The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors

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00:02:06.700 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast. You can support these podcasts by donating to Dr.

00:02:17.920 Peterson's Patreon, the link to which can be found in the description. Dr. Peterson's self-development

00:02:24.100 programs, self-authoring, can be found at selfauthoring.com.

00:02:36.700 That's a hell of a welcome for someone who's going to talk about the Bible.

00:02:55.220 So I thought I would get farther than through Genesis by this point, but I'm not unhappy about

00:03:07.840 the pace either. I've learned a tremendous amount. And so hopefully what we'll do today is finish

00:03:13.500 Genesis completely. And then I think I'll try to start up with Exodus in May, depending on what

00:03:22.620 happens next year. I have a busy travel schedule. But I would really like to do it. I really like

00:03:27.580 the Exodus story, and I understand it very well. A lot of the stories in Genesis, especially after

00:03:32.560 the first few stories, say up to the Tower of Babel, I had to do a tremendous amount of learning

00:03:37.520 about, which is really good. But I do know the Exodus story, so I'm really looking forward to that.

00:03:43.080 So let's dive right into it and see how far we can get today. So we'll review first.

00:03:50.280 So Joseph's father is Jacob, and Jacob is the patriarch of Israel, essentially, the father

00:03:58.620 of the 12 tribes. And you might remember that he had a very morally ambivalent pathway through

00:04:15.660 life. And it's one of the things that I think is so interesting about the stories in the Old

00:04:21.380 Testament, is that these so-called patriarchal figures are very realistic. And it's something

00:04:29.780 that... I've also been struck by the accounts in the New Testament that way. There's lots of things

00:04:35.320 that Christ does that you'd think would have been edited out over time and sanitized, but

00:04:41.280 they're not. And the Old Testament is definitely not a book that's been sanitized. And that's...

00:04:45.260 It's quite interesting that that's the case. So you sort of see people with all their flaws.

00:04:51.780 And I've been trying to also derive some general conclusions about the moral of the story,

00:05:00.340 of the Genesis stories. And because these stories are fundamentally moral. And moral, as far as

00:05:05.900 I'm concerned, has to do with action, right? Because moral decisions are the decisions that you make

00:05:11.900 when you're structuring action. When you decide to do one thing or another, generally you want to do

00:05:17.220 things that are the best things that you can think of to do, and hence good. But sometimes you also

00:05:23.820 want to do things that are the worst things you can do, you know, because you're angry or resentful

00:05:27.640 or bitter. And so the moral decisions that you make that govern your actions are really the most

00:05:34.020 important decisions that you make in your life. And it's not that easy to figure out

00:05:37.620 how to make moral decisions. We don't have an unerring

00:05:41.580 technology for that, the same way as we do for, say, making decisions about empirical reality.

00:05:48.960 Which, in some ways, seem a lot simpler. Partly because we can work collectively at it.

00:05:54.940 Partly because we have a rigorous methodology for deciding what's true and what's not.

00:05:58.340 So, one of the things that's really struck me, like it's an overarching theme, I would say,

00:06:05.220 that emerges out of Genesis, especially after the really ancient stories, say, especially after

00:06:12.420 the stories of Cain and Abel and Noah and the Tower of Babel. When you get to the accounts of the

00:06:23.900 historically, or historically real people, one injunction seems to be, get the hell out there

00:06:33.000 and do something. You know, one of the major themes for all of the patriarchs that we've talked about,

00:06:40.080 Abraham, say, Jacob, and Joseph, is move out into the world regardless of the circumstances at hand.

00:06:49.580 Now, that's, in the Old Testament stories, that's basically portrayed as hearkening to the voice

00:06:57.040 of God. Something like that. Maybe you could think about that as destiny or a psychological calling.

00:07:03.300 And the funny thing, too, is that it's not that these people have an easy time of it when they

00:07:07.660 heed that call. So, what's fascinating is that they often run into extreme difficulties right away.

00:07:15.160 And I think that's very interesting, first of all, because life is obviously full of extreme

00:07:21.100 difficulties. And second, it's another example of the failure to sugarcoat things, which is one of

00:07:27.720 the things I think makes a mockery of anti-religious theories that are even quite sophisticated, say,

00:07:33.620 like Freud's. Because Freud thought of religion as a wish fulfillment, essentially. And also Marx,

00:07:42.040 who thought about religion as the opiate of the masses. If those were true, it seems to me that

00:07:48.540 there'd be a lot more wish. And a lot less reality. A lot less stark, harsh reality. You know?

00:07:54.780 I mean, the first thing that Abraham encounters is a famine. And then he has to hide his wife. And then

00:08:02.120 he basically journeys into a tyranny. So that's about as bad as it gets in some ways. And those themes

00:08:09.640 recur continually. And no one ever lives where they're supposed to live. They live in Canaan and

00:08:15.240 not the promised land. And so it's a pretty rough series of stories. But the fundamental idea is

00:08:22.960 something like, there's no time for sitting around. There's time to go out into the world and engage.

00:08:29.500 And then there's hints about the proper and improper ways of engaging. Right? So clearly the improper

00:08:36.780 way to engage is, I think, most clearly delineated in the Cain and Abel story. And with Cain

00:08:44.160 exemplifying the inappropriate way to engage with the world. And that's to engage with the world

00:08:51.800 in a bitter, jealous, and resentful manner. Now, one of the things that I really like about the Cain

00:08:58.200 and Abel story, and that theme recurs continually with the duality of the brothers, right? There's constant

00:09:04.540 conflict between a perspective that's essentially like Cain's and the opposite perspective, which I'll

00:09:12.120 get to in a minute. But Cain sees that the world is a very tragic place and that the rewards are

00:09:20.420 distributed unfairly, and that there are people who do better and people who do worse. And as a

00:09:26.220 consequence of that, he becomes bitter and resentful and curses God. And then he becomes

00:09:31.620 homicidal, fratricidal, which is even worse. Then he destroys his own ideal. Then his descendants

00:09:37.580 basically become genocidal, something like that. So that seems to be the wrong way to go about things.

00:09:44.780 You know, unless your goal is to make things worse. Like, it's not like Cain has a limited number of

00:09:52.480 things, has nothing to object to. He's got plenty to object to. His situation actually is bad.

00:09:58.220 He's overshadowed terribly by his brother, who everyone loves, who does extraordinarily well,

00:10:03.080 and who's good at everything. And the story is a bit ambivalent about the reasons for Cain's failure,

00:10:08.900 although a fair bit of it's laid at his own feet. But he's definitely failing. And so you can

00:10:14.360 understand why he would have this terrible attitude. But the problem is, all it does is make it worse.

00:10:20.920 So it doesn't seem to be... One of the things I've also learned as a psychologist, sort of pondering

00:10:26.100 these sorts of things, is it's often a lot easier to identify what you shouldn't do than what you

00:10:30.740 should do. Like, it's... I think evil is easier to identify than good. I think good is trickier.

00:10:36.920 But evil stands out to some degree. And then at least you can say, if you're trying to get as far

00:10:41.400 away from that as possible, we could even say, just for practical reasons, so your life doesn't

00:10:45.800 become hell and your family life doesn't become hell, at least you could get as far away from that

00:10:50.640 as possible, even if you weren't able to conjure up what would constitute the good as an aim.

00:10:56.840 You could at least avoid those sorts of pitfalls. And I do also think that it's pitfalls like that

00:11:02.300 that really threaten our society right now. You know, that I see a tremendous rise in resentment

00:11:07.720 fueling almost all of the political polarization that's taking place. And it seems unfortunate given

00:11:13.780 that, by and by large, everyone on the planet is richer than they've ever been. Now, that doesn't

00:11:19.800 mean there's no disparity. But there's always disparity. Anyways, Jacob, of course, Jacob and Rebecca,

00:11:26.840 they deceive Esau. And Jacob ends up with Isaac's blessing. And so that's a moral catastrophe.

00:11:37.180 And then he has to run because his brother wants to kill him. And so that's the fratricidal

00:11:43.500 motif again. I like that too. I think that's really realistic. You know, one of the things

00:11:48.820 that Freud noted constantly, and this is where Freud really is a genius, is that the most intense

00:11:55.200 hatreds and also sometimes the most intense love is within families. You know, and in the

00:12:01.480 Freudian world of psychopathology, it's all inside the family. In fact, the pathology in

00:12:10.920 the Freudian world is actually the fact that it's all inside the family. Because people who

00:12:15.700 get tangled up in the Freudian familial nightmare, which is roughly Oedipal in structure, can only

00:12:21.880 conceptualize the world in terms of their familial relationships, they've been so damaged by the

00:12:26.800 enmeshment and the trauma and the deceit and the betrayal and the blurred lines and all of

00:12:31.620 that, that they just can't expand past the family and go out in the world. So the idea that brothers

00:12:39.640 can be at each other's throats, I think is, that's a very powerful idea. And it's not something that

00:12:46.500 people like to think about. So Jacob has to leave, and it's not surprising because, I mean,

00:12:52.660 what he did was pretty reprehensible. He betrayed his brother. But nonetheless, he's the person who

00:12:57.020 dreams of the ladder that unites heaven and earth. And that's a very perverse thing, you know.

00:13:04.420 But one of the things I think it does is give, in some sense, it gives hope to everyone. Because

00:13:09.540 it isn't, you know, if only the good guys win, we're really in trouble. Right? Because it's not that

00:13:15.980 easy to be a good guy. It's really not that easy. And most people are pretty keenly aware of all the

00:13:21.720 ways that they fall short, even of their own ideals. And so if there was no hope except for the good

00:13:29.000 guys, almost all of us would be lost. And so that's one of the things I really liked and was more

00:13:35.700 surprised about with the Old Testament stories, is that these people are, they have very complex

00:13:40.400 lives. And they make very major moral errors by any one standard. And yet, if, and yet, the overall

00:13:47.880 message is still hopeful. And the message that runs contrary to the message of evil, say, the message

00:13:54.480 of good, is something like, well, there's a lot of emphasis on faith. Right? And that's a tough one,

00:14:02.040 because cynics, people who are cynical about religious structures, like to think of faith

00:14:09.100 as the willingness to demolish your intellect in the service of superstition. And, well, there's

00:14:18.100 something to be said for that perspective. But not a lot, because the reality is much more

00:14:24.640 sophisticated. Part of the faith that's, that is being insisted upon in the Old Testament is

00:14:30.860 something like, and I'm speaking psychologically here again, that it's useful to posit a high

00:14:37.920 good, to aim at it. So, and I really think that's practically useful too. The research we've

00:14:44.120 done with the Future Authoring Program, for example, indicates pretty clearly that if you

00:14:47.500 get people to conceptualize an ideal, and a balanced ideal, you know, so what do you want

00:14:52.920 for your family? What do you want for your career? What do you want for your education? What

00:14:56.780 do you want for your character development? How are you going to use your time outside

00:15:00.340 of work? How are you going to structure your use of drugs and alcohol in places where you

00:15:06.220 might get impulsive? How can you avoid falling into a horrible pit? If you really think that

00:15:10.840 through, and you come up with an integrated ideal, and you, you put it above you as something

00:15:15.080 to reach for, then you're more committed to the world in a positive way, and you're less

00:15:22.740 tormented by anxiety and uncertainty. And so, and that makes sense, right? Because here you are alive

00:15:30.040 in everything, and so, unless you were capable, if you're not capable of manifesting some positive

00:15:36.660 relationship with the fact of your being, then how could that be anything other than hellish?

00:15:42.020 Because you, it would just be anxiety provoking and terrible, because you're vulnerable, and there'd

00:15:46.800 be nothing useful or worthwhile to do. Well, that's just not, I just can't see that as a winning

00:15:52.360 strategy for anyone. You can make a rational case for adopting that strategy, in that, you know, you can

00:15:59.620 say, well, there's no evidence for, for a transcendent morality, or for an ultimate meaning. There's no

00:16:04.580 hard empirical evidence. But it seems to me that there's existential evidence as well, that has to be

00:16:11.960 taken into account. And, of course, psychologists have talked about this a lot. Carl Rogers, for

00:16:18.340 example, and Jung, for that matter, Freud, for that matter. Most of the great psychologists have

00:16:22.400 pointed out that, you know, you can derive reasonable information that's, that's solid from your own

00:16:28.620 experience, especially if you also talk to other people. And you can kind of see in your own life when

00:16:33.080 you're on a productive path, that sort of ennobles and enlightens you, or a destructive path. And I think

00:16:41.120 it's kind of useful to think that maybe the dichotomy between those two paths might be real. You know?

00:16:47.460 And, and, and, because that also allows you to give credence to your intuitions about that sort of

00:16:53.840 thing. But I don't, anyways, I don't think it's unreasonable to posit that since you're alive, adopting the highest

00:17:00.840 possible regard for the fact that you're alive, and that you're surrounded by other creatures that are

00:17:05.840 alive, I just can't see how that can possibly be construed as a losing strategy. And so that's the first thing. So that's

00:17:12.460 something like faith, right? It's faith, it's not, it's not only faith in your being, but it's faith in

00:17:18.460 being as such. And the faith would be something like, if you could orient your being properly, then maybe that

00:17:25.660 would orient you with being as such. And you never know. Like, I mean, it might be true. There's no reason

00:17:33.580 to assume that it wouldn't be true. I mean, even if you just take a strict biological perspective on this,

00:17:38.920 and think about us as the product of three and a half billion years of evolution, I mean, we have

00:17:44.260 struggled over all those billions of years to be alive and to match ourselves with reality. And so,

00:17:51.960 because one of the things I've often wondered is, you know, life is definitely difficult. There's no doubt

00:17:56.520 about that. And it's unfair. And there's inequality and all of those things. And people are subject to all

00:18:01.040 sorts of terrible things. But I also wonder, if you weren't actively striving to make things worse,

00:18:08.920 just how much better could they be? You know, because people are very, they're like houses that are

00:18:17.000 divided amongst themselves. They're pointing in six different directions at the same time.

00:18:22.060 They're working at cross purposes to themselves because of bitterness and resentment and unprocessed

00:18:29.540 memories and childhood hatreds and unexamined assumptions, all sorts of things. And

00:18:34.960 you just got to wonder if you could push that aside and orient yourself properly. And then the

00:18:41.280 other thing that, of course, is stressed very heavily in the Old Testament, and of course, that

00:18:46.040 goes through the entire biblical corpus, is that it's not only enough to establish a positive

00:18:52.820 relationship with being, which I think is the essential, it's a good description of faith.

00:18:57.700 You have to make that decision, right? Because being is very ambivalent. And you can make the case

00:19:03.620 that maybe it's something that should have never happened. But that doesn't seem to be productive to

00:19:08.780 me. And faith seems to be, I'm going to act as if being is ultimately justifiable. And that if I

00:19:15.240 partake in it properly, I will improve it rather than making it worse. So I think that's the statement

00:19:20.940 of faith. And then what seems to go along with that is something like truth in conception and action.

00:19:29.160 You know, even people like Jacob, who are pretty damn morally ambivalent to begin with, get hammered

00:19:35.300 a lot by what they go through. And what seems to happen is that they're hammered into some sort of

00:19:40.200 ethical shape, right? So by the midpoint of their life's journey, there's people who are solidly

00:19:46.220 planted who you can trust and who don't betray being or themselves or their fellow man. And so

00:19:53.600 it's an interesting, I mean, it seems reasonable to me to first assume that you have to establish a

00:20:03.180 relationship with something that's transcendent. It might even be just the future version of you.

00:20:08.580 And then second, that you have to align yourself with reality in a truthful manner and that that's

00:20:14.660 your best bet. And the biblical stories are actually quite realistic about that too, because

00:20:23.320 they don't really say that if you do that, you're going to be instantly transported to the promised

00:20:28.840 land. Like even Moses, as we'll find out in the Exodus stories, he never makes it to the promised land.

00:20:34.480 And so it's not like you're offered instantaneous final redemption if you move out forthrightly into

00:20:41.780 the world, establish a faithful relationship with being, and attempt to conduct yourself with

00:20:48.840 integrity. But it's your best bet, and it might be good enough. And even if it's not good enough,

00:20:54.900 it's really preferable to the alternative, which seems to be something closely akin to hell, both

00:21:01.340 personal and social.

00:21:02.360 So Joseph's father is Jacob, later Israel, he who wrestles with God. And we've talked about that a

00:21:13.800 little bit. It's sort of implicit in what I've been saying, is that I think we all do that to some

00:21:18.300 degree. We wrestle with reality itself, that's for sure. Not only the reality we understand, but the

00:21:25.560 reality we don't understand, which is sort of a transcendent reality. And then maybe whatever reality is

00:21:30.960 outside of that, you know, because the classic Judeo-Christian conception of God is that there's time and

00:21:35.720 space. And of course, there's lots of things about what exists in time and space that we're completely

00:21:41.620 ignorant of, and that's transcendent in that sense. But then there's an idea that there's a realm outside of

00:21:46.920 that, which is a, well, it's an interesting idea. It's a very sophisticated idea, I think, rather than a simple

00:21:52.560 idea. And it's difficult to know what to make of it. But it doesn't really matter, because I think

00:22:00.380 regardless of what your attitude is towards those sorts of things intellectually, you still end up in

00:22:06.960 the same position as Jacob, for all intents and purposes, practically speaking. Because I don't

00:22:12.560 think that there's anyone who, at some point in their life, or perhaps even every day, doesn't at some

00:22:18.120 level wrestle with God. And you could just call it, well, the nature of reality, I suppose, if you want

00:22:23.960 to be, say, reductionistic about it. But I don't think it makes any difference. It's still something

00:22:29.080 you're stuck with. And it's not only the nature of reality itself that you have to struggle with, but

00:22:34.940 it's also the nature of your moral relationship to it, your behavioral relationship to it. So that's

00:22:39.180 how you should perceive it, and how you should conduct yourself. And then whether or not the

00:22:44.340 advantages of doing it properly are worth the difficulty and the disadvantages.

00:22:49.800 So that seems to me just a straight existential statement. Then, you know, Jacob gets damaged by

00:22:55.820 his wrestling, which is also very realistic. So, anyways, he also ends up as father of Joseph,

00:23:03.500 who's the favorite son, son who's born in his old age to his favorite wife. And that's who we're

00:23:09.240 going to talk about today. So you remember, so Jacob is the forefather of the 12 tribes of Israel.

00:23:16.960 And there's his wives and the offspring that resulted. Those are all the sons. There's a

00:23:25.260 daughter named Dinah as well. And Rachel is the woman he really loved. And the first son he had with

00:23:31.080 Rachel was Joseph. And that was when he was older. And so that's, in some sense, why Joseph is his

00:23:36.100 favorite. So this is the beginning of the story of Joseph. Now, Israel, Jacob, loved Joseph more than

00:23:45.060 all his children, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a coat of many colors.

00:23:49.920 And there's a lot packed into those two sentences, you know. The first is that now Israel loved Joseph

00:23:56.480 more than all his other children. That's probably not so good. One of the things we've seen in the

00:24:02.140 stories that have preceded this is that whenever there's marked preference on the part of parents

00:24:07.820 for one child over the other, with Jacob and Esau, it was Rachel was, Jacob was Rachel's favorite,

00:24:18.180 and Esau was Isaac's favorite. That didn't work out so well. That put a real twist in the entire

00:24:27.640 structure of the family. And so there's a warning there right off the bat. You might say, well, you can't

00:24:33.480 help having a preference for one child over another. But I don't know if that's true. And it's

00:24:37.980 certainly something that you should be very cautious about, because it doesn't seem to work

00:24:41.200 out very well. Because he was the son of his old age, fair enough. And he made him a coat

00:24:45.840 of many colors. That's a very interesting image, that coat of many colors. That idea. And so I'm

00:24:53.120 going to delve into that idea. Because it sets the stage. Like it says what sort of person Joseph

00:24:57.900 is. He's favored. He's younger. He's favored. But he also has this particular garment that

00:25:03.400 characterizes him. You know, one of the things I've really learned from analyzing women's dreams

00:25:08.960 in particular, is that women very frequently, in my experience, very frequently dream of clothing

00:25:14.260 as a role. And so if you're interpreting women's dreams, then if they put on the shoes of their

00:25:20.140 grandmother, for example, then you understand very rapidly that the dream is trying to make an

00:25:26.160 association between their own behavior and something that's characteristic of either the state of being a

00:25:31.340 grandmother or the particular grandmother. And it makes sense, right? Because clothing protects,

00:25:36.900 but it also signifies a role. And it's interesting in the Old Testament stories, often if someone is

00:25:44.180 going to act deceitfully, they change their outfit. And that's kind of what you do when you act

00:25:50.040 deceitfully, right? You dress up like someone else. You present yourself like someone else.

00:25:54.600 So, anyways, back to the coat of many colors. Well, for something to be many colored, it sort of spans the

00:26:06.860 entire gamut of possibility. And so there's a hint there that if you want to be a full-fledged person,

00:26:14.160 that you have to manifest a very large number of traits. And so I want to go into that idea a bit.

00:26:22.620 The first thing I want to talk about is some of the things that we've learned about what happens

00:26:27.340 to you when you go to a new environment. Now, there's this idea in, a very deep idea in clinical

00:26:34.080 psychology, a fundamental idea, which is that if someone's anxious about something, what you do is

00:26:39.080 you, and it's getting in their way, you take what they're anxious about and you define it, because that

00:26:45.220 already delimits it, right? Because one of the problems with being anxious about something is you

00:26:49.120 won't speak of it. It's like Voldemort. And then if you don't speak of it, it's way bigger than it

00:26:54.560 should be. As soon as you start talking about it, you cut it down to size. And so, and it's for a bunch

00:26:59.940 of reasons. It's because you're not as afraid of as many things as you think, and you're braver than

00:27:06.000 you know, and more capable. So as soon as you're brave enough to start talking about what you're

00:27:11.560 afraid of, then you see that there's more to you than you thought, and that there's less to the

00:27:15.720 problem than you thought. And then you can decompose it further into smaller problems,

00:27:20.340 and then you can figure out how to approach those smaller problems. And so, and then it doesn't seem

00:27:25.120 to me to be that you get less frightened. It seems to be that you get more courageous, which is way

00:27:30.120 better than being less frightened, because there's lots of things to be frightened about. So if you're

00:27:33.640 courageous, that really does the trick. Now, the question is, what happens if you, like, let's say

00:27:39.700 that you're very socially inept, and you don't know how to introduce yourself or to make any, establish

00:27:46.460 the initial parts of a relationship with anyone. And so then you start putting yourself in situations

00:27:51.440 where you're required to do that. And so then the question is, how is it technically that you

00:27:57.420 transform? You say, well, you learn. Well, we want to be more specific about that. What does it mean

00:28:02.960 that you learn? Well, if you're dealing with someone who's particularly socially inept,

00:28:07.100 and you're doing psychotherapy with them, you might teach them how to shake someone's hand

00:28:11.440 properly and say their name and remember the other person's name. And so you just practice

00:28:16.080 that with them, so that they have the motoric routine down. So that form of knowledge is built

00:28:21.540 right into your body. It's like, look at the person, put out your hand, shake it, don't, not like

00:28:27.020 a dead halibut, but, you know, with a reasonable grip, say your name, don't mumble it, look at

00:28:33.360 them so that they can hear you. And then when they say their name, try to remember it.

00:28:37.000 And that's, and then, so you can practice that with people. And so then they develop

00:28:40.980 something that's motoric, right? It's embedded right in their body. And so, and then you can

00:28:46.680 say to them, well, the other thing you can do is when you start a conversation is don't

00:28:51.160 sit there thinking about what you're going to say next, because then you won't be paying

00:28:55.240 attention to the person and you'll make a fool out of yourself because you'll manifest

00:29:00.760 non-sequiturs, right? Because you'll get out of, it's like if you're dancing and all you're

00:29:04.920 paying attention to is where your feet are, then you're going to step on the other person

00:29:08.720 all the time. So you want to pay attention to the other person. And then whatever automatized

00:29:13.580 social knowledge you have will come to the forefront. So it's a good thing to know if

00:29:17.540 you're socially anxious, right? If you're socially anxious, one of the things you should

00:29:21.040 do is pay way more attention to the person you're talking to rather than less. And you

00:29:26.180 should pay as little attention as possible to yourself. So if you feel yourself falling in

00:29:30.960 because you're anxious, then what you do is you push your attention out and pay attention

00:29:34.760 to the person. Because to the degree that you've been socialized, then all your automatic

00:29:38.560 responses will kick in. So, but anyway, so you go out into the social world and you learn

00:29:43.640 to shake someone's hand and you learn how to listen to them and ask them questions, because

00:29:48.320 that's the next thing. Because people love, you can't just ask them random questions, obviously.

00:29:53.300 But if they start talking to you and you don't understand something about what they're

00:29:57.400 saying or maybe something they said is interesting and you ask them a question, they're pretty

00:30:01.280 damn happy about that because it means you're actually paying attention to them. And people

00:30:05.060 actually love to be paid attention to because it hardly ever happens. So they really, really

00:30:10.360 like it. And so, okay, so what's happening? Well, first of all, you're mastering the automated

00:30:17.420 motor movements, right? Where to point your eyes, where to put your hands, how to move your

00:30:22.280 lips, like really embodied knowledge. It's a special kind of memory. And you're practicing

00:30:27.320 that. And so that's building new skills for you. And then by listening to the person and

00:30:33.100 watching yourself interact, you're also generating new abstract information that enables you to

00:30:40.280 conceptualize the world in a different way. So if you go out to 10, you go out and talk

00:30:44.880 to 10 different people or 50 different people, then you get to listen to what those 50 people

00:30:50.660 said. You get to watch how they express themselves and you gather a corpus of knowledge that changes

00:30:56.980 the way you perceive that broadens you as a social agent. Okay, so that's two forms of

00:31:01.940 knowledge. But then there's a third one, which is really interesting, which is that, you know,

00:31:06.460 you have a lot of biological potential. And it's hard to know what potential is, but part

00:31:11.740 of it is that you're capable of generating proteins that you haven't been generating. So you should

00:31:18.160 get right on that, by the way. So, but what the way that works in part is that if you put yourself

00:31:23.260 in a radically new situation, then your brain, that there are genetic switches that turn on

00:31:30.100 because of the demands of the new situation that code for new proteins. So it's as if you have

00:31:36.020 latent software, that would be one way of thinking about it, that will only be turned on if you go into

00:31:42.460 the situation where that's necessary. And so then you might think, well, if that's the case, how much

00:31:47.980 of you could be turned on if you went a whole bunch of different places? And that's a really, really,

00:31:53.060 that's a profound question because one of the deep answers to how you should get your life together

00:32:00.020 is, you should go a very large number of places and turn yourself on. And I want to walk through

00:32:08.300 that a little bit because there's a very rich symbolic world that expresses that. So, now, the idea

00:32:16.280 about having a coat of many colors would be that the person who is the appropriate leader, because

00:32:24.040 remember, or the proper person, which would be the same thing. One of the things that these old

00:32:28.840 stories are trying to express and to figure out is, how is it that you should act? Which is the same

00:32:34.620 as, what constitutes the ideal? Those are the same question. And the hint here with Joseph is,

00:32:41.480 well, you should wear a coat of many colors, which means that you should be able to go have a drink

00:32:46.140 in the pub with the guys who are, you know, drywalling your house, and you should be able to have a

00:32:51.940 sophisticated conversation with someone who's more educated in an abstract way, and that maybe you

00:32:57.320 should be equally comfortable in both situations, right? Because you might think, well, there's more.

00:33:03.100 One of the indications that there's more to you is that you can be put more places and function

00:33:09.660 properly. And that would be a good thing to aim at, because here's the other issue, is that you know

00:33:15.560 perfectly well that the fundamental tragedies of life and your exposure to malevolence in the course

00:33:22.500 of that life, so those being the worst things, there's not a lot you can do to alter that

00:33:27.920 fundamentally, because they're conditions of existence. You're going to be subject to your

00:33:33.120 vulnerability and you're going to be subject to malevolence. That's that. And you can't hide from

00:33:38.720 it because it actually makes it worse. So you're stuck with it. So then the question is, well, what are

00:33:43.640 your options? And one option is to curse the structure of being for being malevolent and tragic,

00:33:48.360 and fair enough. And the other is to make yourself so damn differentiated and dynamic and able that

00:33:56.840 you're more than a match for that. Now that's not an easy thing, but it doesn't matter, because

00:34:03.020 like, what's the alternative? There's no good alternative, and that's also worth knowing.

00:34:08.160 So, you see these ideas expressed in the strangest places, and so we've talked a little bit, I

00:34:18.140 think, in this series about Pinocchio, but if we haven't, it doesn't matter. You see, there's

00:34:25.040 Jiminy Cricket at the opening of the Pinocchio movie, pointing to a star, which is roughly the

00:34:32.440 nativity star for all intents and purposes, and it's a symbolic indicator of something diamond-like

00:34:40.780 and pure, right? Glimmering in the darkness that's transcendent and above the horizon upon

00:34:47.280 which to fix your eyes. And so that's, and the thing is, you need that technically, and the reason

00:34:52.660 you need that is because we know enough about psychology now to know that almost all of the

00:34:58.220 positive emotion that you're going to experience in your life, and positive emotion is analgesic,

00:35:02.860 by the way, right? It actually quells pain, so it's not just positive. It also gets rid of

00:35:07.000 negative, which is a big plus. Almost all the positive emotion that you're going to feel,

00:35:12.020 you're going to feel in relationship to a goal, because you feel positive emotion as you approach

00:35:17.640 a goal. And so, if you want to feel positive emotion, then you need a goal, and then you might

00:35:22.460 think, well, if you want to maximize that positive emotion, which is enthusiasm, and also what

00:35:27.220 pulls you out into the world, as well as feeling good, then you need the best possible goal.

00:35:33.000 Well, because that's going to engage the largest segments of your being. Like, if your goal's

00:35:41.080 too narrow, then a bunch of you isn't going to be on board for it, you know? If the goal

00:35:45.080 is well-developed and multifaceted, then all of you can partake in that. Even your negative

00:35:49.880 elements, even your anger and your fear can get on board with that, let's say. So you need

00:35:55.020 a goal, man, that's worthy. You've got to think. You need a goal that justifies the tragedy

00:36:00.440 and malevolence of life. That seems to be the bottom line. Now, maybe you think, well,

00:36:05.600 there's no goal that can do that. It's like, well, there are still better and worse goals.

00:36:13.260 So, and I'm not convinced that there are no goals that can do that. I think that's an

00:36:18.540 open question. You'd never know that until you pursued the proper goal long enough to

00:36:23.840 find out who you would be as a consequence of pursuing it. That's also your destiny or

00:36:29.600 your existential voyage, right? It's also not something that anyone else can do for you.

00:36:33.960 Someone can say, get your act together, for Christ's sake, and get at it. That'll make the

00:36:40.680 world unfold best for you. But there's no way you can know that without doing it. So,

00:36:48.040 and unless you think you've done a particularly stellar job of that, then you have no reason

00:36:53.400 to doubt its potential validity. So, plus, like crickets are telling you this, and so,

00:37:00.260 you know, they're a very reliable source. Okay, so you see the star, the star recurs as a motif

00:37:07.260 in Pinocchio. And one of the more interesting elements of it here is that when Geppetto wants

00:37:12.680 to transform his puppet, the marionette, who's being played by forces that operate behind the

00:37:19.100 scenes, which is a really good definition of the persona from a Jungian perspective, right?

00:37:24.000 And also something indicative of something like an ideological or conceptual possession.

00:37:28.720 Geppetto, who's a good guy, he's a positive father figure, relifts his, even though he's a patriarchal

00:37:36.660 figure, right? And a very competent one, he still even lifts his eyes up to something that transcends

00:37:41.680 his mode of being, positive as it is, and wishes that his creation would undertake the kind of

00:37:49.400 transformation that would make it autonomous and fully functional as a moral agent. No strings,

00:37:55.420 right? So that's very interesting, I think. Solzhenitsyn said, the salvation of mankind lies

00:38:01.400 only in making everything the concern of all. That's a pretty decent star-like goal, I would say.

00:38:10.380 And so what happens in the Pinocchio story is that because, and I think this is a symbolic

00:38:15.220 representative of what I just described to you that happens at a genetic level if you put yourself

00:38:19.760 in new situations. So, Geppetto is roughly culture in the Pinocchio story, right?

