The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Be precise in your speech

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

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00:00:57.420 Welcome to Season 2, Episode 25 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:04.740 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Dad's daughter and collaborator.

00:01:08.140 I just finished a week-long fast, salt and water only.

00:01:12.560 The reason my voice sounds like this is because I was on a plane for eight hours, so I'm a tad jet lag.

00:01:18.420 Anyway, the fast was pretty easy.

00:01:20.940 It was pretty easy going from an all-meat diet and eating once a day to that.

00:01:24.640 But as long as I kept my salt intake up, I was fine.

00:01:29.060 I broke my fast with some bone broth and a bit of steak.

00:01:31.540 And as soon as I had my first bite of steak, which tasted absolutely incredible after not eating for a week,

00:01:38.640 Dad goes, when I did my 10-day fast, I was like, excuse me, a 10-day fast?

00:01:44.380 Now is when you mention that?

00:01:46.040 Way to tell me after I just took a bite of steak.

00:01:48.720 Probably because he knows I'd go 11 days just to say I'd done one longer than him.

00:01:54.600 Mom's most recent scan came back clean again.

00:01:59.120 Still cancer-free.

00:02:00.880 She's gaining weight and looking better and better.

00:02:03.780 Things are looking bright.

00:02:05.140 Please enjoy this podcast, a 12 Rules for Life lecture, from Regina, Saskatchewan, recorded on August 14th, 2018.

00:02:12.660 This podcast is titled, Be Precise in Your Speech.

00:02:16.900 When we return, a 12 Rules for Life lecture by Jordan Peterson.

00:02:25.240 Please welcome my father, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

00:02:32.480 Thank you very much.

00:02:36.060 I'm very fond of this province, having spent much time here.

00:02:39.700 I lived here when I was a little kid.

00:02:41.520 I lived in Nipuan for a good while.

00:02:44.940 There we go.

00:02:46.080 It's a very enthusiastic place, Nipuan.

00:02:49.880 And my parents have a cabin up at Little Bear Lake, which is north of Prince Albert.

00:02:55.920 So I'm going up there for about a week to hide as much as I can and think for a while, which would be a good thing.

00:03:03.200 If you're talking to people a lot, you should think some.

00:03:05.920 That's a good strategy.

00:03:07.700 So it's a pleasure to be here.

00:03:10.660 And thank you all very much for coming.

00:03:12.340 So I'm going to briefly run through the rules in 12 Rules for Life.

00:03:21.380 I think mostly to warm myself up and maybe to summarize them a little bit.

00:03:25.120 And then there's one I want to concentrate on tonight.

00:03:28.440 That's rule 10, which is be precise in your speech.

00:03:32.680 And I've been thinking about that a lot.

00:03:34.200 Well, I started writing my next book.

00:03:37.620 Well, I've started that a while back, but I got back into it this week.

00:03:41.840 And I'm elaborating on some of the ideas in that chapter.

00:03:48.040 And so I'm going to discuss those with you because I think it's important.

00:03:52.460 I like to use these lectures as an opportunity to think.

00:03:59.820 Now, I think maybe that's why people enjoy them, at least in part,

00:04:04.480 because there's actually something to be said for participating in the process of thinking.

00:04:11.640 You know, even if you're doing that as an audience, it's still part of the process to see how concepts can be formulated and communicated and maybe to some degree on the fly.

00:04:26.180 You know, so I'll tell you about the rules first in 12 Rules for Life, but I'll start with a bit of a preamble.

00:04:32.700 So, you know, if you make a set of rules, guidelines, let's say, there's some rules for the rules.

00:04:42.340 If you offer someone a set of rules, one of the rules for the rules is that the rules can't contradict one another, right?

00:04:49.280 Because what good are they?

00:04:50.320 If one rule contradicts the other rule, then you can't follow both.

00:04:53.860 It's actually one of the pitfalls of making rules is that it's very difficult to come up with rules that don't contradict one another,

00:05:00.900 at least in some circumstances.

00:05:03.280 And when I was writing 12 Rules for Life, well, it was originally a list of 42 rules,

00:05:10.100 which I had posted on a website called Quora.

00:05:13.080 And if you want to see all 42 rules, you can go to Quora and see them.

00:05:17.800 And I was going to write short essays on all 42, and then I started working on them.

00:05:23.520 And it turned out that they weren't particularly short, the essays,

00:05:26.860 because I had more to say or more needed to be said, I suppose, than I had originally presumed.

00:05:32.700 And so I think I culled them down to a set of 25, and then 16, and then 12.

00:05:38.620 And there was a reason for selecting the 12, because, of course, I put them in a book.

00:05:47.000 And a book should be an integral unit, right?

00:05:51.000 It shouldn't just consist of, well, it can consist of unrelated essays, but that isn't what I wanted.

00:05:56.780 I wanted a book that had an underlying theme, let's say.

00:06:00.680 What it implies is that there has to be some underlying unity or tendency towards unity that's manifesting itself in all the rules.

00:06:20.960 Because otherwise you couldn't make something approximating a coherent narrative across all of them.

00:06:25.800 And you couldn't string them together into a collection that made sense.

00:06:30.700 And so you could say that if you have a diverse array of rules or principles,

00:06:36.960 and they're not contradictory, and they fit together somehow,

00:06:41.960 then they're pointing towards some kind of underlying unity.

00:06:46.420 And the rules are an expression of that underlying unity, or that underlying, perhaps, moral principle.

00:06:53.880 That might be another way of thinking about it.

00:06:56.860 Obviously, rules for life are moral principles.

00:07:01.580 Moral principles being guidelines to both perception and action.

00:07:05.960 How to look at the world properly, let's say, and how to act in the world properly.

00:07:09.700 And so the 12 rules are a pointer to something that's more singular, but much more complicated and sophisticated.

00:07:18.860 Something that isn't easy to encapsulate in words.

00:07:22.880 And so I'll list the 12 rules first and maybe make a few comments on how they're linked.

00:07:30.420 And then I want to talk to you about rule 10.

00:07:33.060 Rule 10 is be precise in your speech.

00:07:36.100 And we're going to focus on that one tonight, because I've got some things to think about in relationship to that rule.

00:07:42.880 So rule 1, that's stand up straight with your shoulders back.

00:07:51.020 And it's a simple rule in some sense.

00:07:56.780 It talks about how to hold yourself.

00:07:59.640 And you could say that the injunction to stand up straight with your shoulders back is,

00:08:09.420 well, it's a way of looking presentable in the world.

00:08:14.340 My wife is a massage therapist, and she's very, very attuned to people's posture.

00:08:19.300 And she's really taught me a lot about watching people and their posture.

00:08:22.500 And, you know, if you walk down the street, and now maybe you won't be able to stop yourself from doing this,

00:08:27.520 and it's probably a good thing.

00:08:28.960 You see all sorts of people who are really hunched over, and they're looking at the ground.

00:08:34.160 And they're often, sometimes, attractive people, but their posture is so contorted, I would say,

00:08:41.880 that it speaks badly of them, I suppose.

00:08:48.340 Or it speaks worse of them than could be spoken of them.

00:08:52.720 The injunction to stand up straight with your shoulders back is,

00:08:55.980 it's a description of how to present yourself properly in the world, physically,

00:09:01.440 sort of to maximize what you've been given, let's say.

00:09:08.920 But it's also an injunction to a certain kind of courage,

00:09:11.780 because, you know, human beings, we're very strange animals,

00:09:15.360 because, of course, we walk on two legs, and that means the most vulnerable surfaces of our body

00:09:20.360 are actually exposed, unlike animals that go on four legs,

00:09:25.560 which have basically an armored back,

00:09:28.060 our surface, front surface, is vulnerable and exposed to the world.

00:09:34.140 You know, we do all sorts of things like that, because we're very sensitive about that,

00:09:37.440 we're very sensitive to that.

00:09:39.000 Of course, we all wear clothes, and clothing is essentially human universal.

00:09:42.200 It's very rare to find a culture, extraordinarily rare to find a culture that doesn't use clothing.

00:09:47.660 It's a very old invention.

00:09:49.860 And we're these strange creatures that are also aware that we're naked,

00:09:54.480 strangely enough, which doesn't seem to occur to other animals.

00:09:57.260 Of course, most of them have fur, but not all of them.

00:09:59.920 They're not aware of their own nakedness.

00:10:02.340 They're not aware of their own vulnerability.

00:10:04.500 That's the way to think about that.

00:10:05.960 And so, but we are, and so for us to stand up straight with our shoulders back

00:10:11.300 is to present our vulnerability to the world.

00:10:14.840 And that's actually an act of courage, right?

00:10:18.480 Because, well, to crouch defensively, or to shy away, let's say,

00:10:24.860 from manifesting that vulnerability in the world,

00:10:28.360 that's to shrink away from life.

00:10:33.460 And, I mean, it's not surprising that you might want to shrink away from life.

00:10:37.400 Life can be unbelievably brutal, and is, in fact, unbelievably brutal.

00:10:42.760 And the fact that you might not want to confront that full body, let's say,

00:10:50.740 is not surprising, but it's not helpful.

00:10:53.400 That's the thing.

00:10:54.140 And there's a paradoxical, there's a paradox in that.

00:10:58.460 It's a deep paradox.

00:10:59.960 And it's something, I would say, that all the 12 rules point to,

00:11:02.680 is that the willingness to confront the catastrophe of life voluntarily

00:11:08.520 is simultaneously the, what would you call it,

00:11:16.800 the secret to dealing with that vulnerability and transcending it at the same time.

00:11:22.460 And that's a very deep truth.

00:11:25.100 Life is tragic.

00:11:26.960 We make things worse because we're often malevolent.

00:11:30.280 But the best way to deal with that, both psychologically and practically,

00:11:34.320 is to accept it and to expose yourself to it voluntarily.

00:11:39.400 And that's a clinical truism, by the way.

00:11:41.760 I'm not saying this lightly.

00:11:43.820 One of the things that clinical psychologists of all different academic persuasions

00:11:49.820 and schools of thought, one of the things they've all come to agree on is that

00:11:53.320 you get stronger by voluntarily exposing yourself to the obstacles in your path that frighten you.

00:12:00.900 And so that's a very interesting concept.

00:12:03.600 And it's a deep concept because you don't really know where it ends.

00:12:06.260 If you can get stronger in small ways by exposing yourself to things that you're slightly afraid of,

00:12:12.200 how strong could you get if you were willing to expose yourself to things that you were terrified of?

00:12:17.280 And the answer to that is a lot stronger than you think.

00:12:20.960 Because it is the case that there is a potential that resides within us.

00:12:26.480 And I don't think this is merely metaphoric language

00:12:28.960 that responds to challenge with the development of strength.

00:12:33.380 That's our potential, let's say.

00:12:35.800 And that's true partly because you learn when you confront things that you don't understand

00:12:40.020 and that you're afraid of.

00:12:40.980 So you become more informed and more skillful.

00:12:43.640 But also because you are characterized by a very deep biological potential,

00:12:48.220 some of which is coded invisibly in some sense in your genetic structure.

00:12:52.600 And that doesn't manifest itself until you stress yourself voluntarily.

00:12:57.320 So if you put yourself in new situations that are beyond you to some degree,

00:13:02.480 then your genes code for new proteins and make new structures in your brain and your nervous system.

00:13:08.420 So there's more of you than meets the eye that can still be unlocked.

00:13:13.240 And the way you unlock that is by requiring it to be unlocked,

00:13:17.600 not by wishing that it would be unlocked.

00:13:19.600 You have to put yourself in this situation.

00:13:21.940 Because otherwise, what's in you won't emerge.

00:13:25.600 And so, well, that's rule one.

00:13:28.400 Rule two is make friends with people who want the best for you.

00:13:33.820 And that's, well, that's another pointer, I would say.

00:13:37.980 And it's an interesting rule, I think, because it requires you,

00:13:44.280 if you follow that rule, it requires you to determine what might be the best for you.

00:13:49.100 And that's actually, well, that's actually a very, that's an extraordinarily difficult problem.

00:13:54.840 Like, what exactly is best for you?

00:13:58.500 It's not what's easiest.

00:14:00.640 I mean, you think about, if you have a child, you have someone that you love,

00:14:05.860 and you want the best for them.

00:14:07.780 You don't say to them, well, you should just do what's easiest.

00:14:11.760 You don't say that, you know.

00:14:13.220 You encourage them instead to take on burdens that exceed their current capability.

00:14:22.600 That's associated with rule one.

00:14:25.680 And to surround yourself with people who want the best for you,

00:14:30.520 so to make that a condition for friendship,

00:14:32.420 then is to make the assumption that you have something of value to bring into the world,

00:14:38.540 and that it's part of your ethical responsibility to situate yourself socially

00:14:45.220 so that that attempt to make manifest the best in you is supported in all possible ways.

00:14:52.960 And this is actually far more important than you think,

00:14:55.600 not least because of that proclivity for catastrophe and malevolence that's part and parcel of life.

00:15:02.860 I mean, it's certainly the case that you might doubt

00:15:05.040 to what degree you're capable of making things better

00:15:09.360 if you're doubting your own validity.

00:15:11.940 But very few people doubt their ability to make things worse.

00:15:16.980 And we can certainly make things really much worse.

00:15:21.140 No matter how bad they are,

00:15:23.000 there's some damn fool thing you can do,

00:15:25.380 and probably have,

00:15:26.820 to make a painful situation much more painful than it needs to be.

00:15:31.440 You know, if you're laying in bed at night feeling guilty,

00:15:34.540 which, you know, is a relatively common occurrence for people,

00:15:39.760 you can generate a virtual litany of events in your life

00:15:44.200 where you made a decision,

00:15:46.560 maybe that you even knew to be wrong,

00:15:48.440 that made a bad situation worse.

00:15:50.200 So, to bring out the best in yourself

00:15:53.200 is to, at least to cease doing that, right,

00:15:56.460 is to stop making things worse.

00:15:58.840 And because we can make things so much worse than they could be,

00:16:02.600 it's actually really important that you set yourself up

00:16:05.800 so that you aren't inclined to make things worse.

00:16:08.640 And partly what that means is to be around people

00:16:11.920 who would just assume that

00:16:13.760 the best in you was able to manifest itself

00:16:16.460 and to make that a reasonable precondition for friendship.

00:16:19.800 And as an obligation, as a moral obligation to yourself

00:16:23.480 and perhaps to your friends as well,

00:16:26.120 rule three is,

00:16:27.600 rule two, sorry,

00:16:30.500 rule two is treat yourself as if you're someone,

00:16:32.620 I got those two confused,

00:16:34.520 rule two is treat yourself

00:16:36.040 like you're someone responsible for helping,

00:16:38.440 rule three is make friends with the people

00:16:40.100 who want the best for you.

00:16:41.300 To treat yourself

00:16:42.180 like you're someone responsible for helping

00:16:44.940 is a variant of the same idea

00:16:46.780 so it's pointing in the same direction

00:16:48.400 and it's predicated on the idea that

00:16:50.760 well, you know, if you know someone,

00:16:56.460 if you have a family member,

00:16:57.620 a sibling,

00:16:58.920 a child,

00:17:00.580 a parent,

00:17:02.460 and

00:17:02.940 you care for them,

00:17:05.460 which hopefully you do

00:17:06.820 if you're fortunate,

00:17:08.800 then

00:17:09.280 they feel the same way about you,

00:17:11.340 generally speaking.

00:17:12.580 If you care for someone,

00:17:13.940 you assume that there's something about them

00:17:15.580 that's intrinsically valuable

00:17:16.840 and generally that's a reciprocal relationship.

00:17:20.980 You know,

00:17:21.540 you certainly don't make your father,

00:17:24.360 your mother happy

00:17:25.120 if you care for them

00:17:26.560 but care nothing for yourself,

00:17:28.660 they're not going to be the least bit,

00:17:31.580 they're going to worry very much about you

00:17:33.880 if that's the situation that you're in.

00:17:35.900 And so there's a reciprocity in treatment

00:17:38.240 that implies that

00:17:39.460 just as other people,

00:17:40.980 especially the people you love

00:17:42.580 because that's where it's the most evident,

00:17:44.900 just as those people have intrinsic value,

00:17:47.320 then you have intrinsic value as well.

00:17:50.200 And if you have intrinsic value,

00:17:51.900 then it's incumbent on you

00:17:53.760 with regard to responsibility

00:17:55.560 to treat yourself

00:17:56.860 as if you're someone

00:17:58.160 that's worthy of help.

00:18:00.080 And that's a harder thing

00:18:01.320 than you might think,

00:18:02.620 I would say.

00:18:04.060 You know,

00:18:04.440 we hear a lot about

00:18:05.520 how selfish people are.

00:18:06.820 I don't really think that's true.

00:18:09.060 I think many people,

00:18:10.500 perhaps not most,

00:18:11.780 treat other people better

00:18:13.020 than they treat themselves.

00:18:14.460 They certainly often treat their pets

00:18:16.440 better than they treat themselves.

00:18:19.720 Which is not a good thing,

00:18:21.160 although it's good for the pets,

00:18:22.320 I suppose.

00:18:22.780 it's very useful

00:18:26.840 to consider yourself

00:18:30.540 in the same light

00:18:31.280 that you would consider someone

00:18:32.360 that you cared for.

00:18:33.600 And also to consider that

00:18:34.780 a moral obligation.

00:18:36.400 And so that's how

00:18:37.000 all those three rules point,

00:18:38.840 let's say,

00:18:39.300 in the same direction.

00:18:40.500 Rule four,

00:18:41.400 that's compare yourself

00:18:45.340 to who you were yesterday,

00:18:47.500 not to who someone else is today.

00:18:51.180 And that's also a rule

00:18:53.060 that involves

00:18:53.760 the point of it all.

00:18:56.780 You need to have an ambition

00:18:58.260 because you need to act in the world

00:19:02.140 and in order to act in the world

00:19:03.640 you have to direct your action.

00:19:05.420 In order to direct your action

00:19:06.680 you have to act towards some end

00:19:08.360 and in order to have an end

00:19:09.960 you have to have an ambition

00:19:11.060 unless you're trying to make things worse,

00:19:13.660 which we already dealt with that hypothetically.

00:19:16.120 You're trying to make things better

00:19:17.460 so you have a point,

00:19:19.360 you're aiming at something,

00:19:20.760 you have an ambition.

00:19:22.680 And there's danger in that

00:19:24.620 because if you have an ambition

00:19:27.060 it's certainly possible

00:19:29.040 that there are other people in the world

00:19:30.960 that you might compare yourself to

00:19:32.680 that have gone farther

00:19:35.020 in the attainment of that ambition

00:19:36.960 than you.

00:19:38.080 It's almost inevitably the case

00:19:40.420 no matter what dimension of value

00:19:42.800 you determine to pursue

00:19:44.240 the probability

00:19:45.260 that there's someone out there

00:19:46.580 who's better at it than you are

00:19:48.040 is extraordinarily high

00:19:50.000 and so that can lead you

00:19:53.460 to become jealous and envious

00:19:55.380 and bitter

00:19:56.500 and that's just the start

00:19:58.080 and that seems like a bad idea

00:20:01.340 because if you're bitter and envious

00:20:03.620 and that's just a start

00:20:05.520 then you have all the more reason

00:20:07.680 to try to make things worse

00:20:09.840 instead of better.

