tonight's talk this is the most popular
talk we've ever done in 15 years tonight
is the third so it's been a weekend of
Jordan Peterson rich with has been a
huge pleasure for anyone who doesn't
know him and last night I think it was
one babe in arms and tonight it's
probably my mother he is a was a
professor associate professor at Harvard
University and is now the professor of
clinical psychology at Toronto his first
book was a huge success it
revolutionized the psychology of
religion and his latest book of the
twelve rules of life is set to do
exactly the same just a few housekeeping
things at the end of the talk we're
going to have a Q&A which I'm going to
moderate so do prepare your questions
please make them questions and also for
those people in the livestream they'll
be posted notes and you can't hand
questions for the ushers and we'll be
taking those as well so I look forward
to that and at the end of it we're going
to be doing not so much as signing but
here on stage a dedication everyone's
book is or pretty what everyone's book
is already signed so if you want to if
you don't want a dedication then just
leave you on the third page you'll find
the signature in order to last night
there was a huge queue as you can
imagine in order to make the queue run
smoothly and sorry to sound bossy but
he's not going to be doing selfies
just because it means he's got a stand
up the whole time and it'll slow down
the flow but he is very happy to be
photographed and you can photobomb him
if you'd like
also because all of us particularly me
are really keen for him to solve the
problems of our lives please resist
doing that during the dedication because
it'll really slow everything down I
think the three things that you can take
away from this evening and you'll be the
judge is first of all be inspired by the
talk secondly read the book and thirdly
marry a Canadian I feel rather fortunate
to have now done all three also if you
would like to tweet its hashtag the
rules of twelve rules of life so without
further ado please welcome one of the
world's great public intellectuals
Jordan Peterson thank you
[Applause]
well that was nice so I thought I'd I
talk about my book tonight I give him
two talks now and I didn't actually talk
directly about it I sort of talked
around it and so I thought I don't like
to give the same talk twice so I thought
I'd actually walked through it and and
and outline it a little bit and so I had
to spend most of the day memorizing the
rules you know you'd think if you worked
on something for three years or it's
been five years I guess you'd actually
have it memorized but memory is a very
strange thing and it's it's very
particular and goal-oriented and I
actually didn't have the rules memorized
and certainly not their numbers so
hopefully I do by now so I guess we're
gonna find out but I have a copy of the
book here in case I in case I forget so
I think we'll go through them one by one
and we'll see how see how that goes
seven o'clock so all right good the
first rule which is kind of a comical
rule is stand up straight with your
shoulders back and it's a meditation
among other things on the habits of
lobsters I read some papers on lobsters
well must be ten years ago I guess and
it they just absolutely blew me away and
one of the things I've really loved
about being a psychologist there's many
things but I've really loved
psychoanalytic theory and and the great
clinicians the behaviorists as well
I mean Freud Jung addler Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow that behaviors like
skinner and and and the cognitive
behaviors I mean I've learned a
tremendous amount from reading the
clinicians and so if any of you are
interested in psychology I would really
recommend reading the great clinicians
because they know they've learned so
much about life it's crazy by reading
them so that's been fun but then on the
entirely other end of the spectrum where
I've learned most about psychology is
from the really low what would you call
them the really science oriented animal
behaviors that's where they would they
turned into the neuroscientists right
they were the animal behaviorist first
of all and then they turned into the
neuroscientists I've learned a
tremendous amount from them there's such
clear thinkers the best of the bunch I
think there's two of them one named
Jeffrey gray who wrote a book called the
neural psychology of anxiety which is
just a deadly book it's impossible to
read it takes like six months to read it
because I think he he read like 1,800
papers to write it or something like
that and he actually read them that's
the cool thing and he understood them
which is really something then there's
another guy named yakky egg Ceph who
wrote a book called how affective
neuroscience which outlines his studies
for example of rats he was the guy who
learned that rats laugh if you tickle
them with the end of a pencil eraser but
they laugh ultrasonically like bats so
you have to salute you have to slow down
the ultrasonic vocalizations before you
can hear them giggle and you think why
the hell when you spend your time
tickling rats with a pencil and making
them laugh but see what he demonstrated
there was that that there was a play
circuit in mammals that there's an
actual there's a psycho biological basis
for rough-and-tumble play for example
it's a bloody big deal you know
discovering a whole new circuit in the
brain that's like discovering a
continent it's Nobel prize-winning stuff
and panksepp so effective neuroscience I
would highly recommend that so there's
this other book I know about - which is
twelve rules for life which you could
also look into if you want anyways I was
reading these these articles on lobsters
and I came across this this finding that
lobsters lobsters governed their
postural flexion with serotonin and I
thought god that's so interesting it's
so in deflection is this is to stand up
straight wow that's so interesting
because you know depressed people
crouched over I wonder if there's any
link between those two things and then I
went and read a whole pile of papers on
lobster lobster neural chemistry lobster
neuro chemistry is actually quite well
understood because they have a fairly
simple nervous system right and so if
you want to understand a complex nervous
system it's a good idea to understand a
simple one first and then sort of
elaborate upwards and it turns out that
serotonin governs status governs status
emotional regulation and posture in
lobsters just
like it does in human beings and so that
would just blew me away and so one one
one thing that the chapter one is about
is the fact that if a lobster is
defeated in a dominance battle you can
give it essentially antidepressants and
it will fight again now that just blew
me away you know it's so it's so
remarkable because one of the things
that tells you is that so if you're a
imagine that you could be lobster top
dog or bottom dog imagine there's ten
strata in the lobster hierarchy and so
you could be number one right top
lobster number ten bottom lobster if
your bottom Lobster you have low
serotonin levels than high octopamine
levels that's the neurochemical that
human beings don't produce and if you're
a top lobster you have high serotonin
levels and lower top amine levels and
you can move a lobster in its dominance
hierarchy by moderating its levels of
serotonin and I thought that's so
interesting because what it means is
that the counter that keeps track of our
status when we have a counter in a sense
in our minds that keeps track of our
status is a third of a billion years old
and what that also means is that the the
idea of the hierarchy let's call it a
dominance hierarchy because it within
lobsters it's kind of like a physical
prowess hierarchy something like that
the idea of the hierarchy is at least
350 million years old and so I read that
and I think well so much for the idea
that human hierarchies are a
socio-cultural construct it's like no
that's wrong it's not just a little bit
wrong it's unbelievably wrong it's
mind-boggling ly wrong right and it's
right and so so hierarchies hierarchies
have been around for a third of a
billion years and and we have a
neurochemical system that modulates our
our understanding of those hierarchies
and then also and this is the
interesting thing too and this is why
people's reputations are so important to
them among there's lots of reasons but
this is one of them is that where this
counter that you share with lobsters
rates you in terms of your hierarchical
position determines the ratio of
negative emotion to positive emotion
that you feel and that's also an
absolutely mind-boggling
idea for two reasons one is it tells you
why it's so hard on people to be put
down because it doesn't just upset them
in the moment it changes the way their
entire system responds to the world so
that they now experience more positive
emotion and less than eight less
negative emotion so that's really rough
and then there's a corollary to that too
which is like there's a very tight
relationship between your belief system
and your dominance hierarchy position
it's complicated but it's worth going
through like let's say that so I have a
certain amount of status as a professor
and and and I have the let's call it the
what would you say I've been granted the
entitlement to a certain position in a
in a social hierarchy now the question
is why do I have a valid claim to that
position and the answer hypothetically
is because I know enough so that my
claim to the position is valid so then
if you stand up in the audience and
challenge my beliefs and show that I'm
wrong you might you might say well I get
upset because I'm wrong but the more
accurate reason that I get upset is
because you're indicating to the crowd
that my my position in the hierarchy of
authority is invalid and by doing that
you lower me in the hierarchy and you
mess around with the neurochemical
systems that are regulating my emotions
and so if you're interested at least in
part in why people are so prone to
defend themselves and their beliefs in
the service of their position then
that's why and so that's a great example
of how you can learn these unbelievable
things by stumbling across a rather
obscure biological fact it's just it's
just what would you say it it's like
it's like a series of dominoes and and
that's also why biological facts are so
useful it's like we don't have to argue
about whether or not haha social
hierarchies as I said or or or
hierarchies are social constructs a
given hierarchy is influenced in its
structure by socio cultural conditioning
let's say but the fact of the hierarchy
so like the part of your brain that
detects and regulates your response to
hierarchies is older than the part of
your brain that recognizes trees like
it's old it's really really fundamental
and so and almost all social animals
organize themselves and social in
hierarchies because now the other thing
that chapter one
is a bit of a meditation on what might
constitute a hierarchy one of my
business colleagues a former student of
mine from Harvard very very smart guy
it's got a graduate degree in
engineering from MIT and a PhD in
psychology from Harvard so there's like
one of him in the whole world and he's a
very smart guy and he helped me design
