hey everyone
here we go so I I saw somebody ask right
off the bat if there were any women I
think they said girls actually if
they're any women in the audience and if
there are well that's good so welcome
thanks to all you patreon people for
your continued support it's a really big
deal it's made a huge difference and
you're a big part of the reason that
biblical lecture was so ridiculously
successful I think more than 2 million
people have watched it so far
so that's success by any stretch of the
imagination so let's start with some
questions here I've got the live chat
going and we also set it up so that we
had we had questions taken to begin with
that people could up vote which seems to
be a good idea let's start with one from
practice cube what would be a practical
approach for developing your shadow well
that's a good one let's let's do a
little review of union psychology the
first thing is if you want to know about
this the proper source is Carl Jung's
collected works volume 9 volume 9 and
there's two parts to volume 9 a and B
published as separate texts and volume 9
is called archetypes of the collective
unconscious and the other one is called
ion but in archetypes the collective
unconscious there's a good discussion of
the persona and the shadow and the
persona you could say is a good way of
thinking about it you know you watch all
those rom-coms where there's always kind
of a beta male guy who's being real
friendly and always failing miserably
with women because basically he's lying
to himself and to them
he's a persona and a persona is the face
that you show to the world when you're
trying to pretend and to convince
yourself and others that you're I would
say harmless but we could say a good
person but a good person isn't harmless
a good person is capable of
well maybe a good person is capable of
anything but is willing to hold that in
abeyance I read this interesting
commentary a little while ago on a
statement by Christ in the New Testament
and the statement generally interpreted
is that the meek shall inherit the earth
but I was looking up the multiple
translations of the word meek and meek
is actually derived from a Greek word of
course because the Bible at least some
of the original forms of the Bible were
in Greek and that word didn't exactly
mean meek it meant something like those
who have weapons and the ability to use
them but certain but determined to keep
the machine will inherit the world and
that means that people who are capable
of force let's say but decide not to use
it are in the proper moral position and
Nietzsche commented on that affair a bit
too you know he he thought of most moral
morality as cowardice not because
morality itself was cowardice but
because most people who are cowards
disguised they're coward cowardice as
morality and they claim that their
harmlessness which is actually a
consequence of their fear and inability
to be harmful say or to be dangerous is
actually a sign of their moral integrity
and that's a really bad idea so you know
if you're an axe murderer but you don't
have an axe that doesn't mean that
you're moral so now with regards to so
that's the persona and the persona is
the mask that you wear and that's what
persona means is the mass that you wear
to convince yourself in the world that
you're not a terrible monster so that
when you look at yourself in the mirror
you don't have to run away screaming you
know when you might think well that's a
bit of an overstatement but you was very
interested in phenomena such as say
psychological the psychological
phenomena that would characterize the
actions of someone who might be a nosh
wits camp guard for example and you know
that's a pretty monstrous form of
behavior and
the thing about Auschwitz camp guards is
that there's no reason to assume really
that they were much different than
normal people now there would have been
exceptions obviously but and what that
means is that perhaps you too could be a
nosh whit's camp guard and perhaps you
would even derive some enjoyment out of
it and you might think not but you
shouldn't think not so quickly and what
that also implies is that if you could
see what that meant when you looked in
the mirror and looked at yourself you
might run away screaming because you'd
have a revelation of just exactly what
the human being is capable of and that's
a very unpleasant revelation and also
one of the things that stops people from
being enlightened because that
revelation of the evil of the self is
part of the journey to enlightenment and
an early part now the shadow would be
all the parts of the personality that
the persona rejects and that might be
the aggressive elements certainly the
kid that's the case with for people who
are hyper agreeable and now you can tell
I think one of the best there's two
pathways to the development of the
shadow and they're tightly aligned with
one another the fundamental pathway is
truth and that's to face the bitter
truth about yourself but to break that
down more particularly you might think
about that as the capacity to observe
your own resentment you're going to be
resentful and bitter in many situations
because you don't get what you want and
if you watch that resentment bitterness
you'll see that it produces fantasies
that can be unbelievably dark and that
can be very frightening and you might
not want to admit to yourself that
you're actually capable of having
fantasies like that or impulses like
that or aggressive feelings like that
but the thing is is that if those
aggressive feelings and impulses and
fantasies are integrated into your
character it's like you're opening up a
dialogue with a part of yourself that
can be very forceful and strong and
dangerous and it's really useful to be
dangerous because if you can if you can
be dangerous you often don't have to be
and it's it's often weak people for
example it's weak men generally speaking
who rape you know that that's a very
very common occurrence and that's a
violent act but it's born out of
weakness not out of strength that's for
sure and so anyways you attend to your
resentment honestly and you
serve yourself and what you're actually
like you got to pay attention as if you
don't know yourself as if you might
Harbor hidden Devils and then maybe
they'll emerge no young also felt that
sort of embedded inside the shadow that
were the Contra sexual tendencies and so
for example sometimes you see people who
are well developed men let's say and we
can we can also talk about women in this
regard men who've integrated their
shadow often also develop a kind of
peculiar grace that would be a
consequence of not only allowing their
aggressive side to step forward but also
their their feminine and compassionate
side that might that they may have kept
squelch because of embarrassment about
it or because they'd been harassed for
being weak or any number of things so
but the practical approach for
developing your shadow I would say is to
call contemplate and consider your
resentment and notice what it says and
because your resentment will also tell
you what you have to say you know so
look and look at what happened at Google
this weekend you know James d'amour
wrote that memo and you can imagine he
was pretty angry and perhaps even
somewhat resentful out having to attend
that diversity seminar and I'm really
just using this as an example but what
he did was decide that that meant that
he had something that he had to say and
then look at the consequences of that
man it's unbelievable and so you know if
you're feeling oppressed at work or
you're oppressed in your life or or you
know where you're pressing yourself then
you got to notice that you're feeling
oppressed then you have to notice that
you're feeling resentful resentful and
and angry and bitter and maybe even like
Cain in the story of Cain and Abel
because Cain is sort of the archetypal
bitter man and then you have to decide
what it is that you need to do in order
to remove from yourself that bitterness
and that's usually means that there's
something that you have to say and then
you have to say it because your soul
depends on it and not only does your
soul depend on it I would say the fate
of the world depends on it because you
know you might be wrong and then you
should be straightened out maybe you're
just being whiny and you have to talk to
somebody about that but it may be that
you're actually detecting something
wrong some tyranny that's directed
towards you and other people and it's
like your moral obligation to speak up
about it and so many workplaces become
toxic to use a terrible cliche because
the people in them won't speak up for
what they actually want or they speak up
too late
and then they're all twisted up about it
and and you know they're torturing other
people because they're so unhappy and so
forth and so on
so practical approach for developing in
shadow fundamentally is radical honesty
and Jung said that you know a genuine
moral effort was a good substitute for
psychotherapy what is my opinion on open
relationships polyamory other forms of
non-monogamy well I think that as a
medium to long term strategy they're
completely untenable because human
beings as far as I'm concerned are
fundamentally pair-bonding and you know
if you're just talking about casual sex
first of all I think casual sex is a
contradiction in terms I don't think
there's anything about sex that's casual
and I think that people are deceiving
themselves badly whenever they think so
they might like to live in a you know
1970s playboy adolescent fantasy but I
don't I've never seen that work under
any circumstances whatsoever and I think
people get hurt badly
it's also a bad medium to long term
strategy because no pair bonding is is
the most stable arrangement we know of
at least so far
well I won't even put it that way it's
the only stable mode of being that we
know for the long run and that's
especially the case when you bring
children into the equation so I think
it's delusional fundamentally and I
think that people who are who believe
that such things work I mean sometimes
they're open people and they're creative
and they're exploratory and all of that
and fair enough but often they're just
unconscious and they don't want to take
any responsibility and they want to live
in this wish fulfillment fantasy where
everybody can have all the sex they want
all the time and it's always wonderful
and no one gets hurt and it's like sorry
that just doesn't work in the real world
so my girlfriend is quite overweight but
I really love her should I try to
encourage her to lose weight aside from
personal preference is this likely to
explode into a major issue down the road
huh
I don't think that you can fool yourself
about what you're attracted to and yes
it's certainly likely to develop into a
major issue down the road
it's tough you know because it's so the
Devils in the details you know should
you try to encourage or lose weight I
guess the question is how would you do
that without disrupting the relationship
and without knowing more about the
details of that I would say that I don't
know how to tell what to tell you to do
about that I think that it's necessary
to be truthful in a relationship period
but I also think that you can't use the
truth to hurt you know the truth is a
very complicated thing and it's it's a
sword and it cuts and you can't use it
to hurt now you know maybe you would be
subtle enough to figure out some way
that you could both embark on a
health-promoting endeavor together and
that would work out but I would say you
know if you if you're in a stable
long-term relationship with someone it's
pretty much necessary for both of you to
address all the issues that are making
you unhappy with each other you know
assuming there's some give-and-take on
that because otherwise the relationship
can easily come apart at the seams like
I would say my wife and I are both very
hard on each other about our physical
appearance let's say and I'd gained a
fair bit of weight from the time I was
say 40 till the time I was 50 about
probably because I was eating things
that weren't good for me and I would say
that was primarily carbohydrates I can
tell you if you want to lose weight you
stop eating carbohydrates man you'll
lose weight like you wouldn't believe I
wouldn't necessarily recommend it
because it has some dangers but it
certainly works but you know the the
alternative to pretend to the
alternative is to pretend that
everything's all right and all that
means is that you're likely to get drunk