00:38:25.740 He's, he's a craftsman. He's, he's a, and he makes Pinocchio. So, he's, he's, who's his son. He's the

00:38:35.720 socializing agent. And, he aims for something above mere socialization, which is, I think, part of the

00:38:43.980 mysterious element of human beings. You know, in our scientific models, we basically have

00:38:47.760 socialization and biology. But there's always a third element in mythological stories, which is

00:38:53.160 whatever you might construe as the spontaneous action of consciousness that's associated with

00:38:59.360 free will. And, you know, that's just basically being conceptualized in religious terms as something

00:39:04.020 akin to the soul. Now, we don't have a category for that scientifically, because what we try to do

00:39:09.780 scientifically is to reduce everything either to socialization or to biology. But it isn't clear

00:39:16.300 to me that that's, it's perfectly reasonable from the perspective of practicality at a scientific

00:39:21.740 level. You don't want to multiply explanatory principles beyond necessity. But there's many

00:39:26.720 things that that doesn't come to terms with, such as the fact that we all treat each other as

00:39:30.880 autonomous beings with free will. And that that seems to work. And that if we stop doing that,

00:39:35.500 then things go to hell very, very rapidly. So, and the mere fact that we have been able to

00:39:40.400 conceptualize what that conscious free will might be, metaphysically or physically, doesn't mean it

00:39:46.360 doesn't exist. It just means that we don't understand it. I mean, what, it was only in the last 15 years that we

00:39:52.240 discovered that 95% of the universe was made out of some kind of matter that we can't even, whose

00:39:58.640 properties we can't even imagine, except that it seems to have mass. So, anyways, what happens is when

00:40:05.940 Geppetto reached, lifts his eyes up to the star, he, so it's society aligning itself with the proper goal

00:40:14.120 with regards to individual development, right? So, so, instead of society being at odds with the

00:40:20.620 individual, they line up. And then what happens is nature comes on board. And that's the blue fairy in

00:40:25.600 the, in the Pinocchio story. And that's, seems to me, to be a symbolic representation of what happens

00:40:30.500 biologically, when, when you set the goal properly, get your culture behind you and move into the world,

00:40:37.220 is that there's a biological transformation that occurs as a consequence of that, which means that

00:40:42.540 a bunch of you that hasn't been turned on, turns on. And I guess one question would be, is what would

00:40:49.480 you be like if you turned on everything inside of you that could be turned on? Well, that's a good goal.

00:40:55.040 That's a good thing to find out. So, now, I'm going to introduce a couple of other ideas. So,

00:41:03.100 there's this idea in Jungian psychology called the circumambulation. And Jung had this idea that

00:41:09.380 you had a potential future self, which would be in potential, everything that you could be.

00:41:16.040 And that it manifests itself moment to moment in your present life by making you interested in things.

00:41:22.600 And the things that you're interested in are the things that would guide you along the path that

00:41:27.460 would lead you to maximal development. Now, it sounds like a metaphysical idea, or a,

00:41:33.260 or a mystical idea, even. But, but it's not. It's not. It's a really profoundly biological idea.

00:41:40.080 The idea is something like, well, you're set up so that you're automatically interested in those

00:41:44.900 things that would fully expand you as a well-adapted creature. Well, like, there's nothing radical about

00:41:51.800 that idea. How else, what else could possibly be the case? Unless there's something fundamentally

00:41:57.220 flawed about you, that is what the situation would be. It's kind of interesting to think about

00:42:02.660 how that would be manifest moment to moment. But the idea is something like, well, your interest

00:42:07.520 is captured by those things that lead you down the path of development. Well, that better be the

00:42:13.020 case. Okay, so that's fine. And so there's some utility in pursuing those things that you're

00:42:17.900 interested in. That's the call to adventure, let's say. So, and the call to adventure takes

00:42:23.280 you all sorts of places. Now, the problem with the call to adventure is, like, what the

00:42:26.720 hell do you know? You might be interested in things that are kind of warped and bent.

00:42:32.040 And often it's the case that when new parts of people manifest themselves and grip their

00:42:37.900 interests, say, they do it very badly and shoddily. And so you stumble around like an idiot

00:42:43.600 when you try to do something new. That's why the fool is the precursor to the savior from

00:42:47.760 the symbolic perspectives. Because you have to be a fool before you can be a master. And

00:42:52.760 if you're not willing to be a fool, then you can't be a master. So you're going to, it's

00:42:57.820 an error, error-ridden process. And that's also laid out in the Old Testament stories, because

00:43:03.400 the first thing that happens to all these patriarchal figures when God kicks them out of their father's

00:43:08.540 house, when they're like 84, is that they run into all sorts of trouble. And some of

00:43:14.300 it's social, and some of it's natural, and some of it's a consequence of their own moral

00:43:17.620 inadequacy. So they're fools. But the thing that's so interesting is that despite the fact

00:43:24.260 that they're fools, they're still supposed to go on the adventure. And that they're capable

00:43:28.400 of learning enough as a consequence of moving forward on the adventure, so that they straighten

00:43:33.160 themselves out across time. And so it's something like this. This circumambulation that Jung

00:43:38.360 talked about was this continual, we'll return to this, this continual circling in some sense

00:43:44.300 of who you could be. You might notice, for example, that there are themes in your life. You

00:43:48.960 know, when you go back across your experiences, you see, you kind of have your typical experience

00:43:53.340 that sort of repeats itself. And there might be variation on it, like a musical theme, but

00:43:58.660 it's like you're circling yourself and getting closer to yourself as you move across time.

00:44:04.660 That's the circumambulation. Now, remember that for a sec, because we'll go back to it.

00:44:08.600 Okay, so imagine that something glimmers before you. It's an interest that's dawning. And you decide,

00:44:15.260 well, first of all, you're paralyzed. You think, well, how do I know if I should pursue that? It's

00:44:18.820 probably a stupid idea. And the proper response to that is, you're right, it probably is a stupid

00:44:23.940 idea. Because almost all ideas are stupid. And so the probability that as you move forward on your

00:44:31.320 adventure, that you're going to get it right the first time, it's zero. It's just not going to

00:44:36.120 happen. And so then you might think, well, maybe I'll just wait around until I get the right idea.

00:44:41.900 And which people do, right? So they're like 40-year-old, 13-year-olds, which is not a good

00:44:46.420 idea. And so they wait around until it's waiting for Godot, until they finally got it right. But the

00:44:52.420 problem is, you're too stupid to know when you've got it right. So waiting around isn't going to help.

00:44:56.860 Because even if the perfect opportunity manifested itself to you in your incomplete form, the

00:45:03.280 probability that you would recognize it as the perfect opportunity is zero. You might even

00:45:07.900 think it's the worst possible idea that you've ever heard of anywhere. Highly likely. Highly

00:45:13.240 likely. So, Nietzsche called that a will to stupidity, which I really liked. So, because

00:45:21.420 he thought of stupidity as being, you know, you have to take it into account, fundamentally,

00:45:27.840 and work with it. And so you can take these tentative steps on your pathway to destiny,

00:45:35.160 and you can assume that you're going to do it badly. And that's really useful, because you don't

00:45:40.000 have to beat yourself up. It's pretty easy to do it badly. But the thing is, it's way better to do it

00:45:44.680 badly than not to do it at all. And that's a continual message that echoes through these

00:45:49.920 historical stories in Genesis. It's like, these are flawed people. They should have got the hell

00:45:55.820 out of their house way before they did. And they go out and they stumble around in tyranny and famine

00:46:02.020 and self-betrayal and violence. But it's a hell of a lot better than just rotting away at home.

00:46:09.600 And that's the, that's great. So that's good. And so why is that? Well, okay, so you start your path,

00:46:16.000 and you think that you're heading, you know, towards your star. And so you go in that direction. And

00:46:21.340 then, because you're here, the world looks a particular way. But then when you move here,

00:46:28.400 the world looks different, and you're different, as a consequence of having made that voyage. And so

00:46:33.380 what that means is that now that thing that glimmers in front of you is going to have shifted

00:46:38.040 its location. Because you weren't very good at specifying it to begin with. And now that you're

00:46:43.620 a little sharper and more focused than you were, it's, it's going to reveal itself with more accuracy

00:46:50.120 to you. And so then you have to take a, you know, it's almost like 180 degree reversal. But it isn't

00:46:59.040 because, you know, you've, I mean, you've gone this far, and that's a long ways to get that far.

00:47:06.740 But that's a lot farther than you would be if you just stayed where you were waiting.

00:47:13.200 And so it doesn't matter that you overshoot continually. Because as you overshoot,

00:47:20.500 even if you don't learn what you should have done, you're going to continually learn what you

00:47:25.920 shouldn't keep doing. And if you learn enough about what you shouldn't keep doing, then that's

00:47:32.660 tantamount at some point to learning at the same time what you should be doing. So it's okay. So it's

00:47:39.500 like this. Now what's cool about it though, I think, is that as you progress, the degree of

00:47:47.200 overshooting starts to decline, right? And that we know that there's nothing hypothetical about that.

00:47:52.840 As you learn a new skill, like even to play a song on the piano, for example, you overshoot madly.

00:47:58.420 You're making all sorts of mistakes to begin with. And then the mistakes,

00:48:01.840 they disappear. There's a great TED talk, I think it was, about this guy set up a really advanced

00:48:12.360 computational recording system in his home and recorded every single utterance his young child

00:48:17.940 made while learning to speak. And then he put together the child's attempts to say certain

00:48:25.020 phonemes. And put them in a list, and you can hear the child deviating madly to begin with.

00:48:31.460 And then after hundreds and hundreds of repetitions, just zeroing right in on the exact phoneme.

00:48:37.340 So, you know, you might not know this, but when kids babble, because they start babbling when

00:48:41.740 they're quite young, they babble every human phoneme. Including all sorts of phonemes that

00:48:46.760 adults can't say. And then they die into their language. So that after they learn, say, English,

00:48:54.500 then there's all sorts of phonemes they can no longer hear or pronounce. But to begin with,

00:48:58.100 it's all there. Which is really quite interesting. But so they, as they learn a particular language,

00:49:04.100 they zero in on the proper way to pronounce that. And their errors minimize. And every time you learn

00:49:09.920 something, that's how it is. And that's really useful to know, too. Because it means that

00:49:13.160 it's okay to wander around stupidly before you fix your destination. Now, you see that echoed in

00:49:19.860 Exodus, right? Because what happens is that the Egyptians, or the Hebrews, escape a tyranny.

00:49:25.840 Which is kind of whatever you do, personally and psychologically, when you escape from your

00:49:30.940 previous set of stupidly held and ignorant and stubborn axioms. It's like, away from that

00:49:37.080 tyranny. It's like, great, I freed myself from that. Well, then what? Well, you think, well,

00:49:42.020 now I'm on the way. It's, no, you're not. Now you're in the desert. Where you wander around stupidly,

00:49:47.320 you know, and worship the wrong things, until you finally organize yourself morally again,

00:49:53.140 and head in the proper direction. So that's worth knowing, too. Because you think, well, I got rid of

00:49:58.820 a lot of things, baggage, excess baggage, that I didn't need in my life. And now everything's okay.

00:50:03.840 It's like, no, it's not. You've got rid of a whole set of scaffolds that were keeping

00:50:07.960 you in place, even though they were pathological. Now you have nothing. And nothing actually

00:50:13.200 turns out to be better than something pathological. But you're still stuck with the problem of

00:50:18.820 nothing. And that's, well, that's exactly why Exodus is structured the way that it is.

00:50:23.620 It's that you escape from a tyranny. It's, hooray, we're no longer slaves. Yeah, well,

00:50:27.900 now you're nihilistic and lost. It's not necessarily an improvement. But it is, but

00:50:33.760 it is the pre... See, it's also useful to know that, because you can also be deluded into

00:50:39.200 the idea that, imagine that you're trying to become enlightened, which might mean to turn

00:50:43.580 all those parts of you on that could be turned on. You think, well, that's just a linear pathway

00:50:47.880 uphill. You know, it's just from one success to another. No, it's not. It's like, here you

00:50:52.780 are, and you're not doing too badly. And the first step is a complete bloody catastrophe.

00:50:56.580 It's worse. And then maybe you can pull yourself together, and you hit a new plateau, and then

00:51:02.480 that crumbles and shakes, and bang, it's worse again. And so, because part of the reason that

00:51:07.420 people don't become enlightened is because it's punctuated by intermittent deserts, essentially,

00:51:13.600 by intermittent catastrophes. And if you don't know that, well, then you're basically screwed,

00:51:17.940 because you go ahead on your movement forward, and you collapse, and you think, well, that didn't

00:51:22.520 work, I collapsed. It's like, no, that's par for the course. It's not indication that

00:51:28.320 you failed. It's just indication that it's really hard. And that when you learn something,

00:51:32.680 you also unlearn something. And the thing you unlearned is probably useful, and unlearning

00:51:36.920 it actually is painful. You know, let's say if you have to get out of a bad relationship.

00:51:41.100 It's like, not every, not any, there isn't any relationship that's 100% bad. And so when

00:51:47.340 you jump out of it, well, maybe you're in better shape, but you're still lonesome and disoriented,

00:51:51.680 and you don't know what your past was, and you don't know what your present is, and you

00:51:54.560 don't know what your future is. That's not, that's why people stay with the devil they

00:51:59.760 know, instead of, you know, looking for the devil they don't know. So, so anyways, the

00:52:07.500 fact that you're full of faults doesn't mean you have to stop. And thank God for that.

00:52:13.120 That's a really useful thing. And the fact that you're full of faults doesn't mean that

00:52:17.760 you can't learn. And so you can posit an ideal, and you're going to be wrong about it, but

00:52:23.460 it doesn't matter, because what you're right about is positing the ideal, moving towards

00:52:27.200 it. If the actual ideal isn't conceptualized perfectly, well, first, surprise, surprise,

00:52:34.760 because, like, what are you going to do that's perfect? So, it doesn't matter that it's imperfect.

00:52:39.920 It just matters that you do it, and that you move forward. So that's really, that's really

00:52:44.040 positive news, as far as I'm concerned. Because you can actually do that, right? You can do

00:52:48.040 it badly. Anyone can do that. So that's, that's useful. Okay, so like, if you were an efficient

00:52:54.580 person, you would have just done that. But you're not. But who cares, you know? You still

00:52:59.620 end up in the, in the same place. And maybe the trip is even more interesting. Who knows?

00:53:04.740 Probably too interesting. Um, Jung. I began to understand that the goal of psychic development,

00:53:11.480 by which he means psychological development, or spiritual development, is the self. There's

00:53:18.460 no linear evolution. There's only a circumambulation of the self, a getting closer. It's like, it's

00:53:23.400 like you're spiraling into something. Something like that. And the thing that you're spiraling

00:53:28.540 into recedes as you move towards it, and gets more and more sophisticated and well-developed

00:53:35.480 as you move towards it. Because you're not going to run out of goals, right? No matter how much

00:53:39.120 you have your act together, there's probably, undoubtedly, 30 dimensions along which you

00:53:45.460 could get your act together a lot more. So, and some of those aren't even conceivable to

00:53:50.060 you when you're in your initial un-carved state, let's say. Uniform development exists

00:53:56.700 at most at the beginning. Later, everything points towards the center. This insight gave me

00:54:01.220 stability and gradually my inner peace returned. So, this is fun. On the left there, that's the

00:54:11.600 Chartres Cathedral. That's the one that has the maze in it that I told you about. They actually light

00:54:16.740 that up with lasers now. And so, that's it lit up with lasers. And so, they're turning it into a

00:54:23.740 cathedral of light, which I think is really fascinating. And it's a continuation of the same idea,

00:54:29.460 right? Because the stained glass windows were obviously, I wouldn't call them primitive attempts

00:54:33.940 to do that. I mean, stained glass windows are pretty impressive, you know. But it's an elaboration

00:54:38.960 of the same thing. So, now you can go to that cathedral. They light up the whole town like

00:54:42.660 that, which is really something. And so, there's how the cathedral is built. It's a cross. And you

00:54:49.200 remember, the cross is an X that marks the center of the world. And the cross is the place

00:54:53.400 where each individual is. And I think that's the fundamental message of Christianity. Is

00:54:59.000 the cross marks the place where every single individual is. And it's a tragic place that

00:55:03.860 consists of suffering and exposure to malevolence. And that the only way to come to terms with

00:55:09.920 it is to accept it. And that seems to me, I don't see anything metaphysical about that

00:55:15.260 statement whatsoever. It's like, well, X marks the spot. Fair enough. You're in a spot.

00:55:20.740 You're right in the center of your world. It's right in the center of the world as far

00:55:24.520 as you're concerned. And the same with the rest of us. It's characterized by suffering

00:55:28.720 and exposure to malevolence. There's no doubt about that. What are you going to do about

00:55:32.440 that? Bitter? Resentful? Hateful? All that does is make it worse. So, you have to accept

00:55:39.060 it. Now, that's not an easy thing. Because that's actually, I would say, a heroic task to

00:55:43.360 voluntarily accept the conditions of your own existence. And that happens at the cross. So,

00:55:48.780 that's fine. And that's associated with light. Well, that's good. That that's associated

00:55:53.460 with light. You wouldn't want that to be associated with darkness. That would be a bad thing.

00:55:57.960 So, and so there's the, there's the, the labyrinth. That was built in 1200 AD. And so the idea

00:56:12.660 as you walk in here, it's the same idea as that star sequence of slides that I just showed

00:56:19.680 you. So, here's the idea. Is that north, south, west, and east. So, that's the whole world

00:56:26.160 laid out in two dimensions. And so the question is, how do you get to the center? Now, we already

00:56:30.860 know what the center is. The center is the center of the cross. That's the place of maximal suffering.

00:56:35.560 You could say maximal malevolence as well. But it's also the place where that's transcendent.

00:56:40.800 So, how do you get there? Well, the answer is, well, you don't just stand on the outside

00:56:45.580 looking in. That's not going to help. So, and you can't just run right to the center,

00:56:52.540 even if you're in California. And so, you have to walk in here. And then, you see, you go like

00:57:01.800 this, and you go to every single place, every single place on that little cosmos. And then

00:57:11.300 once you've gone to every single place and expanded yourself as a consequence of going

00:57:15.440 north and west and east and south, then there's enough of you so that you're at, so that you

00:57:20.600 can tolerate being, first of all, that you can figure out where the center is, but also

00:57:24.180 that you can tolerate being at the center. And so that's what that represents. And that's

00:57:29.580 pretty... And look, I mean, let's make no mistake about it, hey? People were pretty

00:57:34.000 damn serious about those ideas. Like, that's quite the piece of work for people in the 12th

00:57:39.660 century. You know, some of those damn cathedrals took 300 years to build. We don't build anything

00:57:44.700 that takes 300 years. You know, people were putting a lot of effort into whatever these

00:57:49.600 things meant. You know, and if you think they meant bearded man in the sky, then, you know,

00:57:55.040 it's hard to account for the kind of motivation that would produce these buildings with that

00:58:04.120 kind of paucity of conceptualization. You know, the towns, and it was certainly the case

00:58:10.280 in Chartres, that they groaned under the tax burden that was required to produce these.

00:58:15.780 Now, you might think, well, that's partly tyrannical, and no doubt that's the case. But that's

00:58:21.800 not the whole story. The whole story is that the people who produced those buildings, they

00:58:27.220 thought about every bit of it. It's nothing's accidental. And they're trying to portray something,

00:58:33.560 just like that window is trying to portray something. That's the same thing as this.

00:58:37.960 It's the center from which all things manifest themselves. You see, that's Christ there, and

00:58:44.580 being portrayed as that center, or the center within him, something like that. Very much

00:58:49.280 like the chakras in yogic practice. Same basic idea. It's the opening up of the internal structure

00:58:58.880 and its proper realization. So, there are people walking the labyrinth.

00:59:10.100 So, that's the code of many colors, right? That's this differentiated mode of being that enables you to be competent

00:59:19.780 and at home in the widest possible number of places. And that's a real differentiation of your personality.

00:59:27.460 It's a breaking through the boundaries of your personality, including the ones that you impose on yourself,

00:59:33.280 to become someone who's useful wherever they're put. And that's really relevant to this story of Joseph, too.

00:59:42.680 Because one of the things that happens to Joseph is that, well, a lot of bad things happen to him.

00:59:48.840 Because he's the favorite of his father, his brothers hate him. And so, first, they're going to throw him in a pit.

00:59:54.440 I think they do throw him in a pit. Then they sell him to be a slave. Then he ends up in...

00:59:59.440 Well, we'll go through the story. He ends up in some places where you probably wouldn't want to go.

01:00:04.360 Prison being one of them. But, it doesn't matter. Because even when they put him in prison,

01:00:11.560 he's actually not in prison. He just figures out how to make the prison work way better.

01:00:16.640 And then he's in control of the prison. And it's... Really, it's an interesting...

01:00:20.440 I had this friend, you know, and he was very smart, but very cynical. And he wasn't employed very well.

01:00:28.920 And he got a little older than he should have, given his level of intelligence and employability.

01:00:35.700 And so, he had to take jobs that weren't very intellectually challenging.

01:00:39.300 You know, and one of the things I tried to convince him of was that, even if he worked...

01:00:44.100 He wanted to work behind the parts department in an automotive store, because he liked cars.

01:00:48.360 But it was beneath him, you know? Because it was sort of a...

01:00:52.140 As far as he was concerned, it was a...

01:00:54.760 He was too smart for a job like that.

01:00:56.820 Which actually turned out not to be true. He wasn't smart enough for a job like that.

01:01:00.060 Or he wasn't wise enough.

01:01:01.200 But, you know, one of the things I tried to tell him was that,

01:01:04.320 You're looking at the situation wrong.

01:01:06.740 Because, even in a simple job, so-called simple job, like, let's say, dishwashing in a restaurant,

01:01:11.880 Which I did an awful lot of, it's not that simple.

01:01:14.900 You're dealing with a lot of other people.

01:01:17.140 Very fast staff changeover.

01:01:18.880 You're feeding people, you're helping them have a celebration.

01:01:22.120 You're helping them take a break.

01:01:25.040 Like, you can do it really well.

01:01:27.500 And then the kitchen can operate properly, and then people can come out to the restaurant.

01:01:31.140 It's not a bloody catastrophe.

01:01:32.220 And, like, even when you're doing something that's a menial job, so to speak, like dishwashing,

01:01:38.580 There are ways of doing it really badly, resentfully and horribly,

01:01:42.040 And doing it really well.

01:01:44.100 And as soon as you do it really well, it's not a menial job anymore.

01:01:46.940 It immediately transforms...

01:01:49.300 Now, I mean, you can be around people who won't let that happen.

01:01:52.760 And you should go get another job, if that's the case.

01:01:55.300 But if you do it properly, then it's not menial at all.

01:01:58.020 And that's also a good way out of resentment.

01:02:03.460 You think, well, I've just got this, you know, two-bit job.

01:02:05.680 It's like, yeah, what if you did it as well as you possibly could?

01:02:09.280 You know, what would happen?

01:02:10.220 Well, the first thing that would happen is you'd get a lot smarter.

01:02:12.880 That's for sure.

01:02:13.680 And that's hardly a negative thing.

01:02:18.140 Okay.

01:02:19.100 So that's the coat of many colors.

01:02:21.200 So it's an intimation of what Joseph is like.

01:02:24.440 And what we're seeing with all of these patriarchal figures is the continual realization of the ideal person, right?

01:02:31.700 You could think about it as successive approximations of the ideal person.

01:02:36.660 And the story is exploring all sorts of different possibilities,

01:02:40.160 including ones that are very violent and catastrophic and malevolent.

01:02:43.940 It's trying to cover the entire territory.

01:02:45.880 And to focus in on what's the proper way through the maze, the maze of life, the labyrinth.

01:02:54.240 And the hint here is that, well, you should be multidimensional.

01:02:58.080 These are the generations of Jacob.

01:03:00.000 Joseph, being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren.

01:03:03.360 And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

01:03:06.900 And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

01:03:11.600 Well, we already know that Joseph is Jacob's favorite.

01:03:15.860 And so that doesn't make him very popular among his brothers.

01:03:19.160 He's younger.

01:03:20.440 And now we also find out that he's been set up more or less as, you might say, a snitch.

01:03:26.520 Because that's what this phrase means, is that he goes out and watches his older brothers.

01:03:30.620 And if they do something they shouldn't do, then he comes trotting back to Jacob and reports.

01:03:35.660 Well, that's not going to make you popular.

01:03:38.580 So, and you would say, well, is that Joseph's problem?

01:03:43.540 Or Jacob's problem?

01:03:45.380 And I would say, and this is something I learned from reading Jung too, is that that's a conspiratorial problem.

01:03:50.980 Right?

01:03:51.900 Is it's the parents at fault, but so is the child who agrees to do that.

01:03:56.840 They've got a little cabal going.

01:04:01.000 And you might say, well, it's only the parents' fault.

01:04:03.080 But the son will be taking advantage of every advantage that offers him.

01:04:09.180 Because he could say, no, too, I won't do that.

01:04:11.780 So anyway, so, Joseph is the favorite.

01:04:15.640 He's a bit of a teacher's pet.

01:04:17.900 That's what it looks like.

01:04:18.840 Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his colors, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors.

01:04:26.440 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

01:04:32.200 So, let's say you have a child, or a number of children, and one of them is your favorite.

01:04:36.560 How should you treat that child?

01:04:37.960 Well, it isn't obvious that you do them any favors by overtly making them your favorite.

01:04:44.800 Right?

01:04:45.080 I mean, first of all, maybe you don't challenge them as much as you should.

01:04:48.280 And second of all, you definitely set up a Cain and Abel-like scenario in the household.

01:04:54.060 Or maybe it's an Oedipal situation, too, because you happen to love your child more than you love your spouse.

01:04:59.360 Which is, that's not a recipe for familial harmony.

01:05:03.540 So, it seems to be a bad idea.

01:05:06.920 Okay, so now we have two reasons that Joseph is not liked by his brothers.

01:05:11.780 One is, well, he's a bit of a rat fink, and the other is that he's the favorite, and he's playing that to the hilt by the looks of things.

01:05:20.480 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

01:05:29.360 Okay.

01:05:30.520 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren, and they hated him the more.

01:05:36.480 He said unto them, Here, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed.

01:05:39.880 For behold, we were binding wheat sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose.

01:05:45.360 And behold, your sheaves stood round about and bowed to my sheaf.

01:05:52.460 And remember, he's the young one, right?

01:05:55.220 And also the daughter of the favorite wife, which is another thing that's, or the son of the favorite wife, which is another thing not really working in his favor.

01:06:02.900 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us?

01:06:06.220 Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?

01:06:08.760 And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words.

01:06:12.160 Well, there's a shock.

01:06:13.980 You know, that makes perfect sense.

01:06:15.760 So, and it gets worse.

01:06:16.720 So, you see here, well, there's the wheat sheaves bowing there.

01:06:20.600 And then you see this, what's going on here?

01:06:24.060 Well, that's not the end of his, let's call it grandiosity.

01:06:27.300 And there's an idea, too, in the Old Testament, especially in the stories of Joseph, that if God sends you a dream twice, he really means it.

01:06:35.820 And so, I don't know if that's true, although I do know that people have repeating dreams.

01:06:40.080 It might be true that a dream you have twice is really trying to punch something home.

01:06:45.660 You know, it's certainly the case that recurrent nightmares are meaningful and that recurrent nightmares are associated quite tightly with decreased states of mental health.

01:06:56.180 And that if you can treat the nightmare, which is often quite easy, by the way, then some of the mental health problems will decrease.

01:07:05.040 So, repeated dreams seem to be important.

01:07:07.520 Anyways, he dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brethren and said,

01:07:11.120 Behold, I've had another dream.

01:07:12.480 And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed to me.

01:07:18.420 And he told it to his father and to his brothers.

01:07:20.780 And his father rebuked him and said unto him,

01:07:23.400 What is this dream that thou hast dreamed?

01:07:25.040 Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to the earth?

01:07:32.380 And his brethren envied him.

01:07:34.300 But his father observed the saying,

01:07:37.340 Well, what the hell do you make of something like that, right?

01:07:39.840 If someone tells you that.

01:07:41.260 It's like, are they responsible for their dreams?

01:07:46.140 We don't really hold ourselves responsible for the dreams we have at night.

01:07:51.560 Then what do you make of a dream?

01:07:52.980 One of the things that Jung pointed out, this is where he differed from Freud substantially,

01:07:57.460 is Freud tended to think that the dream hid its meaning.

01:08:01.760 Because its contents weren't acceptable to the conscious mind.

01:08:06.020 And Jung said,

01:08:06.740 No, no, you don't understand.

01:08:08.220 That's not what happens.

01:08:09.180 What happens is the dream is doing the best it can to express something that the person doesn't yet really know.

01:08:15.980 And Jung thought about the dream as a manifestation of nature.

01:08:18.920 It wasn't associated with the ego at all.

01:08:20.640 It was just like, you have a dream and there are things happening in it the same way that when you walk into a dinner party, there are things happening there.

01:08:28.560 You know, it's not...

01:08:29.300 The dream isn't something that's subject to your capacity for manipulation.

01:08:34.020 It's something that happens to you, not something that you do.

01:08:36.420 And so, if someone has a dream like that, well, you've got three options.

01:08:41.060 You can just discount dreams altogether, which is what people in the modern world tend to do.

01:08:46.200 Which is a very bad idea, because they're thoughts and you shouldn't discount them.

01:08:50.880 You know, I mean, they're hardly random, as some neuroscientists claim.

01:08:54.800 That's absolutely cockeyed theory, that random.

01:08:58.660 It'd be like television snow on a TV set if it was random.

01:09:01.680 So, one is, well, you just discount dreams.

01:09:05.520 The other is that you consider the person a liar, and a braggart, and a narcissist.

01:09:10.040 And the third is, well, what's the third?

01:09:13.320 It's like, he dreamt that the sun and the moon and the stars bowed down to him.

01:09:19.420 You might think about that two or three times.

01:09:22.320 So, but it's not necessarily something that's going to make you happy.

01:09:25.840 And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

01:09:28.720 So they took off.

01:09:29.460 And Israel said unto Joseph,

01:09:30.800 Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem?

01:09:33.900 Come, and I will send thee unto him.

01:09:35.340 And he said to him,

01:09:36.340 And he said to him,

01:09:38.220 Here am I.

01:09:40.140 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them,

01:09:43.780 they conspired against him to slay him.

01:09:47.220 Rough people back then, right?

01:09:49.420 This sort of thing is happening quite frequently.

01:09:52.360 And they said to one another,

01:09:56.040 Behold, the dreamer cometh.

01:09:58.900 Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit.

01:10:02.860 And we will say,

01:10:03.700 Some evil beast hath devoured him,

01:10:05.300 and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.

01:10:07.800 So there's an echo of the Cain and Abel story there, obviously.

01:10:10.940 You know, I mean,

01:10:12.340 It's not quite as clear,

01:10:15.300 because in the Cain and Abel story,

01:10:16.620 Abel is clearly just doing well.

01:10:18.900 And here, you can't quite get a handle on Joseph's character.

01:10:22.320 You can't tell if he is actually the elect,

01:10:24.300 or if he's just a spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur.

01:10:27.700 You know, and...

01:10:28.840 But it doesn't matter,

01:10:30.020 because his brothers are so irritated

01:10:32.820 at the fact that he's favoured,

01:10:35.460 and perhaps even the fact that he might be

01:10:38.240 someone destined for something special,

01:10:43.240 that they find it perfectly reasonable to destroy that.

01:10:47.380 And it's so interesting how often that

01:10:50.180 motif of pulling down an ideal

01:10:53.840 manifests itself in these old stories, right?

01:10:56.840 It's...

01:10:57.440 The pattern is established in the Cain and Abel story.

01:10:59.700 It just repeats and repeats and repeats.

01:11:01.480 And I think that's dead true.

01:11:02.980 I think it just repeats all the time.

01:11:04.880 So that people are annoyed about how tragic their lives are.

01:11:08.700 They're annoyed that they're subject to malevolence.

01:11:11.680 And they're annoyed that

01:11:12.840 they're not doing as well as other people are doing.