the self authoring suite by the way and
he's been working for about 20 years on
that that's the suite of programs that
helps people write about their lives and
straighten them out he told me to stop
using the word dominance hierarchy and
he said the reason for that was that it
was infested with Marxist
presuppositions and it really bothered
me when he first said that because I've
been using the word for years dominance
hierarchy he said we had a discussion
about that he said well it's predicated
on the idea that you climb up the
hierarchy human hierarchy as a
consequence of the expression of power
it's like that's wrong you climb up
valid hierarchies as a consequence of
the expression of competence and that's
actually technically right he was
exactly the right person to tell me that
because he had done his PhD on what
predicts success in Western hierarchies
and the answer is quite clear general
cognitive ability some prefrontal
ability as well which was what he
specifically tested so intelligence
roughly speaking although it's a little
bit more elaborate than intelligence but
that's close enough and trait
conscientiousness accounts for about 50
percent of the variance in long term
success and you think well hey how do
you want your society be structured it
seems pretty good to me that smart
hardworking people are the ones most
likely to succeed that's not a bad
empirical test of the validity of a
structure now especially given how much
vagary there is in life lots of random
things happen to people but it's better
to be born three standard deviations
above the mean in intelligence in the
West than it is to be born three
standard deviations above the mean in
wealth in relationship to where you'll
end up when you're 40 so he said to use
the word competence hierarchy or we
decided that and I think that's much
better
so chapter one as a bit of a meditation
on the nature of hierarchies and the
biochemistry of hierarchy but it's also
an injunction about how to present
yourself because you don't you want to
present yourself to the world in a
manner that that doesn't disgrace you in
some sense that that might be a good way
to think about it and
you don't want to disgrace yourself
because the consequence of disgrace is
its emotional dysregulation more pain
less positive emotion and so the best
way to present yourself is to stand up
forthrightly and to stretch out you know
and to occupy some space and to to to
you make yourself sort of vulnerable by
doing that because you open up the front
of your body right but it's a sign of
confidence and that way people are most
likely to give you the benefit of the
doubt and that's a good way to start
regulating your mood but not only does
it directly regulate your mood to stand
up because it's so tightly associated
like posture reflection is associated
with serotonin and emotional regulation
but also because if you straighten up
and you present yourself in that manner
then other people are more likely to
take you seriously and that means
they'll start treating you as if you're
a number one lobster instead of a number
ten lobster and that's another way that
you can at least give yourself the
bloody benefit of the doubt right and
and and and and and and confront the
world in a courageous manner and that's
a really good way of also of of figuring
out how to establish yourself in
multiple competence hierarchies because
one of the general rules of thumb about
how to be successful is to confront
things that frighten you forthrightly
and with courage and that's kind of a
universal strategy for success and so
that's what the first chapter is about
so that's quite fun my graduate students
I told them these lobsters stories a my
graduate students when we used to go out
for breakfast and they were very
competitive Bunch very fractious and
witty and they were always trying to get
one over on each other a hundred and
some witty put down or something like
that and it got to the point in the
restaurants where they put their claws
in the urns click like this when they
you know got one over on one of their
colleagues which was very peculiar and
strange and very funny as well so so
that's rule number one rule number two
is uh treat yourself like you're someone
that you care about and that that's a
deeper chapter I would say like chapter
one is kind of comical but it's also got
this serious scientific end for example
and it's practical like most of the
rules are
chapter 2 is a bit of a meditation on
why see I read this I read this site
this piece of work by Jung a long while
back and it was a meditation on the
injunction to treat your neighbor as as
you would like to be treated
something like that and what Jung
pointed out which I really liked was
that that wasn't an injunction to be
nice to other people it was an
invitation to reciprocity it was
something like this is like you should
figure out how you would like to be
treated like you were taking care of
yourself not how you would like people
to respond to you it's more important
than that it's like imagine you had a
child that you really cared for and
someone said well people will treat this
child exactly like you want them to but
you have to figure out what that is and
so then you'd have to sit down for like
a month and you think okay well how do
you want your child to be treated you
don't want everyone just to be nice to
him you know you want people to
challenge them and you want people to
discipline them and you want people to
tell him when he's wrong it's like you
don't just want everyone to be nice
that's that's pathetic it's pathetic
isn't there's no challenge in that and
so well you want to treat other people
like you would like to be treated well
then you have to figure out how would
you like to be treated and while you'd
like people to fawn all over you and
just lay everything at your feet it's
like no that's that's not something
you'd wish for for someone that you were
taking care of and then then there's an
additional problem which is it's often
the case that people will treat other
people better than they treat themselves
that happens extremely frequently so one
of the things I pointed out chapter 2
was that if you have a dog and you take
him to a vet and the vet gives you your
prescription medicine you'll go buy the
medicine and you will give it to the dog
and you will do it properly but if you
go yourself to a doctor and you get a
prescription there's one that there's a
30% chance you won't even pick up the
medication and if you do there's a 50%
chance that you won't administer it to
yourself properly and so I really
thought about that when I first came
across that statistic it really it was
another one of those little facts I
thought what the hell's up with that
it's like you'll do it for your dog
so obviously you'll do it for something
you care about and you're conscientious
enough so you'll actually do it so like
why wouldn't you do it for you your dog
likes you you know even your dog would
rather that you did but but you don't
you don't and and it's it's actually one
of the reasons that modern medicine
doesn't work nearly as well as it could
because people just don't take their
medication and it's not only because
they don't take care of themselves
there's some skepticism about doctors
but you could be just as skeptical about
the vet so it's a deep meditation I
would say and it's what I've done with
these rules is they're very simple rules
and they're kind of comical and
tongue-in-cheek in some ways but what
I've tried to do is like pull them apart
and show what's underneath them and to
go down as deep as I possibly can and in
rural too it's a bit of a meditation on
why people don't like themselves very
much and I think there's two reasons
really and one is that we're we're
fragile and damageable and imperfect in
multiple dimensions all the time and
that often just gets worse it gets lots
of things get worse as you get old for
example so it's not necessarily that
easy for a self-conscious being who's
extraordinarily aware of his or her own
fragility and but not just fragility um
foolishness and errors his like you know
yourself better than anyone else knows
you and you know you you might have a
certain amount of dislike for someone
you know because of something they did
but you know everything you did Jesus
that's a drag man you know you have to
carry that along behind like really I
did that you know and then so there's
that it's like you're you're weak and
kind of useless and prone to temptation
and you know all those things you know
that just shouldn't be that way and then
you're also capable of pretty vicious
acts of malevolence and so you also know
that about yourself and so it's a real
existential question for people's like
why the hell should you take care of
something as sorry and wretched as you
are and that's really what the chapter
is about it's because the answer in the
chapter is yeah yeah yeah you know
you're first of all yes you're pretty
useless and terrible but so is everyone
else and that's actually an existential
problem right and what I mean by that
it's a problem that every human being
has always had and always will so it's
not just you it's a universal problem
and that there's there's an answer to
that and one of them is to what is it to
say love the sinner but hate the sin
it's something like that is that despite
the fact that you're not all that you
could be
the proper attitude to have towards
yourself is the attitude that you would
have towards someone that you genuinely
cared for and that it's incumbent on you
to act as if you genuinely care for
yourself just like you would act towards
someone that you actually cared about
some other person and so it's a reversal
in some sense of the golden rule right
and and it's a discussion of why that's
necessary and also more than that it's a
discussion of why why you have a moral
obligation to do that it's not just that
you should because it would be better
for you it's you actually have a moral
obligation to do that I think because
you make the world a much better place
it much worse place if you don't take
care of yourself so you should bloody
well take care of yourself you know
because well that's what the chapters
about it's partly because you have
something valuable to bring into the
world that's the thing about being an
individual it's the thing that Western
civilization has always recognized that
as an individual you have a light that
you have to bring into the world and
that if you don't bring it into the
world the world is a dimmer place and
that's a bad thing because when the
world is a dim place it can get very
very very dark and so it's necessary
number one lobster now none of those
things you need to take care of yourself
because you're in the best position to
do that and it's necessary for you to
take care of yourself despite the fact
that we're mortal and vulnerable and
self-conscious and capable not only
capable of doing terrible things but
actually do them despite all that you
you're still you still have that
responsibility and so I wanted to you
know hit the question as hard as I can
to try to figure out well why people are
have our contemptuous of themselves and
there's plenty of reason that's for sure
but the reasons do not justify the
