The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 236. How to Use Reading and Writing to Find Your Path

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and

00:00:05.560 important. Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those

00:00:10.560 battling depression and anxiety. We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can

00:00:15.700 be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.080 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you

00:00:25.520 might be feeling this way in his new series. He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that

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00:00:35.700 suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better. Go to

00:00:42.100 Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety. Let this be

00:00:48.080 the first step towards the brighter future you deserve. Welcome to episode 236 of the Jordan

00:00:56.980 B. Peterson podcast. This is part three of the narrative story and writing compilations. The

00:01:03.100 first two parts have been released over the last few months. In this episode, Dad spoke to best-selling

00:01:08.740 author Tim Ferriss, comedian Theo Vaughn, and actor Matthew McConaughey. We also included a few clips

00:01:15.500 from Dad's lectures. This is the first of the compilations to be put up on YouTube, so if you

00:01:20.480 want to see the video version, it's available on Dad's YouTube channel. If you want the ad-free

00:01:25.400 version of this podcast, go to jordanbpeterson.supercast.com. If you subscribe over there to the premium

00:01:31.940 podcast, you get no ads as well as access to premium content like an exclusive monthly Q&A with Dad

00:01:38.680 and benefits like pre-sale codes for tickets. You can check it out again at jordanbpeterson.supercast.com.

00:01:46.140 Also, Dad has been posting on Parler, the world's premier free speech platform with increasing

00:01:52.780 censorship over mainstream social networks. It's a pretty safe bet to follow him there. You can find

00:01:58.300 him on the Parler app or website by following at jordanbpeterson. I hope you enjoy this episode.

00:02:05.080 What I hope to provide you with, is a magic code. You know, there was a book published

00:02:15.040 a while back, Tom Hanks was in the movie. He was a Harvard professor who went around solving

00:02:23.320 symbolic mysteries. Do you remember, what was it called? The Da Vinci Code. Everyone liked

00:02:28.540 that. It sold a lot. And you know, it was full of little mysteries, and it was full of hints

00:02:34.700 that there was more to the world than you think, which is definitely true. And that, you

00:02:41.700 know, there was a way of getting access to that knowledge and that it would really be worthwhile.

00:02:46.500 And people like that idea, they like that idea. And the reason for that is because it's

00:02:49.920 actually, it's true. It's true, it's true like fiction is true. So, okay, let's go back

00:02:59.500 to the guy who is telling you about his morning. Well, he tells you something exciting. Well,

00:03:05.780 then imagine that ten people tell you something exciting. And then you extract out the pattern

00:03:12.300 of them dealing with this problem from that. And so then you have a, that's what you do

00:03:17.620 if you are an author. Right? Because in a book, you don't want the book exactly to be about

00:03:23.500 what ordinary people do in ordinary times in their life. It's like, you already know

00:03:28.940 how to be ordinary during ordinary times of your life. That's not useful. You know, you

00:03:34.060 wouldn't watch a videotape of yourself, imagine you videotaped yourself during a day, and then

00:03:40.500 next day you watched that. It's like, God, who would want to do that? So what seems to happen

00:03:46.460 in stories is that they distill, they distill. So they, they watch people, people watch people,

00:03:53.420 and then they tell stories about what they see, but they leave a lot out of those stories.

00:03:57.800 Everything that's boring, hopefully. And then, more and more stories about exciting things

00:04:03.680 get sort of aggregated, and then maybe a great writer comes along and writes something really,

00:04:08.260 really interesting. Profound character transformations. And then you say, well that's fiction. And then

00:04:14.640 you say, well that's not true. Because it's fiction. But then, then maybe that's not right.

00:04:22.920 Maybe it's more than true. Because who wants the truth? The truth is mundane reality, and

00:04:28.200 you've already got that mastered. What you want is the distillation of interesting experience.

00:04:35.840 And you might think, well why is it interesting? Well that's a really good question, because you

00:04:39.320 don't actually know. And believe me, you really don't know, because you'll be interested in

00:04:43.600 things that just don't make any sense at all. I'm going to walk you a bit today through Pinocchio,

00:04:48.400 and we'll do that more the next time too. You know, but I want to tell you a little bit about

00:04:53.160 that movie to begin with, just so you know how crazy you are. So, you know the plot, how many people

00:04:59.160 have seen the Disney movie Pinocchio? Okay, so lots of people. So, that's strange enough, in itself,

00:05:06.160 that so many people have seen it. And it's worth thinking about. You know, you tend to show your kids that movie.

00:05:11.600 And, but you think about the movie, it's, you're doing some pretty weird things when you're sitting there,

00:05:17.280 watching that movie, man. First of all, it's drawings, right? And they're low resolution drawings.

00:05:23.600 You don't care. And you watch The Simpsons, or maybe, or what's that called?

00:05:28.400 The one that's been concentrating on political correctness so much. South Park.

00:05:34.080 God, that animation, man. It's just awful. Right? It's just horrible. It couldn't be worse.

00:05:40.080 You don't care. Like, round heads, smile, a little bit of shuffling. That's a person, as far as you're

00:05:47.440 concerned. It's just irrelevant. And if it was higher resolution, it wouldn't help. You just need the

00:05:53.120 bare bones, right? To hang your perceptions on. So, so you watch this drawing, that's Pinocchio,

00:06:01.520 beautiful drawings, animated in a sequence. You're not watching something real, you're watching a

00:06:07.520 pure construction. And then you think about the plot, it's like, it's completely absurd.

00:06:13.520 Everything about it is absurd. It's like, well, one of the characters is a bug,

00:06:17.440 and he turns out to be, like, the conscience, and so what the hell is with that? And then

00:06:24.400 another character is this puppet marionette, and you know, somehow he gets free of his strings,

00:06:32.160 and then goes on this adventure, and then, which is, and then, you know, he gets enticed into

00:06:37.840 various nefarious places by a fox and a cat, and then he rescues his father from a whale.

00:06:46.480 And you don't even know how his father got in the whale. It's like the last time you see his father,

00:06:50.160 he was in a rainstorm, and the next thing that happens is, he's in a whale. And you're sitting

00:06:54.560 there thinking, hey, no problem, this all makes sense. It's like, what, really? Why? How does that

00:07:01.280 make sense? Well, the answer is, you don't know. That's the thing that's so cool. You don't know,

00:07:08.160 you don't even know what you're watching. But it doesn't matter. You watch it, and you're interested in it,

00:07:13.520 you want to see what the hell happens to this puppet. You want to see if he ends up becoming 0.87

00:07:17.680 a real boy, because there's, it seems important. Well, you say, well, is Pinocchio true?

00:07:26.480 Well, that's a stupid question. It's partly a stupid question, 1.00

00:07:37.440 because the answer is, it depends on what you mean by true. 0.96

00:07:39.760 And it isn't obvious to me what you should mean when you say that something is true.

00:07:54.320 And the reason it's not obvious is because we have this idea in our society, and it's a very profound

00:08:01.360 idea, and that idea is that the ultimate truth is scientific truth, that that tells us about the

00:08:08.080 nature of the world, and it does that in a final way in some sense. There's no brooking any arguments

00:08:14.720 about it, and the physicists have got it right, and that's why they can make hydrogen bombs,

00:08:19.040 and that's a pretty good demonstration of their being right.

00:08:21.760 But you don't act as if that's true, and you don't, and you watch things, and pay attention to things,

00:08:36.720 and are captivated by things that aren't predicated on those assumptions.

00:08:40.720 And it seems to me that there is a problem of what the world is made out of, but there's a bigger problem,

00:08:53.840 and that's the problem of how you should conduct yourself in the world.

00:08:57.680 And that's really what you want to know. People want to know that more than anything.

00:09:00.880 Because you need to know. It's like, here you guys are in university. It's like, you don't know what you're doing.

00:09:06.640 I mean, some of you know more than others, but you're at the beginning of your life, and life is very complex

00:09:12.080 and chaotic, and it isn't exactly obvious, you know, how, what kind of relationship you should form,

00:09:17.040 or what sort of character you should develop, or what you're going to do for a job, or how,

00:09:21.680 what's the meaning of life? That's a good one. What's the meaning of life?

00:09:25.200 Well, and you know, people come to university, at least many of them, and that's kind of what they want to find out.

