YouTube Transcript:
Jordan Peterson: "Life is Suffering"

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Life is inherently filled with suffering, but embracing responsibility and striving for personal betterment is the path to meaning and overcoming this suffering, rather than succumbing to short-term gratification or victimhood.

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Well, you don't get together in a damn

bob because all that does is allow you

to be as horrible as you could possibly

imagine and suffer from none of the

consequences. That's a bad idea. So, how

about we don't do that? Well, there's a

deep idea in the West, too. It's like

pick up your damn suffering and bear it

and try to be a good person so you don't

Well, that's a truth. You know, I read a

lot about the terrible things that

people have done to each other. You just

cannot even imagine it. It's so awful.

So, you don't want to be someone like

that. Now, do you have a reason to be?

Yes, you have a lots of reasons to be.

God, there's reasons to be resentful

about your existence. Everyone you know

is going to die. You know, you too. And

there's going to be a fair bit of pain

along the way and lots of it's going to

be unfair. It's like, yeah, no wonder

you're resentful. It's like, act it out

and see what happens. You make

everything you're complaining about

infinitely worse.

There's this idea that hell is a

bottomless pit. And that's because no

matter how bad it is, some stupid son of

a like you could figure out a way

to make it a lot worse.

So you think, well, what do you do about

that? Well, you accept it. That's what

life is like. It's suffering. That's

what the religious people have always

said. Life is suffering. Yes. Well, who

wants to admit that? Well, just think

about it. Well, so what do you do in the

face of that suffering?

Try to reduce it.

Start with yourself. What good are you?

Get yourself together for Christ's sake

so that when your father dies, you're

not whining away in a corner and you can

help plan the funeral and you can stand

up solidly so that people can rely on

you. That's better. Don't be a damn

victim. Of course, you're a victim.

Jesus, obviously.

Put yourself together. And then maybe if

you put yourself together, you know how

to do that. You know what's wrong with

you if you'll admit it. You know,

there's a few things you could like

polish up a little bit that you might

even be able to manage in your

insufficient present condition. And so,

you might shine yourself up a little bit

and then your eyes will be a little more

open. Then you can shine yourself up a

little bit more. And then maybe you

could bring your family together instead

of having them be the hateful, spiteful,

neurotic, infighting batch that you're

So then you fix yourself up a little bit

kind of humbly because you know God

you're a fixer upper if there ever was

one. And then you got to figure out well

can you figure out how to make peace

with your idiot brother and probably not

because he's just as dumb as you. So how

the hell are you going to manage that?

And so then you maybe you get somewhere

that way and your family's sort of

functioning and you find out well that

kind of relieved a little bit of

suffering although it reduced the

opportunities for spiteful revenge and

that's kind of a pain in the neck. And

so then you get your family together a

little bit and you're a little clued in

then at least a bit because you've done

something difficult that's actually

difficult. You're a little wiser and so

then maybe you could put a tentative

finger out beyond the family and try to

change some little thing without

wrecking it. It's like our society is

complex and we teach our students that

they could just fix it. It's like go fix

a military helicopter and see how far

you get with that. It's like what are

you going to do? You're like a chimp

with a wrench. Whack. Oh, look. It's

better. It's like no, it's not better.

Things are complicated and to fix things

is really hard and you have to be like a

a golden tool to fix things and you're not.

not.

So, and that's the other message of the

west. It's like how do you overcome the

suffering of the of life? And I'm not

saying it's only the message of the

west. How do you overcome the suffering

of life is be a better person. That's

how you do it. Well, that's hard. It

takes responsibility. And I think, you

know, if you said to someone, you want

to have a meaningful life, everything

you do matters. That's the definition of

a meaningful life. But everything you do

matters. You're gonna have to carry that

with you.

Or do you want to just forget about the

whole meaning thing and then you don't

have any responsibility because who the

hell cares and you can wander through

life doing whatever you want gratifying

impulsive desires for how useful that's

going to be. And you're stuck in

meaninglessness but you don't have any

responsibility. Which one do you want?

Well, ask yourself which one are you

pursuing? And you'll find very rapidly

that it isn't the majority of your soul

that's pursuing the whole meaning thing

because well look what you have to do to

do that. You have to take on the fact

that life is suffering. You have to put

yourself together in the face of that.

Well that's hard. Christ it's amazing

people can even do it. I'm stunned every

day when I go outside and it isn't a a

riot with everything burning. Really

God. You talk to people, it's like I

knew this guy, he'd been in a motorcycle

accident and it really ruined him and he

was like a linesman, you know, working

on the power and he was working with

someone who had Parkinson's disease. And

they had complimentary inadequacies

and so two of them could do the job of

one person. And so they're out there

fixing power lines in the freezing cold

despite the fact that one was

threequarters wrecked with a motorcycle

accident and the other one had

Parkinson's. It's like that's how our

civilization works. It's like there's

all these ruined people out there.

They've got problems like you can't

believe. Off they go to work and do

things they don't even like. And look,

the lights are on. My god, it's

unbelievable. It's It's a miracle. It's

a miracle. And we're so ungrateful.

