The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Structuring Your World View

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00:00:57.000 Welcome to Season 2, Episode 43 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:03.000 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Dad's daughter and collaborator.

00:01:06.000 Today's episode is a 12 Rules for Life lecture recorded in Adelaide, Australia on February 11th, 2019, named Structuring Your Worldview.

00:01:15.000 Enjoy the podcast.

00:01:18.000 Structuring Your Worldview, a Jordan B. Peterson 12 Rules for Life lecture.

00:01:27.000 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

00:01:33.000 It's good to see that you put some more effort into this than those people in Perth.

00:01:44.000 They couldn't even conjure up any protestors.

00:01:54.000 So, what I thought I'd do, I always have a problem in the back of my mind that I'm trying to work on when I do one of these lectures.

00:02:03.000 And, you know, I have a set of problems that I'm always working on and I'm trying to clarify their nature more.

00:02:11.000 So, they're easier to state and also to formulate more precise and hopefully useful answers.

00:02:22.000 I think that's a nice combination, precision and utility.

00:02:26.000 It's a nice quality for a tool, for example, and most ideas are best conceptualized as tools.

00:02:34.000 You know, because we have to make our way in the world and we're a tool using creatures and so we need accurate tools.

00:02:44.000 And so, formulating things precisely and elegantly so that they can be used properly in the world is a, well, it's a worthy aim.

00:02:55.000 And it's certainly the aim of any intellectual endeavor that's worthy of the name.

00:03:02.000 You know, it's not something that's merely abstract or ivory tower.

00:03:07.000 If it is, there's something wrong.

00:03:10.000 And so, I thought what I would do today is to see if I could get a little farther in describing the structure through which we look at the world.

00:03:26.000 And I think that, I'm going to try to make this case.

00:03:31.000 We'll see how it goes.

00:03:33.000 At the highest resolution level, the structure is actually quite, it's simple and quite understandable.

00:03:42.000 But at the highest levels of abstraction, it gets much more difficult and harder and harder to represent and harder to understand, but also more and more important.

00:03:57.000 Because, you know, the things you do from second to second, well, in some sense, they're not that important.

00:04:03.000 But how that all adds up to your whole life, that's important.

00:04:08.000 Well, it's kind of easy to say what you're doing from second to second or minute to minute, but it might be difficult to say what it is that you're doing for your whole life or what you should be doing for your whole life, even more particularly.

00:04:22.000 But it's necessary to know all of that.

00:04:27.000 And so, I'm going to see if I can meld some things together tonight that I haven't been able to meld together before.

00:04:35.000 So, I think I'm going to start with a relatively simple observation.

00:04:43.000 If you're a psychologist, there's a number of things that you do to help people.

00:04:54.000 If you're a good psychologist, there's a number of things you do to damage them if you're a bad psychologist.

00:05:00.000 But let's assume that you're not a bad psychologist to begin with.

00:05:05.000 You help them reflect upon events in their lives that damaged them.

00:05:17.000 Those are times when they went off the track, in some sense, or someone pushed them off the track.

00:05:22.000 You can tell when something like that's happened in your life, often because you have negative emotional reaction to it.

00:05:30.000 That's the first thing, that's what negative emotion signifies, that you've gone off the path in some fundamental way.

00:05:37.000 And then you have negative memories.

00:05:40.000 And the negative memories, especially if they're still alive, especially if they're more than about 18 months old,

00:05:46.000 if the negative memories are still alive, it means that you've gone off the path in a way that you don't understand,

00:05:53.000 and you've never really completely found your way back.

00:05:57.000 And if you had, you wouldn't have the negative memory anymore.

00:06:00.000 You would have fixed it.

00:06:02.000 You would have extracted the information from the occurrence that was necessary to put things right again.

00:06:09.000 And that's a useful thing.

00:06:11.000 It's useful to know that, you know, just from a practical perspective.

00:06:15.000 If you have a memory that won't let you go, in some sense, it's because there's part of you that's stuck back there.

00:06:25.000 You never, you never, imagine that you have to understand everywhere you've been.

00:06:33.000 You especially have to understand where you've been if it wasn't good.

00:06:36.000 And the reason that you need to understand where you've been if it wasn't good,

00:06:40.000 is so that you don't go there again.

00:06:42.000 Right?

00:06:43.000 You know, because that's the purpose of memory.

00:06:45.000 It's not to remember the past.

00:06:47.000 It's to remember the past in such a way that you can duplicate the good things about the past in the future,

00:06:54.000 and that you can avoid the bad things about the past in the future.

00:06:57.000 Again, it's tool-like.

00:06:58.000 It's practical.

00:06:59.000 And so, if you have a memory that's 18 months old or older, there's neurological reasons for that.

00:07:05.000 And it's still negative.

00:07:06.000 It means that there's a hole that you fell in, and you might fall in it again.

00:07:14.000 Because you don't know how it was that you got there.

00:07:17.000 And so, the part of your brain that produces negative emotion isn't going to let that go, ever.

00:07:22.000 It will never let that go until you figure it out, because it's there to protect you.

00:07:27.000 And if it thinks that there's a trap waiting for you, that you might suddenly fall in at any moment,

00:07:34.000 because you don't understand how it happened, then it's never going to let you go.

00:07:40.000 It's interesting how abstract this process can be.

00:07:45.000 I've been working with this gentleman who had a brutal, brutal, brutal childhood.

00:07:53.000 Man, you just can't imagine it.

00:07:55.000 It was everything you could hope for in a brutal childhood.

00:07:58.000 I mean, he was taken away from his parents.

00:08:00.000 He was assaulted in the most reprehensible manner by the most malevolent people

00:08:08.000 when he was completely helpless for years on end, starved, taken away from his family,

00:08:18.000 demeaned, brutal, man.

00:08:23.000 And he often had nightmares about it.

00:08:27.000 He's about 50, he's about my age now, had nightmares about it.

00:08:32.000 And nightmares especially would occur during the year when the same month that he would have returned to school.

00:08:42.000 And that's actually quite common, you know.

00:08:45.000 It's one of the things that you learn if you study dreams is that often the time a dream occurs

00:08:52.000 has some relevance to its fundamental under, its fundamental meaning.

00:08:57.000 And it's not easy to figure out what a dream means often, which is also quite mysterious

00:09:02.000 because you'd think if the damn dream had something to say, it'd just come out and say it.

00:09:07.000 Like, what the hell is the point of the mystery, you know?

00:09:10.000 Well, Freud's answer to that was that dreams contained information that people resisted.

00:09:17.000 They didn't want to know.

00:09:19.000 And so the dream had to be, in some sense, camouflaged symbolically

00:09:25.000 to make it palatable in some sense to the perceiver.

00:09:30.000 Which I don't think is true except in a very restricted number of cases.

00:09:35.000 I liked Carl Jung's explanation a lot better.

00:09:39.000 And I think it's true.

00:09:41.000 And it went along with explanation that was also generated by a developmental psychologist named Jean Piaget

00:09:47.000 who was very interested in dreams.

00:09:48.000 And their notion was that, no, dreams are just confusing because they're the birthplace of thought.

00:09:55.000 Like a dream is where you start to think something up, but you haven't got it fully thought up.

00:10:00.000 And that's why it's not clear because it wouldn't be clear if you were just thinking it up.

00:10:05.000 And you know what that's like.

00:10:06.000 Like lots of times you're just starting to think something up and it's not clear.

00:10:09.000 You see this with arguments that you have with people very frequently.

00:10:12.000 You know, if you live with someone in an intimate situation, husband or a wife,

00:10:17.000 you come home and you're crabby and miserable about some damn thing.

00:10:20.000 And you know, maybe something will trigger you.

00:10:23.000 I don't know, someone does something you think is annoying and it might be a new explode to a degree that's much greater than the event seems to warrant.

00:10:35.000 And then, you know, you have a bit of a conflict with your person because they're not very happy about being the target for your emotion.

00:10:46.000 And then you have a fight about it.

00:10:48.000 Like two hours later, you figure out what the hell it was that you were upset about.

00:10:52.000 And you know, maybe it was something that your boss said three days ago that seemed to indicate that the promotion that you would be,

00:10:59.000 that you'd been hoping for and working for for like three years was less likely to go to you than to someone else.

00:11:05.000 And you didn't bloody well even know that was what was bothering you, you know.

00:11:09.000 And it took a lot of digging to get down into the underlying structure of your thinking, your fantasy,

00:11:17.000 before you could even find out what the hell the emotion was there for.

00:11:21.000 And you know, if you communicate intently with people that you love or even people that you don't love,

00:11:27.000 you find very, very frequently it takes a long time to, if you're having a conflict, to even figure out what the conflict is about.

00:11:36.000 You know, once you've figured that out, well, sometimes that can be terribly difficult,

00:11:40.000 but often once you've figured out what the conflict actually is about, you know, you're three quarters of the way to resolving it.

00:11:47.000 And dreams are sort of, well, dreams play part of that process is that they're part of how we stretch ourself out into the world

00:11:56.000 with fantasy, you know, and think about how things might be.

00:12:02.000 And maybe they're not that way, but maybe they are.

00:12:06.000 And we don't leap from not knowing to knowing perfectly in one fell swoop, you know.

00:12:14.000 There has to be this intermediary process of, well, maybe of acting out and then of imagining

00:12:20.000 and then of contemplating the imagination and then of articulating the contemplation

00:12:26.000 and then of communicating it and then of planning as a consequence of the communication.

00:12:30.000 Then you kind of have a handle on the world.

00:12:32.000 Before then, it takes all of that to come up with real knowledge.

00:12:38.000 Anyways, one of the things that's quite cool about having talked to my friend about his dreams is that he often has these dreams

00:12:48.000 where he's still being attacked and he's five years old, you know.

00:12:53.000 And really, he wakes up with like physical symptoms, really serious physical symptoms of almost, they're almost,

00:13:02.000 it's almost impossible to believe that someone could have the physical symptoms that he does,

00:13:06.000 and I'm not going to describe them, but they're a consequence of these nightmares.

00:13:11.000 And then he takes it out on his family and, you know, he feels bitter and cynical about the world and hates people and himself.

00:13:18.000 And it's no bloody wonder, I can tell you that, you know.

00:13:21.000 It's amazing that he's in as good a shape as he is given what he went through.

00:13:26.000 It's a hell of a thing to recover from, to forgive, to forget.

00:13:32.000 I mean, that, those words are weak, man.

00:13:36.000 And when you're talking about situations where people have been through hell, that, those are just cliches.

00:13:42.000 But one of the things I suggested to him was that, and this is a good thing to suggest to people,

00:13:50.000 you can do this with dreams, is if you have a recurrent nightmare, for example,

00:13:56.000 what that means is that your imagination has gripped a part of the world that you don't understand,

00:14:04.000 that presents a danger to you.

00:14:06.000 And it's part of the anxiety and disgust system, if it's producing negative emotion generally.

00:14:13.000 And it's an alarm system, and it isn't going to let you go.

00:14:17.000 You think, well, why do I have to be cursed with a recurrent nightmare?

00:14:20.000 Well, it's because you have an alarm system.

00:14:22.000 And the alarm system is saying, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger.

00:14:28.000 And unless you think about how to not have that danger, then the alarm system isn't going to go off,

00:14:35.000 because it doesn't want you falling into the same hole again.

00:14:38.000 And so it's miserable that you're stuck with the problem.

00:14:41.000 I mean, it's no joke that you're stuck with the problem.

00:14:44.000 You can't just wish it away, because the problem is real.

00:14:48.000 Now, it doesn't mean it's well-defined necessarily.

00:14:51.000 You know, because an alarm system, it isn't a precise diagnosis of a problem.

00:14:58.000 It's just a description that something's gone wrong.

00:15:02.000 And then to precisely define it, and then to conjure up a solution,

00:15:05.000 takes a tremendous amount of work.

00:15:07.000 And so when I was talking to them, I suggested,

00:15:10.000 well, look, you know, here's something you're going to have to do,

00:15:14.000 and you're going to hate it, because it's a hateable thing.

00:15:18.000 You wake up in the morning, you have these nightmares.

00:15:21.000 Now what you have to do is, when you have the nightmare,

00:15:24.000 you have to sit during the day, and you have to think about the nightmare.

00:15:28.000 You have to bring it back to mind in as much visual detail as you can,

00:15:35.000 and you have to allow the emotions that you were experiencing to reemerge.

00:15:40.000 And you think, God, of all the bloody things you wouldn't want to ask someone to do,

00:15:45.000 if they were suffering, you know, in that manner, it would be exactly that.

00:15:50.000 But, you know, there's a woman named Edna Foa, who's a real psychologist,

00:15:54.000 and she treated women who had post-traumatic stress disorder from violent sexual abuse,

00:16:00.000 stranger rapes, which are actually quite rare, and of course very horrifying.

00:16:05.000 And she used exposure, same sort of idea.

00:16:09.000 And she hooked her clients to psychophysiological measuring devices

00:16:16.000 that measured heart rate, and skin conductance, and other indices of physiological response,

00:16:22.000 and then had them relive their horrifying experiences voluntarily,

00:16:28.000 and showed that the women who showed the most, the highest levels of negative response,

00:16:34.000 like the most extreme levels of negative response,

00:16:37.000 while they were re-experiencing voluntarily the traumatic occurrence,

00:16:42.000 got better faster and stayed better longer.

00:16:45.000 And it's quite a mystery, you know, because you think,

00:16:48.000 well, if the damn event did you in, so to speak,

00:16:52.000 why in the world would re-experiencing the event be curative?

00:16:57.000 And the answer is, there's a bloody big difference between having something happen to you accidentally,

00:17:03.000 and facing it purposefully.

00:17:06.000 Like, there's all the difference in the world.

00:17:09.000 It truly is the case.

00:17:11.000 You don't even respond physiologically to the same thing that you run away from,

00:17:17.000 that you do when you face it.

00:17:20.000 Your whole different physiological systems are in play.

00:17:24.000 And fundamentally, we're built to confront catastrophe voluntarily.

00:17:31.000 That works.

00:17:32.000 Now, that doesn't mean you won't get killed, because it is, after all, catastrophe.

00:17:37.000 And none of this is mindless optimism.

00:17:41.000 Just because you decide that you're going to act in a heroic manner,

00:17:44.000 doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to get killed.

00:17:47.000 And you're going to get killed anyways, because that's how life goes.

00:17:52.000 But you don't have a better bet than that, generally speaking,

00:17:56.000 than to confront what it is that's threatening you forthrightly.

00:18:00.000 And in that, there's some possibility that you'll discover how it is that you will deal with it.

00:18:09.000 And it's not easy, you know.

00:18:12.000 This friend of mine, you know, he was abused by terrible men.

00:18:18.000 The sort of men who would sexually assault children who were putatively under their educational care, let's say.

00:18:25.000 And, you know, that's a dark problem to untangle.

00:18:32.000 You know, I mean, one of the things that an experience like that leaves you with is, well, why?

00:18:39.000 Period, right?

00:18:40.000 Why, period?

00:18:41.000 Why me?

00:18:42.000 That would be the next question.

00:18:44.000 And another question would be, how in the world can there be people like that?

00:18:48.000 And then another question would be, how can the world be like that?

00:18:52.000 And another question would be, well, what am I like if there are people who are like that and I'm also a person?

00:19:00.000 That's another problem.

00:19:02.000 And then another problem is, well, what am I left with of myself once I've been through an experience like that?

00:19:08.000 You know, and it's not like those are simple questions to answer.

00:19:14.000 Every single one of those questions is an absolute bloody killer.

00:19:17.000 Like they're deep, deep, deep philosophical questions.

00:19:21.000 And that's really why those sorts of occurrences cause post-traumatic stress disorder.

