The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Jordan and Tammy

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

00:00:06.000 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.000 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.

00:00:19.000 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:00:27.000 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:00:35.000 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:41.000 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:00:47.000 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:00:51.000 Welcome to episode 237 of the Jordan B. Peterson podcast. I'm Mikayla Peterson.

00:01:01.000 Episode 237, we are doing away with the seasons. I never liked seasons anyway. Episode number makes more sense.

00:01:09.000 The Petersons are in Rhode Island. I'm currently recording this intro from backstage before dad's show.

00:01:15.000 It's been so fun. We're all doing really well. This is a compilation episode on my parents' relationship.

00:01:21.000 After 30 years of marriage, my parents have built an incredible relationship.

00:01:25.000 One based on love, of course, but also good communication and lots of self-work.

00:01:30.000 I can't stress the value of negotiation enough, as long as it's done in good faith.

00:01:34.000 And that goes for everyone navigating a relationship.

00:01:37.000 If you want, you can listen to the episode that was just released right before this one on my parents understand myself couples report.

00:01:47.000 If you want to understand how their personalities played a role in building and maintaining a successful marriage.

00:01:52.000 If you enjoy this episode or at least learn something, please subscribe.

00:01:56.000 And if you don't want to hear me read ads, please visit jordanbpeterson.supercast.com.

00:02:02.000 If you want to sign up for an ad free experience, it'll switch your regular podcast to the ad free version automatically on whatever platform you use.

00:02:10.000 It's easy and just $10 a month or a hundred dollars a year.

00:02:13.000 I hope you enjoy this episode.

00:02:15.000 That's actually why people get married, you know, just so you know.

00:02:34.000 Because this is built into marital vows.

00:02:39.000 I'm not leaving.

00:02:42.000 Ever.

00:02:43.000 No matter what.

00:02:44.000 It's like, okay, well, that definitely puts a boundary around our arguments, right?

00:02:48.000 Because I can't say, every time you manifest one of your flaws, which you're likely to do just as often as me, well, enough of this.

00:02:55.000 It's like, that's horrible, man.

00:02:57.000 If your whole life is, well, every time you get out of line, I'm out of here. 0.96

00:03:01.000 It's like, how the hell are you...

00:03:02.000 First of all, you're not going to admit to ever doing anything wrong.

00:03:05.000 Second, you're going to be on your...

00:03:09.000 You're like a scared cat the entire relationship because, well, who knows?

00:03:13.000 It could just come to an end at any moment.

00:03:15.000 It's like, you know, people say, well, if the possibility of divorce is open, it makes you free.

00:03:21.000 It's like, yeah, that's what you want.

00:03:22.000 You want to be free, eh?

00:03:23.000 Really?

00:03:24.000 Really?

00:03:25.000 So you can't predict anything.

00:03:27.000 That's what you're after.

00:03:29.000 It's a vow.

00:03:30.000 And it says, look, I know that you're trouble.

00:03:35.000 Me too.

00:03:37.000 So we won't leave.

00:03:39.000 No matter what happens.

00:03:41.000 Well, that's a hell of a vow, but that's why it's a vow, right?

00:03:43.000 That's why you take it in front of a bunch of people.

00:03:45.000 That's why it's supposed to be a sacred act.

00:03:47.000 It's like, what's the alternative?

00:03:49.000 What's the alternative?

00:03:51.000 Everything is mutable and changeable at any moment.

00:03:54.000 Well, go ahead.

00:03:55.000 You live your life like that and see what you're like when you're 50.

00:03:58.000 Jesus, it's dismal.

00:04:00.000 Two or three divorces.

00:04:01.000 Your family's fragmented.

00:04:02.000 You've got no continuity of narrative.

00:04:04.000 And it's not good for the kids.

00:04:06.000 Not by any stretch of the imagination.

00:04:08.000 And so, it's a form of voluntary enslavement, I suppose.

00:04:13.000 But it's also equivalent to the adoption of a responsibility.

00:04:16.000 And there's more to it than that.

00:04:17.000 If you can't run away, then you can solve your problems.

00:04:20.000 Because it might be, okay, well, I'm stuck with you.

00:04:23.000 So how about we fix things?

00:04:26.000 Because the alternative is we're going to be in a boxing match for the next 40 years.

00:04:30.000 That's the alternative.

00:04:32.000 So, and you think you're going to fix problems without something like that hanging over your head?

00:04:37.000 There isn't a chance.

00:04:38.000 You'll just avoid them, because that's what people do.

00:04:40.000 It's really hard to solve problems, especially in a relationship. 0.99

00:04:43.000 We're having a fight, and I find out that it's, you know, because you were abused by your uncle when you were five or some goddamn thing. 0.95

00:04:49.000 You know, it's like, it's very frequent that that sort of thing happens. 0.97

00:04:53.000 You, there's, the partner, your partner's, you know, manifesting some weird anomalous behavior.

00:04:58.000 You just can't make heads or tails of it.

00:05:00.000 It doesn't seem related to what you're doing at all.

00:05:02.000 They don't want to talk about it.

00:05:04.000 And so, as soon as you bring it up, they get mad.

00:05:06.000 And then you bring it up again, they even get madder, and they tell you that you're not going to talk about that, or they're going to leave. 0.99

00:05:11.000 And so maybe you're really, really persistent, because you're kind of a son of a bitch, and then they break down and cry, you know? 0.98

00:05:18.000 And then they have this horrible memory that comes flooding forward that's completely, you don't know what to do with it, and then you have to sort it out. 0.99

00:05:25.000 So you think you're going to do that unless there's a good reason?

00:05:28.000 You have to know, we better sort this out, and we're going to be carrying it around for the next 40 years.

00:05:33.000 That maybe is enough motivation so you'll actually try hard to solve a problem.

00:05:37.000 It's a lot easier to say, well, sorry, we're not going there. 0.99

00:05:41.000 But then, good, you'll have it every day, every day, every goddamn day for the rest of your life. 0.94

00:05:46.000 See, there's some additional problems with divorce that people don't really grasp when they're young. 0.99

00:05:52.000 Like, the idea that you can be divorced once you have children, that's kind of a stupid idea, because you can't. 0.97

00:05:58.000 You can find a limited substitute for your initial freedom. 0.98

00:06:06.000 But if you have kids and you try to get divorced, the probability that that's going to demolish your life is very, very high.

00:06:13.000 First of all, it's incredibly expensive.

00:06:16.000 So one or both of you is going to come out of that poor.

00:06:19.000 And your market value has declined.

00:06:24.000 Let's say you're the woman who takes the kids. 1.00

00:06:27.000 Your market value has declined radically.

00:06:29.000 You're going to be poorer. 0.94

00:06:31.000 The man, he's just as screwed, because he is now an indentured servant, and there's no escape from it. 0.95

00:06:38.000 So it's not so bad if you can negotiate a peaceful separation, and some people can, but lots of times if you have a terrible relationship, it's not like negotiating a peaceful separation is all that easy. 0.98

00:06:50.000 But if you're at each other's throats, good luck to you.

00:06:54.000 I think it's roughly equivalent to having non-fatal cancer.

00:06:57.000 It is not pleasant.

00:06:59.000 It's a 10-year process, 15-year process.

00:07:02.000 It'll cost you $250,000, and it'll tear a big chunk out of your life.

00:07:06.000 And also, it will really disrupt your relationship with your kids.

00:07:10.000 And, you know, you bring kids into a step-parent family, they do not do as well.

00:07:16.000 Step-parents are not as good parents as biological parents, and the data on that is clear. 0.97

00:07:21.000 Now, obviously, there are exceptions, because there are terrible biological parents, and there are wonderful step-parents.

00:07:27.000 But if you look in aggregate, it's not that easy to care for children.

00:07:31.000 You need everything you can binding you to them.

00:07:36.000 And if they're someone else's children, mostly they get in the way of the person that you love.

00:07:43.000 Right?

00:07:44.000 Well, let's say you have a child.

00:07:47.000 I'll be right out.

00:07:49.000 Let's say you have a child, and I want to go out with you.

00:07:52.000 Every second you spend with that child is the second you don't spend with me.

00:07:56.000 And there's going to be a price for that.

00:07:58.000 I'm not going to be happy about that.

00:08:00.000 And if I have a child, you're going to feel exactly the same way.

00:08:03.000 You might say, well, no, I love children.

00:08:05.000 It's like, yeah, yeah, sure.

00:08:07.000 Sure you do.

00:08:08.000 I doubt it.

00:08:09.000 You might love your child.

00:08:11.000 And, you know, it's pretty specific, the way that people love children.

00:08:15.000 So...

00:08:16.000 And the rate of abuse for kids in step-parent families is way higher than it is in biological families.

00:08:22.000 There's not even any comparison.

00:08:23.000 When did you meet Dad?

00:08:25.000 I was eight years old.

00:08:26.000 He moved on to the street when I was...

00:08:29.000 When he was seven, I guess, because he's a year younger than me.

00:08:33.000 He lived right across the street in an orange house.

00:08:37.000 His dad was a teacher at the elementary school.

00:08:41.000 And George was this very skinny little kid.

00:08:45.000 He was a skinny little sandy-haired...

00:08:49.000 He had straight sandy hair.