mistreatment of yourself it's as simple
as that it's not a good strategy and the
next rule is make friends with people
who want the best for you and that's a
meditation on my own childhood and
adolescence to some degree I had friends
who wanted the best for me and friends
who didn't and you know they were
friends who some of them were aiming up
and some of them were aiming down and if
you have a friend that's aiming down and
you do something that's aiming up then
they're generally not that happy about
it you know
try to talk your accomplishment with one
of their own hypothetical or real or put
down what you're doing or offer you a
cigarette if you're trying to quit and
you've kind of done that successfully or
a drink if you've been drinking too much
and are trying to stop being an
alcoholic you know or or yeah they're
cynical and bitter and and devoted
towards no good and sometimes that's
family members too and sometimes it's
even part of you you know but this
chapter is a injunction to people is
like like you have an ethical
responsibility to take care of yourself
you have an ethical responsibility to
surround yourself with people who have
the courage and and faith and wisdom to
wish you well when you've done something
good and to stop you when you're doing
something destructive and if your
friends aren't like that then they're
not your friends and maintaining your
friendships with them might not even be
in their interest and so it's a tricky
argument to make because I'm not saying
you know whenever anyone's in trouble
you should you know push them into a
ditch and then give them a couple of
kicks that's that's not the idea the
idea is that but I had a couple of rules
I didn't write about one was be careful
be careful about whom you share good
news with and another was be careful
about whom you share bad news with and
everyone those rules ring in people's
minds quite quickly a friend is someone
you can share good news with you know
you go to them and you say hey look this
good thing happened to me and they say
look I'm so happy that that happened to
you like way to be and they don't think
god damn it why didn't that happen to me
and like you know you didn't deserve it
here's a bunch of reasons you're stupid
and why it won't work it's like that's
not helpful and so I would say like if
people are you know what the other thing
people are doing if they're trying to
drag you down let's say is they're
trying to see if you'll put up with it
because they have this idea that maybe
life isn't worth living and things
aren't good and then if they can be
smirch let's say to use an archaic term
something that's pristine and good then
they demonstrate to themselves that
there is no true ideal and that there's
no necessary reason to be responsible
and to strive forward and so they
usually what's a test case you know I'll
just push you down into the low lobster
bin and see how you respond and if you
put up with it then yeah my cynicism is
fully justified and so well that's
Chapter three
and it's a painful chapter because it
also details the suicide of one of my
friends which occurred over a very long
period of time not the actual suicide
but all the prodrome a--to it and so and
it's get sick it's a contentious chapter
number four is comparing yourself to who
you were yesterday not to who someone
else is today and the reason I wrote
that was because I had this client ten
young clinical psychologists and I spent
20 hours a week for 25 years listening
to people listening to people tell me
about their lives you know and and those
people were people who were just barely
hanging on to the bottom of the world up
to people who were so successful you can
hardly believe it like the entire gamut
of people and and that's been absolutely
fascinating it's like it's like being a
clinical psychologist if you really
listen is like being immersed in a
Dostoyevsky novel all the time you know
because it's amazing what people will
tell you if you listen to them they are
people are so interesting if you
actually listen to them because they're
so peculiar like they're like penguins
are writing on sources and ostriches
they're unlikely creatures and anyways
with regards to to comparing yourself to
who you were yesterday and not to who
someone else is today this old client of
mine he was about 85 when he came to see
me and he was a financier in a kind of a
mathematical genius he made these little
pendants out of a mathematical symbol
for the most beautiful mathematical
equation that was ever written he made
them out of gold and he would hand those
out and and he he'd studied psychology
as a young man and he introduced me to
this concept that I didn't know about
called the Pareto distribution which see
I'd been taught it as a psychologist
that most human characteristics were
normally distributed right so most
people were average and some people were
extreme that that's a priori our normal
distribution intelligence is like that
and height there's more people of
average height than very tall or very
short and and weight is like that and
lots of things are normally distributed
and psychologists tend to assume that
everything is but they didn't creative
products are distributed in a Pareto
distribution and that's a whole
different thing
and it's really important to know this
it's another fundamental fact the
knowledge of which can sort of transform
the way you conceptualize let's say the
political landscape so here's an example
of the Pareto distribution huh
you know there's a rule of thumb that if
you run a company that 20% of your
employees do 80% of the work or the 20%
of your customers are responsible for
80% of your sales or the 20% of them are
responsible for 80% of the customer
service calls same thing but that's not
exactly the rule the rule is worse than
that the rule is in a given domain the
square root of the number of people
operating in that domain do half the
productive work so you think well you
have 10 employees three of them do half
the work it's like yeah okay what if you
have a hundred employees then ten of
them do half the work what if you have a
thousand employees well then it's thirty
and if it's 10,000 employees then it's a
hundred and this actually turns out to
be a rather ironclad rule it applies
across very very many situations it
applies for example to the mass of stars
and the size of cities so you can see
how universal it is as a law ditz it's
something like those that have more get
more and those that have less get less
that's the Matthieu principle right to
those who have everything more will be
given from those who have nothing
everything will be taken away and the
economists sometimes call that the
Matthieu principle and so what that lays
out is a world that's rife with
inequality so you know you you hear this
idea that I think it's the 85 richest
people in the world have more money than
the bottom 2 billion that's a Pareto
distribution phenomena and you might say
to hell with capitalism for producing
that it's like sorry you got your
diagnosis wrong it's a natural law it's
no no matter what society you study you
get a purrito distribution of wealth you
get a preeto distribution of number of
records recorded you get a preeto
distribution of number of songs written
or goals scored like any creative
product has that characteristic and it's
partly because as you start to become
successful let's say people offer you
more and more opportunities and as you
start to fail people move away from you
and you plummet and so okay so that's
rough so what it is what it means is
that there is always a landscape of
inequality
and I'm not saying that we shouldn't do
anything about it although I am saying
that we don't know what to do about
that's the thing you know because you
can modify the purrito distribution of
wealth let's say but if you but we don't
know how to do it without maybe
disrupting the system so completely that
it collapses which is what happened in
the Soviet Union for example and in
Mao's China they were trying at least in
principle to adjust inequality but the
cure was far worse than a disease and
the the truth of the matter is we
actually don't know technically how much
inequality there has to be to generate
wealth we can guess and you could say
well there should be less and you might
say well there should be more if you're
left when you'd say less and if there if
you're right we need to say well we'll
just let the inequality flourish but we
do know that it's inevitable and we also
know that we don't know how to regulate
it so there is inequality what that
means is there's always gonna be people
around that are better at something than
you are and the and that's a that's a
problem because you can get jealous and
you can get bitter and you can get
resentful and worse you can get hopeless
you know because you look like looked
like I have this this friend of mine he
told me something so funny he was he was
decrying his his lack of success in the
world and he compared himself to his
roommate and he said you know his
roommate his cos roommate was doing much
better than he was and his bloody
roommate was Elon Musk it's like oh
you're not doing as well as Elon Musk
well I mean you could see me it would
take it rather personally because they
were roommates and everything it wasn't
like he was doing badly like he wasn't
doing pretty damn well it's like I'm not
as good as Elon Musk it's like yeah well
you and like seven billion other people
you know but but I thought it was
instructive because well yes you have to
be careful who you compare yourself to
now you can't just not compare yourself
to others to successful people right
because then you don't have anything
they a map and one of the things I
learned from you this was a cool thing
I'm gonna make a real lateral move here
young thought the book of Revelation was
appended to the Bible because the Christ
in the Gospels was too merciful he was
too nice a guy now he's an ideal right
and Jung said wait a second an ideal is
always a judge
that's the thing about an ideal because
you're not as good as your ideal so your
ideal as a judge revelation has Christ
coming back as a judge and that was
Young's explanation at the level of the
collective unconscious for the pasting
of that remarkably strange and terrible
book on to the end of the of the of the
of the Bible so well anyways my point is
is an ideal is it you need an ideal
because you have nothing to aim at but
an ideal is a judge and you always fall
short of the ideal so how the hell can
you have the benefits of having an ideal
without having the crushing blow that
goes along with having the judge that
always regards you is insufficient so I
was trying to work that out in the
chapter and this is something I've had
to work out a lot as a clinical
psychologist it's like well let's say
you need a goal but we don't want to eat
let your distance from the goal crush
you so you got to set up a goal and then
you go to make the goal break the goal
down into parts so that you can move
towards it you have a fairly high
likelihood of doing it so that's a bit
bit of practical
I wouldn't say advice it's it's because
it's better than advice it's it's some
practical knowledge about how to go
about achieving an aim set a high aim