00:09:32.080 Now, Paglia, her notion is that, you can think about it this way, is that articulated knowledge

00:09:40.720 is embedded in inarticulate knowledge, and inarticulate knowledge is

00:09:47.680 a domain of literature and art, and high culture, let's say, and it's, we sort of know what it means,

00:10:00.400 but we don't exactly know what it means, it means more than we know, and then outside of that is what

00:10:06.080 we don't know at all, and that's an idea that Jung developed as well, and maybe Paglia picked it up

00:10:11.040 from Jung because Jung believed that, you know, there was this domain that we had mastered

00:10:17.600 in every domain, and then there were, there was a domain outside of that which you could think of as

00:10:22.400 unexplored territory, and what we met unexplored territory with was our creative imagination,

00:10:28.640 and that what we were trying to do with our creative imagination is to figure out how to deal with

00:10:33.920 that unexplored territory, we were producing dramas that we could act out that would help us deal with

00:10:40.400 with what we still hadn't mastered, and then outside of that, there's just what we don't know at all

00:10:47.440 and Paglia's idea, and this was Jung's idea, was that

00:10:56.400 without understanding that surround

00:11:04.080 you're too atomized, you're not part of your historical tradition

00:11:10.400 you haven't incorporated the spirit of your ancestors

00:11:13.760 and who built all this

00:11:15.760 you're, you're just here now

00:11:18.960 and, and you don't know what to do either, and you don't know how to maintain your culture

00:11:23.280 and you don't know how to serve it

00:11:25.200 and, you know, you might say, well, why should you serve your culture?

00:11:28.800 and, well, I have a hypothesis about that

00:11:32.400 you know, you can think about this, I don't know if it's true, but

00:11:37.040 people ask what the meaning of life is, and it seems to me that

00:11:42.800 meaning is proportionate to the adoption of responsibility

00:11:46.560 you know, like, let's say you have

00:11:49.200 a little sister, who's like three

00:11:52.640 and you're going to take care of her 1.00

00:11:56.960 like, questioning whether that's a good idea just seems stupid 0.97

00:12:01.200 you know what I mean, it just doesn't seem like the right kind of question 0.95

00:12:04.800 it's like, well, obviously, self-evidently, let's say, that's what you do

00:12:11.200 and, do you find it meaningful? it's like, probably

00:12:15.200 you know, interacting with a little kid

00:12:17.680 when we, when I had little kids, you know, when they were like two or under

00:12:22.480 we took them out to see their relatives, and they were older people

00:12:26.400 and, you know, they watched that two-year-old like, like it was a fire

00:12:31.200 you know, every second that that little kid was in the room

00:12:35.680 every single adult was focused on, focused on

00:12:40.800 on him, or her

00:12:44.640 that's something that people attend to

00:12:46.800 and that's the source of meaning

00:12:48.800 and what else is meaningful?

00:12:50.080 well, your family relationships are meaningful

00:12:53.120 to you, and

00:12:55.040 maybe the responsibility that you adopt as, as a friend

00:12:58.000 that, that seems meaningful

00:12:59.680 maybe your decision to pursue a particular career

00:13:02.160 and be of some utility in society

00:13:05.520 you know, part of that's governed by your desire to

00:13:08.240 establish some security and get ahead

00:13:10.720 it's fine, but

00:13:12.880 you're also

00:13:15.520 playing an integral role in

00:13:17.680 the maintenance of the structure that supports you

00:13:20.000 and my observation has been that

00:13:22.000 in my clinical practice is that people just have a hell of a time

00:13:26.320 if they don't have

00:13:27.680 if they don't slot in somewhere

00:13:29.520 you know, you know, you think I got to go to work at nine in the morning

00:13:32.480 and you know, I've got this rigid schedule

00:13:34.080 it's like

00:13:34.480 it's probably a good idea to be grateful for that

00:13:38.560 because what I've noticed is that if people

00:13:40.720 pull out from those externally 0.96

00:13:43.440 scaffolded systems

00:13:46.160 they drift

00:13:47.760 they get depressed, they get anxious

00:13:49.760 they don't know what to do with themselves

00:13:51.120 you know, they're kind of like sled dogs with no sled

00:13:53.600 and we're kind of like sled dogs

00:13:55.680 as far as I can tell

00:13:56.560 beasts of burden

00:13:57.600 like we need a load, man

00:13:58.960 we need a load

00:14:01.280 and

00:14:03.760 the question is

00:14:04.400 what sort of load do you need?

00:14:06.480 and here's why I think we need

00:14:08.720 we need that

00:14:11.760 you know, there's

00:14:13.040 I've been thinking about how to figure out what's real

00:14:15.200 for a long time

00:14:16.160 and because I'm an existentialist

00:14:18.880 I'm

00:14:19.440 operating under the presupposition that you can tell what people believe by watching what they

00:14:24.160 how they act

00:14:24.960 I don't care what they say

00:14:27.120 I don't care what their statements are about

00:14:31.040 their view of reality

00:14:33.520 because the correlation, the relationship between that and their actual actions is

00:14:38.000 not

00:14:39.760 certainly not perfect and sometimes doesn't even exist

00:14:42.480 one thing I've noticed is that people

00:14:47.520 no one argues with their own pain

00:14:52.560 everyone who hurts

00:14:55.200 acts as if they believe that pain is real

00:15:01.680 so we could say

00:15:03.840 the ultimate reality is pain

00:15:06.880 that's how people act

00:15:08.000 it's in keeping with the claims of many religious traditions

00:15:12.880 you know

00:15:13.840 the Jews are always 1.00

00:15:16.000 recollecting past pain

00:15:18.160 I mean the Christian

00:15:19.680 God is a crucified person

00:15:21.600 I mean there's a fair bit of pain there

00:15:23.600 for the Buddhists

00:15:24.480 the fundamental maxim is that life is suffering

00:15:27.520 and it seems to me that there's a metaphysical claim there

00:15:30.800 the metaphysical claim is that

00:15:34.320 pain is real

00:15:35.280 and of course it depends on what you mean by real

00:15:42.080 but people act as if their pain is real

00:15:44.720 so that's a good place to start

00:15:49.120 now

00:15:50.320 that

00:15:52.000 poses a problem

00:15:58.400 life is a pain

00:16:00.800 life is suffering

00:16:01.840 let's say

00:16:02.640 and why is that?

00:16:04.960 well

00:16:05.520 it's because

00:16:06.560 you can be broken

00:16:08.960 hurt

00:16:09.520 and destroyed

00:16:11.360 and so

00:16:13.120 that seems pretty self-evident

00:16:14.960 and worse

00:16:15.840 you know it

00:16:17.200 and that makes people

00:16:18.800 unique

00:16:19.280 like

00:16:19.840 that's our self-consciousness

00:16:21.120 right

00:16:21.680 that's really what separates us in some sense from

00:16:24.240 other creatures

00:16:25.520 I mean other creatures have some self-consciousness

00:16:28.240 like

00:16:29.280 chimp can learn to recognize itself in a mirror

00:16:31.600 and so can a dolphin

00:16:32.560 but

00:16:33.440 you know that's pretty

00:16:34.720 that's pretty bare bones self-consciousness

00:16:36.880 you know

00:16:38.080 real self-consciousness is the knowledge of your borders

00:16:42.320 and not only in space

00:16:44.720 but in time

00:16:46.960 and as far as I can tell

00:16:48.320 human beings are the only creatures that have discovered the future

00:16:51.680 and that's really good because we can plan for the future

00:16:53.760 but it's really bad because

00:16:55.360 you know

00:16:57.680 the future is finite

00:16:58.800 and that's

00:16:59.360 like that's a big shock to the old system

00:17:04.000 and it's the existential burden that everyone bears

00:17:06.560 and it's associated integrally with suffering

00:17:09.440 and so then you think

00:17:10.560 well life is suffering

00:17:11.680 and it's finite

00:17:12.720 and that's part of the suffering

00:17:14.960 that's part of what makes you question the value of

00:17:18.000 existing

00:17:18.640 and maybe the value of existence itself

00:17:20.960 so then what do you have to use as a weapon against that

00:17:26.800 well you know we talked a little bit about responsibility

00:17:29.760 that seems to work

00:17:30.720 you know

00:17:34.960 the amount of responsibility that you adopt

00:17:39.760 with in relationship to things

00:17:42.480 seems to

00:17:44.240 increase your meaningful engagement

00:17:46.320 and you might say

00:17:46.880 well what's the most

00:17:48.640 meaningfully engaged

00:17:51.040 activity

00:17:51.600 and you might say

00:17:52.320 well

00:17:54.160 how about a little reduction in the old suffering

00:17:57.680 you know

00:17:58.640 so you live your life so that

00:18:00.880 you're not causing undue pain

00:18:03.360 especially pointless pain

00:18:05.120 that would be good

00:18:05.840 and maybe you could even be more useful than that

00:18:08.240 and you could figure out some ways that

00:18:10.080 some suffering

00:18:11.680 yours, other people's

00:18:13.680 both if you're really

00:18:14.800 you know

00:18:17.120 hit in a home run

00:18:18.320 maybe you can figure out some way that some of that could be rectified