00:08:52.000 He had straight hair when he was little?

00:08:54.000 He had straight hair.

00:08:55.000 It didn't curl until he was in puberty.

00:08:57.000 Same with my son, right?

00:08:59.000 Same with Julian.

00:09:00.000 Julian has curly hair?

00:09:01.000 Julian has hair.

00:09:02.000 Well, it's a bit curly, but he never had any curl until he went through puberty.

00:09:06.000 Same thing.

00:09:07.000 Yeah.

00:09:08.000 Yeah, I met George when he was eight, seven, eight, when I was eight.

00:09:12.000 And we did things that kids do.

00:09:14.000 We played games on the street.

00:09:17.000 We played baseball in the empty lots that were behind our house.

00:09:22.000 We lived right on the edge of town.

00:09:24.000 And he was in the same grade as me, so we hung out with some of the kids at school, too.

00:09:31.000 And I was very good friends with him, you know, until grade seven when I matured and he didn't,

00:09:38.000 because boys don't mature as fast as girls.

00:09:41.000 He was also younger, right?

00:09:42.000 And he was a year younger.

00:09:43.000 So I left him to his group of friends and I went on with my group of friends.

00:09:49.000 And we didn't really hang out again until high school, until late in high school.

00:09:55.000 And I was actually going out with another fellow, but I wanted Jordan to be my grad

00:10:00.000 escort because he was my best friend.

00:10:02.000 And so my boyfriend had to go away around graduation.

00:10:07.000 So I asked Jordan to be my escort and he said yes.

00:10:10.000 So that was our first date.

00:10:12.000 And that was pretty cool.

00:10:14.000 He didn't spend any time with me, though.

00:10:16.000 He spent time with his friends.

00:10:17.000 At graduation?

00:10:18.000 At graduation.

00:10:19.000 At graduation.

00:10:20.000 Yeah.

00:10:21.000 Yeah.

00:10:22.000 He was still...

00:10:23.000 Well, he was young.

00:10:24.000 He was a young guy.

00:10:25.000 He was probably nervous.

00:10:26.000 He was probably nervous, too.

00:10:27.000 Yeah.

00:10:28.000 He was probably nervous.

00:10:29.000 Okay.

00:10:30.000 So what happened in university?

00:10:31.000 Where'd you go?

00:10:32.000 First of all, I went to Edmonton and that was, you know, a good six hours away from home.

00:10:37.000 So it was away from home.

00:10:40.000 Yeah.

00:10:41.000 Where is Fairview?

00:10:42.000 Fairview is where you guys met.

00:10:43.000 Yeah.

00:10:44.000 How far up in Alberta?

00:10:45.000 Sure.

00:10:46.000 It's in northern Alberta.

00:10:48.000 So it's, you know, six hour drive north of Edmonton, near an hour from the BC border.

00:10:55.000 So it's nearly into British Columbia.

00:10:58.000 It's in, it's on the prairie.

00:11:01.000 So it's, you can see, we could see 40 miles from the hill in our town.

00:11:09.000 Our town was called Fairview.

00:11:10.000 And if you drove up on the hill west of town and looked, you could see communities, lights

00:11:15.000 from communities at night that were 45 or 50 miles away.

00:11:19.000 You would just see a string of lights, like a, like a string of, of pearls.

00:11:23.000 It was a beautiful place.

00:11:25.000 And, you know, the, you could see so far that the stars would come down and then you would

00:11:31.000 see the lights of the towns.

00:11:33.000 So you could see the sky and the, and the ground meet in this little cascade of light.

00:11:40.000 It was, it was a beautiful place.

00:11:42.000 That's nothing like Toronto.

00:11:43.000 No, but you know, when we moved to Boston, uh, when George was at Harvard and when Julian

00:11:51.000 was born in Boston, you were two when we moved there.

00:11:54.000 Um, we went to the ocean every weekend and that kind of reminded me of the prairie because

00:12:00.000 I could see so far.

00:12:02.000 And so that really, in a way, although it was the ocean, it reminded me of home and there's

00:12:07.000 wind at the ocean and there's lots of wind in the prairies.

00:12:10.000 In the prairies.

00:12:11.000 So in some ways the ocean and the prairies have a lot in common, at least, uh, the, the,

00:12:17.000 uh, immense sky that you can get on the prairies is similar to when you go to the beach.

00:12:23.000 Yeah.

00:12:24.000 I remember the ocean in Boston.

00:12:25.000 Yeah.

00:12:26.000 It was wonderful.

00:12:27.000 It was wonderful.

00:12:28.000 Yeah.

00:12:29.000 George used to, George used to build out of sand.

00:12:30.000 He would drag his foot around and make a house with rooms and you and Julian would play

00:12:34.000 house playing those, those games.

00:12:36.000 I can remember that it would have been like four or five.

00:12:39.000 Yeah.

00:12:40.000 That was a really good game.

00:12:41.000 Drag your foot and draw a house.

00:12:43.000 And then you can play in like the bedroom or the kitchen of this sand house.

00:12:46.000 That was a good idea.

00:12:48.000 Yeah.

00:12:49.000 Yeah.

00:12:50.000 Okay.

00:12:51.000 So you went to, where did you go to university?

00:12:52.000 I went to university of, of Alberta for a year, but I didn't want to live in Edmonton.

00:12:57.000 Um, oh no, let's see when I first, yeah, I went to Edmonton.

00:13:02.000 I just took one course.

00:13:03.000 I took a psychology course and I worked full time because I didn't quite know what I wanted

00:13:08.000 to study.

00:13:09.000 I, I was very creative and it was difficult for me to decide on one career.

00:13:15.000 You're open.

00:13:16.000 I was really open.

00:13:17.000 And so it was very difficult to hone in on exactly what I wanted to do because everything

00:13:22.000 looked interesting, but driving a bus looked interesting, you know, as well as, you know,

00:13:27.000 uh, being a painter.

00:13:29.000 So all these things looked interesting.

00:13:32.000 So I took one course in Edmonton.

00:13:34.000 I worked full time and then I decided, uh, actually I met someone who was going to McGill

00:13:39.000 and we drove out to Montreal and I went to McGill for a year and I studied arts.

00:13:43.000 So I studied, um, you know, a general arts with French and philosophy and English.

00:13:50.000 And, um, I really had a good time there.

00:13:53.000 It was really fun to be in Montreal, although that was about 1980 and the separatist movement

00:13:58.000 was very, uh, hot then.

00:14:01.000 And when we arrived in town, um, we arrived in town, we'd driven across the country.

00:14:07.000 I got food poisoning on the way and nearly died.

00:14:10.000 It's a fun trip.

00:14:12.000 Well, you, when you're, when you're living out of a picnic box, you know, sometimes,

00:14:19.000 well, we didn't have a, we didn't have a lot of ice or anything to keep things cold.

00:14:23.000 So you remember those things.

00:14:24.000 I got salmonella.

00:14:25.000 Yeah, you remember those things.

00:14:26.000 I got salmonella two years ago in January.

00:14:30.000 You, oh, and I had Scarlett and she was still in her crib, like young enough that when she

00:14:35.000 wakes up in the morning, I have to go in there and pick her up. 0.99

00:14:37.000 And I was so sick.

00:14:38.000 I couldn't move.

00:14:39.000 Yes, you were so sick.

00:14:40.000 And I had to get you to come over.

00:14:41.000 Oh, I remember.

00:14:42.000 I remember to get Scarlett up because I had like a fever and I couldn't.

00:14:46.000 Yeah, you were really sick.

00:14:47.000 I thought I was sick.

00:14:48.000 Yeah.

00:14:49.000 It was like three days of, I thought I was going to die.

00:14:51.000 And then the fourth or fifth day I could eat again and was like, huh, wow.

00:14:56.000 That was nasty.

00:14:57.000 But that sounds like what you got.

00:14:59.000 I wonder if it was salmonella.

00:15:00.000 Except for I was sitting in the bush.

00:15:02.000 That's so much worse.

00:15:03.000 Sitting in the bush.

00:15:05.000 Anyway, it wasn't that big a deal.

00:15:07.000 I think I was, although to come back to that, I think I had had my ankle replaced, re-replaced

00:15:12.000 then.

00:15:13.000 So I think I was still hopping around.

00:15:15.000 Oh, you might have been.

00:15:16.000 I think I was still hopping around.

00:15:18.000 So I wasn't in the bush, but I did have a surgery ankle.

00:15:21.000 Okay.

00:15:22.000 Well, I think you win.

00:15:23.000 And a toddler.

00:15:24.000 I think you win.

00:15:25.000 I don't know, man.

00:15:26.000 The bush doesn't sound good either.

00:15:27.000 Anyway, after the food poisoning.

00:15:28.000 We went, we got to Montreal and I recognized Sherbrooke Street and I said, oh, let's get off here.

00:15:33.000 So we go down Sherbrooke Street and I'm like this little town girl.

00:15:37.000 Right.

00:15:38.000 I'm a rural girl.

00:15:39.000 I lived in Edmonton for a year, but I'm a little, and we down Sherbrooke Street.

00:15:43.000 And I see this guy walking down the street and he's got on leather shorts and a leather vest.

00:15:51.000 And that's about all, you know, and, and boots on.

00:15:55.000 And I was just complete.