College students, the postmodern types,

they're so ungrateful. You know, they

don't know that they're surrounded by

just a bloody miracle. It's a miracle

that all this stuff works. that all you

crazy chimpanzees that don't know each

other can sit in the same room for two

hours sweltering away without tearing

each other apart because that's what

anyways, so what happened? Well, I made

some videos and I got to the bottom of

some things, at least as far as I can

tell. So I told you what the bottom is

and then I've got this idea about what

you might do about it, which isn't my

idea. It's like it's not my idea. It's

an old old old old idea. It's far older

than Christianity. It's old. It's the

oldest story of mankind.

Get yourself together. Transcend your

suffering. See if you can be some kind

of hero. Make the suffering in the world

less. Well, that's the way forward as

far as I can tell. If there is any way

forward, that's what's under assault by

the postmodernists.

So look out because they know exactly

what they're doing and they know exactly

why they're doing it. To pursue

something that makes you happy in the

immediate present risks sacrificing your

well many things but at least let's say

your hedenism in the medium to long

term. And of course that is one of the

major problems with drug use and alcohol

is a really good example of that because

whatever hedonic kick you might get from

it that moment at night you're going to

pay for almost completely or maybe even

more so because the next day you're

much more jittery and anxious and that's

a that's a direct consequence of

withdrawing from the drug. So when

you're in when you have a hangover

you're in alcohol withdrawal. So that's

how fast you you get roughly speaking

addicted to it. And so if you take

another drink when you're hung over,

it'll cure it. But it's not a very

useful cure because all you do is push

the inevitable hangover one more step

into the future. And so part of the

problem with the hedonic answer is

happy when exactly and over what period

of time. And also who's happy? Because

maybe something makes you happy but

makes your family miserable. Now you

could say, "Well, I don't care." But you

do care if you have to live with your

family because they're going to take it

out on you. So, so the the impulsive

hedonism which is also fostered say by a

positive emotion. It it tends to put

people into a state of the pursuit of

short-term hedenism. It's not a good

long-term or medium to long-term

solution. I actually think that's why

people evolved conscientiousness,

right? Because conscientiousness is not

happy. Conscientious people aren't

conscientious because it makes them

happy. We're starting to think that

they're conscientious because they

actually feel terrible if they're just

sitting around doing nothing. And so

it's a way of staving off

stress, the stress that's related to

enforced leisure, something like that.

You know, you if you know industrious

people, some of you will have some of

you are industrious. Some of you will

have industrious parents. They just

can't sit around and do nothing. They

have to be working. They don't feel good

unless they're working. So what thing

about conscientiousness is that it it

involves continual sacrifice, right?

You're doing difficult things in the

present hypothetically to make the

future better, but that's not driven by

hedonism by any stretch of the

imagination. And conscientiousness is

actually a pretty good predictor of

long-term life success in stable

societies because there's also no point

in being conscientious and saving things

up and storing things if a bunch of

thugs are going to just come in randomly

and and take it all away. So

conscientiousness actually only works

intelligently in societies that have

some medium to long-term stability, you

know, because you can get wiped out by

hyperinflation too because

hyperinflation kills off the

conscientious people. The people who

acrewed debts are thrilled when

hyperinflation kicks in because it wipes

out their debts. But of course, those

debts are the things they owe to people

who were conscientious enough to save.

So anyways, Pinocchio was transformed

into a victim and he's offered this he's

offered this identity and he takes it.

Now, it's partly because he's deceived

and and manipulated, but it's also

partly because the fox offers him the

abandonment of responsibility as payment for

for

as payment for adopting the victim

identity. So, this is where his own lack

of morality, let's say, because this is

all about Pinocchio's development as a

character plays a role in his demise. So

if I'm a victim, then everyone else owes

me something and I don't have to take

any responsibility. And so one of the

things I've wondered, here's something

to think about. It might be that the

sense of meaning that that life can

provide to you is proportionate to the

amount of responsibility you decide to

take on. That that'd be very strange if

it was the case, you know, because

responsibility of course is a kind of

weight obviously and it's difficult to

take on responsibility. But if any

positive emotion that you feel and your

control of anxiety and the control over

pain is dependent on the activation of

these systems that watch you move

towards a desired goal, then the more

complete and weighty the goal is, the

more kick there's going to be in the

observation that you're moving towards

it. And you know, you kind of already

know this because you'll you'll have

observed in your own life that when

you're engaged in something that you

believe in

that the time passes properly. You know,

you can see this even if you're maybe

you're reading a paper and it's actually

related in some intelligible manner to

something that you want to learn. So

even though it's difficult, you get

engaged in it. You can remember it

better. You can process it better. And

you don't you're not so likely to fall

asleep. and you're not so likely to want

to find distractions, all of that. You

can get into it. And it would be very

interesting if that was proportionate to

the degree of responsibility that you're

willing to shoulder. And I I think you

can make a strong case for that. I've

also often wondered, imagine you could

offer people a choice. Here's the

choice. You could say, well,

your life isn't meaningful. The

nihilists have got it right. There's no

meaning in your life. And because of

that, there's no reason for you to

accept any responsibility.