01:11:15.960 And that makes them...

01:11:17.040 That puts them exactly into this state of mind.

01:11:19.160 Now, maybe...

01:11:20.500 With modern people,

01:11:21.620 if you're going to kill someone

01:11:22.900 because you're resentful as a modern person,

01:11:25.260 you don't generally slay them and throw them into a pit.

01:11:28.020 You know, what you do is

01:11:29.160 you just kill them slowly over a few decades.

01:11:31.900 And it isn't obvious to me that that's any better.

01:11:35.020 So...

01:11:35.820 I've seen plenty of married couples

01:11:38.780 who were in that situation.

01:11:40.520 It's like...

01:11:41.400 It's like...

01:11:42.560 Huh.

01:11:43.360 There was this...

01:11:44.320 Mitch Hedberg,

01:11:45.140 he used to complain about turtlenecks.

01:11:46.900 He said it was like being strangled by a really weak midget.

01:11:50.860 And...

01:11:51.180 Ha.

01:11:53.200 It's probably a really politically incorrect joke.

01:11:55.860 But it's a funny joke.

01:11:57.780 So...

01:11:58.400 Ha.

01:11:59.680 And then you see...

01:12:01.520 You see relationships that are like that.

01:12:04.320 It's like...

01:12:04.960 Each person has their hands around the neck of the other person.

01:12:07.660 But they don't have enough courage to actually...

01:12:09.820 To squeeze.

01:12:10.520 They just put enough pressure on to...

01:12:12.960 Cut the circulation off a tiny bit.

01:12:15.600 So the person just gets like...

01:12:17.460 They die over a 30 year period.

01:12:19.580 Something like that.

01:12:21.180 So...

01:12:21.740 Yeah.

01:12:23.940 And you all laugh because you know it's true.

01:12:25.820 That's why.

01:12:29.020 And we will say some evil beast hath devoured him.

01:12:31.860 Which would be true actually.

01:12:33.480 It would be the evil beast that's inside the brothers.

01:12:36.700 And we shall see what will become of his dreams.

01:12:38.860 Ha ha.

01:12:39.820 That's a...

01:12:40.580 That's interesting too because...

01:12:42.540 So...

01:12:43.500 They want to spite themselves.

01:12:45.420 Because maybe Joseph is something special.

01:12:47.660 And then they want to spite their father.

01:12:50.500 Which is probably not the wisest idea.

01:12:53.100 Because they owe him some gratitude.

01:12:54.820 I mean maybe he's acting like a pain in the neck.

01:12:56.880 There's some evidence for that.

01:12:58.220 But this is a little bit harsh.

01:13:00.000 But they also want to spite God.

01:13:01.780 Just like Cain did.

01:13:03.180 Because that's what it means.

01:13:05.040 We shall see what will become of his dreams.

01:13:07.900 Right.

01:13:08.540 Because then as soon as you're...

01:13:10.580 In some sense trying to fight against...

01:13:13.120 The intuition of someone.

01:13:14.660 The natural intuition of someone.

01:13:16.160 You set yourself up against the structure of being itself.

01:13:19.800 And so...

01:13:21.240 Pretty bad.

01:13:22.920 And Reuben heard it.

01:13:23.960 And he delivered them out of their hands.

01:13:25.340 And said no let us not kill him.

01:13:27.000 And Reuben said unto them shed no blood.

01:13:28.820 But cast him into this pit that's in the wilderness.

01:13:31.760 It's like Reuben's the good guy in this story.

01:13:33.760 And there's no water in the pit by the way.

01:13:37.920 And lay no hand upon him.

01:13:39.420 That he might rid him out of their hands.

01:13:42.080 To deliver him to his father again.

01:13:45.680 So Reuben was actually trying to save him.

01:13:48.820 Said he might rid him out of their hands.

01:13:50.900 To deliver him to his father again.

01:13:52.760 And it came to pass when Joseph came unto his brethren.

01:13:55.480 That they stripped him of his coat.

01:13:57.420 His coat of many colors that was on him.

01:13:59.340 And they took him and cast him into a pit.

01:14:02.780 And the pit was empty.

01:14:03.620 And there was no water in it.

01:14:09.320 And then they sat down to eat bread.

01:14:11.040 And lifted up their eyes and looked.

01:14:12.220 And behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead.

01:14:15.420 With their camels.

01:14:16.420 Bearing spices and balm and myrrh.

01:14:18.500 Going to carry it down to Egypt.

01:14:19.880 And Judah said unto his brethren.

01:14:22.120 How does it profit us if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

01:14:26.380 So he's the practical guy here.

01:14:28.440 Why would we kill him when we can sell him?

01:14:31.900 It's like.

01:14:32.920 Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.

01:14:34.940 And let not our hand be upon him.

01:14:36.500 For he is our brother in our flesh.

01:14:38.220 And his brethren were content.

01:14:40.620 Then they're passed by Midianites merchantmen.

01:14:42.960 And they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit.

01:14:45.220 And sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver.

01:14:49.140 It's a mount that echoes through into the future.

01:14:52.820 And they brought Joseph into Egypt.

01:14:54.620 I'm never really sure how these slavery stories work.

01:14:57.600 It's like.

01:14:58.220 So it's 2,500, 3,000 years ago.

01:15:01.160 And I decide I'm going to sell you to the Ishmaelites.

01:15:03.220 And that just works out.

01:15:04.380 I get the money.

01:15:05.480 You get to be a slave.

01:15:06.420 And they take you away.

01:15:07.420 I don't really understand how that works.

01:15:09.120 I can't figure out how people weren't just selling each other all the time.

01:15:12.100 But maybe if you're family, you can do it.

01:15:21.200 So there they sold him.

01:15:25.100 And Reuben returned to the pit.

01:15:26.880 And behold, Joseph was not there.

01:15:28.640 And Reuben ran to his clothes.

01:15:30.000 So Reuben's very upset about this.

01:15:31.440 And he returned unto his brothers and said,

01:15:33.020 The child is not.

01:15:33.980 And I, where shall I go?

01:15:36.480 And they conspired.

01:15:37.780 They took Joseph's coat and killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat in the blood.

01:15:42.220 That's interesting too, because blood is actually another color.

01:15:45.840 Right?

01:15:46.180 So he's got this coat of many colors.

01:15:48.120 And blood is definitely a color.

01:15:50.680 And so this is the addition, in some sense, of the color of blood to Joseph's coat.

01:15:55.420 And I would say it's probably a necessary color.

01:15:59.340 Because I don't think that you're serious enough until your coat has been dipped in blood.

01:16:03.620 That can happen in many ways.

01:16:05.920 And they sent the coat of many colors and they brought it to their father.

01:16:09.960 And said, so they lied to him.

01:16:12.020 It's very, very nasty business this.

01:16:14.600 They sell his son to slavery.

01:16:16.740 They claim that he's dead.

01:16:18.400 They lie to him.

01:16:20.000 They put him into an extreme state of grief.

01:16:23.060 There's a lot of hatred underneath that.

01:16:25.140 Right?

01:16:25.420 A tremendous amount of hatred for Joseph and also for Jacob.

01:16:31.740 This we have found.

01:16:32.920 Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not.

01:16:35.520 And he knew it.

01:16:36.220 He said, it's my son's coat.

01:16:37.940 An evil beast has devoured him.

01:16:40.680 Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

01:16:42.800 And Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for many days.

01:16:46.920 And all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him.

01:16:49.220 But he refused to be comforted.

01:16:50.660 And he said, I'll go down into my grave mourning my son.

01:16:55.460 Thus his father wept for him.

01:16:56.920 So that's Jacob collapsing at the news.

01:17:03.200 And the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard.

01:17:14.520 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt.

01:17:16.340 And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither.

01:17:22.980 So now he's a slave.

01:17:25.060 So now you'd think, well, that would be, this is a man who has a lot of reason to be irritated at the structure of reality, right?

01:17:35.100 He's gone from being the favorite to being betrayed by all of his brothers.

01:17:39.040 That's pretty rough.

01:17:40.260 And then he's being transformed into a slave.

01:17:43.020 And now he's being sold to work as a slave.

01:17:46.240 So you'd think that that would corrupt his character.

01:17:49.460 Because, you know, one of the things, I think this is the case anyways, I think people are always looking for an excuse to have their character corrupted.

01:17:56.380 Because if your character is corrupted, then you get to lie and you get to cheat and you get to steal and you get to betray and you get to act resentfully.

01:18:02.620 And you get to do nothing.

01:18:04.020 And that's all easy.

01:18:05.340 It's easier to lie than to tell the truth.

01:18:07.100 It's easier to do nothing than to do something.

01:18:08.860 So there's always part of you thinking, well, I need a justification for being useless and horrible.

01:18:14.520 Because that would be a lot less work.

01:18:17.300 And so then if something terrible comes along, you think, aha, that's just exactly the excuse that I was waiting for.

01:18:25.680 And then out all that comes.

01:18:28.900 You know, Solzhenitsyn, when he was in the concentration camps in Russia, watching how people behaved.

01:18:34.660 You know, he said that there were people that were put in the camps who immediately became trustees or guards.

01:18:40.540 And they were even more vicious than the people who had been hired as guards.

01:18:43.960 And his idea was that they had collected all that, he called it foulness, if I remember correctly, around them in normal life.

01:18:54.780 But they didn't have the opportunity to express it.

01:18:57.460 But as soon as you gave them the opportunity, it was like there it was right away.

01:19:00.800 And so, so one of the messages that seems to echo through these Old Testament stories is that just because something terrible happens to you doesn't mean that you get to be, that you get to wander off the path and make things worse.

01:19:18.420 And maybe it doesn't matter how terrible it is that what happens to you.

01:19:24.100 And that's a tough call, you know, because you see people now and then in life who they've really got it rough, man.

01:19:29.160 Like 50 bad things are happening to them at the same time.

01:19:31.760 And you think, oh, it's no wonder.

01:19:33.360 If you were bitter and resentful and hostile, it'd be like, yeah, no wonder.

01:19:37.280 But then you meet people, and Solzhenitsyn again talked about this in the Gulag Archipelago.

01:19:41.240 He said he met lots of people in the, not lots, he met enough people to impress him in the concentration camp system who didn't allow their misfortunes to corrupt them.

01:19:51.320 And that's something, man.

01:19:52.960 Because maybe the only real misfortune is to become corrupted.

01:19:56.920 That's a really useful thing to think.

01:19:59.100 You know, maybe the rest of it, maybe the rest of it is trivial in comparison.

01:20:03.340 I know that's a rough thing, because you can be in very harsh circumstances, but I do think there's something to that.

01:20:09.920 And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man, and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.

01:20:14.620 And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

01:20:19.140 So that's an echo of the idea that we encountered earlier about walking with God, right?

01:20:23.340 So Adam walked with God before he ate the fruit with Eve, and then he wouldn't walk with God.

01:20:28.320 And then Noah walked with God, and Abraham walked with God.

01:20:31.820 And so the idea is, well, that's that alignment with the highest ideal.

01:20:35.500 I think it's something like that.

01:20:37.020 And, you know, we could think about that as a metaphysical claim as well.

01:20:41.500 But I don't think it is.

01:20:43.700 I mean, I've got thousands of letters now, in the last year, from people who have told me that they were in a pit.

01:20:53.140 That's exactly right.

01:20:54.260 And that they decided that they were going to try to put their lives together.

01:20:59.380 And that it worked.

01:21:03.140 And so that's really something, you know?

01:21:04.840 And they write surprised.

01:21:06.100 It's like, well, I decided that I was going to work hard at what I was doing, and I wasn't going to lie any more than absolutely necessary.

01:21:12.340 I thought I'd give it a try for a few months, you know?

01:21:15.040 And all sorts of good things started to happen to me.

01:21:18.020 It's like, maybe that's how the world works.

01:21:20.000 Now, obviously, it doesn't work like that all the time, right?

01:21:23.360 Because you can get sliced off at the knees.

01:21:25.300 I mean, there's an arbitrary element to existence that you can't wish away.

01:21:31.360 But that doesn't mean that there are...

01:21:35.120 It doesn't mean that there aren't bad strategies and good strategies.

01:21:39.700 And so, I do think that one of the most fundamental existential questions is, like,

01:21:45.180 if things aren't going well for you in your life is,

01:21:47.400 are you absolutely certain that you're doing absolutely everything you can to put things in order?

01:21:52.500 Because if you're not, then you shouldn't complain.

01:21:54.820 Because you don't know to what degree you're actually contributing or even causing the circumstance.

01:22:00.400 Now, that's a very annoying thing to think.

01:22:02.120 And I'm not trying to blame the victim.

01:22:04.180 You know, I know that people end up with lung cancer because they were exposed to asbestos, you know?

01:22:08.500 I'm not trying to...

01:22:09.960 Although I also know, too, that if you have lung cancer because you've been exposed to asbestos,

01:22:14.180 that can be a tragedy or it can be hell.

01:22:16.220 And to some degree, that depends on how you conduct yourself.

01:22:19.540 So, I mean, I know that's pretty gloomy possibilities, right?

01:22:22.860 But...

01:22:23.280 So, anyway, so Joseph is a slave, but it turns out that he's a...

01:22:30.020 He hasn't sacrificed the integrity of his character.

01:22:32.460 And so it turns out that being...

01:22:34.480 It turns out that he's not a slave.

01:22:36.780 It's just that everyone around him thinks he's a slave.

01:22:39.180 But he's not.

01:22:39.920 So that's pretty interesting.

01:22:43.360 He was a goodly person and well-favored.

01:22:45.520 Well, so he's a good guy and he's an impressive specimen as well.

01:22:51.040 This is pretty interesting given the current political climate, I would say.

01:22:55.160 And it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and she said,

01:23:00.580 Lie with me.

01:23:01.900 That means...

01:23:02.660 That actually has two meanings, right?

01:23:04.400 But he refused and said unto his master's wife,

01:23:13.060 Behold, my master does not know what's with me in the house and he's committed all that he has to my hand.

01:23:22.400 There's no one greater in this house than I.

01:23:25.780 Neither hath he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife.

01:23:30.100 How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

01:23:37.560 And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her to lie by her or be with her.

01:23:44.140 It's being sexually harassed, Joseph.

01:23:46.700 And it came to pass...

01:23:48.000 Well, it's right.

01:23:50.120 I mean, look at the painting.

01:23:51.840 And it came to pass about this time that Joseph went into the house to do his business and there was none of the men of the house there within.

01:24:05.240 And she caught him by his garment saying, Lie with me.

01:24:08.460 And he left his garment in her hand and fled and got him out.

01:24:11.680 So, that's kind of embarrassing for poor Joseph, I would say.

01:24:16.340 And a bit on the suspicious side.

01:24:19.020 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and was fled forth,

01:24:23.660 that she called unto the men of her house and spake unto them,

01:24:26.580 See, he hath brought in a Hebrew to mock us.

01:24:29.420 He came in unto me to lie with me.

01:24:31.200 And I cried with a loud voice.

01:24:34.760 So, what is it?

01:24:36.040 Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

01:24:38.440 But that's the proper commentary on that.

01:24:41.560 And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried,

01:24:44.580 that he left his garment with me and fled and got himself out.

01:24:48.440 And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife,

01:24:51.460 so that's the pharaoh, which she spake unto him, saying,

01:24:54.200 After this manner did thy servant to me.

01:24:57.040 His wrath was kindled.

01:24:58.160 And Joseph's master took him and put him in prison.

01:25:00.620 A place where the king's prisoners were bound.

01:25:03.820 And he was there in the prison.

01:25:05.560 Well, that sort of sucks.

01:25:06.760 It's like, first his brothers betray him and throw him in a pit.

01:25:11.400 And then he gets made a slave, which is probably better than being in the pit.

01:25:15.220 And then he becomes sort of like king-slave.

01:25:17.620 So, that's working out pretty well.

01:25:18.940 And now someone lies about him.

01:25:20.640 He gets betrayed again.

01:25:21.540 And now it's into the prison with him.

01:25:23.040 And so, it's this again, right?

01:25:25.360 It's the same thing.

01:25:26.440 It's Sisyphus up with the rock and then down.

01:25:29.580 And it's order, chaos.

01:25:32.300 Order, chaos.

01:25:33.280 And you have to think, well, are you the order?

01:25:35.960 Are you the chaos?

01:25:36.860 Are you the thing that's moving between them?

01:25:39.560 Because that's the right thing to be.

01:25:41.920 Because otherwise, you're just order and that's a really bad idea.

01:25:44.860 Or you're just chaos and that's a really bad idea.

01:25:47.440 You can be the thing that's dynamically mediating between them.

01:25:51.700 And that's what he's doing.

01:25:54.500 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the

01:25:58.180 keeper of the prison.

01:25:59.760 That's no easy thing to do, I would think.

01:26:01.920 You know, it's like you're thrown in prison and now the jailer likes you.

01:26:06.120 Now, how exactly are you going to manage that?

01:26:08.500 It's a good thing to think about because you might think, well, if you were really in dire

01:26:12.300 straits, how is it that you should conduct yourself so that you have the highest probability

01:26:16.540 of having things work out?

01:26:18.840 And it's not saying, well, Joseph took over the thumbscrew, you know, and started using

01:26:23.820 that on the other prisoners.

01:26:25.200 That's not the indication here at all.

01:26:27.220 It's that he's doing something.

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01:29:17.900 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

01:29:21.080 You can support these podcasts by donating to Dr. Peterson's Patreon, the link to which can

01:29:26.200 be found in the description.

01:29:28.480 Dr. Peterson's self-development programs, self-authoring, can be found at selfauthoring.com.

01:29:33.700 Thank you.

01:30:03.700 So, I thought I would get farther than through Genesis by this point, but I'm not unhappy

01:30:13.560 about the pace either.

01:30:14.960 I've learned a tremendous amount.

01:30:16.720 And so, hopefully, what we'll do today is finish Genesis completely.

01:30:23.060 And then, I think I'll try to start up with Exodus in May, depending on what happens next year.

01:30:29.860 I have a busy travel schedule, but I would really like to do it.

01:30:33.080 I really like the Exodus story, and I understand it very well.

01:30:36.200 A lot of the stories in Genesis, especially after the first few stories, say up to the Tower

01:30:41.380 of Babel, I had to do a tremendous amount of learning about, which is really good.

01:30:44.740 But I do know the Exodus story, so I'm really looking forward to that.

01:30:49.120 So, let's dive right into it and see how far we can get today.

01:30:54.900 So, we'll review first.

01:30:56.480 So, Joseph's father is Jacob, and Jacob is the patriarch of Israel, essentially, the father

01:31:04.660 of the 12 tribes.

01:31:05.760 And you might remember that he had a very morally ambivalent pathway through life.

01:31:22.200 And it's one of the things that I think is so interesting about the stories in the Old

01:31:27.420 Testament, is that these so-called patriarchal figures are very realistic.

01:31:34.280 And it's something that...

01:31:36.760 I've also been struck by the accounts in the New Testament that way.

01:31:40.100 There's lots of things that Christ does that you'd think would have been edited out over

01:31:45.940 time and sanitized, but they're not.

01:31:47.900 And the Old Testament is definitely not a book that's been sanitized.

01:31:50.700 And that's...

01:31:51.280 It's quite interesting that that's the case.

01:31:53.300 So, you sort of see people with all their flaws.

01:31:57.800 And I've been trying to also derive some general conclusions about...

01:32:04.280 the moral of the story, of the Genesis stories.

01:32:07.540 And because these stories are fundamentally moral.

01:32:10.880 And moral, as far as I'm concerned, has to do with action, right?

01:32:13.780 Because moral decisions are the decisions that you make when you're structuring action.

01:32:19.500 When you decide to do one thing or another, generally, you want to do things that are the

01:32:24.680 best things that you can think of to do.

01:32:26.260 And, hence, good.

01:32:28.800 But sometimes you also want to do things that are the worst things you can do.

01:32:31.980 You know, because you're angry or resentful or bitter.

01:32:35.120 And so the moral decisions that you make that govern your actions are really the most important

01:32:40.400 decisions that you make in your life.

01:32:41.820 And it's not that easy to figure out how to make moral decisions.

01:32:45.820 We don't have an unerring technology for that.

01:32:51.000 The same way as we do for, say, making decisions about empirical reality.

01:32:55.000 Which, in some ways, seem a lot simpler.

01:32:58.940 Partly because we can work collectively at it.

01:33:00.960 Partly because we have a rigorous methodology for deciding what's true and what's not.

01:33:04.360 So, one of the things that's really struck me, like it's an overarching theme, I would

01:33:11.000 say, that emerges out of Genesis, especially after the really ancient stories, say, especially

01:33:17.960 after the stories of Cain and Abel and Noah and the Tower of Babel.

01:33:25.900 When you get to the accounts of the historically, more historically real people.

01:33:34.360 One injunction seems to be, get the hell out there and do something.

01:33:40.740 You know, one of the major themes for all of the patriarchs that we've talked about, Abraham,

01:33:47.360 say, Jacob, and Joseph, is move out into the world regardless of the circumstances at hand.

01:33:56.300 Now, that's in the Old Testament stories, that's basically portrayed as hearkening to the

01:34:02.820 voice of God, something like that.

01:34:04.540 Maybe you could think about that as destiny or as a psychological calling.

01:34:09.360 And the funny thing, too, is that it's not that these people have an easy time of it when

01:34:13.460 they heed that call.

01:34:15.760 So, what's fascinating is that they often run into extreme difficulties right away.

01:34:21.200 And I think that's very interesting, first of all, because life is obviously full of extreme

01:34:27.140 difficulties.

01:34:28.680 And second, it's another example of the failure to sugarcoat things, which is one of the things

01:34:34.160 that I think makes a mockery of anti-religious theories that are even quite sophisticated, say,

01:34:39.640 like Freud's.

01:34:40.920 Because Freud thought of religion as a wish fulfillment, essentially.

01:34:45.640 And also Marx, who thought about religion as the opiate of the masses.

01:34:52.080 If those were true, it seems to me that there'd be a lot more wish, and a lot less reality.

01:34:58.280 A lot less stark, harsh reality.

01:35:00.220 You know, the first thing that Abraham encounters is a famine, and then he has to hide his wife,

01:35:07.840 and then he basically journeys into a tyranny.

01:35:12.040 So, that's about as bad as it gets in some ways, and those themes recur continually.

01:35:18.000 And no one ever lives where they're supposed to live.

01:35:19.900 They live in Canaan, and not the promised land.

01:35:22.800 And so, it's a pretty rough series of stories.

01:35:26.500 But, the fundamental idea is something like, there's no time for sitting around.

01:35:32.920 There's time to go out into the world and engage.

01:35:35.540 And then there's hints about the proper and improper ways of engaging, right?

01:35:41.240 So, clearly the improper way to engage is, I think, most clearly delineated in the Cain and Abel story.

01:35:48.700 And with Cain exemplifying the inappropriate way to engage with the world.

01:35:55.020 And that's to engage with the world in a bitter, jealous, and resentful manner.

01:36:00.980 Now, one of the things that I really like about the Cain and Abel story, and that theme recurs continually with the duality of the brothers, right?

01:36:09.460 There's constant conflict between a perspective that's essentially like Cain's, and the opposite perspective, which I'll get to in a minute.

01:36:18.820 But Cain sees that the world is a very tragic place, and that the rewards are distributed unfairly, and that there are people who do better and people who do worse.

01:36:31.800 And as a consequence of that, he becomes bitter and resentful and curses God.

01:36:36.640 And then he becomes homicidal, fratricidal, which is even worse.

01:36:41.040 Then he destroys his own ideal.

01:36:42.740 Then his descendants basically become genocidal, something like that.

01:36:46.300 So, that seems to be the wrong way to go about things.

01:36:51.340 You know, unless your goal is to make things worse.

01:36:54.120 Like, it's not like Cain has a limited number of things, has nothing to object to.

01:37:00.580 He's got plenty to object to.

01:37:01.980 His situation actually is bad.

01:37:04.240 He's overshadowed terribly by his brother, who everyone loves, who does extraordinarily well, and who's good at everything.

01:37:10.120 And the story is a bit ambivalent about the reasons for Cain's failure, although a fair bit of it's laid at his own feet.

01:37:17.840 But he's definitely failing.

01:37:19.260 And so, you can understand why he would have this terrible attitude, but the problem is, all it does is make it worse.

01:37:26.980 So, it doesn't seem to be...

01:37:29.020 One of the things I've also learned as a psychologist, sort of pondering these sorts of things,

01:37:32.980 is it's often a lot easier to identify what you shouldn't do than what you should do.

01:37:37.280 Like, I think evil is easier to identify than good.

01:37:41.280 I think good is trickier.

01:37:42.980 But evil stands out to some degree.

01:37:45.260 And then at least you can say, if you're trying to get as far away from that as possible,

01:37:48.920 we could even say, just for practical reasons, so your life doesn't become hell and your family life doesn't become hell,

01:37:54.400 at least you could get as far away from that as possible,

01:37:57.700 even if you weren't able to conjure up what would constitute the good as an aim.

01:38:02.940 You could at least avoid those sorts of pitfalls.

01:38:05.800 And I do also think that it's pitfalls like that that really threaten our society right now.

01:38:10.320 You know, that I see a tremendous rise in resentment fueling almost all of the political polarization that's taking place.

01:38:18.280 It seems unfortunate, given that, by and by large, everyone on the planet is richer than they've ever been.

01:38:24.900 Now, that doesn't mean there's no disparity, but there's always disparity.

01:38:29.060 Anyways, Jacob, of course, Jacob and Rebecca deceive Esau.

01:38:34.180 And Jacob ends up with Isaac's blessing.

01:38:39.880 And so that's a moral catastrophe.

01:38:43.540 And then he has to run because his brother wants to kill him.

01:38:46.780 And so that's the fratricidal motif again.

01:38:50.820 I like that, too.

01:38:51.600 I think that's really realistic.

01:38:53.580 You know, one of the things that Freud noted constantly, and this is where Freud really is a genius,

01:38:58.520 is that the most intense hatreds and also sometimes the most intense love is within families.

01:39:05.340 You know, in the Freudian world of psychopathology, it's all inside the family.

01:39:14.500 In fact, the pathology in the Freudian world is actually the fact that it's all inside the family.

01:39:20.780 Because people who get tangled up in the Freudian familial nightmare, which is roughly Oedipal in structure,

01:39:26.720 can only conceptualize the world in terms of their familial relationships.

01:39:31.160 They've been so damaged by the enmeshment and the trauma and the deceit and the betrayal and the blurred lines and all of that,

01:39:37.860 that they just can't expand past the family and go out in the world.

01:39:43.340 So the idea that brothers can be at each other's throats, I think is, that's a very powerful idea.

01:39:51.740 And it's not something that people like to think about.

01:39:54.420 So Jacob has to leave, and it's not surprising because, I mean, what he did was pretty reprehensible.

01:40:00.260 He betrayed his brother.

01:40:01.460 But nonetheless, he's the person who dreams of the ladder that unites heaven and earth.

01:40:06.260 And that's a very perverse thing, you know.

01:40:10.680 But one of the things I think it does is give, in some sense, it gives hope to everyone.

01:40:15.380 Because it isn't, you know, if only the good guys win, we're really in trouble.

01:40:20.920 Right?

01:40:21.380 Because it's not that easy to be a good guy.

01:40:23.260 It's really not that easy.

01:40:25.220 And most people are pretty keenly aware of all the ways that they fall short, even of their own ideals.

01:40:30.940 And so if there was no hope except for the good guys, almost all of us would be lost.

01:40:38.320 And so that's one of the things I really like and was more surprised about with the Old Testament stories is that these people are, they have very complex lives.

01:40:46.820 And they make very major moral errors by any one standard.

01:40:51.160 And yet, the overall message is still hopeful.

01:40:55.180 And the message that runs contrary to the message of evil, say, the message of good, is something like, well, there's a lot of emphasis on faith.

01:41:05.340 Right?

01:41:06.240 And that's a tough one.

01:41:08.200 Because cynics, people who are cynical about religious structures, like to think of faith as the willingness to demolish your intellect in the service of superstition.

01:41:20.920 And, well, there's something to be said for that perspective.

01:41:26.960 But not a lot.

01:41:28.240 Because the reality is much more sophisticated.

01:41:31.480 Part of the faith that is being insisted upon in the Old Testament is something like, and I'm speaking psychologically here again, that it's useful to posit a high good, to aim at it.

01:41:45.900 So, and I really think that's practically useful, too.

01:41:49.300 The research we've done with the Future Authoring Program, for example, indicates pretty clearly that if you get people to conceptualize an ideal, and a balanced ideal, you know.

01:41:57.860 So, what do you want for your family?

01:41:59.820 What do you want for your career?

01:42:01.000 What do you want for your education?

01:42:02.640 What do you want for your character development?

01:42:04.340 How are you going to use your time outside of work?

01:42:06.900 How are you going to structure your use of drugs and alcohol in places where you might get impulsive?

01:42:13.420 How can you avoid falling into a horrible pit?

01:42:16.060 If you really think that through, and you come up with an integrated ideal, and you put it above you as something to reach for, then you're more committed to the world in a positive way, and you're less tormented by anxiety and uncertainty.

01:42:31.340 And so, and that makes sense, right?

01:42:34.340 Because here you are alive in everything, and so, unless you were capable, if you're not capable of manifesting some positive relationship with the fact of your being, then how could that be anything other than hellish?

01:42:48.620 Because it would just be anxiety-provoking and terrible because you're vulnerable, and there'd be nothing useful or worthwhile to do.

01:42:55.200 Well, that's just not, I just can't see that as a winning strategy for anyone.

01:42:59.360 You can make a rational case for adopting that strategy, in that, you know, you can say, well, there's no evidence for a transcendent morality or for an ultimate meaning.

01:43:10.260 There's no hard empirical evidence.

01:43:12.540 But it seems to me that there's existential evidence as well that has to be taken into account.

01:43:19.580 And, of course, psychologists have talked about this a lot.

01:43:23.260 Carl Rogers, for example, and Jung, for that matter, Freud, for that matter.

01:43:26.860 Most of the great psychologists have pointed out that, you know, you can derive reasonable information that's solid from your own experience, especially if you also talk to other people.

01:43:36.820 And you can kind of see in your own life when you're on a productive path that sort of ennobles and enlightens you, or a destructive path.

01:43:45.540 And I think it's kind of useful to think that maybe the dichotomy between those two paths might be real, you know, and because that also allows you to give credence to your intuitions about that sort of thing.

01:44:00.540 But I don't, anyways, I don't think it's unreasonable to posit that since you're alive, adopting the highest possible regard for the fact that you're alive, and that you're surrounded by other creatures that are alive, I just can't see how that can possibly be construed as a losing strategy.

01:44:17.040 And so that's the first thing.

01:44:18.920 So that's something like faith, right?

01:44:20.580 It's faith, it's not, it's not only faith in your being, but it's faith in being as such.

01:44:25.520 And the faith would be something like, if you could orient your being properly, then maybe that would orient you with being as such.

01:44:33.920 And you never know.

01:44:36.060 Like, I mean, it might be true.

01:44:38.800 There's no reason to assume that it wouldn't be true.

01:44:41.860 I mean, even if you just take a strict biological perspective on this, and think about us as the product of three and a half billion years of evolution.

01:44:48.720 I mean, we have struggled over all those billions of years to be alive and to match ourselves with reality.

01:44:57.200 And so, because one of the things I've often wondered is, you know, life is definitely difficult.

01:45:01.960 There's no doubt about that, and it's unfair, and there's inequality, and all of those things.

01:45:05.680 And people are subject to all sorts of terrible things.

01:45:08.080 But I also wonder, if you weren't actively striving to make things worse, just how much better could they be?

01:45:17.300 You know, because people are very, they're like houses that are divided amongst themselves.

01:45:25.000 They're pointing in six different directions at the same time.

01:45:27.820 They're working at cross purposes to themselves because of bitterness and resentment and unprocessed memories and childhood hatreds and unexamined assumptions, all sorts of things.

01:45:40.760 And you just got to wonder if you could push that aside and orient yourself properly.

01:45:46.820 And then the other thing that, of course, is stressed very heavily in the Old Testament, and, of course, that goes through the entire biblical corpus, is that it's not only enough to establish a positive relationship with being, which I think is the essential, it's a good description of faith.