00:15:58.000 My eyes were just, I was just glued to this guy.

00:16:01.000 I couldn't believe what I saw.

00:16:03.000 And I thought, wow, I've, you know, I've finally moved somewhere where something's happening.

00:16:09.000 And then we stopped at a light.

00:16:11.000 The light was red and the car in front of us turned right, right into the parked car beside him.

00:16:17.000 And I was just like, what kind of place is this?

00:16:20.000 You could go to a bar and you could, you could carry your drinks around.

00:16:24.000 Yeah.

00:16:25.000 You could stand up in a bar in Alberta.

00:16:27.000 You could, you can't stand up in a bar because if you stand up in a bar with a drink, you're going to fight.

00:16:31.000 So you get kicked out.

00:16:33.000 Really?

00:16:34.000 Yeah.

00:16:35.000 So when I came to Ontario, of course I was only five foot two, so it didn't do me any good to stand up.

00:16:39.000 But you could stand up and walk around and talk.

00:16:42.000 Yeah.

00:16:43.000 In Montreal.

00:16:44.000 Good.

00:16:45.000 Until three in the morning.

00:16:46.000 People socialize like crazy in those bars.

00:16:48.000 Yes.

00:16:49.000 They wander around.

00:16:50.000 And on the streets.

00:16:51.000 And on the streets.

00:16:52.000 Yeah.

00:16:53.000 Yeah.

00:16:54.000 Well, in Alberta, no, that was like no goal.

00:16:55.000 You could have fight.

00:16:56.000 No goal.

00:16:57.000 That's right.

00:16:58.000 So it was quite a, so then I got to Montreal and I just loved it.

00:17:01.000 And I loved McGill too.

00:17:02.000 It was wonderful.

00:17:04.000 It was a wonderful year.

00:17:05.000 It was strange to be in a place where I couldn't get a job because I did, my French wasn't good enough.

00:17:10.000 And if you spoke English, it was, it was tense.

00:17:14.000 The atmosphere was tense.

00:17:16.000 So when I finished that year, I moved to, uh, Ottawa and I finished my degree in Ottawa.

00:17:22.000 And I went to university of Ottawa.

00:17:24.000 It was a bilingual university.

00:17:25.000 So I took half my courses in French and, uh, I got a science degree, uh, kinesiology degree.

00:17:33.000 And, uh, I studied with a massage therapist for a while cause I wanted to do massage afterwards.

00:17:39.000 And I didn't go to massage school, but I took weekend courses and read a lot and started offering massage therapy to people.

00:17:49.000 And at that time there was, there weren't that many massage therapists around cause it was about 19, it was 1987.

00:17:56.000 And, uh, I got people, I got people coming out of hospitals who were dying, coming to me for massage for some relief.

00:18:06.000 It was really quite a time to be offering those services.

00:18:10.000 Uh, I had one woman, she, she did pass away. 0.99

00:18:13.000 She had lupus and passed away.

00:18:15.000 Uh, I had another woman, she was in a cancer treatment.

00:18:18.000 She came to see me.

00:18:19.000 She, you know, she was okay, but hurting.

00:18:22.000 And I had, I had a lot and I taught yoga.

00:18:25.000 I taught yoga out of my house too.

00:18:27.000 Uh, when I first went to university, I'd studied yoga since I was 13 years old.

00:18:32.000 My aunt introduced me to, uh, yoga one summer when we were tearing down the pig barn and doing yoga lessons in the morning.

00:18:40.000 It was quite a summer.

00:18:41.000 I took, I took the yoga and went home and I just did yoga every day.

00:18:47.000 That is so cool.

00:18:48.000 I thought, I don't know, it seemed like something to do.

00:18:51.000 And I thought I might need this someday.

00:18:53.000 Yeah.

00:18:54.000 Well.

00:18:55.000 Right.

00:18:56.000 That's for sure.

00:18:57.000 So I always had that in my mind that I would need to know how to take care of myself when I was older, that life would get, I didn't know life would get complicated, but I, I didn't know that.

00:19:10.000 But I sensed that there would be a time where life would be too much for me and I would have to have skills to cope.

00:19:19.000 Right.

00:19:20.000 And yeah.

00:19:21.000 Well, that's certainly happened.

00:19:22.000 Thank goodness.

00:19:23.000 I did those things because I think those things have, well, they took me through high school successfully.

00:19:28.000 And otherwise I don't think, I don't know how successful I would have been.

00:19:33.000 Uh, you know, I'd come home at night after drinking and do a yoga pose or two and realize I drank too much.

00:19:40.000 You know, I mean, it would bring me back to myself all the time about just where I was.

00:19:44.000 So it's, it's like, you know, when you balance, when you, when you weigh something, you get it to stop at zero, zero first, and then you weigh it.

00:19:53.000 That's what I was like when I do my yoga, it would bring me back to myself and I could reflect, okay, I'm not, I'm doing okay today, or I'm really not balanced today.

00:20:05.000 Or I, I could, and, and I did that all through high school so that I didn't ever really go too far one way or another.

00:20:12.000 It kind of centered me.

00:20:14.000 And, uh, I'm really grateful for that because high school can be a disaster for some people.

00:20:20.000 High school is really hard.

00:20:22.000 High school is really hard.

00:20:23.000 I mean, people, uh, high schools are, even the teachers have seemed to be confused.

00:20:29.000 I mean, it's not just the kids are confused and I don't know, you know, I grew up in a very rural place in a public school, but I don't think it's all that different anywhere you go.

00:20:40.000 That kids are trying to find their way and there isn't a lot of guidance that they can listen to unless it's, I mean, this was old sage, you know, the yoga, this is centuries old.

00:20:53.000 It was something that had some staying power, power, and it wasn't the church and the church, you know, I went to the church, but I didn't get a lot from the minister that was there.

00:21:07.000 And there wasn't, and there just, although my grandmothers were religious, my mom didn't practice.

00:21:18.000 So we went to church as little kids and then as teenagers, not so much, and then left the church.

00:21:28.000 And when I went to Montreal, I went to church for a year there to a united church.

00:21:33.000 At Easter, I went to a Catholic church and it was all in French.

00:21:37.000 All they said was, you know, forgive me, Monseigneur, through the whole thing.

00:21:42.000 They were all, all these Frenchmen were wearing pastel suits and walk, it was really, it was Easter. 0.94

00:21:47.000 You know, they all looked like Easter eggs walking around the church.

00:21:50.000 It was quite an experience, but I went all by myself.

00:21:53.000 Right.

00:21:54.000 So, cause Jordan wasn't a church, church goer.

00:21:56.000 Okay.

00:21:57.000 Okay.

00:21:58.000 So let's go.

00:21:59.000 So you were in Ottawa, you finished your degree, you're doing massage therapy.

00:22:02.000 You're now fairly bilingual.

00:22:04.000 Now I'm fairly bilingual.

00:22:06.000 And Jordan gives me a call.

00:22:07.000 He's in Montreal.

00:22:08.000 When was the last time you talked to him?

00:22:10.000 I used to see him at Christmas, you know, I'd come home at Christmas.

00:22:15.000 Every year.

00:22:16.000 And then I didn't for a couple of years.

00:22:19.000 And then he said he was going to move to Ottawa.

00:22:22.000 And I thought, Oh, that'd be nice.

00:22:23.000 And then he didn't.

00:22:24.000 He got a job in Edmonton.

00:22:26.000 So he didn't come.

00:22:27.000 So then I kind of thought, well, I'm just going to pick up my life and go forward.

00:22:34.000 Yeah.

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00:24:11.000 So I went out with a fellow and lived with him for a couple of years.

00:24:18.000 And then I was finishing my degree and I got a phone call from Jordan that he was in Montreal.

00:24:23.000 That he was doing his PhD and he was going to McGill.

00:24:25.000 And so I went there for Thanksgiving in 2000, no, in 1986.

00:24:38.000 And he looked like he was doing all right.

00:24:43.000 And he was a lot taller.

00:24:44.000 Well, he was a lot taller a year after high school.

00:24:47.000 I met him in Fairview.

00:24:49.000 He got out of his car.

00:24:50.000 And he got out of his car for like a second or two longer than usual because he was a foot taller.

00:24:56.000 And he still wasn't marriable at that point though.

00:25:00.000 He was pretty much a wild man at that point.

00:25:02.000 But once I got to McGill, he looked like he wasn't quite as much of a wild man.

00:25:07.000 And that he was getting a life.

00:25:09.000 And that he had a plan.

00:25:11.000 And I thought that there was a possibility that maybe we could make a go of it.

00:25:19.000 Because he had already asked me to marry him a couple of times by then.

00:25:22.000 When?

00:25:23.000 At Christmas?

00:25:24.000 At New Year's.

00:25:26.000 I think at New Year's I said yes, that was the last time.

00:25:29.000 What?

00:25:30.000 I don't remember hearing about this.

00:25:31.000 I thought he wrote it to you in a letter.

00:25:33.000 He did.

00:25:34.000 He wrote me a letter and asked me to marry him there.

00:25:36.000 And I thought, is this guy for real?

00:25:38.000 Yeah, kind of.

00:25:39.000 I mean, that's not very romantic.

00:25:41.000 Where's the knee and the ring?

00:25:43.000 Yeah.