00:20:10.640 So you need to be able to

00:20:14.980 hold an ambition in mind

00:20:17.240 to give some meaning to your life

00:20:18.980 to give your life a point

00:20:20.140 let's say without falling prey

00:20:22.360 to that terrible catastrophe

00:20:24.400 of comparison

00:20:25.720 that might emerge

00:20:26.720 if you're matching your attainment

00:20:30.340 to someone else

00:20:31.140 you might say

00:20:32.160 well who then should you compare yourself to

00:20:35.820 and I think this is something

00:20:37.120 that you really want to figure out

00:20:38.540 once you

00:20:40.000 especially once you

00:20:41.420 are

00:20:42.420 hitting your late 20s

00:20:44.640 or

00:20:44.780 or

00:20:45.660 or you're older than that

00:20:47.000 when you're young

00:20:49.160 comparing yourself to other people

00:20:50.660 although

00:20:51.280 it can still be bitter

00:20:52.440 is somewhat more justified

00:20:53.900 because

00:20:54.360 young people are more

00:20:56.180 the same

00:20:56.940 young people are more the same

00:20:59.220 than older people are

00:21:00.220 as you get older

00:21:00.800 you differentiate from other people

00:21:02.280 you get more and more

00:21:03.100 unlike other people

00:21:04.140 because

00:21:04.420 you've accrued your own

00:21:05.780 peculiar experience

00:21:06.920 and you have your own

00:21:08.000 peculiar hang-ups

00:21:08.880 and weaknesses

00:21:09.540 but also your own

00:21:10.480 peculiar strengths

00:21:11.360 and so you become

00:21:12.540 a more singular person

00:21:13.840 and as you become

00:21:15.340 a more singular person

00:21:16.360 because you're less

00:21:17.940 comparable to other people

00:21:19.240 comparing yourself

00:21:20.440 on some dimension

00:21:21.220 of evaluation

00:21:21.980 to someone else

00:21:23.140 becomes

00:21:23.560 less and less

00:21:24.580 worthwhile

00:21:25.440 and enterprise

00:21:26.580 because

00:21:27.480 and you see this

00:21:28.800 you know

00:21:29.100 we often put

00:21:30.160 certain people up

00:21:31.300 in the spotlight

00:21:32.200 let's say

00:21:32.720 as exemplars

00:21:34.040 of a certain kind

00:21:34.700 of attainment

00:21:35.220 they might be

00:21:35.920 sports stars

00:21:36.600 or they might be

00:21:37.240 movie stars

00:21:37.780 or they might be

00:21:38.700 people who are famous

00:21:39.480 for other reasons

00:21:40.220 and we see there

00:21:41.340 there's stellar performance

00:21:43.360 along that single dimension

00:21:44.720 and we imagine

00:21:45.920 well what would life

00:21:46.800 be like

00:21:47.300 if that good fortune

00:21:49.580 or ability

00:21:50.340 was ours

00:21:51.380 and

00:21:52.140 it's easy

00:21:53.700 to imagine

00:21:54.420 that being

00:21:55.580 nothing but positive

00:21:57.660 you know

00:21:58.240 someone who's

00:21:59.260 very good at one thing

00:22:00.180 has a life

00:22:01.020 that's very good

00:22:01.760 across all conceivable

00:22:03.440 dimensions

00:22:03.940 and that's actually

00:22:04.980 almost never true

00:22:06.560 you know

00:22:07.280 if you

00:22:07.660 it doesn't matter

00:22:10.780 who the person is

00:22:12.880 regardless of their talents

00:22:15.140 you don't have to scratch

00:22:16.640 very far beneath the surface

00:22:18.580 to see

00:22:19.820 the underlying tragedy

00:22:21.940 and trouble

00:22:22.460 in their life

00:22:23.140 and so

00:22:24.480 even that kind of

00:22:25.580 stellar performance

00:22:26.340 is

00:22:26.700 well

00:22:27.440 something

00:22:28.340 that we should all

00:22:29.720 be appreciative of

00:22:30.580 let's say

00:22:31.420 but

00:22:31.600 no final protection

00:22:33.340 against

00:22:33.860 the difficulties

00:22:35.880 that are part and parcel

00:22:37.380 of existence

00:22:38.020 so comparing yourself

00:22:39.720 to someone else

00:22:40.520 is not all that helpful

00:22:42.100 because

00:22:42.500 what the hell

00:22:43.780 do you know about them

00:22:44.780 fundamentally

00:22:45.840 not very much

00:22:47.580 and

00:22:47.900 it may be

00:22:49.060 could easily be the case

00:22:50.660 that if you knew

00:22:51.140 the whole story

00:22:51.920 well

00:22:52.960 there may still be

00:22:54.440 elements of their life

00:22:55.460 that you'd like to have

00:22:56.340 for your own

00:22:56.960 but

00:22:57.680 you'd find that

00:22:59.400 things were much more

00:23:00.620 complex than they appear

00:23:01.700 on first glance

00:23:03.600 instead

00:23:04.680 it makes more sense

00:23:06.320 to compare yourself

00:23:07.440 to the only person

00:23:08.920 that you really are

00:23:09.920 comparable to

00:23:10.700 which is you

00:23:11.920 and it is very reasonable

00:23:14.260 I think

00:23:14.840 and

00:23:15.300 and also quite motivating

00:23:16.860 because it's a game

00:23:17.940 you can actually win

00:23:18.920 and make progress

00:23:20.460 at the same time

00:23:21.340 to take stock of yourself

00:23:23.160 the way you are now

00:23:24.320 and to assume that

00:23:25.580 in the upcoming days

00:23:27.120 and weeks and months

00:23:28.020 or perhaps hours even

00:23:29.360 you could be slightly better

00:23:31.880 than you are right now

00:23:33.020 and that's a fair game

00:23:34.840 because

00:23:35.140 you have all the advantages

00:23:36.700 and disadvantages

00:23:37.280 that you have

00:23:39.200 so you're a good comparison

00:23:41.080 and you can make real progress

00:23:43.320 using yourself

00:23:44.040 as a baseline

00:23:44.720 and

00:23:45.520 that progress

00:23:46.600 is

00:23:46.880 is actual

00:23:47.740 like it is actually

00:23:49.060 possible for you

00:23:50.520 to be a better person

00:23:51.360 than you are

00:23:52.000 right now

00:23:52.900 and I would say

00:23:54.000 well it's also possible

00:23:55.260 to do that incrementally

00:23:56.540 in

00:23:57.080 in

00:23:57.420 in movements

00:23:58.840 that aren't

00:24:00.320 over

00:24:00.620 that aren't overwhelming

00:24:01.960 that you can in fact

00:24:03.540 manage

00:24:04.100 and I would also say

00:24:05.140 and this is a useful thing

00:24:06.180 to know too

00:24:06.740 that

00:24:07.480 part of the meaning

00:24:09.880 that sustains people

00:24:11.240 in life

00:24:11.820 through

00:24:12.180 through the hard times

00:24:13.640 in life

00:24:14.100 is actually

00:24:15.040 to be found

00:24:15.940 in the meaning

00:24:17.180 that manifests itself

00:24:18.560 as a consequence

00:24:19.460 of incremental

00:24:20.800 ethical improvement

00:24:22.300 moral improvement

00:24:23.240 and I'll make a case

00:24:24.360 for that

00:24:24.700 but

00:24:24.860 I'm very interested

00:24:26.560 in the phenomena

00:24:27.440 phenomenon of meaning

00:24:29.360 you know

00:24:30.180 as something

00:24:31.800 that people experience

00:24:32.840 as a reality

00:24:33.860 because

00:24:34.320 you know

00:24:35.720 now and then

00:24:36.600 you get engaged

00:24:37.300 in something

00:24:37.780 that's meaningful

00:24:38.360 and sometimes

00:24:39.240 you're not engaged

00:24:40.440 in something

00:24:40.900 that's meaningful

00:24:41.600 in which case

00:24:42.680 life gets rather dull

00:24:43.760 and dry

00:24:44.360 but

00:24:45.220 you can be

00:24:45.960 fully engaged

00:24:46.760 in something

00:24:47.240 that's meaningful

00:24:47.780 it's not really

00:24:48.340 something of your choice

00:24:49.560 generally speaking

00:24:50.400 it's something

00:24:50.860 that happens to you

00:24:52.000 and so meaning

00:24:52.860 is a kind of instinct

00:24:53.920 and

00:24:54.280 it's an instinct

00:24:56.140 towards

00:24:56.920 moral self-development

00:24:58.540 as far as I can tell

00:24:59.600 and so

00:25:00.100 if you're

00:25:02.240 incrementally improving

00:25:04.220 in a direction

00:25:05.980 that's optimized

00:25:06.840 for you

00:25:07.620 then you'll find

00:25:08.660 the process

00:25:09.200 of incremental improvement

00:25:10.500 deeply meaningful

00:25:11.480 and one of the things

00:25:12.840 that's fascinating

00:25:13.520 about that

00:25:14.120 is that sense

00:25:14.860 of engaged meaning

00:25:15.920 that accompanies

00:25:17.460 the movement

00:25:18.520 towards a better you

00:25:19.660 is actually

00:25:20.420 a pretty good antidote

00:25:21.660 for the suffering

00:25:22.420 that's intrinsic to life

00:25:23.820 you know

00:25:24.680 because you're not

00:25:25.060 going to get rid

00:25:25.560 of the suffering

00:25:26.220 that's for sure

00:25:27.480 but you might be able

00:25:28.640 to make it something

00:25:29.460 that you could

00:25:30.180 well perhaps celebrate

00:25:32.020 that might be

00:25:32.760 asking a bit much

00:25:33.800 but at least

00:25:34.540 tolerate

00:25:35.420 or at least

00:25:36.400 face without

00:25:37.700 bitterness and resentment

00:25:38.940 Nietzsche

00:25:39.880 the philosopher

00:25:40.700 the German philosopher

00:25:41.660 said

00:25:42.140 he who has a why

00:25:45.680 can bear

00:25:47.300 any how

00:25:48.380 and that's a very nice phrase

00:25:50.660 and the idea

00:25:52.140 is that

00:25:52.760 well

00:25:53.500 if the goal

00:25:55.280 is of sufficient worth

00:25:57.020 and the pathway there

00:26:00.540 of sufficient value

00:26:01.600 then the fact

00:26:02.780 that it's difficult

00:26:03.700 becomes

00:26:04.780 acceptable

00:26:06.040 and

00:26:08.040 and that's

00:26:09.320 that's something

00:26:09.940 that's very much

00:26:10.760 worth knowing

00:26:11.400 as well

00:26:11.860 so

00:26:13.680 compare yourself

00:26:15.180 to who you were

00:26:15.960 yesterday

00:26:16.340 not to who

00:26:16.960 someone else is

00:26:17.640 today

00:26:18.020 that's also

00:26:19.280 an injunction

00:26:19.900 to humility

00:26:20.620 I would say

00:26:21.440 you know

00:26:22.600 because

00:26:23.120 it

00:26:24.100 to do that

00:26:25.080 also requires

00:26:25.820 that you take

00:26:26.320 stock of yourself

00:26:27.200 and you see

00:26:28.680 where you fall

00:26:29.600 short

00:26:30.000 which is a useful

00:26:31.200 thing

00:26:31.640 you know

00:26:31.960 you don't necessarily

00:26:33.520 want to do that

00:26:34.420 as a consequence

00:26:35.480 of the judgment

00:26:36.240 of other people

00:26:36.940 that's really not

00:26:37.580 what I'm talking about

00:26:38.400 although that can be

00:26:39.160 helpful

00:26:39.460 because other people

00:26:40.240 can point out

00:26:41.640 your shortfalls

00:26:42.540 and sometimes

00:26:43.480 they're accurate

00:26:44.140 and that means

00:26:45.140 they're actually

00:26:45.600 doing you a favor

00:26:46.440 because

00:26:46.840 if you come up short

00:26:48.120 in some

00:26:48.760 manner

00:26:49.740 then you'll pay

00:26:51.040 for that

00:26:51.400 as you move

00:26:51.920 through life

00:26:52.540 right

00:26:53.360 because life

00:26:54.340 is very difficult

00:26:55.100 if you're not

00:26:55.840 everything that you

00:26:56.700 could be

00:26:57.100 then there will

00:26:58.300 come a time

00:26:58.880 when there's so

00:26:59.640 much pressure

00:27:00.140 on you

00:27:00.500 that the part

00:27:01.100 of you

00:27:01.320 that's missing

00:27:01.860 is just

00:27:02.480 what you would

00:27:03.180 have needed

00:27:03.620 to get through

00:27:04.500 that situation

00:27:05.480 and so

00:27:06.840 to compare

00:27:08.820 yourself

00:27:09.260 to who you

00:27:09.780 were yesterday

00:27:10.440 and to take

00:27:11.340 stock of yourself

00:27:12.100 is to

00:27:12.700 is to lay out

00:27:14.300 your tools

00:27:14.960 and your armament

00:27:15.900 in some sense

00:27:16.720 and to see

00:27:17.200 if you're

00:27:17.680 if you're ready

00:27:18.820 to take on

00:27:19.480 the world

00:27:19.940 in its

00:27:20.920 in its full

00:27:21.520 difficulty

00:27:22.040 and to see

00:27:23.320 where you're

00:27:24.040 not yet

00:27:24.720 sufficient

00:27:25.380 and then

00:27:26.220 potentially

00:27:27.040 to work

00:27:27.640 on that

00:27:28.160 and that's

00:27:29.260 a very useful

00:27:30.100 thing to do

00:27:30.780 rule five

00:27:31.940 that's

00:27:32.460 don't let

00:27:33.520 your children

00:27:34.140 do anything

00:27:35.600 that makes

00:27:36.640 you dislike

00:27:37.200 them

00:27:37.440 and I like

00:27:39.180 the way

00:27:39.500 that that

00:27:39.940 rule is phrased

00:27:40.920 because

00:27:41.300 it's

00:27:42.240 it does

00:27:44.080 make people

00:27:44.660 laugh

00:27:45.140 well first

00:27:47.040 of all

00:27:47.260 you're not

00:27:47.580 really supposed

00:27:48.040 to admit

00:27:48.560 that children

00:27:49.080 can be

00:27:49.520 dislikable

00:27:50.180 although they

00:27:50.880 certainly can

00:27:51.660 when you

00:27:52.340 were children

00:27:52.940 there were

00:27:53.460 children

00:27:53.720 you disliked

00:27:54.680 and there's

00:27:55.300 no reason

00:27:55.700 to assume

00:27:56.220 that your

00:27:56.600 judgment

00:27:56.920 was completely

00:27:57.640 warped

00:27:58.140 and even

00:27:58.720 as adults

00:27:59.340 you have

00:27:59.880 you know

00:28:00.580 people who

00:28:01.140 have children

00:28:01.680 that well

00:28:02.880 that you

00:28:03.120 don't like

00:28:03.680 and maybe

00:28:04.840 they're your

00:28:05.240 own children

00:28:05.800 it's possible

00:28:06.900 that's more

00:28:08.460 common than

00:28:08.980 you might think

00:28:09.580 as well

00:28:10.040 and it's

00:28:10.780 unfortunate

00:28:11.340 you don't

00:28:13.520 want to

00:28:14.400 let your

00:28:14.840 children

00:28:15.220 be people

00:28:17.340 that you

00:28:17.680 dislike

00:28:18.100 because if

00:28:18.620 you dislike

00:28:19.180 them

00:28:19.460 then other

00:28:20.640 people

00:28:20.920 will

00:28:21.160 dislike

00:28:21.540 them

00:28:21.820 and it's

00:28:22.980 actually

00:28:23.300 your

00:28:23.640 your job

00:28:25.060 your moral

00:28:25.980 obligation

00:28:26.560 the point

00:28:28.060 of being

00:28:28.440 a parent

00:28:28.880 let's say

00:28:29.420 to help

00:28:31.360 your children

00:28:32.000 determine

00:28:33.420 how to

00:28:34.320 manifest

00:28:34.720 themselves

00:28:35.280 in the

00:28:35.620 world

00:28:35.860 so that

00:28:36.540 other

00:28:36.720 people

00:28:37.140 face them

00:28:39.740 with a

00:28:40.100 welcoming

00:28:40.660 attitude

00:28:42.080 there isn't

00:28:43.680 anything

00:28:43.960 that you

00:28:44.420 can do

00:28:44.700 that's

00:28:44.980 better

00:28:45.160 for your

00:28:45.540 children

00:28:45.860 than that

00:28:46.460 let's say

00:28:47.740 you teach

00:28:48.080 them how

00:28:48.380 to play

00:28:48.800 properly

00:28:49.340 how to

00:28:49.700 share

00:28:50.020 how to

00:28:50.380 engage

00:28:50.820 in

00:28:50.980 reciprocal

00:28:51.440 interactions

00:28:52.200 why do

00:28:53.140 you do

00:28:53.420 that

00:28:53.760 so that

00:28:54.740 they have

00:28:55.120 friends

00:28:55.760 friends

00:28:57.320 are the

00:28:58.680 primary source

00:28:59.380 of socialization

00:29:00.380 by the way

00:29:00.920 once your

00:29:01.380 child is

00:29:01.860 about four

00:29:02.700 you're the

00:29:03.600 primary source

00:29:04.320 of socialization

00:29:05.200 up to the

00:29:05.720 age of four

00:29:06.440 but by the

00:29:07.360 time your

00:29:07.740 child is

00:29:08.220 four

00:29:08.640 then it's

00:29:09.740 their peers

00:29:10.300 that become

00:29:10.900 the primary

00:29:11.460 agent of

00:29:12.040 socialization

00:29:12.840 and so

00:29:13.940 your job

00:29:14.480 is to

00:29:14.940 at least

00:29:15.540 in part

00:29:16.000 as a

00:29:16.360 parent

00:29:16.600 is to

00:29:17.100 help

00:29:18.200 your child

00:29:19.160 learn how

00:29:19.760 to manifest

00:29:20.360 themselves

00:29:20.980 in the

00:29:21.360 social world

00:29:22.000 so that

00:29:22.800 other children

00:29:23.560 are lining

00:29:24.360 up to be

00:29:25.300 their friends

00:29:26.180 and then

00:29:27.720 wherever they