01:46:04.540 You have to make that decision, right?

01:46:06.080 Because being is very ambivalent, and you can make the case that maybe it's something that should have never happened.

01:46:12.820 But that doesn't seem to be productive to me.

01:46:15.100 And faith seems to be, I'm going to act as if being is ultimately justifiable, and that if I partake in it properly, I will improve it rather than making it worse.

01:46:25.520 So I think that's the statement of faith.

01:46:27.540 And then what seems to go along with that is something like truth in conception and action.

01:46:35.180 You know, even people like Jacob, who are pretty damn morally ambivalent to begin with, get hammered a lot by what they go through.

01:46:43.100 And what seems to happen is that they're hammered into some sort of ethical shape, right?

01:46:47.460 So by the midpoint of their life's journey, there's people who are solidly planted, who you can trust, and who don't betray being, or themselves, or their fellow man.

01:46:59.020 And so it's an interesting, I mean, it seems reasonable to me to first assume that you have to establish a relationship with something that's transcendent.

01:47:11.260 It might even be just the future version of you.

01:47:13.740 And then second, that you have to align yourself with reality in a truthful manner, and that that's your best bet.

01:47:23.000 And the biblical stories are actually quite realistic about that, too, because they don't really say that if you do that, you're going to be instantly transported to the promised land.

01:47:35.220 Like even Moses, as we'll find out in the Exodus stories, he never makes it to the promised land.

01:47:39.660 And so, it's not like you're offered instantaneous final redemption if you move out forthrightly into the world, establish a faithful relationship with being, and attempt to conduct yourself with integrity.

01:47:55.840 But it's your best bet, and it might be good enough.

01:47:59.020 And even if it's not good enough, it's really preferable to the alternative, which seems to be something closely akin to hell, both personal and social.

01:48:08.380 So, Joseph's father is Jacob, later Israel, he who wrestles with God.

01:48:18.360 And we've talked about that a little bit.

01:48:20.660 It's sort of implicit in what I've been saying, is that I think we all do that to some degree.

01:48:26.020 We wrestle with reality itself, that's for sure.

01:48:28.900 Not only the reality we understand, but the reality we don't understand, which is sort of a transcendent reality, and then maybe whatever reality is outside of that.

01:48:37.800 You know, because the classic Judeo-Christian conception of God is that there's time and space.

01:48:42.960 And, of course, there's lots of things about what exists in time and space that we're completely ignorant of, and that's transcendent in that sense.

01:48:50.140 But then there's an idea that there's a realm outside of that, which is a, well, it's an interesting idea.

01:48:55.960 It's a very sophisticated idea, I think, rather than a simple idea.

01:48:59.040 And it's difficult to know what to make of it.

01:49:03.240 But it doesn't really matter, because I think regardless of what your attitude is towards those sorts of things intellectually,

01:49:11.740 you still end up in the same position as Jacob, for all intents and purposes, practically speaking.

01:49:17.880 Because I don't think that there's anyone who, at some point in their life, or perhaps even every day, doesn't, at some level, wrestle with God.

01:49:26.280 And you could just call it, well, the nature of reality, I suppose, if you want to be, say, reductionistic about it.

01:49:32.500 But I don't think it makes any difference.

01:49:33.980 It's still something you're stuck with.

01:49:36.760 And it's not only the nature of reality itself that you have to struggle with, but it's also the nature of your moral relationship to it, your behavioral relationship to it.

01:49:44.780 So that's how you should perceive it, and how you should conduct yourself.

01:49:49.180 And then whether or not the advantages of doing it properly are worth the difficulty and the disadvantages.

01:49:56.320 So that seems to me just a straight existential statement.

01:49:59.280 Then, you know, Jacob gets damaged by his wrestling, which is also very realistic.

01:50:04.440 So, anyways, he also ends up as father of Joseph, who's the favorite son.

01:50:10.920 Son who's born in his old age to his favorite wife.

01:50:14.660 And that's who we're going to talk about today.

01:50:17.260 So, you remember, so Jacob is the forefather of the twelve tribes of Israel.

01:50:23.340 And there's his wives and the offspring that resulted.

01:50:29.800 Those are all the sons.

01:50:30.960 There's a daughter named Dinah as well.

01:50:32.640 So, and Rachel is the woman he really loved.

01:50:35.300 And the first son he had with Rachel was Joseph.

01:50:38.200 And that was when he was older.

01:50:39.920 And so that's, in some sense, why Joseph is his favorite.

01:50:43.520 So, this is the beginning of the story of Joseph.

01:50:48.780 Now, Israel, Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age.

01:50:53.420 And he made him a coat of many colors.

01:50:55.060 And there's a lot packed into those two sentences, you know.

01:50:59.680 The first is that now Israel loved Joseph more than all his other children.

01:51:04.740 That's probably not so good.

01:51:06.520 One of the things we've seen in the stories that have preceded this is that whenever there's marked preference on the part of parents for one child over the other.

01:51:15.320 With Jacob and Esau, it was Rachel was, Jacob was Rachel's favorite and Esau was Isaac's favorite.

01:51:30.820 That didn't work out so well.

01:51:32.060 That put a real twist in the entire structure of the family.

01:51:35.120 And so there's a warning there right off the bat.

01:51:38.200 You might say, well, you can't help having a preference for one child over another.

01:51:41.880 But I don't know if that's true.

01:51:43.680 And it's certainly something that you should be very cautious about because it doesn't seem to work out very well.

01:51:48.240 Because he was the son of his old age, fair enough.

01:51:50.960 And he made him a coat of many colors.

01:51:53.660 That's a very interesting image, that coat of many colors.

01:51:57.080 That idea.

01:51:58.760 And so I'm going to delve into that idea.

01:52:00.840 Because it sets the stage.

01:52:02.240 Like it says what sort of person Joseph is.

01:52:04.300 He's favored.

01:52:05.560 He's younger.

01:52:06.700 He's favored.

01:52:07.300 But he also has this particular garment that characterizes him.

01:52:11.060 One of the things I've really learned from analyzing women's dreams in particular is that women very frequently, in my experience, very frequently dream of clothing as a role.

01:52:21.100 And so if you're interpreting women's dreams, then if they put on the shoes of their grandmother, for example, then you understand very rapidly that the dream is trying to make an association between their own behavior and something that's characteristic of either the state of being a grandmother or the particular grandmother.

01:52:39.100 And it makes sense, right?

01:52:40.900 Because clothing protects, but it also signifies a role.

01:52:45.520 And it's interesting in the Old Testament stories.

01:52:49.080 Often, if someone is going to act deceitfully, they change their outfit.

01:52:54.240 And that's kind of what you do when you act deceitfully, right?

01:52:56.920 You dress up like someone else.

01:52:58.700 You present yourself like someone else.

01:53:00.620 So, anyways, back to the coat of many colors.

01:53:05.340 Well, for something to be many colored, it sort of spans the entire gamut of possibility.

01:53:14.740 And so there's a hint there that if you want to be a full-fledged person, that you have to manifest a very large number of traits.

01:53:26.920 And so I want to go into that idea a bit.

01:53:28.640 The first thing I want to talk about is some of the things that we've learned about what happens to you when you go to a new environment.

01:53:36.360 You know, there's this idea in, a very deep idea in clinical psychology, a fundamental idea, which is that if someone's anxious about something, what you do is you, and it's getting in their way,

01:53:47.740 you take what they're anxious about and you define it, because that already delimits it, right?

01:53:52.720 Because one of the problems with being anxious about something is you won't speak of it.

01:53:56.220 It's like Voldemort.

01:53:57.600 And then if you don't speak of it, it's way bigger than it should be.

01:54:01.080 As soon as you start talking about it, you cut it down to size.

01:54:03.360 And so, and it's for a bunch of reasons.

01:54:06.420 It's because you're not as afraid of as many things as you think, and you're braver than you know, and more capable.

01:54:14.420 So as soon as you're brave enough to start talking about what you're afraid of, then you see that there's more to you than you thought, and that there's less to the problem than you thought.

01:54:23.400 And then you can decompose it further into smaller problems, and then you can figure out how to approach those smaller problems.

01:54:29.440 And so, and then it doesn't seem to me to be that you get less frightened.

01:54:33.560 It seems to be that you get more courageous, which is way better than being less frightened, because there's lots of things to be frightened about.

01:54:39.200 So if you're courageous, that really does the trick.

01:54:42.280 Now the question is, what happens if you, like let's say that you're very socially inept, and you don't know how to introduce yourself, or to make any, establish the initial parts of a relationship with anyone.

01:54:54.940 And so then, you start putting yourself in situations where you're required to do that.

01:54:59.840 And so then the question is, how is it technically that you transform?

01:55:04.200 You say, well you learn. Well, we want to be more specific about that. What does it mean that you learn?

01:55:10.180 Well, if you're dealing with someone who's particularly socially inept, and you're doing psychotherapy with them, you might teach them how to shake someone's hand properly, and say their name, and remember the other person's name.

01:55:21.240 And so you just practice that with them, so that they have the motoric routine down.

01:55:25.660 So, that form of knowledge is built right into your body. It's like, look at the person, put out your hand, shake it, don't, not like a dead halibut, but, you know, with a reasonable grip.

01:55:36.980 Say your name, don't mumble it, look at them so that they can hear you, and then when they say their name, try to remember it.

01:55:43.040 And that's, and then, so, you can practice that with people, and so then they develop something that's motoric, right? It's embedded right in their body.

01:55:50.740 And so, and then you can say to them, well, the other thing you can do is when you start a conversation is, don't sit there thinking about what you're going to say next,

01:55:59.420 because then you won't be paying attention to the person, and you'll make a fool out of yourself, because you'll manifest non-sequiturs, right?

01:56:08.280 Because you'll get out of, it's like if you're dancing, and all you're paying attention to is where your feet are, then you're going to step on the other person all the time.

01:56:15.280 So you want to pay attention to the other person, and then whatever automatized social knowledge you have will come to the forefront.

01:56:22.240 So, it's a good thing to know if you're socially anxious, right? If you're socially anxious, one of the things you should do is pay way more attention to the person you're talking to,

01:56:30.960 rather than less, and you should pay as little attention as possible to yourself.

01:56:35.160 So if you feel yourself falling in because you're anxious, then what you do is you push your attention out and pay attention to the person,

01:56:41.380 because to the degree that you've been socialized, then all your automatic responses will kick in.

01:56:46.260 So, but anyway, so you go out into the social world, and you learn to shake someone's hand, and you learn how to

01:56:51.580 listen to them, and ask them questions, because that's the next thing, because people love,

01:56:56.660 you can't just ask them random questions, obviously, but if they start talking to you, and you don't understand something about what they're saying,

01:57:03.820 or maybe something they said is interesting, and you ask them a question, they're pretty damn happy about that,

01:57:08.480 because it means you're actually paying attention to them, and people actually love to be paid attention to,

01:57:13.400 because it hardly ever happens. So they really, really like it, and so, okay, so what's happening?

01:57:19.460 Well, first of all, you're mastering the automated motor movements, right?

01:57:24.960 Where to point your eyes, where to put your hands, how to move your lips, like really embodied knowledge,

01:57:30.580 it's a special kind of memory, and you're practicing that, and so that's building new skills for you.

01:57:36.600 And then, by listening to the person, and watching yourself interact, you're also generating new abstract information

01:57:45.400 that enables you to conceptualize the world in a different way. So if you go out to 10, you go out and talk to 10 different people,

01:57:52.340 or 50 different people, then you get to listen to what those 50 people said, you get to watch how they're,

01:57:58.560 how they express themselves, and you gather a corpus of knowledge that changes the way you perceive,

01:58:03.900 that broadens you as a social agent. Okay, so that's two forms of knowledge, but then there's a third one,

01:58:09.540 which is really interesting, which is that, you know, you have a lot of biological potential,

01:58:15.600 and it's hard to know what potential is, but part of it is that you're capable of generating proteins

01:58:21.480 that you haven't been generating. So you should get right on that, by the way.

01:58:25.340 So, but the way that works, in part, is that if you put yourself in a radically new situation,

01:58:31.280 then your brain, that there are genetic switches that turn on, because of the demands of the new situation,

01:58:38.520 that code for new proteins. So, it's as if you have latent software, that would be one way of thinking about it,

01:58:46.180 that will only be turned on if you go into the situation where that's necessary.

01:58:50.360 And so, then you might think, well, if that's the case, how much of you could be turned on

01:58:55.340 if you went a whole bunch of different places? And that's a really, really, that's a profound question,

01:59:00.740 because one of the deep answers to how you should get your life together is,

01:59:07.140 you should go a very large number of places and turn yourself on.

01:59:12.820 And I want to walk through that a little bit, because there's a very rich, symbolic world that expresses that.

01:59:19.540 So, now, the idea about having a coat of many colors would be that the person who is the appropriate leader,

01:59:29.660 because remember, or the proper person, which would be the same thing,

01:59:33.560 one of the things that these old stories are trying to express and to figure out is,

01:59:38.360 how is it that you should act? Which is the same as, what constitutes the ideal?

01:59:43.040 Those are the same question.

01:59:45.760 And the hint here with Joseph is, well, you should wear a coat of many colors,

01:59:49.400 which means that you should be able to go have a drink in the pub with the guys who are, you know,

01:59:54.720 drywalling your house, and you should be able to have a sophisticated conversation with someone who's

02:00:00.180 more educated in an abstract way, and that maybe you should be equally comfortable in both situations.

02:00:05.500 Right? Because you might think, well, there's more.

02:00:09.120 One of the indications that there's more to you is that you can be put more places and function properly.

02:00:16.460 And that would be a good thing to aim at, because, here's the other issue,

02:00:20.960 is that you know perfectly well that the fundamental tragedies of life,

02:00:26.120 and your exposure to malevolence in the course of that life, so those being the worst things,

02:00:30.560 there's not a lot you can do to alter that fundamentally, because there are conditions of existence.

02:00:37.140 You're going to be subject to your vulnerability, and you're going to be subject to malevolence.

02:00:41.520 That's that.

02:00:43.520 And you can't hide from it, because it actually makes it worse.

02:00:46.540 So you're stuck with it.

02:00:47.920 So then the question is, well, what are your options?

02:00:50.260 And one option is to curse the structure of being for being malevolent and tragic, and fair enough.

02:00:55.560 And the other is to make yourself so damn differentiated, and dynamic, and able,

02:01:02.660 that you're more than a match for that.

02:01:06.620 Now, that's not an easy thing, but it doesn't matter, because, like, what's the alternative?

02:01:11.280 There's no good alternative, and that's also worth knowing.

02:01:14.180 So, you see these ideas expressed in the strangest places, and so, we've talked a little bit, I think,

02:01:24.480 in this series about Pinocchio, but if we haven't, it doesn't matter.

02:01:29.780 You see, there's Jiminy Cricket at the opening of the Pinocchio movie,

02:01:33.840 pointing to a star, which is roughly the nativity star, for all intents and purposes,

02:01:40.520 and it's a symbolic indicator of something diamond-like and pure, right?

02:01:48.820 Glimmering in the darkness, that's transcendent and above the horizon, upon which to fix your eyes.

02:01:55.160 And so that's, and the thing is, you need that technically.

02:01:57.760 And the reason you need that is because we know enough about psychology now to know

02:02:03.340 that almost all of the positive emotion that you're going to experience in your life,

02:02:07.180 and positive emotion is analgesic, by the way, right?

02:02:09.580 It actually quells pain, so it's not just positive.

02:02:12.020 It also gets rid of negative, which is a big plus.

02:02:15.340 Almost all the positive emotion that you're going to feel,

02:02:18.060 you're going to feel in relationship to a goal,

02:02:20.980 because you feel positive emotion as you approach a goal.

02:02:24.660 And so, if you want to feel positive emotion, then you need a goal,

02:02:27.760 and then you might think, well, if you want to maximize that positive emotion,

02:02:31.260 which is enthusiasm, and also what pulls you out into the world,

02:02:34.620 as well as feeling good, then you need the best possible goal.

02:02:39.020 Well, because that's going to engage the largest segments of your being.

02:02:46.420 Like, if your goal is too narrow, then a bunch of you isn't going to be on board for it, you know?

02:02:50.580 If the goal is well-developed and multifaceted, then all of you can partake in that.

02:02:55.200 Even your negative elements, even your anger and your fear can get on board with that, let's say.

02:03:00.600 So you need a goal, man, that's worthy.

02:03:03.560 You've got to think.

02:03:04.480 You need a goal that justifies the tragedy and malevolence of life.

02:03:08.240 That seems to be the bottom line.

02:03:10.580 Now, maybe you think, well, there's no goal that can do that.

02:03:12.920 It's like, well, there are still better and worse goals.

02:03:20.040 So, and I'm not convinced that there are no goals that can do that.

02:03:23.900 I think that's an open question.

02:03:26.140 You'd never know that until you pursued the proper goal long enough to find out who you would be as a consequence of pursuing it.

02:03:33.880 So that's also your destiny or your existential voyage, right?

02:03:37.220 It's also not something that anyone else can do for you.

02:03:39.980 Someone can say, get your act together, for Christ's sake, and get at it.

02:03:45.800 That'll make the world unfold best for you.

02:03:48.400 But there's no way you can know that without doing it.

02:03:52.660 So, and unless you think you've done a particularly stellar job of that, then you have no reason to doubt its potential validity.

02:04:02.140 So, plus, like crickets are telling you this.

02:04:05.580 And so, you know, they're a very reliable source.

02:04:10.040 Okay, so you see the star, the star recurs as a motif in Pinocchio.

02:04:14.080 And one of the more interesting elements of it here is that when Geppetto wants to transform his puppet,

02:04:20.820 the marionette, who's being played by forces that operate behind the scenes,

02:04:25.560 which is a really good definition of the persona from a Jungian perspective, right?

02:04:29.800 And also something indicative of something like an ideological or conceptual possession.

02:04:36.160 Geppetto, who's a good guy, he's a positive father figure,

02:04:40.120 even though he's a patriarchal figure, right?

02:04:43.600 And a very competent one, he still even lifts his eyes up to something that transcends his mode of being,

02:04:48.980 positive as it is,

02:04:50.000 and wishes that his creation would undertake the kind of transformation that would make it autonomous and fully functional as a moral agent.

02:05:00.820 No strings, right?

02:05:01.980 So that's very interesting, I think.

02:05:04.780 Solzhenitsyn said,

02:05:05.800 The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.

02:05:10.200 That's a pretty decent star-like goal, I would say.

02:05:16.760 And so what happens in the Pinocchio story is that because,

02:05:19.620 and I think this is a symbolic representative of what I just described to you,

02:05:23.540 that happens at a genetic level if you put yourself in new situations.

02:05:27.360 So,

02:05:28.740 Geppetto is roughly culture in the Pinocchio story, right?

02:05:31.940 He's a craftsman.

02:05:33.660 He's a...

02:05:34.880 And he makes Pinocchio.

02:05:36.580 So,

02:05:38.280 he's...

02:05:38.920 He's...

02:05:39.920 Who's his son?

02:05:41.340 He's the socializing agent.

02:05:43.360 And

02:05:43.580 he aims for something above mere socialization,

02:05:49.000 which is, I think, part of the mysterious element of human beings.

02:05:51.760 You know, in our scientific models, we basically have socialization and biology.

02:05:56.280 But there's always a third element in mythological stories,

02:05:58.740 which is whatever you might construe as the spontaneous action of consciousness that's associated with free will.

02:06:06.580 And, you know, that's just basically being conceptualized in religious terms as something akin to the soul.

02:06:11.380 Now, we don't have a category for that scientifically,

02:06:14.460 because what we try to do scientifically is to reduce everything either to socialization or to biology.

02:06:20.540 But,

02:06:21.140 it isn't clear to me that that's...

02:06:23.420 It's perfectly reasonable from the perspective of practicality at a scientific level.

02:06:28.180 You don't want to multiply explanatory principles beyond necessity.

02:06:31.780 But there's many things that that doesn't come to terms with,

02:06:34.420 such as the fact that we all treat each other as autonomous beings with free will.

02:06:38.560 And that that seems to work, and that if we stop doing that, then things go to hell very, very rapidly.

02:06:43.180 So...

02:06:44.180 And the mere fact that we haven't been able to conceptualize what that conscious free will might be,

02:06:50.140 metaphysically or physically, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

02:06:52.860 It just means that we don't understand it.

02:06:54.860 I mean...

02:06:55.860 What, it was only in the last 15 years that we discovered that 95% of the universe was made out of some kind of matter that we can't even...

02:07:02.860 Whose properties we can't even imagine.

02:07:05.860 Except that it seems to have mass.

02:07:07.860 So...

02:07:08.860 Anyways, what happens is when Geppetto reached, lifts his eyes up to the star...

02:07:14.860 He...

02:07:15.860 So it's society aligning itself with the proper goal with regards to individual development.

02:07:21.860 Right?

02:07:22.860 So...

02:07:23.860 So...

02:07:24.860 Instead of society being at odds with the individual, they line up.

02:07:27.860 And then what happens is nature comes on board.

02:07:29.860 And that's the blue fairy in the Pinocchio story.

02:07:32.860 And that seems to me to be a symbolic representation of what happens biologically when...

02:07:37.860 When you set the goal properly.

02:07:40.860 Get your culture behind you and move into the world.

02:07:42.860 Is that...

02:07:43.860 There's a biological transformation that occurs as a consequence of that.

02:07:47.860 Which means that a bunch of you that hasn't been turned on...

02:07:50.860 Turns on.

02:07:51.860 And I guess one question would be, is what would you be like if you turned on everything inside of you that could be turned on?

02:07:58.860 Well that's a good goal.

02:08:00.860 That's a good thing to find out.

02:08:02.860 So...

02:08:05.860 Now...

02:08:06.860 I'm going to introduce a couple of other ideas.

02:08:08.860 So...

02:08:09.860 There's this idea in Jungian psychology called the circumambulation.

02:08:13.860 And Jung had this idea that...

02:08:15.860 You had a potential future self.

02:08:17.860 Which would be...

02:08:18.860 In potential.

02:08:19.860 Everything that you could be.

02:08:21.860 And that it manifests itself moment to moment in your present life.

02:08:25.860 By making you interested in things.

02:08:28.860 And the things that you're interested in are the things that would guide you along the path that would lead you to maximal development.

02:08:34.860 Now...

02:08:35.860 It sounds like a metaphysical idea or a...

02:08:38.860 Or a mystical idea even.

02:08:40.860 But...

02:08:41.860 But it's not.

02:08:42.860 It's not.

02:08:43.860 It's a really profoundly biological idea.

02:08:45.860 The idea is something like...

02:08:46.860 Well...

02:08:47.860 You're set up so that you're automatically interested in those things that would...

02:08:51.860 Fully expand you as a well-adapted creature.

02:08:54.860 Well...

02:08:55.860 Like...

02:08:56.860 There's nothing radical about that idea.

02:08:57.860 How...

02:08:58.860 What else could possibly be the case?

02:09:00.860 Unless...

02:09:01.860 There's something fundamentally flawed about you.

02:09:03.860 That is what the...

02:09:05.860 The situation would be.

02:09:06.860 It's kind of interesting to think about how that would be manifest moment to moment.

02:09:10.860 But the idea is something like...

02:09:11.860 Well...

02:09:12.860 Your interest is captured by those things that lead you down...

02:09:15.860 The path of development.

02:09:17.860 Well...

02:09:18.860 That better be the case.

02:09:19.860 Okay...

02:09:20.860 So that's fine.

02:09:21.860 And so there's some utility in pursuing those things that you're interested in.

02:09:23.860 That's the call to adventure, let's say.

02:09:26.860 So...

02:09:27.860 And the call to adventure takes you all sorts of places.

02:09:29.860 Now the problem with the call to adventure is...

02:09:31.860 Like...

02:09:32.860 What the hell do you know?

02:09:33.860 You might be interested in things that are kind of warped and bent.

02:09:36.860 And often it's the case that when...

02:09:39.860 New parts of people manifest themselves...

02:09:42.860 And grip their interest, say...

02:09:44.860 They do it very badly and shoddily.

02:09:46.860 And so...

02:09:47.860 You stumble around like an idiot when you try to do something new.

02:09:50.860 That's why the fool is the precursor to the savior from the...

02:09:53.860 From the...

02:09:54.860 Symbolic perspectives.

02:09:55.860 Because you have to be a fool before you can be a master.

02:09:57.860 And if you're not willing to be a fool, then you can't be a master.

02:10:00.860 So...

02:10:01.860 So you're gonna...

02:10:02.860 It's an error...

02:10:04.860 Error ridden process.

02:10:06.860 And that's also laid out in the Old Testament stories.

02:10:08.860 Because the first thing that happens to all these patriarchal figures...

02:10:11.860 When...

02:10:12.860 God kicks them out of their father's house when they're like 84.

02:10:15.860 Is that...

02:10:16.860 They...

02:10:17.860 They run into all sorts of trouble.

02:10:19.860 And some of it's social.

02:10:20.860 And some of it's natural.

02:10:21.860 And some of it's a consequence of their own moral inadequacy.

02:10:24.860 So they're fools.

02:10:25.860 And...

02:10:26.860 But...

02:10:27.860 The thing that's so interesting is that despite the fact that they're fools...

02:10:30.860 They're still supposed to go on the adventure.

02:10:32.860 And that they're capable of learning enough as a consequence of moving forward on the adventure.

02:10:37.860 So that they straighten themselves out across time.

02:10:40.860 And so it's something like this.

02:10:42.860 This circumambulation that Jung talked about was this continual...

02:10:46.860 We'll return to this.

02:10:47.860 This continual circling in some sense of who you could be.

02:10:51.860 You might notice, for example, that there are themes in your life.

02:10:54.860 You know, when you go back across your experiences.

02:10:56.860 You see, you kind of have your typical experience that sort of repeats itself.

02:11:00.860 And...

02:11:01.860 There might be variation on it, like a musical theme.

02:11:03.860 But it's...

02:11:04.860 It's like...

02:11:05.860 You're...

02:11:06.860 You're circling yourself.

02:11:07.860 And getting closer to yourself.

02:11:08.860 As you move across time.

02:11:10.860 That's the circumambulation.

02:11:11.860 Now...

02:11:12.860 You remember that for a sec, because we'll go back to it.

02:11:14.860 Okay, so imagine that something glimmers before you.

02:11:17.860 It's an...

02:11:18.860 An interest that's dawning.

02:11:19.860 And you decide...

02:11:20.860 Well, first of all, you're paralyzed.

02:11:21.860 You think,

02:11:22.860 Well, how do I know if I should pursue that?

02:11:23.860 It's probably a stupid idea.

02:11:25.860 And the proper response to that is...

02:11:27.860 You're right.

02:11:28.860 It probably is a stupid idea.

02:11:29.860 Because almost all ideas are stupid.

02:11:32.860 And so...

02:11:33.860 The probability that as you move forward on your adventure.

02:11:36.860 That you're gonna get it right the first time.

02:11:38.860 Is zero.

02:11:40.860 It's just not gonna happen.

02:11:41.860 And so then you might think...

02:11:43.860 Well, maybe I'll just wait around until I get the right idea.

02:11:46.860 And which people do, right?

02:11:48.860 So they're like 40 year old, 13 year olds.

02:11:50.860 Which is not a good idea.

02:11:52.860 And so they wait around until...

02:11:54.860 It's waiting for Godot.

02:11:55.860 Until they finally got it right.

02:11:57.860 But the problem is you're too stupid to know when you've got it right.

02:12:00.860 So waiting around isn't gonna help.

02:12:02.860 Because even if it...

02:12:03.860 The perfect opportunity manifested itself to you in your incomplete form.

02:12:08.860 The probability that you would recognize it as the perfect opportunity is zero.

02:12:12.860 You might even think it's the worst possible idea that you've ever heard of anywhere.

02:12:16.860 Highly likely.

02:12:18.860 Highly likely.

02:12:19.860 So...

02:12:20.860 So you have...

02:12:21.860 There's...

02:12:22.860 Nietzsche called that a will to stupidity.

02:12:24.860 Which I really liked.

02:12:26.860 So...

02:12:27.860 Because he thought of stupidity as being it...

02:12:29.860 You know, it's...

02:12:30.860 You have to take it into account.

02:12:32.860 Fundamentally.

02:12:33.860 And work with it.

02:12:34.860 And so...

02:12:35.860 And so you can take these tentative steps on your pathway to destiny.

02:12:40.860 And you can assume that you're gonna do it badly.

02:12:43.860 And that's really useful.

02:12:44.860 Because you don't have to beat yourself up.

02:12:46.860 It's pretty easy to do it badly.

02:12:48.860 But the thing is, it's way better to do it badly than not to do it at all.

02:12:51.860 And that's a continual message that echoes through these historical stories in Genesis.

02:12:57.860 It's like, these are flawed people.

02:12:59.860 They should have got the hell out of their house way before they did.

02:13:03.860 And they go out and they stumble around in tyranny and famine and self-betrayal and violence.

02:13:11.860 But it's a hell of a lot better than just rotting away at home.

02:13:15.860 And that's the...

02:13:16.860 That's great.

02:13:17.860 So that's good.

02:13:18.860 And so why is that?

02:13:19.860 Well, okay.

02:13:20.860 So you start your path and you think that you're heading, you know, towards your star.

02:13:24.860 And so you go in that direction.

02:13:26.860 And then, because you're here, the world looks a particular way.

02:13:31.860 But then when you move here, the world looks different.

02:13:35.860 And you're different as a consequence of having made that voyage.

02:13:38.860 And so what that means is that now that thing that glimmers in front of you is going to have shifted its location.

02:13:45.860 Because you weren't very good at specifying it to begin with.

02:13:48.860 And now that you're a little sharper and more focused than you were, it's going to reveal itself with more accuracy to you.

02:13:56.860 And so then you have to take a, you know, it's almost like a 180 degree reversal.

02:14:03.860 But it isn't because, you know, you've...

02:14:05.860 I mean, you've gone this far and that's a long ways to get that far.

02:14:11.860 But that's a lot farther than you would be if you just stayed where you were, waiting.

02:14:18.860 And so it doesn't matter that you overshoot continually.

02:14:23.860 Because as you overshoot, even if you don't learn what you should have done, you're going to continually learn what you shouldn't keep doing.

02:14:32.860 And if you learn enough about what you shouldn't keep doing, then that's tantamount at some point to learning at the same time what you should be doing.

02:14:41.860 So it's okay.

02:14:43.860 So it's like this.

02:14:45.860 Now, what's cool about it though, I think, is that as you progress, the degree of overshooting starts to decline, right?

02:14:54.860 And that we know that there's nothing hypothetical about that.

02:14:57.860 As you learn a new skill, like even to play a song on the piano, for example, you overshoot madly.

02:15:03.860 You're making all sorts of mistakes to begin with, and then the mistakes, they disappear.

02:15:11.860 There's a great TED talk, I think it was, about this guy set up a really advanced computational recording system in his home

02:15:19.860 and recorded every single utterance his young child made while learning to speak.

02:15:25.860 And then he put together the child's attempts to say certain phonemes.

02:15:31.860 And put them in a list, and you can hear the child deviating madly to begin with,

02:15:36.860 and then after hundreds and hundreds of repetitions, just zeroing right in on the exact phoneme.

02:15:42.860 So, you know, you might not know this, but when kids babble, because they start babbling when they're quite young,

02:15:47.860 they babble every human phoneme, including all sorts of phonemes that adults can't say.

02:15:53.860 And then they die into their language.

02:15:56.860 So that after they learn, say, English, then there's all sorts of phonemes they can no longer hear or pronounce.

02:16:02.860 But to begin with, it's all there, which is really quite interesting.

02:16:05.860 But so they, as they learn a particular language, they zero in on the proper way to pronounce that.

02:16:12.860 And their errors minimize.

02:16:13.860 And every time you learn something, that's how it is.

02:16:15.860 And that's really useful to know too, because it means that it's okay to wander around stupidly before you fix your destination.

02:16:23.860 Now, you see that echoed in Exodus, right?

02:16:26.860 Because what happens is that the Egyptians, or the Hebrews, escape a tyranny.