00:25:44.000 It's like, well, we did live 3000 miles apart.

00:25:46.000 Yeah.

00:25:47.000 And that, you know, back then to call home was, it wasn't, you didn't have a cell phone.

00:25:54.000 You didn't have a cell phone plan or anything.

00:25:56.000 It's kind of romantic.

00:25:57.000 It costs money for a long distance.

00:25:59.000 And we didn't have it.

00:26:00.000 I didn't have any extra money.

00:26:01.000 Neither did he.

00:26:02.000 Yeah.

00:26:03.000 And it is kind of romantic.

00:26:04.000 Yeah.

00:26:05.000 He wrote me a letter.

00:26:06.000 I think that used to be the way it was.

00:26:07.000 Really?

00:26:08.000 Because people would write letters.

00:26:09.000 I imagine.

00:26:10.000 Yeah.

00:26:11.000 A lot of letter writing, you know, love letters.

00:26:13.000 Remember?

00:26:14.000 You've heard of them?

00:26:15.000 Yeah.

00:26:16.000 Yeah.

00:26:17.000 I think he was probably going to Europe and wanted to know if I wanted to get, go with

00:26:23.000 him and also get married.

00:26:24.000 But I thought maybe he was joking because it was written in kind of a joking way.

00:26:28.000 He's probably nervous.

00:26:29.000 Yeah.

00:26:30.000 I was probably nervous.

00:26:31.000 You could pass it off as a joke if you said no, just in case.

00:26:34.000 That's right.

00:26:35.000 So I didn't quite know how to take it.

00:26:37.000 So I just kind of left that there.

00:26:40.000 And one time he asked me and I said, maybe.

00:26:43.000 I wasn't ready.

00:26:44.000 I wasn't ready yet.

00:26:45.000 I didn't want to say no, but I wasn't ready to say yes.

00:26:48.000 I still had to see which way his life went.

00:26:50.000 How old were you?

00:26:51.000 Well, when we got married, I was 27.

00:26:53.000 So did he ask you the first time when you were like 25 or something?

00:26:57.000 Oh, maybe 23.

00:26:58.000 Oh, okay.

00:26:59.000 That's pretty young.

00:27:00.000 That's pretty young.

00:27:01.000 Yeah.

00:27:02.000 I didn't know that.

00:27:03.000 Oh yeah.

00:27:04.000 Yeah.

00:27:05.000 I didn't know it started like that early.

00:27:07.000 The asking.

00:27:08.000 The asking?

00:27:09.000 Yeah.

00:27:10.000 The asking started kind of early.

00:27:11.000 You just tortured him for like four years.

00:27:13.000 And he started to, it looked like he was going to start to have some girlfriends.

00:27:16.000 I married him.

00:27:18.000 As soon as you saw other women moving in. 1.00

00:27:22.000 That's funny.

00:27:23.000 Yeah.

00:27:24.000 And he was just starting to feel like confident and everything.

00:27:27.000 And I married him.

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00:28:39.000 Desperately and definitely want to hear about your wife, Tammy.

00:28:42.000 Yeah.

00:28:43.000 And also, you're so well known for your views on men or how your ideas have been taken up so enthusiastically by young men.

00:28:52.000 But we want to talk to you about women. 0.95

00:28:54.000 Yeah, that's good.

00:28:55.000 So, but one of the things you and I share is that we both grew up in Canada.

00:29:01.000 I promised Christine I would not do my Canadian accent while you were here.

00:29:06.000 But you grew up in rural Alberta.

00:29:08.000 I grew up in Toronto.

00:29:10.000 And you are, what, the country's most famous guru now since Marshall McLuhan.

00:29:18.000 And, but, is the fact that you came from Canada have any effect on your views, do you think?

00:29:26.000 Has it formed you in any way?

00:29:28.000 I mean, what did, what would it, would it be the same if you think you'd grown up in rural Texas?

00:29:33.000 How has Canada contributed to your worldview?

00:29:35.000 She's always looking to promote Canada. 0.98

00:29:37.000 For the Canadian angle.

00:29:38.000 To promote Canada.

00:29:39.000 So, go for it.

00:29:40.000 Hey, we have listeners in Canada.

00:29:43.000 Well, I think the particular part of Canada I grew up in probably was formative to some degree.

00:29:50.000 I mean, the town I grew up in was only 50 years old.

00:29:53.000 You know, and the particular part of the world that I grew up in was really the last settled part of the North American prairie.

00:30:01.000 This was outside of Edmonton, correct?

00:30:02.000 Yeah, about 400 miles north of Edmonton.

00:30:04.000 Oh, 400 miles.

00:30:05.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:06.000 It's right at the tip of the-

00:30:07.000 That's a short distance.

00:30:08.000 A short distance.

00:30:09.000 Yeah.

00:30:10.000 A suburb.

00:30:11.000 The prairie stretches up that far north.

00:30:13.000 It stretches up farther north in Alberta than it does anywhere else in the North American continent.

00:30:17.000 And so, we were at the tip of viable farming, essentially.

00:30:21.000 And so, it was a new place and it was a rather raw place.

00:30:26.000 And it was a rather harsh place in many ways, especially because of the winter.

00:30:31.000 And it was fundamentally a working class place, although a prosperous working class place, right? 0.99

00:30:36.000 Because most of the industry there was related to the oil and gas industry.

00:30:40.000 And although it was cyclical, when things were good, working class people could make a very good living.

00:30:47.000 This was during the 70s, so through the whole-

00:30:49.000 Yeah.

00:30:50.000 Was it fun to be a kid in 400 miles outside a small town?

00:30:56.000 Yeah.

00:30:57.000 I liked it when I was a kid.

00:30:58.000 I wouldn't say it was as fun when I was a teenager.

00:31:01.000 Right.

00:31:02.000 But I'm not convinced that, you know, the majority of people who are teenagers necessarily have the most wonderful time of it.

00:31:11.000 I think adults often look backwards at the past through rose-colored glasses.

00:31:16.000 Yeah.

00:31:17.000 I think that's what the cartoonist Trudeau accused Reagan of doing continually.

00:31:22.000 Gary Trudeau.

00:31:23.000 You're at the American Enterprise Institute.

00:31:25.000 Don't.

00:31:26.000 Don't insult Mr. Reagan.

00:31:27.000 No, no.

00:31:28.000 I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

00:31:29.000 Definitely not.

00:31:30.000 I think the words you used for it in your book was teenage wasteland.

00:31:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:33.000 I think that's what you called it.

00:31:34.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:35.000 But it's Canadian-ness.

00:31:36.000 How has that formed you or affected you, if at all?

00:31:40.000 Maybe it didn't.

00:31:41.000 It's hard to say.

00:31:43.000 I mean, I've lived in lots of different parts of Canada now, and Canada's quite different.

00:31:48.000 I lived in, well, Alberta for a while, and it had this particular flavor of existence.

00:31:53.000 I mean, mostly in Fairview, I was striving to leave and to move ahead, let's say, or to

00:32:01.000 move, I hesitate to say up, but somewhere different, somewhere more urban.

00:32:06.000 But that's the case with many people.

00:32:07.000 I mean, the small towns all across the West in the US and in Canada are dying.

00:32:12.000 I mean, they're down to nothing, because everyone's moved to the cities.

00:32:16.000 I lived in Montreal for a good while, and that was interesting, because it was a very,

00:32:20.000 very different culture.

00:32:21.000 It was a culture that was, to some degree, stratified by language and by class.

00:32:26.000 None of that was true in Alberta, because it was so new that there's no class structure.

00:32:30.000 Right.

00:32:31.000 So that was quite interesting.

00:32:32.000 Right, and you worked, what I loved, I pulled a passage, because I think, as you say, people

00:32:37.000 are born in small places everywhere, and some want to leave and some don't.

00:32:40.000 You said, I wanted to be elsewhere.

00:32:43.000 I wasn't the only one.

00:32:45.000 Everyone who eventually left the Fairview I grew up knew they were leaving by the age of

00:32:48.000 12.

00:32:49.000 I knew, and my wife, who grew up with me on the same street, knew.

00:32:54.000 What was that thing?

00:32:55.000 What would you call that?

00:32:56.000 What's the thing that makes you want to leave and sets you off?

00:32:59.000 Because, as you point out, there was no class system.

00:33:02.000 Education was cheap in Canada compared to the United States.

00:33:05.000 Oh, yeah.

00:33:06.000 It wasn't cost that was stopping people.

00:33:08.000 You were from a, what, middle class order?

00:33:10.000 Yeah.

00:33:11.000 Sure, and my mother was a librarian, though she had trained as a nurse, so, you know,

00:33:15.000 we had a comfortable, I would say, suburban lifestyle, essentially.

00:33:19.000 Right.

00:33:20.000 You know, a moderate, middle class suburban lifestyle.

00:33:23.000 That's what Fairview looked like.

00:33:24.000 Right.

00:33:25.000 It looked like a suburb that was built mostly in the, say, between the 1950s and the 1970s.

00:33:29.000 Mm-hmm.

00:33:30.000 So.

00:33:31.000 The young Jordan and the then young Tammy, and you have to tell us that story how you met,

00:33:35.000 but wanted more.

00:33:37.000 Well, you know, I think that's one thing that is different to some degree about class.