00:19:28.000 They're so difficult that they actually, that the mere fact that the question has been posed in some sense is enough to produce psychophysiological damage.

00:19:39.000 Because if you have post-traumatic stress disorder, it produces relatively permanent neurological transformations.

00:19:46.000 One of the things that happens is that part of your brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for negative emotion.

00:19:53.000 It's responsible for many things, but that's one of the things it's responsible for.

00:19:57.000 It grows.

00:19:59.000 And another part called the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that seems to be something like the central meeting place between articulated memories and the control systems for emotions.

00:20:11.000 It shrinks.

00:20:14.000 Now, memories control emotions because, you know, if you're somewhere and you know what you're doing and you've been there before, well, then you have the situation mastered in some sense.

00:20:26.000 All of you have been in situations like this before, right?

00:20:30.000 In crowds, in a theater, listening to a speaker, you know, you're familiar with this.

00:20:39.000 And because you're familiar with it, you have memories that are similar to it.

00:20:42.000 And so the memories stop you from being apprehensive, you know.

00:20:46.000 Like, most of you don't know the people that you're sitting beside, and you certainly don't know all the people around you.

00:20:52.000 But you notice they're all kind of acting the same way you are, which indicates that they at least know what the bloody rules are and are unlikely to go off sideways in some catastrophic way.

00:21:02.000 And so your memory structures inhibit your emotions, and that's what keeps you calm.

00:21:09.000 And that's also really something unbelievably worth knowing, you know.

00:21:14.000 Because one of the things that I tried to wrestle with for a long time was why it was that people were so, let's say, enamored of their belief systems.

00:21:25.000 You know, why we would fight to the death to protect our belief systems, because we clearly will.

00:21:30.000 And part of the answer to that is, well, our belief systems regulate our emotions.

00:21:35.000 You know, it's the fact that, it's more complicated than that, because it's not only that you know how the world works, and because you know how the world works, then you don't have to be terrified everywhere you go, like you would be if you were dropped naked in a jungle in the middle of the night, let's say.

00:21:52.000 But it's not merely that you know, it's that you know, and other people know at the same time, so that we can all go places together, and we can act out the same belief system.

00:22:03.000 And because we can do that, well then we can cooperate, and we can compete, and we can predict each other quite nicely, we kind of have some sense that we're all pursuing the same aims, at least to some degree.

00:22:14.000 Well, here we're pursuing precisely the same aim, I mean, technically speaking, all of you are aiming your perception at the stage, right?

00:22:25.000 So, technically, you're all pursuing the same aim, and you all can see that, and you're all acting that out, and that's why you can sit here calmly, and maybe even more than calmly, you calmly and risk being interested in what's going on.

00:22:42.000 And so that's interesting, that there's this interesting isomorphism between each of our beliefs.

00:22:51.000 If we're in a culture that's functional, we all have our beliefs about how the world works, but then we share those beliefs with the people that are around us,

00:23:00.000 and then if there's a match between how we think the world should be going, and how everyone else is acting around us, then we're calm.

00:23:09.000 And that's why, and how beliefs regulate our emotions, and so that's why culture is necessary.

00:23:17.000 It's partly why the idea of multiculturalism is actually wrong.

00:23:21.000 Now, I don't want to be, I don't want to be like too cut and dried about that, because there's some real utility in diversity of human experience, right?

00:23:32.000 And that's because human beings have complicated problems to solve, and if we all thought exactly the same way,

00:23:40.000 well, that would be great if we were all doing perfectly well, but it would be a complete bloody catastrophe if anything ever went wrong,

00:23:48.000 because we wouldn't have any solutions to the problems.

00:23:53.000 So we want some variability in people, because new problems are going to come along, and who knows who's going to solve it.

00:23:59.000 It isn't going to be everyone, it'll be some oddball who comes up with some crazy solution,

00:24:04.000 while a thousand other people come up with crazy solutions that are wrong,

00:24:08.000 and maybe the one guy or the one woman who manages the proper crazy solution produces the answer for all of us,

00:24:15.000 and thank God for diversity of opinion because of that.

00:24:19.000 But having said all that, and knowing perfectly well that variability in human ability is a remarkable thing,

00:24:26.000 because we can all share that as well.

00:24:28.000 Some of us are musicians, and some of us are artists, and some of us are teachers, and some of us are lawyers,

00:24:33.000 and some of us are plumbers, and thank God for all that.

00:24:37.000 We still have to be nested inside a coherent structure that's partly cognitive,

00:24:45.000 that it's partly your belief system, and it's partly sociological,

00:24:49.000 so that we are all playing the same game.

00:24:52.000 And that's really the definition of peace and prosperity and productivity.

00:24:57.000 At some level, we have to be playing the same game,

00:25:01.000 because we can't trust each other any more than a bunch of kids on an elementary school playground.

00:25:10.000 They can't organize themselves unless they're all playing the same game.

00:25:13.000 It's just fractious and fighting if they can't decide that,

00:25:16.000 well, it's time to take ten minutes to play soccer,

00:25:20.000 instead of just arguing about what game we're going to play.

00:25:23.000 So, you know, this is a technical thing that we have to get right

00:25:27.000 when we're thinking about the multitude of cultures that inhabits the world.

00:25:31.000 It's like, yes, the diversity is a wonderful thing, and let's not be foolish about that.

00:25:36.000 And the diversity, culturally and also individually.

00:25:39.000 But that has to be nested inside something that coheres and brings us together.

00:25:46.000 And then the question is, well, what might that be?

00:25:49.000 That's actually part of what I'm trying to drive at tonight.

00:25:53.000 My friend, he, one of the things I recommended to him with his dreams was,

00:26:00.000 he said, you've got to think about your dream, and you've got to bring it to mind.

00:26:05.000 Man, you're not going to like this, but you've got to bring it to mind.

00:26:08.000 And maybe you should do it when you first wake up, because it's fresh in your mind.

00:26:12.000 And then maybe you should do it just before you go to sleep again.

00:26:16.000 And so that's a good trick, by the way, if you have recurrent nightmares,

00:26:20.000 or even if you don't sleep very well.

00:26:22.000 And you know that there are thoughts that are disturbing you,

00:26:24.000 mostly dream-related thoughts.

00:26:27.000 You bring the dream to mind just before you go to sleep.

00:26:30.000 You know, and just before you fall asleep, you kind of enter that stage

00:26:33.000 where you start to dream, but you're still a little bit awake.

00:26:37.000 The images start to come.

00:26:38.000 It's called a hypnagogic state.

00:26:40.000 If you can bring the dream to mind then, that's extremely helpful,

00:26:45.000 especially if you can also play with it a little bit and update it a little bit.

00:26:49.000 And so what I said to him was, well, you know, you're not five.

00:26:53.000 This is the thing. Your dream's wrong, right?

00:26:56.000 I mean, you were helpless, and the dream is representing that,

00:27:00.000 but somehow you're still five in your damn dream.

00:27:03.000 It's like, that's no good. It's no wonder you're still terrified.

00:27:06.000 You're 58. You're not five.

00:27:08.000 You're stuck back there.

00:27:11.000 It's like a part of his soul is back there.

00:27:14.000 And that's more true than you'd think, because it means part of him didn't grow up,

00:27:18.000 and it means there's information back there that he didn't incorporate.

00:27:21.000 And so that means part of him hasn't developed as much as it needs to,

00:27:24.000 and that's partly why he's still suffering.

00:27:27.000 And then he told me that he hadn't looked in the mirror for 35 years.

00:27:33.000 So that was really something, you know.

00:27:36.000 That was really remarkable, and some of that was shame.

00:27:39.000 Well, a lot of it was shame.

00:27:41.000 And I said, well, it's no bloody wonder that you don't know how old you are then.

00:27:46.000 It's like, you know, you haven't seen how old you are.

00:27:51.000 I said, maybe you have to look in the mirror, you know.

00:27:55.000 And so he said he never brushed his teeth in the mirror.

00:27:58.000 He didn't comb his hair in the mirror, none of that.

00:28:00.000 He avoided mirrors.

00:28:02.000 And so he was avoiding self-reflection, right?

00:28:04.000 He didn't want to see who he was.

00:28:07.000 And you can understand that if you've been damaged badly enough that you might not want to see that.

00:28:13.000 But it doesn't matter, because there it is, man.

00:28:15.000 And what are you going to do, not look?

00:28:17.000 Because it's there.

00:28:19.000 And so I said, well, you better spend an hour looking at yourself in the mirror.

00:28:24.000 And so he did that, and he said it was a very strange experience,

00:28:28.000 because he didn't realize how old he was, because, well, 58 is not young, you know.

00:28:33.000 And so he could see all sorts of things about him that were quite shocking.

00:28:37.000 That, you know, his face was somewhat lined, and his teeth were not the teeth of someone who was 20.

00:28:43.000 And, like, he's not a bad looking guy for 58, but he's had a hard life,

00:28:48.000 and he's a little bit beat up around the edges, and could be worse.

00:28:52.000 But it was quite a shock for him.

00:28:55.000 And he said it made him cry, and it made him laugh, and it was a shock.

00:29:00.000 And he did that a lot, and he thought about his dreams a lot.

00:29:03.000 And then he started getting older in his dreams, which is really cool, and quite fast, too.

00:29:08.000 Again, he'd been stuck there for 53 years.

00:29:11.000 It took about four months before he was 40 in his dreams.

00:29:15.000 And now he's as old as he is in his dreams.

00:29:18.000 And he said the truly negative elements of his dreams have just about disappeared completely.

00:29:27.000 Along with that, along with that, a fair bit of the bitterness.

00:29:30.000 And, like, look, I don't want to be, again, I'm not any Pollyanna about this.

00:29:35.000 He's not done with this.

00:29:36.000 You know, when school time comes around next year, I'm sure he'll make another descent into the abyss.

00:29:44.000 You know, because these things are very difficult to straighten out.

00:29:47.000 His big problem is that he has to come to terms with the fundamental reality of human evil.

00:29:53.000 I mean, how the hell else are you going to say it?

00:29:58.000 When you're thinking about, so you went to a school that was supposed to educate people.

00:30:02.000 And the school was taken over, at least in part, by people whose fundamental goal was to sexually prey on children in the most sadistic possible manner imaginable.

00:30:13.000 And starve them, and misuse them, and not educate them, all at the same time.

00:30:21.000 All while pretending that what they were doing was something Christian and positive.

00:30:27.000 Now, I don't know what your word for that is.

00:30:30.000 I mean, maybe you have a word that's better than evil.

00:30:33.000 But I don't have a better word for that, and so I'm going to stick with it.

00:30:36.000 And it's a damn useful word under those sorts of circumstances.

00:30:39.000 And it's also the case that if terrible things happen to you, and you develop something like post-traumatic stress disorder,

00:30:46.000 and you don't have a fully-fledged philosophy of good and evil, you will not recover.

00:30:53.000 And I've talked to a lot of...

00:31:00.000 It's a funny thing to applaud.

00:31:03.000 There's obviously some people in the audience that know this.

00:31:06.000 I've talked to a lot of soldiers over the last year and a half, two years,

00:31:11.000 who've been watching my lectures or listening to my podcasts, etc.

00:31:15.000 And they said, and many of them have said that doing so has helped them rid themselves of their post-traumatic stress disorder.

00:31:25.000 Because they've started to become sufficiently sophisticated philosophically and theologically,

00:31:32.000 so that they can put the terrible things that either happened to them or that they did.

00:31:38.000 Because, especially in wartime, post-traumatic stress disorder is often caused when someone watches themselves do something they can't believe they could possibly do.

00:31:50.000 And, of course, well, what would you expect if you go to war?

00:31:53.000 You know, you're maybe a naive person to begin with.

00:31:56.000 You end up on the battlefield several times, multiple times.

00:32:00.000 God only knows what sort of situation you're going to be in, and God only knows what you'll do.

00:32:04.000 And it certainly might not be something you think you could do, but, like, what the hell do you know about yourself?

00:32:09.000 I mean, people are very complicated, and they're very deep, and they're very dark.

00:32:14.000 And, you know, there's plenty of light in us as well, but there's plenty of dark.

00:32:21.000 And the battlefield is definitely a place where you might encounter it and then have to bear that burden, you know.

00:32:29.000 And if you don't have a context within which to put it, then it's an intolerable burden.

00:32:35.000 You can't manage it. It's too much, the weight of that darkness that characterizes you.

00:32:42.000 You can't reconcile that with your own version of yourself, your old version, naive, shallow version of yourself.

00:32:49.000 And so then, maybe you have to drink yourself into unconsciousness constantly, because there's no other way that you know how to deal with it.

00:32:56.000 And it's no wonder. Like, I mean, these things are no mystery when you investigate them.

00:33:01.000 You think, yeah, well, God, if that happened to me, or if I did that, either way, I'd bloody well be trying to hide inside a bottle, too.

00:33:09.000 But, of course, that's not helpful, right? It's not a good long-term solution. It gets rid of you here and now for the time being.

00:33:17.000 And that's something, but it's not a good solution for tomorrow or next week or next year. It's just a degenerating process.

00:33:26.000 So, I want to talk to you about the belief systems that we inhabit, and I want to take them all the way out to the edge.

00:33:33.000 And partly, taking them all the way out to the edge has something to do with that ability to confront what's terrible.

00:33:41.000 And I would say that part of... Okay, we'll do something sideways again here.

00:33:48.000 One of the things we know about human beings is that we have the capacity to get deeply engaged in stories.

00:33:55.000 And the other thing we know about human beings is that we have deep stories, and the deepest stories we have are religious stories.

00:34:02.000 It's a matter of definition. The deeper the story, the more like a religious story it's like.

00:34:07.000 And it's also that we know that there are shallow stories, trivial stories, and that there are deep stories, and that some stories are unutterably deep.

00:34:15.000 We all know that. We don't know why, though, right? Because when you say, well, this is a very deep story, it's not like you can just come up with a set of reasons why it's deep.

00:34:24.000 But you know that there are distinctions between literary types from shallow to deep.

00:34:30.000 And deep seems to mean profound. That's another way of thinking about it.

00:34:35.000 It means that it means a lot of things at the same time, at different levels of reality at the same time.

00:34:43.000 That's another kind of indication of deep. And if the story is deep enough, well, then it becomes religious.

00:34:50.000 It's so deep that it has that effect on you. It produces awe, let's say.

00:34:55.000 Or it's something that you can't forget. Or it's something that a whole culture builds itself on.

00:35:01.000 Or it's a story that motivates extraordinary acts on people's part, like acts of self-sacrifice, or acts of courage, or acts of bravery, or acts of creativity.

00:35:12.000 And when you think about the consequence of Christianity in Europe, when it was the flowering of this incredible architectural and artistic process over a period of about 2,000 years.

00:35:24.000 I mean, it also, you know, your culture, insofar as it was derived from Europe, has elements of the same thing.

00:35:33.000 It's an incredible architectural and artistic legacy that was all driven by these underlying fundamental religious ideas that no one really understood, but were obviously extraordinarily enthralled by.

00:35:48.000 And built institutions to preserve and to reproduce and to describe and to discuss, even though they're mysterious in the same way that dreams are.

00:36:00.000 Well, some of those stories have to do with the necessity of confrontation.

00:36:05.000 Really, the necessity of confrontation.

00:36:08.000 And more than that, more than that, because that's not the crucial thing.

00:36:14.000 That's the pessimistic thing.

00:36:16.000 The crucial thing is the notion that through, as a consequence of the voluntary confrontation, that victory can be attained.

00:36:26.000 That's the light.

00:36:30.000 And what's so interesting about that, too, and it's why it's so rewarding to deal often with people who had post-traumatic stress disorders,

00:36:38.000 because they've gone to dark places, man.