02:16:30.860 Which is kind of whatever you do, personally and psychologically,

02:16:34.860 when you escape from your previous set of stupidly held and ignorant and stubborn axioms.

02:16:40.860 It's like, away from that tyranny.

02:16:42.860 It's like, great, I freed myself from that.

02:16:44.860 Well, then what?

02:16:45.860 Well, you think, well, now I'm on the way.

02:16:47.860 No, you're not.

02:16:48.860 Now you're in the desert.

02:16:49.860 Where you wander around stupidly, you know, and worship the wrong things,

02:16:54.860 until you finally organize yourself morally again, and head in the proper direction.

02:16:59.860 So that's worth knowing too, because you think, well, I got rid of a lot of things, baggage, excess baggage,

02:17:06.860 that I didn't need in my life.

02:17:07.860 And now everything's okay.

02:17:08.860 It's like, no it's not.

02:17:09.860 You've got rid of a whole set of scaffolds that were keeping you in place, even though they were pathological.

02:17:15.860 And now you have nothing.

02:17:17.860 And nothing actually turns out to be better than something pathological.

02:17:21.860 But you're still stuck with the problem of nothing.

02:17:24.860 And that's, well, that's exactly why Exodus is structured the way that it is.

02:17:28.860 It's that you escape from a tyranny.

02:17:30.860 It's, hooray, we're no longer slaves.

02:17:32.860 Yeah, well, now you're nihilistic and lost.

02:17:35.860 It's not necessarily an improvement.

02:17:37.860 But it is, but it is the pre...

02:17:40.860 See, it's also useful to know that, because you can also be deluded into the idea that,

02:17:45.860 imagine that you're trying to become enlightened,

02:17:47.860 which might mean to turn all those parts of you on that could be turned on.

02:17:51.860 You think, well, that's just a linear pathway uphill.

02:17:53.860 You know, it's just from one success to another.

02:17:56.860 No, it's not.

02:17:57.860 It's like, here you are, and you're not doing too badly,

02:17:59.860 and the first step is a complete bloody catastrophe.

02:18:01.860 It's worse.

02:18:02.860 And then maybe you can pull yourself together,

02:18:05.860 and you hit a new plateau,

02:18:07.860 and then that crumbles and shakes, and bang, it's worse again.

02:18:10.860 And so, because part of the reason that people don't become enlightened

02:18:13.860 is because it's punctuated by intermittent deserts, essentially,

02:18:18.860 by intermittent catastrophes.

02:18:20.860 And if you don't know that, well, then you're basically screwed,

02:18:22.860 because you go ahead on your movement forward, and you collapse,

02:18:26.860 and you think, well, that didn't work, I collapsed.

02:18:28.860 It's like, no, that's par for the course.

02:18:31.860 It's not indication that you failed.

02:18:33.860 It's just indication that it's really hard.

02:18:35.860 And that when you learn something, you also unlearn something.

02:18:39.860 And the thing you unlearned is probably useful,

02:18:41.860 and unlearning it actually is painful.

02:18:43.860 You know, let's say if you have to get out of a bad relationship.

02:18:45.860 It's like, there isn't any relationship that's 100% bad.

02:18:51.860 And so when you jump out of it, well, maybe you're in better shape,

02:18:55.860 but you're still lonesome and disoriented,

02:18:57.860 and you don't know what your past was, and you don't know what your present is,

02:18:59.860 and you don't know what your future is.

02:19:01.860 That's why people stay with the devil they know,

02:19:05.860 instead of, you know, looking for the devil they don't know.

02:19:08.860 So, so anyways, the fact that you're full of faults doesn't mean you have to stop.

02:19:16.860 And thank God for that.

02:19:18.860 That's a really useful thing.

02:19:20.860 And the fact that you're full of faults doesn't mean that you can't learn.

02:19:24.860 And so you can posit an ideal, and you're going to be wrong about it,

02:19:28.860 but it doesn't matter, because what you're right about is positing the ideal moving towards it.

02:19:32.860 If the actual ideal isn't conceptualized perfectly,

02:19:38.860 well, first, surprise, surprise, because, like, what are you going to do that's perfect?

02:19:41.860 So, it doesn't matter that it's imperfect.

02:19:44.860 It just matters that you do it, and that you move forward.

02:19:47.860 So that's really, that's really positive news, as far as I'm concerned.

02:19:50.860 Because you can actually do that, right?

02:19:52.860 You can do it badly. Anyone can do that.

02:19:54.860 So that's, that's useful.

02:19:57.860 Okay, so like, if you were an efficient person, you would have just done that.

02:20:01.860 But you're not.

02:20:03.860 But who cares, you know? You still end up in the, in the same place.

02:20:07.860 And maybe the trip is even more interesting.

02:20:09.860 Who knows? Probably too interesting.

02:20:11.860 Um, Jung.

02:20:13.860 I began to understand that the goal of psychic development,

02:20:16.860 by which he means psychological development, or spiritual development,

02:20:21.860 is the self.

02:20:23.860 There's no linear evolution.

02:20:25.860 There's only a circumambulation of the self, a getting closer.

02:20:28.860 It's like, it's like you're spiraling into something.

02:20:30.860 Something like that.

02:20:32.860 And the thing that you're spiraling into recedes as you move towards it.

02:20:35.860 And gets more and more sophisticated and well developed as you move towards it.

02:20:41.860 Because you're not going to run out of goals, right?

02:20:43.860 No matter how much you have your act together.

02:20:45.860 There's probably, undoubtedly,

02:20:48.860 30 dimensions along which you could get your act together a lot more.

02:20:52.860 So, and some of those aren't even conceivable to you when you're in your initial un-carved state, let's say.

02:21:00.860 Uniform development exists at most at the beginning.

02:21:03.860 Later, everything points towards the center.

02:21:05.860 This insight gave me stability and gradually my inner peace returned.

02:21:09.860 So this is fun.

02:21:14.860 On the left there, that's the Chart Cathedral.

02:21:17.860 That's the one that has the maze in it that I told you about.

02:21:20.860 They actually light that up with lasers now.

02:21:23.860 And so that's it lit up with lasers.

02:21:26.860 And so they're turning it into a cathedral of light.

02:21:30.860 Which I think is really fascinating.

02:21:32.860 And it's a continuation of the same idea, right?

02:21:35.860 Because the stained glass windows were obviously...

02:21:37.860 I wouldn't call them primitive attempts to do that.

02:21:39.860 I mean stained glass windows are pretty impressive.

02:21:42.860 You know, but it's an elaboration of the same thing.

02:21:45.860 So now you can go to that cathedral.

02:21:46.860 They light up the whole town like that.

02:21:48.860 Which is really something.

02:21:49.860 And so there's how the cathedral is built.

02:21:52.860 It's a cross.

02:21:53.860 And you remember the cross is an X that marks the center of the world.

02:21:57.860 And the cross is the place where each individual is.

02:21:59.860 And I think that's the fundamental message of Christianity.

02:22:03.860 Is the cross marks the place where every single individual is.

02:22:06.860 And it's a tragic place that consists of suffering and exposure to malevolence.

02:22:12.860 And that the only way to come to terms with it is to accept it.

02:22:16.860 And that seems to me...

02:22:18.860 I don't see anything metaphysical about that statement whatsoever.

02:22:21.860 It's like...

02:22:22.860 Well, X marks the spot.

02:22:24.860 Fair enough.

02:22:25.860 You're in a spot.

02:22:26.860 You're right in the center of your world.

02:22:28.860 It's right in the center of the world as far as you're concerned.

02:22:30.860 And the same with the rest of us.

02:22:32.860 It's characterized by suffering and exposure to malevolence.

02:22:35.860 There's no doubt about that.

02:22:36.860 What are you going to do about that?

02:22:38.860 Bitter?

02:22:39.860 Resentful?

02:22:40.860 Hateful?

02:22:41.860 All that does is make it worse.

02:22:42.860 So you have to accept it.

02:22:44.860 Now that's not an easy thing.

02:22:46.860 Because that's actually, I would say, a heroic task.

02:22:48.860 To voluntarily accept the conditions of your own existence.

02:22:51.860 And that happens at the cross.

02:22:53.860 So that's fine.

02:22:54.860 And that's associated with light.

02:22:56.860 Well, that's good.

02:22:57.860 That that's associated with light.

02:22:59.860 You wouldn't want that to be associated with darkness.

02:23:01.860 That would be a bad thing.

02:23:02.860 So...

02:23:08.860 And so there's the...

02:23:10.860 There's the...

02:23:14.860 The labyrinth.

02:23:15.860 That was built in 1200 AD.

02:23:17.860 And so the idea is you walk in here.

02:23:19.860 It's the same idea as that star sequence of slides that I just showed you.

02:23:25.860 So here's the idea.

02:23:26.860 Is that north, south, west and east.

02:23:29.860 So that's the whole world laid out in two dimensions.

02:23:32.860 And so the question is, how do you get to the center?

02:23:35.860 Now we already know what the center is.

02:23:36.860 The center is the center of the cross.

02:23:38.860 That's the place of maximal suffering.

02:23:40.860 You could say maximal malevolence as well.

02:23:43.860 But it's also the place where that's transcendent.

02:23:45.860 So how do you get there?

02:23:47.860 Well, the answer is...

02:23:48.860 Well, you don't just stand on the outside.

02:23:51.860 Looking in.

02:23:52.860 That's not gonna help.

02:23:54.860 So...

02:23:55.860 And you can't just run right to the center.

02:23:57.860 Even if you're in California.

02:23:59.860 And so...

02:24:02.860 You have to walk in here.

02:24:05.860 And then, you see, you go like this.

02:24:08.860 And you go to every single place.

02:24:11.860 Every single place.

02:24:12.860 On that little cosmos.

02:24:15.860 And then once you've gone to every single place.

02:24:18.860 And expanded yourself as a consequence of going north and west and east and south.

02:24:22.860 Then there's enough of you so that you're at...

02:24:25.860 So that you can tolerate being...

02:24:27.860 First of all, that you can figure out where the center is.

02:24:29.860 But also that you can tolerate being at the center.

02:24:32.860 And so that's what that represents.

02:24:34.860 And that's pretty...

02:24:35.860 And look, I mean...

02:24:36.860 Let's make no mistake about it, hey?

02:24:38.860 People were pretty damn serious about those ideas.

02:24:41.860 Like, that's a...

02:24:42.860 That's quite the piece of work for people in the 12th century.

02:24:45.860 You know, those...

02:24:46.860 Some of those damn cathedrals took 300 years to build.

02:24:49.860 We don't build anything that takes 300 years.

02:24:51.860 You know, people were putting a lot of effort into whatever these things meant.

02:24:56.860 You know, and if you think they meant bearded man in the sky.

02:24:59.860 Then, you know...

02:25:01.860 It's hard to...

02:25:02.860 It's hard to account for the kind of motivation that would produce these buildings.

02:25:08.860 With that kind of paucity of conceptualization.

02:25:11.860 You know, the towns...

02:25:13.860 And it was certainly the case in Chartres.

02:25:16.860 That they groaned under the tax burden that was required to produce these.

02:25:21.860 Now, you might think, well, that's partly tyrannical.

02:25:23.860 And no doubt that's the case.

02:25:25.860 But...

02:25:26.860 But...

02:25:27.860 That's not...

02:25:28.860 The whole story.

02:25:29.860 The whole story is that the people who produced those buildings.

02:25:32.860 They thought about every bit of it.

02:25:34.860 Nothing's accidental.

02:25:37.860 And they're trying to portray something.

02:25:38.860 Just like that window is trying to portray something.

02:25:41.860 That's the same thing as this.

02:25:43.860 It's the center from which all things manifest themselves.

02:25:47.860 You see, that's Christ there.

02:25:49.860 And being portrayed as that center.

02:25:52.860 Or the center within him.

02:25:53.860 Something like that.

02:25:54.860 Very much like the chakras in yogic practice.

02:25:59.860 Same basic idea.

02:26:01.860 It's the opening up of the internal structure.

02:26:04.860 And its proper realization.

02:26:07.860 So...

02:26:11.860 There are people walking the...

02:26:14.860 The labyrinth.

02:26:17.860 So that's the code of many colors, right?

02:26:19.860 That's this differentiated mode of being that enables you to be...

02:26:23.860 Competent and at home.

02:26:26.860 In the widest possible number of places.

02:26:29.860 And that's a real differentiation of your personality.

02:26:32.860 It's a...

02:26:33.860 Breaking through the boundaries of your personality.

02:26:36.860 Including the ones that you impose on yourself.

02:26:38.860 To become...

02:26:41.860 Someone who's useful wherever they're put.

02:26:44.860 And that's really relevant to this story of Joseph, too.

02:26:47.860 Because...

02:26:48.860 One of the things that happens to Joseph is that...

02:26:50.860 Well, a lot of bad things happen to him.

02:26:52.860 Because he's the favorite of his father.

02:26:55.860 His brothers hate him.

02:26:57.860 And so the first...

02:26:58.860 They're gonna throw him in a pit.

02:26:59.860 I think they do throw him in a pit.

02:27:01.860 Then they sell him to be a slave.

02:27:03.860 Then he ends up in...

02:27:04.860 Well, we'll go through the story.

02:27:06.860 He ends up some places where you probably wouldn't want to go.

02:27:09.860 Prison being one of them.

02:27:11.860 But...

02:27:13.860 It doesn't matter.

02:27:14.860 Because even when they put him in prison.

02:27:16.860 He's actually not in prison.

02:27:18.860 He just figures out how to make the prison work way better.

02:27:21.860 And then he's in control of the prison.

02:27:23.860 And it's...

02:27:24.860 Really.

02:27:25.860 It's an interesting...

02:27:26.860 I had this friend.

02:27:27.860 You know.

02:27:28.860 And...

02:27:29.860 He was very smart.

02:27:30.860 But very cynical.

02:27:31.860 And...

02:27:32.860 He wasn't employed very well.

02:27:33.860 And...

02:27:34.860 He got a little older than he should have.

02:27:37.860 Given his level of intelligence and employability.

02:27:40.860 And so he had to take jobs that weren't very intellectually challenging.

02:27:43.860 You know.

02:27:44.860 And one of the things I tried to convince him of.

02:27:47.860 Was that...

02:27:48.860 Even if he worked...

02:27:49.860 He wanted to work behind the parts department in an automotive store.

02:27:52.860 Because he liked cars.

02:27:53.860 But it was beneath him.

02:27:54.860 You know.

02:27:55.860 Because it was sort of a...

02:27:56.860 As far as he was concerned.

02:27:58.860 It was a...

02:27:59.860 He was too smart for a job like that.

02:28:01.860 Which actually turned out not to be true.

02:28:03.860 He wasn't smart enough for a job like that.

02:28:04.860 Or he wasn't wise enough.

02:28:05.860 But you know...

02:28:06.860 One of the things I tried to tell him was that...

02:28:08.860 You're looking at the situation wrong.

02:28:11.860 Because...

02:28:12.860 Even in a simple job.

02:28:14.860 So-called simple job.

02:28:15.860 Like...

02:28:16.860 Let's say dish washing in a restaurant.

02:28:17.860 Which I did an awful lot of.

02:28:18.860 It's not that simple.

02:28:19.860 You're dealing with a lot of other people.

02:28:22.860 Very fast staff changeover.

02:28:24.860 You're feeding people.

02:28:25.860 You're helping them have a celebration.

02:28:27.860 You're helping them...

02:28:29.860 Take a break.

02:28:30.860 Like...

02:28:31.860 You can do it really well.

02:28:32.860 And then the kitchen can operate properly.

02:28:34.860 And then...

02:28:35.860 People can come out to the restaurant.

02:28:36.860 And it's not a bloody catastrophe.

02:28:37.860 And...

02:28:38.860 Like...

02:28:39.860 You're...

02:28:40.860 Even when you're doing something that's a menial job.

02:28:42.860 So to speak.

02:28:43.860 Like dish washing.

02:28:44.860 There are ways of doing it really badly.

02:28:45.860 Resentfully.

02:28:46.860 And horribly.

02:28:47.860 And doing it really well.

02:28:49.860 And as soon as you do it really well.

02:28:50.860 It's not a menial job anymore.

02:28:52.860 It immediately...

02:28:53.860 Transforms...

02:28:54.860 No.

02:28:55.860 I mean...

02:28:56.860 You can be around people who won't let that happen.

02:28:58.860 And you should go get another job.

02:28:59.860 If that's the case.

02:29:00.860 But if you do it properly.

02:29:02.860 Then it's not menial at all.

02:29:04.860 And that's also a good...

02:29:06.860 Way out of resentment.

02:29:08.860 You think...

02:29:09.860 Well I've just got this...

02:29:10.860 You know...

02:29:11.860 Two bit job.

02:29:12.860 It's like...

02:29:13.860 Yeah...

02:29:14.860 What if you did it as well as you possibly could?

02:29:15.860 You know...

02:29:16.860 What would happen?

02:29:17.860 Well the first thing that would happen is...

02:29:18.860 You'd get a lot smarter.

02:29:19.860 That...

02:29:20.860 That's hardly...

02:29:21.860 A negative thing.

02:29:23.860 Okay.

02:29:24.860 So that's the coat of many colors.

02:29:26.860 So it's an intimation of what Joseph is like.

02:29:29.860 And what we're seeing with all of these patriarchal figures is the continual realization of the ideal person.

02:29:36.860 Right?

02:29:37.860 You could think about it as...

02:29:38.860 Successive approximations of the ideal person.

02:29:41.860 And the story is exploring all sorts of different possibilities including ones that are very violent and catastrophic and malevolent.

02:29:49.860 It's trying to cover the entire territory.

02:29:51.860 And to focus in on what's the proper way through the maze.

02:29:56.860 The maze of life.

02:29:57.860 The labyrinth.

02:29:58.860 And the hint here is that while you should be multi-dimensional.

02:30:03.860 These are the generations of Jacob.

02:30:05.860 Joseph being 17 years old was feeding the flock with his brethren.

02:30:08.860 And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.

02:30:12.860 And Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

02:30:17.860 Well...

02:30:19.860 We already know that Joseph is Jacob's favorite.

02:30:21.860 And so that doesn't make him very popular among his brothers.

02:30:24.860 He's younger.

02:30:25.860 And now we also find out that he's been set up more or less as...

02:30:30.860 You might say a snitch.

02:30:31.860 Because that's what this phrase means.

02:30:33.860 Is that he goes out and watches his older brothers.

02:30:35.860 And if they do something they shouldn't do.

02:30:37.860 Then he comes trotting back to Jacob and reports.

02:30:41.860 Well that's not going to make you popular.

02:30:43.860 So...

02:30:44.860 And you would say, well is that Joseph's problem?

02:30:48.860 Or Jacob's problem?

02:30:50.860 And I would say, and this is something I learned from reading Jung too.

02:30:53.860 Is that that's a conspiratorial problem.

02:30:55.860 Right?

02:30:56.860 Is it's the parents at fault.

02:30:58.860 But so is the child who agrees to do that.

02:31:01.860 They've got a little cabal going.

02:31:05.860 And you might say, well it's only the parent's fault.

02:31:08.860 But the son will be taking advantage of every advantage that offers him.

02:31:13.860 Because he could say, no too, I won't do that.

02:31:16.860 So anyway, so...

02:31:18.860 Joseph is the favorite.

02:31:20.860 He's a bit of a teacher's pet.

02:31:22.860 That's what it looks like.

02:31:24.860 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his colors.

02:31:27.860 Because he was the son of his old age.

02:31:28.860 And he made him a coat of many colors.

02:31:31.860 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren.

02:31:34.860 They hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

02:31:37.860 So, let's say you have a child or a number of children.

02:31:40.860 And one of them is your favorite.

02:31:41.860 How should you treat that child?

02:31:43.860 Well, it isn't obvious that you do them any favors by overtly making them your favorite.

02:31:49.860 Right?

02:31:50.860 I mean, first of all, maybe you don't challenge them as much as you should.

02:31:53.860 And second of all, you definitely set up a Cain and Abel-like scenario in the household.

02:31:59.860 Or maybe it's an Oedipal situation too, because you happen to love your child more than you love your spouse.

02:32:04.860 Which is, that's not a recipe for familial harmony.

02:32:08.860 So, it seems to be a bad idea.

02:32:12.860 Okay, so now we have two reasons that Joseph is not liked by his brothers.

02:32:17.860 One is, well, he's a bit of a rat fink.

02:32:20.860 And the other is that he's the favorite.

02:32:23.860 And he's playing that to the hilt by the looks of things.

02:32:26.860 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren,

02:32:30.860 they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

02:32:34.860 Okay.

02:32:35.860 And Joseph dreamed a dream and he told it to his brethren.

02:32:38.860 And they hated him the more.

02:32:40.860 He said unto them,

02:32:42.860 Here, I pray you this dream which I have dreamed.

02:32:45.860 For behold, we were binding wheat sheaves in the field.

02:32:48.860 And lo, my sheaf arose.

02:32:50.860 And behold, your sheaves stood round about and bowed to my sheaf.

02:32:54.860 And remember, he's the young one, right?

02:33:00.860 And also the daughter of the favorite wife.

02:33:03.860 Which is another thing that's...

02:33:04.860 Or the son of the favorite wife.

02:33:05.860 Which is another thing not really working in his favor.

02:33:07.860 And his brethren said to him,

02:33:09.860 Shalt thou indeed reign over us?

02:33:11.860 Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?

02:33:13.860 And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words.

02:33:17.860 Well, there's a shock.

02:33:18.860 You know, that makes perfect sense.

02:33:20.860 And it gets worse.

02:33:21.860 So you see here.

02:33:23.860 Well, there's the wheat sheaves bowing there.

02:33:25.860 And then you see this.

02:33:28.860 What's going on here?

02:33:29.860 Well, that's not the end of his...

02:33:31.860 Let's call it grandiosity.

02:33:33.860 And there's an idea too in the Old Testament.

02:33:36.860 Especially in the stories of Joseph.

02:33:37.860 That if God sends you a dream twice, he really means it.

02:33:40.860 And so, I don't know if that's true.

02:33:42.860 Although I do know that people have repeating dreams.

02:33:45.860 It might be true that a dream you have twice is...

02:33:48.860 Really trying to punch something home, you know.

02:33:51.860 It's certainly the case that recurrent nightmares are meaningful.

02:33:55.860 And that recurrent nightmares are associated quite tightly with decreased states of mental health.

02:34:01.860 And that if you can treat the nightmare, which is often quite easy, by the way.

02:34:06.860 Then some of the mental health problems will decrease.

02:34:10.860 So, repeated dreams seem to be important.

02:34:12.860 Anyways, he dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brethren and said,

02:34:16.860 Behold, I've had another dream.

02:34:18.860 And behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed to me.

02:34:23.860 And he told it to his father and to his brothers.

02:34:26.860 And his father rebuked him and said unto him,

02:34:28.860 What is this dream that thou hast dreamed?

02:34:30.860 Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee, to the earth?

02:34:37.860 And his brethren envied him.

02:34:39.860 But his father observed the saying,

02:34:42.860 Well, what the hell do you make of something like that, right?

02:34:45.860 If someone tells you that?

02:34:47.860 It's like, are they responsible for their dreams?

02:34:50.860 We don't really hold ourselves responsible for the dreams we have at night.

02:34:56.860 Then what do you make of a dream?

02:34:58.860 One of the things that Jung pointed out, this is where he differed from Freud substantially.

02:35:02.860 Freud tended to think that the dream hid its meaning.

02:35:07.860 Because its contents weren't acceptable to the conscious mind.

02:35:11.860 And Jung said, no, no, you don't understand.

02:35:13.860 That's not what happens.

02:35:14.860 What happens is the dream is doing the best it can to express something that the person doesn't yet really know.

02:35:21.860 And Jung thought about the dream as a manifestation of nature.

02:35:24.860 It wasn't associated with the ego at all.

02:35:26.860 It's just like, you have a dream, and there are things happening in it the same way that when you walk into a dinner party, there are things happening there.

02:35:33.860 You know, it's not, the dream isn't something that's subject to your capacity for manipulation.

02:35:39.860 It's something that happens to you, not something that you do.

02:35:42.860 And so, so if someone has a dream like that, well, you've got three options.

02:35:46.860 You can just discount dreams altogether, which is what people in the modern world tend to do.

02:35:51.860 Which is a very bad idea, because they're thoughts, and you shouldn't discount them.

02:35:56.860 You know, I mean, they're hardly random, as some neuroscientists claim.

02:36:00.860 That's absolutely cockeyed theory, that random.

02:36:03.860 It would be like television snow on a TV set if it was random.

02:36:07.860 So, so one is, well, you just discount dreams.

02:36:10.860 The other is that you consider the person a liar, and a braggart, and a narcissist.

02:36:14.860 And the third is, well, what's the third?

02:36:18.860 It's like, he dreamt that the sun and the moon and the stars bowed down to him.

02:36:22.860 You might think about that two or three times.

02:36:27.860 So, but it's not necessarily something that's going to make you happy.

02:36:31.860 And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

02:36:34.860 So they took off.

02:36:35.860 And Israel said unto Joseph, do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem?

02:36:39.860 Come, and I will send thee unto him.

02:36:41.860 And he said to him, and he said to him, here am I.

02:36:45.860 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.

02:36:52.860 Rough people back then, right?

02:36:55.860 This sort of thing is happening quite frequently.

02:37:00.860 And they said to one another, behold, the dreamer cometh.

02:37:04.860 Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit.

02:37:08.860 And we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.

02:37:13.860 So there's an echo of the Cain and Abel story there, obviously.

02:37:16.860 You know, I mean, it's not quite as clear.

02:37:20.860 Because in the Cain and Abel story, Abel is clearly just doing well.

02:37:23.860 And here, you can't quite get a handle on Joseph's character.

02:37:27.860 You can't tell if he is actually the elect, or if he's just a spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur.

02:37:32.860 You know, and, but it doesn't matter.

02:37:35.860 Because his brothers are so irritated at his, the fact that he's favoured.

02:37:40.860 And perhaps even the fact that he might be someone destined for something special.

02:37:48.860 That they find it perfectly reasonable to destroy that.

02:37:52.860 And it's so odd, it's so interesting how often that motif of pulling down an ideal manifests itself in these old stories, right?

02:38:01.860 It's, it's, the pattern is established in the Cain and Abel story.

02:38:04.860 It just repeats and repeats and repeats.

02:38:06.860 And I, I think that's dead true.

02:38:08.860 I think it just repeats all the time.

02:38:10.860 So that people are annoyed about how tragic their lives are.

02:38:13.860 They're annoyed that they're subject to malevolence.

02:38:16.860 And they're annoyed that they're not doing as well as other people are doing.

02:38:20.860 And that makes them, that puts them exactly into this state of mind.

02:38:24.860 Now maybe, with modern people, if you're going to kill someone because you're resentful as a modern person.

02:38:30.860 You don't generally slay them and throw them into a pit.

02:38:32.860 You know, what you do is you just kill them slowly over a few decades.

02:38:36.860 And it isn't obvious to me that that's any better.

02:38:39.860 So, I've seen plenty of married couples who were in that situation.

02:38:45.860 It's like, it's like, there is this Mitch Hedberg, he used to complain about turtlenecks.

02:38:52.860 He said it was like being strangled by a really weak midget.

02:38:55.860 And, it's probably a really politically incorrect joke.

02:39:00.860 But it's a funny joke.

02:39:02.860 So, and then you see, you see relationships that are like that.

02:39:09.860 It's like, each person has their hands around the neck of the other person.

02:39:12.860 But they don't have enough courage to actually, to squeeze.

02:39:16.860 They just put enough pressure on to cut the circulation off a tiny bit.

02:39:20.860 So, the person just gets like, they die over a 30 year period.

02:39:24.860 Something like that.

02:39:25.860 So, yeah, and you all laugh because you know it's true.

02:39:30.860 That's why.

02:39:33.860 And we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him.

02:39:36.860 Which would be true, actually.

02:39:38.860 It would be the evil beast that's inside the brothers.

02:39:41.860 And we shall see what will become of his dreams.

02:39:44.860 Ha ha.

02:39:45.860 That's interesting too.

02:39:46.860 Because, so, they want to spite themselves.

02:39:50.860 Because maybe Joseph is something special.

02:39:52.860 And then they want to spite their father.

02:39:55.860 Which is probably not the wisest idea.

02:39:58.860 Because they owe him some gratitude.

02:40:00.860 I mean, maybe he's acting like a pain in the neck.

02:40:02.860 There's some evidence for that.

02:40:03.860 But this is a little bit harsh.

02:40:05.860 But they also want to spite God, just like Cain did.

02:40:08.860 Because that's what it means.

02:40:10.860 We shall see what will become of his dreams.

02:40:13.860 Right?

02:40:14.860 Because then, as soon as you're, in some sense, trying to fight against the intuition of someone.

02:40:19.860 The natural intuition of someone.

02:40:21.860 You've set yourself up against the structure of being itself.

02:40:24.860 And so, pretty bad.

02:40:27.860 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered them out of their hands.

02:40:30.860 And said, no, let us not kill him.

02:40:32.860 And Reuben said unto them, shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that's in the wilderness.

02:40:36.860 It's like, Reuben's the good guy in this story.

02:40:39.860 And there's no water in the pit, by the way.

02:40:43.860 And lay no hand upon him, that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.

02:40:51.860 So Reuben was actually trying to save him.

02:40:54.860 Said he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.

02:40:58.860 And it came to pass, when Joseph came unto his brethren, that they stripped him of his coat.

02:41:02.860 His coat of many colors that was on him.

02:41:06.860 And they took him and cast him into a pit.

02:41:08.860 And the pit was empty, and there was no water in it.

02:41:14.860 And then they sat down to eat bread, and lifted up their eyes, and looked.

02:41:17.860 And behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels, bearing spices and balm and myrrh,

02:41:23.860 going to carry it down to Egypt.

02:41:25.860 And Judah said unto his brethren,

02:41:27.860 How does it profit us if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

02:41:31.860 So he's the practical guy here.

02:41:34.860 Why would we kill him when we can sell him?

02:41:37.860 It's like,

02:41:38.860 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother in our flesh.

02:41:43.860 And his brethren were content.

02:41:46.860 Then they're passed by Midianites merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver.

02:41:54.860 It's an amount that echoes through into the future.

02:41:58.860 And they brought Joseph into Egypt.

02:42:00.860 I'm never really sure how these slavery stories work.

02:42:03.860 It's like, so it's 2,500, 3,000 years ago, and I decide I'm going to sell you to the Ishmaelites, and that just works out.

02:42:09.860 I get the money, you get to be a slave, and they take you away.

02:42:12.860 I don't really understand how that works.

02:42:14.860 I can't figure out how people weren't just selling each other all the time.

02:42:17.860 But, maybe if you're family, you can do it.

02:42:22.860 So, there they sold him.

02:42:28.860 And Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not there.

02:42:33.860 And Reuben rent his clothes.

02:42:35.860 So, Reuben's very upset about this.

02:42:36.860 And he returned unto his brothers, and said,

02:42:38.860 The child is not, and where shall I go?

02:42:41.860 And they conspired.

02:42:42.860 They took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood.

02:42:47.860 That's interesting, too, because blood is actually another color.

02:42:50.860 Right?

02:42:51.860 So, he's got this coat of many colors.

02:42:53.860 And blood is definitely a color.

02:42:55.860 And so, this is the addition, in some sense, of the color of blood to Joseph's coat.

02:43:00.860 And I would say, it's probably a necessary color.

02:43:04.860 Because I don't think that you're serious enough until your coat has been dipped in blood.

02:43:08.860 That can happen in many ways.

02:43:10.860 And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father.

02:43:14.860 And said, so they lied to him.

02:43:17.860 It's very, very nasty business, this.

02:43:19.860 They sell his son to slavery.

02:43:22.860 They claim that he's dead.

02:43:23.860 They lie to him.

02:43:25.860 They put him into an extreme state of grief.

02:43:28.860 There's a lot of hatred underneath that.

02:43:30.860 Right?

02:43:31.860 A tremendous amount of hatred for Joseph, and also for Jacob.

02:43:36.860 This we have found.

02:43:38.860 Know now whether it be thy son's coat or not.

02:43:40.860 And he knew it.

02:43:41.860 He said, it's my son's coat.

02:43:43.860 An evil beast has devoured him.