00:33:44.000 My father and my mother had both left the towns they were from, and they were forward,

00:33:51.000 future-looking people.

00:33:53.000 And, you know, most of my friends who quit school and who didn't attend university, they

00:33:58.000 didn't have, they didn't have that sense, I would say, that more developed sense of a

00:34:04.000 world outside of what they knew.

00:34:06.000 And the other thing is that my father took us on long trips when I was a kid.

00:34:11.000 He was a teacher, and so he had summer holidays, and we drove all over western Canada and down

00:34:16.000 into the U.S., long driving trips, thousands of miles.

00:34:19.000 And, you know, that also gave us the sense that the world was a bigger place.

00:34:23.000 But I knew way before I was 12, I believe, that I was off at least to university.

00:34:28.000 And I think, generally, in your family, if you're liable to go to university, people don't even really talk about it.

00:34:35.000 It's just a given that that's what's going to happen.

00:34:37.000 It's something that you take in with every breath, almost.

00:34:42.000 It's often an unspoken expectation.

00:34:47.000 And maybe people make casual reference, like, well, when you go to college.

00:34:51.000 But it's not like there's a question about it.

00:34:54.000 Whereas if you're from a working-class background, especially if your family hasn't pursued post-secondary education,

00:35:00.000 that isn't in the realm of unspoken or spoken expectation.

00:35:05.000 And it wasn't like lots of my friends, including many of them who dropped out before they hit high school.

00:35:10.000 They weren't by no means the dimmest people in the class.

00:35:14.000 Like, they were plenty smart.

00:35:16.000 But they weren't oriented towards the idea of pursuing a career that involved intellectual engagement wasn't in their world view.

00:35:31.000 And, you know, when you hear people on the, let's say, more socialist end of the distribution talk about barriers to education,

00:35:38.000 they often talk about cost.

00:35:40.000 And sometimes cost is a barrier.

00:35:42.000 And it's more of a barrier.

00:35:43.000 Certainly in the United States.

00:35:44.000 Yeah, and it's more of a barrier.

00:35:45.000 Although there's still plenty of community colleges and state colleges where you can get educated for a perfectly reasonable amount of money.

00:35:52.000 But for my friends, money was never a reason they didn't pursue post-secondary education.

00:35:59.000 It was more like a truncated view of time, I would say.

00:36:05.000 You know, there was more of an emphasis on the here and now.

00:36:07.000 And there were jobs of plenty, I guess.

00:36:09.000 Well, there was also that, yeah.

00:36:11.000 And well-paying jobs.

00:36:12.000 Right.

00:36:13.000 Like, it wasn't obvious that you were in better shape economically to go to university than you were to—

00:36:16.000 Probably worse.

00:36:17.000 Oh, yeah.

00:36:18.000 Well, especially if you were doing something like working on the oil rigs.

00:36:20.000 Right, right.

00:36:21.000 But, you know, that was rough, cold, harsh work.

00:36:25.000 And it wasn't—once you had an in, you could stay employed.

00:36:30.000 But it wasn't that easy to land an entry-level job either.

00:36:33.000 And so, yeah, well, it was wise for lots of working class people to work in those jobs because they were unbelievably lucrative. 0.57

00:36:42.000 Mm-hmm.

00:36:43.000 So—and they should have been because they were very difficult and dangerous and frigid cold and rough.

00:36:48.000 So, you know, it's not like the people didn't earn their money.

00:36:51.000 Well, just tell us quickly, like, how you met your wife.

00:36:54.000 You were—you met her when you were seven or eight or—

00:36:57.000 Yeah, in grade three.

00:36:58.000 In grade three?

00:36:59.000 Yeah.

00:37:00.000 And you—did you fall in love with her?

00:37:02.000 In grade three.

00:37:03.000 In grade three?

00:37:04.000 Yeah.

00:37:06.000 And was it mutual?

00:37:09.000 Not in the beginning.

00:37:10.000 She wouldn't admit it if it was.

00:37:13.000 There were lots of the boys in grade three were in love with her.

00:37:16.000 She had a whole little crew of guys that were perfectly willing to follow her around and she was perfectly willing to exploit that.

00:37:22.000 Oh.

00:37:24.000 She was very good at it.

00:37:25.000 Yeah, she was a very popular little girl.

00:37:27.000 It's just so wonderful that you met children and—

00:37:30.000 Yeah, we were friends for a long time.

00:37:32.000 You know, we used to play chess together and croquet and she was a vicious croquet player. 1.00

00:37:36.000 She would—I don't know if you've ever played croquet, but if the—

00:37:39.000 It's good.

00:37:40.000 If your balls touch, then you can stand on yours and whack it and then the other person's ball will— 0.99

00:37:45.000 Oh, she did that? 1.00

00:37:46.000 — vanish off into the stratosphere and she liked to knock it all the way down the street. 0.99

00:37:50.000 Oh, that's mean.

00:37:51.000 Yeah, and then she'd laugh.

00:37:53.000 And, you know, so she always had a good sense of—good, vicious sense of humor. 1.00

00:37:58.000 It's one of the things I actually admire about my wife when we've had our verbal disputes, which, you know, have certainly happened. 1.00

00:38:05.000 She can string together a sequence of insults that's so hair-raising that you have to laugh. 0.99

00:38:11.000 It's like—

00:38:12.000 Did she have brothers?

00:38:14.000 She did.

00:38:15.000 She has a brother, much older, eight years older, but he's quite a peaceful person.

00:38:19.000 And she had two sisters.

00:38:20.000 I guess my girls with brothers can get along with guys because guys, they show love and affection by insults and jabs and jeers. 0.55

00:38:29.000 Yeah.

00:38:30.000 And if you—and I had a brother and I sort of learned, okay, I could—but if you don't have brothers, girls are like, oh, that's so rude. 1.00

00:38:36.000 That's so—

00:38:37.000 I think she was—

00:38:38.000 Yeah, well, she has a naturally— 0.99

00:38:40.000 Or maybe she came by it naturally.

00:38:42.000 Acerbic twist.

00:38:43.000 She did.

00:38:44.000 Well, and her father is quite sharp-witted, and—well, he was a real town character.

00:38:51.000 He's still alive.

00:38:52.000 He was a real character in the town, a real hyper-extrovert.

00:38:55.000 Everybody knew him.

00:38:56.000 And he had a pretty good wit on him, and she had some of that.

00:39:00.000 Well, it still does have some of that.

00:39:02.000 So she was a—

00:39:03.000 Well, aside from her acerbic humor and her ability to whack balls, and I just don't want to go further on that description. 0.96

00:39:11.000 That could have many, many things that tells us about you, but what else brought—what else attracted you?

00:39:18.000 I mean, you've known her pretty much your whole life, so some of the other qualities that not just attracted you but enable you to sustain.

00:39:26.000 I mean, I think every young person in this room will want to know—and maybe there isn't one—but what's the secret?

00:39:31.000 What's it like to be with someone that long?

00:39:33.000 How do you sustain that?

00:39:35.000 Well, I think if you're fortunate—some of it's—some of it's good fortune.

00:39:39.000 You know, and I would say this is true.

00:39:41.000 I've watched people in their relationships, you know, personally for a long time, but also as a professional because I've done a lot of clinical counseling.

00:39:48.000 And I mean, there's some things that need to be a given about the relationship, I would say.

00:39:54.000 It doesn't hurt to find the other person very attractive, you know, and that's a mysterious thing.

00:40:00.000 We're not exactly sure what it is that produces, let's say, chemistry between people, although chemistry is definitely part of what produces it.

00:40:07.000 There are subtle things that attract people to one another that are way below the level of consciousness.

00:40:12.000 So, for example, women don't like the odor of men who have RH blood factors who, if they had children with, would be likely to produce a stillborn infant.

00:40:25.000 Well, that's definitely a category on Match.com.

00:40:27.000 Yeah.

00:40:28.000 Right, right, right.

00:40:29.000 Well, it's so strange, though, because you—

00:40:31.000 How does that—how do you even know?

00:40:33.000 Well, that's a good question, and you know by odor, apparently.

00:40:37.000 And so, there's also—

00:40:39.000 If you're wearing cologne.

00:40:41.000 Well, that—then it would depend on what type of cologne it is, but—

00:40:44.000 RH, what was it?

00:40:45.000 Right.

00:40:46.000 Smell is a very strange sense, and it's very deeply tied to very profound emotions, including memory.

00:40:53.000 And so, you find people attractive for reasons that you can't always determine.

00:41:00.000 And so, that was part of it.

00:41:03.000 I mean, I've always found her very attractive, and that continues.

00:41:06.000 And I liked her combativeness, you know.

00:41:09.000 Like, I think that there's—you want someone, I think, in a relationship that you can spar with.

00:41:17.000 And it's partly because you have hard problems to solve.

00:41:22.000 And if the person that you're with isn't willing to put forward their opinion, then you only have half the cognitive power that you would otherwise have.

00:41:33.000 You know, and hopefully you find someone who's interestingly different from you.

00:41:37.000 Like, not so different that you can't communicate, and you have to be careful of that.

00:41:41.000 But interestingly different.

00:41:42.000 And then, hopefully, they have the ability and the will to express their opinion.