00:36:41.000 Like, they're hellish places.

00:36:43.000 And they come out.

00:36:45.000 Not always.

00:36:46.000 Not always, because, you know, if you encounter something terrible,

00:36:52.000 it wouldn't be terrible if it couldn't kill you or permanently damage you.

00:36:57.000 It would just be psychologically terrible.

00:36:59.000 Not that that's trivial.

00:37:01.000 It wouldn't be truly terrible.

00:37:02.000 I had another client, a young person, who had been bullied very badly by someone in high school

00:37:09.000 who they didn't want to have a relationship with.

00:37:13.000 A person had asked them out, and they refused.

00:37:15.000 And so this person decided they were going to make their life hell on earth, which they did.

00:37:21.000 And they hurt this person so badly that a psychotic episode ensued.

00:37:28.000 And when I first saw the client, the person would sit there and move their hands like this.

00:37:36.000 Couldn't really talk.

00:37:37.000 And when I asked why, they said, well, I can see these lines.

00:37:41.000 And I'm trying to get the lines in order.

00:37:44.000 And that's not normal behavior, you know, like, to be uncommunicative like that.

00:37:50.000 And then to also be so immense, immersed in it, like in a hallucination,

00:37:55.000 that you're dreaming in that sense while you're awake.

00:37:58.000 I mean, you're way past normality.

00:38:03.000 And what had fundamentally happened was that the person who had been rejected romantically

00:38:10.000 conspired with a friend to just tease and torment this person at every chance they could possibly manage in high school.

00:38:21.000 And broke them.

00:38:24.000 And so I talked to my client for a long time.

00:38:29.000 They were also taking anti-psychotic medication, which can be very helpful under such circumstances

00:38:38.000 to at least dampen the symptomatology.

00:38:42.000 Although they really don't constitute a cure.

00:38:44.000 And we went through what happened, you know.

00:38:47.000 I asked my client, what happened?

00:38:51.000 We laid out the story over about a six-month period, written down, using this program I developed called

00:38:58.000 the Past Authoring Program, which helps people sort of organize their lives into a coherent biography.

00:39:05.000 Because you need to know where you've been so that you know who you are and so that you know where you are,

00:39:12.000 so that you can figure out where you're going.

00:39:14.000 And you kind of have to tell the story of your life to yourself.

00:39:18.000 It's like you're mapping where you've been.

00:39:20.000 And if you haven't done that, then you're all over the place.

00:39:23.000 And your map is full of holes and you don't know where you are.

00:39:26.000 And so it's a very useful thing to do.

00:39:28.000 And it was quite painful because, well, there are a lot of negative things to discuss.

00:39:34.000 But over the months, and not so long, we pieced it together.

00:39:40.000 And this person was very curious about how it could be that someone could be so cruel as to make it their goal to destroy someone.

00:39:51.000 You know, and that's a tough question.

00:39:53.000 You know, and some of it had to do with their displeasure at being spurned romantically, right?

00:40:00.000 People don't like that at all.

00:40:02.000 And it's not surprising, you know, if you're enamored of someone.

00:40:06.000 If you've developed an attraction to them and you'd like to make that manifest, you certainly want it to be reflected.

00:40:16.000 And it's sort of a validation of who you are to have it reflected.

00:40:21.000 But if it's not, if it's rejected, it's like, well, maybe there's something wrong with you.

00:40:30.000 I mean, that's your likely response.

00:40:35.000 It's either that or anger.

00:40:36.000 It's like, what the hell's wrong with you?

00:40:37.000 Aren't I good enough for you?

00:40:39.000 It's like, well, no, as a matter of fact, you're not good enough for me.

00:40:42.000 Maybe you're not good enough, period.

00:40:44.000 Like in some really fundamental sense, you're just not good enough, period.

00:40:49.000 And that's a hell of a thing.

00:40:51.000 And again, it's not merely psychological.

00:40:53.000 It's real.

00:40:54.000 You know, there's lots of people who get rejected nonstop, virtually, their whole lives.

00:41:00.000 And it's not always the case that the reason they get rejected is because they have fundamental flaws that are very difficult to rectify.

00:41:07.000 But it's frequently the case that that's the reason.

00:41:11.000 And that's not a straightforward thing to come to terms with.

00:41:15.000 And so there's every reason to be unbelievably angry about that.

00:41:20.000 And not only at the person that rejected you.

00:41:23.000 You know, I mean, maybe there are all sorts of things that are wrong with you that maybe they've been wrong from birth.

00:41:28.000 You were just cursed with your inadequacies right at birth.

00:41:31.000 That can certainly happen.

00:41:33.000 And then you think, well, then who are you angry at?

00:41:36.000 Because you're angry at fate.

00:41:37.000 You know, you're angry at the structure of the world in general.

00:41:41.000 And what do you do?

00:41:42.000 You shake your fist in rage at that.

00:41:44.000 And maybe you take your revenge.

00:41:46.000 And that was certainly what happened in this particular situation.

00:41:50.000 And the school did a very bad job of intervening.

00:41:55.000 And so, anyways, as this person told the story, they came back to the world.

00:42:01.000 It was very interesting.

00:42:02.000 More and more coherent.

00:42:03.000 More and more able to speak in complete sentences.

00:42:09.000 And then in complete paragraphs.

00:42:11.000 Because if you're psychotic, you start to fragment.

00:42:13.000 Hey, right down to the level of the word.

00:42:14.000 If you're really psychotic, schizophrenic, your sentences no longer make sense.

00:42:20.000 The way you put words together don't add up to the kinds of utterances that other people could understand.

00:42:28.000 You have fragments of phrases and fragments of words.

00:42:31.000 And it's like the words only mean what they mean to you.

00:42:34.000 And not to someone else anymore.

00:42:36.000 And the crazier you are, to speak un-technically, the more fragmented your thinking gets.

00:42:43.000 So if you're manic, and you can be pretty off the rails if you're manic.

00:42:48.000 You can usually manage sentences and paragraphs pretty well.

00:42:51.000 But anything above that isn't very coherent.

00:42:54.000 But if you're schizophrenic, it's like even the words.

00:42:56.000 You've got the words.

00:42:58.000 Schizophrenics very seldomly invent whole new words.

00:43:02.000 But they often don't mean what other people think they mean.

00:43:06.000 And certainly the phrases don't.

00:43:07.000 And I could see her put herself back together bit by bit.

00:43:10.000 The phrases started to make sense.

00:43:11.000 The sentences started to make sense.

00:43:13.000 Paragraphs started to make sense.

00:43:15.000 And she started to make sense out of what this person was like.

00:43:19.000 And not only that, what people were like.

00:43:21.000 Not just this person that went after her.

00:43:24.000 Because it could have been some other person.

00:43:26.000 It's a part of human nature that that sort of thing can happen.

00:43:31.000 And she was too young and too naive to understand that anyone could go out to purposefully hurt someone.

00:43:39.000 And you know, that is a hell of a thing to encounter.

00:43:42.000 You know, and it's amazing it doesn't break all of us.

00:43:45.000 I think it does to some degree.

00:43:46.000 You know, because when we're young, we're naive.

00:43:49.000 And we think, well, we think, at least to some degree, that everybody's good.

00:43:53.000 And the world is a good place.

00:43:55.000 And then, you know, we're betrayed.

00:43:57.000 And then maybe we get cynical and bitter.

00:43:59.000 And we think, well, you can't trust anyone.

00:44:01.000 And, which is true.

00:44:03.000 It's true.

00:44:04.000 Well, it is.

00:44:05.000 It's true because everyone has the capacity to lie and deceive and betray and hurt.

00:44:12.000 Everyone has that capacity.

00:44:14.000 And so, including you.

00:44:15.000 And so then you might think, well, only a fool would trust.

00:44:19.000 And that actually makes you wiser than the naive person.

00:44:24.000 Because the naive person thinks, you know, they're friendly and they'll open themselves up.

00:44:28.000 And maybe they'll engage in relationships and all that.

00:44:30.000 But they're naive.

00:44:31.000 So what the hell do they know?

00:44:32.000 They know.

00:44:33.000 It's not like there's any mark of moral virtue there.

00:44:36.000 It's just foolishness.

00:44:37.000 I mean, it's a necessary foolishness.

00:44:39.000 And it's an understandable foolishness.

00:44:41.000 But there's nothing virtuous about naive optimism.

00:44:47.000 All it is is the viewpoint of an overprotected child.

00:44:52.000 And then you get hurt, betrayed.

00:44:55.000 Dante, when he wrote his book on hell, right?

00:44:58.000 The Inferno, it's a journey into hell.

00:45:03.000 Levels of evil.

00:45:04.000 Because that's what Dante was trying to do.

00:45:06.000 He was trying to map out the structure of evil.

00:45:08.000 It's a very, very, it's a very interesting book if you understand it in that light.

00:45:13.000 It's like, well, here's minor sins, you know.

00:45:17.000 Here's ways you could act that, well, you know, they're kind of everyday terrible.

00:45:24.000 But the deeper you go, the worse it gets.

00:45:27.000 And for Dante, the worst was the betrayers.

00:45:30.000 He had them right in the lowest level of hell.

00:45:32.000 Right beside Satan himself, who was encased in ice and unable to move.

00:45:36.000 Stubborn and arrogant and vicious and resentful.

00:45:39.000 Surrounded by the betrayers.

00:45:41.000 And I think that's good.

00:45:42.000 I think it's very accurate poetically.

00:45:44.000 Because, you know, when you betray someone, what you do is they trust you.

00:45:49.000 And trust is a necessary precondition for human interaction, right?

00:45:54.000 We can't, you and I can't interact together unless we trust each other.

00:45:58.000 Because I don't know what the hell you're up to.

00:46:00.000 And you don't know what I'm up to.

00:46:02.000 And I could be up to anything if you don't know what I'm up to.

00:46:06.000 And vice versa.

00:46:07.000 And so that means if I don't trust you, I have to be sitting there paranoid.

00:46:11.000 Thinking about which set of demonic snakes happens to be taking possession of your action right now.

00:46:18.000 And you have to be doing the same to me.

00:46:20.000 And it's unbelievably effortful and difficult and damaging.

00:46:24.000 And demoralizing.

00:46:28.000 And it interferes completely with any useful cooperation.

00:46:32.000 It's just a bloody catastrophe.

00:46:34.000 So what you have to do is trust.

00:46:36.000 And you think, well, why can you trust when people are capable of all the terrible things they're capable of?

00:46:42.000 And that's a hard question to answer when you've been hurt.

00:46:47.000 And everyone's been hurt.

00:46:49.000 So then you might ask, well, why should you trust?

00:46:53.000 Because that's for fools.

00:46:55.000 And the answer is, because it's what you do if you're courageous.

00:47:00.000 Once you're past cynicism.

00:47:02.000 Naivety, first.

00:47:04.000 Hurt, second.

00:47:06.000 Cynicism, third.

00:47:08.000 Trust.

00:47:09.000 Courage, fourth.

00:47:12.000 You say, okay, look.

00:47:13.000 The probability that you're any better than me is low.

00:47:16.000 And that's not so good.

00:47:18.000 But, you know, that doesn't define you entirely.

00:47:22.000 It doesn't define me entirely.

00:47:24.000 And so how is it that we can call the best out of each other instead of the worst?

00:47:29.000 And the answer is, well, you put your hand forward and trust.

00:47:31.000 And say, well, here's what I'm going to do.

00:47:34.000 And I'm going to act that out.

00:47:35.000 And here's what you're going to do.

00:47:37.000 And we have a mutually negotiated solution.

00:47:40.000 And we're going to assume that we can do it.

00:47:44.000 And with our eyes open, right?

00:47:46.000 Knowing that that could be a faulty solution.

00:47:49.000 And that we're both laying ourselves open to further betrayal.

00:47:53.000 But the upside is, it usually works.

00:47:57.000 You know, it's very, very common that the way you get the best out of someone.

00:48:04.000 Even if they're not good people.

00:48:06.000 Even if they've made many mistakes.

00:48:09.000 Is to trust them with your eyes open.

00:48:12.000 And that seems to call the best out of them.

00:48:14.000 So you say, okay, well, you have a duty to trust.

00:48:16.000 It's a duty of courage.

00:48:18.000 And it's not because you're naive or foolish.

00:48:20.000 And it's because you've decided to dispense with your cynicism.

00:48:24.000 And you're going to lay yourself open to the possibility of betrayal.

00:48:28.000 Because that's the best way of putting the world back into order.

00:48:31.000 And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's exactly right.

00:48:36.000 I think that's exactly right.

00:48:37.000 I think too.

00:48:38.000 And there's lots of moral actions that seem to me to be associated with courage.

00:48:44.000 That we don't associate with courage.

00:48:46.000 Because we don't understand them very well.

00:48:48.000 Trust is one.

00:48:50.000 Think, well, you can trust people because they're trustworthy.

00:48:52.000 No.

00:48:53.000 If you trust them, they might become trustworthy.

00:48:58.000 That's a whole different thing.

00:49:00.000 Gratitude is the same way.

00:49:02.000 You should be grateful.

00:49:04.000 First of all, it beats the hell out of being bitter.

00:49:07.000 Even though you have your reasons to be bitter.

00:49:09.000 Because bitter is a bad road.

00:49:11.000 It takes you to a bad place.

00:49:13.000 Whatever you're bitter about, you can bloody well be sure.

00:49:16.000 You're going to be much more bitter about the consequences of you being bitter.

00:49:22.000 Right?

00:49:23.000 It's a, you know, well that's it.

00:49:24.000 It's not a game that's an improvement.

00:49:27.000 So you have your reasons.

00:49:29.000 I was hurt.

00:49:30.000 You know, you say that.

00:49:31.000 I was hurt.

00:49:32.000 And really terribly.

00:49:33.000 Unforgivably, let's say.

00:49:34.000 And I'm bitter about it.

00:49:35.000 And so I'm going to withdraw from people.

00:49:37.000 And I'm going to be cynical.

00:49:38.000 And I'm going to be hurt.

00:49:39.000 And I'm going to seek revenge as a consequence.

00:49:42.000 It's like, well, go ahead.

00:49:44.000 What happens?

00:49:45.000 You end up in the same place that you were when everything that happened to you that hurt you happened.

00:49:52.000 Except worse.

00:49:54.000 So that just seems like a non-starter.

00:49:56.000 And so you replace bitterness with gratitude.

00:50:00.000 And the reason you do that is because you're courageous and brave.

00:50:06.000 Not because you're naive and foolish.

00:50:08.000 It's like you look and you think.

00:50:10.000 No matter how bad your life is.

00:50:12.000 And life can be pretty damn brutal.

00:50:14.000 There are things to be, many things to be grateful about.

00:50:18.000 You know?

00:50:19.000 I mean, you see people in dire straits.

00:50:22.000 And you'll be in dire straits.

00:50:23.000 And your family members will be in dire straits.

00:50:25.000 And, you know, when my daughter was ill.

00:50:28.000 Because she was ill for a long time.

00:50:29.000 We used to take her to the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.

00:50:33.000 And it was a nice hospital.

00:50:34.000 As far as a hospital full of sick kids could be.

00:50:37.000 You know?

00:50:38.000 The staff had done everything they could to make it the least amount of hell possible.

00:50:42.000 You know?

00:50:43.000 And we were taking her there for pretty damn serious reasons.

00:50:46.000 But then we'd pass, you know, the multiple organ transplant ward.

00:50:52.000 And think, God.

00:50:54.000 You know?

00:50:55.000 This is bad, but that.

00:51:00.000 This was hell.

00:51:01.000 But there's some hells underneath that.

00:51:03.000 You know?