00:18:21.360 and that seems to be

00:18:24.240 meaningful in and of itself

00:18:25.680 I mean if it's pain that makes you doubt the meaning of life

00:18:28.720 which is perfectly reasonable

00:18:32.240 then the cessation of pain

00:18:35.440 the cessation of suffering

00:18:36.960 the minimization of suffering

00:18:39.840 as a logical corollary should be the proper

00:18:42.240 medication

00:18:44.560 and so I would say that means that

00:18:47.520 there's some mode

00:18:50.000 that you can conduct yourself in

00:18:52.880 that makes you a good person

00:18:55.840 and

00:18:57.440 part of being a good person is

00:19:00.640 to alleviate suffering

00:19:03.200 and

00:19:03.440 I don't think you get to question that actually

00:19:08.880 if the suffering itself is what's making you question the validity of your life

00:19:12.480 then

00:19:13.280 you can't also say that the cessation of that is not

00:19:17.040 useful

00:19:18.320 I mean you can but it's completely incoherent

00:19:21.040 you can claim incoherent things if you want

00:19:23.280 so then I would say

00:19:32.640 these distilled stories that I'm talking about

00:19:36.960 the stories that are written say by great authors

00:19:39.040 I'm particularly fond of Dostoevsky

00:19:45.600 whose works are

00:19:49.040 he's head and shoulders above anyone I've ever read

00:19:52.000 in terms of

00:19:53.760 writers of fiction

00:19:54.720 he deals with the hardest questions

00:19:57.840 that human beings face

00:19:59.920 and

00:20:01.040 he

00:20:02.400 he has characters on both sides of the argument

00:20:04.560 and they really lay out the arguments

00:20:07.600 it's not like Dostoevsky you know he's got a belief

00:20:09.760 and so

00:20:11.040 he has a character and that character has his beliefs

00:20:13.520 and that character always wins the arguments

00:20:15.600 that doesn't happen in the Dostoevsky novel at all

00:20:18.080 he sets up a character and then he sets up like three or four antagonists

00:20:21.920 and those antagonists they're not straw men

00:20:24.000 they're like iron giants

00:20:25.840 they just stomp his 0.99

00:20:27.760 his protagonist

00:20:28.960 you know and the whole thing is a war between

00:20:31.440 these different conceptions of being

00:20:33.600 and it's amazing to see

00:20:35.280 it's amazing to read

00:20:43.840 so you distill these stories

00:20:46.160 great authors distill stories

00:20:48.880 great storytellers distill stories

00:20:51.360 and we have stories that are very, very, very, very old

00:20:55.200 those are usually religious stories of one form or another

00:20:57.520 but they can be fairy tales

00:20:59.200 because fairy tales some people have traced fairy tales

00:21:01.600 in fact, you know, more than 10,000 years

00:21:03.760 and so they're part of an oral tradition

00:21:06.480 and oral traditions can last for tens of thousands of years

00:21:10.480 and you know

00:21:11.840 it's a story that's been told for 10,000 years is a funny kind of story

00:21:15.680 it's like people have remembered it

00:21:17.280 and obviously modified it

00:21:19.760 it's like the game of telephone

00:21:21.680 you know where I tell you something and you whisper it to the person next to you and so on

00:21:25.520 it's like a game of telephone that's gone on for

00:21:28.240 you know, a thousand generations

00:21:30.800 and all that's left is what people remember

00:21:34.400 and maybe they remember what's important

00:21:36.400 because you tend to remember what's important

00:21:38.240 it isn't necessarily the case that you know what the hell it means

00:21:41.600 you don't know what music means

00:21:43.120 but, you know, that doesn't stop you from listening to it

00:21:47.120 you don't know, generally speaking

00:21:49.680 what a movie that you see or a book that you read means

00:21:52.400 not if it's profound

00:21:54.400 it means more than you can understand

00:21:56.400 because otherwise why read it?

00:21:58.400 well, so the idea is this, is that

00:22:02.240 we're necessarily nested inside moral systems

00:22:07.120 the moral systems are predicated on

00:22:09.680 narratives

00:22:11.120 narrative dramas of sorts

00:22:13.120 and

00:22:14.240 the moral systems are what orient

00:22:17.120 us in life and the reason to understand them

00:22:20.000 to the degree that you can

00:22:21.440 is because you need to know how to live

00:22:24.000 Nietzsche said that if you had a

00:22:27.440 a why

00:22:29.440 you could bear any how

00:22:32.240 and that's that's good

00:22:34.560 learn to write

00:22:36.800 i'm dead serious

00:22:38.720 like i'm dead serious about that

00:22:41.680 because writing is formalized thinking

00:22:44.720 and so the way you write is

00:22:48.800 first of all you need a problem

00:22:51.360 because why write if you don't have a problem

00:22:53.760 so this is good advice if you're just writing an essay by the way for your

00:22:56.800 classes is like pick a bloody problem that you want to write about

00:23:00.160 because otherwise it's false right from the start

00:23:03.280 it's up to you to engage with the material until you find something that

00:23:07.840 grips you that you desire to investigate

00:23:11.280 okay so you need a problem

00:23:13.760 well the next thing you need to do is

00:23:15.440 well you need to have something to say about the problem

00:23:17.840 also reading reading is really good for that

00:23:22.480 read as much as you can get your your hands on that addresses the problem

00:23:27.760 okay so now now you now you know a bunch of things or at least provisionally know them

00:23:32.560 you at least have access to them

00:23:34.560 well now you start you start sorting through it's like okay well

00:23:38.800 maybe i need to summarize what i've learned and then i need to iron out the

00:23:43.840 contradictions between what i've learned and i need to

00:23:46.560 elegantly formulate that and and i need to get my word choice right and my phrase choice right

00:23:52.240 and my sentence choice right and i need to organize the sentences into proper paragraphs and the

00:23:57.120 paragraphs into proper sequence so that i have a coherent argument and at the same time

00:24:02.640 what you're doing is is you're you're you're you're um you're integrating your own personality

00:24:10.720 at the highest and most abstract level of organization and you're sharpening your tools and you're

00:24:16.880 putting yourself straight because you're learning to think you learn to do that by writing and so

00:24:22.000 i would say pick some hard problems and learn to write very very carefully and i and when i say pay

00:24:28.880 attention to the word i mean that pick the right words organize them into the right phrases

00:24:34.400 get your sentences straight like when i wrote my first book maps of meaning i believe i wrote every

00:24:40.560 sentence in that book 50 times 50 variants of every sentence i'd write it once i'd write it again

00:24:47.600 i'd write it again i'd write it again and i have a little competition which sentence is better

00:24:52.560 which sentence is better i'd pick that sentence do the same with the paragraphs over many many

00:24:57.600 years you hone your words they're they're the most powerful thing about you bar none if you are an

00:25:04.480 effective writer and speaker and communicator you you have all the authority and competence that there

00:25:12.800 is and so you're at university maybe you're taking humanities degree well that what's the humanities degree

00:25:19.280 for it's to teach you how to think you learn to think by writing now there's more to read to speak and

00:25:25.520 all of that but the best thing you can do is read and write every day a couple of hours every day

00:25:32.880 write about things you find important and see if you can see if you can discover what you believe to

00:25:38.880 be true and that'll build you a foundation and it's unbelievably practical like if you look at people

00:25:45.920 who are phenomenally successful across life there's various reasons but one of them is is that

00:25:50.880 they're unbelievably good at articulating what they what they're aiming at and strategizing and

00:25:57.920 negotiating and and and and enticing people with a vision forward it's like get your words together

00:26:04.640 man that's that makes you unstoppable and that that's really that's the core of the humanities that

00:26:11.360 idea get your words together make yourself an articulate creature and then you're you're deadly in the best

00:26:18.720 possible way so and take that seriously and i'll end with something too you students

00:26:25.520 you might think in your more cynical moments that you have to offer your professors what they want

00:26:30.800 and gerrymander the content of your language to suit their predilections or what you consider to

00:26:38.560 be their predilections first of all it's a very small minority of professors who are corrupt enough to