00:41:47.000 And then, well, then it's—you know, then your interest stays heightened.

00:41:52.000 And there has to be that tension in a relationship.

00:41:54.000 You know, people think, well, I want to get along perfectly with my partner.

00:41:59.000 It's like, no, you probably don't.

00:42:03.000 You just get bored, and then you go looking for trouble.

00:42:06.000 And so, you want a little bit of trouble in the relationship, and a little bit of mystery, and a little bit of combativeness, and the ability to exchange opinions forthrightly.

00:42:16.000 And I trust her, which is a huge element.

00:42:20.000 I mean, when we finally did decide to get together permanently, we were both in our later 20s.

00:42:27.000 And, you know, one of the things that I had learned by that point and insisted to her about was that we had to tell each other the truth.

00:42:36.000 And she took to that wholeheartedly, you know, and for better and for worse, because truths can be harsh.

00:42:47.000 Does that include, like, does this outfit make me look like that?

00:42:51.000 Yeah, well, the truthful answer to that is I don't answer questions that are likely to get me in trouble.

00:42:57.000 Yeah, so—

00:42:59.000 I have a son who will answer honestly, and it's infuriating.

00:43:03.000 But then I realized, if you want the truth, talk to Tam.

00:43:06.000 Well, that's the thing, you know.

00:43:08.000 It's useful to know.

00:43:10.000 The truth is empowering.

00:43:11.000 Truth-tellers are charismatic.

00:43:13.000 And, you know, actually, both my sons are, like, brutally honest, which is disconcerting.

00:43:17.000 Yeah.

00:43:18.000 But it's—I can see that it's made them very formidable.

00:43:24.000 And because of the people trust them and the friendships and just—it gives them a—and you've written a lot about this.

00:43:32.000 Well, you know, if I tell my wife that she looks good in an outfit, she knows that I mean it.

00:43:36.000 Yeah.

00:43:37.000 And so there's some utility in that.

00:43:39.000 And then if you're silent and say, I don't answer questions, she goes and she knows it.

00:43:43.000 Well, sometimes, you know, she'll say, you know, do you like this?

00:43:46.000 And I'll tell her that I don't.

00:43:48.000 And, you know—

00:43:49.000 No, that's useful.

00:43:50.000 And that doesn't necessarily make her happy in the moment.

00:43:52.000 Right.

00:43:53.000 But if I do say I like it, she knows that I mean it.

00:43:58.000 And, you know, I actually like her sense of style a lot.

00:44:01.000 So it turns out that 90% of the time, it's pretty easy for me to say, look, I think you look great, and mean it.

00:44:06.000 And, you know, she's a fairly harsh standard bearer, too. 0.99

00:44:10.000 Like, she's insisted that I stay in whatever reasonable physical shape I happen to be in.

00:44:16.000 You know, that was something that she's very demanding of.

00:44:19.000 And I would say that it's the same from my side.

00:44:22.000 And we've been good at negotiating, which is, you know, what do you want from a partner fundamentally?

00:44:31.000 What do you want and need?

00:44:32.000 I mean, the first thing is, is that, well, hopefully, like I said, you're blessed with the fact that you find each other attractive.

00:44:39.000 And I think it's very difficult for the relationship to begin or proceed or sustain itself without that.

00:44:47.000 And I think of Tammy, and I think of you, and we don't hear a great deal of Tammy, but you guys are, I'm sure, working really hard.

00:44:56.000 You're contending.

00:44:57.000 You're confronting all this stuff and you're processing it.

00:45:00.000 And I'm sure your marriage is strengthening.

00:45:02.000 I trust it is.

00:45:03.000 And I'd love some insight on that, if you can speak to what you're learning about marriage in this season of your life.

00:45:09.000 Well, the first thing we're doing is that Tammy is traveling with me.

00:45:14.000 So that's very helpful.

00:45:16.000 And she's paying attention.

00:45:18.000 You know, so, and we talk a lot about what is going on, but also a lot about our family,

00:45:26.000 because there's complicated things going on in our family like there are in most families.

00:45:30.000 We do our best to communicate.

00:45:33.000 You know, and she says what she thinks.

00:45:35.000 And I say what I think.

00:45:37.000 And we don't always think the same thing.

00:45:40.000 You know, but we do our best to listen.

00:45:44.000 We do our best to assume that just because the other person has a different opinion doesn't mean that they're wrong,

00:45:50.000 even though it would be lovely if they were.

00:45:52.000 And then we try to come up with a negotiated solution that's mutually acceptable.

00:45:59.000 You know, and we discuss strategy as well.

00:46:02.000 I mean, for example, when we started this tour, which was more than a year ago,

00:46:07.000 we thought, you know, there's a lot of competing things that you could think about a tour,

00:46:11.000 especially when we had no idea how long it would be.

00:46:13.000 Like, what was this?

00:46:15.000 Was this a vacation?

00:46:16.000 We were going to, you know, spectacular cities all over the world.

00:46:22.000 Was it time for us to spend together?

00:46:24.000 Like, what was it?

00:46:25.000 What were we doing?

00:46:26.000 And we spent two hours thinking.

00:46:29.000 It's like, no, this is work.

00:46:31.000 We have a remarkable opportunity here.

00:46:33.000 And we're going to do the work.

00:46:36.000 We're going to hit as many cities as we can.

00:46:38.000 And so what does that mean?

00:46:40.000 It means we get the hell up in the morning.

00:46:42.000 We make sure we're packed.

00:46:43.000 Our suitcases aren't too full.

00:46:45.000 We don't carry anything that goes underneath the plane.

00:46:48.000 We make sure that I don't get hungry because then I can't perform properly.

00:46:52.000 We make sure that I'm at the theater at the right point in time.

00:46:56.000 And we make sure that our eye is focused on the fact that it's a great privilege

00:47:01.000 and it's very unlikely that we can do this.

00:47:03.000 And so we thought, okay, that's the deal.

00:47:05.000 And then we thought, well, and then we can take an hour or two here and there if we're

00:47:10.000 fortunate to see some of the city and to take a break and to do that when we can.

00:47:14.000 And, you know, we've negotiated other details about exactly how intense the scheduling was going to be.

00:47:20.000 But it's a constant negotiation.

00:47:23.000 And it is a contentious negotiation, which is good because these things are complicated, you know.

00:47:30.000 And to think something complicated through, you need a good argument on this side and you need a good argument on this side.

00:47:36.000 And then you've got to have at her and see if you can come out with an even better argument as a consequence.

00:47:41.000 And so that seemed to work.

00:47:43.000 Now, there's other advantages.

00:47:45.000 It turns out that Tammy is very suited. 0.88

00:47:48.000 I'm sorry I'm speaking for her, but she doesn't have a microphone and actually prefers to stay in the background to some degree for various reasons.

00:47:56.000 She's very suited to a life like this.

00:47:59.000 She's quite stable emotionally.

00:48:02.000 So she doesn't suffer from a lot of anxiety.

00:48:05.000 She likes to travel.

00:48:07.000 She likes meeting new people.

00:48:11.000 She likes the adventure.

00:48:13.000 And she's supporting what I'm doing.

00:48:16.000 And so that's working.

00:48:18.000 And thank God for that.

00:48:20.000 And then she also keeps an eye on what I'm doing and lets me know when it's going well and when she thinks it needs improvement.

00:48:29.000 And she helps me figure out where I'm going next.

00:48:34.000 Because for the last two years my schedule has been so busy that I don't know what I'm doing next usually.

00:48:41.000 Maybe the next day.

00:48:43.000 And so her job, because we've also parceled out jobs, is to make sure that I get wherever I'm going next on time and ready.

00:48:52.000 And so far that's brought, I would say, incalculable benefits fundamentally.

00:48:58.000 And because we agreed on it, we had our little constitution in place, we were able to handle the stress.

00:49:07.000 Because I think we've been in a hundred and, it's damn near 150 cities in 350 days.

00:49:14.000 And so it's very heavy traveling schedule.

00:49:18.000 But, and the other thing too is, I trust her.

00:49:22.000 She tells me the truth.

00:49:24.000 It isn't necessarily what I want to hear.

00:49:26.000 Well, you can tell.

00:49:27.000 That's the truth, man.

00:49:28.000 It's what you don't necessarily want to hear.

00:49:31.000 But, so she's a very good counselor.

00:49:33.000 And that's turned out to be exceptionally helpful.

00:49:38.000 So, and I'm with my wife.

00:49:41.000 I've been with her for, well, I've known her for 50 years.

00:49:44.000 And we stuck together through good times and bad times.

00:49:47.000 And it's definitely worth it.

00:49:49.000 It's continual negotiating and effort.

00:49:54.000 But, you know, we have a, we have a narrative of our life that's complete and unbroken.

00:50:02.000 And it's, that's unbelievably valuable.

00:50:05.000 If you're told your parent or your wife of almost 30 years has no chance and is going to be dead in the next 10 months.

00:50:15.000 That's what we were told that surgery doesn't help.

00:50:18.000 And that chemo doesn't help. 0.96

00:50:19.000 And that this is a fast growing cancer and you're screwed no matter what. 0.98

00:50:23.000 Right. 0.99

00:50:24.000 That's what we heard in one day.

00:50:25.000 Right.