00:29:28.200 go they

00:29:28.560 have friends

00:29:29.160 and then

00:29:30.080 the friends

00:29:30.520 help socialize

00:29:31.540 them and

00:29:31.860 that makes

00:29:32.660 them sophisticated

00:29:33.440 and socially

00:29:36.020 capable and

00:29:36.960 all of that

00:29:37.540 and that's a

00:29:38.100 very good

00:29:38.660 thing to have

00:29:39.500 happen to

00:29:40.000 your children

00:29:40.460 and then

00:29:41.180 also if

00:29:42.140 your children

00:29:42.940 aren't

00:29:43.380 dislikable

00:29:44.080 let's say

00:29:44.560 by adult

00:29:45.160 standards

00:29:45.780 well that's

00:29:46.420 also helpful

00:29:47.160 partly because

00:29:48.740 they're going

00:29:49.320 to have to

00:29:49.740 deal with

00:29:50.140 adults

00:29:50.620 and adults

00:29:51.400 hold all

00:29:51.900 the cards

00:29:52.500 and so

00:29:53.500 if your

00:29:53.960 children

00:29:54.280 know how

00:29:54.700 to react

00:29:55.580 to adults

00:29:56.100 so that

00:29:56.440 adults

00:29:57.140 react to

00:29:58.640 them properly

00:29:59.320 positively

00:29:59.980 and most

00:30:00.500 adults will

00:30:01.080 react to

00:30:01.580 children

00:30:01.820 positively

00:30:02.340 if they're

00:30:02.760 given a

00:30:03.100 bit of a

00:30:03.440 chance

00:30:03.820 you know

00:30:04.180 child has

00:30:05.040 to go out

00:30:05.440 of his

00:30:05.700 way

00:30:05.980 or her

00:30:06.300 way

00:30:06.620 to be

00:30:07.280 obnoxious

00:30:08.080 enough

00:30:08.520 to turn

00:30:09.340 off an

00:30:09.800 adult

00:30:10.200 you know

00:30:10.700 because

00:30:11.020 almost

00:30:11.760 everyone

00:30:12.280 no matter

00:30:13.160 how beat

00:30:13.720 up and

00:30:14.120 tough

00:30:14.460 and bedraggled

00:30:15.860 by the

00:30:16.260 world

00:30:16.480 and even

00:30:16.860 resentful

00:30:17.460 it's very

00:30:17.920 very few

00:30:18.420 people who

00:30:19.000 don't have

00:30:19.380 a soft

00:30:19.760 spot in

00:30:20.160 their heart

00:30:20.560 for a

00:30:21.300 child

00:30:21.660 and so

00:30:22.900 if you

00:30:24.720 can help

00:30:25.180 your children

00:30:25.780 determine how

00:30:26.900 to maintain

00:30:27.880 that intrinsic

00:30:29.240 attractiveness

00:30:30.180 because of

00:30:31.460 their response

00:30:33.000 to adults

00:30:33.740 which would

00:30:34.120 be engaging

00:30:34.760 and open

00:30:35.240 and with a

00:30:36.200 certain amount

00:30:36.640 of trust

00:30:37.140 then adults

00:30:38.020 will also

00:30:38.500 interact with

00:30:39.140 them properly

00:30:39.640 and open

00:30:40.040 up the

00:30:40.340 world

00:30:40.560 to them

00:30:41.000 and so

00:30:41.800 that's a

00:30:42.200 very

00:30:42.400 and that

00:30:43.140 means that

00:30:43.780 you're trying

00:30:44.160 to teach

00:30:44.560 your child

00:30:45.000 a way of

00:30:45.480 being in

00:30:46.080 the world

00:30:46.440 that's of

00:30:47.100 maximal value

00:30:48.280 to the people

00:30:48.900 around them

00:30:49.500 and you know

00:30:51.240 there's lots

00:30:51.740 of people

00:30:52.180 who are

00:30:52.580 going to be

00:30:53.340 around your

00:30:53.840 child

00:30:54.500 and every

00:30:55.260 one of

00:30:55.600 those people

00:30:56.480 is broadcasting

00:30:57.840 a message

00:30:58.460 to your

00:30:58.920 child

00:30:59.280 about how

00:31:00.080 to act

00:31:00.540 in the

00:31:00.800 world

00:31:01.100 for optimal

00:31:02.860 return

00:31:03.540 let's say

00:31:04.080 all things

00:31:04.640 considered

00:31:05.120 and if

00:31:06.800 you can help

00:31:07.340 your child

00:31:07.800 figure out

00:31:09.060 how to

00:31:09.560 be a good

00:31:10.300 sport

00:31:10.760 let's say

00:31:11.280 which is a

00:31:11.720 good way

00:31:12.020 of thinking

00:31:12.380 about it

00:31:12.800 to play

00:31:13.340 the game

00:31:13.660 properly

00:31:14.140 then you

00:31:14.760 do them

00:31:15.080 a great

00:31:15.480 favor

00:31:15.880 and you

00:31:16.520 help point

00:31:17.060 them in

00:31:17.420 the right

00:31:17.720 direction

00:31:18.180 in the

00:31:18.480 world

00:31:18.800 rule six

00:31:20.440 that's

00:31:21.800 get your

00:31:23.160 house in

00:31:23.660 perfect order

00:31:24.520 before you

00:31:25.140 criticize the

00:31:26.060 world

00:31:26.480 and that's

00:31:28.120 an injunction

00:31:28.680 against bitterness

00:31:30.200 again I would

00:31:31.080 say

00:31:31.360 one of the

00:31:32.540 things

00:31:32.860 I've spent

00:31:33.420 a lot of

00:31:33.840 time studying

00:31:34.560 people who

00:31:35.700 do terrible

00:31:36.360 things

00:31:36.960 some of them

00:31:38.080 authoritarians

00:31:39.040 some of them

00:31:40.040 the more

00:31:40.360 casual

00:31:40.900 sort of

00:31:41.920 what would

00:31:43.920 you say

00:31:44.340 vengeful

00:31:45.600 arrogant

00:31:46.520 deceitful

00:31:47.260 criminal

00:31:47.700 who performs

00:31:50.100 actions like

00:31:51.000 shooting up a

00:31:51.660 high school

00:31:52.180 or an

00:31:52.640 elementary

00:31:53.020 school

00:31:53.460 in the

00:31:54.260 even more

00:31:56.020 reprehensible

00:31:56.700 category

00:31:57.320 and those

00:31:59.360 are people

00:31:59.900 who have

00:32:00.680 decided that

00:32:01.460 there's something

00:32:02.040 fundamentally

00:32:02.700 corrupt about

00:32:03.460 the structure

00:32:03.980 of the world

00:32:04.580 itself

00:32:05.420 and are

00:32:06.180 out for

00:32:06.660 nothing

00:32:07.000 but revenge

00:32:07.940 and they

00:32:08.960 have their

00:32:09.460 reasons

00:32:10.520 generally

00:32:11.120 speaking

00:32:11.620 as do

00:32:12.460 most people

00:32:13.120 I read a

00:32:14.040 famous

00:32:14.460 psychologist

00:32:15.480 once I think

00:32:16.360 who said

00:32:17.040 everyone has

00:32:18.080 a reason

00:32:18.560 for suicide

00:32:19.320 and perhaps

00:32:20.900 that's slightly

00:32:21.580 pessimistic

00:32:22.360 but I don't

00:32:23.780 really think

00:32:24.240 it is

00:32:24.640 because people's

00:32:25.440 lives are

00:32:25.820 very difficult

00:32:26.460 and you see

00:32:28.080 this when people

00:32:28.720 become depressed

00:32:29.520 they can think

00:32:30.200 about times

00:32:31.080 in their lives

00:32:31.680 where the

00:32:32.520 difficulty was

00:32:33.280 almost insuperable

00:32:34.340 and that that

00:32:35.600 was enough

00:32:36.020 to make them

00:32:36.500 doubt the

00:32:36.980 validity of

00:32:38.020 continuing with

00:32:38.720 their own

00:32:39.040 life

00:32:39.360 you can go

00:32:40.520 to far

00:32:40.860 darker places

00:32:41.600 than that

00:32:42.260 if you're

00:32:43.100 inclined

00:32:45.100 and unlucky

00:32:46.240 let's say

00:32:46.860 I think

00:32:47.420 perhaps you

00:32:47.940 have to be

00:32:48.300 both

00:32:48.620 and to not

00:32:49.820 only doubt

00:32:50.320 the value

00:32:50.920 of your own

00:32:51.440 life

00:32:51.700 but to doubt

00:32:52.500 the value

00:32:53.000 of life

00:32:53.500 itself

00:32:53.920 or maybe

00:32:54.340 even of

00:32:54.800 existence

00:32:55.240 itself

00:32:55.860 and to

00:32:56.680 become

00:32:57.060 hateful

00:32:58.720 and vengeful

00:33:01.020 in relationship

00:33:01.760 to the structure

00:33:02.520 of being

00:33:03.140 itself

00:33:03.580 and really

00:33:04.480 to aim

00:33:05.060 your weaponry

00:33:06.440 at God

00:33:07.120 there isn't

00:33:07.780 a better way

00:33:08.300 of putting it

00:33:08.920 whether you're

00:33:09.740 religious or not

00:33:10.580 there's depths

00:33:11.740 of hatred

00:33:12.260 that are so

00:33:12.880 deep

00:33:13.300 that that

00:33:14.020 language

00:33:14.400 is the only

00:33:15.000 language

00:33:15.380 that properly

00:33:16.140 captures it

00:33:17.420 and it

00:33:19.120 seems to me

00:33:19.740 that instead

00:33:20.880 of blaming

00:33:21.660 the structure

00:33:22.300 of the world

00:33:22.920 for the

00:33:25.060 seeming

00:33:25.520 inadequacies

00:33:26.460 of being

00:33:27.160 that it's

00:33:27.940 much more

00:33:28.540 appropriate

00:33:29.160 as outlined

00:33:31.100 let's say

00:33:31.820 in rule

00:33:32.240 four

00:33:32.600 to take

00:33:34.040 stock

00:33:34.420 of your

00:33:34.740 own

00:33:34.920 inadequacies

00:33:35.760 using

00:33:36.560 your own

00:33:36.980 judgment

00:33:37.380 and to

00:33:38.900 think

00:33:39.220 and to

00:33:40.040 just

00:33:40.300 ask yourself

00:33:42.000 this question

00:33:42.840 and this is

00:33:43.680 a useful

00:33:44.060 question

00:33:44.580 before I

00:33:46.280 judge

00:33:46.740 everything

00:33:47.440 that exists

00:33:48.380 is it

00:33:49.640 genuinely

00:33:50.080 the case

00:33:51.740 that I

00:33:52.440 have taken

00:33:52.900 full advantage

00:33:53.600 of every

00:33:54.080 opportunity

00:33:54.620 that has

00:33:55.060 been granted

00:33:55.560 to me

00:33:56.020 because that's

00:33:57.240 really the

00:33:57.620 fundamental

00:33:58.020 question

00:33:58.580 you know

00:33:59.560 you have

00:34:00.160 a field

00:34:00.600 of possibility

00:34:01.340 open in

00:34:01.940 front of you

00:34:02.400 whatever you

00:34:02.960 could do

00:34:03.240 with your

00:34:03.520 life

00:34:03.760 and whatever

00:34:04.200 you could

00:34:04.600 be

00:34:04.880 with your

00:34:05.800 limitations

00:34:06.320 and your

00:34:07.160 abilities

00:34:07.620 and it

00:34:09.160 takes tremendous

00:34:09.920 effort of course

00:34:10.760 to take advantage

00:34:12.180 of all those

00:34:12.760 opportunities

00:34:13.280 and also

00:34:14.240 let's say

00:34:14.880 a certain

00:34:15.200 degree of good

00:34:15.800 fortune

00:34:16.220 but it's

00:34:18.060 certainly not

00:34:18.660 the case

00:34:19.180 that you're

00:34:20.620 justified

00:34:21.600 in criticizing

00:34:23.560 the structure

00:34:25.480 of existence

00:34:26.080 itself

00:34:26.760 even social

00:34:28.180 institutions

00:34:28.800 for that

00:34:29.320 matter

00:34:29.640 I would

00:34:29.960 say

00:34:30.220 until

00:34:31.200 you have

00:34:32.420 done

00:34:32.860 everything

00:34:33.420 you possibly

00:34:34.220 can

00:34:34.660 to put

00:34:35.460 yourself

00:34:35.840 in order

00:34:36.320 and it's

00:34:37.620 actually an

00:34:38.080 optimistic

00:34:38.600 doctrine

00:34:39.400 even though

00:34:40.560 I think

00:34:41.160 it carries

00:34:41.600 with it

00:34:41.940 a very

00:34:42.560 heavy burden

00:34:43.120 of responsibility

00:34:43.860 because it

00:34:44.940 implies that

00:34:45.780 what you

00:34:48.120 do in

00:34:49.260 the confines

00:34:49.920 of your

00:34:50.240 personal life

00:34:51.020 is far more

00:34:51.640 important than

00:34:52.360 you might

00:34:53.100 think

00:34:53.480 and that

00:34:54.400 it actually

00:34:54.820 has the

00:34:56.300 same

00:34:56.600 rippling

00:34:57.080 effect

00:34:57.460 that a

00:34:57.760 pebble

00:34:58.040 in a

00:34:58.360 lake

00:34:58.700 pebble

00:34:59.540 in a

00:34:59.800 pond

00:35:00.060 does

00:35:00.420 for you

00:35:01.180 to either

00:35:02.120 let things

00:35:03.120 go in your

00:35:04.080 own life

00:35:04.620 and have

00:35:05.020 them fall

00:35:05.400 apart

00:35:05.720 or to put

00:35:06.520 them together

00:35:07.060 and try to

00:35:07.900 structure yourself

00:35:08.700 properly

00:35:09.220 so

00:35:10.800 rule seven

00:35:14.880 pursue what

00:35:16.500 is meaningful

00:35:17.180 and not what

00:35:18.400 is expedient

00:35:19.200 I would say

00:35:20.020 that's getting

00:35:20.560 closer to the

00:35:21.380 point of all

00:35:22.020 twelve rules

00:35:22.620 I think

00:35:22.940 maybe rule

00:35:23.480 seven and

00:35:24.040 eight are

00:35:24.440 the ones

00:35:24.820 that are

00:35:25.100 most central

00:35:25.760 rule seven

00:35:26.440 is do

00:35:28.220 what is

00:35:28.580 meaningful

00:35:29.120 and not

00:35:29.620 what is

00:35:29.940 expedient

00:35:30.700 and rule

00:35:31.540 eight is

00:35:32.000 tell the

00:35:32.480 truth

00:35:32.880 or at least

00:35:34.340 don't lie

00:35:35.100 I changed

00:35:36.220 that it

00:35:37.280 was originally

00:35:37.820 tell the truth

00:35:38.560 that rule

00:35:39.000 but then I

00:35:39.480 thought well

00:35:40.020 that's asking

00:35:41.200 a lot

00:35:41.640 because like

00:35:42.380 what the hell

00:35:42.880 do you know

00:35:43.460 what do I

00:35:44.580 know

00:35:44.900 it's very

00:35:45.380 hard to

00:35:45.800 tell the

00:35:46.380 truth

00:35:46.900 but it's

00:35:47.920 not so

00:35:48.400 hard not

00:35:48.980 to lie

00:35:49.640 even though

00:35:50.260 it's plenty

00:35:50.720 hard

00:35:51.120 you know

00:35:51.760 because now

00:35:52.760 and then

00:35:53.120 you're going

00:35:54.260 to say

00:35:54.600 something

00:35:55.020 and you

00:35:55.680 know that

00:35:56.120 it's false

00:35:56.620 and you

00:35:57.440 say it

00:35:57.780 anyways

00:35:58.100 and you

00:35:58.700 could not

00:35:59.360 do that

00:36:00.100 and that

00:36:00.840 would be

00:36:01.160 something

00:36:01.520 and we'll

00:36:02.180 return to

00:36:02.660 that

00:36:02.940 rule seven

00:36:03.980 do what

00:36:05.260 is meaningful

00:36:05.840 not what

00:36:06.360 is expedient

00:36:07.100 one of the

00:36:10.340 experiences

00:36:10.940 that I've

00:36:11.460 had recently

00:36:12.140 that's been

00:36:12.640 quite common

00:36:13.340 is talking

00:36:14.560 to journalists

00:36:15.500 who have

00:36:16.760 a an

00:36:17.520 agenda

00:36:18.080 right at

00:36:19.480 the beginning

00:36:19.980 you've

00:36:21.820 noticed that

00:36:22.600 going online

00:36:30.520 without express

00:36:31.260 vpn is like

00:36:32.100 not paying

00:36:32.600 attention to

00:36:33.100 the safety

00:36:33.460 demonstration

00:36:34.000 on a flight

00:36:34.640 most of the

00:36:35.580 time you'll

00:36:36.020 probably be

00:36:36.640 fine

00:36:37.000 but what

00:36:37.780 if one day

00:36:38.320 that weird

00:36:38.960 yellow mask

00:36:39.560 drops down

00:36:40.100 from overhead

00:36:40.580 and you

00:36:41.280 have no

00:36:41.760 idea what

00:36:42.280 to do

00:36:42.600 in our

00:36:43.160 hyperconnected

00:36:43.900 world

00:36:44.180 your digital

00:36:44.880 privacy

00:36:45.300 isn't just

00:36:45.840 a luxury

00:36:46.280 it's a

00:36:47.040 fundamental

00:36:47.500 right

00:36:47.840 every time

00:36:48.380 you connect

00:36:48.780 to an

00:36:49.040 unsecured

00:36:49.560 network

00:36:49.960 in a

00:36:50.280 cafe

00:36:50.620 hotel

00:36:51.300 or

00:36:51.560 airport

00:36:52.020 you're

00:36:52.460 essentially

00:36:52.800 broadcasting

00:36:53.480 your personal

00:36:54.000 information

00:36:54.520 to anyone

00:36:55.240 with a

00:36:55.620 technical

00:36:55.960 know-how

00:36:56.400 to intercept

00:36:57.000 it

00:36:57.220 and let's

00:36:57.620 be clear

00:36:58.040 it doesn't

00:36:58.720 take a

00:36:59.040 genius

00:36:59.280 hacker

00:36:59.580 to do

00:36:59.900 this

00:37:00.200 with some

00:37:00.900 off-the-shelf

00:37:01.500 hardware

00:37:01.900 even a

00:37:02.460 tech-savvy

00:37:03.000 teenager

00:37:03.500 could potentially

00:37:04.220 access your

00:37:04.860 passwords

00:37:05.400 bank logins

00:37:06.340 and credit

00:37:06.920 card details

00:37:07.620 now you

00:37:08.480 might think

00:37:08.980 what's the

00:37:09.520 big deal

00:37:09.920 who'd want

00:37:10.400 my data

00:37:10.920 anyway

00:37:11.300 well on the

00:37:12.180 dark web

00:37:12.580 your personal

00:37:13.320 information could

00:37:14.120 fetch up to

00:37:14.640 $1,000

00:37:15.440 that's right

00:37:16.660 there's a whole

00:37:17.340 underground economy

00:37:18.260 built on

00:37:18.860 stolen identities

00:37:19.880 enter

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00:37:26.280 their encryption

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00:39:14.000 so i'll tell you a little