00:51:04.000 And then there's the hell of the multiple transplant ward for your child while your marriage is falling apart.

00:51:08.000 There's that hell, too.

00:51:10.000 And maybe while you're losing your job.

00:51:12.000 You know?

00:51:13.000 And maybe losing your sanity at the same time.

00:51:15.000 It's like, the bottom's a very long way down, man.

00:51:19.000 And so, there's reasons to be grateful.

00:51:24.000 And you have to find them.

00:51:25.000 And there's a moral necessity to manifest them.

00:51:29.000 And the reason for that is because it's better if you do.

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00:51:35.000 And it is courageous to do that.

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00:54:31.000 All right, so I'm gonna put all that off to the side for a minute, and then I'm gonna start with something that's sort of simple, and I'm gonna build it into something that's complicated, and I hope I can manage this properly.

00:54:44.000 So, when you're a psychologist, one of the things you do is you expose people voluntarily to the things that they're afraid of, or disgusted by, and avoid that are in their way.

00:54:58.000 You know, you don't just teach people to go play in traffic because it's dangerous, but it isn't merely a matter of confronting danger. That's foolish.

00:55:08.000 It's confronting those things that frighten you and stop you that are obstacles on your way to getting to somewhere that you need to go.

00:55:17.000 So, for example, let's say that you want to move up your career and you're terrified of public speaking.

00:55:22.000 It's like, okay, well, if it's a sophisticated career, or any career for that matter, and you're terrified of public speaking, well then, that's an obstacle.

00:55:32.000 Like, you're not gonna get there. And so then, that's something that you have to face.

00:55:37.000 And if you're a good psychologist, you break it down. You know, you say, okay, well, you're afraid of public speaking.

00:55:42.000 What are you afraid of exactly? Can you talk to one person? You know, can you talk to three people?

00:55:48.000 Could you talk to three people for two minutes? Could you talk to three people for 30 seconds about what you did this morning?

00:55:55.000 Like, you can usually find some, first of all, almost everyone can talk to some other person, so it's not a matter of, like, elective mutism.

00:56:03.000 It isn't, I just can't speak. It's something other than that. It's like, well, I can't stand seeing all those eyes.

00:56:09.000 You know, one of the things I do when I'm public speaking is I just never talk to the crowd.

00:56:14.000 So you never talk to a crowd. The crowd's an illusion anyways. You just talk to people.

00:56:19.000 And I can talk to you. You know, we can sit and have a conversation.

00:56:22.000 That's what we're doing right now. And so I'm always looking at single people in the crowd.

00:56:26.000 And then there's no crowd. And it works way better that way.

00:56:30.000 Anyways, you help people break down their fears into smaller and smaller and smaller fears

00:56:35.000 until you find a fear that's manageable. You know, it's a dragon that's shrunk to manageable size.

00:56:42.000 See, I could stomp on that thing. No problem.

00:56:45.000 And, you know, and then you do. You move forward towards it and you overcome it.

00:56:50.000 And, you know, maybe what you do if you're afraid of public speaking is you're at a meeting

00:56:56.000 and you have some question that you need to have answered.

00:57:00.000 And it's an actual question because you want to play this straight.

00:57:03.000 And your first task is just ask a damn question at the meeting, you know.

00:57:09.000 And maybe you practice that with the therapist a little bit.

00:57:11.000 What might you say? And how would you look at people?

00:57:14.000 You don't look down at the table. You know, you look at a person's eyes, generally speaking.

00:57:19.000 And, you know, maybe you put your hands like this so that they're not rattling around

00:57:23.000 or doing all these things they might be doing while you're being nervous.

00:57:27.000 You practice it and then all of a sudden you find you can do it.

00:57:29.000 And then you pick the next most difficult thing that you can manage and you practice that.

00:57:34.000 And pretty soon you get okay at it.

00:57:38.000 I had another client who, when I first met her, couldn't go and have coffee with me at a coffee shop

00:57:46.000 downstairs where I had my clinic, even though I was her therapist.

00:57:50.000 That was out of her realm of capability.

00:57:53.000 And ten years after that, it took ten years, it's a long time,

00:57:57.000 she was doing stand-up comedy.

00:57:59.000 That's pretty good, you know.

00:58:01.000 I mean, I don't know if she was any good at it.

00:58:03.000 She had plenty of horrible stories to tell about her life

00:58:07.000 and everyone knows that's always funny.

00:58:09.000 But, you know, it was one step at a time for her.

00:58:13.000 And she got an unbelievable long way.

00:58:16.000 And you can get an unbelievably long way if you take things one small bit at a time.

00:58:24.000 That's part of humility too, you know.

00:58:26.000 Which is another virtue that we don't talk much about.

00:58:28.000 Humility is try not taking on a task that's bigger than you can manage.

00:58:34.000 You know?

00:58:35.000 And so if you have an ambition, I'm not saying don't be ambitious.

00:58:38.000 You should be ambitious.

00:58:39.000 I think you should be insanely ambitious in some sense.

00:58:42.000 And we'll get to that.

00:58:43.000 But, you know, that doesn't mean you get to go from here to saving the world

00:58:47.000 without any intervening effort.

00:58:50.000 You got to put...

00:58:51.000 You got to develop some skill.

00:58:53.000 And so you have to think,

00:58:54.000 well, if I'm going to get from here to here, from point A to point B,

00:58:57.000 and I have this thing in my way.

00:58:59.000 I'm afraid of public speaking.

00:59:01.000 I'm embarrassed about that.

00:59:02.000 And then I'm embarrassed about the fact that I have to do something so unbelievably trivial to overcome it

00:59:08.000 that I don't even want to talk to anyone about it

00:59:11.000 because it's so embarrassing to admit that I'm that afraid.

00:59:16.000 It's like, well, you're just dead in the water then.

00:59:18.000 You're stopped.

00:59:19.000 You have to think, yeah, I really do have this problem.

00:59:21.000 It's really that serious.

00:59:23.000 And I'm only capable of taking this tiny step forward.

00:59:27.000 You know?

00:59:28.000 And that's humility.

00:59:29.000 That's the best I can do.

00:59:31.000 It's like...

00:59:32.000 It's okay, though.

00:59:33.000 Because it turns out that if you start doing things right

00:59:36.000 in the direction of facing the things that you're avoiding,

00:59:39.000 it's really good to think about this in terms of what you avoid.

00:59:42.000 If you start to face the things that you're avoiding,

00:59:46.000 you get better and better at it faster and faster

00:59:50.000 in like a geometrical progression.

00:59:52.000 It's not linear.

00:59:53.000 You get a little better and then you get a little better

00:59:55.000 and then you get a lot better and then you get way better.

00:59:57.000 And it's quite quick.

00:59:59.000 So that's cool.

01:00:00.000 You start slow, but it tends to accelerate.

01:00:02.000 And so that's a worthwhile thing to know, too.

01:00:05.000 So even if you have to start, you know, with some...

01:00:09.000 Sometimes I was training people to not be afraid of elevators.

01:00:12.000 You know, they had agoraphobia.

01:00:14.000 And it was really a fear of death.

01:00:16.000 And public humiliation is at the bottom of agoraphobia.

01:00:20.000 So typical agoraphobic fantasy is that you'll go out somewhere,

01:00:26.000 a mall or a theater.

01:00:28.000 This is a good one.

01:00:29.000 You'll get trapped in the theater and you'll start having a heart attack.

01:00:31.000 And, well, then you're going to die.

01:00:33.000 And so, you know, that's not so good.

01:00:36.000 And, but worse, there's going to be all these people around you watching.

01:00:40.000 And so while you die, you're going to make a fool of yourself.

01:00:43.000 And so, and that's kind of the two big human fears, right?

01:00:46.000 There's fear of mortality.

01:00:48.000 And so that would be the heart attack itself.

01:00:50.000 And then there's fear of public exposure.

01:00:52.000 And if you're agoraphobic, then you get both at once.

01:00:55.000 It's like you're going to die and you're going to die like an idiot.

01:00:58.000 So, you know.

01:01:01.000 And it isn't even obvious to people necessarily which of those two are worse, you know.

01:01:06.000 But, but it, it doesn't matter.

01:01:09.000 And well, you can, you end up avoiding then places where you think something bad might happen to you.

01:01:14.000 And because something bad might happen to you anywhere.

01:01:17.000 Like you could just have a heart attack.

01:01:18.000 You could just have a heart attack right now if you wanted to.

01:01:21.000 Right where you're sitting.

01:01:22.000 You could have a heart attack wherever you are.

01:01:24.000 And so then you start avoiding places where you might have a heart attack.

01:01:28.000 But that's not very helpful because like where are you not going to have a heart attack?

01:01:33.000 And so what ends up is you're at home in your bed.

01:01:36.000 And you might have a heart attack there too.

01:01:38.000 But like where are you, where are you going to go?

01:01:41.000 You know, you're, you're at home in your bed.

01:01:44.000 You can't escape from that.

01:01:46.000 That's your, you're, that's it.

01:01:48.000 You've run away as much as you can.

01:01:50.000 And so then you have to go back out into the world.

01:01:52.000 And people get afraid of elevators, for example.

01:01:55.000 Because they think they'll get stuck in an elevator.

01:01:57.000 And you might.

01:01:58.000 And then you'll have a heart attack.

01:02:00.000 And then you won't be able to call a doctor.

01:02:01.000 And then you'll die.

01:02:02.000 And so, I remember one client, when I was doing exposure therapy with her.

01:02:10.000 The doors opened and she looked and she said, that's a tomb.

01:02:14.000 And I thought, that's exactly it.

01:02:16.000 And that's so interesting too.

01:02:17.000 Because that's kind of a place where you see the dream and the reality manifest itself

01:02:21.000 at the same point in the world.

01:02:23.000 Because, you know, for an ordinary person.

01:02:27.000 Well, an elevator is just a way of getting from one floor to another.

01:02:31.000 But when that dream pops up.

01:02:33.000 That dream of death and, and mortality.

01:02:36.000 Then the elevator becomes a tomb.

01:02:39.000 And the thing is, the world's a tomb.

01:02:41.000 She, she was never a mystery to me.

01:02:43.000 She was never a mystery to me.

01:02:44.000 It's like, well, why are you afraid of dying?

01:02:46.000 That, that's her.

01:02:47.000 She's afraid of dying.

01:02:48.000 It's like, I never asked her, well, why are you afraid of dying?

01:02:52.000 It's like, well, of course you're bloody well afraid of dying.

01:02:55.000 Who isn't afraid of dying?

01:02:57.000 What's really weird is that we're all not so petrified of dying every second of our lives.

01:03:02.000 That we just, everybody should be immobile on their bed, not moving.

01:03:07.000 Why?

01:03:08.000 Well, I might die.

01:03:09.000 It's like, well, yeah, it's true.

01:03:11.000 You might die.

01:03:12.000 It's like, well, how are you supposed to cope with that?

01:03:14.000 And the answer is, people don't know.

01:03:16.000 They just don't think about it.

01:03:17.000 And so the ordinary person is the mysterious person.

01:03:20.000 It's like, well, there you are going about your business.

01:03:22.000 Thoughts of death are generally not entering your mind.

01:03:25.000 Even though it could be your day to day.

01:03:28.000 It's like, so why aren't you petrified?

01:03:30.000 And the answer is, you don't know.

01:03:31.000 You have no idea how it is that you manage that emotional regulation.

01:03:35.000 Whereas someone who's developed agoraphobia, they've had all that protective layer peeled off.

01:03:41.000 And all of a sudden they're seeing the world in its stark reality.

01:03:45.000 And they just can't handle it.

01:03:47.000 And they were never mysterious to me.

01:03:50.000 It's like, oh, you're terrified out of your skull.

01:03:52.000 Well, that makes perfect sense.

01:03:53.000 I can understand that.

01:03:55.000 It's like, it's these normal people going about their business day to day.

01:03:59.000 It's like, how can they manage that?

01:04:02.000 Anyways, for her it was a tomb.

01:04:05.000 And I thought, yeah, well, fair enough.

01:04:07.000 You know, it's a low probability tomb.

01:04:09.000 But what are you going to do?

01:04:10.000 Just someone, you say, look.

01:04:12.000 Look.

01:04:13.000 You're probably not going to die in the elevator.

01:04:18.000 And they think, no, you don't get it.

01:04:21.000 Infinite threat times tiny probability still constitutes far too much threat.

01:04:28.000 And so you can never argue someone out of a phobia or fear for exactly that reason.

01:04:33.000 It's like, I don't care how small the probability that I might die in the next 15 minutes is.

01:04:39.000 That's not the point.

01:04:40.000 The point is that I might die.

01:04:42.000 It's not the probability issue.

01:04:45.000 So what do you do with someone like that?

01:04:48.000 Because in some sense they've realized the truth of the world.

01:04:51.000 But they've only realized part of the truth.

01:04:53.000 That's the thing that's so interesting about doing exposure therapy in psychotherapy.

01:04:58.000 And it's so interesting about people in general.

01:05:01.000 Because you re-socialize them in some sense.

01:05:04.000 You say, well, look.

01:05:09.000 You're afraid of elevators.

01:05:10.000 Let's see if we can play with that a little bit.

01:05:12.000 We can play with your fear.

01:05:13.000 It's like, how do you feel about sitting?

01:05:15.000 Well, how do we sit at my computer screen and we just...

01:05:18.000 We'll type in the elevator on Google and get a bunch of images of elevators.

01:05:23.000 And we'll just sit here and look at them for a while.

01:05:25.000 And the person thinks, I'd rather not.

01:05:28.000 And we say, well, you know, I'd rather not look at a bunch of bloody elevator pictures either.

01:05:33.000 It's not really the point, you know.

01:05:35.000 But, like, could you do it?

01:05:38.000 Could you do it?

01:05:39.000 Could you look at one?

01:05:40.000 Could we see what would happen if you looked at one?

01:05:43.000 It's like, well, yeah, I could do that.

01:05:46.000 So then you pop up a picture of an elevator and you say to the person,

01:05:49.000 well, how are you feeling about this?

01:05:52.000 And, you know, they say, well, you know, I can feel my heart rate start to pound

01:05:57.000 because that's a symptom of agoraphobia.

01:05:59.000 And you say, well, just look at the damn thing for a while and see what happens.

01:06:05.000 Just watch it.

01:06:06.000 Just look at it.

01:06:07.000 It's important to look at it because you're searching it out with your eyes.

01:06:11.000 You're exploring with your eyes because your eyes are always moving constantly.

01:06:15.000 They're exploratory organs.

01:06:17.000 They're not just flat, what would you call, automatic processes of the world.

01:06:24.000 They're very, they're like fingers.

01:06:27.000 You're feeling the world with your eyes and looking at things.

01:06:30.000 Just really look at that damn picture.

01:06:32.000 Look at the doors and don't avoid, just look at it.

01:06:36.000 And they do that and, you know, maybe for two or three minutes.

01:06:39.000 And then you say, well, how are you doing?

01:06:41.000 And they say, well, I'm feeling better about this.

01:06:43.000 You say, well, why don't you just look at the damn thing until you're bored?

01:06:48.000 Because that's what you want.

01:06:49.000 You go in a hallway and you see an elevator, you're bored.

01:06:51.000 Well, congratulations.

01:06:52.000 You're healthy.

01:06:53.000 It's like you're not terrified of the elevator.

01:06:55.000 It's like it's, it's just, you don't even see it.

01:06:58.000 It's a memory icon actually to you.

01:07:01.000 It doesn't bother you.

01:07:03.000 And for the person who's terrified of it, it's no longer a memory icon.

01:07:06.000 It's like a tomb.

01:07:07.000 It's like, okay, I'm bored.

01:07:08.000 Okay, well, how about we look at like five other pictures of elevators?

