a lot of planning

00:32:10.500 to change your job

00:32:11.740 you have to update

00:32:12.460 your CV and maybe

00:32:13.400 you have to update

00:32:13.940 your skills and

00:32:14.680 maybe you've got to

00:32:15.280 figure out how to

00:32:16.020 be a little bit more

00:32:16.940 credible in an

00:32:18.060 interview and you

00:32:18.980 have to overcome

00:32:19.540 your fear of

00:32:20.180 rejection like there

00:32:21.000 may be all sorts of

00:32:21.840 things that you have

00:32:22.420 to do to actually set

00:32:23.320 yourself up to move

00:32:24.220 laterally or up let's

00:32:26.180 say to to a

00:32:26.900 different position

00:32:27.760 one that's more

00:32:28.700 engaging and you

00:32:31.140 know you might be

00:32:31.760 you might be loath to

00:32:33.180 do that and so

00:32:34.620 you're afraid of doing

00:32:35.400 that and you think

00:32:36.700 well if I'm afraid of

00:32:37.500 it why should I do

00:32:38.220 it people ask

00:32:39.840 themselves the same

00:32:40.540 question when they

00:32:41.600 have a difficult

00:32:42.140 conversation to have

00:32:43.240 with their wives or

00:32:44.160 their children or

00:32:45.220 their parents you

00:32:46.420 know because a lot

00:32:47.180 of us are very

00:32:47.740 conflict averse and

00:32:48.780 so there are

00:32:49.580 difficult conversations

00:32:50.620 to have but we

00:32:51.580 won't have them and

00:32:52.560 the reason is is

00:32:53.280 because they're awkward

00:32:54.100 and they make us

00:32:55.080 afraid and so you

00:32:56.620 might think well why

00:32:57.340 the hell bother if

00:32:58.420 it makes you afraid

00:32:59.140 why not just not do

00:33:00.180 it which is one of

00:33:01.840 the ideas that keeps

00:33:03.100 people in jobs they

00:33:04.840 hate and in

00:33:05.940 relationships that and

00:33:07.420 and and stops them

00:33:08.560 from repairing their

00:33:09.380 relationships which is

00:33:10.760 a very difficult thing

00:33:11.460 to do and the answer

00:33:12.540 is well let's imagine

00:33:15.360 that you just keep

00:33:16.280 doing the thing that

00:33:17.680 you don't like you

00:33:20.160 don't change it because

00:33:21.220 you're afraid to well

00:33:23.500 are you afraid of

00:33:24.320 what happens if you

00:33:24.940 don't change it and

00:33:26.780 if you lay out this

00:33:27.500 little hell that I

00:33:29.020 described really in a

00:33:30.840 blunt way so you know

00:33:32.060 where you would

00:33:32.800 degenerate if you were

00:33:33.840 going to degenerate and

00:33:35.540 then you look at your

00:33:36.240 life and you think well

00:33:36.980 here's a bunch of

00:33:37.480 things that I'm not

00:33:38.600 doing because I'm

00:33:39.280 afraid and that's you

00:33:41.200 know keeping me secure

00:33:42.240 it's like no it's not

00:33:43.280 it's just taking you to

00:33:44.520 that place that you laid

00:33:46.000 out that's an absolute

00:33:46.940 catastrophe and so

00:33:48.580 sometimes the answer to

00:33:49.960 why should I do this

00:33:52.100 thing that I've been

00:33:53.140 putting off is well

00:33:55.280 otherwise I end up in

00:33:56.340 this particular hell

00:33:57.260 that I already know and

00:33:59.660 I already know the

00:34:00.180 parameters of it and so

00:34:01.700 hope can help you move

00:34:03.060 out of that it would be

00:34:04.380 better if I did this but

00:34:05.800 fear of not doing it and

00:34:08.900 the consequences that's

00:34:10.400 way better and what's

00:34:11.460 better yet is to have

00:34:12.280 both of them working in

00:34:13.200 tandem so psychologists

00:34:14.820 figured this out when

00:34:15.700 they were looking at fear

00:34:16.660 years ago because they're

00:34:18.080 trying to figure out how

00:34:18.820 to motivate animals to

00:34:19.920 do things like run down

00:34:21.120 a maze to obtain a

00:34:23.980 reward turns out that a

00:34:25.620 hungry rat hungry rat

00:34:26.680 will run down a little

00:34:27.600 maze quite rapidly to get

00:34:29.560 a piece of cheese but if

00:34:31.240 that rat is if you if you

00:34:34.020 have the hungry rat and

00:34:35.980 you waft in some cat

00:34:37.100 odor because rats really

00:34:38.640 are terrified of cats they

00:34:40.400 really don't like them even

00:34:41.540 if they've never met a cat

00:34:42.660 and if they've never smelled

00:34:43.800 a cat they know what cats

00:34:45.520 smell like and they don't

00:34:46.480 like it and so if you take

00:34:48.040 your hungry rat and you

00:34:48.980 throw in a little cat

00:34:50.020 odor he'll zip down that

00:34:51.600 runway like mad much

00:34:54.100 faster than one that's

00:34:55.080 just hungry so running

00:34:57.020 away from something that

00:34:58.120 you're terrified of

00:34:59.900 avoiding something that

00:35:01.300 you're properly terrified

00:35:02.420 of and running towards

00:35:03.960 something you want is a

00:35:05.000 good way of being maximally

00:35:06.060 motivated and so in the

00:35:07.460 second part of that

00:35:08.260 program we have people

00:35:11.260 lay out a very detailed

00:35:12.340 plan about their vision

00:35:16.120 you know about maybe you

00:35:17.620 could break it into eight

00:35:18.500 goals and you could

00:35:19.440 prioritize the goals and

00:35:20.800 you could figure out why

00:35:21.940 would your life be better

00:35:23.100 if you attained the first

00:35:24.960 goal and how would your

00:35:25.980 family's life be better

00:35:27.120 also and maybe how would

00:35:28.820 you be of more benefit to

00:35:30.100 the community if you

00:35:31.080 attain that goal because

00:35:32.140 it'd be nice if you could

00:35:33.020 sort yourself out in a way

00:35:34.860 that also sorted out your

00:35:36.080 family and that also

00:35:37.360 sorted out your community

00:35:38.580 and since you're making a

00:35:39.900 plan well why the hell not

00:35:41.080 aim for all three it's more

00:35:42.740 sustainable anyways right

00:35:44.220 so this the pro the famous

00:35:47.900 psychologist Jean Piaget called

00:35:49.620 that an equilibrated state

00:35:50.980 he said that it's like a

00:35:52.700 game that everyone wants to

00:35:53.920 play it's better if you're

00:35:55.340 going to play a game to play

00:35:56.340 a game that everyone wants

00:35:57.360 to play and that's a good

00:35:59.440 that's good indication that

00:36:00.880 it's a good game and so if

00:36:02.040 you could figure out how to

00:36:02.820 fix yourself up in a way that

00:36:04.420 would simultaneously fix up

00:36:05.720 your family and your

00:36:06.500 community it's like hey

00:36:08.500 everybody wins and maybe it

00:36:13.220 would be good to play a game

00:36:14.180 that everybody wins so we

00:36:16.980 don't think of games that way

00:36:18.060 very often but it's certainly

00:36:19.800 possible that games like that

00:36:21.760 exist and so well back to

00:36:24.980 courage and back to free

00:36:27.300 speech one of the things that

00:36:28.600 I do recommend to people who

00:36:30.360 try these programs is that they

00:36:31.700 do them badly because a bad

00:36:34.500 plan is better than no plan at

00:36:35.880 all and you're going to come up

00:36:37.200 with a bad plan because what

00:36:39.180 the hell do you know and so 0.51

00:36:41.320 it's either a bad plan or no 0.54

00:36:43.800 plan and no plan is way worse

00:36:46.400 than a bad plan at least when

00:36:48.160 you implement a bad plan and

00:36:49.460 you start walking towards what

00:36:51.040 the plan lays out you'll see

00:36:52.720 specifically where it is that

00:36:54.420 you're in error like

00:36:55.480 specifically and you'll learn

00:36:57.620 from that and then you can use

00:36:59.580 what you learned while you're

00:37:00.980 making the mistakes implementing

00:37:02.700 your bad plan to make a better

00:37:04.480 plan and if you keep doing

00:37:06.200 that eventually like there'll

00:37:07.560 be a lot of failure along the

00:37:08.660 way that's the adventure of

00:37:09.880 your life by the way if you do

00:37:12.300 that and you keep laying out a

00:37:14.080 plan and learning painfully from

00:37:16.320 your failures and then correcting

00:37:17.920 the plan what will happen is

00:37:19.460 that you get on target as you

00:37:23.420 move through life and even though

00:37:25.820 you're hitting a moving target

00:37:26.940 because life is complicated and so

00:37:29.380 we have found because we studied

00:37:31.900 this scientifically because we

00:37:34.440 weren't convinced that our theories

00:37:35.900 were necessarily accurate we

00:37:37.960 found for example this was at

00:37:39.780 Mohawk College in Ontario people

00:37:45.080 who did the future authoring

00:37:46.480 program before they went to

00:37:47.440 college were the young men in

00:37:49.020 particular especially the aimless

00:37:50.620 young men because we sort of

00:37:51.860 categorized them into people who

00:37:53.060 were pursuing something that was

00:37:55.200 career-oriented or something that

00:37:56.480 was just sort of vaguely defined

00:37:58.220 that the young men who had vaguely

00:38:01.260 defined goals if they did the future

00:38:03.720 authoring program they were 50% less

00:38:05.820 likely to drop out of college in the

00:38:07.340 first semester because it was quite

00:38:09.260 staggering so so it's useful to aim at

00:38:12.560 something that's the moral of that

00:38:14.360 story and so back to courage which is

00:38:18.280 where I started so originally when

00:38:22.600 psychologists were studying fear they

00:38:25.240 assumed that fear was something that

00:38:26.740 you learned and you might think that

00:38:28.840 because there you are sitting down and

00:38:30.640 you're pretty calm you're not afraid of

00:38:32.180 anything and so you might believe that

00:38:34.340 the normal state of a human being is

00:38:36.180 calm and that we have to learn to be

00:38:38.280 afraid and you know psychologists could

00:38:40.900 teach animals how to be afraid so one

00:38:42.800 way you can teach an animal how to be

00:38:44.200 afraid this was done with rats is have

00:38:46.100 your rat in its in its cage and it's

00:38:48.360 like it's calm rat and then you turn on a 0.71

00:38:52.480 light and then you electrify the floor a

00:38:55.360 little bit right because you want to have

00:38:58.900 the rat around for a while and so just

00:39:01.680 enough to shock them you know and that

00:39:04.440 shock that causes pain that's a

00:39:06.380 punishment turn on the light shock the 0.64

00:39:08.920 rat you do that a few times and when the

00:39:11.220 light goes on the rat freezes because

00:39:13.080 the rat has learned that the light

00:39:15.060 signifies shock and what the rat is

00:39:17.740 experiencing when the light goes on is

00:39:19.940 fear or anxiety and so psychologists did

00:39:23.200 that with rats and they thought aha animals

00:39:26.200 learn to be afraid that's actually not

00:39:29.700 true but i'll talk about that in a while

00:39:32.520 and so then they generalized that to human

00:39:35.760 beings and so maybe you have a phobia of

00:39:37.920 mouse or something like that or maybe

00:39:39.320 you're afraid of something the idea was

00:39:40.720 well you learn to be afraid and we can

00:39:43.800 teach you how to not be afraid and so

00:39:46.040 what the psychologists did the

00:39:47.360 behaviorists was uh let's say let's say

00:39:51.880 you were afraid of balloons some people

00:39:54.060 are afraid of balloons as it turns out

00:39:55.940 it's kind of an absurd fear but that's

00:39:57.880 okay um you know maybe they were little

00:40:00.620 and a balloon was popped too close to

00:40:03.000 their face and they learned to be afraid

00:40:04.900 of it and so that was conditioned it was

00:40:06.900 learned and so what you do is you you sit

00:40:10.860 the person down and uh you have them do

00:40:14.400 relaxation exercise and so they take deep

00:40:17.460 breaths and they pay attention to

00:40:19.120 different parts of their body their feet

00:40:20.880 their ankles their knees so forth all the

00:40:23.180 way up the body and relax all the muscles

00:40:25.200 you put them in a state of relaxation

00:40:26.720 they're breathing deeply and then you

00:40:28.700 have them think about balloons or maybe

00:40:30.580 you show them some balloons or maybe you 0.99

00:40:32.180 fill the whole damn room with balloons 0.97

00:40:33.720 that's called flooding by the way um and 0.98

00:40:36.720 that can be effective if you have to get

00:40:38.480 someone over their fear of balloons like

00:40:40.000 right now but it's a little drastic but

00:40:42.420 anyways the point is is that you introduce

00:40:45.040 them to the thing they're afraid of well

00:40:47.440 they're relaxed and then the idea is

00:40:49.760 that's counter conditioning the idea is

00:40:51.360 that well you can't be relaxed and afraid

00:40:53.740 at the same time and so if you can learn

00:40:55.800 to relax in the face of the thing that

00:40:58.340 you're afraid of then you won't be afraid

00:40:59.760 anymore but then someone knows so that's

00:41:02.500 a pretty good theory but it's wrong it's a

00:41:04.340 good theory um just like the theory that

00:41:07.600 animals learn to be afraid actually the

00:41:10.240 theory is exactly wrong because you don't

00:41:12.760 learn to be afraid you bloody well know how

00:41:15.140 to be afraid what you learn is how to be

00:41:17.820 calm and it turns out that's even true for

00:41:20.920 for rats because the psychologist

00:41:23.440 gerrymandered the experiences the experiment

00:41:25.820 a little bit question is when do you have

00:41:27.860 your normal rat you might think well

00:41:29.940 here's the rat he's in a cage and he's 0.63

00:41:31.660 kind of at home there so he's calm then

00:41:33.700 you can teach him how to be afraid of a

00:41:35.120 light so you take a calm rat the normal 0.99

00:41:37.960 rat the rat that's like you and then you 0.92

00:41:40.080 teach him how to be afraid but it's kind 0.98

00:41:43.260 of arbitrary when you decide that the rat is

00:41:45.060 normal because if you take a rat pick

00:41:48.260 him up by the tail let's say and you drop

00:41:50.980 him in a new cage when he goes in that new 0.71

00:41:53.560 cage he is not a calm rat he's this sort

00:41:57.780 of rat now you guys have probably had cats

00:42:00.180 some of you had a house infested with cats

00:42:03.020 but anyways you have cats and some of you

00:42:05.880 have probably moved your cat to a new house

00:42:08.920 and cats don't like that like your cat at

00:42:11.880 home is a calm cat by cat standards which

00:42:14.820 isn't all that calm but you move it's one

00:42:18.720 of the delightful things about cats that

00:42:20.280 you can scare them half to death by just

00:42:22.000 making noises you know and they puff up

00:42:23.960 which is really a lovely you know when a

00:42:26.720 cat's hair stands on end like that you

00:42:29.880 know that's the same experience you have

00:42:31.400 when you feel awe do you know that your

00:42:34.500 hair stands on end when you feel awe it's

00:42:36.940 the same response that an animal has to a

00:42:38.800 predator you know imagine you're like a

00:42:41.020 mouse and you see a coyote well and that's

00:42:43.460 so you're a mouse let's say so you're six

00:42:44.920 feet high so you scale up the coyote so

00:42:47.120 that cow is like 70 feet high if you saw a

00:42:50.840 70 foot high coyote you'd feel awe and your

00:42:54.380 hair would stand on end so that's what

00:42:57.220 happens and the reason your hair stands on

00:42:58.900 end is so you look big I mean a mouse puffs

00:43:01.700 up and it doesn't really bother a coyote but

00:43:03.440 if a cat puffs up it does look and that's

00:43:05.620 why they stand sideways too and dance

00:43:07.320 backwards with all puffed up it's like look

00:43:09.420 how big I am I'm a sideways cat with a

00:43:12.120 tail this big yeah so

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00:46:06.700 so anyways you put a rat in a new cage

