The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Message from JBP ｜ What You Should Put First in Your Life

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00:00:30.000 Hi, everybody. Welcome to the release of the second lecture from my extensive tour archives.

00:00:35.940 We've been working late at night when my symptoms recede enough so that I can finally concentrate

00:00:40.760 to make this release a possibility. At the same time recently, I've been able to write a little

00:00:45.980 bit and I'm working on three essays, which I hope to finish and release in the near future.

00:00:51.640 One deals with the climate lies propagated by the socialists and the leftists. Another deals

00:00:57.740 with the issue of the alphabet mafia and the associated pride movement. And the final one

00:01:03.640 deals with the so-called rape gangs in the UK, asking whether the terminology rape gang, which

00:01:10.580 is definitely an improvement over grooming gang, is sufficient to accurately describe the magnitude

00:01:15.280 of the crimes that are being committed. In any case, I'm working on these now, hoping to contribute

00:01:21.740 something to the ongoing public debate about these crucially important issues. I'm unhappy with my

00:01:27.640 silence however necessitated it might be by the conditions of my illness. I'd like to get back to

00:01:33.820 to my work you know. Anyways that's the update. Thanks for your time and attention and I hope

00:01:40.680 you enjoy listening to this second lecture as much as I enjoyed delivering it. Bye-bye.

00:01:57.640 Thank you very much.

00:02:09.340 It's very good of you to come.

00:02:11.320 I'm looking forward to tonight.

00:02:17.220 What does it mean that we wrestle with God?

00:02:19.620 Well, Tammy made some introductory comments.

00:02:22.380 one of the things I've learned from writing the book

00:02:28.820 that this tour is promoting

00:02:31.100 let's say or discussing

00:02:32.260 is that

00:02:34.980 what God is in some manner

00:02:40.700 is a matter of definition

00:02:42.640 so here's a definition

00:02:46.560 your God is whatever you put first

00:02:51.100 that's a definition and you might ask well why do you have to put something first and the answer is

00:02:59.160 well do you put one foot in front of the other when you go somewhere and and i really mean that

00:03:04.880 specifically because in order to do anything you make that thing first

00:03:08.460 if you can't do that then you're confused and aimless and i suppose that's something too but

00:03:15.760 it's not productive and it's anxiety provoking because anxiety actually signals that you're not

00:03:22.140 aimed in a single direction that's its technical definition it's a good way of thinking about it

00:03:29.120 so you have to put something first you put something first with every glance that you take

00:03:35.140 because there is a myriad of things that you could focus your attention on but when you focus

00:03:42.140 you focus on one thing and you focus on one thing

00:03:46.080 for a reason the highest reason that you could focus on one thing would be god

00:03:56.000 that's a good way of thinking about it and something is going to occupy that position of

00:04:02.420 priority let me give you an example we've actually been experimenting with this idea with large

00:04:10.220 language models so you know they're like the models that that you see now coming out in

00:04:17.080 computer platforms like chat gpt or or elon musk's croc i used to ask my students for example in my

00:04:26.540 classes why they why they were handing in an essay why they were writing a test

00:04:34.780 and people's answers differed in depth depending on how well they had thought things through

00:04:43.100 which is in some ways equivalent to saying dependent on how conscious they were

00:04:48.280 why are you here in this class well i need to take the class to to get a grade well why do

00:04:55.640 you need to get a grade well i need to pass the course why do you need to pass the course

00:05:02.260 well i have to get my degree well why do you want to get your degree he says well

00:05:08.340 people would start to stumble at that point but why do you want to get your degree well i want to

00:05:14.720 get a job i want to i i need to make some money it's not a great answer because there's lots of

00:05:21.160 ways of making money right so it's starting to get somewhat loose but that's the next aim let's say

00:05:28.680 well why do you think you should get a job and make money well to live but you can live on

00:05:35.440 handouts for example you can live on social services why would you get a job well i want

00:05:40.680 to be a good citizen well why why do you care about that well i want to be a good person

00:05:45.040 well how is it that you're a good person you see what you're doing in some ways is in in a series

00:05:51.640 of questions like that you're you're leading people to either the apex of their value structure

00:05:57.740 Or downward to its foundation

00:05:59.800 You can use either metaphor

00:06:01.960 And

00:06:03.200 You might say that

00:06:05.740 The highest value

00:06:07.800 Or the most foundational value

00:06:09.560 In that broadening

00:06:12.100 Hierarchy of values

00:06:13.340 Is also equivalent to God

00:06:15.200 One of the things I've learned

00:06:17.400 By walking through the biblical corpus

00:06:19.100 Is that each of the stories

00:06:21.020 That's associated with

00:06:22.400 With the characterization of God

00:06:25.080 Is a snapshot

00:06:26.840 or a dramatization of another aspect of what should be put in the highest place once you

00:06:34.260 understand that you have that you inevitably put something in the highest place no matter how

00:06:39.120 fractionated that might be no matter how confused you are once you understand that you have to put

00:06:45.300 something in the highest place even to perceive even to look then the next question becomes

00:06:51.860 or what if anything can be properly put in that place and i would say that's been the

00:07:00.520 eternal question that's faced the human race since we became conscious what is it that should

00:07:07.440 be put in the highest place the story i'm going to tell you tonight which is the story of cain and

00:07:12.300 abel is a brilliant exposition of that problem it's it's a very short story it's really about 12

00:07:19.560 to 15 lines long depending on what you count it's there's nothing to it in terms of length

00:07:25.100 and yet it's it's inexhaustible in its significance and that's that's a very interesting

00:07:32.100 that's a very interesting fact as well you might ask yourself how stories like that can be so dense

00:07:40.180 i would say well it's a consequence of a variety of factors

00:07:44.820 a very old story and the story of cain and abel is a very old story at least

00:07:50.640 multiple thousands of years old and likely older than that because the older a story is the higher

00:07:57.840 the likelihood that it's even older than that because the farther back you go in time the

00:08:01.760 less rapidly things change so something if a story is 10 000 years old it's probably 50 000

00:08:07.900 years old right i mean it vanishes into the sands of time so you can't be sure but but you can be

00:08:13.980 reasonably sure what is it what happens when people tell stories across a very long period of

00:08:25.000 time a lot of people observe a lot of people and they compress that into an account of the

00:08:34.760 fundamental elements of the human drama and then they tell that in a manner that if

00:08:42.920 remembered has to be memorable right so it has to attract the attention of its listeners

00:08:49.480 and then it has to be remembered and then it has to be remembered and transmitted across the

00:08:54.820 centuries let's say that's a very long period of time so then you could imagine as well that

00:08:59.400 not only is a story that's abstracted and foundational and remembered compelling and

00:09:07.220 interesting but it also modifies itself so that it's it fits in the psyche that's a good way of

00:09:14.680 thinking about it it adapts itself across time so that it can be remembered and so it reflects the

00:09:21.320 structure of memory itself and you could imagine even if you're biologically oriented let's say

00:09:26.920 that our memory is adapted to remember what's important and so a story that fits in the structure

00:09:33.960 of memory is going to be a story that only concentrates on what's important because everything

00:09:38.860 else will get forgotten no one will pay attention to it'll just drift away now a highly abstract

00:09:44.980 story like the story of cain and abel is memorable but that doesn't necessarily mean that we

00:09:48.980 understand it now that's not necessarily precisely a problem you go to lots of movies that you don't

00:09:55.200 necessarily understand you do lots of things you don't understand you probably don't really

00:09:59.980 understand why you put up a christmas tree for example well it's a very old ritual right and

00:10:06.800 it it predates christianity that ritual and it isn't obviously linked in any way to christianity

00:10:15.040 and yet it's something we do in celebration of christmas and i'm just telling you that not to

00:10:21.080 pick on you because you don't know why you put up a christmas tree and everyone else is doing it

00:10:25.460 isn't a good answer but but it's to celebrate rebirth right it's to celebrate the birth of the

00:10:33.060 light which is why you decorate the tree with light the tree is the tree of life the crucifix

00:10:38.640 is a representation of the tree of life those things are all tangled together in that ritual

00:10:45.400 and we're act we act that out even though we don't necessarily understand it and it's meaningful to

00:10:50.840 us even though we don't necessarily know why and so like our dreams can contain more information

00:10:57.100 than we understand our stories the stories that we tell and the stories that we live by

00:11:01.500 contain can contain wisdom that we don't fully realize

00:11:05.560 i mean if we fully realized all wisdom we would be omniscient we certainly don't understand

00:11:14.400 ourselves and we don't understand the drama that we're involved in even though we acted out

00:11:18.560 and represented in image and in drama and in a narrative in story and then as we do that

00:11:27.880 as we act it out and we represent it and we come to tell it we do come to develop more and more

00:11:34.780 understanding and i would say in the 20th century there's actually been substantial progress

00:11:41.520 in making the meaning of the deep myths

00:11:45.620 upon which our culture is founded more conscious.

00:11:49.580 Now, what I would say,

00:11:51.820 enlightenment minds tend to equate myth

00:11:57.440 with falsehood and superstition.

00:12:00.480 But that's a big mistake.

00:12:04.360 Because it fails to grapple with the centrality of the story.

00:12:08.520 I mean, you can be cynical and you can say,

00:12:10.380 we were compelled by stories because they're entertaining but that's a foolish observation

00:12:15.320 because the mystery is why they're entertaining right because to say something like a story is

00:12:22.060 entertaining entertaining enough so your children will torture you to tell them stories right

00:12:26.820 entertaining enough so that you'll pay to go see them right um gripping enough so you'll even go

00:12:32.780 to pay them you'll even pay to go see them if they take the form of horror or if they're upsetting

00:12:38.480 right there and compelling enough so that children can learn and be engaged in the

00:12:46.240 learning process if what they're learning is encapsulated in a story they don't have to

00:12:50.520 struggle with that it's it grips them and compels them the story is a very important thing and

00:12:56.520 a story is an abstraction like we tend to think of story as fiction and fiction is the opposite

00:13:03.160 of fact but that's that's not very wise i mean think about it this way you know you've read some

00:13:09.900 shallow books in your life no doubt and seen some movies that were basically tripe and sometimes

00:13:15.180 there's a place for that because maybe you've worked hard all day or all week or for a year and

00:13:20.360 you know you're at home and you're tired and you just want to put on like barbie and zone out for

00:13:26.740 an hour and a half right you're not interested in wrestling with god let's say at that moment

00:13:32.240 but you know perfectly well that what you're watching is shallow and you don't do it necessarily

00:13:37.960 with any pride it's just it's a form of of effortless relaxation but then you also know that

00:13:47.220 now and then you read something a work of fiction or you watch a movie another work of fiction and

00:13:53.380 strikes you very deeply it which is an interesting metaphor you know that you're moved and you're

00:13:59.300 move deeply something stirs within you there's something to the story that's compelling and

00:14:04.420 transformative it might it might make you tear up it might it might even change the way you look at

00:14:10.720 the world if the story is deep enough and we do presume that great literature has that capability

00:14:16.620 and it does have that capability i mean i was i've been struck to the core by well by many things

00:14:24.260 i've read but i would say there's a cardinal dozen books that i've read that really changed the way

00:14:28.680 that i looked at everything for me dostoevsky the russian novelist sort of top of that list

00:14:34.320 his books the brothers karamazov and crime and punishment and notes from underground the devils

00:14:39.920 are unbelievably compelling works of fiction and they're deep now they're not fact so does that

00:14:47.780 mean they're not true and they aren't true in a way because the events that dostoevsky details

00:14:53.920 for example in crime and punishment never happened or or wait or did or is that accurate

00:15:01.860 it's not that easy to tell what's happening it's not that easy to tell what's happening you know

00:15:10.680 you know this you know this if you're married or or in a long-term relationship you know perfectly

00:15:15.960 well that you can exchange a few casual words with your wife or husband and feel things moving

00:15:22.260 underneath the surface right and you can exchange the wrong words casually about nothing and and

00:15:28.280 not be able to look each other in the eye for a week right because something something in that

00:15:34.240 exchange moved something that was way under the surface and maybe it's something under the surface

00:15:38.360 you bloody well both know is there and the last thing you want to do is admit it or talk about it

00:15:43.700 right and so and then you might say to your wife well what's wrong and she says well nothing and

00:15:50.840 and you both know that that's a lie and and you know that the exchange pointed to something deep

00:16:00.660 you know that it's part of us a much a story that has not yet been told and that maybe needs to be

00:16:08.900 told and so maybe you delve into that and you try to get to the bottom of it and it's it's pretty

00:16:16.880 awful, you know, to sort out

00:16:19.180 exactly what was said

00:16:21.100 and what wasn't said in a situation like that.