02:43:45.860 Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

02:43:48.860 And Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for many days.

02:43:52.860 And all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him.

02:43:54.860 But he refused to be comforted.

02:43:56.860 He said, I'll go down into my grave mourning my son.

02:44:00.860 Thus his father wept for him.

02:44:05.860 So that's Jacob collapsing at the news.

02:44:12.860 And the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard.

02:44:19.860 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt.

02:44:21.860 And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites which had brought him down thither.

02:44:28.860 So now he's a slave.

02:44:31.860 So now you'd think, well that would be, this is a man who has a lot of reason to be irritated at the structure of reality, right?

02:44:40.860 He's gone from being the favorite to being betrayed by all of his brothers.

02:44:44.860 That's pretty rough.

02:44:45.860 And then he's being transformed into a slave.

02:44:48.860 And now he's being sold to work as a slave.

02:44:51.860 So you'd think that that would corrupt his character.

02:44:54.860 Because you know, one of the things, I think this is the case anyways.

02:44:57.860 I think people are always looking for an excuse to have their character corrupted.

02:45:01.860 Because if your character is corrupted, then you get to lie.

02:45:04.860 And you get to cheat.

02:45:05.860 And you get to steal.

02:45:06.860 And you get to betray.

02:45:07.860 And you get to act resentfully.

02:45:08.860 And you get to do nothing.

02:45:09.860 And that's all easy.

02:45:10.860 It's easier to lie than to tell the truth.

02:45:12.860 It's easier to do nothing than to do something.

02:45:14.860 So there's always part of you thinking, well I need a justification for being useless and horrible.

02:45:19.860 Because that'd be a lot less work.

02:45:22.860 And so, then, if something terrible comes along, you think, aha!

02:45:27.860 That's just exactly the excuse that I was waiting for.

02:45:30.860 And then out all that comes.

02:45:33.860 You know, Solzhenitsyn, when he was in the concentration camps in Russia, watching how people behaved.

02:45:40.860 You know, he said that there were people that were put into camps who immediately became trustees or guards.

02:45:45.860 And they were even more vicious than the people who had been hired as guards.

02:45:49.860 And his idea was that they had collected all that, he called it, foulness, if I remember correctly, around them in normal life.

02:45:59.860 But they didn't have the opportunity to express it.

02:46:02.860 But as soon as you gave them the opportunity, it was like, there it was, right away.

02:46:06.860 And so, so one of the messages that seems to echo through these Old Testament stories is that just because something terrible happens to you,

02:46:17.860 doesn't mean that you get to be, that you get to wander off the path and make things worse.

02:46:24.860 And maybe it doesn't matter how terrible it is that, what happens to you.

02:46:29.860 And that's a tough call, you know, because you see people now and then in life who, they've really got it rough, man.

02:46:34.860 Like, 50 bad things are happening to them at the same time.

02:46:36.860 And you think, oh, it's no wonder.

02:46:38.860 If you were bitter and resentful and hostile, it'd be like, yeah, no wonder.

02:46:42.860 But then you meet people, and Solzhenitsyn again talked about this in the Gulag Archipelago.

02:46:46.860 He said he met lots of people in the, not lots, he met enough people to impress him in the concentration camp system,

02:46:52.860 who didn't allow their misfortunes to corrupt them.

02:46:56.860 And that's something, man.

02:46:58.860 Because maybe the only real misfortune is to become corrupted.

02:47:01.860 That's a really useful thing to think.

02:47:04.860 You know, maybe the rest of it, maybe the rest of it is trivial in comparison.

02:47:08.860 I know that's a rough thing, because you can be in very harsh circumstances, but I do think there's something to that.

02:47:14.860 And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man, and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.

02:47:19.860 And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

02:47:24.860 So that's an echo of the idea that we encountered earlier about walking with God, right?

02:47:28.860 So Adam walked with God before he ate the fruit with Eve, and then he wouldn't walk with God.

02:47:33.860 And then Noah walked with God, and Abraham walked with God.

02:47:36.860 And so the idea is, well, that's that alignment with the highest ideal.

02:47:40.860 I think it's something like that.

02:47:42.860 And you know, we can think about that as a metaphysical claim as well.

02:47:46.860 But I don't think it is.

02:47:48.860 I mean, I've got thousands of letters now, in the last year, from people who have told me that they were in a pit.

02:47:57.860 That's exactly right.

02:48:00.860 And that they decided that they were going to try to put their lives together.

02:48:05.860 And that it worked.

02:48:08.860 And so that's really something, you know?

02:48:10.860 And they write surprised.

02:48:11.860 It's like, well, I decided that I was going to work hard at what I was doing, and I wasn't going to lie any more than absolutely necessary.

02:48:17.860 I thought I'd give it a try for a few months, you know?

02:48:20.860 And all sorts of good things started to happen to me.

02:48:23.860 It's like, maybe that's how the world works.

02:48:25.860 Now, obviously, it doesn't work like that all the time, right?

02:48:28.860 Because you can get sliced off at the knees.

02:48:30.860 I mean, there's an arbitrary element to existence that you can't wish away.

02:48:36.860 But that doesn't mean that there are...

02:48:40.860 It doesn't mean that there aren't bad strategies and good strategies.

02:48:45.860 And so, I do think that one of the most fundamental existential questions is, like,

02:48:50.860 if things aren't going well for you in your life is,

02:48:52.860 are you absolutely certain that you're doing absolutely everything you can to put things in order?

02:48:57.860 Because if you're not, then you shouldn't complain.

02:48:59.860 Because you don't know to what degree you're actually contributing or even causing the circumstance.

02:49:05.860 Now, that's a very annoying thing to think.

02:49:07.860 And I'm not trying to blame the victim.

02:49:09.860 You know, I know that people end up with lung cancer because they were exposed to asbestos, you know?

02:49:13.860 I'm not trying to...

02:49:15.860 Although, I also know, too, that if you have lung cancer because you've been exposed to asbestos,

02:49:19.860 that can be a tragedy or it can be hell.

02:49:21.860 And to some degree, that depends on how you conduct yourself.

02:49:24.860 So, I mean, I know that's pretty gloomy possibilities, right?

02:49:28.860 But...

02:49:29.860 So, anyway, so Joseph is a slave, but it turns out that he's a...

02:49:35.860 He hasn't sacrificed the integrity of his character.

02:49:37.860 And so, it turns out that being...

02:49:39.860 It turns out that he's not a slave.

02:49:41.860 It's just that everyone around him thinks he's a slave.

02:49:44.860 But he's not.

02:49:45.860 So, that's pretty interesting.

02:49:47.860 He was a goodly person and well-favoured.

02:49:50.860 Well, so he's a good guy and he's...

02:49:52.860 An impressive specimen as well.

02:49:55.860 This is pretty interesting given the current political climate, I would say.

02:49:59.860 And it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph

02:50:04.860 and she said,

02:50:05.860 Lie with me.

02:50:06.860 That means...

02:50:08.860 That actually has two meanings, right?

02:50:10.860 But he refused.

02:50:12.860 And said unto his master's wife,

02:50:18.860 Behold, my master does not know what's with me in the house.

02:50:23.860 And he's committed all that he has to my hand.

02:50:27.860 There is no one greater in this house than I.

02:50:30.860 Neither hath he kept back anything from me but you.

02:50:33.860 Because you are his wife.

02:50:35.860 How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

02:50:42.860 And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day,

02:50:45.860 that he hearken not unto her to lie by her or be with her.

02:50:49.860 He's being sexually harassed, Joseph.

02:50:51.860 And it came to pass...

02:50:53.860 Well, it's right!

02:50:55.860 I mean, look!

02:50:56.860 Look at the painting!

02:51:03.860 And it came to pass about this time that Joseph went into the house to do his business

02:51:07.860 and there was none of the men of the house there within.

02:51:10.860 And she caught him by his garment, saying,

02:51:12.860 Lie with me.

02:51:13.860 And he left his garment in her hand and fled and got him out.

02:51:17.860 So that's kind of embarrassing for poor Joseph, I would say.

02:51:21.860 And a bit on the suspicious side.

02:51:24.860 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and was fled forth,

02:51:28.860 that she called unto the men of her house and spake unto them,

02:51:31.860 See!

02:51:32.860 See!

02:51:33.860 He hath brought in a Hebrew to mock us.

02:51:34.860 He came in unto me to lie with me.

02:51:36.860 And I cried with a loud voice.

02:51:39.860 So, what is it?

02:51:41.860 Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

02:51:43.860 That's the proper commentary on that.

02:51:46.860 And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried,

02:51:49.860 that he left his garment with me and fled and got himself out.

02:51:53.860 And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife,

02:51:56.860 so that's the Pharaoh, which she spake unto him, saying,

02:51:59.860 After this manner did thy servant to me.

02:52:01.860 His wrath was kindled.

02:52:03.860 And Joseph's master took him and put him in prison,

02:52:05.860 a place where the king's prisoners were bound.

02:52:08.860 And he was there in the prison.

02:52:10.860 Well, that sort of sucks.

02:52:11.860 It's like, first his brothers betray him and throw him in a pit.

02:52:16.860 And then he gets made a slave, which is probably better than being in the pit.

02:52:20.860 And then he becomes sort of like king-slave.

02:52:22.860 So that's working out pretty well.

02:52:24.860 And now someone lies about him.

02:52:25.860 He gets betrayed again.

02:52:26.860 And now it's into the prison with him.

02:52:28.860 And so it's this again, right?

02:52:30.860 It's the same thing.

02:52:31.860 It's Sisyphus up with the rock and then down.

02:52:34.860 And it's order, chaos, order, chaos.

02:52:38.860 And you have to think, well, are you the order?

02:52:41.860 Are you the chaos?

02:52:42.860 Are you the thing that's moving between them?

02:52:44.860 Because that's the right thing to be.

02:52:47.860 Because otherwise you're just order and that's a really bad idea.

02:52:50.860 Or you're just chaos and that's a really bad idea.

02:52:52.860 You can be the thing that's dynamically mediating between them.

02:52:56.860 And that's what he's doing.

02:52:59.860 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

02:53:04.860 That's no easy thing to do, I would think.

02:53:07.860 You know, it's like you're thrown in prison and now the jailer likes you.

02:53:11.860 Now, how exactly are you going to manage that?

02:53:13.860 It's a good thing to think about because you might think, well, if you were really in dire straits,

02:53:18.860 how is it that you should conduct yourself so that you have the highest probability of having things work out?

02:53:24.860 And it's not saying, well, Joseph took over the thumb screw, you know, and started using that on the other prisoners.

02:53:30.860 That's not the indication here at all.

02:53:32.860 It's that he's doing something.

02:53:34.860 He's acting like a person who isn't a prisoner.

02:53:38.860 Even though he's in the prison.

02:53:39.860 Just like he was acting like someone who wasn't a slave when he was a slave.

02:53:43.860 And so, it makes you wonder who you can be despite the fact that other people think that you're whatever you appear to be.

02:53:56.860 So, it's a repeat.

02:54:13.860 It's a repeat of exactly what happened when he was the slave of the Pharaoh, except it's one rung deeper into hell, so to speak.

02:54:21.860 Right?

02:54:22.860 So, it's slave Pharaoh and here it's prisoner, jail, master.

02:54:25.860 But it doesn't matter.

02:54:26.860 The same thing happens.

02:54:27.860 So, now Joseph is in prison and the Pharaoh has a fit one day of pique and throws the chief of his butlers into prison and the chief of his bakers.

02:54:36.860 And they have a dream, each of them.

02:54:38.860 And Joseph interprets the dreams.

02:54:42.860 Seems to be something that he can do.

02:54:44.860 And he tells the butler that his dream means that Pharaoh is going to forgive him and put him back in his position.

02:54:53.860 And he tells the baker that the Pharaoh isn't going to forgive him and that he's going to take off his head and hang him in a tree.

02:55:00.860 Which is rather a rough dream, but that's what happens.

02:55:05.860 So, anyways, the baker or the butler goes free.

02:55:08.860 And Joseph says, look, you know, maybe you could just keep in mind the fact that I did you a bit of a favor here and told you something that was accurate.

02:55:16.860 But the chief didn't really remember once he was freed.

02:55:22.860 Interpreting dreams in prison.

02:55:27.860 And so, now the Pharaoh has a dream.

02:55:30.860 And he actually has two dreams.

02:55:32.860 So, it's another one of those doubled motifs.

02:55:34.860 So, the idea is these are really important dreams because they came in a pair.

02:55:38.860 And behold, there came out of the river seven well-favored kine and fat flesh.

02:55:44.860 So, cattle.

02:55:45.860 And they fed in the meadow.

02:55:47.860 And behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed, starving.

02:55:55.860 And stood by the other cows on the brink of the river.

02:55:58.860 And the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favored and fat.

02:56:04.860 So, Pharaoh awoke.

02:56:06.860 Okay, fair enough.

02:56:07.860 It's a pretty nasty dream.

02:56:09.860 And then he has another dream.

02:56:11.860 To hit it home.

02:56:13.860 And he slept and dreamt the second time.

02:56:15.860 And behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.

02:56:19.860 And behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.

02:56:24.860 And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears.

02:56:28.860 And Pharaoh awoke and beheld, it was a dream.

02:56:31.860 And then it says a little later.

02:56:33.860 And for that, the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice.

02:56:36.860 It is because the thing is established by God.

02:56:38.860 And God will shortly bring it to pass.

02:56:40.860 It's interesting, you know.

02:56:41.860 Because one of the better theories about dreams is that they're part of the way that the right and left hemisphere communicate.

02:56:47.860 Or maybe the non-verbal part of the brain communicates with the verbal brain.

02:56:51.860 Verbal part of the brain.

02:56:52.860 And so, the non-verbal part of the brain, which is less differentiated and thinks more globally.

02:56:59.860 Is looking for patterns and anomalies in the world.

02:57:03.860 Things that don't fit well with the current way of conceptualizing the world.

02:57:07.860 Things that make you anxious and uncertain.

02:57:09.860 And those are things you haven't mastered, right?

02:57:11.860 So they don't fit well into your conceptualization of the world by definition.

02:57:15.860 Because if you had mastered them, they wouldn't make you anxious and nervous.

02:57:19.860 And so, the non-verbal parts of your brain are like an alarm system.

02:57:23.860 They're looking around for places where you're probably wrong.

02:57:26.860 And then they put those in images and try to conceptualize them.

02:57:31.860 So that you can update your model of reality to take them into account.

02:57:34.860 But that also produces a fair bit of negative emotion.

02:57:37.860 Especially at night.

02:57:39.860 And so, we know that, we know if you deprive people of dreams that they go insane very rapidly.

02:57:48.860 Animals as well.

02:57:49.860 Necessary part of mental equilibrium.

02:57:51.860 The way you do that with rats, in case you want to know.

02:57:54.860 Is that you've got rats that you want to drive insane.

02:57:57.860 This is how you do it.

02:57:58.860 So, you put the rat on a, like a pedestal that's pretty small.

02:58:03.860 And then when he falls, that's surrounded by water.

02:58:06.860 And then when he falls asleep, his nose hits the water and then he wakes up.

02:58:09.860 And so, you can deprive the rat of sleep.

02:58:11.860 And that doesn't, the rats don't respond to that very well after some period of time.

02:58:16.860 So, that's one of the ways that that's been discovered.

02:58:21.860 But anyways, the dream does seem to be an update mechanism.

02:58:24.860 And so, if you have a very powerful dream, like a nightmare.

02:58:28.860 Especially if it's repeating.

02:58:29.860 It's like something is trying to hammer on the door.

02:58:32.860 That needs to be let in.

02:58:34.860 And often you don't know how to let it in.

02:58:36.860 That's, that's a problem.

02:58:37.860 So, but...

02:58:39.860 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph.

02:58:41.860 Because he had talked to his, his butler.

02:58:44.860 And they brought him hastily out of the dungeon.

02:58:46.860 And Joseph shaved himself and changed his clothes and came in unto Pharaoh.

02:58:50.860 I guess he didn't want to shock Pharaoh with how people dressed in the prison.

02:58:55.860 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I've dreamed a dream and there's none that can interpret it.

02:58:59.860 And I've heard say of thee that you can understand a dream to interpret it.

02:59:02.860 And Joseph said, it's not me.

02:59:04.860 God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.

02:59:07.860 It's, so, Jacob isn't taking credit for his ability to interpret dreams.

02:59:12.860 Which also indicates quite interestingly.

02:59:14.860 There's nothing, despite the fact that he's successful and competent.

02:59:18.860 He's not narcissistic.

02:59:19.860 Like, if he happens to have this gift, he regards it as a gift.

02:59:24.860 And not as something that, you know, redounds to his favor.

02:59:27.860 It's just something that he happens to be able to do.

02:59:29.860 And so that's, that's a hallmark of someone who's got a pretty well put together personality as far as I'm concerned.

02:59:35.860 Because, you know, people have gifts that they didn't really earn.

02:59:40.860 Those would be your talents, your intelligence, your good looks if you happen to have good looks, etc.

02:59:45.860 And they're not, there's no sense being all puffed up about that.

02:59:50.860 Because it's, it's great.

02:59:51.860 It's luck of the draw though.

02:59:52.860 And the proper attitude is to note that it's luck of the draw and to be grateful for it.

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03:01:19.860 It's quite a fine painting that one.

03:01:29.860 So now we see too that Jacob, he can interpret dreams, but he's also the sort of person who can look into the future and think,

03:01:52.860 this is sort of what Adam was called on to do when he got kicked out of the garden of paradise.

03:01:58.860 You're going to be able to conceptualize that even if things are going well now,

03:02:02.860 that that doesn't mean that they're going to go well into the future.

03:02:05.860 And so, he's the ant and not the grasshopper, right?

03:02:09.860 In the grasshopper and the ant story.

03:02:11.860 It's like, everything's good, but you should wake the hell up and you should test to see how things can go wrong.

03:02:17.860 And you can see if your systems can survive them things going wrong.

03:02:22.860 And, which is something that I think we could all hearken to,

03:02:26.860 because I think we do a very bad job in the modern world of testing to see if our systems can go wrong.

03:02:35.860 Okay, so the Pharaoh is pretty impressed by this dream interpretation and pretty worried about it.

03:02:38.860 And I guess he's a reasonable person, despite the fact that he put Joseph in jail.

03:02:42.860 I guess he didn't have much choice.

03:02:45.860 Now, therefore, let Pharaoh look for a man discreet and wise and set him over the land of Egypt.

03:02:51.860 Let Pharaoh do this and let him appoint officers over the land.

03:02:54.860 This is what Joseph is saying.

03:02:56.860 And take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.

03:03:03.860 And let them gather all the food of those good years that come and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh,

03:03:07.860 and let them keep food in the cities.

03:03:10.860 And, just like that, Joseph is restored to his position.

03:03:15.860 So,

03:03:16.860 The Pharaoh said unto Joseph,

03:03:17.860 I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all of the land of Egypt.

03:03:22.860 And so he comes out of the prison,

03:03:24.860 and

03:03:26.860 He really, in some sense, as far as I'm concerned,

03:03:29.860 He actually occupies a position that's higher than the position of the Pharaoh.

03:03:33.860 Depends on how you look at it.

03:03:34.860 Because the Pharaoh has relegated himself to ceremonial status.

03:03:37.860 Right?

03:03:38.860 Joseph has all the responsibility, makes all the decisions.

03:03:40.860 So, de facto,

03:03:42.860 He's the Pharaoh.

03:03:43.860 He doesn't get the glory, precisely.

03:03:45.860 Although, he's not doing too bad for himself.

03:03:47.860 And that, there's a lesson in that, too.

03:03:49.860 I wrote these rules for Quora a long time ago.

03:03:53.860 And one of them,

03:03:54.860 I've written them into this, some of them into this book you guys got a pamphlet about today.

03:03:58.860 One of the rules that I didn't write about was,

03:04:00.860 Note that responsibility,

03:04:03.860 Note that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.

03:04:07.860 Which is really interesting, I think.

03:04:09.860 I mean, I've seen people in their jobs, they say things like,

03:04:12.860 Well, the guy I work with doesn't do any work.

03:04:16.860 It's like, well, you could do it.

03:04:18.860 I mean, I know there's limits to that.

03:04:20.860 But one of the things you can do at work is make yourself indispensable.

03:04:24.860 I mean, you might get the cane types against you, if you do that.

03:04:28.860 But there's something to be said for being indispensable.

03:04:30.860 Because when people start to be dispensed with, you probably won't be one of them.

03:04:35.860 Or even if you are, then the fact that you're indispensable just means you can go somewhere else and be indispensable there.

03:04:41.860 And that's just as useful.

03:04:43.860 So,

03:04:45.860 It's very, very difficult to permanently put down someone who's really good at doing things.

03:04:52.860 Because they can just go off and do them somewhere else.

03:04:55.860 And one of the ways that you get like that is to take responsibility when someone else is failing to do so.

03:05:02.860 And you think, well, I shouldn't have to do that.

03:05:04.860 That's one way of thinking about it.

03:05:05.860 Another way of thinking about it is, oh good, I get to do that.

03:05:08.860 And the seven years of plenteousness that was in the land of Egypt were ended.

03:05:13.860 And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph has said.

03:05:19.860 And the dearth was in all the lands.

03:05:21.860 Well, that's an archetypal story, right?

03:05:24.860 The archetypal story, it's the business cycle story.

03:05:27.860 It's a little harsher when you're starving, obviously, but that's not the point.

03:05:32.860 The point is, is that sometimes things are getting good and sometimes things are getting bad.

03:05:37.860 And that's, you can be sure that that's the case.

03:05:40.860 That's going to happen to you.

03:05:41.860 And so, the wise person takes stock of the fact that things are going to get bad.

03:05:47.860 Because this is the same thing that happens with Noah.

03:05:50.860 It's like, assume the flood.

03:05:52.860 Because it's going to happen.

03:05:54.860 And you think, well, it's a hell of a world that has floods.

03:05:57.860 It's like, not if you have a boat.

03:05:59.860 Right?

03:06:00.860 It helps a lot if there's a flood and you have a boat.

03:06:03.860 It's like, you can float on the flood.

03:06:05.860 And then it's not such a problem.

03:06:07.860 And so, if you refuse to look at the fact that things are going to be going downhill badly.

03:06:16.860 And that you're going to be in a pit at some point.

03:06:19.860 You and your family, perhaps.

03:06:20.860 Then, when it happens, it will be as bad as it possibly can be.

03:06:25.860 But if you're awake and alert to that possibility, then you can mitigate it.

03:06:36.860 And the dearth was in all the lands.

03:06:37.860 But in the land of Egypt, there was bread.

03:06:40.860 And when the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.

03:06:44.860 And Pharaoh said unto the Egyptians, go to Joseph.

03:06:47.860 What he says to you to do, you do that.

03:06:50.860 And the famine was all over the face of the earth.

03:06:52.860 And Joseph opened up the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians.

03:06:55.860 And the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.

03:06:58.860 And all the countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn.

03:07:03.860 Because the famine was sore in all the lands.

03:07:07.860 Now, when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons,

03:07:12.860 Why are you standing around looking at each other?

03:07:15.860 He said, I've heard that there's corn in Egypt.

03:07:17.860 Get down there and buy for us so that we may live and not die.

03:07:23.860 It's a pretty straightforward advice, that.

03:07:26.860 And Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy corn in Egypt.

03:07:29.860 But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, that's the youngest one, right?

03:07:33.860 The only one left that's the one that was younger than Joseph.

03:07:36.860 The only youngest one.

03:07:37.860 And also Rachel's other son.

03:07:39.860 But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob didn't send because he was worried that something bad would happen to him.

03:07:47.860 Which kind of indicates to me that maybe Jacob was a bit suspicious about what had happened to Joseph.

03:07:52.860 The last time he sent all the brothers on an adventure.

03:07:57.860 And Joseph was the governor over all the land.

03:08:00.860 And he it was that sold to all the people of the land.

03:08:03.860 And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.

03:08:08.860 Well, there's the dream.

03:08:10.860 Now, the thing is, too, is that one question you have in your life is, who should you bow down to?

03:08:18.860 And you might say, no one.

03:08:20.860 That's not exactly the right answer.

03:08:22.860 Because that means that you don't have an ideal.

03:08:24.860 Because you bow down to your ideal.

03:08:25.860 That's what makes it an ideal.

03:08:27.860 And if you don't have an ideal, then what the hell are you going to do?

03:08:29.860 So you have to bow down to something.

03:08:31.860 And so what happens here is, well, the brothers are bowing down to the person who's so bloody resilient and competent

03:08:38.860 that they can take themselves out of a prison and become the ruler of the land.

03:08:41.860 That happened to Vaclav Havel, right, in Czechoslovakia.

03:08:44.860 It also happened to Mandela in South Africa.

03:08:48.860 Like, these things actually happen.

03:08:50.860 It's really something.

03:08:52.860 So God only knows what you might learn in prison.

03:08:55.860 So they bow down to Joseph and properly sew.

03:09:02.860 You know, he is, even without his coat, he's still the person with the coat of many colors.

03:09:07.860 And Joseph saw his brothers, and he knew them.

03:09:09.860 But he made themselves strange unto them.

03:09:11.860 It's a number of years have passed.

03:09:13.860 And he spoke roughly unto them.

03:09:14.860 And he said unto them,

03:09:15.860 Where do you come from?

03:09:16.860 And they said,

03:09:17.860 From the land of Canaan, to buy food.

03:09:20.860 And Joseph knew who his brothers were, but they didn't know who he was.

03:09:24.860 And they came back to Jacob, their father, and told him all that befell him.

03:09:30.860 And said,

03:09:31.860 The man who's lord of the country spoke roughly to us and took us for spies.

03:09:35.860 And we said to him,

03:09:36.860 We're true men.

03:09:38.860 Honest men.

03:09:39.860 We're not spies.

03:09:40.860 We be twelve brothers, sons of our fathers.

03:09:42.860 One is not.

03:09:43.860 And the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.

03:09:48.860 And the man said,

03:09:50.860 Here's how I'll know that you're honest men.

03:09:53.860 Leave one of the brothers here with me and take some food for the famine of your households and be gone.

03:09:58.860 And then bring your youngest brother to me.

03:10:00.860 Then I'll know that you're not spies, but that you're honest men.

03:10:04.860 And I'll deliver the other brother.

03:10:06.860 And ye shall trade in the land.

03:10:08.860 So you don't have to starve to death.

03:10:10.860 And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that behold,

03:10:13.860 every man's bundle of money was in his sack.

03:10:16.860 And when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.

03:10:19.860 So they had bought food from Joseph.

03:10:22.860 And he gave them the food.

03:10:23.860 And then he put all their money back in their sacks.

03:10:26.860 Which I can imagine would worry them to some degree.

03:10:29.860 And Jacob said,

03:10:30.860 Me, you have already bereaved of my children.

03:10:33.860 Joseph is not.

03:10:34.860 And Simeon is not.

03:10:35.860 Now you'll take Benjamin away.

03:10:37.860 All these things are against me.

03:10:39.860 And Reuben spake unto his father saying,

03:10:41.860 Slay my two sons if I bring him not to thee.

03:10:43.860 Deliver him into my hand and I will bring him to thee again.

03:10:48.860 And he said,

03:10:49.860 My son shall not go down with you.

03:10:51.860 For his brother is dead and he's left alone.

03:10:53.860 If mischief befall him by the way in the which you shall go,

03:10:57.860 then you shall bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

03:11:00.860 Now, there's a hint.

03:11:02.860 See, what happens in the last part of the Jacob story, the Joseph story is,

03:11:06.860 and this is associated with the idea of putting your house in order,

03:11:10.860 your individual house in order, and then putting your family's house in order, let's say.

03:11:14.860 It's reversed a little bit in this story.

03:11:15.860 Because Joseph puts himself together and then he puts the state of Egypt in order.

03:11:21.860 Which is really quite interesting because Egypt is the canonical tyranny, right?

03:11:25.860 In the Old Testament.

03:11:26.860 And so the idea is very, very clear here.

03:11:29.860 That the person who wears the coat of many colours can put the tyranny right.

03:11:33.860 And then the next extension is, well, he has to put his family right.

03:11:37.860 Now, you know, generally the progression would be put yourself right, then put your family right,

03:11:41.860 then put the state right, something like that.

03:11:42.860 It doesn't really, if you can do it in a different order, that's probably okay too.

03:11:46.860 But, so that's what happens at the end of the story, is that, you know, Joseph is doing pretty damn well.

03:11:55.860 And so is the state that he serves.

03:11:57.860 But that isn't good enough for him.

03:11:59.860 He wants his family to be functional and put together properly.

03:12:03.860 Even though they did terrible things to him.

03:12:06.860 And that's very interesting.

03:12:08.860 Because, once someone does terrible things to you, then the logical thing or a logical thing to think is,

03:12:14.860 well, go to hell in a hand basket, you know?

03:12:16.860 Like, you deserve exactly what you get.

03:12:18.860 But, it's not a very productive attitude, especially if you're around people that you have to be around.

03:12:29.860 You know?

03:12:30.860 So, like if it's your family, and you go have a family dinner, and one of you punches the other,

03:12:36.860 and then the other punches you back, and then that's like the family dinner for the next 30 years.

03:12:40.860 It doesn't seem to be very productive, even if you're the person who happened to get in the last blow.

03:12:45.860 Because you're going to have to put up with them, at minimum, it might be nice to just let what you can go, go.

03:12:52.860 And work towards making things better.

03:12:55.860 You have to get rid of the idea of revenge, and resentment, and all those things that you carry along.

03:13:00.860 But, it's probably better to think about how your family could be if it was really functioning well.

03:13:10.860 And then just aim unerringly at that.

03:13:12.860 I know that's not easy. I mean, people are very screwy, and there's no end to the depths of pathology within families.

03:13:21.860 But, of course, this story states that very clearly.

03:13:24.860 I mean, they tried to kill him. They sold him to slavery.

03:13:28.860 It's a pathological family. Let's put it that way.

03:13:31.860 But, Joseph's attitude is, well, we've got to set this right.

03:13:37.860 Not least because of his father.

03:13:39.860 But it isn't only because of his father, as you see, as the story unfolds.

03:13:43.860 And the famine was sore in the land.

03:13:45.860 And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them,

03:13:50.860 Go again and buy us a little food.

03:13:52.860 And Judah spake unto him, saying,

03:13:55.860 The man did solemnly protest unto us,

03:13:57.860 You will not see my face except your brother be with you.

03:14:00.860 They can't go back to Egypt without Benjamin.

03:14:02.860 And they said,

03:14:04.860 The man asked us straightly of our state and of our kindred, saying,

03:14:08.860 Is your father yet alive? Have you another brother?

03:14:11.860 And we told him, according to the tenor of those words,

03:14:14.860 Could we know that he would say, Bring your brother down?

03:14:17.860 And Judah said unto Israel his father,

03:14:20.860 Send the lad with me, and we'll arise and go, that we may live and not die,

03:14:23.860 Both we and thou, and also our little ones.

03:14:25.860 I will be surety for him.

03:14:27.860 Of my hand shalt thou require him.

03:14:30.860 If I bring him not unto thee, and set them before thee,

03:14:32.860 Then let me bear the blame forever.

03:14:36.860 Well, so Judah, who played a pretty dismal role in the original selling Joseph into slavery,

03:14:44.860 Seems to obviously have learned something by this point,

03:14:47.860 Since he's willing to put himself on the line,

03:14:50.860 You know, to take responsibility for the situation,

03:14:52.860 And to put himself on the line, and to stand in for Benjamin.

03:14:56.860 So he's making himself into a sacrificial object of sorts.

03:14:59.860 And so,

03:15:04.860 The game that Joseph's playing, because he's sort of teasing his brothers,

03:15:07.860 But he's also testing them.

03:15:09.860 The game that he's playing is twofold.

03:15:10.860 One is, have you bloody well learned anything,

03:15:13.860 Or are you just as corrupt and useless as you were before?

03:15:15.860 That's game number one.

03:15:17.860 And game number two is,

03:15:18.860 Maybe if I poke and prod you, and put you into a relatively difficult and mysterious situation,

03:15:23.860 I can get you to clue the hell in, and adopt some responsibility,

03:15:27.860 And we can move this whole mess forward.