but differentiate it down so you know
what the next step is and then make the
next step
difficult enough so you have to push
yourself past where you are but but also
provide yourself with a reasonable
probability of success it's also what
you do with children right you you want
to push them because they need to grow
up and be more than they are right but
you don't want to crush them with
constant failure so what you do is aim
high and make the goal procs difficult
but proximal so anyways so that's one
one one one way of looking at it but
then the next thing is you know I've had
clients many clients in their 30s who
are trying to this is more true with
women I would say a lot of women who
were very high achieving and who
established their career goals at 30 and
then want a differentiator differentiate
out their life they want to have a
husband they won't have a family they're
trying to figure out how to do that and
one of the things I've noticed that
around 30 you really have to stop
comparing yourself in some ways to other
people and the reason for that is that
the particular tease of your life or so
I do synchronic that there isn't anyone
really all that much like you you know
because the details of your life
happened to matter and so maybe you
compare yourself to some rock star or
something like that and you know the
person's rich and famous and glamorous
and all that but you know they're
alcoholic and they use too much cocaine
and they've had three divorces and it's
like how the hell do you make sense out
of that is that someone that you should
judge yourself harshly against or not
the answer is you don't know because you
don't know all the details of their
lives and who do you know that you can
compare yourself to that's easy you
yesterday so here's a good goal it's
something like well aim high and I
really mean that it's like about that a
little bit - aim high but use as your
control yourself it's like so your goal
is to make today some tiny increment
better than yesterday and you can use
better you can define better yourself
this doesn't have to be some imposition
of external morality you know you know
where you're weak and insufficient where
you could improve think okay well this
is what I'm like yesterday if I did this
little thing things would be just an
increment better and well that's a great
thing because you get the ball rolling
and incremental improvement is
unstoppable you can actually implement
it and it starts to generate purrito
distribution like consequences it starts
to compound and I've seen that happen in
people's lives over in all people
writing all the time and tell me that
they're doing that but I've seen that
happen in people's lives continually
they make a goal a goal that the goal
should be how could I conceive of my
life so that if I had that life it would
clearly be worth living so I wouldn't
have to be bitter resentful deceitful
arrogant and vengeful like that's sort
of the bottom line right because that's
what endless failure does to you it's
not good and and and that's what life
without purpose and the goal does to you
as well because life is very hard so you
think okay well I need to adopt a mode
of being that would justify my suffering
and you can ask yourself that question
what would make this worthwhile need a
quote Nietzsche I think in that chapter
he said he who has a why can bear almost
any how
that's a lovely line man I mean it's a
lovely line and it's really worth
thinking about so you think well how do
I manage
this misery and suffering and futility
it's like well I need to figure out what
I would have to do in order to make that
clearly worthwhile and so then you have
your goal and then you think well I need
to move towards that incremental II
because I'm kind of useless and can only
do so much and maybe not even that and
but all I have to do is be a little bit
better than my my miserable self
yesterday and that'll propel you forward
very rapidly and and you can succeed at
it which is also really lovely because
why not send yourself up for success you
know because otherwise you droop around
like a number-10 lobster and you know
that's just not good you get all pinchy
when that happens and it's not a good
thing so that was that was chapter 4
chapter 5 cheese we're cruising along
here chapter 5 is the one that I thought
I would get in the most trouble for
writing you know I figured people would
be all over me for this and so far they
haven't been but they still might be so
and it's called
do not let your children do anything
that makes you dislike them and I
thought that would be contentious first
of all because people would think well I
never just like my children it's like
really really you know you're gonna
really tell me that God you know and
there's a more there's a more horrifying
element to that too because as a
clinical psychologist I've seen the full
Freudian nightmare I can tell you that
and you know I've seen families where
it's like this is like the family
members are standing in a circle let's
say and each of them has their hands
around each other's neck and they're
squeezing hard enough to strangle the
other person in 20 years and that's the
family it's like and you know if you if
you haven't met a family like that or
well then you're not paying attention
and there's some there's some reasonable
possibility that you're actually in the
family like that so the idea that
parents can't dislike their children
it's like God how naive can you get it's
just that's just if you think that man
you I don't even know where you'd start
to straighten yourself out I could never
dislike my children's like yeah well
those are the people who produce the
most monstrous children - I can
tell you that so mmm so and then there's
this idea that Young had which I really
love which is the idea of the shadow and
you know it's it kind of got pop
psychology and trendy sort of among the
new-age types too but one thing I can
tell you about Carl Jung is no matter
what else someone might say about him he
is absolutely not new agey if you read
Carl Jung and you understand him and
you're not terrified right to the depths
of your soul you haven't understood a
damn thing you've read and one of the
things that you said about the shadow
which is the dark side of humanity the
dark side of each individual was that
its roots reached all the way to hell
and he meant something he meant
something very specific
both metaphysical and practical by that
the metaphysical element was he meant
hell literally and metaphysically but he
also meant the more proximal kinds of
Hell and so what he meant was that if
you were able to understand your dark
side then you would see in yourself a
reflection of the behavior that was that
was present at Auschwitz for example and
that the reason that people don't take
the dark side of themselves seriously at
all and even confront the fact that it
exists is because no one wants to see
that reflected within them and no wonder
like it's it's it's absolutely no wonder
you also believe that that confrontation
with the shadow was an inevitable
barrier to enlightenment that there was
no you know Joseph Campbell who is a
popularizer of you to some degree has
become well known for saying follow your
bliss and and and you know Campbell
learned virtually everything he knew
from Jung but Jung that isn't what Jung
said at all he said pursue what's
meaningful and you'll encounter that
which you least want to encounter and
that's well that's the dragon right
that's the dragon that hoards gold for
example and the dragon is also something
that lives inside you and it's not
something that you take the encounter
with lightly there are very old stories
about this Egyptian story about the god
Horus who was that Egyptian Savior in
some sense and when he encountered evil
even though he was a god he lost an eye
in the battle and so that's that's the
famous Egyptian I you know that everyone
still knows about that's the eye of
horus that was torn out by seth who's
the precursor to satan and so
and so it's it's it's no joke it's no
joke back to children see I kind of knew
this when I had my kids I'd already
undergone that to some degree and and
understood what it meant to be a bad
person a terrible person and one of the
things I knew that was that that
manifested itself in families all the
time
tyrannical father overprotective mother
more rarely overprotective mother
tyrannical overprotective father
tyrannical mother it's usually the other
way around and the terrible pathological
familial drama that Freud made much of
in the early 20th century I had seen
that in many many situations dismal
brutal awful and I've seen parents
punish their children and you can also
take a page from Nietzsche if you really
want to punish your children or anyone
else if you have someone you're
interested in punishing including
yourself you don't you know to ever
punish someone you really want to punish
for doing something wrong because that's
actually a bit of a relief to them you
know that's the theme of Dostoyevsky's
crime and punishment the murderer gets
away with it and it's a relief to him
when he gets caught it's like no if you
really want to punish someone you wait
till they do something good then you
punish them because that'll teach them
that's you maximize the hurt that way
you decrease the probability that
they'll ever do anything good again and
I'll tell you man if you want to have a
good relationship with someone that's
one thing you don't do you open your
bloody eyes and if they do something
that you would like them to do again
then you tell them how much you
appreciated the fact that that happened
and you hope that it replicates you know
you see that's if there's one thing you
can take away from tonight's lecture
that's that's an extraordinarily useful
thing to know watch and when people do
something that they should do more of
say look I saw that you did this
specific thing I saw that it took some
effort here's what it meant here's
here's how I observed it's like keep
that up and man if you love someone you
do that to them that's that's
encouragement that's such a great thing
so anyways back to children so I already
knew that I was pretty decent monster by
the time I had kids and I thought well
my kid my kids little you know like a
baby or two-year-olds like I'm horrible
monster and so that there's an uneven
power problem here I better not let that
child do
that really makes me angry you know now
you hear now and then you hear about
something horrible that happens I when I
was in Boston years ago I read about a
woman who plunged her two-year-old
daughter's arms into boiling water you
think well how in the world can that
happen it's like well you know she's
probably hungover she probably just lost
her job she was probably desperate in
six different ways she probably didn't
have any decent discipline at her
disciplinary strategies for children she
probably didn't have anyone helping her
she was bitter and resentful and angry
and the child misbehaved at exactly the
wrong moment
and like you're gonna be around your
children a lot and so you might want to
have it so that they don't misbehave at
exactly the wrong moment because all kid
all hell can break loose if they can and
I didn't want that to happen so and I