00:46:11.680 and it's like this it's frozen that's a

00:46:15.480 normal rat as far as I'm concerned that

00:46:17.860 frozen rat the thing that's absolutely

00:46:20.240 terrified out of its mind because it

00:46:21.760 doesn't know what the hell it's doing or 0.58

00:46:23.100 where it's going or what's going to eat

00:46:24.840 it next that's normal that's the fear

00:46:28.540 circuit on completely that's the standard

00:46:31.280 condition of existence as far as I'm

00:46:33.280 concerned because existence is

00:46:35.600 characterized by terror and death and the

00:46:38.100 idea that the normal condition is calm

00:46:40.480 that's insane that's not true at all and

00:46:44.160 so you put a rat in a cage and it's

00:46:46.300 frozen man because it thinks God only

00:46:48.700 knows what's here and then what it does

00:46:51.700 is it's so it's frozen it sniffs a bit

00:46:54.800 and if nothing kills it when it sniffs then

00:46:58.340 it sniffs a little bit more and so then

00:47:00.720 it's sniffing and it's seeing if there's

00:47:02.060 anything in there like a cat and that

00:47:04.620 would really drive a rat you know to

00:47:06.500 drink and and you can get terrified

00:47:11.060 animals to become alcoholic by the way so

00:47:13.720 another thing psychologists do it's like

00:47:16.060 let's terrify some animals and see if we

00:47:17.960 can turn them into alcoholics it's like

00:47:20.400 yeah we can oh isn't that interesting

00:47:22.520 yeah so so the ethics committees are

00:47:28.080 pretty much putting a stop to that though

00:47:29.660 so yeah despite the fact that we learned

00:47:32.700 almost everything we know about how the

00:47:34.260 brain works from doing such things it's

00:47:35.960 like well we don't want to scare any

00:47:37.580 rats so drive them to drink anyway so

00:47:40.460 the rat as as he sniffs and nothing

00:47:44.320 kills him he gets a little braver and he

00:47:46.800 starts to move around and then he just 0.99

00:47:48.300 explores the whole damn cage every nook 0.98

00:47:52.120 and cranny and then if there's nothing 1.00

00:47:54.240 there that will kill a rat then he'll

00:47:56.840 calm down and then you think well that's

00:47:59.380 the normal rat it's like well no it isn't

00:48:01.420 the terrified rat was the normal rat the

00:48:03.760 calm rat is the rat that's explored

00:48:05.700 everything now it's really useful thing to

00:48:08.180 know it's unbelievably useful thing to

00:48:09.880 know now rats don't generally live by

00:48:12.280 themselves in cages they live in a

00:48:14.680 hierarchy of other rats in a social

00:48:16.700 group and so they're sort of like

00:48:17.960 people and so the reason that you're

00:48:22.180 not terrified out of your skull right

00:48:23.960 now even though you could be is that

00:48:27.340 you're in a hierarchy with other people

00:48:30.200 who basically share your culture which

00:48:33.100 means they share your goals they share

00:48:34.540 your aims and you can predict them you

00:48:36.440 don't know all these primates that you're

00:48:37.860 surrounded with and there's probably

00:48:39.460 there's 3,000 people in here there's

00:48:40.960 least 30 of you who are seriously

00:48:43.640 deranged at least 30 probably more

00:48:47.600 since you came to this talk so so but

00:48:52.240 but but everybody's behaving properly

00:48:54.000 and everybody's pointed in the same

00:48:55.480 direction you know like if someone was

00:48:57.220 turned around completely at their seat on

00:48:58.740 their seat and looking at you right you

00:49:03.420 wouldn't like that that would make you

00:49:04.460 uncomfortable because you'd think what

00:49:06.020 the hell is this primate up to not what

00:49:08.180 all these other primates are up to and 0.91

00:49:10.020 we have an agreement here the agreement

00:49:11.680 is everybody sits in their chair and

00:49:13.640 everybody faces the front and no one

00:49:15.560 makes too much noise and you don't wave

00:49:17.280 your elbows around it's like there's a

00:49:18.680 lots of rules here and everybody and you

00:49:21.720 wear clothes that's a rule too and you

00:49:24.620 keep them on that's another there's lots

00:49:27.060 of rules and you don't talk a lot to your

00:49:30.200 partner let's say while the lecture's on

00:49:32.420 and you don't talk to yourself while the 0.99

00:49:34.180 damn lecture's on and you certainly don't 1.00

00:49:36.080 mutter to yourself and hit your forehead 0.99

00:49:38.460 right so there's lots of rules that are

00:49:42.180 keeping your anxiety circuitry under

00:49:45.140 control in this circumstance and everybody

00:49:48.180 around you is being polite enough to act

00:49:51.120 out the rules and so your fear stays off and

00:49:56.760 one of the reasons this is something that

00:49:58.280 was see it was really important to me when

00:50:00.220 I finally figured out that the calm rat

00:50:01.960 wasn't the normal rat the terrified rat was

00:50:04.440 the normal rat and then the terrified rat

00:50:06.540 had to learn how to be calm and the way

00:50:09.320 that it learned how to be calm was to

00:50:10.640 explore its territory and but it but in a

00:50:12.740 natural environment to organize a hierarchy

00:50:15.380 in that territory so that every rat knew

00:50:17.180 exactly what every rat was every other rat

00:50:19.040 was doing at all times come to a nice rat

00:50:21.680 agreement that's the hierarchy and they

00:50:24.400 explore the environment and then they keep

00:50:26.120 their terror circuits off and the reason

00:50:28.400 that people don't like to have their belief

00:50:29.960 systems disrupted is because it turns the

00:50:32.820 terror circuits back on and no one likes

00:50:35.900 that not even a bit it's absolutely horrifying

00:50:39.840 and so that's partly why people are so

00:50:42.600 invested in their belief systems so back to

00:50:46.840 how you treat someone if they're afraid so you

00:50:52.380 flood them with balloons while they're relaxed

00:50:54.900 and then they're not afraid of balloons anymore

00:50:57.660 and that actually works if you do it five or six

00:50:59.680 times then they'll be able to tolerate balloons

00:51:02.680 or mice or needles I had a client with a

00:51:05.200 needle phobia he had a needle phobia that was

00:51:08.040 so severe that he would undergo dental surgery

00:51:11.680 with no anesthetic right right so that's

00:51:15.720 something right I mean you've you've had a

00:51:17.480 dentist drill in your tooth it's like drill

00:51:19.480 away man but no needles and so I I treated him

00:51:25.320 behaviorally for his needle phobia so what I did

00:51:27.840 was first of all he trusted me and I have rules

00:51:30.660 in my therapy session like I am not going to do

00:51:33.560 anything that we do not agree on period ever okay so

00:51:38.200 that's a crucial issue if you're going to treat help

00:51:40.360 someone with a fear so I said well you you probably

00:51:43.060 need to get over this needle phobia because well the

00:51:45.740 whole dental surgery thing seems a little much and

00:51:48.340 he needed to get blood tests and other things because

00:51:50.300 you need to get a needle down then so I said well

00:51:52.680 let's see if we can get rid of this needle phobia and he 0.67

00:51:55.180 said okay we'll give it a try and I said okay well the

00:51:56.900 first thing I'm going to do next session is I'm going

00:51:59.080 to bring in a hypodermic needle I'm just going to put

00:52:01.400 it on the shelf and I showed him exactly where on the

00:52:04.880 shelf I was going to put it I said just look at that

00:52:06.940 place on the shelf and I said that because if you're

00:52:09.980 afraid of something you don't like to look at it so

00:52:12.600 you'll avoid it right so one way of not being afraid of

00:52:16.640 something is to not avoid it so I said well just look on

00:52:19.160 the shelf and get familiar with that so he said okay and

00:52:22.640 I said well okay next next time he came in I said look

00:52:25.480 that you have a seat make yourself comfortable you see

00:52:28.800 that spot I told you about last time if you look there

00:52:31.640 you'll see a needle and it's got a sheath on it it's got a

00:52:34.300 little orange capsule on it and so I want you just to look

00:52:38.020 at the needle just look at it said okay I said well how's

00:52:41.980 that going he said well I'm kind of nervous and I said well

00:52:43.780 just look at it till you're bored because boredom is a

00:52:46.840 form of learning if you're afraid of something what you

00:52:50.020 want to do is become bored by it and so and if you look at

00:52:53.140 a needle long enough you'll get bored by it because it

00:52:56.060 doesn't do anything it just sits there and it's not very

00:52:58.560 exciting and so so and he got he said okay I'm I'm I'm calm I

00:53:03.580 said okay look I'm going to pick up the needle I'm not going

00:53:05.600 to bring it towards you I'm just going to pick it up and I'll

00:53:08.560 lift it four inches off the shelf because I wanted him to

00:53:11.080 know what the hell was going on so I lifted it up and that

00:53:13.400 made him kind of nervous said okay I'm just going to hold

00:53:16.120 this needle and we're gonna do the same thing you just watch

00:53:19.120 it until you're okay and he said okay and I said well and then

00:53:24.560 we did the next thing I said well I'm going to move it then

00:53:26.920 I said well I'm going to move it closer to you and and you

00:53:29.760 know in increments and you can stop me whenever you want but

00:53:32.400 I'll just move it an inch at a time and how will that be and

00:53:35.800 he said well I think we can do that and anyways by the end of

00:53:38.220 the session I had the needle with the sheath touching his

00:53:41.640 arm and he believe me man he would have run out of the

00:53:44.860 room screaming if that would have happened you know the session

00:53:47.620 before that and that was enough I didn't want to push him too

00:53:49.900 far but curiously enough say I didn't have him relax now it turned

00:53:56.580 out when the behaviorists did their experiments they found out

00:53:59.580 that you actually didn't have to have the person relax in order for

00:54:02.460 the balloons to for voluntary exposure to the balloons to have

00:54:06.420 the effect all you had to do is have them voluntarily expose

00:54:09.580 themselves to what they were afraid of it's like man that was a

00:54:15.260 major league discovery and it turns out that pretty much every

00:54:19.060 school of clinical psychology has come to agree on that how do you

00:54:22.880 help someone with what they're afraid of and this is important

00:54:25.440 because we're afraid of life right so if you figure out how you help

00:54:30.260 someone overcome their fear like that's a big deal because you're

00:54:33.880 afraid of life and you should be because life will kill you and so it's no

00:54:38.120 wonder you're afraid of it and so what are you going to do about that and it's

00:54:41.800 not like people who have phobias and so far they aren't afraid of things that

00:54:44.980 are harmful they're often afraid of things that are harmful and the mystery is

00:54:48.600 often why other people aren't afraid not why they are so well how do you help

00:54:57.360 someone become less afraid you actually don't you actually help them become more

00:55:01.680 courageous that's a cool thing because that's not the same thing it's like

00:55:06.820 because life actually is dangerous and if your ability to prevail in life is

00:55:10.980 dependent on you not being afraid of life it's like well that's kind of a

00:55:14.140 non-starter because there's lots of things in life to be afraid of and so if

00:55:18.840 you to be successful you had to be not afraid of life it's like well forget about

00:55:23.160 that because you know if you're on someone's deathbed then there's going to be

00:55:27.560 some emotion associated with that we're actually afraid of death and we're

00:55:30.760 afraid of insanity and we're afraid of betrayal and we're afraid of pain and no

00:55:34.880 bloody wonder that's for sure and so if not being afraid was necessary well then

00:55:40.780 we're lost but that isn't what's necessary what's necessary is to be

00:55:44.420 courageous and that's very very cool because it turns out that you could be

00:55:50.600 more courageous than you think it also turns out that if you put yourself in a

00:55:55.060 situation where you face the things you're afraid of you find out that there's

00:55:58.580 way more to you than you thought and what's also cool about that is it doesn't

00:56:02.620 seem to be any upper limit to that because it isn't obvious that there's

00:56:06.200 anything that you can't face without learning how to face it and i mean

00:56:10.220 anything when you think about it right people work at emergency wards right so

00:56:14.520 think about that what they do is have emergencies all the time and you think

00:56:18.780 well an emergency is something you can't tolerate almost by definition it

00:56:22.860 wouldn't be an emergency otherwise but people specialize in that so obviously they

00:56:27.080 get used to it people work in palliative care wards that's rough everybody

00:56:31.600 there is suffering and is going to die soon and then they do die so not only

00:56:35.820 are you dealing with that you deal with loss just endless loss people work in

00:56:39.920 funeral parlors so they're dealing with death all the time it's like people are

00:56:43.720 bloody tough so my client he was pretty happy about that and so the next session

00:56:51.280 i told him i was going to take the sheath off the needle you know and and he was

00:56:57.000 all right with that and then i waved it around but not too maniacally you know and

00:57:01.540 and and then i did the same thing and i got to the point where i could hold the

00:57:05.620 needle half an inch away from his arm without him being without with him

00:57:10.520 watching without him flinching without him turning away without with him

00:57:13.560 watching because that's the thing is you actually have to face the thing you're

00:57:17.220 afraid of and so that was enough for that session and then the next session

00:57:20.380 part of it was trust eh because he'd had a bad experience with dentists when he was a

00:57:24.740 kid and that was partly what produced his phobia and so he didn't really trust

00:57:27.800 people in authority deeply like a scared animal and that's what he said he felt

00:57:32.260 like was a scared animal and that's was really about right and so the other thing

00:57:36.260 i had in practice was telling me to stop and and leaving i said look we're gonna

00:57:40.840 you tell me to stop what i'm doing and then leave and i won't stop you and no i

00:57:46.860 could just tell him that and he would have believed me but that's not the same

00:57:50.240 thing is actually practicing it watching it happen so he'd say i'd move the

00:57:55.040 needle you know and and around and he'd say stop doing that and i'd stop and

00:57:59.020 he'd say i'm leaving and then he'd get up and leave and i'd just let him leave

00:58:01.860 so we did that five or six times like you would do a pretend play thing with a

00:58:05.960 kid you know and so then that got the idea deep in him that he could just get

00:58:11.180 the hell out of here there and no one would bug him if he wanted to it was part 0.80

00:58:14.780 of increasing the trust that he had with me and so by the end of that session i was

00:58:20.800 able to cover the needle with a piece of paper so he couldn't see it and touch his

00:58:25.720 skin with the sharp edge and so that was pretty damn good because that was both the

00:58:30.220 needle like a needle that you can see is one thing and a needle that you can see

00:58:35.160 that's held by someone you can trust is another thing but a needle that you can't

00:58:39.260 see that's being moved by someone that you sort of trust that's a whole different

00:58:42.660 thing and he could manage that and then he went off to the doctor and he had his

00:58:46.200 needles and so hooray for him and the moral of that story is you don't have to

00:58:52.380 relax in order to face the things that you're afraid of you just have to bloody

00:58:55.380 well face them and that's so cool so okay now let me tell you a different story

00:59:00.500 so and that's partly rule one

00:59:03.180 so that's partly rule one like rule one is you know rule one is stand up straight with

00:59:16.020 your shoulders back and people have criticized that chapter misread it or not read it just

00:59:22.620 assumed it which is more like it and they assume that what i'm talking about because i'm

00:59:27.480 talking about hierarchies is power you know that to stand up straight with your shoulders

00:59:31.780 back is to somehow be dominant and powerful and that's complete rubbish that isn't what

00:59:36.180 that chapter is about at all it's about something else it's about the idea that well if you're