03:15:29.860 And so that seems to be happening.

03:15:31.860 So, Judah is taking responsibility, and Reuben did that as well.

03:15:35.860 And the men took presents, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin,

03:15:38.860 And rose up and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.

03:15:41.860 And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house,

03:15:45.860 Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready food,

03:15:49.860 For these men shall dine with me at noon.

03:15:51.860 And the man did as Joseph begged, and the man brought the men into Joseph's house.

03:15:55.860 And when Joseph came home, they brought him the presents which was in their hand,

03:15:59.860 And bowed themselves again to him, to the earth.

03:16:03.860 And he asked them of their welfare, and said,

03:16:05.860 Is your father well, the old man of whom you spake?

03:16:09.860 Is he yet alive?

03:16:10.860 And they answered,

03:16:11.860 Thy servant, our father, is in good health.

03:16:14.860 He's yet alive.

03:16:15.860 And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance.

03:16:17.860 And he lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said,

03:16:26.860 Is this your younger brother, of whom you spake unto me?

03:16:29.860 And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son.

03:16:32.860 And Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother.

03:16:36.860 And he sought where to weep.

03:16:38.860 And he entered into his chamber, and wept there.

03:16:41.860 And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said,

03:16:44.860 Set on the bread.

03:16:45.860 And they sat before them.

03:16:47.860 Now he plays another trick on his brother.

03:16:49.860 So he, has them all sit at the table, but he lines them up according to age.

03:16:53.860 And so, he's trying to,

03:16:55.860 What is he trying to do?

03:16:57.860 He's trying to freak them out, fundamentally.

03:17:00.860 And so, and he manages that, because they have no idea how in the world,

03:17:04.860 They could possibly, he could possibly pull something like that off.

03:17:07.860 They think it's magic.

03:17:08.860 And the men, marveled at one another.

03:17:10.860 And he took, and sent messes unto them, from before him.

03:17:13.860 But Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs.

03:17:17.860 So what's he doing?

03:17:18.860 Well, he's testing his brothers again.

03:17:21.860 The fact that, when he was the child, Joseph, that he got more,

03:17:27.860 Meant that his brothers got terribly jealous, and then murderous, right?

03:17:30.860 And so now he's doing the same thing with Benjamin.

03:17:32.860 He's thinking, okay, well I'll give this kid more, than his share.

03:17:37.860 And I'll watch, how these reprobates behave.

03:17:42.860 And see if they've learned anything.

03:17:44.860 And so, and he commanded the steward of his house saying,

03:17:48.860 Fill the men's sack with food, as much as they can carry.

03:17:50.860 And put every man's money in the sack as well.

03:17:53.860 And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest.

03:17:56.860 And his corn money.

03:17:58.860 And the steward did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.

03:18:01.860 As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, along with their transportation.

03:18:06.860 The cup is found in Benjamin's sack.

03:18:13.860 Well, so Benjamin's kind of young.

03:18:15.860 And Joseph sends out people to find out where the cup is going.

03:18:22.860 And they find it in Benjamin's sack.

03:18:26.860 And they're very upset about this.

03:18:29.860 They said that a harsh punishment would befall whoever had the cup in his sack.

03:18:34.860 They rent their clothes, and laid at every man his ass, and returned to this city.

03:18:38.860 Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house, for he was yet there.

03:18:41.860 And they fell before him on the ground.

03:18:43.860 Very unhappy and apologetic.

03:18:45.860 And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that you have done?

03:18:49.860 Don't you know that a man like I can certainly divine?

03:18:53.860 I know what's going on.

03:18:55.860 And Judah said, What shall we say?

03:18:57.860 What shall we speak?

03:18:58.860 Or how can we possibly clear ourselves?

03:19:00.860 God found out the iniquity of thy servants.

03:19:03.860 Behold, we are your servants, both we and also he with whom the cup is found.

03:19:10.860 And he said, God forbid that I should do so.

03:19:12.860 But the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant.

03:19:18.860 And as for you, get you up in peace to your father.

03:19:23.860 It's the discovery of the cup.

03:19:32.860 Judah says, Now therefore when I come to the servant thy father, my father and the lad be not with us.

03:19:37.860 Seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life, it shall come to pass when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die.

03:19:44.860 And the servant shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave.

03:19:49.860 For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father forever.

03:19:57.860 Now therefore I pray thee, let me stay instead of the lad, and let the lad go with his brothers.

03:20:04.860 For how shall I go up to my brother, and the lad be not with me?

03:20:09.860 Lest peradventure I shall see the evil that will come on my father.

03:20:13.860 Okay, so what's happened? Well, they learned their lesson.

03:20:17.860 So now, Judah again is willing to stand in the place of Benjamin, and become a slave himself.

03:20:24.860 And so now, Joseph has determined that his brothers have developed their character to the point where reconciliation might be possible.

03:20:35.860 You know, it says you should forgive and forget, but the conditions for that are quite...

03:20:43.860 are quite specific.

03:20:45.860 You know, if you have a dispute with someone, and they've wronged you in some sense, and they apologize,

03:20:51.860 the question is, well, what's the apology?

03:20:54.860 Well, it's a layout of a rationale.

03:20:56.860 It's something like, as far as I can tell, here's the reasons I did this horrible thing,

03:21:01.860 and here's what I've learned from it, and here's what I'm going to do to try not to do it again,

03:21:06.860 and would you give me another crack at it?

03:21:09.860 That's the proper repentance, right?

03:21:11.860 And then you forgive, because you're an idiot too, and you'll probably do something stupid,

03:21:16.860 and maybe you'd like the same kind of break at some point.

03:21:19.860 And besides, if we all held each other completely to account at all possible times for everything,

03:21:24.860 then it'd just be hopeless, because there'd be no room for error.

03:21:28.860 So, the forgiveness, which Joseph is showing, is wise forgiveness.

03:21:34.860 He's not going to put himself out on the line for people who haven't learned,

03:21:38.860 so that the same stupid thing can happen again, so that they can continue to spread misery wherever they go.

03:21:42.860 He's going to find out if they've clued in a little bit, and then if so, then they can move on with putting a family together.

03:21:49.860 And so that breaks them up. He says,

03:21:51.860 Joseph could not refrain himself before all of them that stood by him, and he cried.

03:21:57.860 And then he said, get every man away from me.

03:22:01.860 So all the people except for Joseph's brother left, and there stood no man with him,

03:22:07.860 while Joseph made himself known unto his brothers.

03:22:10.860 And Joseph said, I'm Joseph. Is my father still alive?

03:22:15.860 And his brothers could not answer, for they were troubled at his presence.

03:22:19.860 It's like, yeah.

03:22:25.860 It's an understatement of the decade there.

03:22:27.860 And Joseph said unto his brothers, come nearer to me, I pray you.

03:22:31.860 And they came nearer, and he said, I am Joseph, your brother, who you sold into Egypt.

03:22:35.860 But don't be grieved or angry with yourselves that you sold me hither.

03:22:39.860 For God did send me before you to preserve life.

03:22:42.860 So now it was not you that sent me here, but God.

03:22:46.860 And he's made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

03:22:51.860 Hurry, and go to my father, and say unto him,

03:22:54.860 Thus say thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt.

03:22:59.860 Come down unto me, and tarry not.

03:23:02.860 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou and thy children,

03:23:08.860 and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast.

03:23:12.860 And there I will nourish you.

03:23:14.860 For yet there are five years of famine, lest thou and thy household, and all that thou hast come to poverty.

03:23:20.860 So that's the other thing, another bit of a hint.

03:23:23.860 It's a bread hint here.

03:23:26.860 What's the most reliable source of bread?

03:23:32.860 Well, it isn't bread itself.

03:23:34.860 It's whatever it is that gives rise to bread.

03:23:36.860 And that's what Joseph is in this story.

03:23:38.860 He's the force that gives rise to nourishment.

03:23:42.860 Joseph is often considered a type of Christ, which means like a precursor in some sense.

03:23:48.860 That's one way of thinking about it.

03:23:50.860 And you can see that echoed right there.

03:23:52.860 It's like, well, what do you store up for famine?

03:23:57.860 You store up character.

03:23:59.860 That's the best way through.

03:24:01.860 Now that doesn't mean you don't also store up bread.

03:24:05.860 And they went out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob, and told him,

03:24:11.860 Joseph is still alive, and he's governor.

03:24:13.860 And Jacob's heart fainted, for he didn't believe them.

03:24:15.860 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he said to them.

03:24:18.860 And when he saw all the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him,

03:24:21.860 the spirit of Jacob their father revived.

03:24:23.860 And Israel said, It is enough.

03:24:25.860 Joseph, my son, is yet alive.

03:24:27.860 I will go and see him before I die.

03:24:29.860 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba,

03:24:32.860 and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.

03:24:35.860 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said,

03:24:38.860 Jacob.

03:24:39.860 And he said, Here am I.

03:24:41.860 He said, I am God, the God of thy father.

03:24:43.860 Don't fear to go down into Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there.

03:24:48.860 And so that's how the Israelites end up in Egypt.

03:24:51.860 I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again.

03:24:56.860 And Jacob shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

03:24:59.860 And Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob,

03:25:02.860 their father, and the little ones, and their wives,

03:25:04.860 in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

03:25:07.860 So the family's now all united in the proper state of being that Joseph has arranged.

03:25:12.860 And they took their cattle and their goods.

03:25:14.860 It's so interesting, too, because, of course, Joseph isn't even...

03:25:17.860 He's a foreigner as well as being a former slave and prisoner.

03:25:22.860 Foreigner, slave, and prisoner.

03:25:24.860 And yet, he ends up ruling Egypt, sheerly because of the force of his character and competence.

03:25:30.860 And that's really something to think about.

03:25:33.860 And they took their cattle.

03:25:35.860 Because that story there is that there isn't anything stronger than that.

03:25:38.860 It doesn't matter what the circumstances are.

03:25:40.860 That there isn't a force that's more powerful than that.

03:25:43.860 And I don't think that that's naive.

03:25:48.860 In fact, I think it's the exact opposite of naive.

03:25:52.860 No matter where you are, you can generally make things better if that's what you want to do.

03:25:56.860 Unless you're in a place that's really hell itself.

03:26:00.860 Not usually...

03:26:02.860 It's something that elevates you and elevates the people around you.

03:26:06.860 And you can do that wherever you are.

03:26:08.860 Because there isn't a place that's so small that you can't do that.

03:26:11.860 That's the message of the prison.

03:26:13.860 And they took their cattle and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan,

03:26:16.860 and came into Egypt.

03:26:18.860 Jacob and all his seed with him.

03:26:20.860 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to direct his face unto Goshen.

03:26:26.860 And they came into the land of Goshen.

03:26:28.860 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went to meet Israel his father.

03:26:31.860 And presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.

03:26:36.860 And Israel said, I can now die, because I've seen your face, because you're still alive.

03:26:43.860 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying,

03:26:48.860 Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee.

03:26:50.860 And the land of Egypt is before thee.

03:26:52.860 In the best of the land your father and brothers can dwell.

03:26:54.860 In the land of Goshen let them dwell.

03:26:56.860 And if they now know any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.

03:27:01.860 Gives them a job.

03:27:02.860 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh.

03:27:05.860 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

03:27:07.860 That's a very interesting little turn of events.

03:27:10.860 Because you'd expect the opposite under those circumstances.

03:27:13.860 So, it appears that Jacob was a man of relatively great self-possession.

03:27:20.860 Because that's not a...

03:27:22.860 You wouldn't bless Queen Elizabeth, in all likelihood.

03:27:25.860 Unless you had a lot of gall.

03:27:28.860 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old are you?

03:27:30.860 And Jacob said, I'm 130 years.

03:27:33.860 Few in evil have been the days of the years of my life.

03:27:36.860 And I've not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers.

03:27:40.860 And the days of their pilgrimage.

03:27:42.860 And Jacob blessed the Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.

03:27:45.860 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen.

03:27:48.860 And grew.

03:27:49.860 And multiplied exceedingly.

03:27:51.860 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years.

03:27:54.860 So the whole age of Jacob was 147 years.

03:27:58.860 And the time drew nigh that Israel must die.

03:28:01.860 And he called his son Joseph, and said unto him.

03:28:03.860 If I have now found grace in thy sight.

03:28:06.860 Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh.

03:28:09.860 And deal kindly and truly with me.

03:28:11.860 Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt.

03:28:13.860 But I will lie with my fathers.

03:28:16.860 And thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place.

03:28:20.860 And Joseph said, I will do as you have said.

03:28:24.860 And it came to pass, after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold thy father is sick.

03:28:30.860 And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

03:28:32.860 And one told Jacob, and said, Behold thy son.

03:28:35.860 And one told Jacob, and said, Behold thy son Joseph cometh unto thee.

03:28:39.860 And Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.

03:28:42.860 And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see your face.

03:28:47.860 And lo, God hath also showed me your children.

03:28:51.860 And Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and bowed himself with his face to the earth.

03:28:55.860 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand towards Israel's left hand.

03:28:59.860 And Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto him.

03:29:03.860 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger.

03:29:08.860 And his left hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding his hands purposefully.

03:29:12.860 For Manasseh was the firstborn.

03:29:14.860 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him.

03:29:18.860 And he held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head, unto Manasseh's head.

03:29:23.860 And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father.

03:29:27.860 For this is the firstborn. Put the right hand upon his head.

03:29:30.860 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it.

03:29:34.860 He shall also become a people, and he shall also be great.

03:29:37.860 But truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.

03:29:42.860 Another repeat of the same thing that happens continually.

03:29:45.860 It says when God wants to intervene in human affairs, what he does is invert tradition.

03:29:51.860 It's something like that.

03:29:52.860 And so that's a sign that there's something new and special going on.

03:29:56.860 And that gives precedence to the younger child, rather than the older child.

03:29:59.860 Precedence to what is new, rather than what's traditional.

03:30:02.860 Of course, sometimes that's necessary, because tradition is insufficient.

03:30:07.860 And sometimes something new has to come into being, in order to update it.

03:30:11.860 And Jacob called together his sons, and said, Gather together, so that I can tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

03:30:18.860 Gather yourself together, and hear ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father.

03:30:23.860 Reuben, I'm not going to go through all twelve of these.

03:30:26.860 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.

03:30:33.860 Now, the story's quite interesting here, because Jacob blesses Joseph's sons before he blesses his own sons.

03:30:44.860 And so what he's doing is placing the rights of the firstborn into the sons of his favourite son.

03:30:52.860 And then he goes to his sons.

03:30:54.860 And so that has implications for the way the biblical stories lay themselves out from thence forward.

03:31:03.860 The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.

03:31:05.860 Unstable as water thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defiled it.

03:31:11.860 He went up to my couch.

03:31:12.860 You may remember that Reuben slept with his father's concubine.

03:31:17.860 Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

03:31:23.860 It's that painting there.

03:31:25.860 What happened with Simeon and Levi was that somebody lay with their sister Dinah,

03:31:35.860 and then offered to marry her, and then became circumcised, because that was part of the deal.

03:31:41.860 And then had all their men circumcised.

03:31:43.860 And then Simeon and Levi went in when they were recovering and killed them all.

03:31:47.860 And then Jacob and all his people had to leave, because, well, that irritated their relatives.

03:31:53.860 Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

03:32:02.860 O my soul, come not thou into their secret.

03:32:05.860 Unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united.

03:32:08.860 For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they dig down a wall.

03:32:12.860 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel.

03:32:16.860 I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

03:32:19.860 Judah, thou art he whom my brethren shall praise.

03:32:23.860 Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies.

03:32:25.860 Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

03:32:28.860 Judah is a lion's whelp.

03:32:30.860 From the prey, my son, thou art gone up.

03:32:33.860 He stooped down.

03:32:34.860 He couched as a lion, and as an old lion.

03:32:36.860 Who shall rouse him up?

03:32:38.860 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come.

03:32:44.860 And unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

03:32:48.860 Joseph is a fruitful bough.

03:32:51.860 Even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.

03:32:54.860 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.

03:32:57.860 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.

03:33:03.860 For thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

03:33:07.860 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the almighty, who shall bless thee with the blessings of heavens above.

03:33:15.860 Blessings of the deep that lieth under.

03:33:17.860 Blessings of the beasts, breasts, and of the womb.

03:33:20.860 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.

03:33:26.860 They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

03:33:32.860 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel.

03:33:35.860 And this is it that their father spake unto them and blessed them.

03:33:38.860 Everyone according to his blessing.

03:33:40.860 He blessed them.

03:33:41.860 So that what we see here is an echo in some sense of what happens in the Mesopotamian creation story.

03:33:47.860 In the Mesopotamian creation story, there's the dragon of chaos, Tiamat, and her consort, Apsu.

03:34:00.860 Fresh water and salt water, respectively.

03:34:02.860 And they're mingled together.

03:34:04.860 And that combination of chaos and order gives rise to the first assembly of the ancient gods.

03:34:10.860 And then the ancient gods kill Apsu casually and foolishly.

03:34:16.860 And enraged Tiamat with their foolishness and ignorance.

03:34:20.860 And she comes back with a vengeance.

03:34:24.860 In the meantime, and then she produces this huge army of monsters and puts Kingu, the worst of the monsters, at its head.

03:34:30.860 And then decides she's going to take out her creation.

03:34:32.860 And so that's a little warning from 3,000 years ago about foolishly undermining your tradition.

03:34:39.860 So, anyways, the gods, in their frenzy, go out and try to fight against Tiamat.

03:34:46.860 And they come back with their tails between their legs continually.

03:34:49.860 But then a new god appears on the scene, and that's Marduk.

03:34:52.860 He's got eyes all the way around his head, and he can speak words of magic.

03:34:56.860 And they know that there's something new about this newest god.

03:35:02.860 It's his capacity for vision and his capacity for articulate speech.

03:35:06.860 And so they say, well, why don't you go out and try to deal with the chaos?

03:35:10.860 And Marduk says, yeah, okay, no problem.

03:35:13.860 But here's the deal.

03:35:14.860 You elect me top god.

03:35:16.860 And now I determine the destiny of the world.

03:35:19.860 And so they're desperate because, like, Tiamat is coming to get them.

03:35:23.860 That's chaos with the worst of all possible monsters.

03:35:25.860 They're probably thinking he's not going to win anyways.

03:35:28.860 And so they agree.

03:35:29.860 And out he goes.

03:35:30.860 And he confronts Tiamat, who's the goddess of chaos.

03:35:34.860 And he cuts her into pieces.

03:35:36.860 And he makes the world out of her pieces.

03:35:38.860 And one of his names is, he who makes ingenious things out of the combat with Tiamat.

03:35:43.860 Which is so interesting.

03:35:44.860 That's such a remarkable, that's a remarkable bit of nomenclature.

03:35:49.860 So, who should be at the pinnacle?

03:35:52.860 The force that sees and speaks and goes out to confront chaos voluntarily.

03:35:57.860 You know how many years it took people to figure that out?

03:36:01.860 That's like the pinnacle discovery of humanity.

03:36:04.860 That's what that is.

03:36:05.860 And it's echoed here.

03:36:07.860 You know, you see Simeon and Levi.

03:36:09.860 They're too angry.

03:36:10.860 The other brothers, they all have flaws and faults of various sorts.

03:36:14.860 And so they're not elevated to the highest place.

03:36:17.860 But Joseph, because he has his coat of many colors.

03:36:20.860 And because he lands on his feet no matter where he goes.

03:36:22.860 And because he's not resentful and bitter and malevolent and genocidal.

03:36:27.860 And he's not shaking his fist at the sky.

03:36:30.860 Or yelling at God because of Trump, let's say.

03:36:34.860 Then he's the right representative of the 12 tribes.

03:36:41.860 And so, that's brilliant.

03:36:42.860 It's a brilliant story.

03:36:45.860 All these are the 12 tribes of Israel.

03:36:47.860 And this is it, that their father spake unto them and blessed them.

03:36:50.860 Everyone according to his blessing.

03:36:51.860 He blessed them.

03:36:53.860 When Jacob had made an end of commanding his son.

03:36:56.860 So it's the last thing he does to state.

03:36:59.860 He knows that these are the 12 tribes that will...

03:37:03.860 Progress into the future of this people.

03:37:07.860 And now he's trying it.

03:37:08.860 The last thing he does is to try to hierarchically organize their relative virtues.

03:37:13.860 As an indication of what has been learned.

03:37:17.860 And when Jacob has made an end of commanding his sons.

03:37:20.860 He gathered up his feet into the bed.

03:37:22.860 And yielded up the ghost.

03:37:23.860 And was gathered unto his people.

03:37:24.860 And Joseph fell upon his father's face.

03:37:26.860 And wept upon him and kissed him.

03:37:28.860 And Joseph commanded his servants to...

03:37:30.860 The physicians to embalm his father.

03:37:32.860 And the physicians embalmed Israel.

03:37:34.860 And when the days of his mourning were past.

03:37:37.860 Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh.

03:37:39.860 Saying,

03:37:40.860 If now I have found grace in your eyes.

03:37:43.860 Speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh.

03:37:45.860 Saying,

03:37:46.860 My father made me swear.

03:37:47.860 Saying,

03:37:48.860 Lo, I die.

03:37:49.860 In my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan.

03:37:51.860 There shalt thou bury me.

03:37:53.860 Now therefore let me go up.

03:37:54.860 I pray thee, and bury my father.

03:37:56.860 And I will come again.

03:37:57.860 And Pharaoh said,

03:37:58.860 Go up and bury thy father.

03:37:59.860 According as he made thee swear.

03:38:01.860 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan.

03:38:04.860 And buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah.

03:38:07.860 Which Abraham bought with the field.

03:38:09.860 For a possession of the burying place of Ephron the Hittite.

03:38:12.860 Before Mamre.

03:38:13.860 And Joseph returned unto Egypt.

03:38:15.860 He and his brethren.

03:38:16.860 And all that went up to him.

03:38:18.860 And all that went up with him to bury his father.

03:38:22.860 After he had buried his father.

03:38:24.860 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead.

03:38:28.860 They said,

03:38:29.860 Joseph will now hate us.

03:38:32.860 And will certainly pay back to us all the evil which we did unto him.

03:38:37.860 And they sent a messenger saying.

03:38:39.860 My father did command before he died saying.

03:38:42.860 For shall ye say unto Joseph.

03:38:44.860 Forgive I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin.

03:38:48.860 Pretty snivelly really.

03:38:49.860 For they did unto the evil.

03:38:51.860 And now we pray thee forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.

03:38:55.860 And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.

03:38:58.860 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face.

03:39:01.860 And they said behold we be thy servants.

03:39:04.860 And Joseph said unto them.

03:39:06.860 Fear not.

03:39:07.860 For am I in the place of God.

03:39:09.860 But as for you.

03:39:10.860 You thought evil against me.

03:39:12.860 But God meant it unto good.

03:39:13.860 To bring to pass.

03:39:15.860 As it is this day.

03:39:16.860 To save much people alive.

03:39:18.860 Now therefore fear ye not.

03:39:22.860 I will nourish you and your little ones.

03:39:24.860 And he comforted them.

03:39:25.860 And spake kindly unto them.

03:39:26.860 So the.

03:39:33.860 The idea there is that.

03:39:36.860 There is no evil so evil that good cannot triumph over it.

03:39:43.860 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt.

03:39:46.860 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt.

03:39:47.860 He and his father's house.

03:39:48.860 And Joseph lived 110 years.

03:39:50.860 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.

03:39:53.860 The children also of Machir.

03:39:55.860 The son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees.

03:39:58.860 And Joseph said unto his brethren.

03:40:01.860 I die.

03:40:02.860 And God will surely visit you.

03:40:04.860 And bring you out of this land.

03:40:05.860 Unto the land where he swore to Abraham.

03:40:07.860 To Isaac and Jacob.

03:40:09.860 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel.

03:40:11.860 Saying God will surely visit you.

03:40:13.860 And you shall carry my bones from hence.

03:40:16.860 So Joseph died.

03:40:17.860 Being 110 years old.

03:40:19.860 And they embalmed him.

03:40:21.860 And he was put into a coffin.

03:40:23.860 In Egypt.

03:40:25.860 And that's Genesis.

03:40:27.860 Soul.

03:40:30.860 So thank you all for persevering.

03:40:48.860 Thank you all.

03:40:49.860 Thank you all.

03:40:50.860 Thank you.

03:41:19.400 Thank you.

03:41:19.800 Well, this has been very worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.

03:41:22.440 I learned an awful lot.

03:41:23.700 And I'm very much looking forward to continuing with it.

03:41:26.800 And thank you all very much for your support and your rapt attention and your seriousness

03:41:31.160 in this endeavor and your care and all of that.

03:41:34.620 It's really been a privilege to be able to do this.

03:41:37.720 It's a completely surreal thing to manage.

03:41:41.880 And so far, you know, I think about 5 million people have watched it.

03:41:46.140 So that seems to be a very good thing.

03:41:49.380 So, yeah.

03:41:59.280 Okay, so I'm going to ask the questioners.

03:42:02.600 If you've asked a question in the last three sessions, please don't ask a question today

03:42:08.260 because I never get through every one.

03:42:10.420 And so I'd like to have some questions from people that I haven't answered questions

03:42:15.600 from before, if that's okay.

03:42:19.020 Hi, Professor Peterson.

03:42:20.700 Just a two-second thank you very much from my community and the Jewish community.

03:42:24.240 So many people have been inspired by you to be better people.

03:42:27.220 And I wouldn't be able to speak to you without saying that.

03:42:29.180 So thank you very much.

03:42:31.960 A couple of things.

03:42:32.860 The first thing I wanted to do is make a quick comment that you might find interesting.

03:42:35.820 That in the Jewish astrological calendar, we read the yearly cycle of the five books of Moses.

03:42:41.440 And it just so happens that we are reading this part of the Torah story.

03:42:45.600 So I found that very interesting.

03:42:46.500 That's cool.

03:42:47.280 And synchronistic.

03:42:48.460 Yeah.

03:42:48.640 Which brings me into a question that I wanted to ask you about, which is one question with

03:42:53.360 two parts about your knowledge of Hebrew.

03:42:56.600 Because if you look at the Torah scrolls that you find in the synagogue, there are no vowels.

03:43:01.000 There are no sentences.

03:43:02.540 It is chaos and order is trying to be bought into it.

03:43:06.980 I'm wondering how knowledgeable are you of the Hebrew, which has many layers of dimension.

03:43:12.520 I'm staggeringly ignorant of it.

03:43:15.560 So, you know, I read a lot of commentaries.

03:43:18.640 Right?

03:43:18.900 I'm trying to zero in on the, like with each of the phrases that we went through today,

03:43:24.440 I probably looked at ten different commentaries.

03:43:27.140 And so, and then I have this underlying psychoanalytic knowledge that it's sort of like if you have

03:43:35.200 a bunch of different templates to look at things through, and then something shines through

03:43:40.180 all those templates at the same time, that's very unlikely.

03:43:43.260 And so then you can, you know, a coincidence is one thing, but five coincidences, that's

03:43:50.660 no longer a coincidence, that's something else.

03:43:53.180 And so I think, I'm hoping that despite the fact that there's many, many things that I

03:43:57.900 don't know, that there's enough things that I do know to kind of weave my way through this

03:44:02.180 with some degree of utility, if not certainty.

03:44:06.200 Yeah, because I just, which is the second part, which I guess maybe you don't know, but the

03:44:09.980 Midrashik, the Jewish oral stories that date back almost as long as these stories, which

03:44:14.460 fill in a lot of mind-blowingly crazy random, and so many details about these stories.

03:44:19.560 And I was just wondering if you had encountered any of them before.

03:44:21.720 I've encountered some of them, but again, it's, well, as you know, it's a very, very rich

03:44:27.200 tradition, and so I haven't encountered enough of it.

03:44:32.100 Were you thinking of anything in specific, specifically in relationship to this story?

03:44:36.600 Not in particular, I actually forgot it.

03:44:38.480 I was intending to bring you a book of Midrashik stories.

03:44:42.120 Well, that's a hell of a thing to say now.

03:44:46.140 Well, it just, I don't know, I felt like I had to say that.

03:44:49.000 But yeah, maybe for the Exodus version, I'll bring you the book.

03:44:52.680 All right, all right, that would be good.

03:44:54.320 Yeah, okay.

03:44:57.380 Hi, Dr. Peterson.

03:44:59.360 I would just like to ask you to please talk about what Jung called a psychic death, also

03:45:04.460 known as an ego death.

03:45:06.320 Okay, sorry, say that again.

03:45:07.800 Would you please talk about what Jung referred to as a psychic death, also called an ego death?

03:45:15.740 That's what happens when someone who loves you betrays you.

03:45:19.940 Right, so imagine that, like, the world is complicated beyond comprehension, right?

03:45:26.560 And you only see a very little bit of it.

03:45:28.240 And the way you structure your understanding is you make assumptions about things.

03:45:32.960 And they're simplifying assumptions.

03:45:34.440 So if you trust someone, you reduce their complexity massively, right?

03:45:39.960 Because, like, let's say we were married.

03:45:43.140 Then there's a whole bunch of ways that you're going to act that are going to be simpler.

03:45:48.040 Okay, so then I can tolerate being around you in some sense, because you're not everything at once.

03:45:53.660 Now, those simplifying structures are hierarchically assembled.

03:46:02.320 And some of them are far more important than others.

03:46:05.500 Trust is one of them, especially trust in loved ones, family members, which is why betrayal by a family member is really catastrophic.

03:46:11.100 Because it destabilizes your past, right?

03:46:14.960 All the memories you have.

03:46:15.920 It destabilizes your present.

03:46:17.240 It destabilizes your future.

03:46:18.860 It shakes your faith in human beings, including yourself.

03:46:22.400 And everything collapses.

03:46:24.240 And that's an ego death.

03:46:25.420 And so, now, underneath the ego, as far as Jung was concerned, was another structure that he called the self.

03:46:33.280 And the self is this thing that remains constant across ego deaths.

03:46:37.880 But it's deeper and less personal.

03:46:43.000 It's archetypal.

03:46:44.400 And it's the thing that the ego collapses into when it collapses, and then it rebuilds the ego.

03:46:50.400 Something like that across time.

03:46:52.580 But that's what an ego death is.

03:46:54.400 Now, there's variants of that, because you can have a voluntary or an involuntary ego death.

03:47:00.580 And a voluntary ego death is when you learn a bunch, and you're willing to let go.

03:47:05.080 So, that would be your own immolation.

03:47:07.220 It's like you're a phoenix, and you're lighting yourself on fire.

03:47:11.140 That's a much better idea, even though it can still be really harsh.

03:47:15.420 The involuntary ego deaths, they're really hard on people.

03:47:18.380 People will do almost anything to stop that from happening.

03:47:21.520 Which is partly why they fight to maintain their group-fostered axiomatic simplifications.

03:47:29.780 It's not surprising.

03:47:31.400 Because it's very...

03:47:32.620 You lose your...

03:47:33.900 Like, that ego death is a journey into the underworld, or it's a collapse into chaos.

03:47:38.120 And that's not so bad if you do it purposefully.

03:47:40.040 But in the Pinocchio story, for example, that's exemplified by Pinocchio going down to the depths to rescue his father from the whale.

03:47:46.880 Now, he does that voluntarily, but it damn near kills him, right?

03:47:50.180 I mean, first of all, he hardly gets out of the whale.

03:47:52.840 Second, he actually drowns and dies.

03:47:55.620 But he comes back to life.

03:47:56.940 So, even if you do it voluntarily, it's still...

03:48:00.980 It's just better than doing it involuntarily.

03:48:04.000 Which is the other alternative.

03:48:05.360 So, that's what it is.

03:48:07.820 You bet.

03:48:14.660 Hello, Dr. Peterson.

03:48:15.860 So, I've been listening back to all of these biblical lectures for the second time now.

03:48:22.140 And I wanted to show you an observation I came upon.

03:48:25.080 Because I was trying to find a question that you haven't been asked before.

03:48:28.080 Which is harder than doing my Ryerson exams, that's for sure.

03:48:33.080 So, I've noticed.

03:48:35.260 I think you're getting funnier.

03:48:37.420 Oh.

03:48:38.660 Yes.

03:48:39.440 Oh, no, I think Michael Corrin said that this week, I think.