knew that it was easy for people to hate
their children even though they mouth
the words that they loved them all the
time I saw very little evidence of that
many situations and so one of the things
you know you have a natural affinity for
children and even more maybe a more
powerful natural affinity for your own
children so that's a good start but you
don't want to set them up as an enemy
against you you don't want to allow them
to engage in the kind of hierarchical
challenge that makes you irritable and
resentful that's not a good idea and if
the things they do make you dislike them
the probability that they will make
other people dislike them is
extraordinarily high and so you can
consult your own irritability and you
can say look kid I used to tell my kids
this you know when they were three or
four I'd say look I'm not in a very good
mood and I'm likely to be unreasonable
so it'd be best if you'd go in your room
and play for a while it's like I like
you man you're a great kid but like get
the hell out of here for a while you
know and they were fine with that we've
trained them already at that point to be
able to go play by themselves in the
room you know which is something a kid
should be able to do anyways but but you
need to know what sort of monster you
are if you're gonna be a good parent and
if you think oh I'm not a monster it's
like oh yes you are you're just an
unbelievably unconscious monster and
that's actually the worst kind so and
then the other thing about that chapter
is there's an idea in it and it's an
idea that I think's well supported by
the relevant literature which is that
your fundamental job as a parent
especially of a child from zero to four
is to make that child M&M
léa desirable socially so what you're
you're a successful parent if when your
child is for all sorts of other children
want to play with him or her that's
really the that's like if you want one
marker of whether or not you've been
successful that's it now some children
are a lot harder to get along with than
others and some children have a harder
time playing and so I'm not saying that
every parent who has a child that isn't
popular at 4 is that fault for that I'm
not saying that I'm saying the reverse
which is you can be sure that you've
been successful if your child is not
popular exactly but desirable as a
playmate and so then you think well what
have you done for your child
well you've opened up the entire world
of children to them so because they know
how to play which is a very deep
knowledge and it starts to become
inculcated probably at the breast and
certainly in the course of
rough-and-tumble play at about two years
of age it's a deep embodied knowledge
they know how to play like a good
well-trained dog knows how to play you
know you meet a new dog and you go like
this and the dog goes like this you
think oh that dog I can go like this and
it won't bite me right it knows how to
play and a kid who's awake and alert is
just like that like a well socialized
kid if you know anything about kids says
you can take a four-year-old make a
little play just you're at them and
they'll smile right away and start
playing just right now and that's what
you want for your kids and then
everywhere they go other kids like them
and will include them in their play and
play is the way the children develop and
so if other children include them in
their play
then the children develop and the poor
kids that don't get befriended at the
age of four with the literature on this
is crystal clear if your child is an
outcast at the age of four the
probability that anything can be done
about that is almost zero no matter what
you do and I hate to be so blunt about
that but I know the literature and
that's what the literature suggests and
so and then the other thing is if if you
don't allow your children to engage in
dislikable behavior then adults will
like them because adults actually like
kids you know one of the things I loved
about having little kids in Montreal I
lived in a poor area much well there's a
lot of rough guys around there and we
used to roll our daughter around in the
stroller and these rough guys you know
like god only knows what they were up to
they're a rough looking guys
you know we rolled our daughter by them
and they'd like smile and they crouch
down and make little GU faces and you
know they were you I tell you one of the
great things about having little kids is
they bring out the best in other people
you see a whole side of humanity even
among the darker parts of humanity you
see a whole side of them that you
wouldn't normally see and it's lovely
and the thing is if you're good to your
kid and in the real way you can help
them maintain that tremendous
attractiveness that they have as young
children and to respond to adults
properly like a puppy that wags its tail
instead of growls and you know goes for
your ankle and then wherever they go
adults welcome them and teach them
things and Pat them on the head and
smile at them genuinely instead of
saying oh my god here comes that couple
with that goddamn brat again you know
which is the horrible that's horrible
thing to do to a child because then
everywhere they go all the good all the
good will is false
you know there's nothing that you can do
to someone that's more terrible than to
put them in a world where all the good
will directed towards them is false
that's a terrible thing so anyways
that's with chapter let's chapter 5 and
chapter 6 is about it's a rough chapter
it's about I spend a lot of time reading
about totalitarianism and about atrocity
like some brutal many many brutal things
brutal beyond the capacity of
imagination even and I read a lot about
individual criminals and serial killers
and those sorts of people - trying to
get to the bottom off one book I would
really recommend is a book by carl
panzram which is a an autobiography a
panzram is the name of the book and he
was a here's a rough guy man
his whatever his dying words to his
executioner to his hangman he said hurry
up you who's your bastard I could kill
ten men in the time that it takes you to
hang me that was his dying words you
know he said I wish the human race had
one neck so that I could put my hands
around it and squeeze that was carl
panzram and not many people like that
right out of biographies but he did and
he told you why he was like that and why
he thought that way in case you want to
find out which I would recommend by the
way because it's very useful to know
such things but um
now I have to remember why I told you
that panzram story oh yeah chapter 6 is
about that it's a boat it's a boat
panzram and it's about the columbine
kids the kids who showed up the high
school cuz I read their Diaries no and
and I understood them too which is even
better than just reading them and you
know you can see these mass shootings
all the time and everyone does the same
thing oh how did that happen why did
that happen how can it be this way it's
like well why don't you read what they
said about why they did it just assume
that that's the reason and if you go if
you go
oh other Columbine kids oh yeah it was
like oh they must have been bullied oh
yes because you know the natural
response of anyone who's being bullied
is to go arm yourself to the teeth to
plot the destruction of the entire city
I think it was of detroit to line your
entire high school avenue with bombs and
then to go and shoot your classmates
that's what happens when you're bullied
it's like no that that's not what
happens when you're bullied that's a
stupid explanation it's shallow beyond
belief and it and it really emerges only
because people don't want to contend
with the real issue and the Columbine
kids while they were contending with the
real issue you know they basically said
quite forthrightly that in their own
arrogant estimation being itself was
corrupt and unnecessary and it would be
best if it was eradicated in the most
brutal possible way as fast as possible
and you get to places like that if you
dwell on revenge for three or four years
in your mom's basement you know you can
go to very dark places and so that's
what chapter six is about and you know
panzram who was very brutally treated
when he was a kid and the Columbine guys
who you know had their ups and downs but
nothing compared to carl panzram say
were we're judges of being and decided
that it was flawed and that they were
the ones to set it right and so it's a
rough chapter but it's more than that
it's a meditation on resentment because
resentment is a key human motivation and
I would say it's um it's a great teacher
too to
listen to your resentment is one of the
best things you can possibly do you have
to admit that it exists first and then
you have to admit to the fantasies that
it's generating and you have to admit to
what you would regard as the way out of
it so that's all very difficult because
it means learning things about yourself
that you probably don't want to learn
but resentment only means one of two
things it means either like shut the
hell up
grow up quit whining and get on with it
that's one thing it means or someone is
playing the tyrant to you might even be
you and you have something to say and do
that you should say and do to put it to
a stop
and so maybe and resentment can show you
the pathway to doing that it's a
meditation on resentment and one of the
one of the principles that I extracted
from that is a choral person wants other
people to change and if you're resentful
then your motivations aren't trustworthy
in fact they're very very dark and
that's why I went to the extreme with
people like panzram and the Columbine
killers resentful people who want to
change the world are not to be trusted
what should you do instead how do you
treat your own resentment I would say
well there's a there's a great I read
this great line in and TS Eliot play
called the cocktail party and in it this
woman comes up to a psychiatrist I think
this is in this chapter and she says you
know I'm having a really rough time of
it I'm suffering badly my life is not
going well and and then she says I hope
that there's something wrong with me and
the psychiatrist says she says well
here's how I look at it there's either
something wrong with the world and I'm
just in it and that's how it is and then
like what am I going to do about that
because it's the whole world or maybe I
could be fortunate and there's something
wrong with me that's causing all this
unnecessary suffering and if I could
just set it right I could learn and I
could set it right and so well I've been
thinking about that for a very long time
and I think well if your life isn't
going the way it is you know you can
find someone else to blame which is
pretty convenient for you and also
relatively easy or you could think okay
I don't like life I don't like the way
my life is
folding candy I don't like life in
general because it's tragic and
untainted with evil how do I know if my
judgment is accurate and the question is
well have I really done everything I
possibly could to set my life straight
because maybe I shouldn't be judging it
its quality or the quality of life
itself or being itself for that matter
if I haven't done everything I possibly
could to set my life straight well so
there's a there's a task Solzhenitsyn