00:59:40.920 going to be successful in your hierarchy because most things are hierarchically arranged the best

00:59:45.560 thing that you can be is courageous and because people admire courage and they and they promote

00:59:50.560 it and they and they admire and they and they and they uh they mimic it and and if you're a

00:59:56.660 courageous person then people are happy with you and and and you can lead them and so forth and

01:00:04.700 and to stand up straight with your shoulders back is to maximally expose yourself to the world

01:00:09.980 that's actually a stance of courage and so that's that's why that's a that's why that's a useful thing

01:00:15.740 and it turns out that our hierarchies don't so much reward power for example as they reward well a

01:00:24.420 variety of things competence and so forth but you develop competence as a consequence of courage

01:00:29.020 because you develop your competence by facing things that you don't haven't yet mastered overcoming

01:00:34.220 your fear and learning to master them and then you become competent and that moves you up the hierarchy

01:00:38.080 and our functional hierarchies are predicated on competence and competence is predicated in part

01:00:43.240 on courage and so we we should facilitate that courage because it's a good way it's a very good

01:00:50.280 way of being in the world now so what does courage do for you

01:00:53.740 well you think there's not a lot of you and there's a lot of the world and the world's a pretty dangerous

01:01:00.100 place and maybe what you should do is go hide but that doesn't really help to hide which is why if

01:01:05.260 you have parents and all they do is encourage you to hide then you have bad parents and they just make

01:01:09.840 you weak and then you're weak and maybe you're hiding but it doesn't matter because no matter

01:01:15.720 where you hide you're never going to be able to hide from what you're afraid of because wherever

01:01:20.080 you are no matter how much you hide the thing that you're afraid of will find you and even if it

01:01:26.240 doesn't find you in the world in in the near future will find you in your nightmares it doesn't

01:01:30.300 matter there's no hiding from it at all and so when as a parent you don't try to protect your

01:01:36.720 children you try to make them strong and you do that by exposing them to the world

01:01:40.600 and that's why you don't bother children when they're skateboarding and that's rule

01:01:44.620 that's rule if i remember correctly rule 11 it's rule 11 because skateboarding is dangerous but

01:01:51.540 doing it involves mastery and you want your child to master the world not to be protected from the world

01:01:56.960 because there's no protection from the world and if you try too hard to protect your child from the

01:02:02.620 world then you are the thing they should be protected from so you encourage people now what

01:02:11.380 happens when you go out in the world and you test yourself against it well the first thing is you

01:02:16.020 learn something and so this psychologist piaget that i told you about before he watched how children

01:02:22.440 learned and he learned he noticed that you know a child would try new things and experiment with the

01:02:26.840 new things and you know when my daughter was young for example i saw her do two things that i thought

01:02:31.560 were quite cool she had this little box cardboard box and it was full of books cardboard books that

01:02:36.980 were solid only about this big they were disney books and about four of them would fit into the

01:02:41.280 little book box and they fit very tightly and what she would do is shake them out of the box and then

01:02:46.480 put them in and it was hard and what she was doing was learning how to use her hands which was actually

01:02:51.400 quite useful you may notice you use your hands quite a bit and so learning how to use them is a good

01:02:56.620 thing and so she would sit there literally for an hour dumping out the books and then putting them

01:03:01.620 in and she could get three out of four in no problem but that fourth one man that was a pain 0.99

01:03:06.020 and she just worry it worry it worry it worry it and eventually it would go in and then the first thing

01:03:10.440 she'd do is shake it out again and she could really concentrate on that and so she was she was

01:03:15.360 mastering that technique and that was a hand-eye coordination which is very useful unless you want

01:03:21.140 to stumble into things and be awkward so that's what she was trying and then i watched her on the 0.88

01:03:25.780 monkey bars in our backyard when she was very little she was only maybe 18 months old and these

01:03:31.440 monkey bars were too high for her but she wanted to try them anyways and we would watch her with

01:03:36.360 some apprehension but we didn't run out we didn't wait until she was three rungs out up and then run

01:03:41.620 out and go oh my god be careful so that she would fall and learn to never do that again which is what

01:03:46.820 you do if you're a bad parent and bad parents definite and then they say see i told you so right it's like

01:03:53.460 you can't you can't you can't do those things you think you can do you'll fall just like i said

01:03:57.900 especially if i scare you it's exactly the right time i show you that i'm right

01:04:02.600 so she'd be on the first rung and then she'd do this each each time she lifted up her foot she lifted

01:04:13.120 like an inch higher right she's just playing right on that edge of disaster which is the best place to 0.99

01:04:19.300 play everyone knows that you play on the edge of disaster because that's where you learn that's

01:04:24.980 where it's exciting and the reason it's exciting is because that's where you're learning and your

01:04:28.940 brain is wired to make you excited when you're learning and so she was on the ragged edge of

01:04:33.500 disaster but being calm about it she'd get her foot up and get to the next rung and then up she'd go

01:04:39.000 and then she'd do the same thing with her next foot very very careful eh so we just left her alone 0.59

01:04:43.760 and she managed to go across the top of the monkey bars and that was a good day for her and a good

01:04:48.000 day for us and and hopefully that made her more courageous and more competent than she would be

01:04:54.620 so she learned something from doing that you know and you could say well she absorbed information from

01:04:59.780 the world and built herself out of it that that's a way of thinking about it you know the more things

01:05:04.200 you do the more you go around the world and you do things and you bang yourself up against other

01:05:08.680 people in other situations and you learn what you shouldn't do and you learn what you should do and

01:05:12.920 you make yourself sharper and more informed right information that's what information means you put

01:05:20.340 yourself in formation with the world by incorporating the information of the world and you do that by

01:05:25.520 exposing yourself to things that you haven't yet mastered and you expand your mastery and that's

01:05:30.780 deeply meaningful in fact the instinct of meaning is exactly that instinct that tells you when you're

01:05:36.660 optimizing the rate at which your competence is developing and that's a really lovely thing to know

01:05:40.980 because you know you'll find sometimes that you're engaged in what you're doing that's a that and that's

01:05:46.600 a meaningful thing that you're doing and you might think well there isn't any meaning in life but

01:05:50.020 actually there is you just have to look around and see when it manifests itself and when it manifests

01:05:54.820 itself is when you're expanding your zone of competence because that's what meaning is there to signify

01:06:00.360 and so it's actually a very reliable instinct and it's really real it is telling you that you're in the

01:06:05.780 right place at the right time doing the right thing so that's that's a great thing to know so so you

01:06:12.260 inform yourself and so here's a here's a cool thing so in the short cathedral a cathedral is a cross

01:06:20.560 and a cross is a symbol a symbol an x and you're at the point of the x so that's the x marks the spot and

01:06:28.160 the spot is you and if it's a cross at least in the christian world it's also a place of suffering

01:06:34.260 and that makes sense because the x that marks the spot that's you is characterized by suffering

01:06:39.300 so that's the idea there and then the question is well what should you do about that suffering because

01:06:44.200 well you're stuck with it there's no avoiding it it's worse than that it's not only that there's

01:06:50.200 no avoiding it and that it exists it's that if you don't know how to deal with it and it just

01:06:55.820 grinds you up which it certainly will if you don't know how to deal with it then that will make you

01:07:00.160 bitter and resentful and that will make you cruel and once you're bitter and resentful and cruel well

01:07:05.920 then you'll start to become destructive and then you'll suffer even more and you'll spread that

01:07:09.700 everywhere so you actually need to know how to deal with this and so in the short cathedral there's

01:07:15.440 this very cool thing which is a big labyrinth it's a maze it's a circle it's divided into four parts

01:07:21.000 and it's a symbolic pilgrimage okay so what happens if you're a medieval type and you go on a

01:07:27.200 pilgrimage it's sort of what you do when you go to europe or you know or whatever southeast asia is

01:07:31.980 real common for kids to go to now too it's sort of they grow up and they leave their parents and

01:07:36.240 they go out on this pilgrimage and they go where they haven't been and what happens when they go 0.93

01:07:42.300 where they haven't been is hypothetically they grow up they have some adventures they do some stupid

01:07:46.320 things you know but they have some adventures and they take care of themselves and so when they come

01:07:51.680 back they're they're more than they were because they went somewhere they hadn't been so there's a

01:07:56.940 thing you want to be more than you are then you should go somewhere you haven't been and that's

01:08:01.340 the idea of going on a pilgrimage to go to the center of the world you have a big adventure on the

01:08:05.420 way there and then on the way back and then you're not the same when you come back you're more than you

01:08:10.020 were and so everyone should go on a pilgrimage once in your life and well if the pilgrimage is

01:08:14.700 structured properly then you go to the center of things and that's the idea of a holy pilgrimage

01:08:19.520 let's say that's something that people would act out but not everybody can afford to go on a

01:08:24.160 pilgrimage and maybe you can do it symbolically so in the chart cathedral which is a cross there's

01:08:29.720 a maze it's a big maze about 40 feet across and it's a circle divided into four parts so it's the

01:08:36.280 world north west east and south and you can get to the center of the labyrinth but the way you get to

01:08:44.260 the center is you enter the labyrinth and then you have to walk and these pathways that demarcate all of

01:08:51.340 the quadrants and to get to the center you have to go everywhere well that's an idea to get to the

01:08:58.600 center you have to go everywhere and that's exactly right and so and why well if you go everywhere and

01:09:07.620 that takes courage obviously to go everywhere because you have to confront what you're afraid

01:09:11.300 of to go everywhere then you get to the center of things well why well here's one reason

01:09:20.020 you you gather a lot of information when you go places that's pretty straightforward you know and

01:09:26.920 i'm sure if you think about it maybe i'm wrong about this but i don't think so what i've noticed

01:09:32.160 in my life is that every time i try to do something that i actually try to do that works it doesn't

01:09:40.400 necessarily get me where i was planning to go with that plan but i've never regretted picking up a

01:09:45.800 skill you know i pick up a skill for a reason and maybe that reason doesn't work out but then i've

01:09:49.860 got the skill and then inevitably that skill comes in useful for something along the way and so my sense

01:09:56.120 is the things that i've actually attempted to do you know and put some spirit into it have paid off

01:10:04.140 even though they didn't necessarily pay off the way that i expected they would

01:10:07.840 but that's okay that that doesn't matter so much it's whether or not they paid off that matters

01:10:13.420 so the more things you bang yourself up against voluntarily the more courageous you become

01:10:21.320 the more skilled you become the more you're able to deal with your own suffering and that means the

01:10:27.640 less corrupt you're going to be because suffering that you can't manage makes you corrupt

01:10:31.440 and suffering that you can bear maybe even bear nobly and honorably well then well that's the

01:10:38.100 definition of a well-lived life but here's something else that's cool so there's this idea

01:10:44.780 that if you that you can confront the abyss and that in the abyss there's a monster and in the belly

01:10:52.600 of the monster is your father and your father is laying there asleep or dead you see that in the story

01:10:58.180 pinocchio it's a very very old idea it's a very very very old idea it's at least

01:11:04.240 five thousand years old in in recorded form which means it's way older than that but it's really old

01:11:10.920 idea you look into the abyss that's what terrifies you and in the abyss there's a terrible monster and

01:11:16.000 in the monster there's your father and he's half dead and or asleep and you see that in pinocchio and

01:11:21.640 pinocchio is a puppet a marionette someone else is pulling his strings and if you remember in the

01:11:26.000 pinocchio movie you may remember this when pinocchio goes to rescue his father from the depths not only 0.75

01:11:31.000 is he a marionette but he's also a jackass that's a bad combination so not only is something else 0.88

01:11:36.820 pulling his strings he's still wooden headed puppet but he brays nonsense because he's he's he's 0.98

01:11:43.120 pathologized his capacity for for for truthful speech so he's really in rough shape but he goes

01:11:48.540 down to the depths right to the bottom to see the thing that everything is most afraid of

01:11:53.780 that's the whale monstro and weirdly enough what he finds inside the whale even though there's no

01:11:58.620 explanation in the story at all about how geppetto got there is his father and then he rescues his

01:12:04.400 father from the belly of the whale and they go back up to the surface and pinocchio becomes a real boy

01:12:09.080 so that's very interesting and it's really interesting because you go see that movie right

01:12:14.000 all of you pretty much have seen that movie it's like what the hell are you doing going to see that

01:12:18.640 movie you're watching drawings of a puppet led by a cricket go to the ocean to find a whale to rescue

01:12:26.500 his father and somehow that makes him real and you're all okay with that it's like yeah that makes

01:12:32.080 perfect sense it's like doesn't make any sense at all but nonetheless you're gripped by it and you're

01:12:38.140 engaged by it and it's because it's actually true so here's how it's true this is something

01:12:44.740 geneticists have discovered recently so first of all there's the thing is that if you face what

01:12:49.660 you're afraid of the abyss you're going to find all sorts of information right you're going to gather

01:12:54.620 all sorts of information you're going to map that information into you and that's going to make you

01:12:58.760 informed and so that's part of that's part of becoming who you are

01:13:03.620 then some of that information you're going to gather from other people and those people

01:13:09.960 because you're interacting with all the time they're telling you all the time about how to behave and

01:13:13.680 how not to behave how to be an optimal person and how not to be an optimal person and the more you

01:13:17.900 reflect that the more you take on the characteristics that are demanded of you in some sense

01:13:23.340 in the way that an ideal is demanded of someone so you think about that as a paternal ideal at least

01:13:30.140 in part you should be the great father that's who you should be you should grow up that's what you

01:13:35.900 should do and everyone's telling you that all the time including you and so the more you hit

01:13:40.280 yourself against the world the more of that information you're going to incorporate and the more of

01:13:43.540 that you're going to become and that's something like rescuing your father from the abyss but here's

01:13:48.340 this thing that's even cooler and it's associated with this idea of the labyrinth as well so the

01:13:53.360 labyrinth which is the pilgrimage you have to go everywhere to get to the middle so here's what

01:13:58.600 happens if i take you out of your comfortable environment and i put you something new put you

01:14:04.560 somewhere new or even better you put yourself somewhere new and that's the only thing that really

01:14:09.680 works by the way so if i present you with a challenge and it's involuntary you'll produce

01:14:15.280 a lot of stress hormones and it'll paralyze you but if you take on the same challenge voluntarily

01:14:19.600 you have an entirely different psychophysiological response to it it's a completely different thing

01:14:24.880 to do it voluntarily okay so you have to confront the abyss voluntarily what happens

01:14:30.860 you put yourself in a radically new situation

01:14:34.180 your genes turn on new proteins and manufacture different structures in your brain

01:14:41.140 you turn yourself on and we don't know the limit to that and so you you have a potential you know

01:14:50.140 and the potential is part what you could learn as a consequence of being informed but there's also

01:14:54.760 a potential genuinely there's a potential locked inside of you at the molecular level

01:15:00.040 and the way you turn that potential on is by stress by stressing yourself by by challenging

01:15:05.200 yourself right and by adopting a stance of courage in the world and by pushing yourself beyond where

01:15:10.980 you are into new domains and the consequence of that is is that the genes in your neural structures

01:15:16.940 code for new proteins and they make new a new thing out of you and we have no idea what the limit

01:15:25.060 of that is and so you think well what's that new thing that's being turned on well obviously you know 0.99

01:15:32.180 you've been around for three and a half billion years you're not stupid even though you may act stupid 0.97

01:15:36.340 from time to time you have this limitless biological potential in some sense that's ready to manifest 0.99

01:15:43.220 itself but it's not going to manifest itself without being pushed it needs a reason to turn on and so you

01:15:48.900 go somewhere new voluntarily and things that would help you cope with that new thing turn on and then

01:15:55.700 you might think well what would happen if you just got it all turned on and the answer then might be