00:39:17.320 story i was i was in

00:39:19.140 london uk about four

00:39:22.080 weeks ago and i went on

00:39:25.180 this show called hard

00:39:26.560 talk and hard talk has

00:39:28.900 been on bbc for a long

00:39:30.300 time and it's actually a

00:39:31.700 rather rare tv show

00:39:33.200 because it allows for

00:39:34.900 long form relatively long

00:39:36.520 form dialogue instead of

00:39:38.040 the 30 second soundbite or

00:39:40.200 you know the couple of

00:39:41.300 minutes that ideas are

00:39:43.120 usually discussed say on

00:39:44.460 something like broadcast

00:39:45.440 news um it was it was

00:39:47.920 23 minutes so half an

00:39:49.280 hour with commercials and

00:39:50.420 um i sat in this little

00:39:53.360 room in front of a glass

00:39:55.920 table a round glass table

00:39:57.220 and there's some monitors

00:39:57.920 on the back with the logo

00:39:59.620 of the show and the uh

00:40:01.660 the journalist started the

00:40:05.180 the program and he he

00:40:07.180 looked into the monitor and

00:40:08.360 there's a teleprompter there

00:40:09.480 and he read off the

00:40:10.400 introduction which was a

00:40:11.900 discussion about how

00:40:13.280 controversial i apparently

00:40:14.700 am and uh and that was

00:40:17.600 all fine and then he sat

00:40:19.180 down and we had what

00:40:22.020 purported to be a

00:40:23.800 discussion but it wasn't

00:40:26.620 really a discussion because

00:40:27.780 i wasn't talking to a

00:40:29.400 person i was talking to a

00:40:32.920 corporate puppet and and

00:40:35.640 and i'm choosing those words

00:40:37.500 very carefully or maybe a

00:40:38.760 marionette so i was talking

00:40:40.560 to someone whose strings

00:40:42.220 were being pulled from

00:40:43.340 behind the scenes and he

00:40:44.860 had let's say 20 questions

00:40:47.080 already scripted out and i'm

00:40:49.720 not laying the responsibility

00:40:51.480 for that precisely on him

00:40:53.440 broadcast television is a

00:40:55.560 very expensive medium and

00:40:56.860 every minute has a

00:40:58.220 tremendously high monetary

00:40:59.980 value and so it isn't

00:41:02.140 generally the case that

00:41:03.560 tele broadcast television

00:41:05.880 stations are just willing to

00:41:07.400 let their journalists wing it

00:41:09.260 right because something might

00:41:10.780 go wrong so they tend to

00:41:12.200 script everything but the

00:41:14.260 problem with scripting

00:41:15.220 everything when you're having

00:41:16.160 a conversation is that

00:41:17.560 why have the conversation if

00:41:21.220 you already have the script

00:41:22.580 you know so

00:41:24.560 part of what i'm trying to do

00:41:27.960 when i come out and talk to

00:41:29.140 all of you is to not have this

00:41:30.880 scripted

00:41:31.520 you know i sit in the back room

00:41:33.200 there before the show and i

00:41:34.600 think okay well what issue am i

00:41:36.420 going to address what problem am i

00:41:38.140 going to try to talk about that's

00:41:39.460 really the fundamental issue so

00:41:40.840 that's like the point of the

00:41:42.020 talk right the fundamental issue

00:41:43.740 and

00:41:45.180 and then i think well i'm going to

00:41:48.760 i'm going to try to think about

00:41:50.440 that and address it in a

00:41:51.760 spontaneous manner and see if i

00:41:53.340 can get a little farther with my

00:41:55.620 thinking than i've got before and

00:41:57.540 then there's something about that

00:41:58.760 that at least in principle is

00:42:00.040 engaging

00:42:00.580 and it's engaging to me because i

00:42:02.900 actually think that like the

00:42:04.340 problem of being precise in your

00:42:05.820 speech that's actually really

00:42:06.980 interesting problem as far as i'm

00:42:08.560 concerned it's a very very deep

00:42:10.000 problem and wandering around in the

00:42:12.240 space where a solution to that

00:42:14.100 problem might be generated is

00:42:15.940 something that's very much

00:42:16.960 worthwhile doing and if i get into

00:42:19.080 it and i can think about it and i'm

00:42:20.660 i'm grappling with it properly then i

00:42:22.720 can engage all of you in the same

00:42:24.200 dialogue and and we can have a

00:42:26.300 conversation you know because i can

00:42:28.500 tell when i'm talking whether or not

00:42:30.080 you're along for the ride you know i

00:42:32.560 can tell by whether or not you're

00:42:34.160 rustling you see everyone's quiet

00:42:38.200 and i listen for that because if the

00:42:40.680 audience is making noise then i'm not

00:42:42.780 in the right place i'm not doing

00:42:45.320 what's meaningful i've wandered off the

00:42:48.020 path and i've lost people and so and

00:42:52.180 that's part of that instinct for

00:42:53.500 meaning that i was talking about

00:42:54.720 earlier the fact that if you're

00:42:56.660 sitting there and you're being quiet

00:42:58.160 and we're all involved in pursuing the

00:43:01.260 same point then we're on this narrow

00:43:03.560 pathway of meaning i think that's the

00:43:05.380 pathway between chaos and order you

00:43:07.260 know if it's order because you

00:43:09.780 understand what's happening well

00:43:12.020 enough to follow it and it's chaos

00:43:13.600 because we're investigating something

00:43:15.600 new and it's in the juxtaposition of

00:43:18.020 that order and chaos that meaning

00:43:19.840 manifests itself because being on that

00:43:22.640 border between order and chaos is where

00:43:26.380 you're secure but also developing at the

00:43:28.460 same time so that's very meaningful

00:43:30.040 so the journalist i kept trying to get

00:43:32.900 under his script and talk to him

00:43:35.920 because we kind of had a bit of a

00:43:37.380 conversation before the show started you

00:43:39.500 know bantered back and forth a little

00:43:41.340 bit and i could see who he was a little

00:43:43.280 bit but there was no getting near him

00:43:47.480 and so it was very frustrating and

00:43:51.040 disjointed conversation because it wasn't

00:43:53.900 a conversation it was it was actually a

00:43:56.060 simulacrum or a facsimile of a

00:43:59.760 conversation and that's a very bad thing

00:44:02.500 when you're trying to discuss things of

00:44:04.620 import because what it meant was that if

00:44:08.060 if you and i are talking and this is rule

00:44:10.420 nine assume that the person that you're

00:44:13.060 listening to know something you don't if

00:44:15.480 you and i are talking about something

00:44:16.940 there's an assumption that we need to be

00:44:20.520 acting out in order for that to be a

00:44:22.720 meaningful interaction and the assumption

00:44:24.600 has to be that it's worthwhile for us to

00:44:27.760 both exchange our views and the only time

00:44:30.440 that it's worthwhile for both of us to

00:44:32.280 exchange our views is if you have

00:44:34.320 something to tell me and i have something

00:44:36.520 to tell you right something of value and

00:44:39.220 then what we both are going to do is

00:44:40.720 struggle to see if we can hit that place

00:44:44.140 in our dialogue where something of value is

00:44:47.120 actually being exchanged and that can be

00:44:49.220 very frustrating you know if you're talking

00:44:50.700 to your wife or your husband about

00:44:52.520 something that's difficult and contentious

00:44:54.320 you know you you may have to have you

00:44:56.820 may have a difficult conversation that

00:44:58.500 has to be had and you know you're you're

00:45:01.180 you're out of sync you're not in harmony

00:45:03.720 and you're misunderstanding each other or

00:45:06.660 maybe you're talking past each other maybe

00:45:08.480 one of you is trying to tyrannize the

00:45:10.140 other like it's very difficult to get

00:45:11.980 that balance right but if you do then

00:45:13.960 you have a meaningful conversation and if

00:45:15.940 you have a meaningful conversation then

00:45:18.120 you come out of it better than you went

00:45:19.900 into it and that's the whole point of

00:45:22.440 having a meaningful conversation is for

00:45:24.580 both of the people who were engaged in

00:45:26.320 to come out of it wiser than they went

00:45:28.420 into it and if that is happening then

00:45:31.200 it's engaging and that's the reason it's

00:45:32.920 engaging is because you're actually quite

00:45:35.180 wise in the fundamental in the in the

00:45:37.640 in the fundamental structure of your

00:45:39.380 psyche and your being your

00:45:42.660 psychophysiological being will tell you

00:45:45.220 when you're situated in a place where the

00:45:47.560 information flow is maximized and it does

00:45:49.800 that by engaging you in the conversation and

00:45:53.000 so what the BBC interviewer was doing was

00:45:56.220 doing what was expedient he had a plan

00:45:59.280 already in mind he knew how this was going

00:46:02.100 to go and however I reacted was more or less

00:46:06.060 a secondary what would you it was it was

00:46:09.120 secondary to the script that was already in

00:46:11.460 place well that's a tyranny I would say in

00:46:15.760 in a nutshell it's a tyranny when you're

00:46:20.060 acting out something that you have no part

00:46:22.220 in and when you're the target of views I'm

00:46:25.760 not complaining about this by the way I'm

00:46:28.060 just observing it when you're the target of

00:46:30.520 views that your views have no purchase on

00:46:33.960 there's no mutuality of dialogue and what

00:46:38.280 but what the BBC interviewer did by imposing

00:46:40.860 that script was what people do very frequently

00:46:43.100 when they're communicating because they treat

00:46:45.220 other people like a means to an end and

00:46:48.500 they think well I've got something that I

00:46:50.800 I've got something that I need to establish

00:46:54.040 or a point I have to make or or something I

00:46:57.720 want from the other person that's even more

00:46:59.800 common or or I want to justify my own

00:47:03.020 viewpoint that's another one and I'm going

00:47:05.380 to impose that structure on the conversation

00:47:07.800 come hell or high water and it doesn't really

00:47:11.380 matter who I'm talking to and that's a big

00:47:14.480 mistake because what you should be doing in

00:47:17.320 conversation but I would also say in your

00:47:19.700 life in general is to watch what you're

00:47:22.360 doing instead and to see when it manifests

00:47:25.880 itself as meaningful and engaging and then

00:47:28.620 try to just do that a lot more and it's a

00:47:31.740 strange it's a strange skill in some sense

00:47:36.420 it's it's allied with something else that I've

00:47:38.300 recommended to people in my YouTube lectures

00:47:40.200 I learned this from Carl Rogers a

00:47:42.260 psychologist who's very interested in the

00:47:45.080 relationship between the mind and the

00:47:46.580 body especially in the relationship between

00:47:49.540 bodily reactions physiological reactions

00:47:52.120 and conceptual truths Rogers said that when he was

00:47:55.980 when he was practicing as a psychotherapist

00:47:58.580 that he essentially this is slight

00:48:01.800 oversimplification let's say but Rogers

00:48:05.280 attempted to say things that made him feel

00:48:08.080 congruent with himself strange terminology but

00:48:11.520 you know how you've all had this experience

00:48:13.840 where you say something and you can't say it

00:48:17.280 without a hint of shame creeping into your

00:48:19.880 voice because you know that what you're

00:48:21.520 saying is something that you're only saying

00:48:23.600 to look a particular way to the people that

00:48:25.760 you're talking to it's an attempt to impress

00:48:28.060 them let's say or maybe it's an attempt to

00:48:29.660 impress yourself but you know you're being

00:48:31.940 false to yourself while you do it it makes you

00:48:34.120 embarrassed well that'll sometimes that

00:48:36.040 manifest itself very fully and you'll turn

00:48:38.200 red right and people will notice thus

00:48:40.600 also demonstrating by the way that you're

00:48:42.300 not a psychopath as that's one of the

00:48:46.180 characteristics of psychopaths is they

00:48:47.760 don't get embarrassed and that doesn't

00:48:49.720 mean if you never get embarrassed that

00:48:51.240 you're a psychopath by the way I don't

00:48:53.600 want you to walk out of here with that

00:48:55.000 impression but you want to engage in a

00:49:03.760 spontaneous way with the people that

00:49:07.040 you're communicating with and you want to

00:49:09.100 learn not to say things that make you

00:49:13.060 weak and and this is something that

00:49:16.160 Rogers was was very emphatic about when he

00:49:20.500 was talking about how to train

00:49:22.020 psychotherapists is that you can learn to

00:49:23.940 watch what you say or listen to what you

00:49:26.320 say and then to feel it out and to think

00:49:29.040 well it's again it's a sense of it's

00:49:31.560 almost a sense of location in the same

00:49:33.840 way that there's a location between chaos

00:49:35.940 and order you can learn to pay attention

00:49:38.860 to what it is that you're saying and you

00:49:40.660 can see if whether what you're saying

00:49:43.040 makes you stand up straight let's say

00:49:45.180 with your shoulders back and makes you

00:49:46.800 feel like you're grounded and standing on

00:49:49.260 a rock instead of sand or you can feel

00:49:51.660 yourself coming apart at the seams and

00:49:53.920 it's it's actually a rather uncanny skill

00:49:56.240 to develop I would say because to begin

00:49:58.720 with and I certainly had this experience

00:50:01.040 but so have a number of my students who've

00:50:03.580 related this to me that if you first start

00:50:06.720 doing that you may find that almost

00:50:08.220 everything you say makes you feel weak

00:50:10.420 which likely means that almost nothing

00:50:13.320 that you say is either meaningful or true

00:50:16.260 and that's enough of a shock I would say

00:50:20.420 just to comprehend that that might be the

00:50:22.620 case that's enough of a shock to stop

00:50:25.200 people from looking any farther down that

00:50:27.940 road you know so so that's so there's a

00:50:34.900 there's a proposition in that rule do

00:50:37.140 what is meaningful and not what is

00:50:38.500 expedient and the proposition is that all

00:50:41.160 things considered the best guide that you

00:50:44.000 have in life is to note what you're doing

00:50:48.620 that's deeply meaningful and to do as

00:50:50.720 much of that as you possibly can I would

00:50:53.620 say even neurologically although this is

00:50:55.800 a lot of this is speculation because

00:50:57.520 there's so much about the brain that we

00:50:59.960 don't understand I mean you have untold

00:51:02.700 depths you know thoughts come rise out of

00:51:05.700 you in some sense and manifest themselves

00:51:07.740 in your imagination you don't really know

00:51:09.420 where they come from and there's there's

00:51:12.680 parts of you that are very very old from

00:51:15.260 an evolutionary perspective let's say

00:51:17.080 and they're capable of great wisdom some

00:51:18.940 of that manifests itself in dreams and

00:51:21.440 that that that that sense of meaning that

00:51:25.940 occurs when you say the things that are

00:51:27.840 the right things to say is an indication

00:51:30.440 that this is very hard to explain but

00:51:32.900 that you're you structured yourself

00:51:35.320 properly so that the words that are

00:51:37.140 coming to you are coming out of a great

00:51:39.060 depth and manifesting themselves in a in a

00:51:42.680 manner that has power and you can align

00:51:45.240 yourself with that you know and it's not

00:51:46.840 for nothing and this is something that's

00:51:48.460 relevant as well you know one of the

00:51:50.440 central doctrines of our civilization

00:51:52.900 western civilization is that there's

00:51:55.220 something divine about the word right I

00:51:58.060 mean if you look at that from a

00:51:59.100 Christian perspective from the Christian

00:52:00.640 symbolic perspective for example the

00:52:03.060 Christians assigned divinity to the word

00:52:06.980 made flesh and that actually means

00:52:09.400 something psychologically right it means

00:52:11.620 that it means that there's something

00:52:14.000 divine about proper speech it means

00:52:16.300 that it aligns you with the structure of

00:52:17.820 being itself and I do believe that

00:52:19.880 that's the case and I also think that

00:52:21.380 people believe this and I'll tell you

00:52:22.940 why you know again if you thought about

00:52:25.080 advice that you'd give to someone that

00:52:26.580 you cared about you wouldn't say you it's

00:52:29.880 very unlikely unless you're bitter unless

00:52:32.040 you're twisted I would say I you would

00:52:35.260 not tell someone you loved that the best

00:52:37.760 way to make their life way through the

00:52:40.060 world was to lie about everything they

00:52:42.080 possibly could now you think well all

00:52:45.500 right so right I mean that seems like

00:52:47.420 that seems reasonable you might say to

00:52:49.720 someone well now and then you have to

00:52:51.060 tell a white lie and you might be

00:52:52.440 willing to forgive someone if they do

00:52:54.340 lie but the probability that you would

00:52:56.220 regard lying as an admirable me mode of

00:52:59.720 being is very very slight so you don't so

00:53:02.800 what that means instead is that you you

00:53:05.500 presume the truth is the proper mode of

00:53:08.500 being and the question is well why do

00:53:10.040 you think that you know and to what

00:53:12.500 degree do you think that and perhaps it's

00:53:14.860 actually true that truth is the proper

00:53:16.560 mode of being and then if it is if that

00:53:19.000 is the case and that is how you act

00:53:21.180 especially if that's how you act in

00:53:22.660 relationship to people that you care

00:53:24.080 about then that's actually worth

00:53:25.560 thinking about because it's conceivable

00:53:28.360 that the proper way of manifesting

00:53:31.160 yourself in the world is to ensure that

00:53:33.980 every word you utter is as truthful and

00:53:36.120 meaningful as you can possibly make it

00:53:37.840 and that that's actually the way that

00:53:40.860 everything in the world could be set as

00:53:43.180 right as it could be I'll tell you

00:53:45.360 something about that that's a bit of

00:53:47.280 background you might be interested in

00:53:49.120 last year I did a series of 15 lectures

00:53:53.520 on Genesis which became quite popular

00:53:56.860 strangely enough and I was very

00:54:00.100 interested especially in the oldest

00:54:01.580 stories in Genesis and those are the

00:54:03.240 ones right at the beginning we have no

00:54:04.720 idea how old those stories are but

00:54:06.960 there's certainly some thousands of

00:54:09.700 years old 3,000 years old 5,000 years

00:54:12.480 old in their written form and perhaps

00:54:14.760 they're 25,000 years old in their

00:54:16.660 spoken form and maybe older than that

00:54:18.840 in fact I think they have the roots in

00:54:21.920 processes that are far older than that

00:54:24.240 there's this idea in Genesis which is

00:54:27.660 and the reason I stress this is because

00:54:30.060 we have a fairly we have a functional

00:54:32.280 culture and that culture is embedded in a

00:54:36.220 narrative structure and the fundamental

00:54:38.640 narrative of that the fundamental the

00:54:42.720 fundamental body of stories that brings

00:54:46.880 that narrative together are is the corpus of

00:54:49.880 biblical stories for better or worse and so

00:54:52.120 you have to take those sorts of things

00:54:53.600 seriously if you take your culture

00:54:55.400 seriously and there's a proposition in

00:54:57.800 Genesis this is the proposition that

00:55:00.160 whatever God is uses whatever the word

00:55:03.800 is logos the word to generate order out

00:55:08.500 of chaos chaos is something like potential

00:55:11.380 it's something like you face when you

00:55:13.320 wake up in the morning and you think

00:55:15.040 well there's this expanse of the day in

00:55:17.080 front of me and I could do what I would

00:55:19.200 with it with within my range of power

00:55:21.460 right so it's not like you're driven

00:55:23.560 exactly like a clock is driven by its

00:55:26.200 internal mechanisms in a deterministic

00:55:28.280 way it's more like you face a field of

00:55:30.320 potential and possibility and you can

00:55:32.680 make choices about what elements of the

00:55:34.880 potential are going to manifest

00:55:36.340 themselves in the real world that's

00:55:38.380 something that's really much worth

00:55:39.760 considering you know because what it

00:55:41.200 means is that what you confront is what

00:55:44.700 could be and what your actions

00:55:46.960 determine is what is and so it's you

00:55:50.100 that's using the point that you make to

00:55:52.140 write the story of the world and maybe

00:55:54.620 you're doing that in your own

00:55:55.900 particular idiosyncratic and relatively

00:55:59.540 isolated way but that doesn't make it

00:56:01.300 trivial because you can make things you

00:56:03.740 can bring things into being for better or

00:56:05.900 for worse and it might be better to