01:07:12.000 It's like, okay, and you do the same thing and they do that.

01:07:15.000 And at the end of the session, they're bored of looking at elevator pictures.

01:07:20.000 And that's good.

01:07:21.000 It's like, that's a successful session.

01:07:23.000 And then there's a bunch of reasons.

01:07:25.000 One is, well, they're no longer, they're less afraid of something than they were.

01:07:30.000 That's cool.

01:07:31.000 But what's even more cool, and this is way more important than the fact that they're no longer afraid,

01:07:37.000 is that they're braver.

01:07:39.000 Because that's the thing about therapy.

01:07:42.000 And this is the thing about human learning, you see.

01:07:45.000 Is you don't learn, except if you're naive, you don't learn to not be afraid.

01:07:52.000 You learn that you can cope and be brave.

01:07:55.000 And those are way different things.

01:07:57.000 Because to be not afraid means there's no danger.

01:08:00.000 Well, that's not wisdom.

01:08:03.000 There's danger, man.

01:08:04.000 There's you.

01:08:05.000 You're dangerous enough.

01:08:06.000 That's bloody well for sure.

01:08:07.000 And everyone who knows you knows that.

01:08:09.000 And if you don't know they know that, that just means you don't know that they know you.

01:08:13.000 Or they don't tell you.

01:08:15.000 You know?

01:08:16.000 And your partner's dangerous.

01:08:17.000 And other people are dangerous.

01:08:18.000 And nature's dangerous.

01:08:20.000 And society is an oppressive patriarchy.

01:08:23.000 And it's dangerous.

01:08:24.000 And it's like, it's bloody well danger everywhere.

01:08:27.000 And so, being not afraid, it's like, that's just foolishness.

01:08:34.000 But being brave, that's a whole different thing.

01:08:37.000 Because then maybe it doesn't matter that it's danger, that the danger is there.

01:08:41.000 And maybe what you learn is that despite the fact that the danger is there, there's something in you that gives you enough courage so that no matter how much danger there is, you can actually manage it.

01:08:54.000 And then the question then would be, well, what do you mean manage?

01:08:57.000 And it's like, well, that's a good question.

01:09:00.000 It might mean more than merely tolerate.

01:09:03.000 You know?

01:09:04.000 I mean, we mastered fire, human beings.

01:09:06.000 You know?

01:09:07.000 That was no trivial thing.

01:09:08.000 Fire is very dangerous.

01:09:10.000 You can be sure that there were a lot of singed African apes playing with fire for thousands of years before they got it right.

01:09:19.000 You know?

01:09:20.000 And fire is extraordinarily dangerous.

01:09:22.000 And it's so attractive to us, in part because of its danger, that we can't even not look at it.

01:09:28.000 Hey?

01:09:29.000 We're all descendants of arsonist apes, obviously.

01:09:32.000 Because you know what it's like to sit around a campfire.

01:09:34.000 It's like it beats the hell out of television.

01:09:36.000 You sit around a campfire, there's five or six of you.

01:09:39.000 You're not really doing anything.

01:09:40.000 Maybe you're drinking some beer.

01:09:41.000 It's like, you're watching the campfire and you're thinking, man, that's so interesting.

01:09:44.000 I could just watch that campfire forever.

01:09:47.000 And it's a neurological issue.

01:09:49.000 You don't get habituated to a campfire.

01:09:51.000 It never becomes boring.

01:09:52.000 It's always interesting.

01:09:54.000 And it's because you're fascinated right to the core by fire.

01:09:57.000 And it's because we mastered fire maybe two million years ago.

01:10:00.000 It completely transformed us.

01:10:02.000 Transformed our diet.

01:10:03.000 Transformed everything.

01:10:04.000 And it's because, well, we're the descendants of creatures that just could not stop looking at fire.

01:10:12.000 You know?

01:10:13.000 And so we mastered it.

01:10:16.000 Something unbelievably dangerous, right?

01:10:18.000 It's not just fire.

01:10:19.000 It's explosions.

01:10:20.000 You know?

01:10:21.000 It's smelting.

01:10:23.000 It's foundries.

01:10:24.000 It's munitions.

01:10:25.000 It's gunpowder.

01:10:26.000 It's bloody hydrogen bombs.

01:10:28.000 It's like, it's a big deal to master that sort of explosive force.

01:10:34.000 And we did it.

01:10:35.000 And so we're not afraid of it.

01:10:37.000 Even though the danger hasn't disappeared, we've mastered it.

01:10:42.000 Well, that's better.

01:10:43.000 That's better than no fear.

01:10:47.000 Mastery.

01:10:48.000 And so the person looks at the, the person looks at the, at the, the pictures of the, of the elevators.

01:11:00.000 And, and they walk away and they think, hey, I could do that.

01:11:07.000 That's so cool.

01:11:08.000 Here I saw, I thought I was so afraid.

01:11:10.000 And it turns out that I just, you know, put myself out a little bit and I could do it.

01:11:16.000 And so they walk away knowing that there's more to them than they thought.

01:11:21.000 Because they thought they were the sort of thing that had to run away when they were afraid.

01:11:24.000 But now all of a sudden they learned that they're not necessarily the sort of thing that has to run away when they're afraid.

01:11:29.000 They're the sort of thing that can turn around and look.

01:11:32.000 That's like my friend looked when he was looking at his dreams.

01:11:35.000 He could turn around and look.

01:11:37.000 And that would change.

01:11:38.000 Because he could discover that he was the sort of thing that could turn around and confront what was frightening.

01:11:44.000 And so then the next time the person comes in, you say, okay, well, you looked at a bunch of pictures.

01:11:51.000 Maybe you do a couple pictures again just to warm them up, you know, because now they're a little nervous again.

01:11:57.000 And then you take them out in the hallway where there's an elevator.

01:12:00.000 And you say, okay, well, you know, there's an elevator out there in the hallway.

01:12:03.000 And you say, yeah, yeah, I know, I took the stairs.

01:12:05.000 It's like, how about if we go out and look at the elevator?

01:12:08.000 You think you could do that?

01:12:09.000 It's like, well, I don't want to get too close.

01:12:11.000 It's like, yeah, okay, I don't care.

01:12:13.000 You're 100 feet away, man.

01:12:15.000 You know, maybe you barely see the elevator.

01:12:17.000 Could you do that?

01:12:18.000 Or could you just imagine the elevator?

01:12:20.000 Well, they can do that.

01:12:22.000 Say, well, yeah, I can look at the damn elevator from 100 feet away.

01:12:25.000 So out you go in the hallway and you're 100 feet away or 10 feet away or 30 feet away.

01:12:29.000 And you say, well, how are you doing?

01:12:30.000 And they're thinking, well, I'm a little nervous.

01:12:33.000 And you think, well, just think about the elevator doors openings.

01:12:36.000 And I don't want to think about that.

01:12:38.000 So I'll just think about it for a minute.

01:12:40.000 100 feet away, whatever.

01:12:42.000 You know, they open.

01:12:44.000 Some people get out.

01:12:45.000 They close.

01:12:46.000 That's that.

01:12:48.000 Think about that a few times.

01:12:49.000 And they calm down.

01:12:51.000 So they say, well, how about if we go like 20 feet closer to the elevator?

01:12:56.000 And they think, yeah, I think I can do that.

01:12:58.000 So they get, you know, 10 feet away from the elevator.

01:13:01.000 And they're kind of nervous.

01:13:02.000 And you get them to stand there until they're sort of bored of the whole elevator thing,

01:13:06.000 which is good because now they're starting to replace that horrible tomb with a memory icon.

01:13:11.000 And maybe the doors open and they kind of startle.

01:13:14.000 And you have them do that a couple of times so they calm back down.

01:13:18.000 And you say, well, is that enough for today?

01:13:21.000 Or do you think you can go a little further?

01:13:23.000 And it could be enough.

01:13:24.000 Or maybe they want to go a little further.

01:13:25.000 And you say, well, how about if you just go and put your hand on the elevator?

01:13:28.000 And we'll call it a day.

01:13:30.000 So they do that.

01:13:31.000 Put their hand on their elevator.

01:13:33.000 And they're pretty damn happy about that.

01:13:34.000 Because maybe it's the first time they've done it in 10 years.

01:13:37.000 And they've been in their bloody bedroom for 10 years, you know.

01:13:40.000 They haven't been able to get out.

01:13:42.000 It's no joke.

01:13:43.000 And so they put their hand on death.

01:13:45.000 And they think, I can do that.

01:13:47.000 And they leave.

01:13:48.000 And then the next time they come back, you say, okay, well, this is what we're going to do.

01:13:51.000 We're going to go up to the elevator.

01:13:53.000 And I'm not planning tricks on you.

01:13:55.000 So you don't play tricks on your clients if you're a psychotherapist.

01:13:58.000 If you have any sense at all.

01:13:59.000 Say, I'm just going to, the doors are going to open.

01:14:02.000 I'm going to hold them open.

01:14:04.000 And you're just going to look inside.

01:14:06.000 And it might buzz.

01:14:07.000 So be prepared for that.

01:14:08.000 Because that might startle you.

01:14:09.000 It might buzz.

01:14:10.000 But I'm not letting them go.

01:14:12.000 And there's no tricks.

01:14:14.000 But what you have to do is just poke your head in.

01:14:17.000 But when you poke your head in, don't just look at the ground.

01:14:20.000 Don't avoid.

01:14:21.000 Look inside.

01:14:23.000 Look in the corners.

01:14:25.000 Look up.

01:14:26.000 Look around.

01:14:27.000 See that it's an elevator.

01:14:28.000 It's not a place full of snakes and rats and poisonous spiders.

01:14:31.000 Right?

01:14:32.000 Because that's that dream that would be manifesting itself as threat.

01:14:38.000 So they look in.

01:14:40.000 And they look around.

01:14:41.000 And they see that it's, you know, it's just a box.

01:14:45.000 And maybe it's a box that you could die in like you could die anywhere.

01:14:49.000 But it's just a box.

01:14:51.000 And then maybe by the end of that, you get them to step in the elevator.

01:14:55.000 And look around.

01:14:57.000 And step out.

01:14:59.000 And maybe if you're lucky, you actually get them to go down one floor.

01:15:03.000 Say, I'll come down one floor with you.

01:15:05.000 Doors will open.

01:15:07.000 They say, well, what if we get trapped in here?

01:15:09.000 It's like, well, what if we get trapped in here?

01:15:11.000 What are we going to do?

01:15:13.000 We're going to sit down.

01:15:14.000 We're going to phone.

01:15:16.000 We're going to sit down.

01:15:18.000 We're going to calm ourselves down.

01:15:20.000 It's not going to be too big a catastrophe.

01:15:22.000 I'll be here with you.

01:15:24.000 We're going to cope with it.

01:15:25.000 We're going to cope with it.

01:15:26.000 You don't say, well, the chances of getting trapped in the elevator are very low.

01:15:29.000 It's like, that's not the point.

01:15:31.000 The point is, what do you do if the bad thing happens?

01:15:34.000 That's the point.

01:15:35.000 And so then, you know, they can take the elevator.

01:15:38.000 And then next week, maybe you take it ten times until they're bored of taking the damn elevator.

01:15:42.000 And then they come to therapy and they take the elevator all the time.

01:15:46.000 And so that's good.

01:15:48.000 And then they start taking taxis.

01:15:49.000 And then they start going out into theaters again.

01:15:53.000 Because agoraphobic people tend not to like theaters.

01:15:55.000 Because they don't like being trapped in the middle of the audience, for example.

01:15:59.000 And then maybe they have a terrible fight with their husband.

01:16:02.000 That's very common.

01:16:04.000 Often agoraphobic people are women.

01:16:06.000 Not always, but often.

01:16:08.000 Men are more often alcoholic and antisocial.

01:16:12.000 Women are more likely to have anxiety disorders.

01:16:14.000 But then maybe the woman has a fight with her husband.

01:16:17.000 And maybe she hasn't had a fight with him for like ten years.

01:16:20.000 And the reason for that was there's no damn way she wanted him to leave.

01:16:23.000 And the reason for that was she was really dependent on him.

01:16:26.000 And she needed to be dependent on him because she was too afraid.

01:16:29.000 And so now all of a sudden she's not so afraid.

01:16:31.000 Because she's braver.

01:16:35.000 She's got some more courage.

01:16:37.000 And you know, maybe sometimes you even get resistance from the family members.

01:16:41.000 While improvement is going on.

01:16:43.000 Because sometimes there's some utility in having someone who's absolutely passive around.

01:16:47.000 Right?

01:16:48.000 They're not going to threaten you or push you in any possible way.

01:16:50.000 Because, well, for obvious reasons.

01:16:52.000 And now all of a sudden, they're standing up straight with their shoulders back.

01:16:56.000 You know?

01:16:57.000 They've got a little bit of courage in the world.

01:16:58.000 And they're able to, and willing to say some things that they might not have been willing to say.

01:17:03.000 Because one of the things that's so cool about courage is that it generalizes.

01:17:08.000 You know?

01:17:09.000 You know?

01:17:10.000 Bravery generalizes.

01:17:11.000 And the more you practice it, the better you get at it.

01:17:14.000 And that's part of that.

01:17:15.000 That's part of that.

01:17:18.000 What would you call a deep story of the world?

01:17:22.000 You know?

01:17:23.000 Let me see if I can put it together this way.

01:17:26.000 If you have a child and you want the child to clean up his room.

01:17:32.000 Maybe he's two and a half or three.

01:17:35.000 And, you know, if you have a two and a half year old and you put them in a room.

01:17:39.000 Unless everything's behind doors.

01:17:41.000 The bloody place is a disaster in 15 seconds.

01:17:44.000 Because they just pull everything off the shelves.

01:17:46.000 It's like they're little agents of chaos.

01:17:48.000 Right?

01:17:49.000 Order.

01:17:50.000 Child.

01:17:51.000 Chaos.

01:17:52.000 You say, well, could you clean up the room?

01:17:55.000 Because you're not very smart as a parent.

01:17:58.000 And you go away for 10 minutes and you come back.

01:18:00.000 And it's like, it's not any more orderly.

01:18:03.000 In fact, it's probably worse.

01:18:05.000 And the child is sitting there, I don't know, playing with something.

01:18:08.000 And looks at you when you come in.

01:18:10.000 And nothing's changed.

01:18:12.000 And you think, what the hell's wrong with you?

01:18:14.000 Stupid child.

01:18:15.000 It's like, I told you to clean up this room.

01:18:17.000 And it's no better.

01:18:18.000 And it's like, well, it's the adult that's stupid.

01:18:21.000 It's not the child in that circumstance.

01:18:24.000 Not that children can't be stupid.

01:18:26.000 If you've had children, you know perfectly well that they can be stupid.

01:18:29.000 You were children.

01:18:30.000 And you were stupid when you were children.

01:18:32.000 And your children were stupid when they were children.

01:18:35.000 And it's just the way of life.

01:18:37.000 But you know, if you have a two and a half year old, you can say,

01:18:40.000 Alright, kiddo.

01:18:42.000 You see that teddy bear?

01:18:44.000 And by that time they know what a teddy bear is.

01:18:47.000 So that works.

01:18:48.000 You're using your words to signify something the child understands.

01:18:53.000 And so they're pretty happy about that.

01:18:54.000 Because children are happy when you say something to them and they understand it.

01:18:59.000 And they're always trying to communicate in a way that gets adults to understand it.

01:19:03.000 It's part of the way they check the world out for truth.

01:19:05.000 And so if you could say something to a child and they understand.

01:19:08.000 Unless it's like a baby thing that they're tired of.

01:19:12.000 They're happy.

01:19:13.000 It's like, yeah, I know what the teddy bear is.