01:16:00.140 well then you would be who you should be and that would be equivalent to rescuing your father from the belly

01:16:05.520 of the beast right that would be that the same thing as taking on that that archetypal what would you

01:16:11.440 call it that archetypal and desirable structure of authority and incorporating that it's something like that

01:16:17.140 well and what you need in order to do that is courage and faith too faith that if you manifest

01:16:25.880 courage that the consequences of that will be positive and the only way you will ever find out

01:16:32.440 is if you try because no one else can tell you they can hint at it but you can't do this is something

01:16:37.300 the existentialists in the 1950s realized is it's on you the only person that can find out if this is

01:16:43.000 actually true is you because you're the one that has to face the things that your particular

01:16:47.060 really afraid of and you're the one there's an old story king arthur and the knights of the round

01:16:52.280 table they're off to look for the holy grail which is the container of what everyone needs

01:16:57.160 whatever that is and of course they don't know where the hell to go look for the holy grail who

01:17:01.320 knows where you go look for the holy grail and so they move away from the round table and they all

01:17:06.820 enter the forest and each of them enters the forest at the place that looks darkest to him

01:17:10.900 and that's where you start the search for the holy grail and so that's very much worth knowing as

01:17:17.000 well so courage well why do you need courage well because life is terrible it's suffering and it's

01:17:28.280 malevolence and so you have every reason to be terrified and there's no real way out of that

01:17:33.700 because that's the ground of existence but it turns out that that's okay because there's more

01:17:39.400 to you than you think and the way you find out if there's more and what that more is is by facing

01:17:44.840 that thing that's terrifying and maybe facing that thing that's malevolent as well because that could

01:17:49.840 be your fundamental moral obligation right to face the suffering of the world and to constrain the

01:17:55.540 malevolence within it and it turns out that even though that's an overwhelming task by definition

01:18:00.900 that you're probably up to it and if you took on the responsibility of doing that voluntarily

01:18:07.640 then what would happen is that you would discover that you were up to it and the consequence of that

01:18:13.200 would be at least in part is not so much that the suffering in life would disappear although god only

01:18:18.840 knows how much we could constrain it if we all seriously tried but that in the attempt to face it

01:18:24.740 and constrain it you'll find a meaning that's so engaging and so overwhelming that that in itself will

01:18:30.360 serve as a medication against the suffering and malevolence that exists and all of that appears

01:18:37.100 to be just simply true thank you

01:18:42.640 all right

01:18:53.040 all right so someone named zachary henderson said in your opinion who is the handsomest man in the

01:19:01.780 front row tonight well obviously that's zachary henderson okay all right so

01:19:10.500 anonymous says um do you believe in aliens and the answer to that is no but they exist whether i believe in

01:19:21.340 them or not all right

01:19:25.360 so someone said how do you reconcile the very strong interest in your work my work i presume

01:19:38.980 with what is otherwise a generally apathetic and disengaged approach to life

01:19:43.920 so someone so that's a nihilism question right because

01:19:49.940 you know there's kind of two broad categories of existential catastrophe and

01:19:56.440 one would be the escape into a rigid totalitarianism

01:20:01.760 that that sort of crushes with its strictures

01:20:05.900 and the other is to let everything fall apart and to become nihilistic and the nihilistic

01:20:12.680 attitude is generally predicated on the presumption that

01:20:16.640 you know life is fundamentally meaningless and

01:20:19.820 so there's no superordinate meaning and

01:20:24.260 because life is short and painful

01:20:28.420 and so what's the point and i think the answer to that is well a process of discovery because

01:20:39.420 you you can discover the point 0.56

01:20:42.320 but you have to first of all assume that you're too ignorant to begin with to know what it is 0.90

01:20:50.980 and also to question your doubt itself 0.96

01:20:55.680 you know because if you believe that life is pointless

01:21:01.000 then you believe that what you believe is correct

01:21:04.780 and that means you believe your beliefs

01:21:07.540 and it seems to me that you're probably not smart enough to

01:21:12.120 unquestioningly believe your beliefs

01:21:14.880 and you might start with questioning your doubt

01:21:17.500 why do you doubt that life has meaning

01:21:20.820 well you might say well it's just self-evident given it's suffering infinitude

01:21:25.440 it's like well no that's not so self-evident 1.00

01:21:28.100 maybe you're just useless and irresponsible 1.00

01:21:30.020 and you're justifying that 1.00

01:21:32.100 by making the case that life is meaningless

01:21:35.200 so that you don't have to do anything

01:21:36.620 and you don't have to bear any responsibility

01:21:38.420 that's actually quite hopeful if you discover that

01:21:40.980 because you think that everything is pointless and horrible 1.00

01:21:43.440 and it's just that you're useless 0.99

01:21:44.760 and that's way better because if you're just useless you could forget you could fix that 1.00

01:21:50.720 but if life is pointless and horrible then you're basically doomed 0.96

01:21:53.480 so you can substitute nihilism for humility

01:21:57.300 you can substitute humility for nihilism

01:22:00.000 that would be a good start

01:22:01.920 and then the person who asked this question

01:22:05.220 obviously has a generally apathetic and disengaged approach to life

01:22:09.360 but finds that they're very strongly interested in my work

01:22:13.940 okay so then the first thing to do about that

01:22:17.360 is to notice that while you're not

01:22:18.940 completely apathetic and disengaged

01:22:22.780 you're apathetic and disengaged

01:22:24.500 but there's some spark in the darkness

01:22:27.200 and you don't know why

01:22:28.880 but it's there at least

01:22:30.460 and this is a useful thing if you're feeling hopeless

01:22:33.180 and I mean there's lots of reasons why someone might be feeling hopeless

01:22:36.400 and sometimes people are feeling hopeless because they're physically ill in one manner or another

01:22:40.860 so I'm not thinking about this as a universal panacea

01:22:44.200 and I know there's lots of reasons for being depressed

01:22:46.260 and that that's not that easy to distinguish from being nihilistic

01:22:50.920 but if you notice that

01:22:52.440 there are some things that grip you

01:22:55.320 that's a useful place to start

01:22:57.900 it's like oh look I'm interested in something

01:23:00.700 well that's a mystery right

01:23:03.080 because you can't make yourself interested in something

01:23:05.620 you can notice that you're interested in something

01:23:08.740 and then you can pursue it

01:23:10.460 interest is sort of like

01:23:11.840 it's like a beacon that glimmers in the darkness

01:23:14.220 and if you follow what you're interested in

01:23:16.120 especially if you do it honestly

01:23:17.640 which is actually crucial

01:23:19.460 which is why I wrote rule 8

01:23:21.520 tell the truth or at least don't lie

01:23:24.300 if you're going to follow what you're interested in

01:23:25.880 then you better not lie

01:23:26.860 because if you lie you'll pathologize the mechanism of interest

01:23:30.060 and then it will lead you off a cliff

01:23:31.620 so if you're going to follow what you're interested in

01:23:33.940 then you better be honest

01:23:34.980 because otherwise you're following someone dishonest

01:23:37.720 that's a very bad idea

01:23:39.400 so but in any case if you don't notice that you're interested in something

01:23:43.040 even if you're interested in something like music

01:23:45.400 I don't care what it is

01:23:46.500 if you're interested in something

01:23:47.680 then that thing that you're interested in can guide you

01:23:50.400 you know in the Harry Potter movies

01:23:53.500 you know they play that Quidditch game

01:23:55.520 and you know that's a funny game

01:23:58.320 because there's the normal game

01:23:59.640 which is sort of like basketball

01:24:01.480 except you play it on brooms

01:24:02.940 and then there's a game that rises out of that

01:24:07.640 which is the game that the seekers play 0.99

01:24:09.420 there's two seekers 0.96

01:24:10.560 and they chase this little golden ball with wings on it

01:24:13.220 and that's actually an ancient symbol

01:24:14.980 it's the alchemical chaos

01:24:16.800 and it's the container of the unrevealed world

01:24:20.060 that's what the alchemical chaos is

01:24:22.060 that's what that snitch is

01:24:23.460 interestingly enough

01:24:25.120 and I don't know how the hell J.K. Rowling ever figured that out

01:24:28.040 because it's unbelievably obscure knowledge

01:24:30.060 but she did figure it out

01:24:31.120 and the seekers chase that

01:24:33.900 and that thing flits around right

01:24:36.100 it goes everywhere

01:24:36.740 it's like Mercury

01:24:37.540 the winged messenger of the gods

01:24:39.260 it's the same idea

01:24:40.240 and the seekers follow this thing that flits around

01:24:43.740 that's golden and glitters and gleams

01:24:45.700 and that's meaning itself

01:24:47.360 and the idea that's expressed in the game of Quidditch

01:24:51.220 is that the person who pursues meaning

01:24:53.100 and finds it is wins something of such colossal magnitude

01:24:56.720 that the entire game is

01:24:58.920 that everyone who's playing

01:25:00.960 what would you say

01:25:02.420 attain something of such colossal magnitude

01:25:05.360 that he is declared victorious right at that moment

01:25:09.180 that's really what that is symbolizing

01:25:11.540 in the structure of the movie

01:25:12.980 which is so cool that she managed that

01:25:14.700 it's such a stroke of genius

01:25:16.540 but you can do that in your own life

01:25:18.540 you know there'll be things that glimmer and glitter for you

01:25:20.980 in the darkness

01:25:21.560 and you said

01:25:22.900 Andrew

01:25:23.940 this is the person who asked this question

01:25:25.800 that you have a strong interest in my work

01:25:30.840 and well then I would say

01:25:31.900 be a little more precise about that

01:25:33.440 right

01:25:34.400 exactly what is it that you're interested in

01:25:36.860 precisely what is it that's

01:25:38.660 gathering your attention

01:25:40.160 because that's a marker to the

01:25:42.760 that's the doorway through which you must pass into your life

01:25:47.260 that's what that is

01:25:48.500 and that's what meaning marks out for people

01:25:50.720 you know it's like we

01:25:52.380 we see

01:25:53.120 we see in front of us

01:25:54.220 a set of doors

01:25:55.660 that's the

01:25:56.300 that's the world

01:25:57.120 in front of us is

01:25:57.900 an infinite set of doorways

01:25:59.720 and

01:26:00.440 and we can

01:26:01.060 open the doorways

01:26:02.100 and all sorts of things will come out

01:26:03.980 we don't face

01:26:05.360 we're not determined by the material reality around us

01:26:08.960 although we are to some degree

01:26:10.520 that isn't the world that confronts us

01:26:12.960 the world that confronts us

01:26:13.980 is a

01:26:14.320 a vast expanse of potential and possibility

01:26:17.120 you all know that

01:26:18.040 you wake up in the morning and you think

01:26:19.680 well there are things to do

01:26:21.240 there are

01:26:21.660 there are ways that I can behave

01:26:23.580 that will produce certain consequences

01:26:25.220 some

01:26:25.600 negative and some positive

01:26:27.320 it

01:26:27.560 it's this expanse of potential

01:26:29.440 and

01:26:29.740 that's really what you confront

01:26:31.200 as a human being

01:26:32.340 is you confront the expanse of potential

01:26:34.900 with your consciousness

01:26:35.840 and your consciousness is exactly that

01:26:37.860 which transforms that potential into actuality

01:26:40.200 and your moral

01:26:41.760 and your moral

01:26:43.400 and your morality

01:26:45.200 determines

01:26:46.320 whether

01:26:47.080 you transform that potential

01:26:49.280 into

01:26:50.020 a good world

01:26:51.640 or a bad world

01:26:52.480 and you all know that too

01:26:54.100 because you know that you can make bad decisions

01:26:55.840 and make things worse

01:26:56.700 and you can make good decisions

01:26:57.760 and make things better

01:26:58.700 and so

01:26:59.780 that's an echo too

01:27:01.120 that's an echo of

01:27:02.060 what happens in Genesis

01:27:03.940 when God creates the world out of chaos

01:27:06.340 is

01:27:07.140 it's a decision to

01:27:08.960 to speak the truth

01:27:10.380 and to interact with the chaotic potential

01:27:12.440 and to produce

01:27:13.220 habitable order out of it

01:27:14.520 and

01:27:14.660 it's in that image that we're made

01:27:16.440 that's the story

01:27:17.660 and it's a great story

01:27:18.920 and we all believe it

01:27:19.960 because we treat each other like that

01:27:21.260 and

01:27:21.400 we predicate our entire

01:27:22.660 political system

01:27:23.700 on the idea that that's what we are

01:27:25.480 and then you might say

01:27:26.800 well you have all those doorways in front of you

01:27:29.040 and

01:27:29.160 which one should you open

01:27:30.520 the answer is

01:27:31.120 well how about

01:27:31.640 you open the one that glitters

01:27:32.980 and it attracts your attention

01:27:35.420 and that's a deep manifestation

01:27:37.180 of the instinct for meaning

01:27:38.440 and so something beckons to you

01:27:40.040 and then you can open it

01:27:41.680 and then something comes out of it

01:27:43.460 and that changes everything

01:27:44.740 and then what beckons will change

01:27:46.720 and that's what happens

01:27:47.780 when you follow your instinct for meaning

01:27:49.380 but you have to be humble to do that

01:27:51.700 you have to be willing to see

01:27:53.860 what it is that glitters in the darkness

01:27:55.580 and you have to lower yourself

01:27:56.940 so that you're willing to pursue it

01:27:58.480 because it won't be something high and mighty

01:28:00.980 to begin with

01:28:01.540 because why the hell should it be

01:28:02.720 if you don't know what you're doing

01:28:03.740 and you don't know who you are

01:28:05.160 and you're enveloped in chaos

01:28:06.700 and you're

01:28:07.780 and you're

01:28:08.360 what would you say 1.00

01:28:09.440 hopeless and undisciplined and useless

01:28:11.160 why would something magnificent 0.99

01:28:12.660 manifest itself for you

01:28:14.080 to begin with

01:28:14.960 it's going to be something

01:28:16.260 small enough

01:28:17.240 so someone like you

01:28:18.200 would have to get on their hands and knees

01:28:19.580 to approach

01:28:20.580 maybe you have to clean up your room

01:28:23.340 maybe you have to

01:28:24.620 scrape the dust bunnies

01:28:26.020 underneath your bed

01:28:26.980 you know

01:28:27.720 maybe you have to do those things

01:28:29.440 that you know you should do

01:28:30.480 that you've been putting off

01:28:32.320 because they're beneath you

01:28:33.500 it's no they're not

01:28:34.320 not in the least

01:28:36.040 not if you have to do them

01:28:37.140 they're exactly what you have to do

01:28:38.660 if you have to do them

01:28:39.540 no matter how small they are

01:28:40.920 and so

01:28:42.300 you adopt your responsibility

01:28:44.380 and you follow what beckons as meaningful

01:28:46.360 and

01:28:47.400 and you do that

01:28:48.340 in humility

01:28:49.380 knowing that

01:28:50.040 you're not in a position

01:28:51.080 to judge the world

01:28:51.920 and you say

01:28:52.540 I have a generally apathetic

01:28:55.620 and disengaged approach to life

01:28:56.980 it's like well

01:28:57.580 what makes you think

01:28:59.780 you're a reliable judge

01:29:00.760 of the structure of being

01:29:01.780 well it's a good question man

01:29:04.680 so before you dismiss

01:29:08.860 the cosmos as insignificant

01:29:11.560 you might want to make sure

01:29:13.580 that you've

01:29:14.120 put yourself together

01:29:15.500 to the degree that you can

01:29:16.760 because you may be missing something

01:29:19.040 you never know

01:29:20.000 so

01:29:21.320 when a woman experiences

01:29:24.980 an unplanned pregnancy

01:29:26.200 she often feels alone

01:29:27.680 and afraid

01:29:28.260 too often her first response

01:29:30.260 is to seek out an abortion 0.85

01:29:31.440 because that's what

01:29:32.720 left-leaning institutions

01:29:33.800 have conditioned her to do

01:29:35.280 but because of the generosity

01:29:37.040 of listeners like you

01:29:38.200 that search may lead her

01:29:39.580 to a pre-born network clinic

01:29:41.040 where by the grace of God

01:29:42.520 she'll choose life

01:29:43.560 not just for her baby

01:29:44.780 but for herself

01:29:46.040 pre-born offers God's love

01:29:47.940 and compassion to hurting women

01:29:49.300 and provides a free ultrasound

01:29:50.720 to introduce them to the life

01:29:52.160 growing inside them

01:29:53.280 this combination helps women 0.91

01:29:55.040 to choose life

01:29:56.000 and it's how pre-born

01:29:57.260 saves 200 babies

01:29:58.520 every single day

01:29:59.520 thanks to the daily wire's

01:30:01.180 partnership with pre-born

01:30:02.260 we're able to make

01:30:03.100 our powerful documentary

01:30:04.340 choosing life

01:30:05.460 available to all

01:30:06.660 on daily wire plus

01:30:07.720 join us in thanking pre-born

01:30:09.840 for bringing this important work

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01:30:12.640 and consider making a donation today

01:30:14.700 to support their life-saving work

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01:30:26.060 just dial pound 250

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01:30:36.180 oh Maya 0.98

01:30:40.660 Maya

01:30:41.720 she loves being cool

01:30:43.920 21 degrees

01:30:44.920 is her favorite number

01:30:46.720 god she's the coolest 1.00

01:30:48.260 especially at night

01:30:49.840 so I raise the temp

01:30:51.160 at 10 p.m.