00:56:08.380 bring them into being for better rather

00:56:10.600 than for worse so there's this idea the

00:56:13.540 idea in Genesis is that whatever God is

00:56:15.660 engaged in is something like that he uses

00:56:18.300 the logos to confront potential chaos and

00:56:22.260 to generate order out of it and the

00:56:24.860 logos is also something that's truthful

00:56:27.640 speech which is very very important so

00:56:31.160 so it's the word that's true and so when

00:56:34.560 God uses the word that's true to generate

00:56:36.980 habitable order out of chaos he says

00:56:40.580 repeatedly and it was good and there's a

00:56:43.540 proposition there which is a deep

00:56:44.960 ethical proposition and the proposition is

00:56:47.080 that if you confront the potential that's

00:56:49.460 in front of you and you do that with

00:56:52.180 truthful speech then what you produce

00:56:54.440 will be good and that's something I'll

00:56:57.780 tell you man you can think about that for

00:56:59.380 about 10 years and you'll never you'll

00:57:01.860 never exhaust its possibilities because

00:57:03.840 it's a it's a really deep proposition and

00:57:07.200 the proposition is well we already

00:57:09.200 established the fact that there's no

00:57:11.140 doubt that life is rife with suffering and

00:57:13.200 and and contaminated by a certain amount

00:57:15.480 of malevolence and the question is well

00:57:17.080 what might you do in the face of that and

00:57:19.080 the answer seems to be use your words

00:57:23.340 truthfully and the consequence of that

00:57:26.400 will be the construction the continued

00:57:28.740 construction of being let's say the

00:57:30.800 continued co-creation of being in as

00:57:33.400 beneficial a manner as it can be

00:57:36.200 conducted and you think well do you

00:57:38.280 believe that's like well let's go back to

00:57:40.240 the counter position you're not going to

00:57:42.580 tell someone that you care about to lie

00:57:44.320 about everything all the time you don't

00:57:46.360 think that's a good way of proceeding in

00:57:48.180 the world well then we can take the

00:57:50.120 opposite of that well then the best way

00:57:51.800 to proceed in the world is to tell the

00:57:53.300 truth well how deep a truth is that well

00:57:56.680 it might be the deepest of truths if it's

00:57:58.620 actually the case that the ethical

00:58:00.660 decisions that you make are precisely

00:58:02.840 that which transform the potential of the

00:58:06.220 future into the actuality of the present

00:58:08.280 in the past and I do think that's what

00:58:10.520 we do and I do think that we treat each

00:58:12.820 other as if that's what we do because

00:58:14.720 we do hold each other responsible for

00:58:16.620 our decisions you hold yourself I mean

00:58:18.760 not fully because you know you're

00:58:20.860 constrained and and if someone does

00:58:23.400 something terrible perhaps the first

00:58:25.280 thing you do we even do this in our

00:58:26.560 course is to say well what were the

00:58:28.620 situational determinants you know maybe

00:58:31.280 maybe the person was manic or you know

00:58:33.620 or or maybe they were brain damaged or you

00:58:36.800 know who knows we're looking for

00:58:38.540 limitations on that ethical

00:58:42.240 responsibility so that we can take them

00:58:43.980 into account but we still fundamentally

00:58:46.000 assume that and hold ourselves

00:58:48.020 accountable as well we still

00:58:49.140 fundamentally assume that well in the

00:58:54.120 absence of compelling evidence to the

00:58:56.020 contrary which we'll be willing to

00:58:58.180 consider you are in fact responsible for

00:59:00.340 the decisions that you make and you know

00:59:02.760 it isn't only that we do hold each other

00:59:05.600 responsible in that way we actually want

00:59:07.860 to be held responsible in that way

00:59:09.320 because there's nothing more annoying

00:59:10.660 than dealing with someone who doesn't

00:59:12.080 treat you that way even though it places a

00:59:15.340 heavy responsibility on you to to behave in

00:59:19.080 that way you can't tolerate it if someone

00:59:21.340 isn't willing to grant you that value you

00:59:24.500 know if I treated you like you're a

00:59:26.140 completely deterministic creature and

00:59:27.740 that you're not responsible for anything

00:59:29.120 that you do be impossible for us to have a

00:59:31.320 relationship so if you had any sense at

00:59:34.280 least it would be impossible unless you

00:59:36.660 were looking for a complete abdication of

00:59:38.320 responsibility and then that the rule

00:59:41.800 eight that's tell the truth or at least

00:59:44.840 don't lie I thought about this a lot

00:59:47.240 because I thought well what would it be

00:59:49.280 what would what if it was the case that

00:59:51.860 the way you decided to live your life was

00:59:53.560 to use your instinct for truth and

00:59:55.620 meaning to guide your actions and your

00:59:57.360 perceptions let's say that you and I

00:59:59.440 think by the way I think that's the

01:00:01.020 fundamental manifestation of faith I

01:00:05.020 believe that and you have to have faith

01:00:07.900 because you don't know everything and so

01:00:09.520 you have to take a chance all the time

01:00:11.340 right you're always leaping into the

01:00:13.700 unknown in some sense and you have to do

01:00:15.400 that with some with some what would you

01:00:18.040 call it with some with some theory of

01:00:20.720 how things work in mind and one theory

01:00:23.740 might be well we could try telling the

01:00:25.940 truth and see what happens which is a

01:00:28.360 very adventurous way of living by the

01:00:30.020 way because you don't know what the

01:00:31.140 hell is going to happen if you try that

01:00:32.660 but it certainly won't be what you

01:00:34.160 expect but it might be far better than

01:00:36.240 you think even though it isn't

01:00:37.860 necessarily what you want so well if

01:00:41.800 you're going to use meaning let's say

01:00:43.560 and your sense of truth to guide you in

01:00:45.720 the world which I think is the most

01:00:47.440 courageous way to act in the world then

01:00:50.040 you have to be sure that you're not

01:00:52.120 any more warped than you should be

01:00:53.760 because you need to rely on your

01:00:55.080 instincts and you know you tell

01:00:56.600 children well it's best not to lie

01:00:58.920 and maybe they ask why and then you

01:01:02.900 have trouble explaining it like you

01:01:04.940 might have trouble explaining to your

01:01:06.360 child why it doesn't matter whether you

01:01:08.520 win or lose it only matters how you

01:01:10.240 play the game it sounds preposterous on

01:01:13.040 the face of it but it's certainly

01:01:15.040 something that's true you say don't lie

01:01:17.440 and and if you're pushed you might not

01:01:19.760 be able to come up with an

01:01:20.680 explanation of why you shouldn't lie

01:01:22.820 but here's one you become what you

01:01:25.540 practice and that's actually true

01:01:28.200 physiologically so when you start to

01:01:31.800 develop a new skill when you first

01:01:34.520 develop it and you're not very good at

01:01:36.080 it you're sort of all over the place

01:01:38.220 huge parts of your brain are involved

01:01:40.860 in in guiding your action while you

01:01:43.920 practice that skill but as you practice

01:01:46.240 it more and more and more the the parts

01:01:48.900 of your brain that are evolved

01:01:50.300 involved change so it moves from the

01:01:52.660 right hemisphere and the left to the

01:01:54.580 left only and then from the entire left

01:01:56.640 to the back of the left and to a

01:01:58.120 smaller and smaller place and as you

01:02:00.200 practice something and you get better

01:02:01.600 and better at it so that you can do it

01:02:03.040 automatically a smaller and smaller

01:02:05.020 part of your brain is involved till you

01:02:07.100 build a little machine that's specialized

01:02:09.060 for that and then that's part of you and

01:02:12.780 it's permanent and so you become what

01:02:15.980 you practice and so then you might say

01:02:17.800 well what do you become if you practice

01:02:19.820 to deceive and the answer to that is

01:02:22.160 someone that you can't rely on and

01:02:24.860 that's a major catastrophe first of all

01:02:27.120 here's the first part and i alluded to

01:02:30.420 this before there will come a time or

01:02:32.800 multiple times in your life where you

01:02:35.200 have to choose a or b and it's life or

01:02:38.520 death or it's health or sickness or it's

01:02:42.200 or it's divorce or the stability of your

01:02:44.120 marriage who knows but something major

01:02:46.320 is resting on it and you won't know

01:02:48.180 which way to turn because it's

01:02:49.920 extraordinarily complex and the only

01:02:52.120 thing that you'll have to rely on in

01:02:53.920 that situation is your integral moral

01:02:57.340 virtue that's all you've got and to the

01:03:00.220 degree that you've contaminated your own

01:03:02.480 psychophysiological structure with

01:03:05.240 automated acts of deception you won't be

01:03:08.300 able to rely on your judgment and you'll

01:03:10.460 pay for that like you can't possibly

01:03:12.480 imagine and so part of the reason that

01:03:16.080 the deep reason that that lies behind

01:03:18.820 say rule eight tell the truth or at

01:03:20.900 least don't lie is that if you will need

01:03:24.040 to rely on yourself like it's as if you're

01:03:26.520 out in the ocean and you're captaining a

01:03:28.300 ship and you have the rudder and there's

01:03:31.360 a terrible storm and whether or not you

01:03:33.280 make it through it is dependent entirely on

01:03:35.200 your skill as a sailor and your bill to

01:03:36.980 orient yourself by the stars and if you've

01:03:39.780 compromised that in any way then the waves

01:03:41.740 will drown you and that'll be the end

01:03:43.840 and so part of the reason that you try

01:03:46.760 not to lie is so that you don't corrupt

01:03:48.740 the instinct that you have for truth and

01:03:51.140 meaning because when push comes to shove

01:03:53.240 you won't have anything else in the

01:03:54.740 world that can defend you as you against

01:03:56.900 catastrophe except that and you know that

01:03:59.740 because you know how how it is when when

01:04:01.980 you when you have to make a difficult

01:04:03.500 decision and you have to rely on

01:04:05.840 yourself you know that you can make a

01:04:07.220 terrible mistake and that if you're not up

01:04:09.140 to the decision that you'll pay for it

01:04:10.840 and so I mean one of the things that I

01:04:15.060 wanted to do when I wrote 12 rules for

01:04:16.700 life and also maps of meaning which was

01:04:18.420 my first book was to take some of these

01:04:20.620 more some of the more profound truths

01:04:23.040 that we've what would you say that lie at

01:04:26.660 the base of our cultural construct like

01:04:28.860 the story in Genesis for example and to

01:04:31.340 make the link between that and what

01:04:33.120 happens to you in your day-to-day life

01:04:34.880 you know something else that's worth

01:04:36.680 considering you can think about this as

01:04:38.800 well in our society in the West we

01:04:41.240 decided a long while back first of all

01:04:44.040 in the context of our religious

01:04:46.120 structures that there was something

01:04:47.920 divine about the individual now you know

01:04:50.960 that's associated with ideas of the

01:04:52.660 immortality of the soul and that's

01:04:54.720 something that I'm not going to discuss

01:04:56.200 because I don't know anything about that

01:04:57.840 but it is associated as well with the

01:05:01.240 idea in Genesis that every person has a

01:05:03.480 spark of the divine within them and

01:05:05.420 that's a reflection of the idea that

01:05:07.420 when God made human beings he made them

01:05:09.980 in his own image and the question is

01:05:12.200 what does that mean but the answer is

01:05:14.460 well if what God is is that which uses

01:05:17.180 communicative intent truthfully to

01:05:19.460 generate habitable order from chaotic

01:05:22.520 potential then that's what you are and I

01:05:26.040 do believe that that's what you are and

01:05:28.720 you might think you might think well I

01:05:32.860 don't believe that well perhaps you're

01:05:34.780 not a religious sort but that's a

01:05:36.340 complicated issue whether or not you're

01:05:38.020 a religious sort you know it's a it's a

01:05:40.780 lot more complicated than it looks on the

01:05:42.540 surface because here's one thing I

01:05:46.260 realized about our culture a long while

01:05:48.560 back is that we all act as if that

01:05:51.520 proposition is true and here's why you

01:05:54.820 know we decided and this took a long

01:05:57.940 time for people to figure out this this

01:05:59.660 was like a 10,000 year enterprise to

01:06:02.220 figure out where sovereignty properly

01:06:04.120 resided you know so sovereignty is

01:06:07.360 political power let's say but it's not

01:06:09.160 only that it's it's political authority

01:06:11.100 and its competence we shouldn't use just

01:06:13.280 the word power because that's a

01:06:15.160 misapprehension about the structure of

01:06:16.780 the world because our political

01:06:18.580 structures are not fundamentally

01:06:20.780 structures of power they're

01:06:22.700 fundamentally structures of competence and

01:06:25.800 you can tell that because our society's

01:06:27.760 work and if they were fundamentally

01:06:29.820 constructs of power then they wouldn't

01:06:32.600 work because they would be nothing but

01:06:34.160 tyrannies and tyrannies don't work now

01:06:37.100 our societies work now they don't work

01:06:39.140 perfectly you can tell that they work

01:06:41.100 because everybody in this audience

01:06:42.760 first of all could come here and

01:06:44.180 participate in this discussion freely

01:06:45.880 and we're all sitting here peacefully and

01:06:47.840 no one's afraid for their life and the

01:06:49.580 power's on and everything's peaceful and

01:06:52.000 most of you will go home tonight to

01:06:53.620 decent places and and have functional

01:06:55.900 families and that's really quite the

01:06:57.900 miracle and so you can't assume that

01:07:00.580 what we live in is a tyranny of power

01:07:02.460 even though every society tilts towards a

01:07:06.160 certain amount of corruption our

01:07:08.400 societies are very functional and

01:07:10.400 they're predicated on a certain view of

01:07:12.600 of the individual human being and that

01:07:15.300 view is that you hold sovereign political

01:07:17.600 power authority responsibility well why in

01:07:22.620 the world would we assume that who the

01:07:24.160 hell are you you know you're just one

01:07:26.100 dust mode among seven billion maybe

01:07:28.480 you're not even very good at what you

01:07:29.820 do but well you know and all of us could

01:07:32.840 be better at what we do than we are and

01:07:34.980 we all are deeply flawed there's no doubt

01:07:36.900 about that but we've made this decision

01:07:39.180 and it was not made lightly that's for

01:07:41.880 sure that regardless of our personal

01:07:44.180 inadequacies that each of us bears the

01:07:46.700 responsibility and the ability to be the

01:07:49.120 cornerstone of an entire civilization

01:07:51.320 and sovereignty inheres in each person

01:07:54.180 right sovereignty inheres in the in the

01:07:56.220 people but at the individual level you

01:07:59.440 think well you do you believe that well

01:08:01.420 to the degree that you're a functional

01:08:03.740 participant in this society and perhaps

01:08:06.960 someone of an adherent of its principles

01:08:09.880 although I would say that was secondary to

01:08:12.060 the degree that you act out the body of

01:08:14.700 laws that's a direct consequence of that

01:08:16.740 initial presupposition then you certainly

01:08:18.880 act as if you believe it and that's

01:08:21.280 something I would say that's something

01:08:23.220 even more telling than what you might

01:08:25.020 say about what you believe because

01:08:26.860 that's more detached from who you are as

01:08:29.480 it has to be so we act out the

01:08:32.940 proposition that each person has

01:08:35.100 sufficient value to be the cornerstone of

01:08:39.380 sovereignty itself and that's something

01:08:42.140 because you presume what sovereign is of

01:08:44.260 the highest value it's virtually the

01:08:45.880 definition of what constitutes sovereign and

01:08:48.580 it looks like the consequence of that is

01:08:50.360 the production of the freest and most

01:08:52.460 productive societies that have ever

01:08:54.100 existed and so that seems to be some

01:08:56.320 sort of proof for the validity of the

01:08:57.980 initial presupposition it's partly the

01:09:00.940 reason that I'm so opposed to identity

01:09:02.740 politics which I think is an appalling

01:09:04.980 game regardless of whether it's played on

01:09:07.100 the left or the right to reintroduce tribal

01:09:10.620 identity into our functional society and to

01:09:13.400 presume that you should be identified by

01:09:15.840 your sex or your sexuality your gender

01:09:18.300 let's say hated word your gender or your

01:09:21.220 sexuality or your race or your ethnicity

01:09:23.580 instead of being viewed as a locus of

01:09:26.180 divine sovereignty to me is a step it's a

01:09:29.480 step thousands of years into the past and

01:09:31.800 one that's that will do nothing but

01:09:34.220 produce catastrophe as it always has

01:09:36.320 whenever we've taken that particular route

01:09:38.300 rule nine that's assumed that the person

01:09:52.260 you're listening to knows something you

01:09:55.820 don't that well that's the that's the

01:09:58.180 sign what is it sign when on I think

01:10:00.700 that's the right phrase have a decent

01:10:02.580 conversation we alluded to this already

01:10:04.760 you know I'm here talking to you as if

01:10:08.340 what we're doing matters because I

01:10:10.500 assume that we can have a conversation

01:10:12.560 about important things and without that

01:10:14.960 initial and maybe deeply important

01:10:16.660 things and not only that we can have that

01:10:18.520 conversation but that we could that we

01:10:20.680 should have it and that it would be

01:10:22.300 productive that we would get somewhere if

01:10:25.220 we had that conversation and then lo and

01:10:28.080 behold as a consequence of making that

01:10:30.780 initial hypothesis which again is a form

01:10:33.360 of active faith then that's exactly what

01:10:35.620 happens and so and one thing I learned

01:10:38.520 as a psychotherapist too was that you

01:10:41.140 know I always listen to my clients

01:10:42.760 that was something again I learned from

01:10:44.660 Carl Rogers if you want to learn to

01:10:46.300 listen Carl Rogers a very good person to

01:10:48.220 read if you listen to people they'll tell

01:10:51.320 you very interesting things they'll tell

01:10:54.220 you the truth to if you actually listen

01:10:56.120 you know and Roger said well you should

01:10:57.960 listen in a non-judgmental way and that

01:11:00.240 you should listen what would we call with

01:11:02.840 unconditional positive regard I never

01:11:05.520 really liked that idea I don't think it's

01:11:08.000 accurate enough you know when I listen to

01:11:10.180 my clients and this is what I try to do

01:11:11.900 when I'm listening to people in general

01:11:13.500 or audiences is I'm not I'm not my

01:11:19.520 attitude towards my participant in the

01:11:23.280 conversation isn't one of unconditional

01:11:24.900 positive regard it's that I'm trying to

01:11:27.000 set the situation up so the best in me is

01:11:29.040 talking to the best in you knowing full

01:11:32.160 well that there's a part of me that's

01:11:33.420 not the best and also a part of you

01:11:34.960 that's not the best it's very important

01:11:36.680 in a therapeutic conversation because

01:11:38.260 often when people come into therapy

01:11:39.760 there's parts of them that are not

01:11:41.380 working for their own interest right

01:11:44.200 because well they wouldn't be in

01:11:45.440 therapy often otherwise although

01:11:47.160 sometimes people come merely because

01:11:48.820 terrible things have happened to them

01:11:50.360 you know through no fault of their own

01:11:52.080 let's say but often they're coming

01:11:54.100 because parts of them are working at

01:11:55.720 cross purposes to themselves and so you

01:11:58.440 don't want to have unconditional

01:11:59.460 positive regard for the part of a

01:12:01.560 person that's working at cross

01:12:02.760 purposes to themselves you want to

01:12:04.500 have unconditional positive regard

01:12:05.940 for the part of the person that's

01:12:07.240 striving towards the point right

01:12:08.900 that's striving towards the light and

01:12:10.620 then you can have a conversation with

01:12:11.960 that part and you can bring the part

01:12:13.620 of you that's doing that as well into

01:12:15.320 the conversation and then that's

01:12:16.960 associated as well with that sense of

01:12:19.360 engagement meaning that I was talking