00:16:23.840 What's it called?

00:16:24.780 Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy.

00:16:26.820 Peterson Academy. It's called Peterson Academy.

00:16:28.980 Peterson Academy. If you want an

00:16:30.980 actual education. With hand-selected

00:16:33.280 professors from top universities

00:16:35.020 around the world.

00:16:37.160 Bringing the best professors together, making

00:16:38.960 sure they're not censored in any way, giving them the

00:16:40.920 audience and the remuneration and appreciation they deserve.

00:16:43.240 And you were true to your word. You gave me absolute

00:16:45.120 intellectual autonomy. I have had it through every course. We figure we can offer people a

00:16:49.700 high-quality university-level education for under $2,000. Well, congratulations, Jordan. It's

00:16:55.060 honestly brilliant. Can't wait to enroll myself. I'll be doing that straight after this. Fun, Joe.

00:17:10.640 If you're a great storyteller, what you do is...

00:17:15.120 So you watch a lot of different people act in a lot of different situations, and you start to extract out regularities of action and attention.

00:17:30.520 And so if you go see an action-adventure movie, like a James Bond movie, let's say, what you get is a distillation of romantic adventure, right?

00:17:40.420 Everything that isn't romantic or adventurous is edited out.

00:17:43.420 and you might say well that's unrealistic it's like well not exactly it's not exactly unrealistic

00:17:49.060 it's more like hyper realistic it's like the the writer and the filmmaker decided to watch a

00:17:56.600 thousand people and pull out the most exciting elements of their life the most exciting and

00:18:00.700 romantic elements of their life you might say and then amalgamate all those into something that's

00:18:05.280 super romantic and super exciting to get to the core of what constitutes romantic adventure itself

00:18:10.960 and then you're pretty interested in that you'll go you'll go watch that movie partly to be

00:18:15.700 entertained but also partly maybe to live the life you haven't lived that's a good way of

00:18:21.440 thinking about it but also maybe to get to the core of what constitutes a romantic adventure

00:18:25.840 to learn and so it's a distillation now

00:18:29.640 here's a question for you is an abstraction more or less real than the thing that it's abstracted

00:18:37.640 from right because if you make this fact fiction separation you say fiction is falsehood it's not

00:18:45.220 true it never happened you you're you're left with a problem that you could make the same

00:18:52.480 criticism of abstraction per se like we abstract out numbers for example from from a multitude of

00:18:59.220 different amalgamations to fruit to cars to people what what's common across them is two

00:19:09.340 and you might say well that's less real two has a number is less real than the things it

00:19:14.080 represents but i would say well why are you so sure about that because if you can manipulate

00:19:18.700 the abstractions you're more powerful than you are if you manipulate the actual things

00:19:24.580 the abstractions in some ways you could make a case that the abstractions are more real

00:19:28.720 you could make a case that they're hyper real words are abstractions and yet they have motive

00:19:34.960 force in the world what's what's the reason what's the possible rationale for presuming that an

00:19:41.120 abstraction isn't real well a great story is an abstraction a story about a great man is an

00:19:47.060 abstraction about what it is about men that make them great and a story about the greatest of all

00:19:52.600 possible men would be the ultimate abstraction of greatness itself and why how is that not real

00:19:58.880 you might say well it's not about anybody in particular well it might depend on how great

00:20:03.500 the man was right how well that man played out that pattern it could be about someone in particular

00:20:09.240 could be about a genuinely great man who acts out or embodies or incarnates the pattern of greatness

00:20:15.260 as such say it's about you too insofar as there have been there have been times in your life where

00:20:21.300 you made that pattern manifest we understand these things because we understand for example

00:20:26.160 if we're men that we can be fathers and being a father is to participate in a pattern and we know

00:20:31.180 perfectly well that we can be better or worse fathers and we generally even know if we are

00:20:36.180 being better or worse fathers and so we understand that the abstraction represents a mode of being

00:20:42.020 and it's something that we can participate and should participate in and don't participate in

00:20:46.900 well to our great loss and also the loss of our children we can abstract out stories and great

00:20:52.980 storytellers abstract out great stories and the greatest stories we abstract out are myths

00:20:58.840 they're religious stories and they're hyper true they're not true like ordinary truth is

00:21:05.680 true they're they're true in the way in a way that reveals to you what truth itself is

00:21:11.280 that's a strange way of thinking about things well here here's a here's a hypothesis

00:21:21.900 i think it's true i think the scientific data suggests this by the way i mentioned at the

00:21:28.000 beginning of this lecture that in order to even perceive you have to prioritize right

00:21:32.980 to prioritize means to value so if i if you're out on first date with a with a woman that

00:21:39.180 and you want the date to go well and you're in a busy restaurant there's 50 conversations going

00:21:44.240 around you and you could attend to any of them but you don't you you you you you eliminate from

00:21:51.800 consciousness all the con all the conversations you could be attending to even the one that you

00:21:57.460 could be having with yourself in your own mind you ignore that and you prioritize what it is

00:22:03.340 that she's saying and how she's acting and you elevate that above everything else right and you

00:22:08.280 do that because you're for well god only knows what your reason is but you know it could be

00:22:13.840 you're going to have a reason right and it could be the reason you're all thinking of

00:22:19.360 or it could be or it could be a higher order reason because maybe you're a serious person

00:22:25.540 and you're looking for a long-term relationship and the way that you're going to structure your

00:22:29.660 attention while you are listening is going to reflect that aim and she's going to be watching

00:22:35.380 you like a hawk also depending on what it is she's aiming at to see just exactly how it is that

00:22:41.120 you're directing your attention moment to moment in that interaction right and if you both are out

00:22:47.260 for nothing but a night of fun well the conversation is going to go one way and if you're actually

00:22:51.200 looking for someone to share the rest of your life with and you think the possibility is there

00:22:56.180 in that moment then you're going to interact and attend and focus your attention and prioritize in

00:23:01.440 a completely different way and all of that is going to be dependent on what it is that you're

00:23:06.320 aiming for and that aim is actually going to structure the way that that person makes themselves

00:23:11.120 manifest to you and that's something to know too because one of the things you could hypothesize

00:23:17.860 this is a terrifying notion is that people make themselves real to you in direct relationship to

00:23:25.200 your aim and i think it's worse than that i think that the world does that now we kind of know this

00:23:32.420 even as scientists of perception because your senses are actually navigation equipment right

00:23:38.860 the reason you have senses is so that you could move from one place to another successfully and

00:23:44.160 so when you and when you're moving from one place to another you have an aim the aim is to get to

00:23:49.880 the next place right to get to the promised land archetypally to get to the best place possible

00:23:55.760 in in in the short variations of that or over the long run right and when you make that aim then

00:24:01.680 the world lays itself out for you this is how your perceptual systems work as a pathway to that end

00:24:07.560 accompanied by obstacles that make you that produce negative emotion and facilitators or

00:24:14.800 tools affordances that produce positive emotion so the facts of the world make themselves manifest

00:24:22.720 to you in relationship to your aim and the emotional valence of things is determined by

00:24:29.380 the relationship between those facts and where it is that you're headed and so that's an amazing

00:24:35.260 thing to know because one of the things that suggests is that if if the world keeps kicking

00:24:40.220 you in the face it's possible that your aim is wrong and so one of the well it's either that or

00:24:47.140 god made an arbitrary world that's designed to torture you right and that is the story of cain

00:24:52.460 and abel because that's cain's conclusion right and so we'll delve into that and so that's an

00:24:59.740 exciting possibility and then another hypothesis that you might derive from that set of notions is

00:25:06.600 that the aim that would reveal the beauty of the world,

00:25:13.520 the beauty and the significance of the world to you in the highest degree,

00:25:17.780 that aim, there's no difference between that aim and aiming at God.

00:25:21.100 That's a definition.

00:25:23.380 So you can imagine that you could organize your perception so that the best of

00:25:27.940 all possible worlds could make itself manifest to you, right?

00:25:31.700 Hypothetically, imagine that was hypothetically the case.

00:25:33.960 and that a certain aim would have to go along with that well i can give you an example of that so

00:25:40.260 one of the insistences in the gospel text is that you should treat other people

00:25:46.540 as you would like to be treated it's actually quite a complex moral directive because it doesn't

00:25:52.080 mean be nice to other people because you know perfectly well sometimes nice isn't what you need

00:25:57.720 you need a slap on the side of the head you know you need to run into the obstacle you deserve to

00:26:02.660 run into you know perfectly well if you have children and you love them that just doing what 0.90

00:26:08.400 makes them happy right now is not the right thing to do you you want to take your son or your

00:26:13.480 daughter and you want to think i want this person to thrive in the world and their behavior at the

00:26:18.500 moment is not in accordance with that aim and they need a certain degree of correction and if

00:26:23.560 i was that child and someone who loved me was interacting with me they would stop me if i was

00:26:29.320 eric right so treating people as you would like to be treated doesn't imply that you should go

00:26:36.160 out of your way never to make them uncomfortable emotionally it means you should put yourself in

00:26:40.800 that in their position you should assume that what you're trying to do is to help them live in the

00:26:49.020 world in a manner that reveals the beauty and the significance of the world to them and then you

00:26:54.120 should decide how it is that you would interact with them so that that was possible so that the

00:26:59.140 became increasingly possible and then you might say well imagine you did that to everyone you came

00:27:05.020 in contact with there's immense emphasis for example in the old testament on hospitality

00:27:09.780 it's a sacred duty hospitality well you invite people to your house and you're you you're

00:27:16.880 generous and you you're productive so your house is well apportioned and you're generous and you

00:27:22.660 share everything you have and you do that wholeheartedly and in a genuinely generous

00:27:26.900 spirit well imagine that you're hospitable in everything you do which is the same thing it's

00:27:31.620 an earlier version of treating other people like you would want to be treated imagine you do that

00:27:35.580 with everyone you meet all the time with every word and gesture well then you might say well

00:27:40.440 what's going to be the consequence to you well you know now and then someone's going to take

00:27:45.820 advantage of you but i would say to their own detriment it's not a reasonable way of reacting

00:27:52.360 to someone who's being productive and generous people who do that their reputation suffers very

00:27:59.000 very rapidly everyone understands and notices no one wants them around no one wants to cooperate

00:28:05.140 with them or trade with them or and it's impossible to build a productive relationship but

00:28:09.900 if you're the sort of so now and then you know you may encounter someone who's going to play a

00:28:14.540 short-term manipulative game with you if you are productive and generous but by and large especially

00:28:20.580 if you're good at doing it especially say when people are suffering or lost and you can offer

00:28:25.320 them a hand and it's genuine they're going to remember that and there's a lot of people in the

00:28:29.920 world that aren't you like eight billion of them and you're going to interact with at least a

00:28:35.280 thousand of them in some real detail in your life you could store up goodwill in their hearts

00:28:41.060 you know and then what would happen if a thousand people are happy with you

00:28:46.200 what's your life going to be like especially if you went out of your way you know and most people

00:28:51.760 this is god's honest truth it's we know this we know this scientifically it as well as practically

00:28:58.860 almost everyone who's vaguely sane has a ledger you know if someone does a favor for you

00:29:07.000 there's part of you that thinks you know some reciprocation is in order right that's the basis

00:29:13.860 of the turnabout that makes fair play it's the definition of fair play it's certainly something

00:29:19.100 you want in a marriage is that you know i mean not like you're exactly keeping track because that's

00:29:24.060 petty but but there is an expectation that that kindness should be met with kindness and and and

00:29:31.620 vice versa no and so and then you could imagine so that if you were productive and generous even

00:29:37.300 to a fault not not that you should allow yourself to be taken advantage of that's not what i mean

00:29:42.500 But if you're productive and generous to a fault and you made that manifest to a thousand people, the probability that that would return to you in spades is exceptionally high.