sometimes and someday and have an affair
out of bitterness and spite and the fact
that you're no longer attracted to your
partner so it's pretty rough so that's
pretty rough way of thinking about
things but life's pretty rough so what
is the story behind the logo that you
use in your intros where did it come
from
that's that logo is called the meaning
of music and it's actually a sculpture
that I made in 1985 that's about five
and a half feet by half five and a half
feet and about eight inches thick and
it's made out of foam core which is this
but it's a sub it's a material that's
often used as a backing for paintings or
for when you get them framed it's it's
styrofoam sheet about a quarter of an
inch thick with paper on both sides and
you can cut it very accurately with an
exacto knife and so what I did was make
a stack of those of those foam core
sheets about 80 inches high and I made
the thing in quarters and so that it
would fit together on the wall because
it would have been too big to maneuver
easily and it's a very complicated image
it's actually a three-dimensional
representation of a it's a
three-dimensional representation of a
two-dimensional representation of a four
dimensional object and that four
dimensional object you could think of as
it's a representation of time and space
and I can tell you I kind of have to
hint at what the painting means it or
the sculpture it means the same thing
that music means you know how music
unfolds and then something else unfolds
within it and then it unfolds again
within it like a rose opening into the
into the day or like a lotus flower that
sort of comes up from the darkest depths
up through the dark water and then
blooms on on the surface of the water
and the Sun and that's where the Buddha
you know what would you say symbol
symbolically rest so can imagine that
thing opening and then imagine that
that's what that painting is an image of
and that's the same thing as music so
it's a Mandela image and for young the
Mandela was a symbol of the self and the
self was something that unfolds like
music which is actually why we like
music and it's like the rose the rose
that you see the the geometric rose that
you see in stained glass it's the same
thing that's the stained glass window
that Pinocchio's reprehensible
compatriot what's his name
lamp-wick breaks when he's in Pleasure
Island and he throws a rock to destroy
the model home
to demolish the substructure of Western
civilization and so I had a very intense
religious experience at one point when I
was contemplating that so when I drew
the image to begin with I drew it in
about 10 minutes kind of rough and then
I used a straightedge to straighten it
all open and a protractor - or a compass
to make the curves but I drew it very
quickly and I'd been thinking about I've
been reading young a lot at that point
like four months months of intense
reading and that image he sort of popped
out of me very very suddenly but it took
about three months to make the actual
image and then I had only a quarter of
it hanging on my wall because it was so
big and I had finished it after about
three months of works this was back in
1985 when I was a graduate student and I
was listening to the Jupiter symphony
which is the piece of music that I use
that was used for the intro to my to my
videos and it's a Mozart symphony and
this happened man so this happened so I
was really watching that Mandela that
quarter Mandela that I have made
intensely and caught listening to the
music trying to understand what the
music music was signifying you know
because music has intrinsic meaning
which is a very strange thing now the
part of the reason for that is that
language has meaning and our language
has a musical quality right and that's
processed mostly by the right hemisphere
so that when people speak there's a
there's a melody in their language and
that carries a lot of the emotional
import and then what musicians have done
is figured out how to use that that that
that musical faculty let's call it that
non-semantic musical faculty to sort of
purely denote meaning that's part of
what music means and so but I was still
trying to understand what the meaning
was you know be what because it's
nonverbal the meaning of music and I was
trying to figure out how to articulate
that and that's partly why I made the
sculpture was to get a grip on it and to
understand it anyways I was really
really concentrating hard on that
Mandela and and that sculpture and I had
been working on it intensely for about
three months you know so that's a lot of
meditation on a single idea and I was
standing in my living room and then had
this very strange experience
I and I can't explain this properly
because there's no way of really
describing it but I'll do my best so you
know in those Renaissance paintings
sometimes you see well first of all you
see a great cloud great great sunny
skies with with massive what stupendous
impressive billows of clouds and then
light shining through the sunlight
shining through and streams
sometimes that's captured very
beautifully but especially English later
later artists usually that are later
than the Renaissance but you see it in
Renaissance paintings too and you all
you also see in in in Renaissance
paintings especially in the earlier
phase of the Renaissance the sky opening
up and God sort of peering forth through
the clouds and that's exactly what
seemed to happen to me is that I had
this sense it was like a vision although
I was still in my living room and knew
it but inside the theater of it my
imagination I could feel the the sky
opening up now it wasn't the sky it was
I would say the only way I can really
think about it is that was something
like another dimension and then I could
feel this force descend upon me which I
think was something that you know would
have been considered classically
something like the Holy Ghost I suppose
and it filled me with this intense sense
of paradisal paradisal I don't know how
to say it well it was like being in
heaven for some some some brief period
of time and I could feel myself
transformed to transmuted as a
consequence of this experience and and
it was as if I was in the presence of
something that was a living you know and
I suppose that was an experience of God
if you want to put it that way that's
certainly what it seemed like and and I
felt that I could live that way I could
live transfigured like that permanently
if I desired it and I thought my god I
wouldn't be able to walk down the street
in this sort of elevated state let's say
I don't know how I would act I don't
know how I would interact with people I
don't know how people would interact
with me I just don't think that I could
do it and then I felt that whatever had
descended it seemed that as if it was
sorrowful and it
and it departed from me slowly and with
no like with no punitive intent and and
I wouldn't say with any dissatisfaction
It was as if a gift had been offered
that I wasn't in no position to receive
and I went I talked to my wife soon
afterwards I shook for about physically
for about half an hour after that
experience like like I was shaking you
know like like like you shake after a
car accident if you've ever been in a
car accident and my pupils were
completely dilated and I had a couple of
experiences like that like echoes of it
a couple of times after that and so
anyways that was a very very powerful
experience I've certainly never
forgotten that and well you know I don't
know I don't know what to think about
that I mean god only knows what the
world is really like that's for sure and
I've had a variety of very strange
experiences that have convinced me that
we know very little about anything so
for those who are very creative but high
in neuroticism how should one work to
gain emotional stability in order to go
out into chaos to do more creative
things that's a really good question you
know one I learned about that by reading
Jung's works on alchemy weirdly enough
and so back again in graduate school
when I was writing starting to write
maps of meaning and really tearing
myself apart psychologically trying to
understand evil I suppose the evil of
the Cold War and the evil of the
individuals who composed Nazi Germany
and Stalin this Russia I was reading
Carl Jung because he wrote his tracks on
alchemy were a lot about self
transformation and he talked about it's
hard to explain his works on alchemy but
suffice it to say that his advice was
something like the advice he derived
from the alchemists with it was that if
you were going to make mess around with
very complicated and dangerous matters
that's a good way of putting it that you
should really put your life together and
so I would say the right way to deal
with your neuroticism is to increase
your conscientiousness because we also
know that the higher your
conscientiousness the lower your
neuroticism conscientiousness does seem
to keep neuroticism in check and so I
would say and have said this to many
people clean your room
organize your life like get a routine
get up every day at the same time go
at the same time established disciplined
habits and that will help a lot as
scheduled like and here's how to use a
schedule use it use a calendar you use
Google Calendar but don't use it as a
tyrant you know what you want to use
your use a calendar as if it's your your
confidante and advisor and what you want
to do is use the calendar sit down and
open the calendar and think okay well
here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna
design a week of days that I would
really like to have so what that would
mean is that you would schedule things
that you would consider meaningful and
productive you know on a daily basis so
that you feel that your life is
justified by having a day like that and
also to schedule enough of your
responsibilities so that you make
progress day-by-day instead of falling
farther behind and what that'll do is it
doesn't directly affect your
neurophysiology but you know you're
reacting as a neurotic person a person
high in neuroticism say you react to
uncertainty and the unexpected with more
physiological preparedness and more
expenditure of energy than the typical
person and so what you want to do is
organize your surroundings because it's
a lot easier to organize your
surroundings at least to begin with than
it is to do radical reconstruction on
your fundamental temperament which you
might not be able to do at all
so I would say discipline discipline and
the other thing I would say for creative
people and this is true for people in
general but it's really important for
creative people is that if you want to
be creative which is very very dangerous
and very very unlikely to succeed
although absolutely necessary if you
happen to behind openness is that you
should organize the rest of your life
except for your creative endeavors in a
pretty traditional and conservative
manner if you can do that because what
that does is buttress you against the
unexpected and give you some stability
on many you know along many of the
potential dimensions of your life and
that frees you up to take larger risks
in the creative domain now it's hard for
creative people to do that because
they're sort of blasting out you know
laterally in all directions
simultaneously but you exhaust yourself
that way and you also risk scattering
yourself Louis Watterson here at
a question how would you suggest someone
who's a jack of all trades and master of
none conduct themselves well you're
probably high in openness high in
creativity and one of the dangers of
being high in creativity especially if
you're also high in neuroticism is that
it's hard for creative people to
catalyze an identity because they're
basically pan like you know like Peter
Pan or like or like pan which means that
everything the god of the forest is the
god of everything to some degree and the
problem with being everything is that
you're also nothing at the same time
because you never specialize and so I
would say that if you're I'll I think
that being a jack-of-all-trades is
pretty damn useful but I would also say
that it's really necessary to buckle
down and find one primary mode of
discipline and Jack or Lou you if you
can't figure out what you should do then
guess just pick something that you think
that you could hit hard and concentrate
on you don't have to be perfect at it
you don't even have to get it right
but pick something rather than nothing
or pick something rather than all things