01:12:20.920 about earlier and I think that's a real

01:12:23.380 phenomenon you know I think I think it

01:12:25.460 might be I actually believe this I

01:12:27.560 think it might be the most real thing

01:12:29.620 there is you know figuring out what's

01:12:31.760 real and what isn't that's a very

01:12:33.160 tricky business it's a very difficult

01:12:35.220 thing to define you know we tend to

01:12:37.340 think about material reality is the

01:12:38.980 most fundamental as the most fundamental

01:12:41.260 reality although we don't act that way

01:12:42.960 we act like pain is the most fundamental

01:12:45.920 reality and that's also worth thinking

01:12:48.520 about because I think that you can make a

01:12:50.660 very strong case that suffering is if

01:12:53.320 not the most fundamental reality it's

01:12:55.480 way down there at the bottom and then

01:12:57.800 whatever it is that can address that

01:12:59.620 suffering is obviously of equal reality

01:13:02.540 and one of the things that can address

01:13:04.560 suffering is meaning two of two things

01:13:07.020 that can address suffering and meaning

01:13:08.520 and truth and if suffering is a

01:13:10.520 fundamental truth then whatever can

01:13:12.180 overcome it has to be at least as

01:13:13.840 fundamental and it certainly seems to

01:13:16.100 be the case that truth and meaning are

01:13:18.300 good contenders for those things that

01:13:20.380 might overcome suffering if you assume

01:13:24.500 the person that you're you're talking

01:13:27.100 to know something you don't well you

01:13:28.680 can have a conversation with them you

01:13:30.160 know you can find out what peculiar

01:13:32.460 things they've learned in their life

01:13:34.060 has taught them something you don't

01:13:37.420 know and you can have that conversation

01:13:39.440 with almost anyone you know it doesn't

01:13:41.040 matter what they do if if you can get

01:13:43.560 beyond the expedient and you can make

01:13:46.360 contact with the part of the person

01:13:47.900 that's moving upward they can tell you

01:13:49.280 all sorts of things that will enlighten

01:13:51.000 you and that's useful because life is

01:13:53.440 very difficult and if you could be a

01:13:54.860 little smarter than you are then there'd

01:13:57.800 be a little less suffering to be had for

01:13:59.540 you and your family and for perhaps for

01:14:01.440 your community as well and so you should

01:14:03.600 treat any opportunity for a conversation

01:14:06.180 to the degree that you can manage it as a

01:14:08.580 play as an as an opportunity to sift a

01:14:11.900 little bit of gold out of the sand and

01:14:13.640 see if you can take that and and add it to

01:14:15.720 your collection and if you enter the

01:14:17.660 conversation with that attitude in mind the

01:14:20.060 probability that some of that will

01:14:21.780 glisten for you during the conversation is

01:14:24.320 exceptionally high and you know it's a

01:14:26.820 skill that you have to develop it's not

01:14:28.420 an easy thing to do it also requires that

01:14:31.160 actually what you want from the

01:14:32.780 conversation is something meaningful and

01:14:34.980 true you know and the truth the

01:14:37.480 meaningful truth tends to strip away

01:14:40.040 everything about you that isn't worthy

01:14:42.380 let's say and that can be very painful so

01:14:44.360 it's not self-evident that it's something

01:14:45.980 you'd want do you really want people to

01:14:48.140 tell you the truth the answer to that

01:14:50.340 should be yes but you have any number of

01:14:51.980 reasons to to be leery of that you know

01:14:54.540 especially if your life is characterized by a

01:14:56.620 tremendous number of falsehoods rule 10

01:14:59.260 which I broke tonight by the way is be

01:15:04.420 precise in your speech well I said you know

01:15:09.120 that all of these 12 rules rotated around a

01:15:13.340 point and so I'll see if I can shed a little

01:15:16.420 bit of light on that so my daughter my

01:15:19.460 granddaughter is one years old just just

01:15:22.320 one year old now and it's been

01:15:24.500 interesting to watch her and she's just

01:15:27.060 learned to point it's really quite cute so

01:15:29.780 she sits on the ground and she holds up

01:15:31.260 her finger and she she points to things

01:15:33.460 you know and that's such a miracle that

01:15:36.360 ability to point it's way deeper thing

01:15:38.640 than you think because here's what happens

01:15:41.060 when you point to something you know how

01:15:42.980 complicated the world way more complicated

01:15:45.440 than you can possibly imagine just has

01:15:47.240 layers and layers and layers of complexity

01:15:50.080 and when you point you reduce all that

01:15:52.180 complexity to one thing and that's what

01:15:54.860 she's doing she's figured this out it's a

01:15:57.380 proto linguistic behavior right you cannot

01:16:00.000 speak before you can point because a word is a

01:16:02.900 pointer to something a word is a pointer to

01:16:05.060 something of value but even more importantly

01:16:07.300 it's a pointer to a way of being that's

01:16:09.420 valuable because well you might want to you

01:16:13.420 might want to accrue valuable things let's

01:16:16.180 say so you can imagine that as a motivation

01:16:17.920 but what a better motivation is is that you

01:16:21.540 could exist in a manner so that the

01:16:23.960 probability of accruing valuable things was

01:16:26.280 increased and that's fundamentally the point

01:16:29.080 and we all engage in this and you can see this

01:16:32.120 developing in her she's learning to point

01:16:35.260 and she points at things that she finds

01:16:37.380 interesting but she's always looking at

01:16:39.340 everyone else to see if they get the

01:16:41.880 point and the reason she's doing that is

01:16:44.740 because she needs to specify in the world

01:16:47.620 things of value that everyone else thinks

01:16:49.460 are valuable too right because you're not

01:16:51.580 going to have anything to communicate about

01:16:53.060 or anything to trade with people or any

01:16:55.660 way of making contact with people unless

01:16:57.680 the things that you specify in the world

01:16:59.640 of value are also the things that are of

01:17:01.640 value to them and so what we've done is

01:17:04.440 we've taken the completely complex world

01:17:07.080 world that's complex beyond our imagining

01:17:09.280 and we've overlaid a structure on it

01:17:11.080 that's a that's a system of pointers

01:17:13.180 that's a way of thinking about it and

01:17:15.340 that's what she's introducing herself to

01:17:16.980 now says well is it that like there's a

01:17:20.100 toy there's mom there's dad very short

01:17:23.840 words right there's a cat those are very

01:17:26.180 short words they're fundamental things of

01:17:28.160 value and once she gets the point well

01:17:29.780 then she can nail those things with words

01:17:31.560 and once she can use words and the point

01:17:34.160 well then she can enter into the the

01:17:36.300 collaborative enterprise that we all

01:17:38.240 engage in to specify the things of

01:17:40.220 value in the world and so when you look

01:17:42.820 at the world you don't really see the

01:17:44.200 world this is something I'm trying to

01:17:46.200 outline more clearly in my next book you

01:17:48.200 don't really see the world because the

01:17:49.300 world's too damn complex and has too many

01:17:51.160 levels it's way beyond you what you see

01:17:53.620 instead is a structure of value that's

01:17:55.440 placed on the world and we determine that

01:17:58.460 structure of value by collectively

01:18:00.520 determining what constitutes the point

01:18:02.920 you know and the point might be the toy

01:18:05.480 or the point might be some food or the

01:18:07.720 point might be her mom if she's in

01:18:09.820 distress but the fundamental point for

01:18:11.860 her is not any of those things it's how

01:18:13.800 she should be in the world and so here's

01:18:16.700 here's the thing that's so tricky a very

01:18:19.220 very difficult thing to understand is you

01:18:21.220 have the world itself which you really

01:18:22.760 can't make contact with because it's so

01:18:24.500 complicated and on top of that you have a

01:18:27.020 structure of value that everyone is

01:18:29.020 participating in creating and and and

01:18:33.160 that's that structure of value is what

01:18:35.660 helps you reduce the complex world to

01:18:37.900 what the point is and the point is at

01:18:40.100 least in part things of value in the

01:18:42.220 world and that's very important those are

01:18:45.940 the things that we naturally perceive when

01:18:47.580 we're walking around in the world things

01:18:49.280 of value against a background of things

01:18:51.440 that have no value even though they still

01:18:53.160 exist but out of that out of that whole

01:18:56.300 background of things of value you can

01:18:58.580 extract out an ethic that's the manner

01:19:00.760 in which you should conduct yourself in

01:19:02.360 the world if you're going to engage most

01:19:04.820 admirably with all the things of value so

01:19:08.500 there's three layers there's the world as

01:19:10.960 it is which is incomprehensible and then

01:19:13.540 there's the world of value that we all

01:19:14.980 participate in creating the value of each

01:19:17.400 thing let's say or it's lack of value and

01:19:19.780 then above that is an ethic that emerges

01:19:22.100 out of that which is how you should act in

01:19:24.260 the world and we know this too maybe i can

01:19:27.500 close with this i've been very interested

01:19:30.980 in in in in in sports as a proto ethic so

01:19:36.480 our sports almost all the sports that we

01:19:39.880 watch are exercises in precision right you

01:19:44.000 think about virtually every sport involves

01:19:46.380 aim and a target right soccer baseball

01:19:50.660 basketball hockey team sports in particular

01:19:56.520 we're obsessed with this notion that you

01:19:58.760 can specify a target and hit it accurately

01:20:00.760 but but not only so archery obviously

01:20:04.580 using rifles is a manifestation of the same

01:20:09.300 thing perhaps a reflection of our immense

01:20:11.380 evolutionary involvement in such activities as

01:20:14.740 throwing at targets and hunting it's a very

01:20:17.140 deep part of us we want to specify a target

01:20:19.780 very precisely we want to hit it very

01:20:22.060 accurately with maximal skill and we want to

01:20:24.340 arrange ourselves into groups to do that and

01:20:27.700 that's exactly what you do with the sports

01:20:29.220 team right as you specify a goal it's an

01:20:31.220 arbitrary goal who the hell cares if you put a

01:20:33.380 ball through a hoop well it turns out that

01:20:35.980 everyone cares because it's symbolic of hitting

01:20:39.180 the target properly in your life and

01:20:41.060 specifying the target which is something

01:20:42.860 you do with precise speech is to specify

01:20:45.420 the target then you think well what are you

01:20:47.280 trying to do when you play basketball and

01:20:49.480 you might think well i'm trying to put the

01:20:50.860 ball through the hoop and it's like well

01:20:52.160 yes that is what you're trying to do but

01:20:54.100 not really not really because in out of

01:20:58.360 the game so you have the world and then you

01:21:00.640 play the basketball game in it's kind of

01:21:02.340 arbitrary you think well what are you doing

01:21:04.260 when you play basketball is you're putting a

01:21:05.740 ball through a hoop it's like well why would

01:21:07.260 you bother with that it seems rather

01:21:09.040 pointless though it's not it has a point

01:21:11.340 the point isn't to get the damn ball

01:21:13.160 through the hoop the point is to be the

01:21:15.100 best possible player right and it's not

01:21:18.880 even just the best possible basketball

01:21:20.880 player so you think this goes back to

01:21:23.580 something i mentioned earlier it doesn't

01:21:25.220 matter whether you win or lose it matters

01:21:26.720 how you play the game that's something you

01:21:28.920 tell children and what you're saying is

01:21:31.100 well of course you want to attain the aim

01:21:33.540 you want to try and strive to win if

01:21:36.960 you're playing the game but winning the

01:21:39.360 real winning isn't whether or not you

01:21:41.100 win or lose the game the real winning is

01:21:43.800 how you play while you're winning or

01:21:45.540 losing the game and then you might ask

01:21:47.420 well why is that the real winning when

01:21:49.960 the putative point of the game is to put

01:21:52.480 the ball through the hoop

01:21:53.400 more than the more than the other team

01:21:58.760 to accrue more points well then this is

01:22:03.300 associated with rule five and the other

01:22:05.560 points that i was making in the book

01:22:07.160 you're going to play a lot of games in

01:22:10.500 your life

01:22:10.980 it's not just going to be one basketball

01:22:14.320 game it's not just going to be a series

01:22:16.440 of basketball games it's not going to be

01:22:18.420 a series of basketball and soccer and

01:22:20.240 hockey games because it's going to be a

01:22:21.580 lot more games than merely the games and

01:22:24.680 so what you're trying to do while you're

01:22:25.900 playing those games and practicing

01:22:27.340 hitting the precise target properly

01:22:29.720 with your high level of skill is to

01:22:31.800 conduct yourself in the most admirable

01:22:33.480 possible way while you're doing that

01:22:35.680 and the reason for that is that if you

01:22:37.440 learn to conduct yourself in the most

01:22:39.220 admirable possible way while you're

01:22:41.120 pursuing that symbolic routine say

01:22:43.600 trying to win the game and you'll turn

01:22:47.760 yourself into the sort of person who's

01:22:49.640 maximally prepared to play the best

01:22:51.960 possible game across the broadest

01:22:54.320 possible set of games and that's how

01:22:57.260 that ethic emerges from the value

01:22:59.260 you've got the world there's games we

01:23:01.320 play in it and the games specify the

01:23:03.260 value of things and then you can

01:23:04.900 pursue the valuable things and then

01:23:06.600 maybe you can acquire the valuable

01:23:07.900 things but there's something above that

01:23:09.320 that's even more important which is the

01:23:11.360 ethic that comes out of the proper way

01:23:13.400 of conducting yourself while you're

01:23:16.060 pursuing things of value that's all

01:23:18.440 tangled up and this is something i

01:23:19.840 haven't worked up yet worked out

01:23:21.320 completely yet it's tied up with that

01:23:24.980 concept of sovereignty so the power of

01:23:30.480 the state and and society inheres in you

01:23:34.220 but then there's a responsibility that

01:23:37.580 you have if you're going to fulfill

01:23:40.600 that if you're going to fulfill what the

01:23:44.240 destiny that that responsibility places

01:23:46.320 on you and it has something to do with

01:23:49.400 acting out this more complex ethic that

01:23:51.620 i just described if you take your

01:23:54.560 place properly in society then you do

01:23:57.300 it as the person who plays properly

01:23:59.780 and to the degree that you are the

01:24:02.000 person that plays properly then the

01:24:04.120 sovereignty that's being granted to

01:24:06.400 you or recognized as part of of what

01:24:09.400 you are that's a better way of thinking

01:24:11.100 about it then that's manifested

01:24:12.780 properly and you keep the world on its

01:24:16.280 proper path now the reason i'll close

01:24:19.520 with this the reason that i thought

01:24:20.880 about all this for so long is that in

01:24:25.460 such detail let's say is because i was

01:24:27.240 very curious about how things go terribly

01:24:29.300 wrong so i spent the last 30 years

01:24:32.220 immersed in terrible things i've spent a

01:24:35.120 lot of time studying well the actions of

01:24:37.740 reprehensible people as i mentioned the

01:24:39.940 people who shoot up high schools and do

01:24:41.680 and perform those undertake those sorts

01:24:44.300 of mass catastrophic cruel killings

01:24:48.520 especially of innocent people but but

01:24:50.620 even more to the point perhaps interested

01:24:53.220 in the psychology of totalitarian

01:24:55.020 brutality and one of the things that i

01:24:57.320 have come to realize as a consequence of

01:24:59.400 that is that the fundamental failure of

01:25:01.460 the totalitarian state is not political

01:25:03.400 it's psychological and ethical societies

01:25:07.060 degenerate into totalitarianism when the

01:25:09.720 individuals who compose that society

01:25:12.120 refuse to bear the moral responsibility

01:25:14.180 they have for acting as sovereign entity

01:25:16.340 the sovereign entity upon which the

01:25:17.860 state is founded and what that means is

01:25:19.840 that the world goes to hell in a hand

01:25:22.760 basket as a consequence of your ethical

01:25:24.520 errors and i don't think that there's

01:25:26.840 anything that's more true than that i

01:25:28.720 tried to learn what the catastrophes of

01:25:31.880 the 20th century hypothetically had to

01:25:34.220 teach us because the notion was that we

01:25:36.700 went through all that we went through

01:25:38.140 auschwitz and all of that and everything

01:25:39.980 that happened in the soviet union and

01:25:41.680 maoist china and that in principle we

01:25:43.840 could derive from that experience the

01:25:45.520 wisdom not to repeat that and as far as i

01:25:47.980 can tell the proper derivation is it's on

01:25:50.260 you it's on you it's on each of us thank

01:25:54.400 you very much so we have all these questions

01:26:03.740 so i'll read the ones that strike me as

01:26:13.040 answerable and see if i can answer them

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01:28:52.420 as a stay-at-home father i've never been

01:29:00.920 invited to a tupperware party

01:29:03.840 am i being alienated because i'm a dad

01:29:09.640 or do i need to host a tupperware party

01:29:12.760 first

01:29:13.320 okay so that's a fun question actually

01:29:23.280 so

01:29:24.580 so let's take it let's take it apart

01:29:29.000 as a stay-at-home father

01:29:31.320 okay well now you specified your identity

01:29:34.180 so that's quite interesting so that frames

01:29:36.500 the rest of the question

01:29:37.600 i'm a stay-at-home father

01:29:39.360 now hard to say how you feel about that

01:29:42.420 but it's interesting that you put that

01:29:43.980 first

01:29:44.480 so that's worth thinking about

01:29:46.000 second

01:29:47.520 issue i've never been invited to a tupperware

01:29:50.860 party

01:29:51.280 okay well so you could imagine that

01:29:53.780 in your 1950s way that might disturb you

01:29:59.580 but there's some there's some there's some

01:30:05.260 what would you call them cognitive

01:30:07.780 there's some

01:30:09.700 maxims of cognitive hygiene that apply to

01:30:15.120 this question

01:30:15.820 if you're feeling alienated

01:30:18.660 because something bad is happening to you

01:30:21.440 or something good isn't happening to you

01:30:23.540 the first thing you need to do

01:30:25.540 is to analyze the situational variables

01:30:28.720 now it's very much a cognitive error that people make

01:30:33.060 that if something bad happens to you

01:30:35.520 that it's your fault

01:30:37.940 now it might be your fault

01:30:40.660 right but there is such a thing as presumption of innocence

01:30:43.540 and that's worthwhile even applying to yourself

01:30:47.680 even though it's rather difficult

01:30:48.960 and i'm not saying that you shouldn't take responsibility

01:30:51.520 i'm just saying that you shouldn't jump to conclusions

01:30:53.820 it may be that you've never been invited to a tupperware party

01:30:57.740 because no one has tupperware parties anymore

01:31:00.940 right now but and that's that's that's that's actuarial analysis

01:31:10.620 and it's actually a really you need to know something about baselines

01:31:15.180 so look one of the things i often do is counsel people

01:31:19.080 who are trying to either find a job

01:31:21.800 because they're unemployed and terrified about that generally

01:31:24.580 or trying to move to a new job

01:31:26.920 you know because they would like to make more money

01:31:30.300 or find something more fulfilling

01:31:31.640 or whatever their reasons

01:31:33.460 they have to move to a new town

01:31:34.840 and that means they have to go through

01:31:37.460 the often painful process of looking for a job

01:31:40.660 and so then you kind of have to know what to expect

01:31:44.040 you might say

01:31:45.420 god you know i sent out

01:31:47.220 20 resumes and i didn't hear back from anybody

01:31:50.880 it's like well you know you might just be an absolute loser

01:31:54.380 as a consequence of that

01:31:55.620 but here's a different hypothesis

01:31:57.540 maybe the baseline rejection rate for resumes is 98%

01:32:02.300 that's about right

01:32:04.400 so you have to send out

01:32:06.620 if you send out 50 resumes

01:32:09.060 your fundamental assumption should be

01:32:11.340 that you'll only get a response to one

01:32:13.280 why is that?