00:29:54.400 Now, so the reason I'm telling you that is because, for example, that's one of the injunctions in the Sermon on the Mount, that you should aim high and then you should treat other people like you would want to be treated.

00:30:05.280 well why well because that's the aim that will best reveal the pathway the golden pathway forward

00:30:12.160 to you it's absolutely the most practical possible it's interesting advice because it's practical as

00:30:18.420 hell but it's also deep it's theologically sound it essentially means that if you aim up and you

00:30:25.620 act generously and productively and you're wholehearted about that that the that jacob's

00:30:31.480 ladder makes its appearance right and you can start ascending the what would you say the the

00:30:36.820 endless spiral upward to the place that gets better and better right and that's an that's a

00:30:44.020 game that improves as you play it that's a good definition of the kingdom of heaven now it's

00:30:49.100 certainly something that characterizes a very deep friendship for example because a friendship can

00:30:53.020 become if it's if it's well played let's say or marriage can become better and better across time

00:30:59.460 richer and deeper across time and so so one of the things you see in the biblical corpus is that

00:31:06.220 there's a characterization of whatever god is as the thing that should be put in the place of

00:31:14.620 highest value right it's something that you establish a relationship in with in some ways

00:31:20.040 and you see this in the story of cain and abel and so we'll talk about that story directly now

00:31:27.540 i'll give you a little setup to the story because you need to know what happened up to this point

00:31:32.560 now cain and abel are actually the first two human beings right because adam and eve they're made by

00:31:39.600 god and so they're not born they're not ordinary people they're born in paradise they're the

00:31:44.960 eternal primordial ancestors cain and abel they're they're born in profane history right so from the

00:31:53.520 perspective of the biblical narrative history begins with the fall of Adam and Eve and it means

00:31:59.300 something like it means a lot of things but it means something like the dawn of self-consciousness

00:32:04.420 among human beings it means many things but that's one of the things it means

00:32:08.360 self-conscious human beings realize that there's a future that's part of being self-conscious

00:32:14.280 you're self-conscious and you know yourself as a bounded entity in time you know your borders and

00:32:19.720 you're and you know what you are and what you aren't but you also know i mean you know yourself

00:32:25.040 in place sorry in space you know your borders your bodily borders and you know yourself in time you

00:32:32.180 know that you were born at some point and that you're going to age and there'll be a time when

00:32:36.660 you aren't and so we're human beings are conscious as no other animal is of the entirety of our span

00:32:43.220 of life and there's a tragedy that goes along with that because being self-conscious in that

00:32:49.240 manner means that we're aware of our own finitude and our mortality in a way that other animals

00:32:53.620 aren't we're aware of our own vulnerability you know like zebras are perfectly happy grazing

00:32:59.040 where there's lions if the lions are asleep well it's not very bright on the lion the zebras should

00:33:05.720 be getting together and thinking why don't we just go stomp those lions while they're sleeping and

00:33:10.220 and there won't be any problem with lions in the futures but the zebras think to the degree they

00:33:14.740 think sleeping lions they're no problem they don't think about the future lions right those

00:33:20.660 are completely different creatures but not us like no matter how calm you are in the present

00:33:25.120 there's something you have to worry about in the future right and that's because you're conscious

00:33:29.380 of the future you're conscious of your extension across time that's part of what makes you

00:33:34.460 self-conscious and adam and eve well there's in in the story of adam and eve they become

00:33:39.680 self-conscious they know they're naked they the scales fall from their eyes they become aware of

00:33:44.700 themselves and the consequence of that there are many but one of the consequences is they have to

00:33:50.360 work now this is an unbelievably profound

00:33:54.660 realization and and characterization what does work mean well let's say we could distinguish it

00:34:07.440 from play play play might have a productive end but it's enjoyable right now right if you're

00:34:14.560 playing you're not exactly sacrificing anything right if you're playing if you're enjoying yourself

00:34:18.780 you're doing what you want in the moment well what's the opposite of play work or more accurately

00:34:27.680 the work you have to do well why do you have to do it why do you work and what is it about human

00:34:33.140 beings that makes us work unlike other creatures and the answer to that is well we're aware of the

00:34:41.140 future and so what have we learned to do well we've learned to work well what do you do when

00:34:46.260 you work you sacrifice the present to the future right that's like the definition of delayed

00:34:52.180 gratification if you want to be gratified right now you get what you want right now if you're

00:34:56.760 going to work and store and save and toil and labor what you're doing is you're sacrificing

00:35:03.340 the pleasures of the moment for your long-term continued security and opportunity or more than

00:35:09.500 that more than that because it's not just about you right if you're working you're also working

00:35:14.400 for your family you're working for others and so it isn't just your medium to long-term security

00:35:19.820 and opportunity it's the medium to long-term security and stability and opportunity of your

00:35:25.360 family and those you love and you sacrifice the present to that okay now we've done something

00:35:32.100 useful we've drawn a relationship we've established a relationship between work and sacrifice and

00:35:40.400 that's useful because once you know that connection you can understand much of what happens especially

00:35:45.680 in the most archaic stories in the bible because they're all about sacrifice okay so let's try to

00:35:51.260 bring that down to earth you have to sacrifice well why well let's say you just pursued the

00:35:59.140 pleasures of the moment well then you sacrifice the future for the present right to do anything

00:36:06.020 you give up a multitude of other things that you could be doing right so the human mode of existence

00:36:12.060 is sacrificial it's and that's in some ways why work enters the world now god condemns adam and

00:36:19.980 to work and that's partly a consequence of their pride they sin and that's why they fall out of

00:36:26.000 paradise and one of the things you might ask yourself is if your work is utterly miserable

00:36:30.720 how much of that is a consequence of the mistakes in perception that you make and keep on making

00:36:36.080 you know i know people have to do difficult things to get by but there isn't exactly

00:36:40.860 just because things are difficult doesn't necessarily mean that they're intolerable

00:36:46.240 and embittering it might depend on what attitude you bring to bear on the sacrifices that you have

00:36:52.720 to make and so another mystery might be once the human race had established the fact that

00:36:59.000 work was necessary and work was sacrificial that a question immediately observed emerged which was

00:37:06.260 well what what work works best which which is the same thing as saying what sacrifice is most

00:37:12.920 pleasing to god it's the same thing what pattern of sacrifice do you have to engage in to maximize

00:37:20.000 the return in the future all things considered for you and the people that you love in consequence

00:37:26.600 of giving something up or investing now right you have to do that you're going to sacrifice one way

00:37:33.020 or another okay we accept that now the question is what pattern of sacrifice is most effective

00:37:40.320 the entire biblical corpus is an attempt to answer that question right it's it's a continual

00:37:49.680 investigation into the covenantal relationship between the spirit of being itself and humanity

00:37:57.320 so how what does that mean well look think about what you're doing when you work

00:38:02.220 because the gratification is deferred you don't get what it is that you're working for right now

00:38:09.280 you're saving up for the future.

00:38:11.580 You're basically engaging in a contractual relationship.

00:38:14.860 Your assumption is,

00:38:16.140 is that if you put in the time and effort now,

00:38:19.020 there'll be a return at some point in the future.

00:38:22.500 There's no difference between that and a contract.

00:38:25.400 It's the same idea.

00:38:27.240 And that's why the relationship with God in the old Testament is construed as

00:38:31.240 covenantal.

00:38:32.000 It's a deal.

00:38:33.380 It's a deal.

00:38:34.340 You make the deal is you put in your time,

00:38:37.280 the payoff is you benefit in consequence so that brings up another question how do you best

00:38:44.440 guarantee the proper future return as a consequence of your work and that's a perfectly practical

00:38:50.060 question that's exactly the question that's addressed in the story of cain and abel so what

00:38:54.540 happens is we we end the story of adam and eve with the revelation that human beings are destined

00:39:00.080 to work to toil and then eve has the first two brothers they're a pair they're a pair of opposites

00:39:06.720 they're the eternal warring hostile brothers right they're batman and joker that's a good

00:39:12.520 way of thinking about it or superman or like and lex luther they're they're they're thor and loki

00:39:19.320 right they're christ and satan there are two paralleled patterns of being and sacrifice

00:39:26.440 and one works another fails and they're at war and they're always at war and they're at war in

00:39:34.580 the world and they're at war in your soul and you understand that because if you didn't understand

00:39:39.600 that you couldn't go watch batman and the joker and understand it you remember in the dark night

00:39:46.440 with heath ledger remember the joker very very interesting character this evil clown

00:39:52.240 remember he surrounds himself with people from the mafia and they they steal money from banks

00:39:58.720 and the mafia guys they're kind of like you and me they're pretty happy about the money

00:40:02.680 right and so you can understand them criminals though they are they sort of abide by the same

00:40:07.960 rules you do they like money you like money you can understand each other the joker takes half

00:40:13.620 the money that he steals and what does he do with it he burns it right and that's a very accurate

00:40:21.460 observation about what would you say the pattern of sacrifice that's almost that's entirely

00:40:29.720 antithetical to the proper pattern of sacrifice it's the creation of misery for its own sake the

00:40:35.860 the destruction of accrued wealth for the demonstration of its futility it's the ultimate

00:40:43.980 form of destructive nihilism and and we find characters like that compelling because that

00:40:50.480 is a temptation that presents itself to all of us right because we suffer and because we suffer

00:40:58.740 unfairly and unjustly it's very easy for us to turn against the covenant that unites the present

00:41:08.680 with the future and to wish in our heart of hearts that everything burned and suffered

00:41:14.720 adam and eve eve gives rise to cain and abel right the first two human beings so now they're

00:41:22.300 they're paired off in an eternal struggle and and the struggle most accurately characterizes

00:41:28.160 not only the world but the struggle in people's soul right you could say that two spirits war

00:41:33.920 within your breast that's part of the eternal battle between good and evil that's part of

00:41:38.600 wrestling with god when whenever you're making a judgment you're making a moral judgment

00:41:42.340 right and sometimes it's a judgment between two relative goods but sometimes it's a judgment

00:41:47.760 between what you would like to do especially if you're bitter and resentful and hedonistic and

00:41:52.740 what you know you should do right and every decision you make is a reflection of that

00:41:57.820 fundamental decision at some micro level you know there are venal sins there are small ways you can