01:19:15.000 It's like, so good.

01:19:16.000 Pat them on the head.

01:19:18.000 You want to pick up that teddy bear?

01:19:20.000 It's like, oh yeah, I can do that.

01:19:22.000 You pick up the teddy bear.

01:19:23.000 They show it to you.

01:19:24.000 And you say, that's good.

01:19:25.000 You picked up the teddy bear.

01:19:26.000 Good work.

01:19:27.000 That's positive reinforcement, right?

01:19:29.000 You say, you see the shelf over there?

01:19:32.000 Yes.

01:19:33.000 I see the shelf.

01:19:34.000 You see, there's a hole in the shelf.

01:19:36.000 A space.

01:19:37.000 Maybe you have to walk over and say, see this space in the shelf?

01:19:40.000 It's beside your favorite book.

01:19:42.000 The kid says, yes.

01:19:43.000 Do you think you could take that teddy bear and you could pick it up and you could walk

01:19:48.000 over there and you could put the teddy bear in the hole on the shelf by the book?

01:19:53.000 And they think, you know, I think I could do that.

01:19:56.000 So they go over and they put the teddy bear in there and then they look at you.

01:20:01.000 And the reason they're looking at you is they're thinking, what's the emotional significance

01:20:05.000 of that event?

01:20:07.000 And if you're smiling, then they think, oh, that was a good thing.

01:20:10.000 And if you're frowning, then they think, oh, something's wrong or I must have done something

01:20:14.000 wrong.

01:20:15.000 So this is a good thing to know if you're a parent or if you're a human being.

01:20:20.000 If you know people, and you do, and the person that you're talking to does something, I'm

01:20:29.000 telling you, if this is all you remember from tonight, this is worth the admission and the

01:20:35.000 trouble.

01:20:36.000 If the person you're talking to does something that you want them to do, don't punish them

01:20:44.000 for it.

01:20:45.000 Right?

01:20:46.000 Don't punish them for it.

01:20:48.000 You might think, well, of course you should have done that.

01:20:50.000 I've seen people do this at mealtimes all the time.

01:20:52.000 You know, somebody makes a nice meal and no one says thank you.

01:20:55.000 And you point it out and say, well, why didn't you say thank you?

01:20:57.000 So, well, that's just what you're supposed to do.

01:20:59.000 It's like, look, do you want like miserable, wretched, burnt garbage for the rest of your

01:21:06.000 life delivered with hatred and contempt?

01:21:09.000 Or, yeah, because that would justify my cynicism.

01:21:12.000 It's like, or do you want meals to be innovative, delicious, prepared properly, and served with

01:21:22.000 a certain amount of love?

01:21:23.000 How would that be since you're going to do it three times a day for the rest of your life?

01:21:27.000 How would that be if you could have that?

01:21:29.000 That's like an hour a day, so that's an hour a meal, that's three hours a day.

01:21:35.000 It's 21 hours a week, so that's half a work week per week of mealtime.

01:21:40.000 So that's in a year, that's six months of work days.

01:21:44.000 Fixed for the rest of your life.

01:21:47.000 And all you have to do is say, you know, you have to use your head.

01:21:51.000 You have to think, okay, what went right with this meal that I would like to have duplicated?

01:21:56.000 And could I call some attention to it in an honest way and say, you know, you did that

01:22:01.000 really well, thank you.

01:22:03.000 The person thinks, oh, thank you, wow, man, God, who knows, maybe I'll repeat that.

01:22:09.000 You know?

01:22:10.000 Or something approximating.

01:22:11.000 You do that a hundred times, you know?

01:22:13.000 And then you can have that little part of your life, which is not so little.

01:22:16.000 You can have that thing working pretty, in a pretty pristine way.

01:22:20.000 And it wouldn't be so bad to have, like, a lifetime of decent, caring meals laid out

01:22:25.000 in front of you.

01:22:26.000 You know, that'd take care of about 10% of your miserable life right there.

01:22:31.000 So, it's really, it's so important, it's so important to get these things right, man.

01:22:37.000 You know, because your days are made up of small, everyday things that you repeat.

01:22:43.000 You know, it's like two, you come home at night from your job, and you meet your family

01:22:49.000 at the door, and that can be, you know, good or not good.

01:22:52.000 And it's like 20 minutes, say, or 15 minutes, whatever.

01:22:55.000 But it happens every day.

01:22:56.000 So, again, in a week, it happens seven times, so let's call that an hour.

01:23:00.000 And so, in a month, that's four hours, and it's a year, it's 48 hours, so it's a whole

01:23:05.000 week, work week.

01:23:07.000 It's one, it's 2% of your life.

01:23:10.000 All you have to do is fix 50 things like that, and your whole life is fixed.

01:23:14.000 You think, okay, well, how would I want it to be when I come home at work?

01:23:18.000 What would make me happy?

01:23:20.000 You know?

01:23:21.000 And being met by angry, bitter people, apart from your dog, you know, who at least,

01:23:26.000 hopefully, is happy to see you, that's not a good way.

01:23:29.000 And so, maybe you think about it, and you practice a little bit.

01:23:31.000 You say, well, when one of us comes home, this is how we're going to do this.

01:23:34.000 This is how we're going to do it.

01:23:35.000 And then you've got the whole coming home thing down, and now you've got the meal thing

01:23:39.000 down, and maybe you can get the how to put your children to bed without having a goddamn

01:23:44.000 war about it every night thing down.

01:23:46.000 That'll take care of another 10 years of hatred and hassle.

01:23:49.000 And, you know, there's a variety of things you can do at a low level like that.

01:23:54.000 Well, anyways, you have your kid, you say, all right.

01:23:58.000 Teddy bear in the shelf.

01:24:01.000 Good work.

01:24:03.000 Then maybe you do that with three or four more things.

01:24:06.000 And like you scaffolded cleaning up.

01:24:08.000 You say, well, that's how you clean up your room.

01:24:11.000 You know, you find things that you know, one thing, and then you figure out where the thing

01:24:16.000 goes, and then you put the thing there, and then you repeat that.

01:24:20.000 And so, and you can't just tell a child to clean up their room unless they know that.

01:24:25.000 They have to have those elementary behavioral units mastered before they can compile them

01:24:31.000 together into the abstraction that you would label, clean up your room.

01:24:36.000 And so you practice that.

01:24:37.000 And it's kind of a pain because, you know, it'd be a lot easier for you just to go in

01:24:41.000 there and clean up.

01:24:42.000 It wouldn't because it'd make you bitter and angry that you always have to clean up after

01:24:46.000 your damn ungrateful child.

01:24:48.000 But, but instead you could take the time and lay out the, the microprocesses and reward

01:24:55.000 each of them and scaffold them.

01:24:57.000 See, and this is how you scaffold the development of someone.

01:25:01.000 It's how you scaffold the development of your own character.

01:25:03.000 It's, it's how people are built.

01:25:06.000 We have these little micro routines.

01:25:07.000 They're little micro moral actions, like, like putting your toy away in the right place.

01:25:12.000 And then putting all 50 toys in the right place.

01:25:15.000 And then making your bed.

01:25:16.000 And then, you know, your room is clean.

01:25:18.000 And then, well, maybe outside of that you can learn to set the table.

01:25:21.000 And so what you do is you take the child and you say, well, picking up teddy bear,

01:25:26.000 putting teddy bear away, cleaning up room, taking some charge of household chores,

01:25:32.000 being a relatively responsible child.

01:25:37.000 No, let's move one down.

01:25:38.000 Doing a certain degree of school work when that becomes necessary.

01:25:42.000 Learning how to play with your friends properly and taking turns.

01:25:46.000 Being a reasonably responsible child.

01:25:48.000 Turning into a reasonably responsible teenager.

01:25:52.000 Making your way in the world as a responsible adult.

01:25:55.000 Being a good person.

01:25:57.000 Right?

01:25:58.000 That's the hierarchy.

01:26:00.000 That's the hierarchy.

01:26:01.000 And that's how you look.

01:26:02.000 That's how you look at the world.

01:26:04.000 So you look at the world with those micro routines.

01:26:07.000 You know, because say right now I'm thirsty, which I am.

01:26:10.000 And so I'm going to go over here and I can recognize this.

01:26:12.000 And I know how to do this.

01:26:13.000 And.

01:26:14.000 Yes.

01:26:15.000 Well, thank you.

01:26:16.000 Thank you.

01:26:17.000 Now I'm much more likely to do it again.

01:26:18.000 B.F. Skinner was a famous psychologist.

01:26:19.000 He was very interested in reinforcement strategies.

01:26:20.000 And he told people these stories.

01:26:21.000 You could reinforce people for behavior.

01:26:22.000 And so his class played a trick on him.

01:26:23.000 Which was that they never paid attention to him if he was on the left side of the room.

01:26:29.000 And like a month into the class, they had him damn near out the door lecturing.

01:26:45.000 So, yeah.

01:26:46.000 It's very funny.

01:26:47.000 so yeah it's very funny so so you know you you get this scaffolding process built you build all

01:26:54.340 these little micro routines and you get the person up to be a good person and being a good person

01:26:58.940 isn't an abstraction because it's composed of all these little micro routines right so it's an

01:27:04.180 abstraction when you say be a good person but it's not an abstraction when you decompose it

01:27:09.420 and when your child's two and a half and they didn't clean up their room you don't go in there

01:27:12.760 and say you're a horrible child you know because the abstraction level is wrong you could say well

01:27:19.380 you're not very good at you're not very good at looking at the teddy bear and the child might be

01:27:24.680 able to tolerate that i mean it's unnecessary but at least it's not a devastating assault on their

01:27:29.500 entire character which i would also recommend against if you're having a discussion with your

01:27:35.000 wife or your husband you're a terrible husband you've always been a terrible husband and the

01:27:40.960 probability that you're going to change is very low it's like that's a that's a war like what what

01:27:47.880 the hell are you supposed to do with that agree well well you could then you really win it's like

01:27:54.340 you're right man i am that terrible and you ain't seen nothing yet so that's not good and instead you

01:28:02.200 know you you decompose it you think okay well i'm irritated at this person and so and maybe that's me

01:28:07.880 so you could say well i'm irritated at you and but that's maybe me because maybe there's something

01:28:12.860 wrong with me today so why don't we find out who's the cause of the irritation here first we could have

01:28:17.620 that conversation and then maybe we could figure out well there is something a bit wrong in our

01:28:22.640 communication and then we could think well what's the smallest thing we could do to set that right that

01:28:27.700 would make both of us happy that we could just try for like a day just to see if it would work

01:28:32.840 and that that's also unbelievably useful it's so useful that information it's like if you're having

01:28:37.840 a fight shrink the damn thing use the smallest weapon you possibly can to enter into the argument

01:28:45.760 with and then find the minimal unit of improvement that you would accept it's like we have a rule in

01:28:52.520 our house we're having a fight what can i do to make you happy well you have to tell me well if you

01:28:58.820 loved me you'd figure it out it's like no i'm not that smart or i don't love you that much i don't

01:29:05.400 know which it is but you have the problem please offer me a solution well what if you tried this

01:29:13.340 well i don't think i could go that far well is there something a little less what if you try okay

01:29:17.980 i'll try that we'll try that see how it goes okay you won now you don't get to bother me about this

01:29:24.840 anymore that's another rule you win arguments over that's annoying eh because if you're arguing with

01:29:30.700 someone and then they admit that you're right it's really annoying because you don't want just to be

01:29:35.360 right you want to be right and stomp them a good one and so and then if they're if they're annoying

01:29:40.920 and they just let you win and admit you're right then they've deprived you of all the pleasure of

01:29:45.200 being able to stomp them and so it's very rude of them but in any case this process of decomposition

01:29:51.800 is unbelievably useful it's like take the problem apart until you hit the smallest possible unit of

01:29:58.140 improvement and then see if you can implement that as a solution you know and you don't have to do that

01:30:03.580 very many times you have to think what's what am i unhappy about in my relationship okay that's the

01:30:10.220 first thing and that i'm with the wrong person it's like no sorry no vague besides if you're with the

01:30:17.520 wrong person now and you leave the person you're with you will be with another person and they will

01:30:22.500 also be the wrong person because you're probably the wrong person and so and what makes you think

01:30:28.360 you're going to trade up anyways it's not like you're any better than you were five years ago

01:30:34.500 you know you're older and uglier at least so

01:30:37.520 all right so you get your child now and and you you've got the micro routines down and you've

01:30:47.320 reinforced them and you're trying to do that with yourself and you're trying to do that with the

01:30:50.500 people you love and then what's on the outermost edges of that well that's where the courage comes

01:30:55.780 it's like well to be a good person well what does it mean when you when you get when you get be when

01:31:01.360 you start to you're cleaning your room you're you're interacting with your family properly you're

01:31:06.940 interacting with your friends properly right you're bearing your responsibility you're a you're

01:31:12.720 truthful that's starting to become abstract you're a good person okay what does it mean that you're a

01:31:18.700 good person what's outside of that in some sense well then that's when the the big story starts to

01:31:25.820 kick in it's like okay well what's the world like at the at the biggest level the biggest conceptual

01:31:31.120 level well there's there's the absolute unknown that surrounds us right the fact that we're all

01:31:37.660 finite ignorant creatures and there's much we don't understand and so we could say well here's one thing

01:31:44.020 that's about being a good person it's like forthrightly confront that which you do not understand

01:31:51.260 that's a good thing you wake up in the morning you've got the day laid out in front of you with all of

01:31:56.700 its possibility all of the things you could do with it for better or worse you think i'm going to

01:32:01.720 confront my obligations i'm going to set what i need to do i'm going to set right what i can set right

01:32:09.240 for the day right frightening as it might be i'm going to confront that dragon that constitutes the

01:32:15.480 possibility of the day and i'm going to take from it and distribute what i can it's like hey that's good

01:32:22.260 that's a good thing that's that's the that's the core of that's the core of positive humanity

01:32:27.780 might say well and you can decompose that that unknown you can say well there's the unknown of

01:32:32.740 the natural world right you know maybe maybe you're taking care of someone with alzheimer's disease

01:32:38.680 and that's bloody rough and so you're confronting the terror of the natural world in that sense and

01:32:43.880 you think i'm going to get up and i'm going to try to make this day i'm going to make the sacrifices

01:32:49.880 that are necessary and take on the responsibility that i have to to make this day the least amount

01:32:55.800 of hell possible and to improve what i can and so then you've construed yourself as that which can

01:33:03.140 courageously confront the horrors of the natural world right in its most elemental form so that's good

01:33:09.820 and then you might think well um there's the social world maybe you have a job and you you're

01:33:22.620 working for someone who's somewhat of a tyrant you know and it's a problem that you're wrestling with

01:33:28.160 it's keeping you up at night and you wake up in the morning and you think you know i've got a few

01:33:33.260 things that i need to get off my chest i've got a few things that i need to say i have to think this

01:33:38.140 through strategically because i'm not happy at my job and the reason for that is i'm not being

01:33:43.080 treated properly and and things aren't oriented in the right direction i've got to stand up for

01:33:47.540 myself you think well i got to start planning this maybe i need a lateral escape route right because

01:33:52.460 maybe i'll get fired and i can't just be fired and have no job so i have to have an escape route ready

01:33:57.140 and so i've got to plan that i got to get my cv ready i've got to get my education up to scratch so

01:34:02.220 that i could move laterally i have to be prepared for that i have to not be afraid of an interview

01:34:07.300 i have to be willing to put out some some resumes maybe i should be doing that now if i have something

01:34:12.280 to say to my boss and now i have to think through what it is that i have to say and i need to say it

01:34:17.160 in the most in the minimally possible true manner and so then you're confronting the tyrannical element