00:26:43.120 punish you for producing a high quality essay that they don't agree with and and that's reprehensible

00:26:49.120 but it's it doesn't happen very often but more importantly it's it's uh it's the highest academic

00:26:56.000 sin to do that because what you're here to do is to learn to find your true voice and every time you

00:27:03.360 deviate from that for expedient reasons you corrupt yourself and not in a trivial way because when you

00:27:10.160 formulate your arguments that that becomes a permanent part of your character you carry that with you it

00:27:15.680 becomes part of the structure through which you view the world and it guides your actions and so you hold your

00:27:22.000 words pristine and you work in a dedicated way to become as articulate and clear as you can possibly

00:27:29.120 become and there's nothing that's more practical and noble than that at the same time that's why the

00:27:35.920 humanities are so valuable you know you think well what good is the humanities degree it's like well

00:27:41.040 you come out if you're able to speak and think and write no matter where you go like you're you're

00:27:46.080 headed for for the pinnacle and hopefully in a in a in a way that's positive for everyone so that's what

00:27:52.080 i would recommend i'm a great admirer of the humanities like and of the universities i mean the

00:27:57.440 the humanities you learn to be a citizen through the humanities the humanities are at the core of western

00:28:03.520 culture if they go we're in trouble so the problem is is that what's manifesting itself as the humanities

00:28:10.160 in the universities is no longer the humanities it's something almost virtually the opposite of that

00:28:15.760 and so and so when i tell people not to go to humanities courses in the universities it's with a

00:28:21.600 very heavy heart believe me you know now the question is where do you go instead well that's a good

00:28:28.560 question you can always read you know one of the things that's really cool about amazon is all the

00:28:33.600 great books are free they're literally free you can go download them on your kindle for nothing the

00:28:39.120 copyright has expired and people have been putting electronic versions online so the great books of

00:28:43.920 the western world and even many of the great books of the 20th century are now available completely for

00:28:48.400 free well so you can read them there's lots of information to be garnered now on youtube and that's

00:28:54.720 really going to explode over the next 10 years and i mean one of the things i want to work on

00:28:58.640 probably over the next 10 years is to set up a humanities university online and when i'm starting

00:29:03.200 to work i already have some programs online they're called self-authoring programs and they help people

00:29:08.880 write and partly we designed them to help people learn to write as well as to help them write about

00:29:14.720 themselves so the self-authoring programs help people write an autobiography and analyze their

00:29:18.960 personality faults and virtues and lay out a future for themselves and when we've had students do that

00:29:24.960 do the future authoring program it's so cool what happened was that um there the probability that

00:29:31.520 they would stay in school went up by about 30 percent but something even cooler happened

00:29:36.080 it worked best for the worst performing students so we did a lot of it in holland at a business school

00:29:42.240 called erasmus uh there's a there's a school of management rotterman rotterdam school of management

00:29:47.120 at erasmus university and we run several i think it's about 10 000 people through the future authoring

00:29:51.760 program now and what happened if you looked at the academic performance of the students the dutch

00:29:56.640 women the native dutch women were at the pinnacle and then it was the dutch men below them now the 0.99

00:30:03.760 women were in a minority and they were probably a little more highly selected right so maybe that 1.00

00:30:07.200 accounted for the performance gap and then underneath that there was female non-western ethnic minority 0.99

00:30:12.720 immigrants and then below that were male non-western ethnic minority immigrants and there was a

00:30:17.440 massive gap between the dutch women and the male non-western minority immigrants like a performance 0.98

00:30:22.720 gap of about 80 percent a massive gap within two years after writing the future authoring program

00:30:29.600 the male non-ethnic western minority students passed the dutch students yeah and some of them didn't even

00:30:35.520 remember that they had done the future authoring exercise and we replicated that at mohawk college just a

00:30:41.040 while back same thing the young men who went to mohawk college they did this exercise in the summer just

00:30:46.880 before they went to college they only took about an hour to write out their future it's not that long

00:30:51.520 to think about your whole future and what happened was that the young men who had the worst grades in

00:30:57.760 school who were in non-career oriented trajectories had a retention improvement of about 40 percent

00:31:05.280 so yeah so that was just like we were just thrilled about that so so the reason i'm telling you all of

00:31:10.400 this story apart from the fact that it's vaguely interesting is that um we are experimenting with

00:31:16.480 technologies to teach people how to write now normally the way you're taught how to write is by having

00:31:21.440 someone edit your writing but that's prohibitively expensive i don't think it it can be transformed

00:31:27.040 in something that's available on a mass basis and so what we're trying to do is to break down the process

00:31:32.480 of writing into its requisite steps that's kind of what behavioral psychologists do we've done that already

00:31:37.040 a bit with these with this essay writing format and then to to sort of teach people what the mechanics

00:31:43.280 of writing actually are and then maybe to try to figure out how to crowdsource editing so that many

00:31:48.400 many people can participate in the process but we'd like to set up an online humanities university over

00:31:53.520 the next 10 years and since the universities have abandoned their intellectual property there's no reason

00:31:58.960 not to just move in and take it as far as i can tell going online without expressvpn is like not paying

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00:32:20.800 you connect to an unsecured network in a cafe hotel or airport you're essentially broadcasting your

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00:33:40.000 you know my colleagues and i developed this program online to help people do that to write through their

00:33:47.120 life so it it the past authoring program helps people write an autobiography who the hell am i

00:33:54.960 anyways and you think you know but you don't because you're complicated and then the present

00:34:01.200 authoring program helps you identify your faults and your virtues by your own definition it's not

00:34:07.440 imposed on you it's it's a guided process of exploration and then the future authoring program

00:34:11.760 helps you figure out well if you could have what you wanted what hypothetically what would that

00:34:18.720 actually be and yes it's very much worth asking yourself that question because you're always

00:34:25.920 searching for that anyways even negatively because your conscience will torment you for the things you're

00:34:32.640 not doing okay well not doing in relationship to what well in relationship to the implicit ideal

00:34:39.680 of your conscience well what is that and the answer is well you don't know and so if you're just

00:34:45.200 allowing yourself to be tortured into submission then you're at the mercy of some ideal that you

00:34:52.080 don't know you don't and maybe you wouldn't want to pursue if you actually knew you know that's why

00:34:58.320 yunk carl yunk said everyone lives out a myth but virtually no one knows which what myth they're living

00:35:03.200 and maybe it's a tragedy maybe you don't want it to be a tragedy and then the question what do you

00:35:12.560 want that's a really deep question you know i mean you that's a serious question what is it that you

00:35:18.320 should value and people say well being happy they don't even mean that by the way if you decompose what

00:35:23.280 people mean when they say they want to be happy what it turns out they actually mean is they don't want

00:35:28.960 to be miserable they're way more concerned with avoiding suffering than they are with pursuing

00:35:34.880 you know enthusiastic positive emotion so even the the statement i want to be happy

00:35:42.000 is actually not an accurate reflection of what it is that you want

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00:36:55.920 does that not show just how little of our own motivations we get to see we're so good at

00:37:01.600 deception that we deceive ourselves before we deceive anybody else we get to see this tiny tiny little

00:37:08.320 sliver of why we are here why we do the things we do why we think the things we think

00:37:12.320 uh saw this quote today from robert wright that said emotions are the executioner of our genes

00:37:20.880 or the executor of our genes all that they're there is to just enact what our biological imperative

00:37:26.320 wants and then we get to glimpse them as they run past on the way to doing a thing and we believe

00:37:34.080 that we're somehow we're peering into the source code of our own mind that's not the case

00:37:38.160 well we're definitely not transparent to ourselves by any stretch of the imagination we wouldn't have

00:37:44.400 to spend decades studying psychology if we were transparent like we're we're we're tremendously

00:37:51.920 mysterious to to ourselves one of the things we do do in the self-authoring program in the future

00:37:56.880 authoring program is say well um if you deteriorated according to your own vices

00:38:03.200 and that went that got out of hand what would that look like five years down the road you know

00:38:10.640 everyone knows some people some people flirt with with alcoholism or drug abuse or um or uh

00:38:19.760 sex addiction yes yes yes that's right fractured relationships even candy whatever

00:38:26.720 mm mm and then you know you have a sense in your mind of what you'd be like if you let yourself go

00:38:32.000 oh well i'd be sick man i'd be under a bridge or something i'd probably be behind like a

00:38:37.680 i don't know living behind a tim hortons or something you know some type of place i'm

00:38:40.880 trying to make it local to you but like some yeah i'd be living you know i'd just be doing drugs or just