00:42:03.200 miss the mark but they're generally embedded in a much larger pattern of missing the mark right

00:42:08.680 that that has as its archetypal foundation something like the battle between good and evil

00:42:14.160 the fact that we have to value even before we can see right even before the world reveals itself as

00:42:20.560 fact means that everything we do is conditioned by the desire to aim up or down and vacillating

00:42:28.440 between the two is the same as aiming down or perhaps worse. And Adam knew Eva's wife and she

00:42:35.800 conceived and bare Cain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother 0.85

00:42:42.240 Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So they picked two

00:42:51.080 different occupational pathways. Now, both Cain and Abel make sacrifices. Now, this is a mysterious

00:43:00.380 part of the biblical stories, because modern people can't understand what archaic people were

00:43:05.520 doing when they were offering sacrifices but imagine this imagine this is that in order to

00:43:12.940 understand something you have to act it out okay so let's make that concrete that's what children

00:43:20.140 do when they play right it's like before a child can become a father or before a daughter can become

00:43:25.660 a mother she has to play at being a father she has to play at being a mother just like the son

00:43:31.680 has to play it being a father and to play is to embody right to play is to represent with your

00:43:39.040 ritualized actions some pattern that you're striving to understand that's what people do

00:43:45.080 when they're in a play that's what people do when they're in a movie they're acting out a pattern

00:43:48.780 and they're they like their audience are trying to understand the nature of that pattern maybe

00:43:55.820 well enough to describe it explicitly by enacting the drama you know and as i said maybe you go see

00:44:02.080 a hundred action adventure movies romantic action adventure movies so you can extract out

00:44:07.020 the pattern of romantic adventure and embody it in your own life and maybe you could do that

00:44:12.860 merely as a consequence of imitation rather than explicit understanding and the imitation would be

00:44:19.360 acting it out so what are archaic people doing when they sacrifice when they make a sacrificial

00:44:24.780 gesture when they offer something on an altar well they're acting out the principle of sacrifice

00:44:30.040 they're trying to they're dramatizing the investigation into what it is that you have

00:44:37.180 to let go of and offer so that the spirit of being itself will be pleased with you and maintain its

00:44:45.100 contract now it's archaic conceptualization why do you burn something on an altar well that

00:44:53.620 that definitely, you're definitely offering it because it's destroyed.

00:44:56.980 But you burn something in an offer and the smoke rises.

00:44:59.940 And God, hypothetically, is an aerial spirit.

00:45:03.440 And you might say, well, why is that?

00:45:05.060 It's like, well, it's for the same reason that you're struck by awe

00:45:07.920 when you look into the night sky.

00:45:10.160 I mean, archaic people, like modern people,

00:45:12.180 were capable of being awed, let's say.

00:45:15.820 And certainly the awe that characterized the heavens

00:45:19.520 is a primordial form of awe.

00:45:21.620 And it's reasonable to assume, and maybe it's, it's literally reasonable to assume that there's some concordance between the infinite expanse of the heavens and the spirit of being and becoming itself.

00:45:35.240 And to know, and to have that notion that God is akin to that, which dwells in the heaven is not an unreasonable hypothesis.

00:45:44.480 And given that God is an aerial being, while smoke is a reasonable way of communicating with them.

00:45:50.580 And so God is the spirit that can evaluate the value of your sacrifices as a consequence of the rise of the smoke. 0.66

00:45:59.740 Now, there's an element of primitivistic thinking in that, but these people weren't stupid.

00:46:09.020 There's many of the things we know today that they don't know, just as there are many things they knew that we don't know today.

00:46:15.400 but that doesn't mean that what they were doing was without significance or meaning and the notion

00:46:21.920 that first of all the notion that you have to offer something of value to take your place

00:46:28.140 properly in the world that is a major realization there's no difference between that and maturity

00:46:33.460 there's no difference between that and the rise to self-consciousness of the human race there's

00:46:37.740 no difference between that and our ability to build culture because our cultures are actually

00:46:43.320 a storehouse of value to be drawn on in the future right and so the the fact that our ancestors were

00:46:53.260 compelled to act out what constituted the appropriate sacrifice is a testament not to

00:46:58.200 their foolishness but to their genius and so well what do they offer well they offer the

00:47:04.660 fruits of their work well that is what that's what you offer that's what you offer that's what you

00:47:10.920 offer to your wife that's what you offer to yourself in so far as you're a provider that's

00:47:16.560 what you offer your children if you're a mother you sacrifice your time to your children right

00:47:23.360 you're offering something okay so what should you offer and then also in what spirit should you

00:47:31.580 offer it well if you're a child and your mother's affection is doled out begrudgingly how's that

00:47:37.240 going to work for you or if you're a husband in a relationship and your wife's affection is doled

00:47:41.500 out begrudgingly or vice versa right that's not a gift that's going to

00:47:47.740 give back it's a gift that's going to engender a corresponding resentment in all likelihood

00:47:56.420 and so there's a there's an idea lurking there and you can you can evaluate this idea for yourself

00:48:01.980 imagine that now you're

00:48:07.880 you're you're conversing with your conscience you're it's at night and you're taking yourself

00:48:14.260 apart because you're guilty and you're trying to scour your imagination for some time when you

00:48:19.340 acted in a manner that was sufficiently admirable so that you maybe have something to cling on to

00:48:26.140 in the wreckage of your self-conceptualization and what do you remember if you're fortunate

00:48:30.940 what do you remember you remember some time in your life where what you offered was the best you

00:48:35.120 had right and if you're fortunate not only did you offer what was best that you had but it was

00:48:41.860 received as the best and the consequences were positive and then you can qualm your debate with

00:48:48.580 your conscience at least to some degree by saying well at least there was something that i did right

00:48:53.220 and because you know you know perfectly well in your heart of hearts that you're called upon to

00:49:00.100 offer your best is why it says for example in the gospels that you're not to hide your light under

00:49:05.460 a bushel but to but to shine like the city on the hill and then there's an idea there and it's a deep

00:49:11.400 idea an idea is if you did your best you'd be accepted and that's exactly what god tells cain

00:49:17.680 so cain and abel make sacrifices abel he brought the firstlings of his fat flock and

00:49:23.560 and of the fat thereof.

00:49:25.120 Okay, so what does that mean?

00:49:27.600 This is a complicated thing.

00:49:29.440 There's an idea in the biblical corpus

00:49:31.400 that the firstborn should be consecrated to God.

00:49:35.960 It's a very complicated idea.

00:49:41.260 First impression.

00:49:43.460 That's the most important impression.

00:49:45.520 Why?

00:49:45.980 Because it sets the frame for the interactions after that.

00:49:49.460 If you read people a list of words

00:49:51.700 and they ask them to repeat them back they're much more likely to repeat back the first and

00:49:56.280 the last word the first of something sets the frame so what does it mean to offer the first

00:50:04.820 links it means when you embark upon something you bloody well better make sure that what you're

00:50:09.780 aiming at when you begin is correct right first things first well that's what abel does is that

00:50:16.300 The sacrifices he made makes are from the first moment of the highest quality

00:50:22.380 and in the proper spirit, right?

00:50:24.800 So they're not narcissistic or psychopathic or Machiavellian or self-serving

00:50:29.180 or short-term or hedonistic or power oriented. None of that.

00:50:33.120 They're aimed up, right?

00:50:35.020 They're aimed at establishing psychological stability and harmony

00:50:40.460 and extending that out to the family and extending that out to the broader

00:50:43.960 community right and then he offers up the fat well why the fat the fat's the highest quality food

00:50:49.840 and the fat of the lamb is the highest quality of the fat and so what else and so what does all

00:50:56.000 this mean if you strip it of its archaic terminology well first of all livestock was

00:51:01.100 very valuable to archaic people because they weren't wealthy in the manner that we're wealthy

00:51:06.420 their wealth what they had was literally embodied in their in their flock and to offer to god

00:51:13.360 the choicest cuts of the flock was absolutely equivalent to offering your best in the world

00:51:18.660 it's a it's a demonstration of sacrificial intent now it turns out and this is the optimistic part

00:51:26.400 of this story because fundamentally it's a very optimistic story and the lord had respect unto

00:51:31.980 abel and to his offering okay so so let's think about this you know we have lots of reasons for

00:51:37.400 assuming that the world isn't just you know i was re-watching a debate i had with stephen fry

00:51:42.960 great englishman who's an actor and very interested in mythology and he uh part of what we discussed

00:51:50.820 was an interview he did where he mentioned how he would call god out if he ever had the misfortune

00:51:57.220 to meet him now fry claims atheism but he got quite heated when he was discussing the centrally

00:52:03.340 evil nature of god and he said how is it that we're supposed to proceed in a world under the

00:52:09.840 assumption that the created order is good when innocent children die horribly of bone cancer

00:52:15.760 and that's a perfectly reasonable question you're going to you're going to ask yourself in your own

00:52:19.820 life how it is that you can cope with the fact of being alive given the unjust suffering that

00:52:27.220 you're being put through or that someone you love is being put through

00:52:30.920 well what's the counter position to that well this statement and the lord had respect

00:52:39.820 done to Abel and to his offering so there's a proposition here it's a proposition about the

00:52:44.360 nature of man and God the proposition is this regardless of the circumstances if you offered

00:52:50.020 your best that offering would be gratefully that that offering would be incorporated into the

00:52:56.060 covenant in a productive manner and then you think we can we can think this through let's say you

00:53:01.640 have a daughter and she's diagnosed with a terrible illness and that's enough to make you shake your

00:53:07.100 fist at god in the world well how how should you respond to that in a manner that's going to be

00:53:13.900 best for her are you going to become bitter and resentful and nihilistic and turn against the

00:53:17.980 world is that going to be useful to her maybe she's eight she needs you what are you supposed

00:53:24.440 to do aim up offer your best no excuses and and that that idea is echoed continually through the

00:53:34.220 biblical works job for example job is literally the target of a bet between god and satan and

00:53:41.540 job is a good man and satan comes along to god and says i don't think he's that good you let me

00:53:46.440 had adam for a while and he'll turn against you and god says yeah i don't think so do your worst

00:53:52.620 and so you'll feel like that at times in your life and job's answer is twofold answer number

00:54:00.560 one is he's good enough so he doesn't have to take himself apart just because he's suffering

00:54:05.180 because one of the questions you'll ask yourself if undue suffering visits you is are you the sort

00:54:10.040 of corrupt entity that deserves this right it's just what you had coming to you now that's what

00:54:15.540 job's friends tell him by the way while he's you know nursing his disfiguring illness in the ashes

00:54:21.840 his friends come along and say well this wouldn't have happened to you if you would have had your

00:54:25.300 act together you know and they're kind of happy about being able to say that which is a bit of

00:54:29.800 misery little excess misery for job just when he could use it the least and he also refuses point

00:54:36.100 blank to do what his wife says shake your fist at god and die that's what you've got left and

00:54:43.300 job's answer is no matter what happens to me i will maintain my faith no matter what and then

00:54:49.760 you think well there's an there's an element of that that's unreasonable obviously because

00:54:53.820 you can certainly imagine and no doubt experience being tortured to the point where

00:54:57.960 your faith is sorely tested and you feel entirely justified in in cynicism and bitterness in fact

00:55:04.920 you might even regard it as a form of justice but then you can ask yourself a question in

00:55:10.640 consequence like how's that working for you and then you can see too when you encounter people

00:55:16.740 who are suffering unduly and you see them bearing up under that nobly and they're still aiming up

00:55:22.500 and maintaining their faith and their integrity and their honesty and even their willingness to

00:55:26.340 be of service to others that's someone you admire like instantly that's the sort of person you want