and then set yourself to master that
because you know you need to have a
discipline a primary discipline it's
absolutely necessary to succeed in life
now once you have a primary discipline
then you can branch out and become a
multiplicity in your disciplined
approach and then you're absolutely
bloody unstoppable but you really need
that initial disciplinary routine you
know this is something Nietzsche knew
knew very well and he said for example I
just wrote about this today that it was
the long unfreedom of the of Europe
subjugation to the dogmatic structures
of the Catholic Church that in noble the
European mind and gave it the capacity
to widely range that it eventually
developed but it was that initial
subjugation that initial voluntary
slavery that produced the discipline
that produced the spirit that could then
go out and do other things and it's
really really useful to subjugate
yourself something too something
voluntarily you know I think that's
partly why it's useful to practice a
religious faith because you subject
yourself to a disciplinary structure
that way and you might think well that's
all oppressive in all of that and of
course that's true but it also makes you
disciplined
once you're disciplined like you're
you're like a sharp and sword man like
well tempered blade and then you can go
out there and operate in the world so
and if you haven't found your passion
then I would say well don't wait around
till you find the damn thing because you
may never find it is pick something and
focus on it you know and if you move
strongly and forthrightly towards it for
a number of months at least or even a
number of years and then you find well
that wasn't the thing for you it isn't
gonna be a waste anyways because most of
the time the pursuit of any discipline
knowledge pays off even if it doesn't
pay off in the way that you initially
expect so Alex Bernstein said what is
the female equivalent of the hero
archetype hmm that's a great question
man I spent a lot of time thinking about
this and of course the women in my class
and perhaps some of the women on line
two are irritated or or put off or maybe
just alienated and perhaps properly sold
by the fact that the archetypal hero is
masculine
now there's complex reasons for that and
I would recommend for those who are
actually interested in such things to
read Erik Newman's the origins and
history of consciousness and also the
great mother which are two great works
of Union psychology Camille Paglia by
the way is a big fan of both of those
books for those of you who might be
interested because Norman does the best
job that I know of of describing why the
symbolism of the hero is laid out the
way it is why mother nature is mother
feminine and why the hero is masculine
now now but here's how I've come to
understand it and I'm gonna use
Christian symbolic language because I
because it's it's the quickest it's the
shortest route to this sort of
explanation so I would say that in the
male psyche the dragon fate the dragon
slaying hero is at the forefront and so
that would be Christ in the archetypal
mode because this dragon he defeats is
the evil that that is encompassed in in
within the figure of Satan so that would
be like the ultimate dragon and then
behind that is the feminine that
compassionate the caring and that would
be embodied say in the Christian figure
of Mary so you have in in both male in
the male and female soul let's say you
have Christ and Mary but in the male
Christ is for mount for most that's the
Dragon Slayer we'll say
and Mary is the secondary character and
although both should be very well
developed and and that mean that makes
for a much better character and in the
female it's the other way around is that
the maternal / feminine so let's say
Mary is is at the forefront and Christ
is in the background the dragon slayers
at the background but should be well
developed Jung felt that you know it was
possible for men to develop the more
feminine side of themselves especially
in the last half of life which is also
when he felt that women should develop
the more masculine side of themselves
and you know we can could debate that
but it's a perfectly reasonable
proposition now we should note that the
figure of Mary is actually uh is is
actually what would you say a heroic
figure in and of itself because like you
can really understand this if you look
at Michelangelo's pietà so in that great
sculpture you see Mary who's holding the
crucified Christ and that's basically
her son right her son who's just being
offered up to the world and betrayed by
his friends and broken on the cross and
in other words he's been subject to the
worst that life can throw at him and the
thing about Mary is that she knew
initially when she agreed to give birth
to the savior of mankind that he would
be broken and that's an archetypal story
because women know in their heart of
hearts that their children are going to
be broken and killed by the world that's
that's the human condition and so
there's a current of course a woman
who's a woman who's well developed loves
her child more than herself loves her
child more than anyone else which is
something you can't really understand
til you've had a child but is still
willing to bring that child into the
world knowing full well what his or her
fate will be and so there's a real
heroism and that and so and then there's
the standard heroism that a woman can
undertake where she develops her
masculine side which is basically what
happens for example in Sleeping Beauty
when when when Sleeping Beauty is
awakened by the princes kiss you can
think of that you can think of her being
rescued by an actual man but you can
also think of that as the masculine part
of her psyche waking up her unconscious
femininity so that the two of them can
unite and rule the kingdom it's
perfectly reasonable interpretation of
that story and so and so that would be
the development of the masculine side in
female that decide that's stout stalwart
and forthright and willing to go forth
into the world and Caunt
and conquer uncertainty and and then
there's the beauty and the beast'
archetype which i think is is in some
sense the primary female sexual
archetype and Beauty and the Beast is
another kind of dragon slaying story
it's more like a dragon taming story I
suppose where the the woman the virginal
woman who's who's out for an adventure
finds a beastly male and that's the
dangerous man that I was talking about
earlier right the man who has the
capacity say to kill the capacity to
harm the the capacity for violence at
hand right at hand and then proceeds to
tame him which is a real adventure and
you know we know that this is the case
because again we can refer to those you
know bro are those rom-coms that are so
popular now with failed beta males
always trying to make friends with the
girl and failing the girls are
interested in the rough guys who have
who have the capacity to also be
sophisticated and to be let's not say
tamed but civilized into channeling
their harsh roughness their capacity for
evil even into productive competition
and and because competition can be very
productive and then the sharing fourth
of the fruits of that competition with
with family and so those are all heroic
aspects of feminine being and and
they're not to be taken lightly their
major life tasks and major life
contributions you know and I guess
another part of the heroic element of
the female is the subjugation of her own
primacy with regards to her child
because my daughter just had a child by
the way so I'm a grandfather so hooray
for that and it went really nicely and
I'm so happy about that because a I love
my daughter and B I really really like
kids I think they're so great and so now
I'm gonna have kid around again so
that's great but I mean you know one of
the things you notice very rapidly if
you're a parent is that you bring
someone into the world who's now more
important under all circumstances than
you are and there's a there's a heroic
subjugation of selfishness that's that
goes along with that that's
characteristic deeply characteristic of
the property developed feminine spirit
so
what is it that you are doing to avoid
becoming arrogant your current situation
is very inviting for that yeah well I
would say a good dose of existential
terror curia that you know there's a
there's a saying in the Old Testament
that the fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom and like first of all and there's
some real truth in that you know like I
don't want to make a mistake and so I
live in constant terror that I'm going
to uh Terr some damning phrase that's
going to sink everything I've done and
so I'll tell you if you feel that way
about the situation then either
probability that you're gonna be
arrogant is pretty damn low and like I
don't feel I have any reason to be
arrogant you know like here's here's
something you can do if you're really
interested in this but it's really hard
there's a paper by Carl Jung called the
relations between the ego and the
unconscious and it's an unbelievably
brilliant paper it's very difficult to
understand but it has to do with what
Jung called ego inflation and so imagine
that as you move up a hierarchy of
authority or competence we're not gonna
call them dominance or power hierarchies
because I don't think that's reasonable
but as you move up you know you're you
have the you have the temptation of
having your ego inflate to match your
hypothetical position of status but what
that is is in some sense the taking on
of the archetype as if it's a personal
triumph or a personal construct or a
personal invention and you'll warn very
very strongly against that he knew what
he was talking about because of course
Jung had his followers and was an
extraordinarily powerful man from a
spiritual and a physical perspective
he was certainly no pushover in a very
brave person and he had the temptation
of becoming well a cult leader for
example which people have accused him of
being in which he certainly wasn't and
he knew that you know if you if you have
the privilege of rising in a in a
hierarchy what that means if the rising
is real is that the archetype is
operating through you and that you can't
take credit for that you have to you
have to separate your personality in
some sense from the archetype I can give
you a funny example of that it's like
and I hope that nobody takes this wrong
but it's very comical you know how all
the superheroes have alter ego
so you can't be Superman unless you're
also Clark Kent and you can't be while
Batman isn't such a good example because
he gets to be playboy billionaire like
Iron Man but Superman's better example
you know he's this mild-mannered and
meek reporter and without that he can't
be Superman it's like well that's the
reason that such a well-established
comic trope is because comics are deeply
mythological and there's the idea there
that the person has these two elements
one is the archetypal and and it's
associated with the infinite it's like
the God in man you could say that
there's a great icon by the way of
Christ as Pantocrator one of the very
earliest icons that show him with two
different facial halves the eyes are
different and the face is asymmetrical
and one one face is the face of God how
faces the how face of God and the other
is the half face of man and he's holding
a book it's I'm having Jonathan pazzo
who's a brilliant Carver I'm having him
carved me that image so that I can put
it in my front porch because I love it
and a christ is holding a book and so
you know it's it's such a beautiful
image this idea of man as a duality
between the finite and the infinite and
and simultaneously holding forth this
you know wealth of knowledge that's been
gathered by the human race it's its mind
mind expanding visual imagery
anyways I mean back to the arrogance
issue is that you know I'm I'm so carrot
caught I'm so what would you say attune
to the fact that I'm barely staying on
that line between chaos and order and
that any foolishness on my part or any
attempt to manipulate the situation for
my own let's say selfish personal gain
you know that sort of impulsive and and
shallow and immature and and and
short-sighted personal gain that that
that willingness or wish to lord it over
other people or to feel in some sense
superior man if I go there with the
exposure that I've got right now I'd be
sunk so fast that it wouldn't even be
funny and that would not be pretty and I
would not want that so I'm I'm doing my