00:38:45.600 probably listening to aerosmith i'd be outdoors i bet no real home i'd have no family for you so for

00:38:52.320 you it's a vision of homelessness and and substance abuse yeah yeah well you gotta ask yourself like okay

00:38:58.800 think about that is that what you want and i don't i mean think about it imagine that that's what

00:39:04.160 awaits you well then you have a better thing to be afraid of it's like afraid as i am of of gripping

00:39:11.840 my own destiny here's the alternative right now you've created the now you've created a reality of

00:39:18.000 what that looks like so now you have something to battle against right yes exactly right you need

00:39:23.840 part of part of being motivated is to be afraid of the proper things you know afraid as you might

00:39:29.680 be of success and fair enough it's possible that you should be more afraid of stagnation and failure

00:39:35.920 but you have to make those things real for you before they have any power yeah as you're talking

00:39:40.720 i'm even realizing that if i don't make the the the lowest if i don't make the reality of what could

00:39:47.280 happen if i don't take care of myself and if i were to like devolve and disintegrate into my worst

00:39:52.880 place if i don't make that a reality it almost lets me stay in the fog even more because now even the

00:40:01.760 there's not even the the end hasn't even been created i've left it all just so vague that i can

00:40:07.200 just kind of meander around it's like um it's it reminds me a little bit i i didn't want to quit

00:40:14.320 smoking for a while because if i quit smoking then i would have to actually then do something else

00:40:22.560 good for myself or i would have to then be a non-smoker and a non-smoker might then go for a

00:40:28.560 run or he might like you know uh then achieve a different goal so one of the reasons i realized

00:40:35.280 for a while that i didn't quit smoking was because if i was real honest with myself i wanted to always

00:40:42.480 have an excuse of why i couldn't do other stuff people are going to wonder how it was that we

00:40:48.400 came to have a conversation yes and so maybe you could shed some light on that and yes because i'm

00:40:55.760 curious i'm curious about it as well i got turned on to you from a friend of mine about four years ago

00:41:03.760 maybe three years ago and i started listening to a lot what you were saying and many of the things you

00:41:10.960 you said i had been thinking about but i heard you putting them into words and context i was like

00:41:16.000 what that's that's that's what i'm talking about that's what i'm trying to get to i found um

00:41:21.840 and it goes back to talk about self-determination which we've talked about a lot about your

00:41:26.640 self-authoring and then you hear you hear you see a lot of those threads through

00:41:30.800 my book maybe in a different way in a more folksy way but a lot of what you've said

00:41:35.840 gave me confidence to go i'm gonna put my story on paper um so i thank you for that and that's why i

00:41:45.440 thank you my pleasure in the back of the in the back of the book you know i reached out um to you

00:41:51.920 uh i guess a year and a half ago or so and you and i chatted and i've stayed in contact with you

00:41:56.960 with your daughter um you know uh your definition one of the great simple things i said earlier sometimes

00:42:03.040 just to read under understanding a word differently i've always had trouble

00:42:11.520 in a tough relationship an awkward relationship with with many words but my late my two that i've

00:42:17.360 had the longest trouble with are vulnerability and humility

00:42:25.360 yeah those are tough ones they're tough ones so humility i you know okay be humble well for for

00:42:32.720 for decades be humble i lost confidence when i was humble i i feigned false modesty which i felt

00:42:41.440 which i knew at the time that's arrogant what are you doing right absolutely it's very difficult to to

00:42:47.520 be to have humility without being arrogant about it weirdly enough you said and correct me if i

00:42:54.480 misquote you it's humility is knowing you have more to learn you're either in love with what you know

00:43:00.240 or you're in love with what you don't know and there's a lot more of what you don't know so pick your love

00:43:05.520 carefully oh well that i went oh i purchased i'm in on that but for the first time when i see that

00:43:15.760 i'm not shrinking i'm actually standing taller my heart's higher my chin's higher my shoulders are

00:43:23.120 further back right right i have more courage going forward yeah because oh 100 i i can rely on that

00:43:30.000 until i'm gone and maybe even further than that yes i have more to learn i purchase but now i can go

00:43:35.680 forward with confidence of actually what i do know what i have built i can add more courage i can forgive

00:43:41.680 easier i can i can i can take responsibility with more courage um i can take care of the things i've built

00:43:49.040 and to attend those gardens better with with that understanding of humility so for that i thank

00:43:55.840 you i appreciate that yeah it's a humility it's a form of courage the best way the best way to teach

00:44:02.160 people critical thinking is to teach them to write and i made this little thing that i put online it's

00:44:07.840 it steps people through the process of writing because what's happened now it's very hard to teach

00:44:12.560 people to write because it's unbelievably time intensive and like writing marking a good essay that's really

00:44:18.640 easy check a you did everything right right marking a bad essay oh my god the words are wrong the

00:44:25.440 phrases are wrong the sentences are wrong they're not ordered right in the paragraphs the paragraphs

00:44:29.360 aren't coherent and the whole thing makes no sense so trying to tell the person what they did wrong it's

00:44:35.200 like well you did everything wrong everything about this essay is wrong well that's not helpful either you

00:44:40.960 have to find the few little things they did half right and you have to teach them what they did wrong

00:44:47.520 it's really expensive and so what i did with this rubric was try to address that from the production

00:44:54.320 side instead of the grading side but the best thing you can do is teach people to write because there's

00:44:59.040 no difference between that and thinking and one of the things that just blows me away about universities

00:45:04.240 is that no one ever tells students why they should write something it's like well you have to do this

00:45:09.920 assignment well why are you writing well you need the grade it's like no you need to learn to think

00:45:17.440 because thinking makes you act effectively in the world thinking makes you win the battles you

00:45:21.920 undertake and those could be battles for good things if you can think and speak and write you are

00:45:26.800 absolutely deadly nothing can get in your way so that's why you learn to write it's like

00:45:33.200 and i can't believe that people aren't just told that it's it's it's like it's the most powerful

00:45:41.680 weapon you can possibly provide someone with and i mean i know lots of people who've been staggeringly

00:45:47.200 successful and watched them throughout my life i mean those people you don't want to have an argument

00:45:51.680 with them they'll just slash you into pieces and not in a malevolent way it's like if you're going to make

00:45:57.680 your point and they're going to make their point you better have your points organized because otherwise 1.00

00:46:02.640 you're going to look like and be an absolute idiot you are not going to get anywhere and if you can 0.99

00:46:10.080 formulate your arguments coherently and make a presentation if you can speak to people if you 1.00

00:46:14.960 can lay out a proposal god people give you money they give you opportunities you have influence that's

00:46:22.800 what you're at university for and so that's what you do is you that's you're in you're in english right

00:46:27.040 you're and yeah in languages anyways it's like yeah teach people to be articulate because that's the

00:46:34.640 most dangerous thing you can possibly be so and that's motivating if people know that it's like well

00:46:40.480 why are you learning to write because you're here's your sword here's your m16 right here's your bulletproof

00:46:46.720 vest like you learn how to use them but ah it's just it's an endless mystery to me why that isn't made

00:47:00.720 self-evident so that's the sort of thing that can drive you mad trying to sort out it's like people are

00:47:09.200 there's a there's a conspiracy to bring people into the education system to make them weaker so

00:47:16.800 i guess that keeps the competition down maybe that's one way of thinking about it 1.00

00:47:22.880 if your students are stupid they're not going to challenge you when you think of stories and you 0.99

00:47:29.040 use stories and you tell stories very effectively i mean you talk about say pinocchio you use biblical 1.00

00:47:34.560 stories you're very engaging uh sort of interpreter and transmitter of stories when you're working on

00:47:41.520 say beyond order this new book how do you think of composing your stories or your messages so that they

00:47:53.440 are not lost so that they have some durability or transmissibility well i'm always mostly when i'm

00:48:01.760 writing i'm trying to figure something out although as i've written for as the period of time over

00:48:09.520 which i've been writing has lengthened i'm spending more time communicating the ideas and less time

00:48:16.160 figuring them out when i wrote my first book which was maps of meaning pretty much all i was doing was

00:48:21.520 trying to figure something out it was just an exercise in sustained thought and i worked on it

00:48:27.360 for from 1985 to 1999 about three hours a day and i thought about it especially when i was in my 20s

00:48:36.320 all the time i was thinking about it like 13 hours a day and the ideas were just running through my mind

00:48:44.720 at a rate far higher than i'm capable of now um i was trying to figure something out i was trying to

00:48:50.800 figure out i was trying to understand malevolence uh i suppose among other things but when i wrote