00:55:30.780 to have around when the waves rise and the winds blow a little bit too roughly and so there's a

00:55:37.040 promise here it's one of the first promises it's the first promise in some ways that god makes to

00:55:43.520 to the men who are born rather than created and the promise is

00:55:48.620 if you offer your best it will be accepted and so and this is something that requires

00:55:57.660 immense soul searching because you could well ask yourself always always if the world is not

00:56:05.940 laying itself out for you in the manner that you deem acceptable maybe your definition of what

00:56:11.020 constitutes acceptable could use a little work but maybe there's something that you still have

00:56:15.200 be unwilling to part with or maybe there's some manner in which you are still not offering your

00:56:19.340 best because the best is that's a lot to ask especially under dire conditions it's an all-in

00:56:25.840 full commitment right in every second that's why christ says in the gospels that you're to be

00:56:33.900 perfect like your father in heaven is perfect right that's why the doorway to paradise is barred

00:56:40.440 by cherubim who wield swords that turn every which way and burn and what does that mean it means that

00:56:47.840 everything that isn't worthy will be cut away it means that nothing that is unworthy will be allowed

00:56:54.440 to pass into paradise well by definition obviously because it wouldn't be paradise if everything that

00:57:00.880 was unworthy wasn't cut and burned away before entrance and so you can ask yourself too if you're

00:57:06.120 suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are there still things that need to be

00:57:10.560 cut and burned away and is that a sacrifice that you're willing to make and that's going to be

00:57:15.240 dependent to some degree on your faith right are you willing to stake yourself on the presumption

00:57:21.000 that if you let everything that was in you out that the world would lay itself out properly at

00:57:25.160 your feet or are you going to hold back right are you going to keep something in reserve are you

00:57:28.900 going to do what cain does and offer what's second best well what goes along with that well first of

00:57:34.300 he's fooling himself because every one of us knows perfectly well that life is far too difficult

00:57:38.860 for you to be successful with a second rate effort like you can just forget that getting

00:57:44.560 through this properly is going to take not only everything that you have but everything you could

00:57:50.020 become if you gave everything you have and everyone knows that and so the notion that

00:57:56.060 you can cut corners here and you can offer what's second rate there it's like do you believe that

00:58:00.820 And if you do, who the hell do you think you are?

00:58:03.940 You can't, you think you can fool yourself with that presumption? 0.90

00:58:06.740 You think you're going to fool other people?

00:58:08.820 And more importantly, you think you're going to pull one over on the source of being itself, do you?

00:58:14.660 That's a Luciferian presumption, right?

00:58:17.440 And that's exactly what God tells Cain, by the way.

00:58:26.760 But unto Cain and his offering, he had not respect.

00:58:29.440 and Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell countenance facial expression right Cain becomes

00:58:36.020 depressed and bitter and angry well why do people become depressed and bitter and angry well

00:58:41.900 obviously because their sacrifices aren't rewarded clearly like that's the embittering

00:58:49.400 pathway Cain's thinking I break myself in half every day you know to please myself and other

00:58:57.140 people and God. And all I get in response is a lack of respect.

00:59:04.740 And underneath that is the presumption that Cain can offer his second rate

00:59:10.780 sacrifices and that's okay.

00:59:12.120 And that other people are at fault for not accepting them as if they're the

00:59:16.760 real thing. And even more that God himself is to be called out for the reality

00:59:22.600 of creation because God won't allow himself,

00:59:25.540 won't allow himself to be fooled by second-rate sacrifices you can't possibly imagine anything

00:59:31.680 more self-centered psychopathic and narcissistic than that proposition right job one of the things

00:59:40.040 god tells job when job is working through his suffering is that human beings have no right to

00:59:47.000 judge the cosmic order.

00:59:50.700 We don't have the wisdom.

00:59:53.860 We don't have the perspicacity.

00:59:56.760 We don't have the humility.

01:00:00.740 If we set ourselves up as judges of the cosmic order,

01:00:04.680 there's no difference between setting yourself up as a judge of the cosmic

01:00:08.240 order and acting as an agent of the spirit who eternally conspires to

01:00:13.140 overthrow God.

01:00:14.160 That's the same story.

01:00:16.480 That's Luciferian presumption.

01:00:18.760 That's the Luciferian presumption of the intellect more technically.

01:00:22.920 And Cain is in alignment with that because it's the person who makes false

01:00:26.600 sacrifices, who always thinks that he's smart enough to get away with it.

01:00:30.160 He's smart enough to fool himself.

01:00:31.560 He's smart enough to fool his partner.

01:00:32.940 He can pull the wool over the eyes of his friends and the people in the

01:00:36.100 community.

01:00:36.840 And in the final analysis, if it was down to a showdown between him and God,

01:00:40.460 he'd be on top and wants to be.

01:00:42.880 and the Lord says unto Cain

01:00:45.360 why are you angry

01:00:46.800 and upset and miserable and disappointed 0.84

01:00:49.160 and bitter and why is your face 0.86

01:00:51.200 fallen why are you viewing the world

01:00:53.380 in a sour manner and bitter

01:00:55.320 and resentful and angry

01:00:56.980 why is that

01:00:58.320 sitting in the shadows

01:01:04.500 stewing in misery

01:01:08.760 not least because

01:01:10.680 of failure self-induced but because of the painful example of Cain of Abel's counter example because

01:01:19.260 you might ask yourself well if you are bitter and resentful because your second-rate sacrifices

01:01:23.920 have been rejected does that instantly make you jealous of everyone who's done the right thing

01:01:30.020 and worse does that make you hate them and worse does that make you murderous towards them even if

01:01:35.380 they constitute your own ideal even if in destroying them you would destroy what was best in

01:01:40.580 you well why do people become murderous and people certainly do fratricidal that's Cain's sin he kills

01:01:51.240 his brother not just his brother the brother who's an ideal right that's an echo of the eventual

01:01:56.580 crucifixion the death of the ideal the resentful jealous bitter nihilistic murder of the ideal

01:02:05.280 there's a movie i'd recommend you could watch this if you want it's a very deep

01:02:12.840 analysis of this conundrum it's a movie called crumb and these are the crumb brothers and as

01:02:19.740 you can tell their countenance has fallen and the man on the right charles he commits suicide six

01:02:27.160 months after this documentary is filmed by drinking furniture polish it's the sixth suicidal

01:02:32.360 attempt he made the person on the left max he's a serial sex offender with an iq of about 160 and

01:02:42.820 a hyper creative person and all three of these brothers robert crumb is the middle a famous

01:02:49.380 underground cartoonist they're exemplars in their countenance of the spirit of cain

01:02:56.620 there's nothing heroic about that second grade sacrificial offering it's not the noble lucifer

01:03:04.200 or loki who rebels against god in the spirit of what noble revolutionary fervor it's exactly this

01:03:12.880 and that absolute miserable hating pathology that goes along with it god says if thou doest well

01:03:20.640 shall thou not be accepted well that's that's a tough one right because like do you believe

01:03:29.460 and you have you have to believe one way or another here do you believe that if you did 0.94

01:03:34.340 your best you would be rewarded and you might say well a fool would take that bet but i would say 0.99

01:03:39.160 well have you got a non-foolish bet you're going to lay your life's on the line anyway so you're 0.99

01:03:44.280 going to bet on something you're going to bet that you can hedge your bets and thereby attain

01:03:49.060 the final victory how could you make a bet like that how could you presume that any reward worth

01:03:55.940 attaining wouldn't exist in proportion to the effort that you expended in attaining it even

01:04:01.180 if you made halfway half rate sacrifices second rate sacrifices and you accrued some reward

01:04:06.560 doesn't that merely imply that if you had done better that the reward would have been greater

01:04:10.720 and then like what's the limit to that you know perfectly well in your own life when you serve

01:04:16.040 the people around you and yourself in the most wholehearted manner that things turn out for you

01:04:21.180 the best way they could turn out and that might be even true in the midst of your suffering

01:04:25.320 and if thou not doest not well sin lies at your door and unto thee shall be his desire

01:04:35.660 and thou shalt rule over him well this is one brutally miserable bit of

01:04:40.540 correction from god so basically what's happened here is cain's bitter and he's angry and so he

01:04:49.540 goes and has a chat with god and he says something like what the hell's going on here what kind of

01:04:55.980 planet did you make i'm like breaking myself in half here with my second-rate sacrifices and

01:05:01.000 it's just not working out and that doesn't seem fair and what about this able character

01:05:05.020 like everything he does turns to gold and you know how dare you make a universe this corrupt

01:05:10.780 and there's a fair bit of presumption in that you might say and so and what does god say the last

01:05:18.100 thing cain wants to hear the last thing anyone wants to hear when they make a proclamation like

01:05:21.720 that he says sin lies at your door

01:05:24.400 and he wants you and you could rule over him but you chose not to and you invited him in

01:05:35.300 you know there's an idea in vampire movies that when they tap at your window you have to let them

01:05:39.400 in right it's the same idea it's exactly the same idea and this is exactly right and i know this

01:05:45.080 from my clinical practice let's say you want to get bitter enough to shoot up a school

01:05:51.000 Well, I'll tell you how to do that.

01:05:52.640 It's like, first of all, accumulate all the evidence that the sacrifices that you're offering aren't paying off.

01:05:59.680 And allow yourself to become bitter enough so that you believe that the world is unfair and turned against you.

01:06:08.120 And that the only pathway to justice is your revenge.

01:06:13.220 All right, now start fantasizing about what you could do.

01:06:17.760 Okay, so what do you do when you fantasize?

01:06:19.600 Well, you take that spirit of bitter resentment and you ask it, what do you want?

01:06:26.500 What do you want exactly?

01:06:29.020 Maybe you're angry at someone who turned you down at school.

01:06:33.040 If you're a high school kid, someone you would respect and admire that someone you would rather have on your side,

01:06:39.040 some girl you admire, some guy you'd like to have been your friend and you get turned away.

01:06:44.080 And so now you're bitter about that and you're angry and you think,

01:06:47.500 what would i like to do to that person if i had them alone right if i had them alone for an hour

01:06:53.000 if no one ever knew and then you have a little fantasy and why because you invited it in and so

01:06:59.340 then what do you do you do that 10 000 hours in your basement and you let that fantasy go wherever

01:07:05.760 it will you 10 000 hours of that and you'll you'll be there with your with your automatic rifle

01:07:14.220 shooting elementary school kids

01:07:16.020 and thinking that you're doing 0.97

01:07:17.640 a pretty fine job

01:07:18.620 while you're doing it.

01:07:19.860 And that's a consequence.

01:07:21.960 It's a very deep line

01:07:23.900 and it has many precursors

01:07:25.900 in other mythological stories.

01:07:28.520 The notion is that

01:07:29.440 sin is something

01:07:30.740 that's a collaboration

01:07:31.660 between the spirit of evil itself.

01:07:33.680 That would be the bitterness

01:07:34.940 and resentment

01:07:35.640 that makes it self-manifest

01:07:37.420 when your sacrifices

01:07:39.280 have been rejected

01:07:40.060 and the creative power

01:07:42.400 of your own imagination.