best man to keep myself on the ground
and where's where I want to be and I've
got my family to help me with that and
I've got my friends who are offering me
you know corrective criticism on an
ongoing basis and I listen to the
negative comments on e on YouTube and I
try to pay attention to them and
evaluate them and not just dismiss them
out of hand you know if they're crude or
crass or any of those things then I'm
less likely to pay attention to them but
you know even when I'm called far right
I pay attention to that you know because
well you gotta listen to your enemy
that's the thing that's another New
Testament injunction you should listen
to your enemy because your enemy will
tell you things about yourself that no
one else will tell you now some of those
things might not be true but some of
them might be and if your enemy tells
you something terrible about yourself
that's true then he's immediately become
your best friend because you bloody well
want to know if there's something
terrible about you so that you can get
it rectified before it ruins your life
and ruins your family's life and you
know detrimental E affects the course of
the world and all of that so in one of
your lectures you said the film frozen
was garbage I don't think I said garbage
I think I said reprehensible propaganda
which I believe it was can you elaborate
on your thoughts on the film I can't
because I haven't seen it recently
enough to the only thing I can say is
that I left the film with the strong
sense that it was produced for
ideological reasons and it was produced
as a sort of anti sleeping beauty and I
felt that was entirely inappropriate
because it wasn't a genuine artistic
attempt it was an ideological statement
I actually really liked Moana I hope I'm
pronouncing that properly I thought it
was that I liked that you know that
little girl in the movie allied herself
with this very very powerful but rather
uncivilized masculine force and I
thought they got the archetypal balance
in that film really quite really quite
nicely so I thought it was quite
beautifully done so I liked Moana quite
a bit what were you like when I was 25
hmm well I was obsessed 25 so that would
have been 87 I'd been in graduate school
for two years well you know when I was
25 or so I probably weighed about 138
pounds I smoked like a pack of
cigarettes day I drank tremendous amount
of alcohol I was from northern Alberta
this rough little town up and northern
Alberta called Fairview and you know
there were long winters there and my
friends were heavy drinkers and most of
them draw
Delta school by the time they were 15 or
16 went off to work on the oil rigs and
you know it was a rough town and we
drank a lot I started when I was 14 and
you know and so I was I had a lot of bad
habits let's say and things that were
and I wasn't in great shape physically
and I was also still intellectually
obsessed by as I am now and so that
would have been that would have been in
85 but when I but I decided around that
about 85 84 or something like that maybe
a little earlier that I was really gonna
try to get my act together and so I
started doing that I you know I first of
all I quit smoking though that took a
long time because I eventually had to
quit drinking to in order to quit
smoking and I started working out
playing sports which I'd never done I
was a small kid I been skipped a grade
and I was a small small for my age so
sports were never especially team sports
were never really a domain of expertise
for me although I skied and went
trapping with my dad went you know
cross-country skiing and camping and all
that so but when I went to graduate
school I started swimming the first the
first physical exercise routine I did I
enrolled in a swim sir sized course I
think it was called it was me and this
like really overweight kid and like
these 60 year old women and men make it
out exercise me like mad it was really
embarrassing me and the overweight kid
you know we'd be just panting ourselves
3/4 to death at the end of the bloody
work out and these 60 year old women who
weren't great shape or like you know
chatting away as if nothing was going on
at all in the pool so that was quite
embarrassing and as was going to the
weight room you know because when I
started I could barely best benchpress
75 pounds and people used to keep coming
over and helping me which was last thing
I bloody well wanted but certainly
needed I got to the point where I could
benchpress 225 pounds I think that was
the best I did and I gained about 30
pounds of muscle in a year and a half so
that was good thing so like I was kind
of a wild man and
you know I'm a little bit manic in my in
my temperament and so you know I was I
was kind of going every direction at the
same time so and you know I don't regret
that I had a fine time when I was a kid
and but I needed really to get
disciplined and I had to do it because I
was working on these hard problems that
you know that I've been discussing with
all of you and I've been working on them
really you know obsessively since I was
probably about 18 maybe even earlier
than that and got to the point around 25
when I was in graduate school trying to
get my PhDs doing all my research like I
published 15 papers by the time I
graduated with my PhD which was by I
think by a fairly large measure the most
papers that any graduate student at that
time had ever published at McGill I
think that's right might have been twice
as many or maybe twice as many maybe
even three times as many and at the same
time I wrote maps of meaning which was a
terrible terrible terribly difficult
thing to do because I was writing about
three hours a day doing that and I
couldn't do all that and continue with
my misbehavior you know my sort of my
what would you say my my my hedonistic
my hedonistic my massive hedonistic
consumption of alcohol and all of that I
just couldn't keep it up and also work
seriously on the issues that were at
hand so you know I had to stop that's a
sacrifice I had to stop messing about
and straighten myself out I I got
married while my the woman who's my wife
Tammy who I've known since she was eight
years old she lived across the street
from me in this little town called
Fairview and I was in love with her like
the first time I saw her
which is quite bloody thing so that's
worked out pretty well for me but she
came to live with me about the same time
and you know we decided jointly to get
her act together and we swore that we
tell each other the truth which I think
she's actually done better than me like
I don't think I don't think she's lied
to me ever in our entire marriage which
is unbelievable you know and it's been
so useful because I can really tell her
things that we can really talk so I tell
you if you want to have a good
relationship man you embedded in the
truth because if you don't embed it in
the truth you don't have a relationship
it's it's just lies it's it's a tissue
of lies and it will
it will dissolve in the chaos as soon as
the crisis comes along so the truth is a
terrible thing but not not compared to
falsehood so all right so let's look at
the live chat here
please get a better quality microphone
well I'm really hoping that the
microphone that I'm using right now is
working well it should be it's a really
good microphone it's uh it's what do you
call a road and I thought I was using it
for quite a while there but I'd realized
my office and I actually had unplugged
the road and so my voice was unwittingly
unbeknownst to me coming through this
little Logitech high-def micro or video
camera that I have on top of my speakers
and it might even be doing that for now
right now as you know for all I know I
hope not
now it says the microphone is rode in
team into USB so maybe god I hope so
anyways you know I've been mastering a
lot of technical equipment in the last
year and so I've got most of it under
control but I don't know if I have all
of it under control
so some fan and I wish I remembered his
name because he deserves it sent me this
microphone so hurray for him and
hopefully I'm going to get access to it
so let's see here
I'm 20 my parents have made it clear
they don't want me to leave home they
are both drug-addicted
depressed and anti-social how do I leave
without killing the only positive
relationship they have well I think you
have to ask yourself a different
question I think you might have to ask
yourself the question of how do you
maintain that positive relationship into
the future if you don't leave and have
your own life you know because you have
to be thinking over five-year periods
here or even decades and first of all
you deserve to have your own life like
your parents should be fostering your
independence it's their moral duty to
foster your independence now hopefully
they can do that in a way that makes you
strong and that makes you better able to
have a relationship with them but they
have no right to use their their their
dependence let's say as an as a
impediment to you becoming independent
drug addicted anti depressed and
anti-social despite all of that they
should be saying you get the hell away
from us as fast as you can you get out
there and have a life and if you can put
yourself together and we get to see you
from time to time wouldn't that be a
wonderful thing so you know you you you
don't get in your children's way you
don't get in your children's way so I
would say and you know I I can't give
you advice because I don't know you and
the devil is always in the details but I
can say generally that you won't be able
to maintain a positive relationship with
your parents if you do so at the cost of
your own destiny let's say that that
isn't gonna work out so and no one has
the right to deprive you of that destiny
family or not man you're to operate out
there in the world like an independent
soul and to make your way through the
world and to offer what you have to
offer and those who love you should be
behind you and and encouraging you to do
that in every possible way and if they
aren't then you have to seriously think
about whether or not a whether or not
they have their your best interest in
mind and B whether or not it might be
better for you and for them if you went
did what you needed to do anyways so I
would say that so do you have in mind a
more specific breakdown of the social
sciences I presume you mean in
relationship to the postmodern
neo-marxist that have taken over so much
of the university I would say philosophy
seems to be in pretty
good shape strangely enough it isn't
exactly clear why that's mostly my
impression I would say that in the rest
of the university if the discipline has
at least one foot in science then it's
relatively safe and so I would say
psychology is relatively safe discipline
because it's quite nicely constrained by
the necessity of taking biology into
account that's less true with social
psychology but it's certainly true with
clinical psychology and it's even more
true with neuroscience and at the animal
behavioral side of things instead well
the different statistics isn't science
but at least it's rigorous method alt
methodological II if the discipline is
very heavy heavily theoretically Theory
dependent like say sociology or let's
say women's studies which I have
virtually no respect for not that that's
really relevant because whether or not I
respect it isn't the issue the issue is
whether or not it actually is a
high-quality discipline and I don't
believe it's a high-quality discipline
at all I would also say though if you're
and I'm gonna make a video about this in
the next couple of weeks and advise to
university students when I launch that
website I've been talking about that
helps they'll help people identify their
courses as postmodern slash neo-marxist
so that they can either take them if
they want to be indoctrinated or avoid
them if they want to actually have an
education I would say it's your
responsibility you know it's your
responsibility to get educated at
university and sort of despite the
university we could we could say that
you there are great books you can find
out what they are and you can read them
and you know what the university does
and society is offer you an identity for
four years you're a student you're a
university student so that's a credible
identity and it offers you a lot of
freedom and so you might say you might
have to get educated despite your
courses and you know you think well
that's a bad deal because the courses
should be educating you it's like well