01:30:51.940 because she gets chilly

01:30:52.960 when she sleeps

01:30:53.800 Maya loves using less energy 0.73

01:30:55.680 and I love Maya

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01:31:15.040 get an always fresh

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01:31:24.520 well if everything you believe

01:31:37.760 makes you hopeless

01:31:38.740 then maybe you could question

01:31:41.360 the utility of what you believe

01:31:42.820 that's humility

01:31:45.740 look there's this story

01:31:48.000 that I read in a book

01:31:50.740 called The Cocktail Hour

01:31:53.380 by T.S. Eliot

01:31:54.240 and in The Cocktail Hour

01:31:56.000 a woman talks to a psychiatrist

01:31:57.980 I believe at a party

01:31:59.100 hence The Cocktail Hour

01:32:00.640 and she's kind of asking him

01:32:03.320 for professional advice

01:32:04.320 and she says

01:32:04.840 look I'm having a pretty

01:32:05.660 rough time of it

01:32:06.340 my life is not

01:32:07.180 what it should be

01:32:08.640 and I'm suffering

01:32:09.820 unbearably

01:32:10.520 and I really hope

01:32:13.140 there's something wrong

01:32:13.840 with me

01:32:14.280 and the psychiatrist

01:32:15.940 is sort of taken aback

01:32:17.060 and he says

01:32:17.540 well why do you hope

01:32:18.440 that there's something

01:32:19.040 wrong with you

01:32:19.640 and she says

01:32:20.180 well as far as I can tell

01:32:22.600 there's only two possibilities

01:32:23.860 either there's something

01:32:25.920 wrong with me

01:32:26.540 and that's why I'm suffering

01:32:27.740 unsupportably

01:32:29.840 or there's something wrong

01:32:31.240 with the structure of existence

01:32:32.520 and that's why I'm suffering

01:32:33.960 unacceptably

01:32:35.560 and if there's something wrong

01:32:36.700 with the structure of existence

01:32:37.920 well then

01:32:38.480 what am I going to do

01:32:40.780 about that

01:32:41.520 nothing

01:32:42.280 I'm just doomed

01:32:43.460 but if there's something

01:32:44.360 wrong with me

01:32:45.260 then I could fix it

01:32:47.100 and so

01:32:49.580 well that's chapter 6

01:32:50.860 right

01:32:51.180 which is a dark chapter

01:32:53.160 in 12 rules for life

01:32:54.500 because it's a meditation

01:32:55.200 on the motivation

01:32:56.040 of people who do such things

01:32:57.220 as shoot up elementary schools

01:32:58.660 and the rule is

01:33:00.500 put your house

01:33:01.780 in perfect order

01:33:02.540 before you criticize

01:33:03.480 the world

01:33:04.140 and if everything

01:33:05.880 around you

01:33:06.760 is meaningless

01:33:07.280 because of your beliefs

01:33:08.320 the first thing

01:33:08.900 you might think

01:33:09.420 is well maybe

01:33:10.000 it's your beliefs

01:33:10.820 and not the world

01:33:11.700 and so that's

01:33:14.220 that's an unbelievably

01:33:15.500 helpful thing

01:33:16.300 to realize

01:33:17.340 you can doubt

01:33:18.080 your own doubt

01:33:19.120 who designed

01:33:30.580 your logo

01:33:31.220 as seen on your website

01:33:34.100 and passes

01:33:34.660 and what drew you to it

01:33:35.940 well I designed it

01:33:37.280 I drew it

01:33:39.300 it's a 6 foot

01:33:40.920 piece of art

01:33:42.680 so that's about 6 feet

01:33:45.840 it's square

01:33:46.860 it's made in 4 pieces

01:33:48.340 like the labyrinth

01:33:49.860 that I described

01:33:50.620 and it's layered

01:33:53.780 it's about a foot

01:33:54.740 thick

01:33:55.680 and it's made out

01:33:56.880 of quarter inch layers

01:33:57.980 of foam core

01:33:58.860 and foam core

01:33:59.540 is a

01:33:59.960 it's a layer of styrofoam

01:34:02.720 with a layer of paper

01:34:04.340 on each side

01:34:04.960 and it's often used

01:34:05.900 to

01:34:06.220 as backing

01:34:08.680 for prints

01:34:09.920 and so forth

01:34:10.620 or framed artworks

01:34:11.880 but

01:34:12.020 I decided back

01:34:13.940 in the 1980s

01:34:15.080 that I was going to

01:34:15.900 make foam core

01:34:17.080 sculptures

01:34:17.680 that were half

01:34:18.800 sculpture

01:34:19.380 and half paintings

01:34:20.380 and I made

01:34:21.240 half a dozen of them

01:34:22.480 before I ended up

01:34:23.900 doing other things

01:34:24.720 and one of the things

01:34:26.420 that I made

01:34:27.320 back then

01:34:28.140 was this sculpture

01:34:29.540 that I called

01:34:30.320 the meaning of music

01:34:31.340 and I was really

01:34:32.620 interested in music

01:34:33.640 at that point

01:34:34.820 partly because I was

01:34:36.200 trying to sort out

01:34:37.560 the phenomenology

01:34:39.060 of meaning

01:34:39.600 which is

01:34:40.580 what is meaning

01:34:41.520 and is it something

01:34:42.840 real

01:34:43.300 and if it's something

01:34:44.240 real

01:34:44.520 what does it represent

01:34:45.480 or what is it

01:34:46.420 all of that

01:34:47.680 and one of the things

01:34:48.800 I had noticed

01:34:49.520 was that people

01:34:50.920 found music

01:34:52.020 intrinsically meaningful

01:34:53.360 and that was

01:34:54.640 very interesting to me

01:34:55.580 because even nihilistic

01:34:56.780 people couldn't help

01:34:58.320 but find music

01:34:59.360 meaningful

01:34:59.940 and so

01:35:00.940 it was 1983

01:35:02.540 or 1984

01:35:03.260 and punk rock

01:35:05.500 movement

01:35:05.840 was still

01:35:06.400 pretty

01:35:07.180 what would you say

01:35:09.380 powerful

01:35:09.880 still a going concern

01:35:11.500 I actually liked

01:35:13.180 the sex pistols

01:35:13.940 quite a bit

01:35:14.480 and

01:35:15.440 I noticed

01:35:16.700 that even the

01:35:17.300 nihilistic punk rock

01:35:18.280 types found

01:35:18.860 their nihilistic punk rock

01:35:20.220 extremely meaningful

01:35:21.300 which I thought

01:35:22.180 was extremely comical

01:35:23.300 because

01:35:24.280 at the same time

01:35:25.600 they were celebrating

01:35:26.660 their

01:35:27.140 anarchic nihilism

01:35:28.980 they were really

01:35:29.620 into their music

01:35:30.680 and so

01:35:32.420 you can't

01:35:33.320 and music

01:35:34.120 because it's an art form

01:35:35.620 it goes underneath

01:35:36.560 thinking

01:35:37.120 it's also a good

01:35:38.040 antidote

01:35:38.720 to

01:35:39.140 rational skepticism

01:35:41.460 which is why music

01:35:42.340 has become such a

01:35:43.180 powerful force

01:35:44.300 in our culture

01:35:44.940 people love music

01:35:46.280 and I think

01:35:47.280 without music

01:35:48.080 many people

01:35:48.900 would just die

01:35:49.780 and it's because

01:35:51.560 music speaks of meaning

01:35:52.920 directly

01:35:55.140 like

01:35:55.520 when you listen to music

01:35:56.680 when you're into it

01:35:57.700 when you're enjoying it

01:35:58.880 you're not really enjoying it

01:36:00.180 you're finding the experience

01:36:01.800 meaningful

01:36:02.480 and

01:36:03.580 and it's fun to watch

01:36:04.760 people play music

01:36:05.600 because

01:36:05.980 they entrain themselves

01:36:07.560 it's really good to watch

01:36:08.680 people

01:36:09.040 improvise

01:36:10.120 you know

01:36:10.380 because

01:36:10.740 they're all

01:36:11.980 entrained together

01:36:13.400 doing this novel thing

01:36:14.840 they're out on the edge

01:36:15.780 where they should be

01:36:16.660 and they're doing it

01:36:17.480 beautifully

01:36:17.900 and so I thought a lot

01:36:19.160 about what music

01:36:19.900 represented

01:36:20.600 and

01:36:22.020 and

01:36:22.560 and

01:36:23.680 and I spent about

01:36:24.600 four months

01:36:25.140 making this

01:36:25.760 this painting

01:36:27.000 and I thought

01:36:28.340 what I would try to do

01:36:29.060 is to make a piece of art

01:36:30.020 that

01:36:30.280 represented visually

01:36:32.320 what music represented

01:36:33.920 in the auditory realm

01:36:35.600 and so if you look

01:36:36.460 at that logo

01:36:37.120 you'll see that

01:36:38.140 it's like a Necker cube

01:36:39.240 a Necker cube

01:36:39.860 is one of those

01:36:40.400 reversing cubes

01:36:41.380 and

01:36:42.380 I made the

01:36:43.420 I made the

01:36:44.620 painting

01:36:45.120 so that you couldn't

01:36:46.820 resolve it visually

01:36:47.860 so that if you look at it

01:36:49.260 if you kind of gaze at it

01:36:50.400 without

01:36:50.760 focusing too much

01:36:52.740 you'll just see that

01:36:53.420 it moves and moves

01:36:54.360 and moves and moves

01:36:55.160 as your brain tries to

01:36:56.280 resolve what it is

01:36:57.360 what it actually is

01:36:58.800 is a cube

01:36:59.580 set on end

01:37:00.540 with a

01:37:01.960 with a

01:37:02.760 with a tunnel down

01:37:03.720 the middle of it

01:37:04.340 broken into four fragments

01:37:05.820 so

01:37:06.080 another thing that it is

01:37:07.800 it's a

01:37:08.240 it's a

01:37:09.560 three-dimensional representation

01:37:11.160 of a two-dimensional representation

01:37:12.940 of a four-dimensional object

01:37:14.740 that's actually

01:37:15.920 because music is a

01:37:16.980 four-dimensional object

01:37:17.880 right

01:37:18.180 because it has

01:37:18.720 three dimensions

01:37:19.380 spatial

01:37:20.020 those are the spatial dimensions

01:37:21.940 because you know

01:37:22.340 music is arrayed in space

01:37:23.740 that's what happens

01:37:24.740 when you listen to stereo

01:37:25.760 you can see

01:37:26.800 feel

01:37:27.500 or hear

01:37:28.000 how it's arrayed in space

01:37:29.260 and then it unfolds across time

01:37:31.640 so it's got four dimensions

01:37:33.320 and

01:37:34.400 the reason music is meaningful

01:37:36.060 and this took me an awful long time

01:37:37.480 to figure out

01:37:38.120 is because

01:37:39.020 the things that you see

01:37:41.540 in the world

01:37:42.220 that you think are objects

01:37:43.620 aren't objects

01:37:44.500 they're actually patterns

01:37:45.840 and they're patterns

01:37:47.220 that you

01:37:47.960 interact with

01:37:49.340 in a manner

01:37:50.680 that makes them into tools

01:37:52.180 and so

01:37:53.380 often into tools

01:37:55.000 so you're a pattern

01:37:55.880 because

01:37:56.280 you

01:37:57.040 maintain your structure

01:37:59.060 across time

01:37:59.920 so that's a pattern

01:38:01.100 a pattern is something

01:38:02.140 that maintains its structure

01:38:03.360 across time

01:38:04.060 and so

01:38:05.200 all the things that we perceive

01:38:07.500 are patterns

01:38:08.180 and patterns

01:38:09.440 all the patterns of the world

01:38:11.120 and they're meant

01:38:11.660 I mean you think about

01:38:12.420 all the patterns you're made out of

01:38:13.700 right

01:38:13.920 you go down to the subatomic level

01:38:16.040 and there's an array of patterns

01:38:17.340 and then above that

01:38:18.540 at the atomic level

01:38:19.420 there's another array of patterns

01:38:20.820 and then at the molecular level

01:38:22.100 there's another array of patterns

01:38:23.500 and then

01:38:23.860 your organs are patterns

01:38:25.380 and then there's you

01:38:26.180 that's a pattern

01:38:26.880 and then there's

01:38:27.620 you moving through space

01:38:29.480 with all these other people

01:38:30.560 and that's a pattern

01:38:31.480 and then

01:38:31.840 there's the

01:38:32.640 political system

01:38:33.760 or

01:38:34.060 let's say

01:38:34.900 the town that you're in

01:38:36.260 and that's a pattern

01:38:37.020 and the political system

01:38:38.020 that's a pattern

01:38:38.700 and then the ecological system

01:38:40.300 and that's a pattern

01:38:41.080 and then

01:38:41.480 there's the cosmos itself

01:38:43.080 and that's a pattern

01:38:44.220 and that's the harmony

01:38:45.140 of the spheres

01:38:45.940 and all those patterns are interacting in a harmonious way

01:38:49.840 and that's what music represents

01:38:51.620 it represents the harmonious interaction of the patterns of the world

01:38:56.100 and then when you go out to a bar and you dance

01:38:58.980 then what you're doing is you're arraying your body along with that pattern

01:39:02.840 and you find that deeply meaningful like you should

01:39:05.060 because you should array your body in alignment with the patterns of the world

01:39:09.000 and then when you dance with someone else

01:39:11.260 and maybe that's someone that you love

01:39:13.100 then you mutually produce a pattern

01:39:15.860 and you're improvising with each other to produce that pattern

01:39:19.620 and you're simultaneously aligning the pattern that you're both producing

01:39:23.400 with all the patterned reality of the music

01:39:25.780 and so you're acting out the action

01:39:27.940 you're acting out the act of engaging in a dialogue

01:39:32.460 dialogue which is dialogos right

01:39:35.400 so you're engaging in a dialogue that produces a pattern

01:39:39.600 that adapts you to the structure of the patterns of the world

01:39:42.540 and that's what you're doing when you're dancing

01:39:44.120 and so I figured all that out with regards to music

01:39:47.220 and tried to portray that in that logo

01:39:49.060 in that symbol

01:39:50.860 and then since then I've been experimenting with that symbol

01:39:53.980 trying to see how many different forms I can get it to manifest

01:39:56.620 I can get it to manifest in the world

01:39:59.720 and so it's propagating like mad

01:40:02.100 and that was part of what I wanted to do when I made it 35 years ago

01:40:05.940 I thought I'll make this thing and see how many different ways

01:40:08.740 it will manifest itself in the world

01:40:10.320 and so that's the story of that logo

01:40:14.860 Dr. Peterson, I have a question I did not submit

01:40:25.020 Can I have a good question to ask it?