01:07:43.400 it's a it's a collaboration so what god actually says is sin lies at your door like a sexually

01:07:50.660 aroused predatory animal and you've invited it in to have its way with you right to brood

01:07:57.420 to sit on the fantasies and to nurse them and as a consequence they've taken you over

01:08:03.180 and that's exactly right and god says worse he says not only that means not only are you at fault

01:08:10.500 because you invited this thing in but you're at fault because you could have resisted it

01:08:16.860 even though you had your reasons to be upset you could have resisted it and you voluntarily and

01:08:22.380 consciously chose not to and that's the last thing Cain wants to hear right he wants to hear

01:08:27.880 God say well you know I made a mistake when I was laying the foundation of the world and

01:08:32.820 things didn't turn out in your favor despite your second-rate sacrifices because there's something

01:08:38.300 not wrong with you heaven forbid but something wrong with the cosmic order itself and god does

01:08:44.100 exactly the opposite he says he says this is on you you knew it all along you played along you

01:08:51.020 dug the pit that you fell into you know it you're lying about it now and you you could change and

01:08:59.400 you should change and go and cain of course does what tyrannical possessed spirits always do

01:09:08.180 like the pharaoh in the egyptian story of the plague like you when you're at your most stubborn

01:09:13.940 and instead of letting go and sacrificing say the pathological attitude that brought about the

01:09:20.440 catastrophe he doubles down and cain talked with abel his brother and it came to pass when they're

01:09:28.260 in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him so what does this mean well

01:09:33.060 it means essentially that Cain invited Abel to go work with him in the field right inviting him

01:09:40.280 along like he's his brother and then when he got out in the field he decided that he had enough of

01:09:45.160 his successful brother and kills him and then you might say well why does he kill him and one answer

01:09:52.500 is well because his example is intolerable to him that's a good that's a good reason because

01:09:59.020 it's a form of vengeance against abel for the pretension of his success but more it's to get

01:10:05.280 revenge against god because abel is god's ideal right it's god's chosen is the person who's

01:10:12.940 walking the divine path and the best way that cain can determine to shake his fist at the almighty

01:10:18.600 who's torturing him by not accepting his second right sacrifices is by destroying god's ideal

01:10:24.880 itself if you ever wonder by the way why high school shooters shoot everyone and then themselves

01:10:30.840 well now you have your answer because you know they can save themselves a lot of trouble and

01:10:35.100 everyone else just by committing the suicide lack first but no they can wreak the most havoc by

01:10:41.200 distributing the most misery and then cap it off with a demonstration of their lack of worth even 0.94

01:10:45.880 to themselves it's a much more effective way to shake their fist at god and die

01:10:50.640 it's a dark story and the lord says unto cable where is abel thy brother and cain says well

01:11:00.860 how would i know am i my brother's keeper well there's an implicit answer to that question which

01:11:07.380 is supposed to be yes right and that's an echo right there of the notion that you are in fact

01:11:12.520 your brother's keeper and not because you should be nice to him but because by acting in that

01:11:19.320 manner you partake in the eternal proper cosmic order you sacrifice your own pretentious desires

01:11:26.720 let's say to the well-being of the people around you and that that is the most effective possible

01:11:31.840 form of sacrifice practically and theologically and god says what have the what have you done

01:11:38.020 what have you done what hast thou done the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the

01:11:42.320 ground no crime goes unmarked not least by the person who commits it and now you're cursed from 0.72

01:11:55.260 the earth which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand when thou tillest

01:12:00.280 the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength and cain said unto the lord my

01:12:05.800 punishment is greater than i can bear behold thou has driven me out this day from the face of the

01:12:10.460 earth and from thy face shall i be hid and i shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth

01:12:15.920 and that it shall come to pass that everyone that finds me shall slay me 0.61

01:12:19.800 my punishment is greater than i can bear

01:12:22.260 what happens when you destroy your own ideal

01:12:26.300 what's left what's left for you then right you've destroyed the very concept of up itself

01:12:34.820 and that's what Cain comes to realize in the aftermath of the murder

01:12:37.920 it's like there's nothing for him now and he thinks as well that everyone will

01:12:42.380 kill him given what he's done and God marks him

01:12:45.320 for a very particular reason and the reason is to stop a cycle of 0.99

01:12:48.680 vengeful counter-slaying right to stop tit-for-tat

01:12:52.920 revenge

01:12:53.620 and the Lord said whoever slays Cain

01:13:00.000 vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold and the Lord set a mark upon him

01:13:04.520 lest any finding him should kill him and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the

01:13:09.440 land of Nod on the east of Eden the land of Nod that's where you drift off when you're asleep

01:13:14.320 right off to the land of Nod what does that mean Cain goes and lives an unconscious life on the

01:13:20.880 margins right which is exactly what happens to people when they slay their ideal and Cain knew

01:13:28.240 his wife and she conceived and bare Enoch and he built in a city and called the name of the city

01:13:33.140 after the name of his son, Enoch.

01:13:38.380 The story branches out in complexity from here.

01:13:44.520 Cain's sons are the first builders.

01:13:48.400 They eventually build. 0.74

01:13:49.600 It's Cain's descendants that build the Tower of Babel. 0.82

01:13:52.640 It's Cain's descendants, 0.90

01:13:53.780 it's Cain's descendants,

01:13:55.300 the descendants of the bitter spirit of Cain, 0.83

01:13:58.200 who are the builders who attempt to supplant the divine

01:14:02.500 with technology right and they do that as a consequence of their their intellectual pride

01:14:09.940 in their in their in their technological pretensions and if you don't think we've 0.67

01:14:16.160 been building towers of babel recently of of a gigantic size unparalleled in human history

01:14:23.740 you haven't been paying attention and if you haven't noticed that it's the engineers who

01:14:28.080 were doing it you also haven't been paying attention and cain knew his wife and she conceived

01:14:35.780 and bare enoch and he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son enoch

01:14:40.320 there's nothing wrong with technology except when it's its pretensions are to supplant

01:14:47.500 the divine order how are we doing that now well how about pornography

01:14:54.740 how about the fact that we've taken a single woman and transformed her into a million

01:15:01.120 images of women that can invade every corner of every house in the world 0.98

01:15:07.400 to supplant the divine order how about we're trying to do the same thing with robots 1.00

01:15:13.820 female robots even sex robots even

01:15:17.880 more children of cain his brother's name was jubel he was the father of all such as handled

01:15:26.600 the harp and the organ the technological society has its dawn in the children of cain tubal cain

01:15:36.100 grandson of cain instructor of every artificer and brass and iron he's the first person who

01:15:44.120 makes weapons of war. And so what does that mean? It means the true cause of the terrible

01:15:55.580 genocidal battles that plague humanity is their origin in the resentful spirit of Cain

01:16:05.240 brought about by his refusal to make the proper sacrifices. Right? So there's a notion in this

01:16:12.580 story that the consequence of that individual sin and this is a terrible thing to think about in

01:16:16.680 your own life it's terrible multiplies as it extends itself across the generations and across

01:16:22.500 the broader social community that the sin of cain is not isolated to the effects on his own soul

01:16:29.160 right that the descendants of that spirit are are the perpetrators of genocidal murder

01:16:41.280 hitler was bitter stalin was bitter mao was bitter and what was the consequence of that 0.58

01:16:53.160 what was the consequence of that bitterness spreading across the totalitarian landscape 0.68

01:16:58.280 the provision of opportunity for people who were sons of cain to wreak havoc on the innocent people

01:17:07.620 in the prison camps who are under their dominion how about that for an ugly story

01:17:14.840 and what does that mean psychologically here's what it means this is a horrifying thing i think

01:17:20.880 there's a direct link between your refusal to make the highest of sacrifices and the probability

01:17:28.800 that society will deteriorate in a murderous and genocidal direction it's that close together

01:17:34.900 way closer than you think

01:17:37.060 merely if for no other reason

01:17:39.640 than merely because your failure

01:17:41.140 to make the light within you

01:17:42.440 shine as brightly as it possibly can

01:17:44.420 disheartens you and others

01:17:46.140 and turns them against the cosmic order

01:17:48.140 as you all know

01:17:51.240 the technological spirit

01:17:55.880 we'll close with this

01:18:00.640 another one of

01:18:01.960 Cain's descendants 1.00

01:18:05.580 Lamech 1.00

01:18:07.640 I have slain a man to my wounding

01:18:13.720 and a young man to my hurt 1.00

01:18:14.940 Cain's descendants

01:18:17.520 are literally murderous 0.86

01:18:19.200 but they're murderous in a manner that multiplies

01:18:21.760 so

01:18:22.980 Lamech says

01:18:24.560 if you hurt me

01:18:27.660 seven people will suffer as a consequence

01:18:31.920 Cain says that, and Lamech says it'll be 70 and 7,

01:18:38.800 is that that desire for revenge manifested in the social order

01:18:44.700 multiplies exponentially, right?

01:18:49.560 And if you're ever asking yourself, because this is a good question,

01:18:53.320 it's like, why do things go so dreadfully wrong?

01:18:57.340 You can look at other people and you can say,

01:18:59.620 well what did they do that they shouldn't have done or what did they fail to do that they should

01:19:03.500 have done and you can point fingers and you can understand that there are times where justice

01:19:11.720 itself requires the identification of transgressors but there's a more fundamental issue at stake here

01:19:17.400 which is what is it that you're bringing to bear on the situation or failing to bring to bear

01:19:22.520 and that's the fundamental question of conscience because you could say that if everything around

01:19:29.840 you isn't proceeding in the optimal possible manner then your shortcomings are linked to

01:19:36.800 that failure in some way that you've yet to become conscious of and that's a terrible thing

01:19:42.740 it's a terrible thing to contemplate but it's an amazing thing to wonder because

01:19:46.600 it does mean that just as there's more resting on your shoulders on the side of sin than you think

01:19:52.480 there's way more available to you on the side of opportunity than you could possibly dream of

01:19:56.920 and that willingness to own the the malformed aim that's no different than learning to take

01:20:06.900 advantage of the opportunity and i would say just as the abyss that lies underneath all of us is

01:20:14.800 infinite in its depth the opportunity that lies at our hands is infinite in its scope

01:20:19.560 and the proper sacrificial attitude attitude brings you away from the abyss and

01:20:27.120 moves you towards the realm of infinite opportunity that's the kingdom of god that

01:20:33.300 spread upon the earth that men do not see or will not see very stark division of choice right

01:20:39.980 it's a place where you have the landscape of heaven and hell laid out cleanly and clearly

01:20:45.400 Related to individual conduct

01:20:47.860 In the essentially

01:20:49.600 The third story of the biblical corpus

01:20:52.060 It's absolutely

01:20:53.600 In twelve lines

01:20:54.580 It's absolutely

01:20:55.760 Inconceivable

01:20:58.640 And Adam knew his wife again

01:21:03.400 And she bare a son and called his name Seth

01:21:05.200 For God said she 0.98

01:21:07.260 Hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel

01:21:09.380 Who Cain slew

01:21:10.160 And to Seth to him there was also born a son

01:21:13.780 And he called his name Enos

01:21:14.880 and then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

01:21:17.440 Well, Abel is dead to the terrible grief of Adam and Eve,

01:21:23.120 but he represents a spirit that's not mortal.

01:21:27.880 That's a good way of thinking about it.

01:21:29.280 That can't be finally killed.

01:21:30.980 And if it's killed in any of its incarnations,

01:21:34.520 Abel, let's say, then it reappears in another guy's.

01:21:37.400 And that's what happens to Eve is that the spirit of good

01:21:41.000 cannot be overcome permanently by the spirit of evil.

01:21:44.880 That's another optimistic element of the story.

01:21:50.860 So that's the story of Cain and Abel.

01:21:54.340 I don't think there's a more terror.

01:21:55.920 I don't think there is a more terrifying story than that story.

01:21:58.820 Actually,

01:21:59.320 there's,

01:21:59.620 I don't think there's a more terrifying story in the biblical corpus,

01:22:02.660 but properly understood.