you gotta look at it from a more
realistic perspective you can't expect
the university to be a perfect
institution any more than you're a
perfect person and at least it offers
you an identity to shield yourself with
well you're undergoing the difficult
process of educating yourself and so I
would say you know
um take responsibility for education
find professors that you respect and
who's who and who who who who challenge
you and and don't don't fall prey to
they to the to the cynical attitude that
you know you take the course for the
grade or that you should write what the
professor wants to hear I mean you have
to be a real corrupt professor before
you'll mark a student for for producing
an opinion contrary to yours that's high
quality I mean even the more corrupt
professors even in the more corrupt
disciplines I think are fairly rarely
guilty of that sort of thing so anyways
if it's grounded in science it's more
likely to be reliable that's the first
thing to do but the second thing is and
the second thing is to know it's your
responsibility to get you educated and
the libraries are full of great books
you can figure out what the great books
are you know in half an hour you could
make a list of 50 great books I have one
on my website you could read all those
you know that taking about two years
probably to really do a proper job of it
you read the great classics scientific
and literary historical all of that
you'll get educated and then you'll be
sharp and coherent and articulate and
powerful and able to formulate arguments
and able to negotiate and able to
formulate problems and solve them and
you know that's exactly what you should
be doing when you get educated it has
tremendous tremendous economic value and
that includes education in the
humanities so alright did I fail any
classes in university I had to retake
stats I wasn't good at stouts I I got it
eventually I needed to know
well I'm no mathematical genius we can
start with that but I also needed to
know I couldn't take the assumptions on
faith which was really quite problematic
him so and I couldn't just memorize you
know I had to understand and that didn't
work out so well for stats and I also
didn't understand at that time that I
had to keep up with it sort of
rigorously but I got to be a pretty
decent statistician at least I
understand the statistics now so yeah I
didn't do very well in statistics but
most of my grades otherwise were they
and my grades in high school except for
grade ten when I bet my
that I could get straight 80s and I
think got exactly that my grades in
junior high and high school are pretty
dismal because I absolutely detested
school partly for my own reasons you
know because of my own problems but any
maturity but also because I found it
painfully unchallenging let's say but in
university college and university I got
very good grades and which was a good
thing because I would have never got
into clinical graduate school without
that so yeah 225 pounds isn't bad yeah
well I only weighed 160 so you know it
was pretty good but it was funny because
it was only one day I was able to manage
that I could do 200 with fair bit of
regularity and a bench press but one day
man I did 205 and that worked and I did
210 and that worked and I got all the
way to 225 and I was never able to
duplicate it again so that was pretty
interesting
so Jared Chen says you claim hierarchies
are efficient enough yet you claim 99%
of creative people get stuck at the
bottom oh yeah well that's not a
contradiction I'm what kind of propels
you up hierarchies of authority is
intelligence and conscientiousness right
and so then you might say well what
about creativity and looks like
creativity creativity as you sort of
know is an out-of-the-box phenomena and
the problem is is that if you're within
a hierarchy there's a ladder upward that
you can climb rung by rung and basically
to do that you have to do your damn job
now now you might say yeah well isn't
creativity you know necessary and the
answer to that is absolutely but it's
not that useful when you're at the
bottom because who the hell wants to
hear your damn creative ideas when
you're just starting out you know you're
just a pain in the neck even if you're
right even if you're brilliant you're
just a pain in the neck if you're
creative at the bottom because you come
up with all these radical ideas that are
gonna shape shake up the structure of
the hierarchy and Plus you haven't what
indicated your credibility I've
demonstrated your credibility to any
great degree so people are going to just
write you off as a they're just gonna
write you off because it's easier than
taking you seriously now the funny thing
is is that as you climb up the hierarchy
creativity becomes increasingly
necessary until when you're at the very
top it's absolutely vital and many many
companies suffer from the fact that they
would you say promote conscientious
people continually up the ladder and
then they end up at the top with no
creative people but it's hard for the
creative people declined to the top
because creativity isn't one of those
things that ratchets you up a hierarchy
of competence so so they're efficient on
the conscientious end and efficient on
the intelligent end but creativity is a
whole different thing I mean partly
because how the hell do you evaluate a
creative person you can't by definition
because to have a structure of
evaluation means that something has to
be done in a tried and true and
measurable manner and that isn't what a
creative person does like they they make
a left turn you know a 90-degree turn
and they say well I'm gonna do it
completely differently it's like well
how how is someone gonna evaluate you if
you do that now you might be right and
you know creative people are often wrong
but sometimes and vitally dead right
when no one else is but it's a really
it's really problematic I mean if you're
a creative person you're your best bet I
would say is to discipline yourself and
ground yourself in something relatively
practical that will enable you to eke
out some sort of living and then to
practice your creative endeavor on the
side you can head wet you can hand head
long into it and try to make money and
be creative at the same time but I'll
tell you man my experience has taught me
and this is a lot of experience and a
lot of watching and it's not something
I'm happy to say is that it's very very
very very difficult for creative people
to monetize their creativity and most of
the time it's an exercise in futility so
what you have to do is stabilize
yourself in some sort of productive and
traditional domain and and then you know
use your extra time to work creatively
and see if you can branch out that way
you know you can always try to start a
small business - or even a big business
but again that's um that's a high-risk
high-return proposition and you actually
there's a technology that goes along
with that - you can't do that like a
fool you know you have to know what
you're doing in order to do that so what
evil daddy will enslave the human race
come the Eclipse I think that's probably
the god Keck that would be my guess as
far as I've been able to tell so forth
could you please tell the difference
between equity and equality and why is
equity dangerous well it's not actually
equity inequality it's equity and
equality
of opportunity well you know it's a
truism I think that's agreed upon by
liberals and conservatives alike that
the interests of individuals and society
are best served by opening the door to
the participation of all who are
qualified regardless of their attributes
and domains that have nothing to do with
the qualifications for the position so
imagine that as a worker and that would
include managers executives etc as a
worker you have a function like a tool
you're a tool and and I wouldn't you
know I wouldn't be too down on that it's
it's good to be good for something and
we it's in society's best interest that
those who are able to be the most
efficient tools are the ones that are
placed in the position and so you want
to open up the competitive landscape to
all players not least so that society
can most effectively exploit the people
who are most productive now it also has
the side benefit of allowing individuals
to utilize their talents and to take
their place in the social world but
people are very diverse in their
abilities like incredibly diverse in
their abilities and that's mostly
evidence for example in the domain of
intelligence you know because well the
the range that includes the majority of
people runs from an IQ of about eighty
five or let's say 70 to an IQ of 130
although there's plenty of people who
are outside those domains it's like at
70
you're pretty intellectually impaired
right you're not gonna graduate from
high school with an IQ of 70 and except
under very very extreme circumstances
with an IQ of 83 which is about 10% of
the population 85 is 15% you're gonna
have a hard time reading well enough to
follow instructions you know and with an
IQ of 115 you're gonna do pretty well at
a sort of mid-level community college
and so an IQ of 145 is gonna prepare you
for like high success in complex domains
say like law or managerial positions
where the environment is transforming
very radically there is immense
differences between people in their
cognitive ability and so and in their
conscientiousness and in their negative
emotionality and you know and in their
energy levels and oh and
creativity and all sorts of traits and
because of that that individual
diversity there's no reason to assume
that there is going to be equality of
outcome and that's what equity is I've
got to change the batteries in my camera
and we're back
apologies for that with this DLSR DSLR
whichever it is there's some I will go
into it I have to change the battery
about about after about an hour or so
anyways back to intelligence what was I
saying
talking about individual differences and
and the differences differences in
intelligence oh yeah equality of outcome
well the only way given the wide range
of human capacity first four you don't
want to organize your society such that
every single category of outcome has
exactly proportional representation from
every single possible category of person
because that isn't you you have to use
so much social force in order to make
that occur that the consequences the
negative consequences will far outweigh
the benefits it's better to open up the
marketplace to allow a very large range
of hierarchies to emerge and then to let
people compete for their position to
compete and cooperate for their own
positions and the other problem with
equity is like who the hell is gonna
make the who's gonna decide which groups
are gonna be categorized you want to
here's an example for you let's imagine
you stratify at the population by IQ
which which we do by the way although
although we don't do it as evidently and
obviously as we do say by sex or perhaps
even by race are you would you actually
recommend that an equal number of people
be drawn from every category of IQ to be
surgeons I mean that's palpably absurd
so there's too much social engineering
required to produce equity of outcome
now well having said that as well
the the historical data on equity are
absolutely clear the societies that have
tried to aim at equity are the terrible
communistic societies of the 20th
century and they were so goddamn myth
so unbelievably murderous and and
counterproductive that it beggars the
imagination and so I can't even believe
we have a conversation about equity
because it's such a pathological idea
it's it's completely invalidated by the
historical data so all right what does
my average daily schedule consist of
well that's fairly straightforward I get
up around somewhere between 6 & 8 and
then I work till 10:00
as hard as I can flat out every single
day so and I've been doing that for with
very little variation although it's been
much more extreme in the last year for
like since 1985 like I work probably
well I work I would say 14 hours a day
at least 14 hours a day and so that's
about a hundred hours a week and that
time that I don't do that I spent with
friends and but mostly with my family
and so yeah and I work as efficiently as
I possibly can I'm always trying to do
everything I can as fast as I possibly
can and I'm accustomed to that because
like I said I've been doing it for I've
been doing it for 30 years so that's my
daily schedule and and I don't know even
what I would do if I didn't do that I