01:40:27.600 Okay

01:40:28.000 So I've heard you talk a lot about the transcendence

01:40:34.680 or the transcendence of life being considered tragedy

01:40:38.140 and as myself I'm struggling with the concept

01:40:41.660 of being somebody who might consider themselves

01:40:43.440 as you might put it a winning lobster

01:40:44.960 and from that perspective

01:40:47.640 for somebody who might be considering themselves

01:40:50.960 quite good at pursuing happiness

01:40:53.540 I'd like you to maybe elaborate a little bit on

01:40:56.960 how the pursuit of happiness is subordinate to the pursuit of purpose

01:41:01.960 Well you're not going to be happy around someone's deathbed

01:41:04.840 so we have to be extraordinarily careful with our terminology

01:41:08.580 you know when people say that they want to be happy

01:41:12.420 first of all they don't mean that

01:41:13.920 when you say you want to be happy

01:41:15.240 that's not actually what you mean

01:41:16.540 there's plenty of psychological evidence for that

01:41:19.440 because if you take measures of well-being

01:41:23.720 and you analyze them statistically

01:41:26.500 what you find is that what people really don't want

01:41:29.560 is to be anxious and in pain

01:41:31.840 so happiness is a positive emotion over and above that

01:41:37.540 but if you force people to make a trade-off

01:41:40.960 they'll pick absence of misery and anxiety

01:41:43.800 that's the fundamental motivation

01:41:46.960 happiness is something that comes upon you

01:41:58.600 if you're fortunate

01:41:59.360 and it's more likely to come upon you

01:42:02.500 if you're pursuing something that's worthwhile

01:42:04.180 and meaningful and also responsible

01:42:06.340 and the problem with assuming that

01:42:08.900 the emotional state is actually the goal

01:42:11.180 is that when you're in situations

01:42:12.500 where that emotional state can't possibly be the goal

01:42:15.200 and so that would be when you're dealing with

01:42:17.280 the tragic realities of life

01:42:18.980 and your ethos is the pursuit of happiness

01:42:22.000 then you're bereft

01:42:23.120 you know let's say you have a sick child

01:42:25.480 for three or four years or more

01:42:27.160 say

01:42:28.220 well good luck with your happiness hypothesis

01:42:32.000 because that's not going to get you through it

01:42:34.060 not in the least

01:42:35.600 not that and I'm not saying that you should be cynical

01:42:38.440 about happiness

01:42:39.180 or that you should despise it if it comes your way

01:42:41.480 but it's just not the proper pursuit

01:42:43.840 it's not a noble pursuit

01:42:45.900 and it will leave you bereft

01:42:48.820 in situations of dire necessity

01:42:51.480 you need something much more profound

01:42:54.700 to orient yourself in the world

01:42:56.240 and that's why I talk more about suffering and malevolence

01:42:59.900 because those things are undeniable realities

01:43:03.320 and they cause an undue amount of trouble

01:43:06.000 and at minimum

01:43:07.820 you can orient yourself properly in the world

01:43:10.780 if you take aim against both of those

01:43:13.820 and attempt to constrain them

01:43:15.080 and that's something that you can do

01:43:16.480 even in the most dire of circumstances

01:43:18.240 and so if you're dealing with someone who's in pain

01:43:20.380 or if you're dealing with someone who's dying

01:43:22.560 or you're dealing with the catastrophes of your own life

01:43:25.380 you still have the meaningful option

01:43:27.580 of trying to reduce the suffering

01:43:29.080 to the maximal possible degree

01:43:31.420 and that's a worthwhile endeavor

01:43:33.980 and you'll find meaning in that

01:43:35.400 and so

01:43:36.640 it's a much more adult way

01:43:39.440 of orienting yourself in the world

01:43:41.020 and if happiness happens to come your way

01:43:43.240 well then

01:43:43.680 good for you

01:43:45.300 and isn't that wonderful

01:43:46.340 and that's something to be thankful for

01:43:47.840 but it's a side effect

01:43:49.320 and not a pursuit

01:43:50.140 Damien says

01:43:52.380 doing what you do must be stressful

01:43:54.160 how do you unwind?

01:44:00.940 unwind

01:44:01.380 that's a good one, alright

01:44:02.940 some people think I'm already completely unwound

01:44:06.600 well it's stressful I suppose in some ways

01:44:18.280 I mean

01:44:18.600 these

01:44:20.080 I don't find these

01:44:21.300 these talks particularly stressful

01:44:23.720 because they're so positive

01:44:25.040 you know

01:44:26.220 I like to come out

01:44:27.400 and talk about

01:44:29.160 the things that I've learned

01:44:30.420 and

01:44:30.760 and to see all

01:44:32.200 of you people here

01:44:33.340 and

01:44:34.260 to have a serious discussion

01:44:35.880 about things that

01:44:36.780 would help orient us in the world

01:44:38.560 and to

01:44:38.960 push what I know

01:44:40.120 farther ahead

01:44:41.260 and

01:44:41.500 so

01:44:42.300 that's

01:44:43.680 it's so positive

01:44:45.960 that

01:44:46.300 I don't really think about

01:44:47.700 this

01:44:48.460 certainly this part of it

01:44:49.420 as stressful

01:44:50.040 facing journalists

01:44:51.840 is stressful

01:44:52.620 so

01:44:54.380 not always

01:44:55.480 usually

01:44:56.480 and often

01:44:58.500 and so

01:44:59.600 I don't know how I unwind from that

01:45:03.100 I usually go sleep afterwards

01:45:04.640 I guess is what I do

01:45:05.820 that's helpful

01:45:07.360 what I do to

01:45:09.620 increase my ability

01:45:13.480 to tolerate

01:45:14.220 the activities

01:45:15.840 that I'm engaged in

01:45:16.840 is

01:45:17.000 I travel with my wife

01:45:18.440 and she's extremely helpful

01:45:20.120 because she's very level-headed

01:45:21.240 and

01:45:21.500 I have an extra brain along

01:45:23.140 which is a useful thing

01:45:24.280 and

01:45:25.280 we swim

01:45:26.580 and

01:45:26.860 sometimes we work out

01:45:28.200 and

01:45:28.460 sometimes we go for a drive

01:45:30.120 when we can do that

01:45:30.920 and we go for a walk

01:45:31.860 and I spend time with my family

01:45:33.220 and

01:45:33.520 those are all

01:45:35.880 good things

01:45:37.000 but I don't

01:45:38.640 life is stressful

01:45:41.000 so

01:45:42.260 and

01:45:42.600 at least I'm in a position

01:45:44.040 where

01:45:44.460 whatever

01:45:45.840 I'm doing

01:45:47.000 that's stressful

01:45:47.660 is

01:45:48.080 counterbalanced

01:45:48.960 by exactly what I

01:45:50.180 talked to all of you

01:45:51.500 tonight about

01:45:52.160 it's deep

01:45:53.320 what I'm doing

01:45:54.100 what I'm engaged in

01:45:55.540 is deeply meaningful

01:45:56.560 and so

01:45:58.900 it's a pleasure

01:46:00.640 to be able to share that

01:46:01.700 with other people

01:46:02.380 and to

01:46:02.960 see that sense

01:46:04.220 of meaningful engagement

01:46:05.420 envelop

01:46:06.300 more people

01:46:07.960 and

01:46:09.460 I can't think of anything

01:46:12.260 better to do than that

01:46:13.420 which is why I'm doing

01:46:14.520 what I'm doing

01:46:15.240 tonight

01:46:16.300 for example

01:46:17.040 because I can't think of

01:46:18.180 anything better than

01:46:19.060 sitting here and

01:46:20.300 talking to

01:46:21.380 all of you about

01:46:22.420 these things that are

01:46:24.260 necessary to understand

01:46:25.580 and to

01:46:26.020 lay out in the world

01:46:27.500 and so

01:46:28.340 what do I do

01:46:30.140 to unwind?