01:34:24.640 of the social world and you can do that too so you can confront the unknown and you can confront

01:34:30.300 the natural world and you can confront the social world and you can set those things in better order

01:34:35.500 and then you might also think well there's me i'm not everything i could be i'm chock full of bad

01:34:43.440 habits you know there are lots of things i'm avoiding and not doing sins of omission things i

01:34:48.940 know i should be doing that i could be doing that i'm not doing i'm not talking about the things that

01:34:54.160 are beyond you that's for later i'm talking about the things that you bloody well know you could do but

01:34:59.020 you're just too what would you call it self-sabotaging arrogant and deceitful to do it you think well i'm

01:35:05.660 going to try to look at a picture of an elevator today you know i'm going to tackle this thing that

01:35:12.540 i've been avoiding i'm going to negotiate with myself until i can find the smallest unit of that problem

01:35:19.080 that i would be willing to confront and i'm going to do it and then so you you've got that you're

01:35:25.000 confronting the negative part of yourself and you might think well you know i can be kind of malevolent

01:35:30.040 i've got a cruel streak and there's lots of things about me that could be

01:35:33.920 calmed down to some degree and matured and made a bit more sophisticated and here's one of those

01:35:42.820 things that's bothering me and here's a tiny thing i might be able to do to ameliorate it and so then you've

01:35:48.120 got the person who can you know they can put their teddy bear on the shelf and they can take care of

01:35:55.660 their room and they can take care of their house and they can take care of themselves and they can take

01:35:59.920 care of their family they can be a good person and you think well what does it mean to be a good person

01:36:04.760 all means that you can courageously confront the unknown and change it you can make it better

01:36:10.280 you can confront the terrible part of nature and you can make it less horrible than it needs to be

01:36:16.040 you can confront the tyrannical aspect of society which is always there and you can make it less

01:36:22.100 tyrannical than it would be and you can confront the devil that lives in your own heart and

01:36:28.520 what would you call and learn to properly prevail and that's the fundamental religious story

01:36:36.660 that's what people are like that's our consciousness we're thrown into the world into the unknown

01:36:42.840 it's a terrible thing it's it's a terrible thing it's it's mortally dangerous and we're we're

01:36:50.880 subsumed by our ignorance but with courage and truth we can confront it and we can make it better

01:36:57.860 and we can do it at all those levels we can make it better at the natural level we can make it better

01:37:02.160 at the societal level and we can make it better at the individual level and that's what we're called

01:37:06.700 forth to do you know and then when you're thinking about life and its meaning you think well what's

01:37:12.600 the meaning of life well the meaning of life is to be a good person and why is that exactly it's like

01:37:17.520 well that seems like a bit mealy-mouthed and naive it's like it's none of those things because

01:37:22.220 there's nothing about being good that's weak it's completely the opposite it's it's a matter of

01:37:28.100 adopting the most difficult burden that you can possibly comprehend you're going to face the

01:37:32.760 unknown forthrightly with your consciousness right to confront the potential of being and to try to

01:37:38.080 transform into something that's more like heaven and less than like hell and that's your job all the

01:37:44.680 time that's what you do with your conscious awareness and and how you do it matters if you do it badly

01:37:50.260 things actually get worse and they can get really worse or they can get really much much better and then

01:37:57.380 you can decompose it into these elements man against nature man against society man against himself and

01:38:04.400 it goes for women as well and to make things better and to discover in the horror of life and the

01:38:11.480 pessimism and darkness and mortality of life the fact that despite all that darkness there's something

01:38:18.260 in you that's so light and so powerful and so courageous and so possessed by the spirit of truth

01:38:25.220 that's indomitable truth is indomitable that you can take all of that that's terrible and transmute

01:38:32.500 it into what is good and that's what we need to do thank you very much

01:38:38.140 i suspect you guys could feel it but you got serious prime peterson right there he is he is really

01:38:54.280 enjoying australia and actually one of the amazing things is that everyone's incorporating these

01:38:59.900 things into their lives for me for example i actually put my teddy bear away now and jordan nods

01:39:06.380 approvingly so it's pretty good all right here's what we're gonna do we get we're gonna do a little

01:39:09.620 q a right now and you guys submitted a ton of questions here this is actually jordan's computer

01:39:15.340 and i have the password these days he's logged into twitter right now

01:39:20.460 i could end it all here in adelaide that's a lot of power all right guys make some noise for jordan

01:39:29.240 you're feeling good in australia i can see it there's like a pep in your step and

01:39:48.700 you're enjoying this when i left toronto it was 35 below

01:39:54.460 and there was blowing snow and the whole city was a parking lot and so now i'm here and like i was

01:40:02.440 on the beach in perth like for two days and today i went outside and i didn't die so

01:40:09.480 so that's good yeah pretty good all right here we go what can i do to keep myself from becoming

01:40:20.080 complacent when things go well

01:40:22.640 that's a good follow-up yeah it's a good question

01:40:28.380 well i i would say that you should re you're too you're too shallow

01:40:37.620 and i i don't mean that as an insult although maybe it's an insult i don't know how shallow you

01:40:45.700 are it might be an insult um your horizons are too limited that's the thing it's like

01:40:54.320 you haven't picked a big enough problem and you don't want to be complacent it's like

01:40:59.320 there's there's what's a complacent is like a neutered tomcat laying on top of a warm tv

01:41:05.140 you know it's it's it's it's it's not it's just

01:41:10.200 they really don't do that anymore do they it's like what are you laying on a flat screen

01:41:18.020 you can't be you can't be a complacent cat laying on top of a flat screen yeah that's the reverse of

01:41:23.600 a complacent that's right that's an impressive challenge there yeah set your sights higher man

01:41:29.440 that's the thing you know um i have this program online called the future authoring program which

01:41:35.600 um i would recommend if you're miserable or if you're complacent or to anyone for that matter

01:41:41.420 because i think it's an unbelievably useful program and what it asks you to do is to think

01:41:46.280 it asks you to set your sights high so you know we went through this idea today that the way you

01:41:52.860 look at the world is nested right you have these little micro routines that you manage and then

01:41:57.740 they're amalgamated into more complicated behaviors and more complicated behaviors and so on that

01:42:03.280 include more people and more phenomena and and more of the world as you move outward and until you

01:42:09.780 you kind of reach the outer limits which is to contend with nature and to contend with society and

01:42:14.620 to contend with the individual and i said those are religious ideas in some senses like one of the

01:42:20.800 oldest stories we have is like there's two fundamental creation story types and one is

01:42:26.380 um um a deity a conscious being an aware being usually someone with great vision and great ability

01:42:35.360 to articulate takes apart a feminine figure that constitutes chaos and makes the world out of the

01:42:42.040 pieces and and that's what we do we confront chaos and we make order out of it and and and the spirit

01:42:49.920 in us that does that is associated in our stories with divinity and and that's really worth thinking

01:42:55.080 about because that's what consciousness does and we're all conscious and we don't bloody well

01:42:59.740 understand consciousness it's a very strange phenomena and but we're conscious and we do confront

01:43:06.200 the unknown and we do make the world out of it and so there's something to that and a second story is

01:43:11.380 that a hero again someone with vision someone articulate someone brave confronts an ogre or a

01:43:19.560 tyrannical giant of some sort and cuts him into pieces and makes the world out of his pieces and

01:43:26.660 it's the same story it's like you know if you if you work for a corrupt corporation and you're trying

01:43:31.560 to fix it what you do is you you break it into pieces and and you destroy the corruption and then

01:43:38.440 you reconstitute it into something new and you're doing that with yourself you know because you need

01:43:43.580 some work and you need some work we all need some work you you take the tyrannical giant that you are and

01:43:48.920 you break it up and you reorganize the pieces and hopefully in the reorganization you come up with

01:43:54.200 something better and so that's so that's the that's the story and then at the individual level well you

01:44:02.220 confront your own your own malevolence let's say or maybe your own complacency and and there's lots of

01:44:07.360 problems in the world that need to be solved and so you you you shouldn't limit your ambition god only

01:44:13.540 knows what magnitude of problem you could solve it's not obvious because people as as unbounded as the

01:44:24.040 world is in catastrophe people are equally unbounded in possibility that's why it says you know if you

01:44:32.400 have a modicum of faith you can move a mountain and it's we move mountains all the time we can actually

01:44:37.960 do that i mean you know you need tractors and all that you can't just wish the damn thing away but

01:44:43.280 it's amazing what we're capable of doing and and we're not doing that good a job of it right because

01:44:49.480 we wander around like 40 percent bitter miserable cynical twisted and ignorant and we still manage

01:44:56.300 fairly well all right so you're complacent and you have this program well the program asks you to

01:45:01.680 to imagine okay so imagine this is how you set your aim imagine you could have what you wanted

01:45:07.280 but it would have to be the the sort of want that someone who was wise would want you know so it'd

01:45:15.420 have to be like a rule too is treat yourself like you're someone that you have the responsibility for

01:45:21.920 helping it's a responsibility so you're going to treat yourself properly so you think well if i was

01:45:28.160 going to set up my life properly i was going to take care of myself what would that look like and

01:45:33.100 so the program asks you well if you could have the friends you wanted and the relationships with them

01:45:38.960 that you wanted what would that look like just hypothetically you know imagine you had a genie

01:45:45.060 that's the root word of genius right genie a genie is this incredibly powerful divine like force

01:45:53.180 that grants wishes that's constrained in a very tiny area that's what you're like right because

01:45:58.980 you're constrained in a very tiny area but you have this immense genius possibility it's like you

01:46:03.960 can call on that you have to do it in an intelligent and wise manner where it backfires on you it's like

01:46:09.740 well you can have the friends you want and the relationships you want what would that look like

01:46:14.720 you could have the career you wanted or the job what would that look like what about an intimate

01:46:20.780 relationship if you could have the one you wanted what about your relationship with your kids and

01:46:24.720 your and your and your parents how could that be if it could be the way that it should be what would

01:46:30.260 you do with your life outside of work that would be productive and meaningful how would you take care

01:46:34.020 of yourself mentally and physically that sort of thing it's just have a vision of what could be like

01:46:40.440 three to five years down the road well and then make a plan and then the program also

01:46:48.260 ask you to do the contrary which is also very useful because you know it's one thing to be

01:46:54.120 motivated by the hope that things could be better but while there is some danger and complacency there

01:46:59.120 because yeah things could be better but they're pretty good so that's good enough it's like yeah

01:47:03.980 fair enough you need some more motivation there's this funny experiment that was done by animal

01:47:09.820 experimentalists with rats the rats didn't think it was that funny but the experimentalists thought it was

01:47:16.280 funny um you can train a rat to run down a runway to get some cheese if he's hungry and usually use

01:47:22.920 hungry rats in experiments because they're more pliable because they'll work for food and so if your

01:47:28.440 rat's hungry they're often down to about three quarters of their normal body weight experimental rats

01:47:34.760 they'll zip down a runway pretty damn quick to to nab a piece of cheese and and so you know they know

01:47:40.960 the cheese is there so away they go but if you take a cat and you put the cat behind the rat and

01:47:49.460 you put a fan behind the cat and you waft a little bit of cat odor over the rat before it runs down the

01:47:54.800 runway it will run down that runway way faster because it's kind of not so bad to be motivated by

01:48:01.400 terror and by hope at the same time right well you're a lot more motivated then right and you know

01:48:07.460 and life is hard and so having some extra motivation that's not such a bad thing it it it can it can get

01:48:13.140 you out of bed terror can get you out of bed when mere hope won't and the combination of both might

01:48:18.520 be optimal so the other thing that we have people do in this program is like okay well now you've

01:48:25.020 outlined your future what what you could have if if things went well for you and and for the people

01:48:29.580 around you because you should keep them in mind as well but also you've got a bunch of bad habits and

01:48:35.940 you're not who you could be and and there's lots of ways that you would and might degenerate over the

01:48:41.600 next five years everyone's aware of how they would do that if if they were going to do it write that

01:48:46.480 out too it's like okay i let all my bad habits take the upper hand and now i'm in my own personal

01:48:52.660 brand of hell five years from now what exactly does that look like good thing to do if you're

01:48:58.720 toying with an addiction you know and you're still sort of semi-functional it's like if you're toying

01:49:04.260 with an addiction and it's getting worse you're semi-functional you probably won't be in five

01:49:08.360 years it's not a pretty thing and people won't conceptualize and clarify it because it's too

01:49:14.300 frightening and it would also stop them from being addicted and they don't want to stop from being

01:49:18.240 addicted so they don't do it you lay out the hell and you lay out the heaven and then you think well

01:49:22.740 i'm not going down because it's really not good there and i would like to go up because i've created

01:49:31.680 enough that's good enough so that it's worth the effort and so if you're complacent it's like

01:49:35.620 think it through man you got more to do the world isn't in the shape it could be in by any stretch of

01:49:43.020 the imagination and there's there's plenty more for you to do and i think that one of the rules of

01:49:50.460 being and this is one of the rules that the west has really done a great job of articulating is

01:49:56.760 it's on you that's why you have the right and the obligation to vote you're the cornerstone of

01:50:05.580 the state if things are not good it's your fault you might think well i don't know what to do with

01:50:12.640 it it's like about it it's like yeah no kidding what's your point your your ignorance is your excuse

01:50:19.960 fair enough you know it's a real excuse but it's no it's no justification

01:50:27.780 if the world isn't the way it should be then put it in order and if you're complacent then

01:50:36.680 you should open your eyes because there's lots to be done and you could do it and then you'd have

01:50:43.020 the adventure of your life and that's what you want and so everyone wins under those circumstances

01:50:48.280 you get to have the adventure of your life you get to have a meaning that comes with pursuing

01:50:53.840 difficult things and avoiding terrible things and you make things better for yourself and everyone

01:50:58.500 else there's no room for complacency there and don't underestimate your capacity you know human

01:51:05.880 beings are unbelievably remarkable creatures and and we don't exploit that fully we exploit it minimally

01:51:13.500 and and we're still pretty damn remarkable so

01:51:16.460 i don't think we're going to get to all the questions tonight well i love this one because

01:51:31.600 you know they've got you know possibly the leading public intellectual in the world on stage and the

01:51:38.120 question is jordan how much can you bench press

01:51:42.000 it's there

01:51:45.240 the most i ever bench pressed was 225 pounds and i only did that once and i was about 24

01:51:54.900 and it was like it was like 20 pounds more than i ever managed in my life and it it was 20 pounds

01:52:02.620 more than i ever managed again so it was a good day and now i don't know i don't know i would think

01:52:08.360 maybe i might be able to manage 150 because i haven't done a lot of bench pressing i think i might

01:52:15.420 be able to manage 150 so but then again it might just fall down and crush my neck too so

01:52:21.300 well actually that's a decent segue a lot of people tonight asked you about the carnivore diet

01:52:26.900 yeah any any thoughts up they're just asking you you know how you're feeling and you think it's

01:52:32.080 working etc etc well it's definitely that it's definitely working i mean

01:52:39.440 it's such a funny thing to talk about because it's not really my area of expertise you know and i kind of

01:52:45.980 stumbled into it by mistake or by accident i mean what happened some of you know this story is that my

01:52:54.880 daughter michaela has a very serious autoimmune disease and they had diagnosed it as idiopathic

01:53:04.720 first of all juvenile rheumatoid arthritis which it wasn't because she didn't have the blood markers

01:53:10.900 for rheumatoid arthritis so then they called it idiopathic arthritis which means no one knows what

01:53:17.040 causes it idiopathic is just a word that sounds like a diagnosis that means we don't know

01:53:22.860 so and it was killing her and in a bunch of ways and all of them extraordinarily unpleasant so

01:53:32.100 she had 38 affected joints and i don't know if you've ever had arthritis but one