01:22:04.240 I don't think there's a more terrifying story,

01:22:06.180 especially if you take it with some degree of seriousness,

01:22:08.800 because it ties,

01:22:11.400 like I said,

01:22:12.240 it offers this terrible stark representation of the reality that's at hand for you

01:22:18.700 it's like when you make a moral error when you fail to make the proper sacrifices when you

01:22:24.520 refuse to aim up you are by definition aiming down and hell is a bottomless pit for a reason

01:22:31.000 and what that means is that the degeneration of societies into totalitarian hell

01:22:37.760 is a sin that can be placed

01:22:40.400 on the shoulders of every person

01:22:42.380 who's a denizen of that state.

01:22:45.140 It's a process you participate in

01:22:47.780 every time you're called by your conscience

01:22:50.280 to stand up and say something

01:22:51.940 you know you should say

01:22:53.060 and you refuse.

01:22:55.400 And by the same token,

01:22:57.540 the words that you could bring

01:22:58.960 to the world that ring of truth

01:23:01.200 and noble aim,

01:23:03.620 they are literally the salvation of

01:23:05.500 they're literally salvation and redemption itself and you want to know what the meaning of your life

01:23:13.180 is that's the meaning of your life

01:23:16.260 dreadful as it is promising as it is stark as it is adventurous as that is

01:23:26.200 it's not for nothing you know that our society is predicated on the notion that human beings

01:23:32.500 are to take up their crosses and bear them right more cataclysmic demand can not possibly be

01:23:40.700 imagined and yet the proposition that lies at the base of our culture is that you're the sort of

01:23:50.040 person that can do that that's your core that's the core of your being that capability to face

01:23:57.680 the catastrophe of the world full frontal eyes open no reservation and to transform it into

01:24:08.280 the glorious resurrection thank you very much

01:24:27.680 Hey, Tim.

01:24:44.100 How's it going?

01:24:47.940 How does one keep focused on the day-to-day processes of goals

01:24:52.340 instead of being overwhelmed by the big picture of achieving them?

01:24:57.680 if the spectacle of you achieving your goals is too overwhelming you're biting off more than you

01:25:11.880 can chew right you're taking on to yourself more than you can bear if if your ambitions demoralize

01:25:20.680 you then they should be scaled back they should be scaled back to the point where you feel

01:25:28.220 challenged by them but that but that with some effort you could do them

01:25:33.420 and you look at that and you ask yourself if there's a sin of pride embedded in it

01:25:40.620 presumptuousness right adam and eve get thrown out of paradise because they bite off more than

01:25:45.600 they can chew right that's the eternal fall of man really that's that's that's that's really the

01:25:52.200 the moral of the story pride goes before a fall that's the same moral if if your ambitions

01:26:00.840 are so daunting that they paralyze you you've picked a dragon bigger than you can fight

01:26:07.000 and you should pare back now you might say well why should i pare back i i hope to be ambitious

01:26:13.200 and i would say well everything in its proper place you have to to use a terrible cliche you

01:26:19.020 have to walk before you can run you know if you're if you want to do one-on-one pickup

01:26:25.040 basketball you probably don't want to play michael jordan right because you're just going to get

01:26:30.300 crushed and you don't want to play your three-year-old nephew either because you're just

01:26:34.180 going to stomp him you want an opponent that's matched to you and it's the same with your

01:26:38.800 ambition now i would say what's positive in that regard is that if you choose an ambition that's

01:26:44.780 well suited to your abilities as they actually are then as you pursue that your scope of vision

01:26:50.620 will broaden and so you don't have to sacrifice your high ambitions if you replace them with a

01:26:58.040 more proximal ambition that's more properly matched to your time and place and that's really

01:27:03.240 what humility is i would say humility is the proper matching of challenge to ability

01:27:07.700 right and and you you can tell that by the way and this is something very important to know

01:27:12.760 you can tell that because if your challenges match to your ability optimally you'll proceed

01:27:19.860 in the spirit of play right because play is the marker of optimized challenge you know if you if

01:27:27.720 you if you're playing a good game you want to play against someone who could beat you right

01:27:31.960 not someone who will certainly beat you but someone who especially could beat you if you

01:27:37.720 don't do your best and your your challenge your ambition should be a partner of that sort

01:27:42.740 something you wrestle with that's an angel of god that's a good way of thinking about it

01:27:46.700 right you want to pick the right size avatar of the highest to wrestle with

01:27:52.420 and and you'll improve in the wrestling so it doesn't mean you'll forego your ambition

01:27:57.700 so scale back this is another thing that's really useful to know too if you find that you're

01:28:05.000 you have an ambition and you continually fail to implement it one of the things you could ask

01:28:10.340 yourself is well possibly you're demanding too much of yourself at the moment what if you what

01:28:15.440 if you scaled back by half and if that doesn't work half again here's a hint scale back till you

01:28:21.300 do it really like that's what you do as a behavior therapist if you're if you're setting someone off

01:28:26.760 For example

01:28:28.120 I'll give you

01:28:30.760 I'll give you an example

01:28:33.640 So I had this client who 1.00

01:28:35.300 He got some girl pregnant 0.99

01:28:39.940 And she decided to keep the baby 0.90

01:28:41.660 And he was going to be a father

01:28:42.680 And he was completely immature

01:28:43.860 He was about 30 and he lived at home

01:28:46.160 In his high school bedroom

01:28:47.920 Which he hadn't cleaned up since he was like 0.96

01:28:50.240 Born

01:28:51.340 And he came to see me

01:28:54.900 Because he knew he was immature

01:28:56.600 and he felt he should get his act together so he didn't doom his new son which was you know a noble

01:29:01.660 ambition and uh we decided we're going to start by cleaning up his room and so what do you do is a

01:29:08.740 what you do as a behavior therapist is you you pick a fairly concrete task that's aligned with

01:29:13.200 some reasonable goal you know like if you're going to get your act together you live at home 0.98

01:29:18.180 in your high school bedroom under the care of your parents and you're so useless you don't even keep

01:29:24.460 the room clean well cleaning it up isn't exactly a heroic struggle although it's more heroic than 0.57

01:29:30.420 you might think because there's many things that stop a room like that from being cleaned up there's

01:29:35.300 many devils guarding the mess you could say but you have to scale back until you find a starting

01:29:41.560 place and we decided he was going to vacuum his rug probably need like a dumpster and a and a

01:29:49.180 front end loader to do that but so what he did he went got the vacuum cleaner it was this

01:29:54.720 upright vacuum cleaner and he got it all the way to the door of his bedroom and then he left it in

01:30:00.760 the door propped at 45 degrees for a whole week and walked over it and then he came to me and he

01:30:07.120 was embarrassed about this as he should have been and and what it was it was an indication of the

01:30:15.260 fact that he knew that he was risking all hell breaking loose by cleaning up that room god only

01:30:21.040 knows what sort of revenge his parents would have taken on him for having the unmitigated gall to 0.98

01:30:26.960 move towards maturity at the age of 30 so he left the damn vacuum cleaner you know on the on the 0.98

01:30:34.260 threshold so we reconsidered the task you know i said what sort of shape are the drawers in your 0.98

01:30:43.920 cabinet you know where you keep your clothes said well you can imagine i thought yeah i've seen

01:30:48.540 drawers that haven't been that are stuffed with the chaos of a wasted life that's for sure you

01:30:56.240 think you could clean up half of one drawer and that's pretty humiliating right that's the thing

01:31:01.760 you have to do on your knees if that's where you got to start that's a dismal realization you know

01:31:07.660 but he came back the next week and he done not you know and well then it was a whole drawer and

01:31:12.880 then it was the the bureau and it wasn't that long before it was the room but he had to start

01:31:19.000 where he could start and that meant he had to face who he was and he was a man who at 30 was

01:31:25.460 too terrified to vacuum his rug and that's a lot more common than you might think and it is a it is

01:31:32.280 a humbling experience to take yourself as you are but man there's another rule to those who have

01:31:39.440 everything more will be given from those who have nothing everything will be taken that's an economic

01:31:44.500 law by the way the economic economists call that the matthew principle even though it's derived from

01:31:49.000 derived from a gospel saying what it means is that if you start moving forward you start moving

01:31:54.080 forward more rapidly right the mirror the first step you take increases the probability of the

01:31:59.920 second step and the first two increase the probability of the next two and so you don't

01:32:04.020 improve like this you improve like this and because of that it doesn't really matter where

01:32:09.080 you start and that's something extremely useful to know because no matter what skill it is that

01:32:13.780 you're lacking if you're willing to face that lack squarely and start where you are and and begin to

01:32:19.720 practice and to make the appropriate sacrifices you can learn far faster than you might imagine

01:32:25.120 and because it's an exponential increase it doesn't really in some ways it doesn't matter

01:32:30.860 where you start it matters that you start so if you're biting off more than you can chew and the

01:32:37.000 result dragon terrifies you into paralysis you know swallow your pride man and then start where 0.99

01:32:45.140 you are and that's why jung said carl jung said the fool is the precursor to the savior 0.97

01:32:52.520 right the fool is the person who's willing to be wrong honestly wrong because the person who's 0.99

01:33:01.000 willing to be honestly wrong and to reveal that that's a fool that person can learn 0.99

01:33:05.540 it's always the fool who learns 0.99

01:33:09.040 so 1.00

01:33:11.340 the honest fool 1.00

01:33:13.440 a good man is an honest fool 1.00

01:33:17.880 that's a good way of thinking about it 0.99

01:33:20.080 do you have any regrets with regard to parenting

01:33:24.700 or one piece of advice you'd offer

01:33:28.400 to parents of older teens slash young adults

01:33:31.720 thank you

01:33:32.840 I have things I wish

01:33:46.820 would have been otherwise

01:33:48.040 I have things I wish

01:33:53.020 I would have had the luxury

01:33:54.800 of having otherwise

01:33:55.840 I would say

01:33:57.200 one of the things that Tammy and I

01:33:59.580 determined to do when our kids were

01:34:01.480 teenagers was to take a trip with each of them separately once every year or two and you might

01:34:10.200 say that's not very often but it's way more often than it usually happens and you're bloody fortunate

01:34:15.080 if if you get to manage it and i took one trip with julian only my son and then my daughter our

01:34:22.920 daughter got very very ill and that was the end of that and so you took a trip with her to new york

01:34:27.680 i took a tree i did i took i took a trip with michaela yes definitely but we didn't get to

01:34:32.860 take those trips with the frequency we would have wanted now you know generally if you lose

01:34:39.840 something if you're fortunate you can gain it back not necessarily in exactly the same manner but

01:34:47.800 in a in a manner that

01:34:49.660 that that fills the gap you know and i have done many things with my children

01:34:57.620 later with my daughter when she became healthy again and and i would say too the fact that i

01:35:06.360 did learn that that time with my son was so precious and so fragile we don't take that

01:35:13.020 for granted i can tell you that so if i am with him i'm very happy about it and i do everything

01:35:18.040 i can to make the most of it i don't take it for granted here's something you can do this is a good

01:35:22.520 thing to do some of you most of you are adults most of you be 30 or over most of you have parents

01:35:30.280 who are living um count how many times you're likely to see your parents for the rest of your

01:35:35.920 life so my dad's 85 i'll probably see him five more times you know when my dad was about 65 i

01:35:43.760 figured i'll see him 20 more times 20 times right if you're aware of these things you don't take

01:35:50.780 them for granted you know and people don't like to think that way because it's morbid it's like

01:35:54.680 it's not as morbid as a as a lost opportunity i'll tell you and you know if your dad's 65

01:36:00.940 and you see him once or twice a year you know maybe you live around the corner but even then

01:36:06.320 people often don't see their parents that often 20 is a pretty finite number but you're lucky if

01:36:12.640 you're going to get it so maybe you don't want to muck it up since time is fleeting as they say

01:36:18.440 you know and i think if you had the proper attitude virtually every moment you spent

01:36:24.840 would be spent in that state of apprehension right i mean people insist to themselves

01:36:32.860 that their faith would be buttressed if they were only privileged to apprehend a miracle

01:36:37.740 if god suspended the rules that govern the cosmic order for their convenience they would be

01:36:44.820 transformed in a moment and i would say there's miracles unfolding in front of you every second

01:36:50.340 and if you can't see them it's not because they're not there it's because you're blind

01:36:54.460 and so

01:36:55.960 don't waste time tick tock right and you'll be judged not least by yourself for every moment you waste

01:37:08.380 John Deere is headquarters here, and its executive team has become laser-focused on DEI and wokeness.