00:50:26.000 So yeah, anxiety.

00:50:27.000 And then we went all over North America to New York and to Houston and to LA looking for different opinions before we decided to settle on surgery.

00:50:34.000 But, and everyone gave us the same opinion.

00:50:36.000 Yes.

00:50:37.000 Which was that nothing is going to help, but surgery was probably the best, the best low probability bet.

00:50:44.000 Well, you know, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, they told me it was treatable.

00:50:48.000 And so I thought, okay, it's treatable.

00:50:50.000 I'll just do this and, and, and move on.

00:50:53.000 And so I came home from Australia.

00:50:55.000 I had surgery.

00:50:56.000 Six weeks later, I was walking from, you know, midtown to the lake front and back.

00:51:02.000 I was, I was in good shape.

00:51:05.000 Then I went to my, uh, six week doctor's appointment and they told me actually, no, we were wrong.

00:51:10.000 What you have is a type of cancer.

00:51:13.000 That's, I mean, we never see cause everybody dies so fast.

00:51:16.000 You're going to die in 11 months.

00:51:18.000 If we, we, we have to do surgery like right now and there's no chemo already.

00:51:22.000 We don't know how to treat this.

00:51:24.000 So all we're going to do is, is take your kidney out and all your lymph out and hope for the best. 0.98

00:51:29.000 And, uh, I thought, Oh, I'm going to die.

00:51:33.000 When I got that terminal illness prognosis, I was at the hospital with my husband.

00:51:41.000 We came home and I thought I was thinking on the way home.

00:51:44.000 I'm 57.

00:51:47.000 I had many aunts that lived this long, many uncles.

00:51:51.000 They, they died when they were in their fifties.

00:51:53.000 Maybe I'm one of them too, you know, so I can accept that.

00:51:56.000 Um, if I'm going to die now, uh, I can accept that.

00:52:00.000 I've lived a good life and, um, I've always thought I was in control of my life.

00:52:10.000 And I always thought I was a tough person that I could do whatever I wanted to do.

00:52:15.000 And I decided I'd make this decision as well.

00:52:18.000 But when I got home and told my son and my daughter,

00:52:23.000 the looks on their faces made me think, Oh, I'm not thinking about this.

00:52:35.000 Right.

00:52:36.000 This isn't about me.

00:52:38.000 None of this is about me.

00:52:39.000 This is about my loved ones.

00:52:42.000 And, uh, I'm here for them and they need me.

00:52:50.000 And so I'll do it.

00:52:52.000 That's why people go through surgery and, and, uh, radiation and chemotherapy and all that.

00:52:58.000 That's why people will have limbs removed and everything. 0.99

00:53:02.000 And you think, God, that's awful.

00:53:03.000 Why do people do that?

00:53:04.000 It's because, um, of the people that they love.

00:53:09.000 That's why we live is because we are social creatures.

00:53:13.000 Like we were speaking before our arms are made to hug.

00:53:18.000 We are, are here to serve others.

00:53:22.000 And, uh, I, all of a sudden it was really quite a momentary change for me that I understood

00:53:34.000 that this was a whole different story than I had thought in the beginning.

00:53:39.000 So when I went back in the hospital and had surgery and I was, I wanted to live, you know,

00:53:46.000 I, and I said I would do anything and I would be grateful for all the care and the help that

00:53:55.000 I was getting.

00:53:57.000 Like, as far as I'm concerned, I died and came back to life.

00:54:02.000 So, and probably, and spiritually I've been reborn.

00:54:05.000 And I think I understand what reborn means now.

00:54:08.000 And I think this is something that when you get sick and it looks like there's no way back,

00:54:15.000 then you have to prepare yourself for what might happen.

00:54:20.000 And, um, I was put in a position where I was at the mercy of medicine and luck really.

00:54:33.000 And so all the prayers that came through all the people that Jordan and I had met on tour,

00:54:39.000 I, I breathed in those prayers, you know, the night before my surgery,

00:54:43.000 I breathed in gold prayers to myself.

00:54:46.000 And I asked myself why I turned against myself and like, why these little cells,

00:54:53.000 it was like they had turned away.

00:54:55.000 That's what it was like.

00:54:56.000 It was like, Hey, you guys, like, where'd you go?

00:55:00.000 We have a job to do here.

00:55:02.000 We, everybody else is keeping me alive.

00:55:04.000 You guys, what are you turned away for?

00:55:06.000 But they were turned away for good.

00:55:09.000 And I couldn't turn them back to me again.

00:55:12.000 And then I realized, you know, through this meditation I was doing that I had to give the

00:55:20.000 cancer to the universe because cancer is too big for one person.

00:55:24.000 And so after that moment, anybody who would offer me any prayer or any relief of any kind

00:55:37.000 or, or just a smile or anything, I would, I would take it.

00:55:41.000 I would take it and bring it to myself.

00:55:43.000 And I was, I, I realized that it wasn't that it wasn't a, it was, I wasn't doing it exactly.

00:55:50.000 For me, I was doing that to survive so that I could be someone who could be of service to Jordan.

00:55:57.000 Right.

00:55:58.000 Be of service to you, be, be a grandmother for my grandkids.

00:56:02.000 So I had these other things in my life that were, that were important.

00:56:08.000 And maybe I was going to die, but I was going to do whatever I had in my power to do to stay alive.

00:56:18.000 And really prayer was a big part of what I did.

00:56:25.000 You know, I had a very good friend come to the hospital when I was in the hospital for five weeks.

00:56:30.000 Every day she came at 10 in the morning and we prayed for two hours a day.

00:56:35.000 And I just cried and told her my life story really, and prayed.

00:56:40.000 And I still pray every day.

00:56:43.000 She taught me the rosary, the cat, and I'm not Catholic, but she taught me the, the rosary.

00:56:50.000 And I memorized it and I, I read about it and I understand it.

00:56:57.000 And I pray it every day to start my day.

00:57:02.000 And I meditate every day to start my day.

00:57:04.000 And my intention, my intention always is thy will be done.

00:57:09.000 I'm in service for God's will.

00:57:14.000 And that doesn't mean that I'm not taking part in life.

00:57:20.000 I am, but I'm not the person who's making the decisions.

00:57:26.000 I'm not playing God anymore.

00:57:29.000 Tammy, my wife, has always taken the idea of truth very seriously.

00:57:34.000 Her recent brush with death has deepened her religious sense and impelled her towards a life that's more consciously focused on service to others.

00:57:46.000 Her family in particular, but not only her family, people beyond the family.

00:57:51.000 And I also think that's a function to some degree of our stage of life.

00:57:56.000 She's a grandmother now and her children are grown and able to take care of themselves.

00:58:01.000 And so she can turn her attention to other people, maybe farther afield from the immediate family.

00:58:09.000 I'm watching what she's doing and listening to her and watching her practical application of her faith.

00:58:17.000 And that affects me just as everything she does affects me because I watch what she does and take it seriously.

00:58:26.000 And her recent actions have indicated she's helped a number of people quite substantially, the group that she's been communicating with.

00:58:36.000 And all of that's very interesting to me.

00:58:39.000 She's showing me, I mean, I've taken the idea of God seriously for a very long time.

00:58:46.000 And I've said on multiple occasions that I try to act as though God exists and that that's essentially my definition of belief.

00:58:53.000 When people say, do you believe in God?

00:58:55.000 Belief is a multidimensional word.

00:58:58.000 And the question, one question is, well, what do you mean by believe?

00:59:03.000 And for me, the proof of belief is to be found in action.

00:59:07.000 And I decided that I would act as if God existed a long while back.

00:59:12.000 And of course, I'm imperfect in that, inevitably.

00:59:17.000 Now she's doing that more explicitly as well.

00:59:21.000 Not she wasn't doing it quite well to begin with.

00:59:24.000 She's doing it more explicitly and also more within the confines of traditional religious conceptions.

00:59:31.000 Although she's not attending church, she's associating with a number of people who are formally religious.

00:59:37.000 And all of that's informing the way that she conducts herself.

00:59:40.000 So it's watching her do that has also highlighted for me the missing praxis in Western Christianity.

00:59:50.000 If you want to be a Christian, let's say, if you think that's necessary, it's not exactly obvious what you should do. 0.99

00:59:57.000 You should go to church.

00:59:59.000 But that's not enough, I don't think.

01:00:02.000 I find it useful to contemplate the highest good on a continual basis.

01:00:09.000 I'm trying to keep myself oriented in that direction.

01:00:11.000 It's a religious orientation, fundamentally.

01:00:14.000 It's an overwhelming orientation.

01:00:17.000 But there's no escaping the questions of the ultimate meaning of life.

01:00:22.000 When Jordan first asked me to marry him, uh, he told me that if we didn't tell the truth, our relationship couldn't work.

01:00:30.000 And so that was going to be, and that was when he was 25, something like that.

01:00:36.000 Uh, and, um, so that was the first thing that we were to tell the truth.

01:00:46.000 And I hadn't really understood what that meant.

01:00:49.000 I first took that to mean my truth in what the truth in, in my relationships, what I'm, uh, where my goals are to make sure that that was all truthful.

01:01:04.000 Um, so that was the first.

01:01:07.000 So honesty, honesty was paramount.

01:01:11.000 And he still talks about that as being very, very important.