00:48:56.960 the last two books i i was trying to communicate some of what i thought i had learned and so

00:49:05.360 but it's still a lot of it's still trying to solve a

00:49:10.160 to to answer a question when i lecture for example and i usually do that without notes

00:49:16.000 i have a question in mind it's like okay well in the biblical lectures for example

00:49:21.200 the first one is i think it's about two hours long on the first sentence of genesis

00:49:26.320 the question is well what does this sentence mean and so the lecture is an exploration of what it means

00:49:31.920 and i'm trying to think it through and at the same time i'm communicating that process of thinking

00:49:37.920 it through and that's what i'm doing with my books and i the books are written to me you know

00:49:43.920 which is why i think i've gotten away with giving advice the books aren't really advice or if they 0.82

00:49:49.280 are i'm included in the population of idiots who needs the advice so you know these are things i 0.90

00:49:55.920 haven't there's a last chapter is be grateful in spite of your suffering you know i've had real struggle 0.94

00:50:01.280 with that so although i know perfectly well that resentment regardless of the cause is not productive

00:50:09.760 it's certainly understandable

00:50:15.280 you know grabbing what you just said and maybe going to a somewhat meta level i am going to shoe

00:50:20.720 horn and victor frankel because i i don't want to leave that loose end for for listeners i frankel talks

00:50:26.880 about the desire to finish his book as one of the sources of meaning that got him through the concentration

00:50:32.080 camps uh did did your book and i don't know the timeline for having worked on it serve a

00:50:39.120 similar purpose over the last 18 to 24 months absolutely absolutely it was life raft i was i

00:50:47.120 was devastated when i finished it which is common experience you know people and it speaks to the

00:50:53.680 nature of human motivation we often think well once i get to point b that's where you're headed

00:50:58.960 everything will be okay it's like no that's not the case at all is that now you need a new point b

00:51:03.680 so and that was really you know because i don't work at the university anymore and i don't have my

00:51:10.080 clinical practice anymore and um so that those are losses to of structure for me and i had the book to

00:51:19.840 anchor myself while i was so ill and um it was invaluable and still is for that matter

00:51:28.400 uh i want to ask you about the title beyond order but before i get to that i'm just planting the seed

00:51:36.640 i'd love to ask you and this is a question that a friend of mine several friends of mine

00:51:40.240 wanted me to ask some version of uh and i would like to hear your answer and that is how would you

00:51:47.280 recommend someone think about meaning or constructing or finding meaning if they have reached the pinnacle

00:51:55.440 of competence or a high level of competence in a certain area i have a friend i won't name him

00:52:01.360 because i don't know if he would want this public but i i asked him some version of this and he said

00:52:05.760 well at some point you have to either find god or have kids and having kids is easier so i had kids

00:52:12.960 uh well that speaks to what we discussed earlier it's like there's many domains in which to obtain

00:52:17.840 competence you can find a new domain but kids for sure that's like look life is quite

00:52:24.880 straightforward in some ways find a partner and stick with them you know that's hard try to make

00:52:31.920 yourself into better people if you can it's a challenge have kids have grandkids thank god i have

00:52:39.600 grandkids thank god i have kids you know they they they're they're there they're that's an that they're

00:52:46.800 of unquestionable virtue and so and then if you're lucky you have other projects and and you're healthy

00:52:54.560 enough to to undertake them um with regards to how people should search for meaning well it's

00:53:02.640 the first thing i do like i said with my clients is i do a a scan of their life and we have you

00:53:10.240 mentioned it at the beginning when you introduced me i have a program self-authoring at self-authoring

00:53:16.160 dot com that helps people with this it helps you write an autobiography sort of figures out who you are

00:53:22.160 it helps you assess your personality traits positive and negative and then it it helps you make a plan

00:53:27.520 for the future and people have found that useful so one way of conceptualizing yourself is not

00:53:36.000 as order and as not as chaos but as the thing that traverses between the two domains

00:53:43.840 and that i would say is the mythological hero

00:53:52.240 so i'm going to start talking to you about pinocchio a little bit weirdly enough

00:53:58.560 i hope you enjoy this

00:54:02.960 and the reason i want to do it is because i want to i want to put some

00:54:05.760 i want to bring what i told you abstractly down to earth and then you can start thinking

00:54:14.160 well do the conceptions that i've introduced to you are they are they good for anything

00:54:18.160 do they help

00:54:19.120 do they help? that's the order, descent into chaos, re-establishment of order

00:54:28.320 that's paradise lost, profane history, paradise regained

00:54:33.120 it's the classic comedy and that's the story of life

00:54:36.240 and so the question is how do you manage it? and so that's a question you really want to know the

00:54:44.960 answer to so you'll go you'll pay money weirdly you'll line up and pay money to see a story about

00:54:51.600 that even if you don't even know that that's what the story is about and the reason for that is

00:54:56.240 that actually part of you does know what the story is about

00:54:58.960 you know your cognition has multiple layers you understand things that you don't know you

00:55:06.560 understand in ways that you don't understand and you can tell that because you know we talked

00:55:12.080 about pinocchio a little bit how absurd it is and that it doesn't matter so the movie opens

00:55:18.880 with the opening credits which are carved wooden signs which is like a hint you know because geppetto

00:55:25.200 is a carver and it starts with this song which was actually quite a popular song and it's a bit of a

00:55:33.120 what would you call it? I don't think it's the poetry is particularly profound

00:55:40.000 but it was a song that people liked and people still listen to and um it sets the tone for the

00:55:46.000 movie which is what music does one of the things that's really interesting about movies that's really

00:55:50.800 mysterious is that you know if you go to a movie there's almost always a soundtrack

00:55:57.200 right if you go to a movie and there isn't a soundtrack it kind of feels empty it feels like

00:56:01.280 there's something missing and you know it's as if the music you know when you go to a movie there's

00:56:05.600 lots of things you can't see the characters are only partial and you don't know anything about

00:56:09.920 their background so it's like a low resolution thing and what seems to happen with the music is

00:56:14.560 that it provides the emotional background the complex context let's say it's like a substitute

00:56:21.680 for the context and it it guides you in in your in your perceptions of the movie it gives you hints

00:56:27.440 about what's going to happen and and and the funny thing about that is is that we just we just don't

00:56:32.560 have any problem with that you know it's like yeah of course movie has a soundtrack and and of course when

00:56:39.040 there's a dramatic scene the music gets dramatic and but that doesn't happen in real life

00:56:43.120 so you wonder why we would accept it in a movie and i think it's partly because we're willing to

00:56:48.480 accept the amplification of reality that constitutes a movie and in fact we find that compelling

00:56:55.280 and music is one of the things that does that amplification the dramatization and that's that's

00:57:00.640 acceptable to us this song i find quite interesting so i'm going to take it apart quite a bit

00:57:06.160 um in some sense i feel foolish doing it because it's you know it's a it's a childish it's a childish

00:57:17.200 song in some ways but but that's okay when you wish upon a star makes no difference who you are

00:57:25.200 well okay there's some mysteries there people wish upon stars that's like a little ritual right

00:57:37.360 why do they do that

00:57:42.720 well

00:57:46.000 and what exactly is a star that's another question because

00:57:49.680 there are stars that shine in the heavens and there are people who are stars

00:57:57.040 and so

00:57:59.360 why are people stars

00:58:01.760 well they're usually famous people right they're people that

00:58:04.640 who attract a lot of attention and maybe they're people who have a lot of talent that's another

00:58:09.200 possibility

00:58:11.200 maybe they're models i don't mean you know clothing models although sometimes they are but

00:58:15.600 they're models for emulation that's what being a star means that's why people magazine is full

00:58:20.480 of stars it's like they're they're like they're like heroes brought to earth and of course

00:58:25.760 you know nothing about them all you know is their public persona

00:58:29.840 and of course they're usually very attractive and so that allows you to project upon them

00:58:35.200 all the things that would go along with ideal humanity

00:58:39.280 and so they're stars

00:58:41.200 and but still why stars well stars beckon in the darkness

00:58:45.600 right and they're otherworldly

00:58:48.880 that's the thing that's cool they're not of this earth

00:58:52.080 and i mean that

00:58:53.840 technically because obviously they're not of this earth but i also mean it

00:58:58.240 i mean it

00:58:59.840 phenomenologically i mean it as an element of human experience so

00:59:04.400 most of you are urban

00:59:06.560 and so you've not had the experience of

00:59:09.760 perhaps of the full night sky you know and that's really too bad because