01:32:15.380 well resumes are a dime a dozen now right

01:32:17.680 because you can post them online

01:32:19.340 to like a thousand places with the push of a button

01:32:21.640 and so most companies are drowning in resumes

01:32:23.720 and the fact that you didn't get called back

01:32:26.620 might be because you're a reprehensible loser

01:32:29.280 and the world is set against you

01:32:30.820 but it might just be that you have to put out a lot of resumes

01:32:33.880 just from an actuarial perspective

01:32:36.060 before you're going to get a single hit

01:32:38.240 now the upside of it is

01:32:39.900 you only need one hit

01:32:41.820 well assuming you know you get the job

01:32:43.940 maybe you need three

01:32:44.880 because if you're in the top three

01:32:46.720 well maybe it'll take you three interviews

01:32:48.220 before you get the job

01:32:49.400 but you know i've dealt with lots of people

01:32:51.300 who are out looking for work

01:32:52.460 and we put together a plan

01:32:54.620 it's like okay you want to improve your career

01:32:56.360 well assume that's going to be a two-year job

01:32:58.520 and it doesn't have to be full-time

01:33:01.020 because maybe you can't stand it being full-time

01:33:02.880 but maybe you have to put out like three resumes a day

01:33:05.180 every day for the next two years

01:33:08.180 it's possible

01:33:09.420 and maybe the consequence of that is you'll come up

01:33:11.340 at the end of it you'll have twice

01:33:12.640 you'll make twice as much money

01:33:13.780 and i think every time i've tried that with a client

01:33:16.900 i think that's worked

01:33:17.820 and sometimes it worked a hell of a lot better

01:33:19.460 than merely having them double their salary

01:33:21.500 but it's a real grind

01:33:23.260 and you have to you have to accustom yourself

01:33:26.020 to the fact that the default is failure

01:33:28.860 and that's the truth with just about everything right

01:33:31.500 most new businesses go under in the first year

01:33:34.380 hardly any books that people write get published

01:33:37.320 not to mention screenplays

01:33:39.160 i mean you might as well just give up on that

01:33:40.920 except that now and then someone actually manages it

01:33:43.260 miraculously enough

01:33:44.420 i mean almost everything that you do is destined to failure

01:33:47.900 but that doesn't have that much to do with you

01:33:50.740 something but not that much

01:33:52.460 so you have to know the actuarial statistics

01:33:55.740 so then i would say as a stay-at-home father

01:33:57.720 first thing to determine is

01:34:00.580 is there actually any tupperware parties in your neighborhood

01:34:03.720 and if the answer is no

01:34:05.360 then it has nothing to do with you being a stay-at-home father

01:34:08.600 it just has to do with the fact that there aren't any tupperware parties

01:34:11.740 am i being alienated because i'm a dad

01:34:14.960 don't play identity politics with the tupperware parties

01:34:19.880 or do i need to host the tupperware party first

01:34:30.800 there you go

01:34:31.780 that'd be a good plan

01:34:32.960 then you'd know

01:34:34.400 no ben franklin said when you move to a neighborhood

01:34:37.720 one of the first things you should do is ask someone who lives there for a favor

01:34:41.220 like not a big favor but a little favor

01:34:43.740 so that they can feel good granting it to you

01:34:46.480 and so that now you owe them a favor because that's a good way to get the reciprocal

01:34:50.200 reciprocal social interactions engaged

01:34:54.740 it's a really smart idea

01:34:56.180 you know because

01:34:57.460 by asking someone for something small

01:35:00.000 then you enable them to manifest goodwill towards you

01:35:03.860 and they're usually pretty happy about that

01:35:05.460 and then you get to return the favor

01:35:06.780 and then they can see that you're the sort of person who remembers favors and returns them

01:35:11.340 and that's a good way of facilitating trust

01:35:13.400 and so yeah hosting a tupperware party sounds like a fine plan

01:35:17.920 so that's what i would recommend

01:35:19.960 so

01:35:20.920 what are your thoughts on the hookup culture created by modern dating apps

01:35:26.700 well

01:35:28.460 i can tell you some some facts

01:35:31.760 people in stable monogamous relationships report the highest levels of sexual satisfaction

01:35:37.060 so that's the first thing to know

01:35:41.240 the second thing to know

01:35:43.720 you know i don't think we've had an intelligent conversation about sexual morality in our culture

01:35:49.780 probably since the invention of the birth control pill

01:35:52.280 so that's about 50 years

01:35:53.740 it's not that surprising because the birth control pill was such a

01:35:57.040 absolutely staggering technological revolution that

01:36:00.340 we'll probably never recover from it

01:36:02.760 you know i've often thought that the 20th century

01:36:05.380 century will be remembered for three things

01:36:07.700 hydrogen bomb

01:36:09.140 birth control pill

01:36:10.780 transistor

01:36:12.600 there are three

01:36:14.340 revolutions of incalculable magnitude

01:36:17.640 and so

01:36:18.920 the fact of reliable birth control

01:36:21.900 or at least

01:36:22.380 comparatively reliable birth control

01:36:26.300 has really

01:36:26.880 permanently

01:36:28.380 changed the relationships between men and women

01:36:30.880 and

01:36:31.140 our attitudes towards sexuality in general

01:36:33.700 and all of that and it'll take god only knows how long till we adapt to that

01:36:37.720 in the immediate aftermath of the birth control pill

01:36:41.920 there was the idea that

01:36:44.360 sex could now be

01:36:46.220 decontextualized i would say

01:36:48.660 first of all it could occur without

01:36:50.920 in the absence of permanent relationship let's say

01:36:54.000 and that that would be an okay thing

01:36:55.560 and that it could also be something that

01:36:57.720 could be done casually for recreation

01:36:59.860 and without guilt

01:37:00.940 i don't think any of those things are true

01:37:04.180 i don't think there's any evidence that they're true

01:37:07.460 i think they're dangerous delusions

01:37:09.840 actually

01:37:11.080 i think

01:37:14.360 see

01:37:16.140 hookup culture is predicated on the idea that you can detach sexuality from everything else

01:37:25.780 emotions let's say responsibility

01:37:28.320 consideration even

01:37:31.140 and that

01:37:32.380 basically you can reduce

01:37:34.660 what sexuality is

01:37:36.200 to

01:37:37.120 casual pleasure

01:37:38.700 and i don't think you can do that

01:37:41.920 i don't think you can reduce casual sexuality to casual pleasure

01:37:45.600 without reducing the person that you're having sex with

01:37:49.640 to

01:37:50.420 nothing but the provider of casual pleasure

01:37:54.000 and i think that

01:37:56.580 whatever you do to someone else

01:37:59.820 you do to yourself inevitably

01:38:02.340 because

01:38:03.240 when you're engaging with someone else

01:38:05.160 you're engaging with a human being

01:38:06.700 and you're a human being

01:38:08.200 and so

01:38:09.080 the manner in which you treat another human being

01:38:12.320 expands to encompass your relationship to yourself

01:38:16.920 now

01:38:18.540 it isn't obvious to me that

01:38:20.600 the most

01:38:22.260 compelling and meaningful

01:38:25.900 and truthful

01:38:26.840 story about

01:38:28.920 what a person is

01:38:30.800 is

01:38:31.360 a source of casual

01:38:33.180 sexual pleasure

01:38:34.480 and i think that if you engage in a string of relationships like that