01:01:18.000 And so that is what got us started and really took us through the, the other thing was that not, we, we didn't let, we didn't, if there was a problem, we didn't just let it go.

01:01:39.000 And it might've taken three days in the beginning to uncover what was happening because, uh, we both were pretty strong headed and probably didn't really want to admit that we had done anything to cause the trouble.

01:01:58.000 So in the early days, but we, we didn't give up on it.

01:02:03.000 Uh, he was very good at, uh, even though he doesn't like conflict, he's a very soft hearted, very compassionate person.

01:02:13.000 As you can tell, uh, through his public image, he's a very compassionate person.

01:02:20.000 Um, but he would, and knowing that this would be uncomfortable, he would still insist that we talk about it until we understood it.

01:02:32.000 And that was really good.

01:02:34.000 We got through a lot of trouble by perseverance and, you know, at the end of every mystery in the rosary, you pretty much pray for perseverance.

01:02:50.000 And it's all about trying again and getting up and trying again and getting up and trying again, no matter what.

01:02:57.000 Well, look, I'm old now.

01:02:59.000 I'm 60 and my wife is 60.

01:03:01.000 Okay.

01:03:02.000 So we're grandparents and I can tell you what makes our lives worthwhile.

01:03:06.000 Go on.

01:03:07.000 Well, I'm really attracted to my wife.

01:03:11.000 Get it girl.

01:03:14.000 Well, and we've been, uh, sorry.

01:03:20.000 Don't be sorry.

01:03:22.000 We've been, uh, isolated from each other for a long time because we were both so sick.

01:03:27.000 It's been two years really.

01:03:28.000 And the physical intimacy element of our marriage is extremely important.

01:03:34.000 We're very careful about that and value it extremely highly and pay a tremendous amount of attention.

01:03:40.000 It's a really important that the sexual element, the romantic element, those 10, those two things, when they're properly handled, they're indistinguishable.

01:03:49.000 And if you think that sex is okay without romance, you don't know anything about romance because sex is so much better with romance that it's not even the same thing.

01:03:58.000 So, so that's all important.

01:04:01.000 But as you get older, what's important is that, well, you have a family, you have your children, you have your grandchildren, you have a continuity of narrative.

01:04:09.000 You have a long-term relationship that you've built.

01:04:11.000 Yeah.

01:04:12.000 Like that's, that's what's important.

01:04:16.000 And when, when you're doing things impulsively, when you're young, you're, you're not paying attention to the old you.

01:04:21.000 The, you have to have the old you in mind, you're going to be old and you have to be building towards that, or you're going to be old and say, and things are going to be a catastrophe.

01:04:32.000 We were very close friends.

01:04:35.000 We enjoyed each other's company when we were kids.

01:04:37.000 I thought he was, he was smart back then.

01:04:40.000 He was fascinating to be around.

01:04:41.000 He had different ways of looking at things and, and dissecting problems.

01:04:46.000 And, you know, when we were really little, we played with a chemistry set, you know, we liked that.

01:04:51.000 And he really liked that.

01:04:52.000 And I got to be a part of that.

01:04:53.000 He taught me how to play chess when I was a little kid.

01:04:56.000 That was really great.

01:04:57.000 And I was five years younger than my siblings.

01:05:00.000 So I didn't really grow up with my family.

01:05:02.000 I grew up with my friends and he was one of the friends that I grew up with.

01:05:06.000 And I never got tired of being with him.

01:05:12.000 And then when I left home, when I was 18, I didn't really see him that much until I was in my twenties or my, my, my mid twenties.

01:05:22.000 And I went to, he called me and had moved within a couple of hours of where I lived when we were in our twenties.

01:05:33.000 Um, and I went to visit him and he was getting his PhD.

01:05:38.000 So it looked like he was getting his life together.

01:05:41.000 He was, uh, taking responsibility for himself and moving forward.

01:05:47.000 And I thought, you know, if I don't marry him, I won't know what happens in his life.

01:05:55.000 How did I meet my wife and why did you marry her? 0.95

01:05:59.000 Oh, well, I'll tell you one of the earliest memories I have of my wife.

01:06:05.000 Cause it kind of tells you what she's like.

01:06:07.000 Okay. So she lived across the street from me in this little town that we grew up in called Fairview, Alberta.

01:06:12.000 And I think I fell in love with her the moment that I saw her.

01:06:15.000 And, uh, although I don't think the feeling was necessarily mutual.

01:06:18.000 And so I was about like seven, I think something like that.

01:06:21.000 So I've known her for like 48 years.

01:06:25.000 And here's one memory. Cause this is, there are two memories I'll tell you.

01:06:29.000 So one of them was, um, when I was in grade five, I got glasses and I was pretty proud of these glasses.

01:06:35.000 They were horn rimmed glasses, you know, and I was pretty proud of them.

01:06:38.000 And I went out and I, she came out onto the street and she looked at my glasses.

01:06:43.000 I said, what do you think of those?

01:06:44.000 And she says, I think you look really funny in those.

01:06:46.000 And then she pointed at me and ran into her house. 1.00

01:06:48.000 And it was like 20 years later that she finally told me that she had always wanted to have glasses.

01:06:53.000 And she was jealous about it, but you know, she decided she'd give me a good teasing and a good poke.

01:06:57.000 And so that, and then we used to play croquet together.

01:07:01.000 And one of the great delights she would take is, I don't know if you've ever played croquet,

01:07:05.000 but you know, you're sometimes the one person's ball that they're hitting and another person's will come together.

01:07:11.000 And then you can stand on your ball and you can nail it with the croquet mallet and like knock the other person's croquet ball halfway down the block.

01:07:19.000 And she used to think that was pretty damn amusing when she did it to me. 1.00

01:07:22.000 So, and let's see, what else can I remember about her?

01:07:27.000 That was, but yeah, I mean, I told my dad when I was in grade five, I was sitting with her on this big armchair in our living room.

01:07:36.000 And she was sitting beside me on the armchair, which I was pretty damn thrilled about.

01:07:40.000 And she was being chased around by all the boys in the school at that point, even though she, that was in the elementary school, you know.

01:07:46.000 So she was very hot property, let's say among the elementary school boys.

01:07:51.000 And so I was pretty happy to have her sit by me.

01:07:53.000 And so anyway, she left and I told my dad that I was going to marry her.

01:08:01.000 And I remember that.

01:08:03.000 And he told that story at our wedding, which was quite cute.

01:08:05.000 And then I'll tell you one more story, which I really think is funny.

01:08:08.000 This is so funny.

01:08:09.000 So we, we were friends when we were kids and then, you know, girls mature faster than boys.

01:08:16.000 And she's a year older than me because I skipped a grade in school.

01:08:19.000 We were in the same grade in school.

01:08:20.000 And so, you know, when she hit about 13 or so, we kind of went our separate ways a little bit, although we still remain friends.

01:08:27.000 And she had a paper route and I took her paper route over when she hit 13 or so. 0.96

01:08:33.000 And I like quadrupled the damn thing, I think, which I think is pretty funny. 0.95

01:08:37.000 But I also delivered paper to her house. 0.98

01:08:40.000 And one day she was there with another, another of her friends and who was kind of a cute chick too.

01:08:47.000 And I liked her quite a bit.

01:08:49.000 And they were sitting around talking about, like talking about how they were feminists, roughly speaking. 0.87

01:08:56.000 And they were talking when I walked in about the fact that neither of them were going to take their husband's last name when they got married.

01:09:03.000 And Tammy, my wife, I think said to her friend, well, that really means I'm going to have to find some wimp and marry him. 1.00

01:09:11.000 And she turned around and looked at me and smiled evilly and said, hey, Jordan, do you want to get married? 1.00

01:09:17.000 And of course, I'd heard the whole conversation.

01:09:19.000 And, you know, she knew I liked her, obviously.

01:09:21.000 And so that was a nice little comical dig.

01:09:23.000 She has a very vicious sense of humor. 1.00

01:09:25.000 And, you know, I kind of laughed.

01:09:27.000 And I thought, ha, ha, ha.

01:09:28.000 OK, yeah.

01:09:29.000 OK, I'm so fine.

01:09:30.000 So then when we were, I was like 28 and she had come to see me in Montreal and we were talking about getting married.

01:09:42.000 And she said we were talking about what that would mean.

01:09:45.000 And then we started talking about what the name would be.

01:09:48.000 And I said, hey, I've got a story for you.

01:09:50.000 Remember when you were 13 and I was delivering papers to your house?

01:09:54.000 And because I suggested that she take my last name and she wasn't so sure about that.

01:10:00.000 And I said, well, you remember that little story that little episode that we had when you were 13 and I came over to your house and you told me that you weren't going to take your husband's name and that you're going to have to marry some wimp. 1.00

01:10:10.000 Said, OK, well, you know, here I am.

01:10:12.000 But, you know, if we're going to get married, you're going to take my name.

01:10:15.000 And that's the end of that argument.

01:10:16.000 And so, you know, she had the good graces to go along with that. 0.95

01:10:19.000 But that was actually, you know, extraordinarily comical and ridiculous. 0.96

01:10:23.000 So. 0.58

01:10:24.000 So, yeah, so that's a good one.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - February 18, 2022

Jordan and Tammy

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