have this cottage that I go to although
I generally spend time writing up there
and I go swimming with my wife and we go
canoeing and and I can take a break in
that way but most of the time if I take
a break even up at the cottage generally
what I do is like carpentry and fix the
place up and I don't like to be
unoccupied I have to be occupied doing
something productive all the time
because otherwise I'm not pleased with
myself and so I mean oh I decided a long
time ago that I was going to try to live
a hyper efficient and hyper productive
life and so it's been a challenge I it's
an enjoyable thing for me to some degree
because I'm very interested in trying to
figure out how much I can possibly do in
the shortest period of time all the time
and that keeps you alert and awake and
it's a great challenge and it lends my
life a substantial amount of meaning and
it's it's been very successful so you
know so that's kind of what it's like
okay let's see what else these chat
people say
oh wow
apparently broken mind in Tolstoy
confession he talks about meaning in
faith he had many problems with religion
in the church
how can a non-religious person find a
meaningful non-religious faith oh well
you know it depends on what you mean by
non-religious you know I would say for
broken mind you know let's I was
thinking about this today I was writing
about this today I was reading about
Dostoyevsky as compared to Nietzsche you
know and Nietzsche was a great critic of
Christianity and so was Dostoyevsky but
Dostoevsky
I think trumped Nietzsche with regards
to his attitude towards Christianity I
think you could really see this he could
read the brothers karamasoff
I would really recommend that broken
mind everything get your hands on
Dostoyevsky read everything you can he
wrote because Dostoyevsky really really
and you like Tolstoy confession you know
read Dostoyevsky but you know Dostoevsky
has this character in the brothers
karamasoff Alyosha and Alyosha is a
monastic know vitiated and who's a kind
of a naive guy intellectually although a
very good person a simple person
intellectually let's say perhaps not
naive and he has this older brother Ivan
who was a devastating intellect and a
handsome man and a rake with the women
and like really like well put together
human being although quite nihilistic
and cutting in his intellect and Ivan
can absolutely demolish Alyosha in a
debate and does quite regularly but le
OSHA basically wins the argument in the
book let's say as the book plays itself
out by acting like a good person and I
would say you know if you want to
develop a religious faith in some sense
forget about trying to develop faith in
God I don't think you can will yourself
into that I'm not even sure that you
should but I do think that you can
decide that you are going to do what you
can to live a meaningful life and be a
good person and start to meditate on
what that means and then to start to put
it in practice and then you find your
religious faith in the domain of action
rather than conceptualization and that's
really the primary domain in which it
should be manifested anyways like the
the primary Christian commitment for
example is the imitation of Christ not
the belief in his divinity in our the
belief that he died for the sins
mankind or any of that and I'm not
making light of that but the primary
moral injunction is to try to live the
archetypal life within the confines of
your own subjective being to try to live
the most divine life that you can and if
you try that and if you take that
seriously and if you meditate upon that
and ask yourself what it might mean that
I think you'll find the religious
element of your life fleshing itself out
quite nicely so that's the answer to
that question thoughts on the drug
epidemic well I'm not sure there is an
epidemic any more than there always has
been I know that there is now a tilt
towards drugs in the u.s. in particular
like meth and and fentanyl and the other
opiates and that's quite a catastrophe a
lot of that is occurring among people
who don't have meaning in their lives I
would say you might think that's a
facile answer but it's not you know like
here's the rat literature like it's if
you take a route lab rat typical lab rat
is you know genetically bred to be
identical with many other lab rats and
he lives alone in a cage and he he's got
a pretty miserable rat life because rats
are social animals and they don't like
to live in cages by themselves and you
can get a lab rat in a cage addicted to
codeine cocaine and no time flat and
he'll you know like press a lever for
cocaine reward - pretty much - the
expect to the exclusion of all else
including sex and often including food
but if you take that same rat and you
put him in a rat family you know in a
rat social hierarchy in a rat
environment and give him something that
rat rat like to do so that he can be
satisfied it's very difficult to get him
addicted to cocaine and so I would say
the reason that people take psychomotor
stimulants and all the drugs of serious
abuse or psychomotor stimulants
regardless of what else they might be
they activate the dopaminergic system
which is the system that tracks reward
and that that is associated that's
activated when you pursue Val valuable
goal directed behavior if you don't have
that if you don't have a valid goal if
you don't have
no real valid meaning in your life you
don't have a valid ambition then you
don't have any way of activating that
system and why the hell wouldn't you
take drugs it's like you have to have
something better to do to not addictive
you know so so I would say that a huge
part of the current epidemic in the u.s.
in particular is is manifest among
broken men who have no real place in
society and providing them with money
isn't it help that they need a
productive and meaningful existence and
which is the Paramount the Paramount
goal should be the Paramount goal of
social of social policy for example we
it isn't the alleviation of poverty
that's really the issue because people
in the West aren't poor there might be a
bit of a distribution problem but we're
not poor what we have is a what would
you say we have a problem of meaningful
engagement and that's what has to be
addressed and that's why I do the work
that I'm doing so are you aware of the
similarities in the work of Anthony
Robbins and with lot of what you are
doing in the self authoring suite I'm
not specifically aware of the
similarities although I know that
Anthony Robbins is a well-known
motivational speaker and generally
motivational speakers try to motivate
people to pursue something productive in
their life so you know I would say
likely that there are motivational there
are people who are concerned with
motivation that are working at different
levels of the communication strata and
I'm working at a fairly abstract level
and hopefully mr. Robbins is working at
a level that is productive and helpful
to lots of people he certainly had a
very stable and long career so although
I'm not aware of any specific
similarities past that so
what do you think about ADHD I have it I
am frustrated by my failures in life
because of it I am trying to become a
camera chemist and I am failing at
school
I think ADHD is a catch-all diagnosis I
think that people who are extroverted
and unconscious for example often
manifest the traits of attention deficit
disorder I know that there isn't any
real evidence of long term utility and
psycho in cycle what psycho
pharmacological treatment for ADHD I
would say though if you are having a
hard time concentrating on your goals
that what you should probably do is set
yourself up with the therapist find
someone you can talk to you know so see
two or three therapists I know it's
expensive but so is not having a life
find someone you can talk to and then
make it and someone practical probably a
behavioral therapist would be best and
then have them set goals with you and
help you strategize to stay on track
week to week that's the best thing or to
set that up with a friend if you can't
do it with the therapist so that's
that's the best advice I have for that
and keep at it man you know but break
your you got to learn to schedule you
got to learn to break your days down
into disciplined sub sections and you go
to practice out it and practice at it
and there isn't an easier answer that I
know of but having someone that will
help keep you responsible I think can be
useful I've seen that be useful for
people who have attention deficit
disorder let's say you compared it once
compared religion and Sciences tools
that can be used more accurately to
understand your position do you think
gender and biological sex are two tools
in describing identity not really I
think that most of what I think most of
the work on gender is rubbish to put it
bluntly I get what is meant by it you
know that there is a socio-cultural
layer specifying gendered behavior on
top of biological sexual identity but I
think it's been so polluted by political
idiocy that it's all it's a concept
that's almost entirely invalidated it's
used for perverse purposes it's not used
as a tool of understanding and most
you Asians so I think that the concept
of gender could be useful if it was used
to specify the purely socio-cultural
layer of like sex type behavior and I
think it could conceivably be used in
that way but I see very little evidence
that it ever is so my brother is a
soldier in Iraq as a clinical
psychologist what should one do would
coming from such a chaotic place back to
a tame and structured one well I guess
that would depend to some degree on
exactly the nature of his experiences in
Iraq so it's hard for me to elaborate on
that further I mean I would say though
that one thing he could really do and
and this is somewhat self-serving or
could appear to be somewhat self-serving
I suppose is I would strongly recommend
that your brother do the self authoring
suite when he comes back because it'll
help him and probably concentrate on the
future authoring program to begin with
because it might take a while when he
gets back before he can meditate on his
experiences without that meditation
being harmful so for example there's
pretty good evidence if you've had a
traumatic experience that you shouldn't
Reese object-- yourself to the traumatic
experience repeatedly before or say
about 18 months or something like that
has passed and it isn't exactly obvious
why that's the case but there's a pretty
good literature indicating that it is so
I would say that when he makes the
transition from Iraq back to Norman
Norman of society that the first thing
you should do is generate a plan you
know a plan about how he would and this
would be the same even if you were
coming out of something like prison or
or making a change a radical change in
your occupation is you need a plan right
you need a plan so that you can think
because you can't just make that
adjustment without knowing what you're
doing so that's what I would recommend
and if he does come back traumatized
then I would say you know traumatized
soldiers often have to develop a very
comprehensive philosophy of good and
evil and and so that would either mean
perhaps talking to a decent clinical
psychologist about what his experiences
were or perhaps reading some of the
literature and I've outlined those books
on my website at Jordan B Peterson com
that can be really helpful in
understanding and helping someone
understand
the evils of atrocity and warfare then
in even the necessary evils let's say of
atrocity and warfare so okay let's see
here do you think a lot of your work is
the form of the bargaining stage of
grief no no I don't think that there's
these stages of grief that have been
identified I can't remember who did the
work it seems to have been quite helpful
work for many people but I don't think I
don't think I'm bargaining
exactly I don't think I'm suggesting
that people bargain I think I'm
suggesting that people work and
sacrifice and you could think about that
as bargaining but bargaining has the
connotation more of pleading let's say
and I don't think that work and
sacrifice constitute pleading I I think
that they're actually really effective
means of dealing with the world and I
think that people can be highly
effective and competent much more than
they think and so it's an interesting
question and I can see why you posed it
but no I don't I don't believe it so
could you comment on the Buddhist
concept of impermanence and the finite
nature of reality being given being what