who I'm a great I'm a great admirer of
social Nets in his book The Gulag
Archipelago was one of the things that
brought down the Soviet Union and he
said that one man who stopped lying
could bring down a tyranny and you know
he said that was some authority I think
you could easily make the case that the
Gulag Archipelago is the greatest book
of the 20th century I mean there's
another contender so obviously but he
said when he was in the gulag camps you
know meditating on how the hell he got
there and he had a rough life man I mean
first of all he was on the Russian front
at the beginning of World War two and
then he was thrown in the gulag camps
and that was just the beginning of his
adventures man he had a rough life he
was in the camps he was thinking what
the hell like huh what how did I get
here what's going on he had Hitler and
Stalin to blame right so if you have if
you need someone to blame man Hitler and
Stalin that that's great but he he that
isn't what he did he said he meditated
for a while once he realized that he
might have something to do with in some
strange way with the way things turned
out for him and he said he went over his
life with a fine-tooth comb in his
memory and thought okay where did I go
wrong but by my own judgment when when
when I when there was a path in front of
me when did I take the path that I knew
I shouldn't take because you all know
that right you know sometimes you don't
know if what you're doing is good or or
if it's bad it's just ignorance you just
don't know but sometimes you bloody well
know and you do the thing you know you
shouldn't do anyways that happens a lot
and why do you do that spiked is part of
it stupidity
there's all sorts of reasons but you
certainly know you do it Solzhenitsyn
thought okay well what would happen if I
took responsibility for where I am in
this concentration camp and then I went
over my whole life
and tried to figure out all the things I
did that were wrong by my own estimation
that increased the probability that I
would get here and then what would
happen if I tried to set them all right
now in the present and that's why he
wrote The Gulag Archipelago and one of
the consequences of that as I said was
it sped the dissolution of the Soviet
empire so hey that's not bad day like
you make a real confession you really
repent you you do your penance which is
writing this book and you completely
change the geopolitical landscape of the
world it's like and that that's worth
thinking about because it's not only
Solzhenitsyn who did that Nelson Mandela
did something quite similar it's not so
impossible and so the idea that what you
should do if you're feeling resentful
about the nature of being or suffering
too much for your own life let's say is
straighten the damn thing out like
seriously try it for a year even try it
for a week try not doing the things you
know you shouldn't do try not saying the
things you know to be false and just
watch what happens you might as well
give it a shot right because you say
well I'm all in for a year you know I'm
gonna do things right and then I'll just
stand back and kind of watch how things
unfold and maybe I'll reconsider at the
end of that year it's like try it try it
I mean I would say I've had thousands of
letters now from people who are saying
hey I tried that you know one hey you
know worked you know I quit lying and
everything quick do you ever see that
Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob
keeps stepping on the rake over and over
that's like the whole yard is littered
with rakes and all he does is walk
around and step on then curse steps on a
rake and hits them in the face and he
curse isn't any steps on another rake
and it you know what I mean stop doing
that
I don't know if we'll get through all 12
rules guess you'll have to read the damn
book anyways rule 7 rule 7 just about
killed me like I've had a lot of bad
health in the last year and having to
rewrite rule 7 coincided with one of
those periods that lasted about a month
and it was was the hardest chapter by
far and it went down the deepest by far
and it was really hard to get right
it's called do what is meaningful not
what is expedient and I'll just tell you
a little bit about the chapter because I
figured something out in it that and
then explained it something that took me
decades to figure out so there's this
idea it's a it's a very deep Christian
idea that the Messiah is the person who
takes the world's sins upon himself
right that's a characteristic of Christ
right it's something the idea is
something like Christ died for your sins
like what the hell does that mean
exactly you know and partly what it
means and I would say a slightly
corrupted form of Christianity is that
you just have to believe that that
happened in the and you're redeemed it's
like well that's we'll leave that aside
for a second but there's an idea there a
psychological idea and you know that
because the idea doesn't go away it's
lasted for thousands of years it's like
whoa so the idea signifies something it
has a psychological reality independent
of its metaphysical reality whatever
that might be and so I've thought about
that for a long time it's like what in
the world does that possibly mean and
then I realized and you knew this Carl
Jung knew this that it was associated
with this idea of the shadow I had this
client once who ha her parents man they
were pieces of work she her parents
taught her I'm swear to you that this is
the truth her parents taught her that
adults were angels literally and when I
saw her she was about 30 and she had a
lot of strange symptoms symptoms of
sorts I'd never seen psychosomatic
symptoms she she she had kind of like
quasi epileptic seizures at night and no
but she stayed conscious during them it
was very difficult to understand at
night I won't walk through it but her
parents told her that adults were angels
and and she was like 28 she had a
university degree and and I said well
didn't you ever wonder about that I said
didn't you read any history and she said
yeah what I'd read something about the
terrible things that people did to each
other and I would just compartmentalize
it and that was actually the key that I
used to unlock what was wrong with her
which was eventually fixed and I won't
go into that but but I said I gave her
this book give her two books I gave her
a book called the terror that comes in
the night which is a book about about
sleep paralysis and nightmares because I
thought that was what might've be
bothering her turned out that wasn't yet
then I gave her this other book called
ordinary ordinary men and it's a great
book
that's a terrible book terrible dark
book about about this police battalion
that was moved into Poland during World
War two after the Nazis had marched
through and it was all made of
middle-aged guys who weren't like
victims of Nazi totalitarian propaganda
when they were kids they were just you
know burgeois middle class guys kind of
like all of us let's say and they went
to police Poland and they were going to
have to do some terrible things
essentially but their commander told
them quite forthrightly that if being
involved in wartime policing was too
hard on them if they felt that it
violated the more psychological violence
they could just go back to policing in
Germany and very few of them did big
partly because they didn't want to
abandon their comrades let's say they
didn't want them to have to do the dirty
work you know and they ended up they
were normal policemen they ended up the
sorts of people who could take naked
pregnant women out into the middle of
the field and shoot them in the back of
the head that's how the book that's the
culmination of their training it's very
interesting to read about their training
because they were absolutely sickened by
what they learned to do like physically
sick and vomiting shaking traumatized
but they didn't stop and and if you want
to know why then you can read the book
and I said look read this book but don't
bloody well compartmentalize it enough
of that it's like read it like you're
one of the damn policemen which is how
you should read history
right you read about Nazi Germany and
you think well I'm Oscar Schindler I'd
saved the Jews it's like no you wouldn't
right you wouldn't because people didn't
and the probability is very high that
you wouldn't and all you have to do is
think it through you know and Frank it's
like you're really gonna put your family
at risk to hide a group of another
family in your attic for like multiple
years while there's Nazis parading the
street and where if you get exposed you
all die you're gonna do that are you
it's like very unlikely and and and no
wonder it's not surprising that it's
unlikely but you don't want to be
inflating yourself with self you know
with with fictional heroism without
actually knowing the facts on the ground
so I told her to read read it and to
understand that the policemen were her
and that's the thing to understand
well the idea that the savior is the
person who takes the world sins upon
himself is exactly that it's exactly the
same idea it's like the way that there
stops being Nazis is for you to know
that the Nazis were you and for you to
decide not to do that again but you have
to know you see this is the thing that
people won't do you have to understand
that you could not only do what the Nazi
camp guards did in office but that you
could all actually enjoy it
and then you have to decide that you're
not going to do that anymore
and that's not an easy thing to figure
out well then that's what that chapters
about so that's a rough chapter man
that's a rough chapter and that's only a
bit of what it's about you know there's
a lot of there's a lot in there and and
that's anyway so that's what that's
about
chapter Tim oh yes chapter nine is
assume that the person you are listening
to might know something you don't
this is a chapter about conversation and
about the different forms conversation
takes and it's a chapter about humility
and it's a chapter boat
listening and humility element is took
me a long time to understand why there's
religious injunctions supporting
humility to even understand what the
word really meant and that sort of
technical sense and it means something
like this it means what you don't know
is more important than what you know and
that's a lovely thing too then then what
you don't know can start to be your
friend you see people are very defensive
about what they know and for the reasons
we've already discussed but the thing is
you don't know enough and the rete you
can tell you don't know enough because
your life is not what it could be and
neither is the life of the people around
you you just don't know enough and so
what that means is that every time you
encounter some evidence that you're
ignorant someone points it out you
should be happy about that because you
think oh you just told me how I'm wrong
it's like great like maybe I had to sift
through a lot of nonsense to get through
the real message that you're telling me
but if you could actually tell me
someway that I'm wrong and then maybe
give me a hint about how to not be wrong
like that well then I wouldn't have to
be wrong like that any more that that
would be a good thing and and you can