03:48:41.880 But the word he used was bizarre, I think.

03:48:43.920 Actually, I'm feeling better.

03:48:47.020 So, that's...

03:48:47.480 I actually have a sense of humor.

03:48:49.120 It's hard to believe that.

03:48:50.880 So, it sort of comes back when I'm not feeling like I'm going to die at any moment.

03:48:55.840 Yeah, I've basically noticed.

03:48:57.860 One, you're making more attempts at jokes.

03:48:59.860 So, that's great.

03:49:05.840 Well, thank you.

03:49:08.340 Thank you.

03:49:09.060 Two, those jokes are landing more often, right?

03:49:11.240 But then there's this third element, which I think was what Steve Martin quit because of.

03:49:18.080 Which is that I think the audience is anticipating jokes more.

03:49:21.220 And they're actually...

03:49:22.340 You know, I've noticed people laughing more at things that aren't intending to be jokes.

03:49:26.160 So, I was just wondering what you make of that.

03:49:28.820 And...

03:49:29.260 They're intended.

03:49:30.080 I'm hoping they're intended.

03:49:31.540 Just because I keep a straight face doesn't mean they're not intended to be jokes.

03:49:35.520 So, yeah.

03:49:36.940 No, it's good.

03:49:37.580 Look, one of the things is like it's...

03:49:39.660 And I've tried to keep this...

03:49:40.900 I learned a while ago, probably about five years ago, that even when you're dealing with

03:49:44.980 really serious matters, that if you're not handling it with a light touch, you're not

03:49:49.560 an expert at it.

03:49:50.480 You're not a master at it.

03:49:51.680 And you think, well, there are some things that are so deep and dark that you can't handle

03:49:55.280 them with a light touch.

03:49:56.620 And that's actually not true.

03:49:59.320 You can...

03:50:00.180 That doesn't mean you make light of them.

03:50:02.200 It doesn't mean anything like that.

03:50:03.360 It's that you don't...

03:50:05.940 It's minimal necessary force.

03:50:07.620 It's something like that.

03:50:08.420 You don't hit it any harder than you have to.

03:50:10.860 And it's an art when you're discussing serious matters.

03:50:14.200 And so...

03:50:15.220 Well, one of the upshots of that is that because we're discussing serious matters and because

03:50:20.480 serious matters are being discussed in the culture at large right now, it would be really

03:50:23.760 good if everybody could keep their sense of humor.

03:50:26.500 You know, and I see positive signs of that.

03:50:28.400 Like, there's a lot of satirical activity on the net, you know, and that could easily

03:50:32.620 catalyze into horror mob.

03:50:35.060 But it isn't.

03:50:36.020 It is, you know, that's happening to some degree.

03:50:38.760 But a lot of it's satire and comedy.

03:50:40.900 And as long as we can keep a sense of humor about this, then I think, well, we're not as

03:50:47.140 close to disaster as we might be.

03:50:49.200 And so one of the things that I have found rather ominous is that there are comedians,

03:50:53.760 first of all, being persecuted for under free speech restriction legislation, which I think

03:50:59.620 is absolutely appalling.

03:51:00.960 But also that there are comedians now who won't perform on university campuses.

03:51:05.080 John Cleese won't.

03:51:08.860 Seinfeld, that's like, well, you know how offensive he is.

03:51:11.020 It's no wonder.

03:51:11.720 I mean, he's like the straightest, nicest comedian you could possibly imagine.

03:51:16.340 He won't perform on college campuses.

03:51:18.300 I think Louis C.K. won't perform on, or anywhere else, for that matter.

03:51:23.980 But it's a bad sign.

03:51:25.420 But no, humor is good.

03:51:27.640 And it's interesting, because I've been kind of watching how I'm represented on the web,

03:51:32.980 weirdly enough.

03:51:33.820 And there's all these memes that have emerged.

03:51:36.440 I don't know, thousands of the bloody things.

03:51:38.500 And most of them are comical.

03:51:41.840 And that's good.

03:51:42.740 Like, people are, whatever it is that they're doing, I don't know what the hell it is, but

03:51:49.560 it's being done with a relatively light touch.

03:51:51.720 And that's really, really good.

03:51:53.300 That's how it should be.

03:51:54.580 You've got to have a sense of humor.

03:51:56.260 I mean, it's one of the things that makes life bearable.

03:51:59.060 So, or maybe even better than bearable.

03:52:01.260 So, you bet.

03:52:03.140 Hello, Dr. Peterson.

03:52:11.380 Just want to say, what a great lecture series.

03:52:15.920 And this is the last in this year.

03:52:18.280 So, Merry Christmas to you and your family.

03:52:20.780 Thank you.

03:52:21.300 Thank you.

03:52:23.740 I just want to say this.

03:52:25.120 Don't get too enthusiastic about that.

03:52:27.040 I wrote you an essay of a question, and then I used the lecture, or the essay writing guide

03:52:34.680 on Psych 230 to narrow it down to just a few pages, a few lines.

03:52:40.000 And then during this particular lecture, like the zigzag slide manifests again.

03:52:45.420 And I thought, I basically just had all my questions answered.

03:52:50.220 So, basically, I just, I want to ask, the idea of, you've made a lecture that was on YouTube

03:53:03.280 many years ago, and you keep referring to Cain and Abel, and the death of Abel by Cain,

03:53:10.120 and the curse, and I think, well, that was a, that was a single, two brothers conflicting.

03:53:17.160 But, but here we have in the, the Sons of Jacob, the 12, there was one who was, one who

03:53:25.020 was good, one who was an Abel archetype, and there were 12, 11 that came after him.

03:53:30.420 So, that, I don't know, maybe there's something about the division, or, uh.

03:53:37.080 No, that's a good observation.

03:53:38.640 I hadn't thought about that.

03:53:40.220 Yeah.

03:53:40.780 Well, I mean, there's a bit of variability, because Reuben and, Reuben isn't quite as bad

03:53:45.400 as the rest, but yeah, I would say it's probably easier for the Cain side to multiply.

03:53:50.540 Luckily, it's not as powerful.

03:53:53.300 Because it doesn't do anything, like, it, it, yes, yes, and, you know, there's, Jung was

03:54:01.620 often included, accused of Manichaeanism, I'm not pronouncing that properly, but there

03:54:07.800 was a, there was a variant of Christian dogma that held that good and evil were separate

03:54:12.180 metaphysical realities, and that they were battling for the, for governance of the cosmos,

03:54:18.520 something like that.

03:54:19.200 But they both had an independent existence.

03:54:21.480 And the classical Christian idea, which won out over that, was that, no, that good was

03:54:26.380 real, but evil was the absence of good.

03:54:28.660 Now, that produced all sorts of, the absence of good produces all sorts of consequences.

03:54:32.560 And it is interesting to read Jung, because he does get kind of Manichaean in his discussions,

03:54:38.500 and I think it was partly because he was so concerned about what happened in Nazi Germany,

03:54:42.560 and then with the Cold War afterwards, you know, because evil seemed to be a palpable force.

03:54:47.480 But, I don't think that it's as powerful as good.

03:54:52.440 But I do think it's easier for it to multiply, because it's, well, it's easier path.

03:54:57.800 It's easy to be resentful, and hostile, and bitter, and, and do nothing.

03:55:02.560 That's easy.

03:55:03.660 It's horrible, and it's hard on people, but it doesn't require a tremendous amount of faith or effort.

03:55:08.840 So, maybe that is why it's multiplied in the final story in Genesis.

03:55:12.920 Yeah, and I've been reading ahead, and for my own, based on the interest of, of the present, presented stories.

03:55:20.900 And I, I keyed in on a few other books, and chapters in the Bible, like 1 Corinthians 13,

03:55:26.440 which is the love chapter, and that cycles through the idea of, I can have all things in life,

03:55:33.280 knowledge, power, but it's all passing, and the, now and forever are faith, hope, and love.

03:55:41.160 And, then, of course, love triumphs over all.

03:55:44.900 Yeah, well, the love issue, see, I've, I've been, I've thought a lot about the relationship between love and truth,

03:55:49.700 because I've thought and talked a lot more about truth.

03:55:52.980 And I think partly that's because love is a word that you can hardly even say,

03:55:56.760 because it's been so, it's like it's been dragged behind a car through mud puddles, it's something like that.

03:56:02.900 And, but, sorry, let me just finish elaborating this idea, but I think that the, the, the love idea is associated with,

03:56:11.460 for me, at least, with what I discussed at the beginning of this lecture with regards to faith.

03:56:16.580 I think you have to make a decision about what your attitude towards being is going to be.

03:56:22.640 And the proper attitude, in my estimation, is that you're working for its betterment.

03:56:27.880 You know, and so, maybe, maybe you have the same attitude towards being as you do towards someone that you love,

03:56:34.760 like a son, or a daughter, or a wife, that you want things to be better.

03:56:39.580 And then, so that's your aim.

03:56:41.000 So the aim is, basically, the aim is motivated by love.

03:56:46.680 You want things to be better.

03:56:48.400 Because I think that's a good definition of love.

03:56:50.240 Like, if you really care for someone, you can tell, because you want things to be better for them.

03:56:55.360 And then, I think truth is nested inside that, because I think that truth is the best servant of love.

03:57:01.120 Something like that.

03:57:07.720 So, I've been struggling with an idea recently that I was thinking maybe you'd be able to help me out with.

03:57:13.240 Basically, in a recent interview, you talked about how myth is meant to reconcile inherent contradictions in reality, right?

03:57:21.960 But, I'm sort of stuck between two mythological or psychoanalytic ideas that I think are both really important,

03:57:31.080 but they seem to have an inherent contradiction within them that I've been trying to figure out.

03:57:35.360 So, on one hand, you have this idea that there's times in your life where you have to identify things in yourself that are insufficient,

03:57:42.520 or there's a problem somehow that you have to kind of have a controlled burn,

03:57:47.940 or like a phoenix-like transformation where you discard part of yourself that doesn't fit or is not working.

03:57:54.300 But then, on the other hand, you have talked about this Jungian idea where, as you become really...

03:58:01.560 When you get older, you mature by reincorporating things about yourself that you lost when you were younger,

03:58:08.300 or that, you know, you're trying to integrate your shadow,

03:58:11.480 or you're trying to find parts of your personality that maybe you've been rejecting

03:58:15.900 and try and figure out how to bring them into the fold or into the whole.

03:58:19.140 So, he's got this quote that I really like, which is,

03:58:21.920 I'd rather be whole than good.

03:58:24.480 Right, right.

03:58:25.060 So, on one hand, you may identify something as a problem,

03:58:29.260 and you want to get rid of it or burn it off.

03:58:31.300 But then, on the other hand, it seems like the path to being stronger

03:58:37.840 is to figure out how to put everything together.

03:58:41.420 So, there's a...

03:58:43.040 One of the things Jung wrote about in his works on alchemy

03:58:45.560 was an explanation of the prime alchemical dictum,

03:58:50.240 which was solve a coagula,

03:58:52.400 which meant dissolve and integrate.

03:58:55.580 Right.

03:58:56.260 So, imagine this.

03:58:57.800 So, imagine that...

03:58:58.860 Imagine you had a fairly hostile father

03:59:01.960 who was not very well controlled in his aggression.

03:59:06.880 Decent person other than that, but let's say that.

03:59:10.000 And so, your reaction is,

03:59:11.340 I'm never going to be aggressive.

03:59:12.520 And so, you've built a, like, a moral structure

03:59:16.320 that's part of your personality.

03:59:19.300 And there's possibility floating around outside of that

03:59:23.280 that you've denied an ethical...

03:59:26.160 You've denied any ethical...

03:59:29.600 What would you say?

03:59:30.940 You've stripped the idea of aggression

03:59:32.960 of any ethical utility whatsoever.

03:59:35.540 Okay, so what happens?

03:59:36.860 This burns off, and then that comes back up.

03:59:39.700 Now, you still have to integrate it.

03:59:40.980 So, it's associated, in some sense,

03:59:43.940 with Nietzsche's idea of morality as cowardice.

03:59:47.560 Because one of Nietzsche's most trenchant critiques

03:59:50.800 of traditional morality, let's say,

03:59:54.040 is that most of what passes for morality isn't morality.

03:59:57.840 It's just cowardice.

03:59:59.100 It's not that I'm a good person and I don't hurt you.

04:00:02.280 It's that I'm afraid to hurt you.

04:00:04.080 And because I don't want to admit that I'm afraid to hurt you,

04:00:06.660 then I say I'm moral, because then I can mask my essential fear and cowardice

04:00:11.820 in a guise of morality.

04:00:13.920 And that happens far more often than you would think,

04:00:17.120 because harmless and moral are by no means the same thing.

04:00:20.640 So, some of what you're burning off...

04:00:23.100 You can see...

04:00:23.700 And this is where Freud was such a genius, I think,

04:00:26.120 is because he concentrated on aggression and sexuality,

04:00:28.440 which are perhaps the two most difficult parts of a personality to integrate.

04:00:33.060 He said that the...

04:00:36.600 hyper-simplified morality stops you

04:00:44.740 from tapping into deeper recesses of your psyche.

04:00:48.940 And it's partly because they're primal forces.

04:00:51.760 It's not surprising that you don't want to have anything to do with them.

04:00:55.000 That you stay away from situations where they might make themselves manifest.

04:00:58.160 But the problem is, by denying the worst in yourself,

04:01:00.900 in that manner, suppressing it,

04:01:02.540 you preclude the possibility of the best.

04:01:05.900 Because no one can be a good person without integrating their capacity for aggression.

04:01:10.240 Because without that capacity for aggression,

04:01:13.060 you cannot say no.

04:01:15.240 Because no means, if you really say it,

04:01:17.920 no means there isn't anything that you can do to me

04:01:20.780 that will make me change my mind.

04:01:23.200 Or conversely, it means I will play for higher stakes than you will.

04:01:28.160 And unless you've got your aggression integrated,

04:01:32.120 there isn't a chance you can say that.

04:01:34.380 And if you did, no one would take you seriously.

04:01:36.700 Because they'd know it was just a show.

04:01:39.380 So, one of the most useful things that Jung did, I think,

04:01:43.200 was to work on this idea of the integration of the shadow.

04:01:45.740 Because he was really interested in the idea of evil, right?

04:01:48.040 Especially working with trying to parcel out what happened in Nazi Germany

04:01:52.840 and during the Second World War.

04:01:54.540 What do you do with the part of you that's aggressive and potentially malevolent?

04:01:58.200 Do you just crush it?

04:01:59.460 That's the superego response in some sense.

04:02:01.540 Do you just put it behind you, so to speak?

04:02:03.600 Is that a possibility?

04:02:05.900 Or do you admit to its existence and bring it into the game?

04:02:09.660 And that's...

04:02:11.080 See, for Freud, in some sense,

04:02:13.840 morality was superego clamping down on the id.

04:02:17.160 And they were fundamentally opposed.

04:02:19.800 Both Jung and Piaget had a different idea,

04:02:21.820 and I think they were right.

04:02:22.800 It's like, no, no, you invite the bad guys out to play.

04:02:27.000 And so, you're an aggressive hockey player.

04:02:30.780 But it's disciplined aggression.

04:02:33.600 That makes you...

04:02:34.720 Gives you access to a whole source of energy you wouldn't otherwise have.

04:02:38.260 And then with regards to sexuality,

04:02:40.020 it's like, well, untrammeled promiscuity doesn't constitute a virtue.

04:02:43.980 But neither does unavoidable virginity, right?

04:02:48.200 In fact, I think that's worse.

04:02:50.120 Because it also masks itself with virtue.

04:02:52.980 It's like, well, you should be able to...

04:02:55.140 You should be able to do things that you wouldn't do.

04:02:59.180 That's the...

04:03:00.340 That's like the definition of a genuinely moral person.

04:03:04.320 They could do it.

04:03:06.060 But they don't.

04:03:07.920 And that's not cowardice.

04:03:09.920 And so that's...

04:03:11.080 You burn off the things that get in the way of that integration.

04:03:15.040 So, when you say dissolve and integrate,

04:03:17.260 might it be a good way to sort of bring the two ideas together

04:03:20.300 that the burning off and the difficult process is necessary

04:03:24.800 because the elements of yourself are structured together

04:03:28.160 in a rigid way that is not working properly.

04:03:31.440 Yeah, that's what happens to Geppetto in the belly of the whale.

04:03:34.580 He's so caught in his presuppositions that he can't escape, right?

04:03:38.980 And so Pinocchio represents the new force.

04:03:41.000 So, it's very interesting.

04:03:42.260 So, when you watch Pinocchio try to rescue him,

04:03:44.320 the first thing Geppetto does is confuse Pinocchio with a fish

04:03:47.560 because he wants something to eat.

04:03:49.300 But Pinocchio is better than something to eat

04:03:50.920 because he can rescue him so he doesn't need to eat.

04:03:53.760 And then Pinocchio wants to make a fire

04:03:55.360 and Geppetto objects because he's going to burn up all the furniture.

04:03:58.920 It's like, we don't need the damn furniture

04:04:00.860 if we're getting out of the whale, you know?

04:04:02.940 And so Geppetto...

04:04:04.460 And he's old, so that's the rigid structure.

04:04:07.980 That's the old year that has to die off

04:04:09.860 before the new year can be born.

04:04:11.820 It's a forest fire that allows for new growth.

04:04:14.300 And that's how those things are put together.

04:04:17.140 And it's useful to know, too,

04:04:18.680 because if you burn something off, you might think,

04:04:20.740 well, there's nothing left.

04:04:22.180 It's like, that's not true.

04:04:23.440 If it's deadwood, then you have room for new growth.

04:04:26.400 And you want to be doing that on a fairly regular basis.

04:04:30.340 That's the snake that sheds its skin and transforms itself, right?

04:04:35.840 That's the death and resurrection from a psychological perspective.

04:04:39.560 It's exactly the same idea.

04:04:41.160 Now, we don't know the upper limit to that, right?

04:04:43.320 Because we don't know what a person would be like

04:04:44.920 if they let everything that they could let go, let go.

04:04:49.680 And only let in what was seemly, let's say.

04:04:54.180 But you can see that.

04:04:55.420 It's funny.

04:04:55.900 We don't know that to some degree.

04:04:57.780 You can see people very...

04:04:59.480 You can see people start to do that without...

04:05:03.440 That's not a rare experience.

04:05:06.780 And people improve very rapidly.

04:05:09.700 They can improve their lives very rapidly.

04:05:11.220 A lot of it's low-hanging fruit.

04:05:12.760 Like, if you just stop doing really stupid things

04:05:15.860 that you know are stupid, your life improves a lot.

04:05:19.460 So, and it frees you up.

04:05:21.840 It also means there's an element there

04:05:23.880 that's also associated with pride.

04:05:26.860 Because people tend to take pride in who they are.

04:05:29.220 And that's a bad idea

04:05:30.200 because that stops you from becoming who you could be.

04:05:34.320 Because if you're proud of who you are,

04:05:36.000 you won't let that go when it's necessary.

04:05:38.360 You won't step away from it.

04:05:39.780 You know, and then you end up being your own parody.

04:05:43.000 Something like that.

04:05:44.120 That's also a very bad idea.

04:05:46.080 You want to be continually stepping away

04:05:48.060 from your previous self.

04:05:50.420 And so, and I guess part of that too

04:05:52.420 is that you have to decide.

04:05:54.420 You know, are you order?

04:05:56.780 Are you chaos?

04:05:57.680 Are you the process that mediates between them?

04:05:59.800 And if you're the process that mediates between them,

04:06:02.140 you are the thing that transforms.

04:06:05.280 And that's the right attitude for a human being

04:06:07.340 because that's what we are.

04:06:08.820 We're the thing that voluntarily confronts chaos

04:06:12.020 and transforms.

04:06:13.880 That's what we are.

04:06:15.380 And so for better or worse, you know,

04:06:17.840 that's our deepest biological essence, you might say.

04:06:22.040 And so you can let things go

04:06:23.560 if you know that there's more growth to come.

04:06:26.240 So, yeah.

04:06:28.040 One more.

04:06:37.520 Thank you for your time

04:06:38.580 and thank you for spending your time with all of us.

04:06:40.860 Hey, my pleasure.

04:06:41.900 It's been a pleasure.

04:06:43.320 So, if I could, since we are at the end of Genesis,

04:06:46.620 I'd like the opportunity to challenge

04:06:48.100 or at least have you take another look at your position

04:06:51.540 you've held with regards to Cain's reflection

04:06:54.700 on the murder of Abel.

04:06:56.640 I bring this up because it's actually a part of Genesis

04:06:58.880 that has bothered me for a while.

04:07:00.660 And it's not, like,

04:07:02.060 because it's not as straightforward as it's presented usually.

04:07:04.680 And it's very, I've been wrestling with it.

04:07:07.080 So, in this series,

04:07:08.700 as well as in a couple of your Maps of Meaning lectures,

04:07:11.760 you summarized it something to the effect

04:07:13.760 of Cain coming to the conclusion

04:07:15.480 that what he did leads to a punishment

04:07:17.700 which is more than he believes he can face,

04:07:20.540 which I believe to be born out of a natural reading

04:07:22.980 of specific translation choices

04:07:24.860 innocently made by editors

04:07:28.760 just for readability's sake.

04:07:31.200 So, in Genesis 4.13,

04:07:33.320 Cain does not say,

04:07:34.380 my punishment is greater than I can bear.

04:07:37.080 He actually says,

04:07:38.480 my sin is greater than I can bear.

04:07:43.600 Which is to say,

04:07:44.340 which is to say,

04:07:45.560 it's not his past actions.

04:07:48.300 Which is to say,

04:07:48.980 it's not his past actions,

04:07:49.980 it's his future consequences,

04:07:51.600 which he,

04:07:52.560 it's his past actions,

04:07:53.680 not his future consequences,

04:07:54.780 which he regrets.

04:07:56.040 For him to say,

04:07:56.820 awon, iniquity, or sin,

04:07:58.600 that is too much for him to bear

04:08:00.340 is a reflection on the reality of his corruption

04:08:02.320 and not a plea of mercy to the deity to spare him.

04:08:05.420 Okay, well, that seems to be,

04:08:07.080 to be a deeper interpretation,

04:08:08.920 I would say.

04:08:10.240 And I think it's more,

04:08:11.360 that's the same line of reasoning

04:08:13.700 that Dostoevsky pursued in Crime and Punishment.

04:08:16.840 Right?

04:08:17.280 Because in Crime and Punishment,

04:08:18.820 Raskolnikov gets away with murder

04:08:20.500 and then he cannot stand it.

04:08:22.720 He cannot stand that he did it

04:08:24.140 because he's no longer the same person.

04:08:25.600 But even more,

04:08:26.860 he cannot stand that he got away with it.

04:08:28.540 So that's more in keeping with that interpretation.

04:08:33.080 This also is reflected in the following verse,

04:08:35.280 in 4.14,

04:08:36.140 where he states the consequences of his actions,

04:08:39.220 mainly that God's presence will be hidden from him

04:08:41.740 and that he will be killed.

04:08:43.300 The verse opens with the word hein,

04:08:45.080 which means indeed, more or less,

04:08:47.480 and denotes a sense of acceptance

04:08:48.900 and not a complaint.

04:08:50.720 It is the difference between saying,

04:08:52.940 oh no, will God now hide his face from me

04:08:54.980 and will I be hunted,

04:08:55.880 versus, of course God will hide his face from me

04:08:58.280 and I will be hunted and killed.

04:09:00.640 Which I've been wrestling with

04:09:02.120 and have taken away to possibly mean

04:09:04.400 that there are sins that we can do

04:09:06.820 that will just push us too far.

04:09:09.920 Well, okay, there are, well, okay.

04:09:13.060 So, one of the, well, one of the things that you see

04:09:16.020 in post-traumatic stress disorder situations,

04:09:20.380 for example,

04:09:20.900 is that people view themselves doing something so terrible

04:09:24.760 they don't know how to put it right.

04:09:27.120 So that, and so you could say,

04:09:29.300 under those circumstances,

04:09:30.380 the face of God is hidden from them

04:09:31.800 because they cannot,

04:09:33.400 they cannot atone for it.

04:09:36.500 They cannot reconcile themselves to it.

04:09:38.620 It's there all the time

04:09:40.120 and they can't see anything good beyond it.

04:09:42.280 It's hell, essentially.

04:09:44.260 And so, I mean, sometimes when you're working with people

04:09:46.840 with post-traumatic stress disorder,

04:09:48.720 you know, you kind of initiate them

04:09:51.600 into a philosophy of good and evil

04:09:53.460 so that they can,

04:09:54.200 see, when Joseph talks to his brothers

04:09:57.540 and they've got all this guilt, right,

04:09:59.480 and he doesn't want them to have more guilt

04:10:01.800 than necessary to fix themselves

04:10:03.720 because it just burdens them otherwise.

04:10:05.800 He says, look, don't forget,

04:10:07.800 yeah, yeah, it was you,

04:10:08.640 but it's also God's doing.

04:10:11.060 And I had a client once

04:10:12.440 who had obsessive-compulsive disorder

04:10:14.860 and he was a very smart guy.

04:10:17.380 He also happened to work in a radioactive lab

04:10:19.860 that had a lot of radioactive materials,

04:10:21.580 which wasn't the best place for someone with OCD.

04:10:24.320 And he was worried that he would make some mistake,

04:10:28.420 and this is very common with OCD,

04:10:29.940 that would result in someone's suffering,

04:10:31.880 which you will, you'll do that.

04:10:34.260 And it wasn't until I could get him

04:10:36.340 to conceptualize himself and his life

04:10:38.640 in part as a force of nature

04:10:40.960 that he was able to reconcile himself

04:10:44.280 to the possibility that an error on his part

04:10:46.800 would produce catastrophic consequences.

04:10:50.540 But people often find themselves in situations

04:10:52.900 where they just,

04:10:53.800 they cannot reconcile themselves

04:10:55.260 to what they've done.

04:10:56.320 And that, it makes sense to me,

04:10:57.580 that the interpretation that you're describing,

04:11:00.340 that makes plenty of sense

04:11:04.240 from a psychological perspective.

04:11:06.020 There are sins that will push us

04:11:08.020 to, like, just beyond our limits

04:11:10.140 that are too far.

04:11:11.440 But there are also no consequences

04:11:14.020 to our actions

04:11:14.860 that are devoid of a truth

04:11:16.220 we can accept and learn from.

04:11:18.140 And this is what I've kind of delved out

04:11:19.720 of this bit with Cain and Abel.

04:11:21.840 So if this is the case,

04:11:23.320 why then does it take us so long

04:11:24.920 and with so much self-denial

04:11:26.720 before we accept personal responsibility

04:11:28.840 when faced with tragedy,

04:11:30.480 especially when it's self-inflicted?

04:11:31.860 Well, I don't think you want to underestimate

04:11:38.800 the contribution of just sheer difficulty.

04:11:43.280 Like, you know, let's say

04:11:45.780 you're grieving because someone close to you died.

04:11:52.900 It's like, well, it isn't just that you've lost them,

04:11:55.020 although that's a big part of it.

04:11:56.120 It's that you have to rebuild yourself.

04:11:59.640 And it's really hard to do that.

04:12:01.420 So, and it is sort of proportional

04:12:03.480 to the significance of your error.

04:12:06.020 So if you commit an error

04:12:07.200 and then you recognize that it's an error,

04:12:09.420 if it's a sort of surface error,

04:12:11.040 it's like, well, you can just touch up the paint.

04:12:13.860 But sometimes the whole understructure

04:12:16.340 is just rotten.

04:12:18.460 And then you don't know what to do.

04:12:23.380 And then, so that's one problem.

04:12:25.020 It's just sheer bloody difficulty.

04:12:26.520 And I see this with people very often.

04:12:28.220 It's like they're at a point

04:12:29.120 and they're divorced, let's say.

04:12:31.420 And they don't know what to do.

04:12:32.960 They cannot solve the problem.

04:12:34.840 It's too complicated.

04:12:36.520 They just don't have the resources.

04:12:38.140 And maybe they've squandered

04:12:39.100 some of their resources as well.

04:12:40.540 But sometimes they just don't have the resources.

04:12:42.540 And then if you add to that error and sin

04:12:45.040 and malevolence and blindness

04:12:46.380 and all those other things,

04:12:47.580 people, there's a guy named Thomas Saz

04:12:50.100 who wrote this really interesting article

04:12:51.720 in the 1960s,

04:12:52.760 a book actually called

04:12:53.760 The Myth of Mental Illness.

04:12:55.940 And it was classic reading

04:12:59.140 for clinical psychologists

04:13:00.280 when I was training.

04:13:01.560 And the reason for that was

04:13:03.060 is that Saz pointed out,

04:13:04.720 and this is true,

04:13:05.460 is that lots of times

04:13:07.680 if you're a psychotherapist,

04:13:08.920 people don't come to you

04:13:09.780 because they have mental illnesses.

04:13:11.500 They come to you

04:13:12.400 because they have insoluble problems

04:13:14.800 in their life.

04:13:16.200 You know, like maybe they've had

04:13:17.160 a two-year affair at work.

04:13:21.000 Their wife is alcoholic.

04:13:24.140 And they have a very...

04:13:25.840 And their father has Alzheimer's disease.

04:13:28.160 It's like they just don't know what to do.

04:13:30.740 It's too much.

04:13:31.800 Now, you know,

04:13:32.460 they shouldn't have had the affair,

04:13:33.600 so there's a moral issue.

04:13:35.020 And maybe they should have intervened

04:13:36.600 in the alcoholism in the family.

04:13:38.440 Maybe they used their wife's alcoholism

04:13:40.100 as an excuse to have the affair.

04:13:41.840 You know, like these things get very tangled.

04:13:43.900 It's just it's so bloody complicated.

04:13:45.780 That people can't untangle it.

04:13:48.020 So, and I would say

04:13:49.600 that's in keeping with the interpretation

04:13:51.120 that you laid forth with regards to Cain,

04:13:53.280 is it sounds like

04:13:54.840 it's one of the reasons

04:13:56.120 why it's so useful

04:13:56.800 to read multiple translations, right?

04:13:58.620 Because nuances matter.

04:14:02.100 It sounds to me from that description

04:14:04.600 that he actually woke up

04:14:06.140 at least briefly

04:14:07.060 and noticed what he did

04:14:08.520 and said,

04:14:09.940 there's no coming back from this.

04:14:12.280 And it is,

04:14:13.140 you can easily get places

04:14:14.340 that you do not know

04:14:16.160 how to come back from.

04:14:17.200 Now, you know,

04:14:17.660 they say,

04:14:18.080 well, all things are possible with God

04:14:19.560 and there's always the possibility

04:14:20.800 of redemption,

04:14:21.800 no matter how serious the sin.

04:14:23.840 But I'll tell you,

04:14:25.020 sometimes people have no idea

04:14:26.620 how to get back

04:14:27.340 from where they went.

04:14:31.220 Well, and you can understand often

04:14:32.840 why people wouldn't do that, right?

04:14:35.200 Yeah, well,

04:14:36.240 that's a funny thing

04:14:37.220 because one of the things

04:14:37.920 Carl Rogers said too

04:14:39.000 about psychotherapy

04:14:39.840 is that you can't do psychotherapy

04:14:41.780 with someone

04:14:42.240 who hasn't recognized

04:14:43.060 that they have a problem.

04:14:44.740 So it's a massive thing

04:14:46.580 to recognize

04:14:47.140 that you have a problem

04:14:48.020 and it does open the door

04:14:49.300 perhaps to recovery.

04:14:51.680 But it also means

04:14:53.060 that you've recognized

04:14:53.840 that you have a problem

04:14:55.000 and that can be very,

04:14:56.260 very,

04:14:56.700 it's the desert, right?

04:14:57.960 You're out of the tyranny

04:14:58.960 but you're in the desert

04:14:59.880 and the sun's beating down on you

04:15:01.540 and there's no necessary reason

04:15:02.960 to presume

04:15:03.440 that you're going to survive.

04:15:05.380 So.

04:15:06.680 Thank you.

04:15:07.160 Have good night

04:15:07.560 and stay warm.

04:15:09.420 Thank you all.

04:15:37.560 Thank you.

04:15:38.560 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - December 21, 2017

Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors

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