gives it meaning oh yeah that's a good
one and how that concept conflicts with
ideas of eternal life in heaven Jesus
man that's a lot of questions that's a
lot of hard questions well hell let's
start with I'm gonna only answer one of
those I think it's just too much effort
to get all three of them in the same
it's like hitting three fast balls with
the same swing of the bat I don't think
I can manage it how does the finite
nature of reality give it meaning how is
it that the finite nature of reality is
what gives it meaning god that's such a
good question well I'm I can answer this
obliquely I'm gonna talk about something
that happened to the comic book
character Superman in the late 70s so
Superman was extraordinarily popular
from the 1930s right up to the 1970s but
one of the things that
happened is that as he became more and
more popular he also got more and more
powerful right so by the 80s Christ you
know you could bounce a hydrogen bomb
off Superman's chest and he could he
could juggle planets and you know that's
all well and good except what are you
gonna what kind of adventure is he gonna
have right like you know if you can't
blow him up with a hydrogen bomb and he
can juggle planets nothing interesting
can happen to him he can be anywhere he
wants at any time and he can do anything
he wants with no effort at it under any
circumstances whatsoever so he's like a
permanent deus ex ex machina I think
I've got that right which is Superman is
boring because God always comes in at
this last moment and saves them from
whatever predicament he's in well you
know contemplating that perversely
enough can give you some appreciation
for the finitude of life it's like we're
we're like infinity captured in in the
finite like like a genie encapsulated in
the in the lamp you know on genie is the
gene root word of genius by the way so
that's not an accidental comparison and
it's this strange combination of
infinite capacity that characterizes
human beings to some degree with this
terrible finite limitation that does in
fact make our lives the adventures that
they are and so this is quite nicely
documented in the daodejing by the way
and I would really recommend the the
translation by Seth Rosenthal I really
think it's elegant and the Daoists are
very good at formulating the utility of
non-existence in fact I think there's
actually a verse in the daodejing called
the utility of non-existence where they
talk about the the empty space in a part
giving it its utility and the you know
the so that's what the part isn't in
some sense that makes it what it is and
and that's also the case with human
beings is that we have these intense
limitations that we can then attempt to
transcend and that it's meaningful to
transcend those limitations in such an
interesting way and I don't know what
that means in the final metaphysical
analysis but you see that we do this
voluntarily to ourselves too because
board people will place restrictions on
them
just for entertainment that's exactly
what we do when we play a game so for
example if you're playing chess you
subject yourself to all sorts of
arbitrary limitations right there's only
a certain number of things you can do
with the chess board and the chess man
and then you you open up a whole
universe of possibilities by adopting
those limitations and there's something
about that that speaks deeply to the
absolute nature of reality and maybe
justifies the the tragic finitude of
being it's something like that and
that's that's how it looks to me and
I've thought about that quite deeply so
can an introvert thrive in the field of
law or should they avoid it altogether
yes actually we gathered a lot of data
on lawyers and and and extraversion it
doesn't predict law what would you say
proficiency at law at all it's not
associated with it at all what predicts
proficiency in law is intelligence and
conscientiousness and then after that
relatively low agreeableness because
it's a very competitive enterprise high
emotional stability so low neuroticism
but introverted lawyers do fine now if
you're an introverted lawyer there's
going to be some challenges and those
challenges would be developing the
social skills necessary say to stand up
in the courtroom if you happen to be a
lawyer who's going to do courtroom work
but there's plenty of like solitary work
that a lawyer can engage in but then the
other problem might be for an
introverted lawyer that you know you
want to develop your web of connections
your social network and of course you
want to do that in any enterprise right
so it's a challenge for introverts in
general but I would say there's
absolutely no reason whatsoever to
assume that law is a discipline that an
introvert should avoid so you know go
for it but you need to be conscientious
right because law really matters if
you're conscientious as a lawyer and you
should have a pretty decent verbal
intelligence because otherwise it's
gonna be a hard road because lawyers
have to deal with an awful lot of verbal
material and they have to formulate
complex arguments they have to be able
to write and communicate and so you know
you got you want to think about those
elements of your temperament more I
would say
okay dr. Peterson do you believe the
evidence for God lies primarily in inner
inner interpersonal experiences
well it lies to a great degree in
interpersonal experiences although I
don't even know if you could call that
necessarily evidence for God it depends
on what you're willing to accept as
evidence like even that experience that
I had that I described earlier in the
Q&A isn't evidence for the existence of
God you know it was it was certainly a
religious experience and I found it
extremely extremely compelling but from
a scientific perspective it's almost
worthless as evidenced because it's
purely subjective now I think there are
elements of experience that cannot be
gone at objectively and so I'm willing
to take subjective experience under some
circumstances as evidence insofar as if
I have a subjective experience that I
find credible I'm willing to act on what
I believe to be its meaning and so I'll
test out my interpretation of that
experience pragmatically and that's good
enough for me I'm willing to consider
without evidence but you can't really
consider that scientific evidence so but
then what other evidence is there well
there is also let's call it the evidence
that's instantiated in the great
religious texts of mankind the great
philosophical texts and the great
literary texts as well and I wouldn't
exactly call that subjective experience
because you can you can garner it
through your exposure to culture and but
you know whether or not that constitutes
evidence depends on what you're willing
to define as and accept as evidence so
I'm told that my overanalyzing is
double-edged sword but I'm suffering
from being this way yeah well you're
probably you know hi and openness and
maybe you're very verbally intelligent
so you're pretty much stuck with that
maybe you've got a bit of mania to you
too and I don't mean that in a negative
sense I find relief when I drink alcohol
smoke or take certain drugs because it
slows down my thought process how can I
use my over analysis to my advantage
well I would say find yourself a
difficult cognitive problem to solve you
know pick a challenge pick a challenge
but you know you also might consider you
might consider talking to someone you
find relief when you drink alcohol that
might be that might be an indication
that some of what you're overanalyzing
isn't so much a consequence of excess
cognitive power but in excess of high
negative emotion and so that would be
illustrated in say high trait
neuroticism we're gonna release the big
five aspect scale here later this month
and you'll be able to take that and
it'll give you a pretty good detailed
description of your personality and
there's two dimensions of neuroticism
withdrawal and volatility and you know
if you're overanalyzing because you're
your what do you call that ruminating
that can be a consequence of high levels
of anxiety and the reason I'm suggesting
that is because you said you find relief
when you drink alcohol and alcohol is a
very powerful and anxiety cajon
anti-anxiety agent and so lots of people
who have high levels of anxiety do
ruminate and so overanalyze let's say
and they find relief when they drink
because alcohol is a primary exile it
o'clock valium like benzodiazepines and
barbiturates so the fact that alcohol
gives you relief probably indicates that
some of what's driving your
over-analysis is anxiety and then you
could exercise can really help with that
I would also recommend this is something
really to think about I don't know what
your eating habits are like or your
sleeping habits but if you are an
anxious person and that's manifesting
itself in say neurotic over-analysis
there's two things you can do very
rapidly three things really that will
help quell doubt about four things even
number one get up at the same time every
day and I would recommend in the morning
because that's when people generally get
up and it's good to do what everyone
else does unless you have a good reason
not to number two
need a large breakfast right keep it
carbohydrate light you know don't don't
eat toad toast and like fruit loops
that's not gonna do the trick make it
fat and protein heavy and eat more than
you want you might say I'm not hungry in
the morning like this has nothing to do
with what you want or what your appetite
is it's like you need to eat in the
morning if you're an anxious person and
you don't eat in the morning and then
you stress yourself out your body hyper
produces insulin it takes all the blood
sugar out of your blood and that dis
regulates your metabolism for the entire
day you can't reset it till you go to
sleep at night and I've had lots of
anxious clients who would say fall into
the over analytic category who were like
virtually cured by eating a large
breakfast every morning I would highly
recommend that you could try some
physical exercise weight lifting is
really good for curing anxiety another
thing you could do as I alluded to
earlier today is to make a schedule and
start attending to your daily micro
routines so you know you got to figure
out what your over-analysis is it might
be cognitive like maybe you have a very
active mind you know you're fast
verbally are you fast verbally one way
you can find that out is to do something
like write down as many letters words as
you can begin with the letter S for
example in in three minutes do that with
a bunch of your friends and if you're
someone who writes down way more words
than anyone else then you're verbally
fluent and that might be driving some of
your over-analysis but my guess is that
you're suffering from some rumination
that's related to anxiety and so I told
told you what I think the simplest ways
aren't rectify that so I hope that works
out for you let's see what else have we
got here okay
Almada warrior says can you answer this
question dr. Peterson and the answer is
I can but I'm not going to okay let's
see
loke doodle says i cleaned my room
finally that's good I hope that it has a
pronounced positive effect on the rest
of your life you know it's funny because
since last September I would say I redid
my house I'm gonna put a video online
about that because I had a camera crew
in here this week videoing the whole
house because it's quite interesting I
would say but since I've stepped into
this chaotic domain last September my
room has been a mess the rest of the
house hasn't been too bad but I've never
got to cleaning my room I finally did
this weekend and what was interesting
because when I did it I mean I've been
doing a lot of other things but that's
no no that doesn't help keep at bay the
negative psychological consequences of
being in in in material chaos when I
clean my room this weekend it made it
easier for me to finish this chapter
that I've been obsessing about so that
was quite interesting so you know the
cleaning and organizing your room is no
joke it's a great meditative exercise
especially if you take it seriously and
you're not trying to make it look neat
although that's not a bad aim you're
trying to turn the room into somewhere
that the person you want to be could
live so what
do I believe that there's any connection
between leftist identity politics of
past decades and the emergent white
identity politics of the alt-right yes I
think there's a direct causal connection
it only stands to reason that if