01:46:31.660 I think I do

01:46:33.980 what you should do

01:46:35.400 if you want to

01:46:36.220 unwind

01:46:36.660 I'm

01:46:37.500 I'm trying my best

01:46:38.880 to make things better

01:46:39.900 because it seems to me

01:46:43.240 that it would be

01:46:43.880 better if they were

01:46:44.800 better

01:46:45.160 it's simple

01:46:46.680 and I have some sense

01:46:48.600 of how bad things

01:46:49.360 can be

01:46:49.880 because I've studied

01:46:50.920 how bad things

01:46:52.580 can be

01:46:53.040 and I've experienced

01:46:54.200 some of it

01:46:54.920 in my own personal life

01:46:56.040 and some of it

01:46:57.040 with my clients

01:46:58.020 because I've

01:46:58.720 been in very dark

01:47:00.000 places with my clients

01:47:01.180 and in my own life

01:47:02.920 from time to time

01:47:03.940 and certainly

01:47:05.300 in my studies

01:47:06.200 and I would rather

01:47:07.660 that everything

01:47:08.900 didn't go to hell

01:47:09.740 in a hand basket

01:47:10.560 like it could

01:47:11.800 and it would

01:47:13.120 I would like it

01:47:14.300 if everyone

01:47:15.340 got on board

01:47:16.540 and we all decided

01:47:17.880 to make things better

01:47:18.900 each of us

01:47:19.860 starting with our own lives

01:47:21.120 and facilitating that

01:47:23.180 is

01:47:24.580 the antidote

01:47:27.580 to the catastrophe

01:47:28.480 of life

01:47:29.080 and so

01:47:30.100 that's a continual

01:47:32.020 unwinding

01:47:32.660 in a sense

01:47:33.360 so

01:47:34.900 and it's a privilege

01:47:36.160 to be able to

01:47:37.280 take part in it

01:47:38.940 and to also see

01:47:40.100 this amazing thing

01:47:41.280 that I've been enveloped in

01:47:43.340 for a long time now

01:47:45.020 you know

01:47:45.320 I started doing

01:47:46.500 these lectures

01:47:47.240 well public lectures

01:47:49.300 really last year

01:47:50.100 I did a series

01:47:50.780 on the Bible

01:47:51.420 which I thought

01:47:52.400 was really quite comical

01:47:53.600 that that worked

01:47:54.360 because

01:47:54.720 well think about it

01:47:56.960 is I

01:47:57.460 I decided to do

01:47:59.080 a series of lectures

01:47:59.900 so I rented a theater

01:48:00.940 and I decided

01:48:02.200 that I would

01:48:02.740 do lectures

01:48:03.640 on

01:48:04.080 on Genesis

01:48:05.880 lectures about

01:48:06.680 responsibility

01:48:07.400 starting with Genesis

01:48:08.480 and that

01:48:09.520 I would do that publicly

01:48:11.220 and then a whole bunch

01:48:12.560 of people came

01:48:13.320 you know

01:48:14.560 so that was pretty weird

01:48:15.600 and a lot of them

01:48:16.120 were young men

01:48:16.780 who were exactly

01:48:17.420 not the people

01:48:18.260 who would ever come

01:48:18.820 and do that

01:48:19.340 and so

01:48:20.600 but they did

01:48:21.340 and then lots of people

01:48:22.380 have about two million

01:48:23.700 two and a half million

01:48:24.640 people have watched

01:48:25.380 the first of those lectures

01:48:26.360 and it's on the first

01:48:27.620 sentence of Genesis

01:48:28.680 so two and a half million

01:48:30.700 people have watched

01:48:31.440 a three hour lecture

01:48:32.380 I think it's three hours long

01:48:33.660 on one sentence

01:48:35.180 from the

01:48:37.380 from the first story

01:48:38.420 in the Bible 0.98

01:48:38.960 it's completely ridiculous 0.95

01:48:40.100 and then 0.96

01:48:41.200 I

01:48:42.800 when I

01:48:43.700 my book launched

01:48:44.900 the publicists

01:48:47.220 in

01:48:47.580 in London

01:48:48.880 rented a theater

01:48:50.080 so that I could talk about

01:48:51.780 and sold out right away

01:48:52.940 so then they rented

01:48:54.080 another one

01:48:54.720 for the next day

01:48:55.900 and it sold out right away

01:48:57.000 and so they rented one

01:48:57.820 the next week

01:48:58.320 and it sold out too

01:48:59.400 and then the same thing

01:49:00.700 happened in Amsterdam

01:49:01.540 and then I thought

01:49:03.460 well that's interesting

01:49:05.280 I sold out 15 theaters

01:49:07.280 and 15 theatrical performances

01:49:09.440 in Toronto

01:49:10.900 and then

01:49:11.380 four in

01:49:12.320 Europe

01:49:13.200 I can probably go

01:49:14.020 wherever I want in the world

01:49:14.920 and book a theater

01:49:15.620 and go talk about

01:49:16.420 what I want to talk about

01:49:17.220 and a whole bunch of people

01:49:17.880 will come

01:49:18.320 so I thought

01:49:19.460 well I might as well

01:49:20.020 try that

01:49:20.580 that seems absurd

01:49:21.580 we might as well

01:49:22.060 try that

01:49:22.720 and so then

01:49:24.700 I've been in

01:49:26.160 my wife and I

01:49:27.340 Tammy

01:49:27.740 have been in

01:49:29.420 I think this is the 58th city

01:49:31.360 in four months

01:49:32.260 and so

01:49:33.580 and here

01:49:34.460 here you all are

01:49:35.520 and we're having a very serious conversation

01:49:37.420 about how to orient ourselves

01:49:39.160 properly in the world

01:49:40.240 and so

01:49:41.680 that's not stressful man

01:49:43.740 that's great

01:49:44.840 so

01:49:46.480 it

01:49:47.560 it compared to

01:49:48.680 there's so much horror

01:49:51.620 and catastrophe

01:49:52.360 in the world

01:49:53.060 to

01:49:54.000 be

01:49:55.140 involved in

01:49:56.520 a continual conversation

01:49:58.460 with thousands of people

01:49:59.460 about how

01:50:00.120 each of our individual lives

01:50:02.000 might be better

01:50:02.720 and how that

01:50:03.500 could spread

01:50:04.540 into our families

01:50:05.780 and into the broader community

01:50:07.360 it's like

01:50:08.320 that's not stressful

01:50:09.220 that's the opposite of stressful

01:50:10.880 it's great

01:50:12.320 it's wonderful

01:50:13.320 it's so positive

01:50:14.300 I can't believe it

01:50:15.260 you know

01:50:15.960 I was talking to my son

01:50:17.740 the other day

01:50:19.040 this morning I think

01:50:20.600 and

01:50:21.600 it was this morning

01:50:22.560 and

01:50:25.860 he came to

01:50:27.120 he came to the UK

01:50:28.480 with

01:50:28.880 with Tammy and I

01:50:29.880 and

01:50:30.740 we had a hell of a trip man

01:50:32.360 we went from New York

01:50:33.440 to Dublin

01:50:33.940 and then to London

01:50:34.780 and so

01:50:36.060 in Dublin

01:50:36.660 I talked to Sam Harris

01:50:38.080 and Douglas Murray

01:50:38.920 and

01:50:40.020 8,500 people showed up

01:50:41.920 we're in this big stadium

01:50:43.040 it was like the biggest

01:50:44.000 philosophical discussion

01:50:45.220 we think it was the biggest

01:50:46.420 public philosophical discussion

01:50:48.060 not like those are common

01:50:49.480 it's not like there's

01:50:50.340 it's not like there's an Olympics

01:50:51.700 of philosophical discussions

01:50:53.460 but if there was

01:50:55.620 that would have been

01:50:56.220 the biggest event

01:50:57.020 and there was like

01:50:57.600 all these people showed up

01:50:59.400 a cavernous arena

01:51:01.280 to hear a very

01:51:03.840 difficult discussion

01:51:05.260 about the relationship

01:51:06.140 between facts and values

01:51:07.400 and religion and science

01:51:08.540 and they were like

01:51:09.420 right into it

01:51:10.560 you know

01:51:11.120 we were going to switch to Q&A

01:51:12.660 after an hour

01:51:13.400 of discussion

01:51:14.620 but the audience

01:51:15.940 voted overwhelmingly

01:51:17.000 with you know

01:51:17.740 by clapping

01:51:18.380 to continue the conversation

01:51:21.860 so we talked for

01:51:22.560 two and a half hours

01:51:23.380 and everyone was like

01:51:24.120 right on board

01:51:24.960 and so it turns out

01:51:26.240 that people are a lot

01:51:27.400 smarter than we thought

01:51:28.500 and that there's a huge

01:51:29.820 huge

01:51:30.960 well

01:51:31.660 I think TV

01:51:32.640 the narrow bandwidth

01:51:33.580 of TV

01:51:34.040 made us think 1.00

01:51:35.000 we were stupid 1.00

01:51:35.600 and we're actually not 1.00

01:51:36.640 and so there's this

01:51:38.420 massive public hunger

01:51:39.680 for detailed

01:51:40.480 and reasonably deep

01:51:43.440 philosophical discussion

01:51:44.620 it's like

01:51:45.080 well that's a hell

01:51:45.700 of an amazing thing

01:51:46.620 so that was just

01:51:47.820 beyond belief

01:51:48.640 and then

01:51:49.040 so we're in Dublin

01:51:57.000 and we did that

01:51:58.080 and that was crazily

01:51:58.980 exciting

01:51:59.420 and ridiculously

01:52:00.380 adventurous

01:52:01.140 and the talk

01:52:02.340 went really well

01:52:03.020 and we taped it

01:52:03.780 and hopefully

01:52:04.320 like I said

01:52:04.880 that'll be out in August

01:52:05.780 and then people

01:52:06.540 can see what they

01:52:07.340 and when it was

01:52:07.880 a discussion

01:52:08.380 about the relative

01:52:09.200 merits of

01:52:09.880 an atheist

01:52:10.860 materialist viewpoint

01:52:12.200 and a

01:52:12.620 let's call it

01:52:13.600 a religious

01:52:14.120 a traditionalist

01:52:15.100 religious

01:52:15.600 viewpoint

01:52:17.200 and we had a good

01:52:18.580 discussion

01:52:19.120 because there's

01:52:19.800 things to be said

01:52:20.900 on both sides

01:52:21.480 of that argument

01:52:22.020 and then

01:52:22.420 you know

01:52:22.980 with any luck

01:52:23.560 a couple of million

01:52:24.240 people will watch

01:52:25.060 those videos

01:52:25.620 and they can have

01:52:26.260 a discussion about it

01:52:27.100 maybe we can sort

01:52:27.860 ourselves out properly

01:52:28.820 and then

01:52:29.120 we went to London

01:52:30.240 and did the same

01:52:31.320 thing again

01:52:31.900 along with a variety

01:52:34.680 of other activities

01:52:37.040 and like I said

01:52:38.360 I was talking to my son

01:52:39.400 about it this morning

01:52:40.260 and he's a pretty

01:52:41.240 tough kid

01:52:41.840 and pretty level headed

01:52:43.560 and you know

01:52:44.380 when he was talking

01:52:44.960 about it

01:52:45.320 he broke down

01:52:47.040 and it made him cry

01:52:47.860 and you know

01:52:49.520 and the reason for that

01:52:50.500 is because it's

01:52:51.060 absolutely overwhelming

01:52:52.080 to watch this happen

01:52:53.240 I can't believe it

01:52:54.560 so it's not stressful

01:52:56.200 it's a privilege

01:52:59.000 to be doing this

01:53:00.360 it's an absolute

01:53:01.280 bloody privilege

01:53:02.060 to be doing this

01:53:02.800 and I'm so pleased

01:53:03.760 that you're all here

01:53:04.660 how do you move forward

01:53:16.040 in life

01:53:16.480 after having made

01:53:17.520 and regretted

01:53:19.220 a huge mistake

01:53:20.600 well

01:53:21.860 you know

01:53:25.080 this is one of the reasons

01:53:26.340 that I

01:53:26.940 that I think

01:53:27.740 that the biblical lectures

01:53:29.080 I did last year

01:53:29.880 were so helpful

01:53:30.480 to me

01:53:30.880 and I think

01:53:31.700 to other people

01:53:32.320 one of the things

01:53:33.620 that's quite interesting

01:53:34.440 about those stories

01:53:35.720 the Abrahamic stories

01:53:37.140 in particular

01:53:37.640 is that

01:53:38.020 those bloody people

01:53:39.620 they just made mistakes 0.99

01:53:41.160 all the time

01:53:41.920 absolutely

01:53:42.920 you know

01:53:43.820 so Abraham

01:53:44.620 for example

01:53:45.420 you know

01:53:46.240 he was chosen

01:53:46.840 by God

01:53:47.520 hypothetically

01:53:49.300 like all the people

01:53:50.140 in those narratives

01:53:51.680 were

01:53:52.040 and I mean

01:53:52.900 he just made

01:53:53.440 one absolutely

01:53:54.380 catastrophic mistake

01:53:55.540 after another

01:53:56.240 and so

01:53:57.440 that's life

01:53:58.540 man

01:53:58.920 making and regretting

01:54:01.420 huge mistakes

01:54:02.500 now that doesn't mean

01:54:04.360 that you should just

01:54:04.880 go on propagating

01:54:05.740 the mistakes

01:54:06.380 right

01:54:06.820 so

01:54:07.740 you have to take

01:54:08.700 responsibility for it

01:54:09.820 but

01:54:09.980 the people that I've

01:54:11.160 watched in my life

01:54:11.980 who

01:54:12.240 who lived

01:54:13.640 properly

01:54:14.940 let's say

01:54:15.440 they learned from

01:54:17.040 their mistakes

01:54:17.560 but they didn't

01:54:18.240 beat themselves

01:54:19.400 to death 0.99

01:54:20.340 because of them 0.97

01:54:21.260 you know

01:54:22.040 and you think

01:54:22.480 well

01:54:22.780 so this said

01:54:25.300 well this was

01:54:25.760 a regretted infidelity

01:54:26.840 it's like

01:54:27.240 well we don't

01:54:27.660 take adulterers

01:54:28.480 out in the public 0.98

01:54:29.300 square and stone 0.64

01:54:30.180 them

01:54:30.500 and so

01:54:32.480 you probably

01:54:33.220 shouldn't do that

01:54:34.240 to yourself

01:54:35.040 you know

01:54:36.880 if you regret it

01:54:38.220 well then

01:54:38.620 what you have to do

01:54:39.400 is you have to

01:54:40.120 repent

01:54:40.420 and you have to

01:54:41.260 atone

01:54:41.820 and so

01:54:43.400 what does repent

01:54:44.160 mean

01:54:44.440 it means

01:54:44.840 well

01:54:45.100 it means

01:54:45.520 you have to

01:54:45.940 go over

01:54:46.460 what you did

01:54:47.140 and you have to

01:54:48.600 figure out

01:54:49.060 now that you know

01:54:50.680 it was a mistake

01:54:51.340 you have to

01:54:51.800 figure out

01:54:52.120 why you were 0.99

01:54:52.540 so damn 0.98

01:54:53.040 clueless 1.00

01:54:53.620 and so damn 1.00

01:54:54.240 stupid 1.00

01:54:54.740 and exactly 1.00

01:54:56.200 what you did

01:54:56.900 wrong

01:54:57.220 like with each

01:54:57.780 little decision

01:54:58.420 point

01:54:58.840 like you know

01:54:59.740 when you first

01:55:00.320 met the person

01:55:01.340 that you

01:55:01.900 had the affair

01:55:03.100 with

01:55:03.400 you probably

01:55:04.460 flirted with them

01:55:05.540 a little bit

01:55:06.240 more than you

01:55:06.940 than you

01:55:08.560 you probably

01:55:10.600 flirted with them

01:55:11.600 to a degree

01:55:12.240 that you regarded

01:55:13.160 as risky

01:55:14.080 and excessive

01:55:14.940 but you did it

01:55:16.620 anyways

01:55:17.120 and so now

01:55:17.920 you have to

01:55:18.220 figure out

01:55:18.600 well okay

01:55:19.200 why in the world

01:55:20.460 did I think

01:55:21.020 that was a good

01:55:21.640 idea

01:55:21.940 and you have

01:55:22.380 to know

01:55:22.660 exactly

01:55:23.380 so if you're

01:55:24.980 walking down

01:55:26.560 a path

01:55:27.080 and you get

01:55:27.540 lost

01:55:28.060 and you wander

01:55:29.780 off the path

01:55:30.400 and you get

01:55:30.820 lost

01:55:31.180 you have to

01:55:32.300 figure out

01:55:32.700 how it is

01:55:33.140 that you

01:55:33.440 wandered off

01:55:34.020 the path

01:55:34.640 because the

01:55:35.940 purpose of

01:55:37.220 repenting

01:55:38.860 let's say

01:55:39.340 is so that

01:55:39.820 when you're

01:55:40.280 back on the

01:55:40.860 path

01:55:41.320 first of all

01:55:42.080 you can find

01:55:42.560 your way back

01:55:43.120 that would be

01:55:43.540 the first purpose

01:55:44.260 and the second

01:55:44.760 is so you

01:55:45.260 don't wander

01:55:45.760 off again

01:55:46.440 and if you

01:55:48.020 wandered off

01:55:48.620 once

01:55:48.980 then you're prone

01:55:49.660 to wandering

01:55:50.220 off in that

01:55:51.060 manner

01:55:51.400 and so then

01:55:51.900 you have to

01:55:52.240 figure out

01:55:52.540 why you're

01:55:53.340 prone to

01:55:53.920 wandering off

01:55:54.620 in that

01:55:54.940 manner

01:55:55.280 right down

01:55:56.120 to the

01:55:56.440 most painful

01:55:57.460 level of

01:55:58.000 detail

01:55:58.420 and then you

01:55:59.120 have to figure

01:55:59.540 out how not

01:56:00.060 to do it

01:56:00.460 again

01:56:00.820 and then as

01:56:01.740 soon as you

01:56:02.140 figure out

01:56:02.560 how not

01:56:03.100 to do it

01:56:03.720 again

01:56:04.280 then you

01:56:06.120 should stop

01:56:06.640 beating yourself

01:56:07.540 up

01:56:07.900 you know

01:56:09.140 because you've