01:53:37.240 seriously arthritic joint can make your life pretty miserable and so 38 of them can make your life

01:53:43.180 very miserable and along with that went a very crippling depression which is also linked to

01:53:51.560 autoimmune disorders in many cases so some of you who are depressed that's a useful thing to know

01:53:56.860 there's lots of evidence that certain forms of depression because it's a catch-all category

01:54:02.500 are associated with inflammatory disorders and autoimmune dysfunction so if you are depressed don't

01:54:08.440 leap to the conclusion that it's necessarily psychological even though it might be there are

01:54:14.700 endogenous depressions and exogenous depressions endogenous is caused by some internal factor that

01:54:20.380 people don't understand and exogenous is like grief related you know something terrible happened in

01:54:25.080 your life and took you out and you know you have reason to be depressed but so she had terrible terrible

01:54:31.460 depression and her depression was bad enough so that when i asked her at one point because i was

01:54:37.720 curious and this was when she she had an ankle that was deteriorating to the point that it had to be

01:54:43.040 replaced and a hip that was deteriorating to the point that it had to be replaced and she was walking

01:54:47.400 around on both of them at the same time on very high doses of opiates to control the pain and taking

01:54:54.280 ritalin so that she could wake up for some periods of time in the morning i asked her if she would

01:54:58.660 rather have the arthritis or the depression and she said she would rather have the arthritis so that

01:55:04.040 gives you some sense of what depression can be like i wouldn't wish that on hitler i'll tell you man

01:55:09.220 it's something it's something brutal and and and and and and it's inconceivable unless you've gone

01:55:16.540 through it and and then she had narcolepsy and oh then like five other problems and they were taking

01:55:26.040 her apart and she cottoned on to the idea at one point that it was diet related and my wife had been

01:55:34.720 pushing that idea for a very long time for like decades but we couldn't we could we identified a

01:55:40.940 few things that seemed to make her condition worse but we could never zero in on it exactly but michaela

01:55:47.320 figured out that when she was studying at university her symptoms got worse and her skin which also she

01:55:55.440 also had an autoimmune skin disorder that the doctors diagnosed as acne which wasn't it was it was

01:56:01.200 something worse and she figured that out as well she figured out that when she was studying for exams

01:56:09.300 that got worse and then she thought well that was probably stress and then she thought well wait i eat

01:56:14.860 a lot of sandwiches when i'm studying she lived in montreal she was eating bagels all the time because

01:56:20.220 you know they're quick said maybe it was the maybe it was the bagels and she wasn't happy about the skin

01:56:27.020 outbreaks like one of the things she'd managed to do while she was trying to hold herself together

01:56:31.620 she learned to be a kind of a semi-professional makeup artist because she could put herself together

01:56:36.740 and go out and look like you know like she was together and that was really important to her

01:56:42.480 and then this skin problem started to take that apart and that was just like that was just too much

01:56:49.000 for her you know so so anyway she stopped eating wheat and her skin problems went away

01:56:55.540 like right away we thought oh well that's interesting and she thought oh well my skin

01:57:03.040 problems went away that's interesting i wonder what happens if i you know cut out other foods and so

01:57:09.540 she experimented a lot using elimination diets you know and there's a whole bunch of elimination diets

01:57:15.460 and mostly they're stupid because there's 10 of them and they all tell you different things

01:57:21.160 and so how do you know and then

01:57:23.780 it's too many factors like if you're doing something scientifically you want you want to reduce

01:57:31.140 everything to a single variable and test the single variable it's the only way you can get anywhere

01:57:36.820 and so she experimented and at one point she was just eating chicken and broccoli

01:57:41.580 and then she got less depressed and she started to wake up in the morning and her joints started to

01:57:46.820 get better so those were good things and then she just went to chicken and then she just went to beef

01:57:52.660 and when she just went to beef then things really got better and all of her symptoms disappeared one by

01:57:59.580 one every single one of them so and that was just absolutely beyond belief the she the first thing

01:58:06.440 that happened if i remember correctly was that she started to wake up in the morning and she was

01:58:10.520 sleeping about 18 hours a day and so all of a sudden she was waking up and was awake for like 16 hours

01:58:15.620 and alert and then her mood improved then her joints started to stop hurting and i don't have i don't

01:58:20.500 know if i have this in the right order and and the downside was while she was doing that then if she ate

01:58:28.440 something that she shouldn't eat she had a catastrophic reaction to it all her symptoms would come back and

01:58:33.920 worse so there was there was some danger in it but after several months of this she was symptom free

01:58:43.940 no medication no painkillers no ritalin no autoimmune disorder medication no symptoms thought jesus what

01:58:54.400 the hell that's unbelievable and her her she lost weight she lost about 25 pounds something like that

01:59:02.400 and and like looked good and i have a fair number of autoimmune symptoms and so does my wife and so

01:59:10.420 looks like michaela got all of them and so we started to experiment with the diet

01:59:15.920 and so because i thought oh jesus i can do that for a month what the hell you know and first it was just

01:59:22.880 meat and greens and so i switched just to meat and greens no carbohydrates no sugar nothing like that

01:59:29.580 and uh i started to wake up in the morning and feel good and that had never happened to me in my life

01:59:36.140 i always had a hard time waking up i just wake up and i thought hey i'm awake what the hell because i

01:59:41.740 could always go back to sleep and so that was weird and i quit snoring in one week it just stopped

01:59:48.640 and i was snoring quite a lot so that was weird that was really weird that that really shocked me

01:59:54.260 and then i lost seven pounds the first month that i was on the diet and i had not eaten sugar for a

01:59:59.700 whole year the year before that i didn't lose any weight at all it's like seven pounds like that's

02:00:04.700 you know noticeable what the hell seven pounds that's a lot so then i just kept doing it i lost seven

02:00:12.000 pounds the next month and the next month and the next month and the next month i lost 50 pounds in

02:00:16.600 six months i went right back to the way to my weight at 24 i thought like i lost all my excess weight

02:00:24.300 every bit of it i thought what the hell that's completely insane and then i stopped taking

02:00:30.200 antidepressants and i'd be not taking them for like 20 years i i didn't need them need them anymore

02:00:36.160 they didn't have the same effect on me anymore and then a lot of my mental acuity started to come

02:00:41.900 back and that was interesting because i noticed that as i got older it was harder to concentrate

02:00:47.040 when i was reading like it was more like there was kind of fog between me and the words and i would

02:00:51.720 i would skip words and skip phrases and i couldn't focus like i used to be able to focus because i could

02:00:56.600 focus on written material perfectly you know like i'd never miss a word and you could talk to me when i was

02:01:03.400 reading and i wouldn't hear you i was focused that started to come back i thought wow floaters in my

02:01:10.140 eyes started to clear up so that was really interesting i had numb legs that went away i had

02:01:15.880 gastric gastric reflex disorder sounded like i was gonna die you know i mean but that went away really

02:01:22.420 quickly and so well you know you can't ignore that it's like and my wife she had arthritis in her

02:01:29.600 thumbs that went away she had arthritis in her knees that went away she had a shoulder that had

02:01:34.500 been bothering her since she was 17 and had it injured it i think playing baseball so that was

02:01:39.920 like 40 years ago that went away so now she can do front crawl and swim and she hadn't been able to do

02:01:46.520 that for years and she lost 20 pounds something like that so she's back to what she weighed when she

02:01:51.300 was 19 20 years old um that's very very difficult to ignore so what what's the downside it's a pain in

02:02:04.500 the neck that's the first thing i mean jesus all i eat is beef like that's it nothing else beef and salt

02:02:11.360 oh yes and three kinds of water hot water cold water and sparkling water it's like that you know that's

02:02:20.080 not a lot of diversity and it's difficult to travel and i'm a pain in the ass socially because

02:02:25.880 like what are you going to feed me and and it's dull because it's mostly what i eat when i travel is

02:02:32.920 steak because i can always get a steak somewhere i mean it beats the hell out of gruel so you know

02:02:38.420 that's that's the gratitude part and i'm physically stronger than i was and so

02:02:44.380 i don't know what the hell to make of all that i do know that one in three americans is obese

02:02:53.020 and another one in three is overweight that's way too many i know that diabetes is epidemic

02:02:59.940 i know that alzheimer's is likely a fourth form of diabetes we eat way too many carbohydrates we eat

02:03:07.780 way too much sugar there's something wrong with our diet now that doesn't mean i would recommend

02:03:14.020 a cure this radical but one thing i would suggest and i've had lots of people come and talk to me

02:03:19.820 about the carnivore diet you know after these talks they'll talk to me and people said and one guy he

02:03:25.260 came up he's about 24 he said i've been on the carnivore diet i lost 300 pounds in 18 months

02:03:31.620 i thought he was still a pretty big guy he must have weighed like 530 pounds because he was still a

02:03:37.300 he was still a big guy and so but i'll tell you if you want to lose weight man that'll just take

02:03:42.860 that will take all your excess weight away period so that's something quite remarkable um but i wouldn't

02:03:51.520 casually recommend it because first of all it's untried you know like there was a there's an article in

02:03:58.560 the atlantic monthly six months ago about how i was going to be dead by now because of what i was

02:04:04.180 doing because my blood chemistry would be completely dysregulated my gut biome would be half dead and

02:04:10.080 like there was prognostications of how i would go out of control in 50 different ways and like none of

02:04:17.240 that's happened my daughter's had her blood work done and she's been on this diet for longer than me

02:04:21.060 and she's a little low in vitamin d but other than that her blood work is way better than it's ever

02:04:26.040 been and there's there are stories that are credible of people surviving on nothing but meat for

02:04:31.300 literally for decades the inuit used to do it for example in in in canada so i think what we know about

02:04:38.280 diet you could put in the thimble and have room for another thimble so um i wouldn't recommend it

02:04:45.540 because it's hard you know but but i would say this if there's a bunch of things wrong with you

02:04:51.980 and no one can figure out why one of the things you could think about doing

02:04:58.400 is eliminating everything in your diet but beef everything because that brings that gets rid of

02:05:05.880 all those excess variables right because you can think of every food as a variable it gets rid of

02:05:10.200 all the excess variables it's much smarter than elimination diet try it for a month it has to be a

02:05:16.520 month the other thing that happens too is that your appetite declines by about 75 percent so that's

02:05:23.480 really interesting if you don't get hungry you don't have cravings for other foods although i really

02:05:29.220 miss cappuccinos they just kills me not to have cappuccinos but other than that i don't really crave

02:05:35.060 that much so if you can stick it out for a month your appetite declines precipitously and you don't crave

02:05:42.320 things anymore and you don't get that weird hunger that not everyone gets that makes you fuzzy minded

02:05:47.380 and makes it difficult to concentrate and makes you irritable that goes away too so try it for a month

02:05:53.680 if you feel better well then you feel better and that's something and so then try it for another month

02:06:01.240 and you know if it keeps helping well good something helped and then you know after a while you could

02:06:09.980 experiment and add something else that you want and see what happens but i'm not a nutritionist you

02:06:18.720 know i am a scientist and i'm very careful about these things but i'm not a nutritionist but

02:06:22.760 that is what happened in our family and my daughter is in remarkably good shape it's it's absolutely

02:06:31.720 unbelievable she tells me that her mood is regularly at something approximating nine out of ten

02:06:39.040 like chronically she's happy virtually all the time and so and she doesn't have any symptoms and like

02:06:46.900 this was an incurable disease oh yes the other thing that happened to me that's quite interesting

02:06:50.740 is that i had gum disease which is incurable it's not because i don't have it anymore and my dentist

02:06:57.300 verified that about four months ago so and you know gum disease is actually not a good

02:07:03.420 illness it's a it's an it's a marker of system systemic inflammation and it is a predictor of

02:07:10.340 heart disease and so if you can not have it it's definitely better so that's what's happened to me

02:07:15.760 and my family and um as i said i wouldn't casually recommend it because it makes you a social pariah

02:07:22.580 and it's quite difficult but if you're bloody desperate and there's lots of things wrong with

02:07:28.540 you and nobody can figure out why and you know life's a bitch then

02:07:33.940 a month of just meat won't kill you so maybe it's worth a shot

02:07:41.680 all right well unfortunately we only have time for one more so i'll give you a little red meat here

02:07:53.360 so to speak what's been your favorite part of australia

02:07:56.560 i have to say that don't i definitely adelaide

02:08:02.340 well we walked through the botanical gardens today that was pretty nice that was impressive

02:08:12.180 i like australia you know i was here six months ago something like that and

02:08:22.080 it's a pretty decent country like your cities are in pretty good shape they're they're quite

02:08:29.020 livable they're quite beautiful um they're quite peaceful you've got a remarkable civilization

02:08:35.240 happening here so um it's very nice to be here i think that the country looks better than canada

02:08:44.020 i think it's a little richer it might be that you don't have to put up with minus 40 for six months

02:08:49.400 of the year which is pretty hard on the infrastructure but it looks like you're doing a lot of things

02:08:53.640 right um so it's quite a pleasure to be here um i enjoyed the beach at perth a lot it was very

02:08:59.900 beautiful and so it's it's nice to to be somewhere warm and sunny and so that was lovely um i suppose

02:09:07.580 the best thing though all together is to come to these events fundamentally like it's a real privilege

02:09:13.860 to come here and it's such a shock to me all the time to see there's 2500 of you here tonight

02:09:19.840 these are very serious conversations like what i don't know what the hell you're doing here

02:09:25.320 you know hopefully it's something good despite what the protesters outside think um

02:09:30.880 this is my favorite part of it um i'm hoping that it'll help a lot and that you know you can

02:09:38.940 that each of you will put your lives together to some slight degree more than might otherwise have

02:09:45.880 been the case because if enough of us do that then things could get way better than they are

02:09:51.400 because we're in a situation right now we're at a time when we have tremendous technological power and

02:09:58.200 unbelievable opportunity in front of us and a lot of questions that are going to have to be answered

02:10:03.840 by wise people in the next 10 years questions we can't even imagine now and if each of us

02:10:10.200 was a modicum more wise then maybe we would make decisions that were just that much better and things

02:10:17.140 would go that much better and i'm hoping that that's why everyone's here is to figure out how to do that

02:10:22.860 and i think that's the case and so that's my favorite thing about being here and thank you very much

02:10:29.620 all for coming tonight

02:10:31.520 thank you guys very much

02:10:38.900 thank you mr ruben if you found this conversation meaningful you might think about picking up dad's

02:10:47.300 books maps of meaning and architecture of belief or his newer bestseller 12 rules for life and

02:10:52.300 antidote to chaos both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the jordan b

02:10:57.160 peterson podcast see jordan b peterson.com for audio ebook and text links or pick up the books

02:11:03.040 at your favorite bookseller remember to check out jordan b peterson.com slash personality for

02:11:08.260 information on his new e-course tag jordan or i on instagram to share your results from the

02:11:14.200 discovering personality course if you decide to give it a shot i really hope you enjoyed this podcast

02:11:19.620 if you did please leave a rating at apple podcasts a comment to review or share this episode with a

02:11:24.780 friend thanks for tuning in and talk to you next week follow me on my youtube channel jordan b peterson

02:11:30.780 on twitter at jordan b peterson on facebook at dr jordan b peterson and at instagram at jordan.b.peterson

02:11:40.020 details on this show access to my blog information about my tour dates and other events and my list of

02:11:47.480 recommended books can be found on my website jordan b peterson.com my online writing programs designed

02:11:54.940 to help people straighten out their pasts understand themselves in the present and develop a sophisticated

02:12:00.520 vision and strategy for the future can be found at self-authoring.com that's self-authoring.com

02:12:07.800 from the westwood one podcast network

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The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - January 26, 2020

Structuring Your World View

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