00:59:14.480 the full night sky is one of those experiences that actually induces awe

00:59:19.520 naturally you know and no wonder you look up there and there's just stars everywhere right you're

00:59:25.200 looking at the edge of the galaxy that's actually that's the milky way right it's the edge of the galaxy

00:59:30.080 it's like wow there's the edge of the galaxy

00:59:33.360 and there's just so many of them

00:59:35.440 and it's such an expanse you're looking into infinity

00:59:38.480 you're looking into the unknown

00:59:40.320 you're looking beyond yourself

00:59:42.320 that's for sure

00:59:43.360 and you know that produces a sense of awe in people

00:59:46.640 like looking at the grand canyon or something like that

00:59:49.440 and it's you're looking at something that transcends yourself

00:59:52.240 but that feeling of awe that seems to be something that's

00:59:55.600 that's a natural part of our response

00:59:59.200 you know you might feel awe when you meet someone that you regard as particularly admirable as well

01:00:04.640 because you feel that there's something transcendent about them

01:00:06.880 so here's an interesting thing to think about

01:00:11.120 there are people you admire

01:00:13.920 and there are people that you don't admire

01:00:16.320 and that's a clue right that's a clue as to your value system

01:00:19.200 and it might be not really something you can even put your finger on

01:00:22.480 it's like you find this person captivating

01:00:24.480 you find this person admirable

01:00:26.960 and it's as if there's something inside of you that's looking for what's admirable

01:00:30.800 you know assuming that you are

01:00:32.480 and that person who's admirable has a faculty

01:00:35.920 some faculty that you would like to have for yourself

01:00:39.120 and so they're a model for emulation

01:00:41.120 and that's part of how people develop

01:00:43.120 you know like little kids often develop little hero crushes on older kids

01:00:48.400 you know not that much older but sort of the person that's sort of just within their grasp

01:00:52.960 and then they follow them around and imitate them

01:00:54.880 and you know so they're imitating what they find admirable

01:00:57.920 well the fact that you find something admirable is a hint

01:01:02.480 as to the structure of your unconscious value system

01:01:06.160 and so you could think even as an exercise you could think well

01:01:10.720 what qualities of a human being do I find admirable

01:01:13.520 you have to ask yourself that in a sense

01:01:15.600 you can't really think about it

01:01:17.520 there is a difference between asking yourself a question and thinking about it

01:01:21.840 you know because it's more like when you're asking yourself a question it's contemplative

01:01:26.320 it's like well what do I find admirable

01:01:29.280 it's a question you don't know

01:01:30.880 and if you're fortunate and this happens quite regularly

01:01:33.840 an answer will float up from wherever the hell answers float up

01:01:37.360 and oh yeah that's one and you can write that down

01:01:40.160 and you get some idea of what your ideal is

01:01:43.600 you know and you have one likely

01:01:45.600 and what your counter ideal is

01:01:47.280 star

01:01:51.920 well to wish upon a star is to raise your eyes above the horizon

01:01:56.080 and to focus on something transcendent that's beyond you

01:01:59.600 to focus on the absolute we could say

01:02:02.000 to focus on the light that shines in the darkness

01:02:04.320 now a star is

01:02:05.840 people wear diamonds because they're like stars

01:02:09.680 or they're like the sun

01:02:10.960 and they're pure and perfect and they glitter

01:02:13.360 and so there's something about the light too

01:02:15.280 there's something about a source of light

01:02:17.280 it's a source of illumination and enlightenment

01:02:19.840 and the light that shines in the darkness is a deep metaphor

01:02:23.680 right it's what you want

01:02:26.080 you want a light to shine in the darkness

01:02:27.920 and so the star has all that

01:02:30.000 and so people wish upon a star

01:02:32.080 because they have some intuition that aiming above the mundane

01:02:36.640 has the potential to transform themselves

01:02:40.320 they make a wish

01:02:41.600 well

01:02:43.280 if you're going to

01:02:45.360 make a wish you should aim at something

01:02:47.840 high

01:02:48.960 and even just aiming at that is more likely to make the wish come true

01:02:52.720 and this is not

01:02:55.120 metaphor

01:02:56.320 you know I have this program which you guys are going to do

01:02:59.680 called the future authoring program

01:03:01.520 it's one of two assignments

01:03:02.800 one is that you write an autobiography

01:03:05.120 that's the past authoring

01:03:06.320 the other is that you write a plan for the future

01:03:08.800 that's the future authoring

01:03:09.920 I would recommend that you get started on those right now

01:03:12.640 like not right now but like really soon

01:03:15.120 because they're harder than you think

01:03:17.680 and some of you are going to write like 15,000 words

01:03:21.120 you're going to get sucked right in

01:03:22.720 this happens all the time

01:03:23.920 you're going to get sucked right into it

01:03:26.080 and so you write an autobiography

01:03:28.160 because you need to know where you are

01:03:30.320 and who you are right now

01:03:32.240 because how the hell are you going to plot a pathway to the future

01:03:34.880 unless you know where you are

01:03:36.000 and then you need to write about the future

01:03:38.320 because you aren't going to hit something unless you aim at it

01:03:42.720 that's for sure

01:03:44.480 and lots of times people won't aim at what they want

01:03:46.480 because they're afraid

01:03:47.920 the reason they're afraid is because if you specify what you want

01:03:50.880 you've specified your conditions of failure

01:03:53.680 you know when you fail

01:03:55.520 and it's better just to keep it foggy

01:03:57.200 it's like well I don't know if I'm succeeding or failing

01:03:59.200 but you know I can't really tell

01:04:01.520 well great

01:04:02.880 except you can't hit anything you don't aim at

01:04:05.760 and so the future authoring program is like a

01:04:09.760 it's an attempt to have you articulate your character

01:04:12.960 and so is the past authoring program

01:04:15.120 who are you?

01:04:17.680 and you know

01:04:18.880 the past authoring program it asks you to break your life into epochs

01:04:22.400 and then to write about the emotional

01:04:25.200 you know the things that you regard as important

01:04:29.120 important events that have shaped who you are

01:04:31.360 and you know you may find that some of those

01:04:33.520 some of that writing makes you emotional

01:04:35.680 I would say

01:04:36.960 if you have a memory that is more than 18 months old

01:04:39.200 roughly speaking

01:04:40.000 and when you bring it to mind

01:04:41.920 it has an emotional impact

01:04:43.680 especially a negative emotional impact

01:04:45.920 it's like part of your soul is stuck back there

01:04:49.440 and I know that's a metaphorical way of thinking about it

01:04:52.400 but what I mean is that

01:04:55.200 the reason that you still experience the emotion

01:04:57.520 is because you have not solved the problem that that situation

01:05:03.520 faced you with

01:05:04.240 it might be a real problem

01:05:05.360 like maybe you got tangled up with someone who was really bad

01:05:08.080 and that's rough man

01:05:09.040 because you've got to come up with a theory of malevolence

01:05:11.200 to deal with something like that

01:05:12.320 and that's no joke

01:05:13.920 but if it still

01:05:16.000 produces emotion

01:05:16.880 it means you haven't solved the problem

01:05:18.560 and your brain is still tagging it as threat

01:05:22.080 it's a part of your territory that you did not master

01:05:25.280 threat threat threat threat threat

01:05:27.440 and until you take it apart

01:05:28.880 and articulation really helps that

01:05:30.640 writing really helps that

01:05:32.400 then you're not going to free yourself from its grip

01:05:36.000 and that might not be that pleasant

01:05:37.840 I mean this is one of those situations where

01:05:40.240 doing it tends to produce a decrement in people's mood

01:05:44.480 in the short term but

01:05:46.240 quite radical improvements three to six months down the road

01:05:49.680 you know and it's often the case that you unfortunately have to do something you don't want to do

01:05:53.440 in order to progress

01:05:55.600 it's very, very common

01:05:57.920 so, and the future authoring program

01:06:00.160 asks you about different dimensions of your life

01:06:04.000 like, cause you're

01:06:05.280 you know you can think of yourself as a personality inside your head but

01:06:08.240 you're nested in systems that transcend you

01:06:11.680 and they're just as real as whatever is in your head

01:06:14.240 it's like

01:06:15.040 well

01:06:15.440 what do you need

01:06:16.800 for life?