you can you can embark on that adventure
by listening to people and if you listen
to people they will tell you they'll
tell you amazing things if you listen to
them and many of those things are little
tools that you can put in your toolkit
like Batman and then you can go out into
the world and use those tools and you
don't have to fall blindly into a pit
quite as often and so the humility
element is well do you want to be right
or do you want to be learning and it's
deeper than that it's do you want to be
the the tyrannical king who's already
got everything figured out or do you
want to be the continually transforming
hero or fool for that matter who's
getting better all the time and that's
actually a choice you know it's a deep
choice and it's better to be the self
transforming fool who's humble enough to
make friends with what he or she doesn't
know and to listen when people talk and
listening is a transformative exercise
like if if you listen to the people in
your life for example if you actually
listen to them they'll tell you what's
wrong with them and how to fix it and
what they want they can't even help it
if you start listening because people
are so shocked if you actually listen to
them that they
tell you all sorts of things that they
might not have even intended to things
they don't even know and then you can
you can work with that
and so and the other thing that's so
interesting you know now and then you
have a meaningful conversation right you
don't have a good conversation with
someone you walk when you think geez you
know what we really connected and I know
more than I did when I came away from
that conversation and during the
conversation you're really engrossed in
it and that that that feeling of being
engrossed is a feeling of meaning and
the feeling of meaning is engendered
because you're having a transformative
conversation your brain produces that
feeling of meaning for it says oh yeah
this is exactly where you should be
right here now it's it's the right place
and time for you and that's a great
place to occupy and so a good
conversation where people are listening
has exactly that nature and the reason
it has that nature is because it is in
fact transformative it's one of the
truisms of clinical psychology like if
you're a clinical psychologist a huge
part of what you do is just listen to
people it's like you know old they come
in they're unhappy and they'd rather not
be something like that you say well why
do you think you might be unhappy and
they don't know they have some ideas
they may have to ramble around for like
a year before they figure out why
they're unhappy they get rid of a bunch
of reasons why they thought they were
unhappy that are untrue and then you
kind of get to the heart of the problem
then you might ask them all if you could
have what you wanted so that your life
would be okay what would that look like
then they have to ramble around a bunch
about that because they don't really
know but the listening will straighten
them out because people think by talking
and in order to think you have to have
someone to listen because it's very hard
to think hardly anyone can think and
even the people who can think can only
think about a limited number of things
but almost everybody can talk and you
can listen to yourself talk and if
someone listens to you then well then
you also have a foil for your thoughts
right because you can watch the person
when you're talking and see if you're
boring or see if you're amusing or if
you're engrossing all of those things
and so listening that's a very good
thing
hi outline of Carl Rogers dictum he was
a famous clinical psychologist this is
another great little tip Roger said
here's a trick to tell if you're
listening so let's say someone lays
out there perspective for you and then
what you do is say look here's what I
think you said I think you said this and
this and this and this and then this is
that right have I got what you're saying
right and maybe the person says it's God
you don't be listening at all and you
know then they have to straighten you
out or maybe they say yeah yeah you got
it
and then the nice thing about that is
that you summarize their argument for
them which can be very helpful and for
you but also you don't get to make the
person into a straw man so like if
you're arguing with your wife let's say
or your husband big party is gonna want
to win not stupid because if you win you
get to be top Lobster but they get to be
bottom Lobster and if you want to live
with bottom lobster then like more power
to you but I wouldn't recommend it right
because you don't want that you want to
you want to defeat your wife in an
argument oh well great like if she was
gonna disappear tomorrow no problem but
like you're gonna like live with
defeated miserable her for the next week
that's no good so you listen and you
think okay well here's here's what you
what I think you said and maybe even
make it a little stronger and more
elaborated than was the case with the
original utterance so that you get the
damn argument right and cuz you don't
want to win you want to fix the problem
that's the winning and so the summary
with listening is so useful for that
because the person can say well yeah
that's what I meant
it's like then well then you have to
grapple without and Roger said well
people we usually won't because you know
if you live with someone and they tell
you the truth about the situation it
usually means that there's something
really stupid that you're doing you want
them to but there's something stupid
that you're doing that you know you're
doing that you actually have to stop and
you know that's difficult and unlikely
but well if you don't stop then you get
to have the same damn problem every day
or every week for the rest of your life
so it's probably better to undergo the
misery of stopping it than the misery of
continuing it but that's the injunction
to listen rule 11 is don't bother
children when they're skateboarding and
that's a meditation on the difference
between weakness and goodness you see
one of the things that's
happened in our society and especially
with regards to our attitude towards men
but also our attitude towards the
masculinity and women so it's just as
toxic for women is that we seem to have
concluded that strong men are dangerous
and that's partly because we think
Western culture is a tyrannical
patriarchy and the only reason you get
to the top is because you misuse power
and so all the men who are at the top of
the Harkey are all misusing their power
and they're all tyrannical and all the
guys who have the aim and ambition to
achieve that or just tyrants in training
and that's sort of the basic attitude
that we have towards our own culture and
towards young men now and that's just
there's everything about that is
pathological and inexcusable and
shameful I mean first the claim that
Western culture
[Applause]
the idea that Western culture is
primarily a patriarchal tyranny is like
well first of all it's it's historically
ignorant beyond belief because what are
you compared to what exactly how many
civilized countries are there in the
world you know three dozen the rest of
them are run by brutal thugs right and
it isn't just thugs at the top man
because that isn't how it works in in a
country that's corrupt the corruption is
spread through the entire country
so and we're not like that and that's
that I mean Western culture is
fundamentally honest and I can give an
example of that because people don't
like that idea
eBay proved that cuz here here it did it
did it was a very interesting thing
because when a eBay first popped up like
the cynic would say eBay is not gonna
work because I don't know you you live
on the other side of the country you're
gonna send me junk and I'm gonna send
you a check that bounces and that'll be
the end of eBay right right that's what
a cynic would say and then what happened
was that brokers popped up and they say
well look we'll guarantee the exchange
rights for a fee 10% we'll make sure
that you don't send junk and we'll make
sure your check doesn't bounce and what
happened was the brokers couldn't find
enough business and the reason for that
was all the transactions were honest all
of them you know it's like 19 if you
were on eBay and you have a reputation
of less than 99 percent there's actually
something wrong with you you know okay
98 percent but really it's that it's
that tight and so the default position
was you're offering this I'll buy it
we'll make the exchange fairly and what
happened was a bunch of capital that was
frozen technically speaking junk that
people had that other people could meet
got freed up and he Bey freed up a
tremendous amount of money for people
and it was all a consequence of default
honesty we also know that one of the
best predictors of success in Western
world is conscientiousness and
conscientious people are honest and have
integrity and are dutiful and do what
they say they'll do and that's a really
good predictor of long-term life success
especially as a manager an administrator
or something like that so
also chapter 11 is a discussion about
the assault on the on the positive
masculine and I read it partly as a
continuation of what Nietzsche announced
back in the late 1800s as the death of
God right because in Western culture God
was a masculine figure and the idea that
the divine masculine had been decimated
which was basically Nietzsche's
pronouncement has filtered all the way
down to masculinity itself and I think
that's an absolutely appalling outcome
it's it's it's something that could only
be desired by someone who is a true
enemy of humanity and so partly chapter
11 is a call to encouragement it's like
you want and I've been telling young men
in particular but young women as well
though they don't seem to be quite as in
need of the message to adopt
responsibility for their life to tell
the truth and to understand that their
failure to participate fully in being
leaves a hole that's precisely the size
of their soul in the cultural landscape
it's no joke
we need all the light we can possibly
bring to bear on the situation and when
I firmly believe that and I believe that
for all sorts of reasons and I think
there are very deep reasons and that's
partly why I would say rules to life
also has it's a funny book because it
has a very religious core but it's also
very heavily grounded in evolutionary
biology so but that's what chapter 11 is
about and it's about people who are the
enemy of the human spirit
the people who restrict children's play
for example which is a particularly
pathological thing to do there's a
movement now to not let children have
best friends it's like really what the
hell man that's so yeah there are so
many things wrong with that idea that
would take an entire another lecture
just to scrape the surface but mostly
it's just well I wouldn't even start on
final rule
it's called pedicab when you encounter
one on the street and it's it's a very
it's the most personal chapter in the
book it's a lot about my daughter and my
daughter was very ill when she was well
when she was a kid but particularly when
she was a teenager she had a very
terrible time of it
she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