01:56:09.820 learned your

01:56:10.320 lesson

01:56:10.800 and that's

01:56:12.560 sort of the

01:56:13.060 principle

01:56:13.500 like I tried

01:56:14.220 to outline some

01:56:14.840 principles of

01:56:15.440 discipline for

01:56:16.040 children in

01:56:17.080 chapter five

01:56:17.820 and one of

01:56:18.680 the best

01:56:19.020 principles is

01:56:19.840 use no more

01:56:21.220 force than is

01:56:22.100 necessary

01:56:22.880 minimal necessary

01:56:24.840 force

01:56:25.320 it's a great

01:56:25.960 it's a great

01:56:27.060 rule of thumb

01:56:28.140 and you use that

01:56:29.160 on yourself

01:56:29.680 when you make

01:56:30.220 mistakes

01:56:30.800 you know

01:56:31.840 and maybe you

01:56:32.540 so you have to

01:56:33.620 figure out

01:56:34.080 exactly what you

01:56:35.500 did wrong

01:56:36.120 by your own

01:56:37.600 criteria

01:56:38.240 like you said

01:56:39.100 you did something

01:56:39.700 wrong

01:56:40.000 you said you

01:56:40.520 regretted it

01:56:41.220 okay you did

01:56:41.920 something wrong

01:56:42.640 because otherwise

01:56:43.060 you wouldn't

01:56:43.440 regret it

01:56:44.060 or unless maybe

01:56:45.000 you're just

01:56:45.380 regretting the fact

01:56:46.240 that it mucked up

01:56:46.940 your life

01:56:47.440 and you actually

01:56:48.480 you know

01:56:48.700 and that's

01:56:49.160 that's feeling

01:56:49.960 sorry for yourself

01:56:50.920 that's not

01:56:51.480 regretting it

01:56:52.140 so you're going

01:56:52.500 to have to

01:56:52.820 sort those

01:56:53.300 things out

01:56:53.800 because you

01:56:54.200 don't get to

01:56:54.680 feel sorry

01:56:55.140 for yourself

01:56:55.740 you just get

01:56:56.780 to regret it

01:56:57.600 and if you

01:56:58.560 regret it

01:56:59.280 it means you

01:56:59.620 did something

01:57:00.120 wrong

01:57:00.640 and then you

01:57:01.820 have to figure

01:57:02.120 out what you

01:57:02.480 did wrong

01:57:03.060 exactly

01:57:03.980 right down to

01:57:05.020 the detailed

01:57:05.580 levels

01:57:06.040 and what was

01:57:06.740 wrong with

01:57:07.120 your perception

01:57:07.700 and your beliefs

01:57:08.360 that led you

01:57:08.920 in that direction

01:57:09.560 and what you

01:57:10.500 have to do

01:57:10.980 to put that

01:57:11.560 right

01:57:11.880 and then you

01:57:13.000 have to put

01:57:13.420 it right

01:57:13.840 and then maybe

01:57:15.360 you have to go

01:57:15.940 around and make

01:57:16.460 amends to all

01:57:17.300 the people

01:57:17.680 that you hurt

01:57:18.340 and then you

01:57:19.900 have to be back

01:57:20.600 and then perhaps

01:57:21.680 you'll find yourself

01:57:22.400 back on the path

01:57:23.340 and then you

01:57:24.020 have to stay

01:57:25.260 on the path

01:57:25.780 as best you

01:57:26.400 can

01:57:26.780 and

01:57:28.320 and

01:57:29.460 and that's

01:57:30.760 okay in some

01:57:31.640 sense because

01:57:32.200 if we all had

01:57:33.220 to pay the

01:57:34.160 ultimate price

01:57:34.920 for our sins

01:57:35.920 every single

01:57:36.640 one of us

01:57:37.140 would be

01:57:37.820 dead 0.98

01:57:38.660 so you 0.95

01:57:41.520 are

01:57:41.840 this is partly

01:57:42.920 why the

01:57:43.440 concept of

01:57:44.240 original sin

01:57:44.900 is so useful

01:57:45.640 and everyone

01:57:46.760 feels it

01:57:47.320 because everyone's

01:57:47.960 guilty

01:57:48.360 and everyone's

01:57:49.360 ashamed of

01:57:49.880 themselves

01:57:50.280 so we have

01:57:52.340 this inbuilt

01:57:52.920 sense of

01:57:53.680 something gone

01:57:54.740 wrong

01:57:55.200 and if we

01:57:56.040 can't name it

01:57:56.760 then it just

01:57:57.280 haunts us

01:57:58.060 and that's why

01:57:58.800 the idea of

01:57:59.340 original sin

01:57:59.920 is so useful

01:58:00.820 even though it

01:58:01.320 has perhaps

01:58:02.140 some conceptual

01:58:02.800 problems associated

01:58:03.800 with it

01:58:04.300 or perhaps

01:58:05.220 it's not all

01:58:05.800 good

01:58:06.100 but

01:58:07.460 in this

01:58:09.540 particular

01:58:09.920 situation

01:58:10.620 you know

01:58:12.720 you're 0.89

01:58:13.640 a bad 1.00

01:58:15.240 person

01:58:15.720 but so

01:58:16.980 is everyone

01:58:17.380 else

01:58:17.860 so it doesn't

01:58:19.320 mark you out

01:58:20.280 as particularly 0.95

01:58:21.120 horrible

01:58:21.800 that doesn't

01:58:23.060 mean the

01:58:23.320 horribleness

01:58:23.680 isn't real

01:58:24.380 but it's not

01:58:25.640 just you

01:58:26.300 and then

01:58:28.320 what you do

01:58:28.920 about it

01:58:29.260 is you try

01:58:29.700 to be better

01:58:30.240 and that's

01:58:31.400 what you do

01:58:31.760 about what's

01:58:32.920 wrong with you

01:58:33.360 to begin

01:58:33.720 with

01:58:34.040 every one

01:58:35.500 of us

01:58:35.900 we've all

01:58:37.680 got things

01:58:38.100 to learn

01:58:38.520 man

01:58:38.800 and plenty

01:58:39.280 of them

01:58:39.660 the world

01:58:40.020 isn't what

01:58:40.380 it could be

01:58:40.840 and that's

01:58:41.380 our fault

01:58:41.960 and so

01:58:43.120 we've got

01:58:43.440 lots to

01:58:43.860 learn

01:58:44.060 and so

01:58:44.340 do you

01:58:44.680 and you

01:58:45.200 try to

01:58:45.520 learn it

01:58:45.840 and you

01:58:46.940 treat yourself

01:58:48.220 with a firm

01:58:49.220 enough hand

01:58:49.700 so that you

01:58:50.180 learn and

01:58:50.840 not a

01:58:52.100 harsh enough

01:58:52.800 hand so

01:58:53.260 that you 1.00

01:58:53.520 die while 0.99

01:58:54.200 you're 0.98

01:58:54.400 learning

01:58:54.720 so

01:58:55.880 that's

01:58:57.080 that

01:58:58.180 and

01:59:02.580 I have

01:59:04.320 to stop

01:59:04.860 because the

01:59:05.400 clock has

01:59:05.880 hit zero

01:59:06.480 and that's

01:59:07.540 the end

01:59:07.900 of the

01:59:08.140 night

01:59:08.420 thank you

01:59:09.900 very much

01:59:10.520 thank you

01:59:18.380 all very

01:59:18.900 much for

01:59:19.320 coming out

01:59:19.820 it was a

01:59:20.280 pleasure to

01:59:20.740 be here

01:59:21.100 in Hamilton

01:59:21.620 good night

01:59:22.960 if you

01:59:24.000 found this

01:59:24.380 conversation

01:59:24.940 meaningful

01:59:25.460 you might

01:59:25.960 think about

01:59:26.420 picking up

01:59:26.880 dad's books

01:59:27.500 maps of

01:59:28.100 meaning

01:59:28.360 the

01:59:28.640 architecture

01:59:29.100 of belief

01:59:29.680 or his

01:59:30.120 newer

01:59:30.360 bestseller

01:59:31.000 12 rules

01:59:31.740 for life

01:59:32.220 an antidote

01:59:33.160 to chaos

01:59:33.720 both of

01:59:34.820 these works

01:59:35.380 delve much

01:59:36.140 deeper into

01:59:36.640 the topics

01:59:37.100 covered in

01:59:37.700 the Jordan

01:59:38.040 B. Peterson

01:59:38.520 podcast

01:59:38.960 see

01:59:40.020 jordanbpeterson.com

01:59:41.500 for audio

01:59:42.160 ebook and

01:59:42.840 text links

01:59:43.480 or pick up

01:59:44.260 the books

01:59:44.640 at your

01:59:44.960 favorite

01:59:45.220 bookseller

01:59:45.740 next week

01:59:47.260 we're releasing

01:59:47.820 a conversation

01:59:48.520 between

01:59:49.000 Milo

01:59:49.460 Yiannopoulos

01:59:50.200 and dad

01:59:50.780 the conversation

01:59:51.900 was recorded

01:59:52.580 April 11th

01:59:53.480 2019

01:59:54.020 for those of

01:59:55.360 you who don't

01:59:55.860 know him

01:59:56.260 Milo is

01:59:57.240 a journalist

01:59:57.900 performance

01:59:58.820 artist

01:59:59.340 comedian

01:59:59.980 amongst other

02:00:01.180 more provocative

02:00:01.860 things

02:00:02.380 you know

02:00:02.640 you've been

02:00:03.100 less in the

02:00:03.940 public eye

02:00:04.680 I've been

02:00:05.160 retired

02:00:05.600 you've been

02:00:06.440 retired

02:00:06.940 look I sold

02:00:07.540 a quarter

02:00:07.780 of a million

02:00:08.060 books

02:00:08.360 I made

02:00:08.740 millions of

02:00:09.400 dollars

02:00:09.720 I have

02:00:10.180 more nice

02:00:11.300 stuff than

02:00:11.780 I know

02:00:11.940 what to do

02:00:12.280 with

02:00:12.500 I have a

02:00:13.140 husband I

02:00:14.000 am deeply

02:00:14.540 in love

02:00:14.960 with

02:00:15.200 I could die

02:00:16.060 happy tomorrow

02:00:16.660 I helped

02:00:17.060 to get a

02:00:17.320 president

02:00:17.540 office

02:00:17.820 I'm one

02:00:18.200 of the

02:00:18.460 seven

02:00:18.700 people

02:00:19.020 that put

02:00:19.300 Trump

02:00:19.520 in office

02:00:19.920 and that's

02:00:20.280 not

02:00:20.460 egotism

02:00:20.980 that's

02:00:21.280 a fact

02:00:21.580 right

02:00:21.920 I'm one

02:00:22.420 of the

02:00:22.600 seven

02:00:22.780 people

02:00:23.000 that put

02:00:23.260 Donald

02:00:23.440 Trump

02:00:23.660 in office

02:00:24.000 I can 0.57

02:00:24.460 die

02:00:24.740 happy

02:00:31.860 he's caused

02:00:38.420 more of an

02:00:38.860 uproar

02:00:39.340 than most

02:00:39.840 people

02:00:40.200 a couple

02:00:41.020 of weeks

02:00:41.360 after this

02:00:41.780 conversation

02:00:42.280 took place

02:00:42.880 Milo was

02:00:43.400 kicked off

02:00:43.820 of Instagram

02:00:44.300 and Facebook

02:00:44.860 dad wanted

02:00:45.880 to have a

02:00:46.240 conversation

02:00:46.740 to get his

02:00:47.180 backstory

02:00:47.700 how he

02:00:48.200 came to be

02:00:48.720 who he

02:00:49.060 is now

02:00:49.580 and next

02:00:51.080 week's episode

02:00:51.800 delves into

02:00:52.420 that

02:00:52.740 so talk to

02:00:53.860 you guys

02:00:54.180 then

02:00:54.500 hope you've

02:00:55.140 enjoyed

02:00:55.580 this week's

02:00:56.320 episode

02:00:56.740 bye

02:00:57.260 follow me

02:00:58.100 on my

02:00:58.500 YouTube

02:00:58.900 channel

02:00:59.460 Jordan

02:00:59.920 B

02:01:00.180 Peterson

02:01:00.660 on Twitter

02:01:01.620 at Jordan

02:01:02.560 B

02:01:02.780 Peterson

02:01:03.180 on Facebook

02:01:04.380 at Dr

02:01:05.460 Jordan

02:01:05.840 B

02:01:06.080 Peterson

02:01:06.520 and at

02:01:07.200 Instagram

02:01:07.620 at

02:01:08.000 jordan.b.

02:01:09.400 Peterson

02:01:09.900 details on

02:01:11.100 this show

02:01:11.800 access to

02:01:12.820 my blog

02:01:13.460 information

02:01:14.220 about my

02:01:14.980 tour dates

02:01:15.580 and other

02:01:15.960 events

02:01:16.400 and my

02:01:16.940 list of

02:01:17.380 recommended

02:01:17.840 books

02:01:18.420 can be

02:01:19.060 found on

02:01:19.420 my website

02:01:20.140 jordanbpeterson.com

02:01:22.280 my online

02:01:23.260 writing programs

02:01:24.360 designed to

02:01:25.060 help people

02:01:25.600 straighten out

02:01:26.220 their pasts

02:01:27.160 understand

02:01:27.760 themselves

02:01:28.340 in the

02:01:28.680 present

02:01:29.060 and develop

02:01:29.780 a sophisticated

02:01:30.440 vision

02:01:31.040 and strategy

02:01:31.660 for the

02:01:32.060 future

02:01:32.440 can be

02:01:32.960 found

02:01:33.240 at

02:01:33.480 self

02:01:33.800 authoring

02:01:34.420 dot com

02:01:35.220 that's

02:01:35.900 self

02:01:36.200 authoring

02:01:36.840 dot com

02:01:37.740 from the

02:01:39.360 Westwood

02:01:39.840 One

02:01:40.220 podcast

02:01:41.000 network

02:01:41.540 Oh

02:01:45.560 Maya

02:01:46.060 Maya

02:01:47.140 she loves

02:01:48.660 being cool

02:01:49.340 21 degrees

02:01:50.360 is her

02:01:51.000 favorite

02:01:51.660 number

02:01:52.140 god

02:01:52.840 she's the 0.99

02:01:53.320 coolest

02:01:53.840 especially

02:01:54.700 at night

02:01:55.280 so I

02:01:56.040 raised the

02:01:56.400 temp at

02:01:56.740 10 p.m.

02:01:57.400 because she

02:01:57.880 gets chilly

02:01:58.400 when she

02:01:58.780 sleeps

02:01:59.220 Maya

02:01:59.840 loves using

02:02:00.500 less energy

02:02:01.120 and I

02:02:01.820 love Maya

02:02:02.360 we're

02:02:03.000 basically

02:02:03.460 besties

02:02:04.060 with smart

02:02:04.980 flow from

02:02:05.440 Enbridge

02:02:05.740 sustain

02:02:06.120 you won't

02:02:06.860 have to

02:02:07.180 think about

02:02:07.560 your HVAC

02:02:08.180 but it

02:02:08.620 will always

02:02:09.180 be thinking

02:02:09.640 of you

02:02:10.000 with smart

02:02:10.580 controls

02:02:10.980 and zero

02:02:11.360 upfront

02:02:11.620 costs

02:02:12.140 visit

02:02:12.600 Enbridge

02:02:12.920 sustain

02:02:13.260 smart

02:02:13.560 flow

02:02:13.760 dot com

02:02:14.280 to learn

02:02:14.640 more

02:02:14.980 have you

02:02:15.600 heard of

02:02:15.980 anything

02:02:16.260 more

02:02:16.520 chilling

02:02:16.840 than

02:02:17.180 frozen

02:02:17.920 beef

02:02:18.400 until

02:02:19.640 November

02:02:20.060 3rd

02:02:20.480 get an

02:02:20.800 always

02:02:21.160 fresh

02:02:21.500 never

02:02:21.780 frozen

02:02:22.200 Dave

02:02:22.520 single

02:02:22.800 from

02:02:23.040 Wendy's

02:02:23.420 for only

02:02:23.880 four

02:02:24.160 dollars

02:02:24.600 nothing

02:02:25.300 scary

02:02:25.640 about

02:02:25.860 that

02:02:26.220 taxes

02:02:26.760 extra

02:02:27.100 participating

02:02:27.680 Wendy's

02:02:28.040 until

02:02:28.220 November

02:02:28.500 3rd

02:02:28.860 terms

02:02:29.100 and

02:02:29.260 conditions

02:02:29.540 apply

02:02:29.940 hey

02:02:32.000 everyone

02:02:32.400 real quick

02:02:32.940 before you

02:02:33.400 skip

02:02:33.700 I want

02:02:34.180 to talk

02:02:34.440 to you

02:02:34.580 about

02:02:34.740 something

02:02:35.040 serious

02:02:35.640 and

02:02:35.880 important

02:02:36.300 Dr.

02:02:37.040 Jordan

02:02:37.420 Peterson

02:02:37.800 has

02:02:38.160 created

02:02:38.480 a new

02:02:38.860 series

02:02:39.220 that

02:02:39.480 could

02:02:39.680 be

02:02:39.820 a

02:02:39.980 lifeline

02:02:40.440 for

02:02:40.620 those

02:02:40.880 battling

02:02:41.220 depression

02:02:41.700 and

02:02:42.080 anxiety

02:02:42.560 we

02:02:43.260 know

02:02:43.520 how

02:02:43.780 isolating

02:02:44.420 and

02:02:44.660 overwhelming

02:02:45.100 these

02:02:45.380 conditions

02:02:45.760 can be

02:02:46.240 and we

02:02:46.780 wanted to

02:02:47.220 take a

02:02:47.460 moment

02:02:47.620 to reach

02:02:48.020 out to

02:02:48.260 those

02:02:48.460 listening

02:02:48.800 who

02:02:49.120 may

02:02:49.340 be

02:02:49.500 struggling

02:02:49.880 with

02:02:50.620 decades

02:02:51.020 of

02:02:51.220 experience

02:02:51.740 helping

02:02:52.120 patients

02:02:52.680 Dr.

02:02:53.220 Peterson

02:02:53.500 offers

02:02:53.960 a

02:02:54.220 unique

02:02:54.620 understanding

02:02:55.160 of why

02:02:55.660 you

02:02:55.840 might

02:02:56.020 be

02:02:56.180 feeling

02:02:56.380 this

02:02:56.640 way

02:02:56.840 in

02:02:57.000 his

02:02:57.140 new

02:02:57.340 series

02:02:57.740 he

02:02:58.360 provides

02:02:58.720 a

02:02:58.900 road map

02:02:59.340 towards

02:02:59.660 healing

02:03:00.020 showing

02:03:00.500 that

02:03:00.720 while

02:03:00.920 the

02:03:01.100 journey

02:03:01.360 isn't

02:03:01.760 easy

02:03:02.080 it's

02:03:02.740 absolutely

02:03:03.280 possible

02:03:03.840 to

02:03:04.080 find

02:03:04.320 your

02:03:04.460 way

02:03:04.680 forward

02:03:05.080 if

02:03:05.840 you're

02:03:06.020 suffering

02:03:06.380 please

02:03:06.880 know

02:03:07.180 you

02:03:07.440 are

02:03:07.580 not

02:03:07.900 alone

02:03:08.300 there's

02:03:09.120 hope

02:03:09.480 and

02:03:09.960 there's

02:03:10.300 a

02:03:10.420 path

02:03:10.740 to

02:03:10.920 feeling

02:03:11.180 better

02:03:11.540 go to

02:03:12.400 dailywireplus

02:03:13.080 now

02:03:13.400 and start

02:03:13.820 watching

02:03:14.220 Dr.

02:03:14.880 Jordan

02:03:15.140 B.

02:03:15.420 Peterson

02:03:15.720 on

02:03:16.100 depression

02:03:16.520 and

02:03:16.820 anxiety

02:03:17.240 let

02:03:18.040 this

02:03:18.240 be

02:03:18.380 the

02:03:18.580 first

02:03:18.900 step

02:03:19.220 towards

02:03:19.580 the

02:03:19.760 brighter

02:03:20.020 future

02:03:20.520 you

02:03:20.940 deserve

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 12, 2019

12 Rules Hamilton： Courage

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Transcript