01:06:17.920 well

01:06:18.800 that's pretty easy actually

01:06:20.400 some friends

01:06:22.160 that's a good thing

01:06:23.600 intimate relationship

01:06:25.280 that's a good thing

01:06:26.400 family

01:06:28.000 you know

01:06:28.400 either the one you're going to produce

01:06:30.400 or the one that you come from

01:06:31.600 where people

01:06:32.400 to some degree

01:06:33.600 love and care for one another

01:06:35.600 that's a good thing to work on

01:06:37.040 you need

01:06:38.080 you need some plan for your career

01:06:39.840 you've got to fit in

01:06:41.200 somewhere

01:06:42.000 that people regard as

01:06:43.600 important

01:06:44.080 and that they'll trade with you so that you can live

01:06:46.880 you need something worthwhile to do with the time that you're not at work

01:06:51.280 and you need to

01:06:52.560 pay attention to your mental and physical health

01:06:55.120 and you need to regulate your use of substances

01:06:58.400 which is a strange one

01:06:59.360 but alcohol does lots of people in

01:07:01.120 so it's worth

01:07:02.000 it's worth thinking about

01:07:02.880 that's why we put it in there

01:07:04.080 so then it's like, okay, what the hell do you want?

01:07:06.960 what do you want from your friends?

01:07:08.320 what do you want from your family?

01:07:09.920 what do you want from your career?

01:07:11.360 if you could have what you wanted

01:07:12.640 and that's what the program asks you

01:07:13.920 three to five years down the road

01:07:15.440 you get to have what you want

01:07:18.560 now I'm assuming that you're going to approach this like

01:07:21.680 you know

01:07:22.240 reasonable adults

01:07:23.520 and not like 13 year old dreamers

01:07:25.280 I think

01:07:26.000 I want the most expensive yacht in the world

01:07:29.600 it's like, fine, but

01:07:30.960 you know

01:07:32.560 that isn't really what

01:07:33.760 it's supposed to be more concentrating on your character

01:07:37.920 and so

01:07:38.960 then it asks you to write for 15 minutes without

01:07:41.440 thinking too much about grammar

01:07:44.800 or sentence structure, any of that

01:07:47.760 about what your life could be like three to five years down the road

01:07:50.160 if you were treating yourself like someone you cared for

01:07:54.640 and you were helping them figure out what they wanted

01:07:58.480 and then it asks you to do the same thing in reverse

01:08:01.520 which is to think about

01:08:04.320 the ways that you're

01:08:06.560 radically insufficient and you're false

01:08:09.360 and everyone knows this I think

01:08:10.960 you know, maybe not

01:08:12.800 but everyone has a sense of

01:08:14.640 if they were going to degenerate

01:08:16.560 how they would do it

01:08:17.840 you know, some people would be an alcoholic

01:08:19.440 some people would be a street person

01:08:20.880 it's like

01:08:21.440 there's some doom thing out there that's

01:08:24.080 got your name on it if you're particularly incautious

01:08:27.040 and

01:08:27.920 you know

01:08:28.560 don't

01:08:30.720 and let things fall apart

01:08:32.320 so

01:08:33.120 I want you to write about that

01:08:35.120 what do you not want to have happen in three to five years

01:08:38.320 and there's psychological reasons for this, eh

01:08:40.320 one is

01:08:42.320 if you have something to aim for

01:08:43.520 that's a source of positive emotion

01:08:45.760 because your positive emotion is mostly generated by evidence that you're moving towards something that you value

01:08:51.760 it's not generated so much by accomplishing something

01:08:54.400 because when you accomplish something you're just left with the problem of whatever you're going to do next

01:08:58.240 so you graduate from university, it's like

01:09:01.120 you know, hooray

01:09:02.240 one day you're at the peak of your undergraduate university career

01:09:06.720 the next day you're unemployed and looking for a bad job at Starbucks

01:09:12.160 so, you know

01:09:13.520 well, you see what I mean

01:09:14.640 it's, you know, it's that

01:09:16.320 you know, one problem that you solve is replaced by another problem

01:09:19.520 and so the idea that you're going to be happy when you solve all your problems is like

01:09:24.160 good luck with that theory

01:09:26.080 but

01:09:26.640 but

01:09:27.840 you know, if you're aiming at something worthwhile

01:09:29.840 and you really believe it's worthwhile

01:09:31.280 and you've thought it through, you know

01:09:32.800 so that you're not weak

01:09:34.080 you're not weak 1.00

01:09:34.800 you've got your damn arguments mustered 0.99

01:09:37.040 then when you make progress 1.00

01:09:38.240 even a little bit

01:09:38.880 you think, hey, that's all right

01:09:40.080 and you get a little kick

01:09:41.280 you get a little dopamine kick

01:09:43.200 and that's what you want

01:09:44.080 because that's where your positive emotion comes from

01:09:46.320 you can use cocaine if you want

01:09:47.920 but

01:09:49.520 but you know, that tends to have

01:09:51.520 relatively

01:09:52.640 detrimental

01:09:53.520 medium to long-term consequences

01:09:55.600 but it activates the same system

01:09:57.440 so you have to be aiming at something

01:09:58.880 and you should be aiming at something that's

01:10:01.040 realistic

01:10:02.560 that you want

01:10:04.160 that you could get

01:10:05.360 you know, like

01:10:06.160 not easily

01:10:06.880 because if it's easy

01:10:08.320 in some sense you've already got it

01:10:09.840 it's got to push you

01:10:11.200 and that's part of the pleasure actually

01:10:13.040 because

01:10:14.160 there's two things that you want to do

01:10:15.520 when you're pursuing something that's important

01:10:17.520 and one of them is to get the thing that's important

01:10:19.760 but the other is

01:10:20.560 is to make yourself better at pursuing things

01:10:24.480 right, so

01:10:25.600 so you can get both of those at the same time

01:10:27.840 you

01:10:28.480 you're aiming at something

01:10:29.680 and you're increasing your competence

01:10:31.280 it's like

01:10:31.760 that's a good deal

01:10:32.880 that's a good deal

01:10:33.760 and there's a lot of

01:10:35.440 intrinsic meaning to be

01:10:36.880 felt in that

01:10:37.360 and then the second half of the program

01:10:39.840 you

01:10:41.680 you write out a plan

01:10:42.880 for how you're going to do it

01:10:44.160 and how you're going to keep yourself on track

01:10:45.760 and you're going to write about

01:10:46.800 why it would be good for you if you did this

01:10:48.560 and why it would be good for your family

01:10:50.000 and what possible benefits it would have to the community

01:10:52.560 you know, because you want to nail this thing down

01:10:55.200 and then you want to figure out

01:10:56.880 what kind of obstacles are going to come up

01:10:58.880 and how you might overcome them

01:11:00.080 and how you might keep yourself on track

01:11:01.920 and all of that

01:11:02.960 and we know

01:11:04.400 because we've actually done a lot of research on this particular program

01:11:07.440 that

01:11:08.400 if university students do this

01:11:11.200 and this is more true if they're

01:11:12.880 not

01:11:13.520 too well oriented to begin with

01:11:15.600 if university students do this

01:11:17.600 they're

01:11:18.000 about 25% less likely to drop out

01:11:21.120 which is a lot

01:11:21.840 and about

01:11:22.960 their grade point average increases about 20%

01:11:25.440 so

01:11:26.560 hooray for that

01:11:28.280 you know, because

01:11:29.040 you never know when you develop an intervention

01:11:31.200 if it's going to work

01:11:32.000 there's also evidence

01:11:33.040 but not from my lab

01:11:34.480 that doing such things improves your physical health

01:11:37.920 and

01:11:38.320 I think the reason for that is

01:11:39.680 is that

01:11:40.080 you know, when you go over your autobiography

01:11:41.680 and you scour out those negative places

01:11:44.000 that you're sort of dragging along with you

01:11:46.000 it lowers your overall stress load

01:11:48.160 because your brain is kind of

01:11:50.000 I think it's calculating

01:11:51.120 how dangerous the world is

01:11:53.120 by attending to the ratio of

01:11:56.000 successes to failures

01:11:58.080 that you've had in your life

01:11:59.280 something like that

01:12:00.160 and so

01:12:00.560 you know, if there are holes in your map

01:12:03.040 that you could still fall through

01:12:04.480 then your brain regards the territory

01:12:06.720 still as a bit on the dangerous side

01:12:08.720 and then

01:12:09.760 you're more prepared for emergency action

01:12:12.080 and that's hard on you

01:12:13.200 so

01:12:13.760 you want to go back there and

01:12:14.960 fix up those

01:12:17.840 experiences

01:12:18.960 to the degree that you can't

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - March 17, 2022

236. How to Use Reading and Writing to Find Your Path

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