01:37:23.820 How do the employees fight back?

01:37:25.680 well i'm going to tell you i'm going to tell you a little story first and

01:37:40.020 about what will happen to you if you don't fight back because you need to be afraid of the right

01:37:45.880 thing you know people have complimented me fairly frequently on my bravery and that doesn't sit well

01:37:54.740 with me because i'm not brave i'm afraid of different things than most people i would say

01:38:00.980 you know you need to know what to be afraid of if you know what to be afraid of you'll be

01:38:06.500 you'll be courageous if you know what to be properly afraid of you'll be courageous

01:38:10.200 so jonah the story of jonah jonah is this i don't know he's just some middle-aged guy wandering

01:38:19.380 around a few thousand years ago we don't know anything about them until god shows up one day

01:38:25.180 and says i i got something for you to do you got to go there's a city north of here and you don't

01:38:32.020 like the people that live there they're actually your hereditary enemies but doesn't matter i'm

01:38:38.060 kind of annoyed at them i'm thinking about wiping them out and so i'd like you to go there and just

01:38:43.280 remind them that they've wandered off the beaten path and, and you know,

01:38:48.700 maybe then they'll straighten out and I won't have to like go all Sodom and

01:38:54.440 Gomorrah on them. And, and this is a city of about a hundred thousand people.

01:38:59.880 It's Nineveh and Jonah thinks, yeah, I don't think so.

01:39:04.000 I don't like these people. They deserve what's coming to them.

01:39:09.120 There's a hundred thousand of them. There's one of me.

01:39:12.160 i don't like those odds why would they listen to me anyways because i'm part of a tribe they

01:39:18.580 regard as an enemy and and like up yours and so and so he thinks i'm out of here and so jonah

01:39:27.840 decides to ignore god to ignore the voice of his own conscience because it's well established in

01:39:35.520 a biblical corpus by this time that one manifestation of god is the still small voice

01:39:43.040 conscience so it's it's jonah's conscience that comes calling and says you got something to say

01:39:49.180 there buddy and jonah thinks not me and so off he goes and he takes a boat and he's going to get

01:39:55.220 as far away from nine of a as he can possibly manage right he's going to go hide and the waves

01:40:00.740 rise and the wind blows and the ship is threatened and the sailors are all shorting out and they think

01:40:06.100 someone on this boat is not right with one of their gods and so they go around to everyone on

01:40:11.440 the ship and they find jonah and he's asleep because people who are doing this are asleep

01:40:16.960 and they wake him up and they say we're trying to find out who has not been attending to the

01:40:23.720 dictates of their god because this storm ain't good and you know we'd like to do something about

01:40:28.060 and jonah says yeah that's probably me and they say well what god do you worship and and jonah

01:40:35.600 says well you know he's the god he's not some like god of the kitchen table or god of the local bar

01:40:40.680 he's like the god that created everything and the sailors go you just you disobeyed a direct order

01:40:47.520 from your god and your god is the god who created everything said that's not a good idea and that's

01:40:54.860 not a good idea and and they feel they have to throw them overboard but they're good guys and

01:41:02.280 so they try to get to shore so they can just get rid of them they try not to throw them overboard

01:41:06.440 but god doesn't have not he's not having none of that and the waves get higher and like the ship's

01:41:10.560 gonna founder and jonah finally says like it's me like just throw me over you know we're all

01:41:16.080 gonna die anyway throw me over so they throw him over and you think well that's pretty bad so what's

01:41:20.840 the moral of the story disobey a direct order from god and drown die but that that's nothing 0.59

01:41:29.960 that's nothing because there are lots of things worse than death and disobeying a direct order

01:41:37.160 from god death is just where the fun starts so what happens to jonah a creature comes up from

01:41:44.900 the abyss itself right a whale and takes him in his jaws and pulls him all the way down to the

01:41:51.060 bottom of things right three days in hell right that's worse than death if you don't know there

01:41:58.100 are worse things than death you're a very fortunate or a very blind person and so jonah jonah is now

01:42:05.820 in the grip of hell itself because he failed to say what he was called upon to say and after three

01:42:12.040 days he repents and the whale spits him out and he goes to Nineveh and he tells the people that

01:42:19.340 they're sinning and he tells them why and they listen and they repent and God decides to spare

01:42:26.740 the city that's your job that's everyone's job that's the job of a sovereign citizen

01:42:33.580 every single one of you you know your entire culture is predicated on the idea that you have

01:42:39.780 intrinsic value and intrinsic responsibility that your integrity is the foundation of the state

01:42:45.320 and that's no joke that's not some casual statement it means something very literal

01:42:51.460 abdicate your civic responsibility and watch your society decay and when you ask why just remember

01:43:00.980 you were called upon to say something and you remain silent right it's on you okay so so now

01:43:08.980 you know what to be afraid of it's like you could be afraid of losing your job you could be afraid

01:43:13.480 of being called out by the woke mob or you could be afraid that the ship will sink and that you'll 0.91

01:43:19.380 end up in hell just like the soviets did just like the maoists did just like the nazis did when they 0.73

01:43:26.780 held their tongue when they should have said something and if you don't think that could come 0.97

01:43:30.660 your way well then why are you worried about the dei people at john deere okay now having said that

01:43:37.300 and so harshly i would say something else you can't do this foolishly right when you when you're

01:43:45.140 called upon to speak you have to speak wisely and you might not be in a position there's no sense

01:43:50.460 burning up your bridges with a what would you say with a casual outburst at work because you've been

01:43:57.040 pushed too far if you've decided that you're going to do something about this if you've decided that

01:44:01.940 it's something that needs your attention then you have to give it your attention you have to start

01:44:07.160 to prepare for the battle or for the war even and i don't mean the war that will be fought with guns

01:44:13.920 because we bloody well hope it won't come to that although it often does i mean the war that you'll

01:44:19.080 have to undertake in order to set to set the society around you right and i don't know what

01:44:25.660 that'll mean for each of you individually ask yourself ask yourself it's like and i mean this

01:44:31.860 literally you know they say you knock and the door will open if you ask you'll receive and if you seek

01:44:36.560 you'll find it's like okay you've got a problem you know something's rotten what should you do

01:44:41.840 about it sit on your bed sit on the edge of your bed and ask yourself you know get your aim straight

01:44:47.600 i would like to do something about this i would like to do it wisely and carefully and judiciously

01:44:52.400 i'd like to do it in a manner that doesn't expose myself and my family to undo careless risk i'd

01:44:57.980 like to find the right pathway forward is there anything that i could do that i would do you know

01:45:05.740 maybe it'll take you a month to to for the revelation to make itself manifest maybe i've

01:45:11.720 talked to your wife maybe i've talked to your friends you got to be wise as serpents right

01:45:16.000 that's the injunction this is no casual thing but if it's bothering you people say how do i

01:45:23.000 find the meaning in my life what bothers you that's your problem that's god offering you an

01:45:30.240 opportunity that's so strange you know because maybe it will be that you'll be like moses moses

01:45:35.380 was thick of tongue he couldn't speak well and maybe you're in the same situation you think i

01:45:40.680 don't have a political bone in my body it's like well grow one you know and i'm dead serious like

01:45:47.060 this this problem that you're seeing could be the greatest opportunity of your life

01:45:51.400 because in confronting it you could turn yourself into what you are not yet

01:45:56.080 but that happens to people all the time they find the adventure in their life in confronting the

01:46:02.480 problems that beset them because you could ask yourself here's a question for you why does it

01:46:08.060 bother you anyways like why can't you just ignore it and if you can't ignore it it's like well

01:46:14.560 what is it that you can't ignore is that you or is that something reminding you of who you are

01:46:22.360 you know and i mean this is as practically as possible if it was just you well then why can't

01:46:29.060 you control it we don't control our conscience we can listen to it or not but we certainly don't

01:46:36.520 control it it speaks to us and i would say a wise man listens or else and like and i mean or else

01:46:47.240 i spent a lot of time studying the development of totalitarianism

01:46:51.580 totalitarian totalitarianism starts with lies it starts with some lies and then it's many lies and

01:47:00.080 then once it's total everyone lies about absolutely everything everything they do

01:47:08.900 everything they imagine everything they say all the time to themselves and everyone they love

01:47:15.880 and the grip of the lie that's the totalitarian state you think it's the dictator it's like no

01:47:23.220 everyone in a totalitarian state is their own dictator so if you don't want that don't do it

01:47:30.940 and that doesn't mean to act unwisely right there's no sense cutting off your arms so you can

01:47:39.120 bleed on your opponent right and i mean this like i i help lots of people in my clinical practice

01:47:45.080 stand up to bullies at work like that's you have to get your act together to do that it's it's you

01:47:53.680 got to make the decision you got to talk to your wife you got to talk to your kids you got to talk

01:47:57.820 to your family and your friends you got to think are we going to do something about this like or

01:48:02.140 can we you know can we nurture our little family and continue in the shadows you know without

01:48:08.160 taking on this additional responsibility or has push come to shove and if you decide that you're

01:48:13.340 in it's like okay wake the hell up get your words in order get your forces around you muster up your

01:48:20.900 friends figure out what you have to say and do it wisely and maturely and with forethought right

01:48:31.420 what you'll find is that those who insist that you swallow the lie are weak how can they not be

01:48:39.820 they're living in they're living on a lie that's the definition of weak now couldn't they make

01:48:48.860 things hot for you for a time not as hot as they'll be made if you hold your tongue

01:48:53.580 and that's for sure so so that's why you have to be afraid of the right thing you know there's

01:49:00.140 nothing you should be more afraid of than losing control of your tongue you know that's the divine

01:49:05.500 word that produces the cosmos that's good and you're made in that image you lose that you're

01:49:11.860 done so nothing that nothing that earthly authorities can do to you has that cataclysmic

01:49:22.320 consequence maybe you have to prepare to find another job who knows what that would mean maybe

01:49:29.080 you have to get your resume in order maybe it's time for you to make a move anyways who knows

01:49:34.200 right fortify your walls and gird your loins and don't let people don't swallow the lie folks

01:49:44.120 that's a very bad idea that that's

01:49:48.940 every time you lie by omission or commission you move the world closer to hell and we can

01:49:57.980 produce quite the hell now with the tools we have so if that's what you want for your kids then

01:50:04.200 Remain silent when you're called upon to speak.

01:50:13.180 That's it.

01:50:16.920 All right, everyone.

01:50:23.620 Thank you very much for coming.

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01:50:31.480 With Pray.com.

01:50:33.100 You can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith.

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The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - July 06, 2026

Message from JBP ｜ What You Should Put First in Your Life

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