identity politics is going to be the
acceptable mode of communication that
the there are people who are on the
white side of the equation let's say
we're gonna decide that they're going to
play exactly the same game clearly
obviously and and horribly you know
because I'm no fan of identity politics
but what's sauce for the goose is sauce
for the gander
so but I would recommend that people
don't do it because you know the radical
leftist and their damn identity politics
is that's unbelievably pouc logical and
if you decide to fight that by playing
the same game you think well I'll play
the same game and then I'll win it's
like you know you won't because by
playing the game you lose that's the
thing about your political opponents is
you don't play their damn game you play
a different game and so you know what
I've been trying to encourage people to
do is instead of playing the
collectivist game and that would include
all right identity politics say is to
play the individualist game and to get
their out together the best revenge I
would say but you shouldn't be doing it
for revenge but the best revenge against
the collective left of this collectivist
leftists is to live a stalwart
meaningful and high-quality individual
life and that's also the pathway that
requires the most responsibility and
sacrifice and so I think is the most
honorable and least self-deceptive so
what is your view on the book slash
movie Fight Club I thought Fight Club
was deeply fascist in a very interesting
way I mean I'm saying that I'm saying
that some in some way dismissively
although I actually liked the movie I
also think it was it was fascist because
it it it was a celebration in some sense
of force
it was fascist sort of in the same way
that the Iron Man character is fascist
you know but I also thought it was a
really interesting exploration of the
idea of developing the shadow and so and
I do believe that if men don't become
consciously dangerous they become
unconsciously dangerous and so it's much
better to become consciously dangerous
and it's something that every man should
really aim at so you should be someone
that no one will mess with now and but
then you should keep that under control
right you should be first of all you
should be harmless and naive then you're
a child then you should develop your
capacity to be dangerous then you should
bring that capacity to be dangerous
under control then that makes you a man
as far as I'm concerned so Jerrod Chan
says I just wanted to thank you very
much love you heaps man lol I'm slowly
reading all of us books thanks to you
well you have to read them slowly man
there's no way you can read those fast
like watch out for yourself because
those things plain vicious games with
your mind so praying for you well good I
could use some prayer man so thanks
Jared much appreciated so good luck with
the reading and you know make sure
you're doing something practical and
easy at the same time because young he's
hard on person that's for sure if you
really want to twist your head in a knot
you could do some reading you could read
some nietzsche at the same time it's a
nice adjunct though you'll wrote some
books on nietzsche like his his
commentaries on the spake Zarathustra so
yep good to hear from you thanks thanks
very much man
so let's see
whoa still quite mastered this live chat
thing it zooms around quite a bit
hey when was that High School student
program you were coming without coming
out with happening oh that's the that's
the future authoring for the self
authoring program for high school
students man we're trying to get that
out by within a month but I can't say
for sure because it's a software
development program but we're aiming out
to fall that's for sure so I know we're
hoping it'll be a killer like like the
university self authoring program was
you know for those of you who don't know
who you probably all know cuz your
patreon subscribers but the Future
authoring program seems to improve the
performance of college students by about
25% we're hoping with the high school
students to you know have the same
impact at a much earlier age and to
teach kids to define themselves
voluntarily and to start charting their
destiny that would be a lovely thing and
we're gonna sell directly to the high
school students instead of trying to go
into schools and so forth which I think
would be just an exercise and
frustration and utility I should say
that and I don't know how this got set
up I probably pushed some button that I
didn't even notice is that some of you
seem to be donating money and that money
is associated with questions and I've
clicked on some of those and I hope I'm
not sure what to make of that exactly
because I don't know how it happened
exactly and I want to make sure that I
get questions from everyone as much as I
can so if I miss you I hope that you're
not donating unless I actually click on
your question so but if that isn't the
case then I apologize I'm trying to keep
up with as many questions as I possibly
can
thoughts on the Jews well the first
thing I could say about Jews is that a
lot of my friends are happened to be
Jewish and I think that's partly because
Jewish people and me and that's in part
a cultural thing are very very
interested in ideas and I happen to be
very interested in ideas and so I have a
great affinity for Jewish people and so
and I think that Jewish people are
over-represented in positions of
competence and authority and that's
often because they're extraordinarily
competent so you know hooray for them
that's how it looks to me so what do you
have to say about girls who grew up
without fathers mmm be very careful in
who you choose as a mate because you
don't have that much
variance with what constitutes a good
man and so I would say be cautious man
be cautious look for someone who treats
you well and not because of weakness you
know who's a who don't be
don't confuse being afraid to offend you
with treating you well someone who
treats you well as someone who's tough
and forthright and self-reliant but who
is able to listen and to negotiate in
particular and to tell you the truth and
so and don't give yourself away too
easily and that's what I would say the
girls period is don't give yourself away
too easily it's a big mistake you'll
regret it
you'll regret it so
I'm starting to slow down here Nietzsche
was pretty fun to read got all his works
Nino the sinner well that should really
help you with your sitting there Nino so
yeah Nietzsche he's a tease a trip
that's for sure if you guys are thinking
about reading Nietzsche don't start with
us thus spake Zarathustra you should
read that last I would start with Beyond
Good and Evil and fun is a pretty weird
way to describe it though read
Dostoyevsky too that would be good for
you what advice would you give to a
person high in agreeableness and
conscientiousness get a significant
other who is left-leaning or one who is
leaning towards radical left ISM I would
say get a significant other huh
don't get a significant other based on
their political predispositions you know
get a significant other that you can
trust and that you are attracted to and
that you want to build a life with and
leave the political stuff for for when
it's necessary because the political
stuff should only be engaged in when
it's necessary do you think Islam is
compatible with the West not in any
self-evident manner so although I would
also say that Islam is part of the West
you know we should actually give that
some consideration do you mean is Islam
compatible with Christianity I hope so
but it isn't obvious to me in what
manner it's compatible with Christianity
we'll see that doesn't mean that Muslims
aren't compatible with Western society
you know I mean many Muslims are no more
radical Muslims than Christians are
radical Christians in fact many Muslims
aren't any more Muslims than many
Christians are Christians and so you
know I would say generally speaking
across populations people are pretty
decent and as individuals you know
generally speaking but that doesn't
necessarily mean that the belief systems
that they inhabit are commensurate so
alt cap right says I think you should
fortify your ideas on Christianity I am
doing my best to do exactly that so dr.
Peterson what was your relationship like
with your mother and father it was and
is pretty good they're both still alive
thank God I just went up and saw my dad
for his 80th birthday he's in good shape
I actually gave him a cast an e-flat
as a joke which he really appreciated so
I think he's got that flying up in his
cabin way the hell up in northern
Saskatchewan which i think is pretty
comical I love my parents deeply there
they've been a great source of support
for me my father I had some struggles
with my father when I was an adolescent
partly because I think partly because I
was depressed and so was he he was a
great father when I was a young child he
spent so much time with me and paid so
much attention to me and taught me to
read and like I have nothing but great
memories of him before grade six and
then we had about three years that were
rocky mom or not probably about five
years that were Rocky which we both
contributed to and so did other
circumstances but I mean since I moved
away from home which I did at 16 we've
gone along just fine and I think we have
an absolutely superb relationship and
they've been incredibly useful and
supportive in the last year so and my
mother is a wonderful person she's a
little too agreeable for her own good
but she's tough and and she had a you
know she raised three kids and she went
out and had a career and she's put up
with my dad who was a pretty tough
stubborn guy and she's a lovely person
I'd love her deeply and she's been very
good to my kids and I've had I have I
have had a good relationship with them
and I I would say it's just got better
and better as we've got older and
straighten ourselves out and I would say
that about my whole family including my
sister and my brother and their family
and it's functioning pretty damn well
and so thank going for that man so I
have a friend who's considering majoring
in psychology what advice would I give
them stick to the biological end of it
as much as possible with the exception
of the clinical great clinical works
because they're very much worth reading
master your damn statistics because
that'll open up career doors for you
nail your grades go get a degree in
clinical psychology a PhD in clinical
psychology is so valuable that it's it's
almost incomprehensible so that's what I
would say and and learn to analyze the
research reports and pay attention and
it can be an absolutely great career all
right guys it's been a long day
I spent most of today writing my chapter
seven of my new book called twelve rules
for life which is absolutely deadly
chapter it's just about killed me
I have gone over today I went over every
word at every sentence and rewrote them
and it's a chapter on sacrifice and work
and the battle between good and evil and
Christianity and the nature of a
meaningful life and it's it's been hard
and and I'm tired and although this has
been great fun and I would like to say
in closing once again thank you very
much for this support and for all of the
I mean I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the
positive response my work has got over
the last year it's been very I've been
amazingly well compensated both
financially and psychologically for my
efforts which I'm thrilled about and I
hope that I can keep delivering to you
what it is that you seem to be what
would you say I hope that I can continue
to deliver whatever it is that I've been
delivering in the past that all of you
have been finding of value I am doing my
best to do that I think it's the right
way forward out of this bloody chaotic
political mess that we're in and still
and I mean I've been thinking about that
for years you know that the way out of
the ideological morass is the
strengthening and fortification of the
individual and I hope you all
participate in that because it's there's
there's the there's it's a cliche but
I'm getting tired so it's the best I can
do there's no limits to what a person
who decides to put themselves together
can do and so I would very much
encourage all of you to aim at that
because what the hell else have you got
to do in this like veil of Tears this
tragic veil of Tears but put yourself
together and prevail and so on that note
man over and out and I'll talk to you
all in a month