01:38:40.200 that

01:38:41.800 you inevitably come to see people like that

01:38:46.220 because how could you not

01:38:47.820 one of the truths that psychologists have

01:38:51.180 uncovered

01:38:52.660 there aren't that many of them

01:38:54.520 but this is one of them

01:38:55.600 what's hard to uncover truths

01:38:57.620 is that

01:38:58.120 you tend to justify what you do

01:39:01.520 and that's something to be very wary of

01:39:05.400 because

01:39:05.780 perhaps you

01:39:07.300 have your ethical qualms about doing something

01:39:09.700 but you do it

01:39:10.380 two or three dozen times

01:39:11.820 and you can be absolutely certain

01:39:13.560 that as a consequence of doing it

01:39:15.340 that many number of times

01:39:16.880 that you will now formulate a story

01:39:18.940 that you tell yourself and other people

01:39:20.600 and will also come to believe

01:39:22.420 about why doing that

01:39:24.840 is not only okay

01:39:26.480 but good

01:39:27.620 so let's say you have

01:39:30.560 50 casual sexual partners

01:39:33.700 i don't know if there's anything more

01:39:36.060 anything deeper or more profound

01:39:38.720 that you can do with someone else

01:39:41.480 than engage in

01:39:43.520 sex with them

01:39:44.900 and so if you're willing to take that

01:39:47.760 most profound act

01:39:49.280 and transform it into that

01:39:50.900 most

01:39:51.540 dispensable

01:39:54.320 entity

01:39:55.400 then

01:39:57.000 that's what you've done to yourself

01:40:00.000 and other people

01:40:00.720 and i don't think that's a very good idea

01:40:03.660 i think that

01:40:05.980 i believe that

01:40:08.260 we can't

01:40:11.100 fractionate any lower than the nuclear family

01:40:13.180 without

01:40:13.540 big trouble

01:40:15.040 i think that people are a lot

01:40:17.960 better off

01:40:19.880 not necessarily happier

01:40:22.580 but i don't think happy is

01:40:24.260 the right

01:40:25.020 hallmark of evaluation

01:40:26.580 anyways

01:40:26.980 i think that people have deeper

01:40:29.140 and more meaningful lives

01:40:30.560 if they

01:40:32.040 commit

01:40:33.260 to a

01:40:34.380 monogamous relationship

01:40:35.760 that's enforced monogamy

01:40:37.700 by the way

01:40:38.260 for those of you that were wondering

01:40:40.120 a human

01:40:42.420 moral

01:40:43.260 universal

01:40:43.880 by the way

01:40:44.500 virtually every culture

01:40:45.640 tends towards

01:40:46.780 the promotion of monogamous

01:40:48.160 social structures

01:40:49.080 even though

01:40:52.400 that's become an unpopular view

01:40:54.560 among people who

01:40:55.640 who knows

01:40:58.140 among who

01:40:58.760 among people who

01:41:00.420 are looking for

01:41:02.160 i don't even know what to say about that

01:41:04.900 it's so absolutely clueless

01:41:06.640 it's much better for people to commit

01:41:09.080 to something

01:41:10.540 it deepens their lives

01:41:12.780 and enriches their lives

01:41:13.940 and

01:41:14.360 it means that

01:41:15.600 you've taken

01:41:17.780 on the responsibility of another person

01:41:20.560 as if they're

01:41:21.780 as much a part of you

01:41:23.900 as you are

01:41:24.800 and that's actually

01:41:26.440 good for you

01:41:27.400 it's hard

01:41:28.900 but it's good for you

01:41:30.040 you know

01:41:35.600 another thing is

01:41:36.520 and this is what's so surprising

01:41:38.420 it's also what people want

01:41:40.540 you know

01:41:41.780 if you look at

01:41:42.580 cheap entertainment

01:41:44.880 let's say

01:41:45.560 movies

01:41:46.940 cheap movies

01:41:48.140 and i'm not

01:41:48.920 denigrating them

01:41:50.080 there's action movies

01:41:53.880 right

01:41:54.220 that's a

01:41:54.860 those are hero stories

01:41:56.000 it's one person against

01:41:57.940 the malevolence

01:41:59.060 in the world

01:41:59.940 that's a

01:42:00.720 action story

01:42:01.580 and then there's a romance

01:42:03.040 and the romance is

01:42:05.340 two people

01:42:06.660 painfully isolated

01:42:07.640 find each other

01:42:08.460 and make it work

01:42:09.260 it's like

01:42:10.240 that's like 90% of movies

01:42:12.440 fall into those two categories

01:42:14.040 it's like

01:42:14.920 everybody wants a

01:42:17.720 deeply

01:42:19.480 not everyone

01:42:20.960 the vast majority

01:42:22.520 of people

01:42:22.940 want a stable

01:42:23.920 reliable

01:42:25.660 caring

01:42:26.880 permanent

01:42:28.660 monogamous

01:42:29.320 relationship

01:42:29.880 that's their

01:42:30.520 desire

01:42:31.320 and

01:42:33.060 if you

01:42:34.760 act

01:42:35.420 contrary to that

01:42:36.640 but that's what you want

01:42:38.000 then you act

01:42:39.000 contrary to it

01:42:40.020 and

01:42:40.520 then you won't get it

01:42:42.000 i think it's

01:42:43.240 only

01:42:43.560 30%

01:42:45.140 of people

01:42:45.800 under 29

01:42:46.560 now

01:42:47.040 are in

01:42:49.140 a stable

01:42:50.480 long-term

01:42:51.360 monogamous

01:42:51.900 relationship

01:42:52.500 i might be right

01:42:54.000 wrong about that

01:42:54.860 i just read it the other day

01:42:56.180 but it was some

01:42:56.760 dreadfully low

01:42:57.720 number

01:42:58.120 i don't think

01:43:00.080 that's good

01:43:00.520 it looks to me

01:43:01.240 like it means

01:43:01.840 that people

01:43:02.280 aren't growing up

01:43:03.880 as fast as they

01:43:05.380 need to

01:43:05.840 it means that

01:43:07.300 they're missing

01:43:08.000 out on life

01:43:08.780 because it's really

01:43:09.440 useful to commit

01:43:10.280 yourself to someone

01:43:11.080 and then to decide to

01:43:12.160 build something

01:43:13.180 stable

01:43:13.720 economically

01:43:14.720 and morally

01:43:15.660 and practically

01:43:16.420 and

01:43:16.780 and to have a

01:43:17.780 platform

01:43:18.300 established

01:43:19.260 so that you can

01:43:19.860 bring children

01:43:20.380 into the world

01:43:21.060 so that you have

01:43:22.620 life in your life

01:43:24.980 when you're

01:43:25.900 50 and older

01:43:26.940 let's say

01:43:27.740 we're

01:43:30.180 we're very foolish

01:43:31.380 about such sort of

01:43:32.440 things

01:43:32.700 and i think

01:43:33.400 trading all that

01:43:34.540 for

01:43:34.880 hook-up culture

01:43:36.620 is a big mistake

01:43:38.320 that's what it looks

01:43:39.580 like to me

01:43:40.160 so

01:43:41.940 i guess that's the

01:43:43.820 answer to that

01:43:44.360 question

01:43:44.900 what advice do you

01:43:58.260 have for parents of

01:43:59.040 young adults attending

01:43:59.960 canadian universities

01:44:00.980 to prevent their

01:44:01.800 indoctrination by

01:44:02.840 those biased left

01:44:03.820 wing institutions

01:44:04.800 concentrate on the

01:44:18.760 sciences

01:44:19.260 no so my

01:44:27.920 discipline is

01:44:28.660 psychology and

01:44:30.140 psychology sort of

01:44:32.000 spans the gamut

01:44:33.060 from sociology

01:44:33.840 to biology

01:44:34.840 and the

01:44:36.880 closer it

01:44:37.980 reaches towards

01:44:39.880 biology the more

01:44:40.820 reliable it is

01:44:41.780 so the sciences

01:44:44.200 so far have been

01:44:45.600 relatively immune

01:44:47.560 to post-modern

01:44:50.320 undermining

01:44:51.600 although i'm not

01:44:53.700 optimistic that that

01:44:56.040 will last

01:44:56.700 but at the

01:44:57.800 moment

01:44:58.220 that's

01:44:59.080 if the

01:44:59.820 discipline

01:45:00.300 lacks

01:45:01.160 grounding

01:45:01.640 in

01:45:02.700 science

01:45:03.540 then

01:45:04.360 beware of

01:45:05.220 it

01:45:05.420 and you know

01:45:06.440 i don't say that

01:45:07.720 with any

01:45:08.220 pleasure

01:45:08.820 i found

01:45:11.680 the most

01:45:12.840 i mean what i

01:45:14.080 loved about

01:45:14.600 university when i

01:45:15.560 was a student

01:45:16.160 i took a lot of

01:45:17.380 science courses

01:45:18.060 and my

01:45:18.780 my clinical

01:45:20.200 phd was very

01:45:21.420 biologically

01:45:22.160 based

01:45:23.560 very much based

01:45:25.440 in neurobiology

01:45:26.280 i love the

01:45:27.820 humanities courses

01:45:29.160 literature and

01:45:30.920 social sciences

01:45:32.640 like political

01:45:33.200 science i love

01:45:34.180 them humanities in

01:45:35.320 particular and the

01:45:36.500 fact that they've

01:45:37.120 become corrupt is

01:45:37.960 absolutely no it's

01:45:39.300 not something that

01:45:39.880 brings me any pleasure

01:45:40.680 at all i mean the

01:45:42.680 purpose of the

01:45:43.260 humanities is in

01:45:44.660 part to teach you how

01:45:45.560 to be humane how to

01:45:47.020 be a good person and

01:45:48.720 that's of crucial

01:45:50.220 importance it's not

01:45:51.020 something that you can

01:45:51.780 learn from a

01:45:52.880 scientific education

01:45:53.740 although you can

01:45:54.380 learn a certain

01:45:54.980 respect for the

01:45:55.720 truth and and

01:45:56.960 and the ability to

01:45:57.880 think critically and

01:45:58.740 and those things are

01:45:59.380 not trivial and you

01:46:00.280 can acquire useful

01:46:01.100 skills but it's the

01:46:02.680 humanities that made

01:46:03.740 citizens and so the

01:46:06.040 loss of their the

01:46:07.660 integrity of the

01:46:08.440 humanities is an

01:46:09.240 absolute catastrophe

01:46:10.200 but but but there

01:46:14.920 we are that's the

01:46:16.720 situation at the

01:46:17.560 moment

01:46:17.860 does diversity have a

01:46:23.780 value in competency

01:46:24.720 hierarchies depends on

01:46:26.300 how you define it is

01:46:27.920 it diversity by group

01:46:29.000 identity

01:46:29.460 uh no

01:46:31.180 no

01:46:33.020 i mean

01:46:34.200 it's so it's so deeply

01:46:42.000 wrong that it's almost

01:46:43.900 impossible to know

01:46:44.980 where to start

01:46:45.760 why would we presume

01:46:52.840 that people okay the

01:46:56.040 first question is well

01:46:57.140 diversity along what

01:46:57.980 dimensions every person

01:47:00.440 belongs to a very large

01:47:02.000 number of potential

01:47:02.820 groups so okay which

01:47:05.380 groups sex all right how

01:47:09.540 many sexes how many are

01:47:12.060 there are there two are

01:47:14.140 there three are there

01:47:15.240 70 it's like the people

01:47:17.460 who are telling us to

01:47:18.600 value diversity aren't

01:47:20.140 helping us out with that

01:47:21.240 particular conundrum so

01:47:24.980 how do you know when

01:47:25.860 your workplace is

01:47:26.720 sufficiently diverse from

01:47:28.300 the perspective of of

01:47:29.920 gender well when it

01:47:32.520 matches the population

01:47:33.480 distribution well who

01:47:35.540 calculates that exactly and

01:47:37.620 where are you going to

01:47:38.000 find the figures and so

01:47:39.920 and that's just one

01:47:40.760 dimension well there's

01:47:41.840 sex there's and there's

01:47:44.920 gender because those are

01:47:46.000 those are separate

01:47:47.340 apparently um even

01:47:49.580 though they align in

01:47:51.720 like 99.97 percent of

01:47:55.380 cases so they're not

01:47:57.060 really separate how about

01:47:59.040 race well what races

01:48:01.000 how are we going to

01:48:03.420 define race exactly is

01:48:04.660 that is that caucasian

01:48:05.960 asian and black are those

01:48:08.440 the races you know

01:48:09.680 there's more genetic

01:48:10.340 diversity in africa than

01:48:11.540 there is in the rest of

01:48:12.260 the world it's like are

01:48:14.200 all those black people the

01:48:15.260 same or do we fragment

01:48:16.200 them and what about the

01:48:17.740 asians and what about the

01:48:19.820 caucasians are they all

01:48:21.080 they all the same or do we

01:48:22.640 need to fragment them into

01:48:23.800 their different identity

01:48:24.640 groups are the irish and

01:48:26.160 the italians the same i think

01:48:27.900 what at the beginning of the

01:48:28.680 20th century the irish and

01:48:29.940 the italians neither of them

01:48:31.000 were even white

01:48:31.880 yeah well it's a rude thing

01:48:37.540 to say but my point is

01:48:39.820 quite is quite straightforward

01:48:41.200 and that is that the

01:48:42.540 definitions of those racial

01:48:43.960 divides change dramatically

01:48:45.500 across time and so who

01:48:47.380 who decides what the

01:48:48.700 canonical group identities

01:48:49.880 are and then and then we

01:48:51.600 and then well what about

01:48:53.520 ethnicity and culture and

01:48:54.960 then what about what about

01:48:55.940 social class economic class

01:48:58.160 and what about attractiveness

01:49:00.140 i mean there's an endless

01:49:02.200 number of ways to subdivide

01:49:03.540 people into groups so where

01:49:04.560 are you going to stop and

01:49:05.840 answer are is well if you're

01:49:07.240 an activist you're never

01:49:08.080 going to stop because if

01:49:08.960 you stop then there

01:49:09.840 wouldn't be any career for

01:49:10.620 you as an activist so

01:49:12.500 you're never going to stop

01:49:13.560 and you're especially not

01:49:15.060 going to stop when there

01:49:19.940 was no logical place to

01:49:21.300 start or to stop to begin

01:49:22.480 with it's like look if you

01:49:24.960 have a hierarchy and the

01:49:26.600 hierarchy is a tool aimed

01:49:28.040 at an end which a

01:49:29.860 competency hierarchy is

01:49:31.340 right i mean if if you if

01:49:33.380 you have a plumbing

01:49:33.880 business it's a hierarchy

01:49:35.540 in all likelihood and it's

01:49:37.200 aimed at sustaining the

01:49:39.120 plumbing business generating

01:49:40.580 some profit and doing some

01:49:42.320 plumbing right those are the

01:49:44.340 fundamental tasks of the

01:49:46.040 plumbing hierarchy and then

01:49:47.520 what you want to do is you

01:49:48.580 want to hire people who can do

01:49:50.700 some plumbing make some

01:49:52.780 profit and aim at maintaining

01:49:55.760 the plumbing business and those

01:49:58.520 are not identical in any way

01:50:02.260 with these group identities so

01:50:05.380 the question does diversity have

01:50:09.000 a value in competence

01:50:10.080 hierarchies well what do you

01:50:12.760 mean by diversity that's the

01:50:15.660 question you think well that's a

01:50:17.380 minor part of the question it's

01:50:18.420 like no it's not it's the entire

01:50:20.580 part of the question i think that

01:50:24.480 at the bottom of this diversity

01:50:26.400 inclusivity equity nonsense is a

01:50:31.860 true hatred for competence that's

01:50:34.680 what i think's driving it

01:50:35.860 we can we can undermine the idea of

01:50:44.620 competence by making the

01:50:47.580 fashionable post-modern assumption

01:50:49.940 that everything is about power and

01:50:53.200 that power is arbitrary so that

01:50:55.240 everyone who has attained any

01:50:57.580 stature above the lowest position in

01:51:01.040 any dimension whatsoever is

01:51:02.860 immediately suspect for their tyranny

01:51:05.860 and that's the game and it's a

01:51:08.480 sickening game in my estimation

01:51:10.420 your perspectives have obviously

01:51:19.120 struck a nerve that resonates far and

01:51:21.520 wide why you why now what void in our

01:51:26.660 society has your messaging being able

01:51:28.460 to address

01:51:29.160 okay your perspectives have obviously

01:51:35.160 struck a nerve that resonates far and

01:51:36.880 wide yes that certainly seems to be the

01:51:39.460 case why me well i i i tried to do that

01:51:45.000 situational analysis that i talked to

01:51:47.380 you guys about a little earlier you

01:51:48.760 know when when you're trying to ask

01:51:50.020 question about why something is

01:51:51.960 happening to you you know you want to

01:51:53.400 depersonalize it to begin with and so

01:51:55.820 i've thought a lot about that and a big

01:51:58.700 part of what's happened to me is a

01:52:00.660 consequence of a technological

01:52:02.120 revolution

01:52:02.880 right so online video and podcasts are a

01:52:07.340 technological revolution and not a

01:52:09.800 trivial one because youtube and podcasts

01:52:14.240 have made the spoken word as permanent

01:52:18.140 and accessible as the written word and

01:52:20.620 that's never happened before in the

01:52:22.280 entire course of human history

01:52:23.620 right exactly the medium is the message

01:52:27.960 and and it's really something to take

01:52:31.420 seriously because before in order to

01:52:34.620 speak to a very large number of people

01:52:36.260 you had to write and even then that was

01:52:38.680 very limited although much less limited

01:52:41.000 than not writing

01:52:41.900 because most people don't read

01:52:45.520 like reading is a minority taste and

01:52:48.800 and certainly even among the people who

01:52:50.940 read very few people read serious

01:52:52.920 things and even a smaller fraction of

01:52:54.620 them actually buy books

01:52:55.820 it's never been anything but a real

01:52:57.560 minority taste

01:52:58.460 but lots of people can listen

01:53:00.680 and so i'm an early adopter of a

01:53:03.480 revolutionary technology

01:53:04.720 and so that's part of the reason that

01:53:07.420 that it's me

01:53:09.040 it's because i happen to be a early

01:53:12.080 adopter of a revolutionary technology

01:53:13.900 so

01:53:15.300 then the other thing is as far as i can

01:53:19.700 tell

01:53:20.040 the other element that's relevant in

01:53:23.540 terms of content

01:53:24.520 rather than form

01:53:25.980 is

01:53:27.160 that

01:53:28.520 i've been able to make a compelling

01:53:31.060 case for the relationship

01:53:32.200 between responsibility and meaning

01:53:34.360 and that's

01:53:36.380 both of those things are important

01:53:38.180 first we've had a conversation about

01:53:40.820 rights for way too long

01:53:42.060 and you can't have a conversation about

01:53:44.400 rights without opening up a void on

01:53:46.080 the responsibility side because

01:53:47.560 your rights are my responsibility

01:53:49.760 and so whenever we have a discussion about

01:53:51.900 rights and we don't have a discussion about

01:53:53.760 responsibility then we leave half of the

01:53:55.980 issue unaddressed

01:53:56.820 and that sort of hangs there as a form of

01:53:59.080 psychic emptiness or pain

01:54:01.140 and so to talk to people about

01:54:03.180 responsibility

01:54:03.900 is addressing that void

01:54:06.080 and then to make the case

01:54:07.240 which i think in some sense is

01:54:09.140 self-evident

01:54:09.760 once it's made

01:54:11.140 that

01:54:11.860 most of the meaning that you

01:54:14.140 experience in your life

01:54:15.520 most of the necessary meaning to keep

01:54:17.400 you away from the abyss and the

01:54:18.940 totalitarians

01:54:19.780 is actually to be found in the

01:54:21.440 voluntary adoption of responsibility

01:54:23.160 it's like i tell people that and as i said i've spoken to about two hundred thousand people and everybody goes oh yeah that's definitely right and it's like well it's right but it hasn't been part of our damn dialogue for i don't know how long i guess maybe it was because before we took everything apart in this postmodern way everyone just took for granted that the meaning in life was to be found in the adoption of responsibility it was just part of the normal course of affairs no one had to articulate it because it was so self-evident that it didn't

01:54:53.140 need articulation but now it didn't need articulation but now it seems to require articulation and as far as i've been able to tell it's been really useful to people because they keep telling me well you know i was pretty lost and aimless and nihilistic and maybe attracted by the blandishments of the alt-right or perhaps the left because of that emptiness and i decided to develop a vision for my life and to try to adopt some responsibility and tell the truth and things are a lot better for me now

01:55:23.140 i have that story to tell so that's an important story and so i think that's an important story and so i think that's the void and the void is the right word because without knowledge of that relationship between responsibility and meaning then you live in a void and that's not good because the baseline conditions of life the baseline condition of life is suffering and if you're suffering in a void it's not tolerable

01:55:53.140 to death and murderousness it's not acceptable you need that meaning it's not optional so i think that's the void

01:56:04.300 all right

01:56:07.440 what are my thoughts on the removal of historical monuments within canada and the u.s

01:56:15.200 e.g. the removal of a john a mcdonald statue this week in victoria

01:56:19.040 you know i mentioned earlier tonight that here's something that's worth knowing i suppose

01:56:25.280 you know the marxists that criticize the west basically as a consequence of the inequality that

01:56:32.820 the west has produced

01:56:33.880 now capital accrues tends to accrue in the hands of a smaller and smaller number of people

01:56:42.640 that's carl marx's observation of genius

01:56:45.620 it's like

01:56:47.480 that actually happens to be true

01:56:50.200 but

01:56:51.960 it's true in a more complex way than marx knew or was willing to admit

01:56:56.260 and it's also

01:56:57.820 sort of true

01:56:59.980 it's sort of true in that at any given time

01:57:04.160 most of the world's money

01:57:06.240 is

01:57:07.140 owned

01:57:08.120 is in the hands of a disproportionately small number of people

01:57:12.140 it's not true in that

01:57:14.580 who those people are tends to transform pretty rapidly

01:57:18.840 so like a fortune 500 company tends to last for about 30 years

01:57:24.180 and a familial fortune tends to disintegrate within three generations

01:57:28.900 so although there is a permanent

01:57:31.120 so although there is one percent

01:57:33.420 it's sort of like

01:57:35.080 you know how you get that spiral in your sink when the water goes out

01:57:39.020 the spiral stays but

01:57:40.760 the water is always different

01:57:42.900 and that's sort of the case with the one percent

01:57:45.400 is that one percent is always there but it's not always the same people

01:57:48.480 and that's actually really important

01:57:50.120 i think your probability of being in the top one percent

01:57:53.580 for at least a year in your life is something like ten percent

01:57:56.600 so there's a fair bit of mobility

01:57:58.660 but even more importantly

01:58:00.360 every society produces inequality

01:58:03.740 and the problem with the damn marxists

01:58:06.100 is that

01:58:06.560 the damned marxists

01:58:08.800 to be more precise

01:58:10.000 is that

01:58:11.140 they lay inequality at the feet of the west and capitalism

01:58:14.420 and that's seriously wrong

01:58:16.500 and it's wrong in an absolutely fundamental way

01:58:19.200 it's something i tried to lay out in chapter one

01:58:21.180 when i was talking about how old hierarchies are

01:58:24.060 hierarchies are at least a third of a billion years old

01:58:27.140 they're so old that your nervous system has adapted to them as a primary reality

01:58:31.820 they're older than trees

01:58:33.400 and the inequality that goes along with hierarchies is at least that old

01:58:37.100 and so to attribute that to the west and capitalism is wrong

01:58:41.060 now capitalist countries do produce inequality

01:58:45.680 but every single society that human beings have ever produced

01:58:48.900 and the vast majority of social animal societies

01:58:52.440 are hierarchical and produce inequality

01:58:54.460 we don't know how to eliminate it

01:58:57.040 one thing you can say about the west though

01:58:59.220 is that

01:58:59.660 we produced a fair bit of wealth and well-being

01:59:02.200 along with the inequality

01:59:03.420 and that actually turns out to be really rare

01:59:05.900 so you might say

01:59:07.640 well

01:59:07.940 there's no shortage of reprehensible behavior

01:59:11.220 in the history of western civilization

01:59:13.300 it's like

01:59:14.100 hey

01:59:14.800 fair enough

01:59:16.060 and maybe you can lay some of that at the feet of the people who founded our country

01:59:19.900 but for fallible human beings operating within our constraints

01:59:24.040 acting out our necessarily flawed systems

01:59:28.160 we've done pretty bloody well

01:59:29.700 and we should remember that

01:59:30.980 and so along with the historical criticism

01:59:33.920 there should be a fair leaven of gratitude

01:59:35.780 for everything that we have

01:59:37.260 and everything that the people who came before us created

01:59:39.620 and one of the things that I find

01:59:51.100 I would say contemptible

01:59:52.980 about the modern university

01:59:54.640 is its lack of gratitude

01:59:56.000 and I think a lot of that's a consequence of profound historical ignorance

02:00:00.240 you know

02:00:01.180 human history is one bloody nightmare

02:00:03.020 there are very very few

02:00:05.240 shining pockets of illumination

02:00:07.760 and one of them I would say

02:00:09.340 something that really shines is the English common law tradition

02:00:12.660 that's a bloody miracle

02:00:14.120 that

02:00:14.660 and we're its beneficiaries

02:00:15.980 and we should have a little gratitude for it

02:00:18.200 so

02:00:19.160 that's all

02:00:27.060 thank you very much for coming

02:00:29.400 much appreciated

02:00:32.980 if you found this conversation meaningful

02:00:44.160 you might think about picking up dad's books

02:00:46.340 maps of meaning

02:00:47.420 the architecture of belief

02:00:48.700 or his newer bestseller

02:00:49.920 12 rules for life

02:00:51.020 an antidote to chaos

02:00:52.420 both of these works delve much deeper

02:00:54.880 into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast

02:00:57.660 see jordanbpeterson.com

02:01:00.180 for audio

02:01:00.920 ebook

02:01:01.520 and text links

02:01:02.560 or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller

02:01:04.480 I really hope you enjoyed this podcast lecture

02:01:06.940 if you did

02:01:07.880 please leave a rating at Apple Podcasts

02:01:10.080 comment to review

02:01:10.980 or share this episode with a friend

02:01:12.660 next week's episode

02:01:14.220 is another 12 rules for life lecture

02:01:16.180 from Rochester, New York

02:01:17.920 recorded on September 5th, 2018

02:01:20.100 if you've listened to the previous podcasts

02:01:22.500 you'll see how many lectures he did in 2018

02:01:25.000 I didn't see him for months

02:01:26.740 it was insane

02:01:28.000 it was like the world stole my parents

02:01:30.200 my mom was on tour with him

02:01:31.900 but they're back

02:01:32.780 for now

02:01:33.540 we'll be getting into discussions

02:01:35.160 in a couple of months

02:01:36.160 when dad has time to do interviews

02:01:37.860 he's busy writing his next book

02:01:39.520 at this point

02:01:40.120 talk to you next week

02:01:41.480 thanks for listening

02:01:42.620 follow me on my YouTube channel

02:01:45.020 Jordan B. Peterson

02:01:46.180 on Twitter

02:01:47.200 at Jordan B. Peterson

02:01:48.760 on Facebook

02:01:49.940 at Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

02:01:52.080 and at Instagram

02:01:53.160 at Jordan.B. Peterson

02:01:55.440 details on this show

02:01:57.360 access to my blog

02:01:59.020 information about my tour dates

02:02:01.120 and other events

02:02:01.940 and my list of recommended books

02:02:03.960 can be found on my website

02:02:05.700 JordanBPeterson.com

02:02:07.820 my online writing programs

02:02:09.860 designed to help people

02:02:11.140 straighten out their pasts

02:02:12.720 understand themselves in the present

02:02:14.560 and develop a sophisticated vision

02:02:16.580 and strategy for the future

02:02:17.980 can be found at

02:02:19.040 selfauthoring.com

02:02:20.780 that's selfauthoring.com

02:02:23.280 from the Westwood One Podcast Network

02:02:25.780 you

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - September 08, 2019

Be precise in your speech

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