and when she was between the ages of 14
and 16 at first destroyed her hip which
had to be replaced and then it destroyed
the ankle on her other leg which had to
be replaced and she walked around for
two years on broken legs and she was
taking massive doses of opiates and
could hardly stay awake and like and she
had this advanced autoimmune disease
which produced all sorts of other
symptoms that were just as bad as the
joint degeneration but which are harder
to describe and so it's just bloody
brutal you know and as a test of your
faith there's almost nothing that's more
direct than a serious illness inflicted
upon an innocent child right and so the
chapter is a meditation on that and also
on well what to do in a situation like
that because everyone is going to have a
situation like that in some sense you
know because you'll be faced with
illness in the people that you love and
in crisis and so it's a disc it's a
practical guide to coping with those
sorts of things like in one of the
things you do when you're overwhelmed by
crisis is you shorten your timeframe you
know it's like you can't think about
next month maybe you can't even bloody
well think about next week or maybe not
even tomorrow you know because now is
just so overwhelming that that's all
there is it's like and that's what you
do you cut your timeframe back until you
can cope with it and if it's not the
next week that you see how to get
through then it's the next day and if
it's not the next day then it's the next
hour and if it's not the next hour then
it's the next minute and you know people
are very very very very tough and it
turns out that if you face things it
turns out that if you face things that
you can put up with a lot more than you
think you can put up with and you can do
it without becoming corrupted and she
did recover quite quite fully and much
as a consequence of her own machination
because she figured out what was wrong
with her and then took the necessary
steps to fix it which is nothing short
of a bloody miracle as far as I'm
concerned and anyway as part of the the
the cat bit is I actually start by
talking about our dog who actually died
about a year ago but he's still alive in
the book I you know I let people know
cuz dog lovers love dogs and if you love
cats then they think you don't like dogs
and they don't like you so I also
pointed out at the beginning of the
chapter that you know if you want to pet
a dog on the street that's okay too so
you don't have to get up in arms about
it but but the idea is that you know you
have to be alert when you're suffering
you have to be alert to the beauty in
life
the unexpected beauty in life and that's
kind of what I was trying to get across
with the idea of the cat there's this
cat that lives across the street from us
called ginger and ginger is a Siamese
cat and cats really aren't domesticated
they technically speaking they're still
wild animals but they kind of like
people god only knows why but they do
you know and so ginger will come
wandering over and our dog looks at her
but they're friends and she rolls over
on his back and Siegel used to you know
knows are a bit and and then she kind of
mosey over and let you pet her if she
was feeling like it's out day and you
know you have to look for those little
bit of that little bit of sparkling
crystal in the darkness when things are
bad you have to look and see where
things are still beautiful and where
there's still something that's
sustaining and you know you narrow your
timeframe and you'd be grateful for what
you have and that can get you through
some very dark times and maybe even
successfully if you're lucky but even if
unsuccessfully then maybe it's only
tragic and not absolute hell and you can
do that you know in the worst situation
you can make it only tragic and not held
and there's a big gap between tragedy
and hell you know there's nothing worse
at a deathbed than to see the people
there fighting the death is bad enough
but you can take that as terrible as it
is and make it into something that's
absolutely unbearable and maybe I think
and this is sort of what I closed the
book with is this idea is that if we
didn't all attempt to make terrible
things even worse than they are
then maybe we could tolerate the
terrible things that we have to put up
with in order to exist and maybe we
could make the world into a better place
you know and it's what we should be
doing and what we could be doing because
we don't have anything better to do and
that's what the book is about and that's
the end of 12 rules for life
[Applause]
well we've overrun joyously and normally
I would have sort of cut the talk and
done something say we can have questions
but I really didn't think it was
appropriate this evening's talk was
absolute luminous and inspiring but sir
I'm going to do one question one
question only and and I'm going to leave
Jordan to actually decide what's the
question he's going to ask so I'm going
to take three from the audience I'm
going to read out three that event have
come from the live stream one from the
live stream it's how do you challenge
the identity politics of today the
second is a more personal one is word
you fall short yourself in these twelve
rules and is it a constant adjustment
and now let me take three questions from
the audience and I'll leave Jordan to
then decide which is the last question
that he wants to ask so first hand there
first of all it's an honor to be at your
lecture and the question is I wanted to
ask like for example some people like
for example stefan molyneux who
interviewed you puts I think tremendous
attention to admitting Falls of parents
and admitting the harm that was done
when getting better and working through
adversive childhood experience and I
wanted to ask you about about that what
you think about that my question is
about chapter 9 about being humble and
listening to what your enemies are
saying and criticizing him and I'm a
kind of first and who kind of speak
speak my thoughts so I I speak them to
my friends and see how they bounce at
them as so I noticed that there's always
a group of my friends who always
criticize what I'm saying and not even
try to understand what I'm Karl
I'm coming from and I've always wondered
how to deal with that I mean I want to
listen to what they are saying but they
are not understanding what I'm they're
not trying to listen to what I'm saying
so what would you do in that situation
very briefly okay there's a line in the
New Testament that's relevant to that do
not cast pearls before swine and what
that means is that if people are not
listening to you stop talking to them
and that's really that is the best piece
of advice that I can give you and what
happens is is that if you stop talking
to people who aren't listening to you
and start watching them instead they
will tell you what they're up to but so
if you have things to say you say them
but you find people that will listen
talk to them the ones who aren't
listening pull back because you're
you're devaluing what you have to say by
offering it to an audience that does
nothing but reject it and that's a good
guideline to life in general so pull
back yep
and our last question is gentleman over
there with thee in blue thank you
it brought smile to my face when you
mentioned the work of John Taylor Gatto
and I just wanted to know what you think
the relationship is between the classic
Trivium and the Holy Trinity and if
there is how has that changed over time
I'm going to leave you do one question
only okay okay and then
and then and then you're gonna be back
on stage dedicating yes yes okay okay I
think I'm going to answer where do you
fall short in these twelve rules is it a
cause constant adjustment you know like
I wrote these rules why did I write
these rules well you know and especially
when I said well you should try to
improve yourself instead of trying to
set the world straight or instead of
worrying about what other people are
doing wrong you might say well that's a
hell of a thing for someone to say you
just wrote a book called 12 rules for
life it's like you know but the thing is
is that I wasn't just writing that I was
writing that for me as much as for
anyone else and I mean that's I really
mean that sincerely you know I had an
opportunity to spend somewhere around
five years meditating on how you should
conduct yourself so that your life is
what it could be and like I'm in the
group of people that I'm advising you
know you know what I mean it's like all
of these things are very difficult to
stand up straight to remember that and
to treat yourself like you're someone
worthwhile and to make friends with
people who are good for you and and and
to tell the truth or at least not to lie
I mean these are all ideals right and
especially taken as a whole they
constitute a kind of ideal and you never
approve you never never attain the ideal
the I and not only that it recedes as
you approach it right because you
straighten yourself out you think well
I've got it now and you think now wait a
minute there's more to go there's still
more to go and then you get that much
farther along the line you think oh yeah
I thought this was the end of the road
it's like no there's plenty of
imperfections left to iron out and so it
is a constant adjustment and but there's
something about that that's also
positive because you might say that it's
not so much that there isn't such a
thing as a good person it's that our
idea of what constitutes good isn't
right because a good person is someone
who's trying to get better and no matter
how good you are there's better that you
can get but the real goodness is in the
attempt right it's in the it's in the
process to use somewhat of a cliche you
know there's this and I'll close with
this and it's a good way to close you
know
and this is a psychological observation
the the central figure of Western
culture is Christ and we can look at
that psychologically because Christ is
the dying and resurrecting hero and what
does that mean psychologically well it
means that you learn things painfully
and when you learn something painfully a
part of you has to die that's the pain
you know when a dream is shattered for
example a huge part of you that
constituted that dream maybe even the
biological substrate of that gene has to
be stripped away and burned and so life
is a constant process of death and
rebirth and to participate in that fully
is to allow yourself to be redeemed by
it and so the good is that process of
death and rebirth voluntarily undertaken
it's like you're not as good as you
could be so you let that part of you die
and if someone comes along and says you
know there's some dead wood here man it
needs to be burned off you think well
that stuff's still a bit alive when that
burns it's gonna hurt it's like yeah
well no kidding but maybe the thing that
emerges in its place is something better
and I think this is the secret of human
beings this is what we're like unlike
any other creature is that we can let
our old selves die and let our new
selves be born and that's what we should
do and so where do I fall short in these
twelve rules well endlessly because well
here's a way of thinking about it until
the entire world is redeemed we all fall
short and that's probably a good place
to stop
[Music]
you