So you can live a responsibility-free

life and maybe one of impulsive pleasure

seeeking, but a responsibility free

life, but the price you pay is that it

doesn't get to be meaningful. Or you

could say to someone, "No, we're going

to do the opposite. We're going to say

you can live a meaningful life, but it's

only going to be as meaningful as the

amount of responsibility that you're

willing to bear." And then you might

say, "Well, what would people choose?"

Because everybody also always makes

noises about wanting to have a

meaningful life. But if the price you

pay for that is the adoption of

responsibility, then it's not so obvious

that people would choose meaning over,

you know, over pointless pursuits.

If they had to, if the benefit they got

for choosing the pointless pursuits was

that they really didn't have to care

about anything they ever did, right?

It's no responsibility. And that's

really what Pinocchio is offered and

that's what the coachman offers him.

That's interesting because,

you know, so far it's been the fox and

the and the cat and they're kind of two

bit hoods. And so the pathological

pathway that they offer Pinocchio is not

the worst of the pathological pathways.

But here, at least as far as the

imagination, the collective imagination

that created this movie is concerned is

this is where you get to the most

pathological form of let's call it

temptation. And that's the temptation to

engage in

to abandon responsibility and to engage

in impulsive pleasure seeking,

short-term pleasure seeeking. So here's

the fox pretending to be a doctor investigating

investigating

um Pinocchio's illness and he makes some

notes which is all

just meaningless

scribble, right? It's like white noise.

And it doesn't matter that the arguments

that he's making is are completely

incoherent. And it doesn't matter that

he actually doesn't know anything. He

what he's selling is easy to buy. And so

Pinocchio buys it.

And by the end of the conversation with

the fox, he's pretty convinced that he's

useless and that he needs a vacation.

You know,

this is an eatable sit an edible

situation as well, which I touched on

it's very, let's imagine that you have a

child that is a little on the neurotic

side, so high negative emotion, and

maybe one that's also a little bit on

the sickly side, so has a variety of,

let's say, relatively minor ailments,

but ailments nonetheless.

And so what that means as a parent,

we'll say mother for this example

because I want to use the edible

example. You have to make a decision all

the time about exactly how you're going

to treat that child.

One decision is well I'm not going to

you don't have to go to school today

because you're not feeling well. It's like

fair enough.

But do you make the same decision the

next day? And do you make the same

decision the next day? And let's imagine

that you enable the child to avoid

responsibility as a consequence of

capitalizing on their illness.

Well, then that's not going to be very

good for the child. The rule with an a

sickly child has to be something like,

I'm going to push you right to your limit

limit

because otherwise, how is the person

going to figure out what they can do?

And if they can't figure out what they

can do, then they're not going to be

able to make their way in the world at

all. And then that gets muddied very

badly if you're not exactly sure that

you want them to make their way in the

world. You know, maybe you're just as

happy because you'd be sitting at home

alone if your child was there with you.

And maybe you'd be just as happy at some

level if they never grew up at all

because then they won't leave.

And so, and maybe that's because you

have a terrible marriage and you're

lonesome. You know, maybe it's an

abusive marriage and your husband has

chased away all your friends and so you

don't have anything at all. And maybe

that's cuz he didn't stand up for

yourself very well, apart from the fact

that he was, you know, tyrannical in his

central nature. And so then all those

little warps and bends in your psyche

are going to manifest themselves right

right in the background of every single

one of those decisions.

My daughter had a lot of illnesses when

she was adolescent and they were very

serious and it was very difficult to

figure out what to do about that because

you you couldn't exactly apply normative

rules, right? And we always had to

figure out if she was

communicating her symptoms to us, how

seriously to take those. And the answer

was the least amount of serious

possible. It's something like that because

because

we needed to know and she needed to know

what she could do in spite of the fact

that she had problems. And one of the

things I really tried to instill in her

and I think it worked is that you don't

ever want to use your illness as an

excuse for not doing anything not

consciously. You know, sometimes you

might not know I'm not feeling well. How

what can I do? Well, you don't know,

right? Because sometimes when you're not

feeling well, you can do more than you

think and sometimes you can do less than

you think. It's not like it's obvious,

but sometimes it's obvious. You know,

this little temptation flips through

your mind and you think, well, I don't

really want to do what I'm doing today,

and I'm not feeling very well, so I

don't have to do it. You do that a

hundred times. Then you don't know how

sick you are anymore. And then you're

then you're in real trouble because not

only are you sick, but you actually have

you've muddied the waters. And so you

have both problems then is you're

actually ill and you've betrayed

yourself by using that as an excuse not

to pursue your responsibilities. And

that I think if you do both of those

both of those things happen to you at

the same time you're in real trouble.

It's really hard not to have that happen.

happen.

You're in a class it's near the

beginning of the semester. You write an

exam or you hand in an essay and you

don't get the mark that you desired.

Okay. So what are your options? Well,

one option would be, so you've hit an

anomaly. Things didn't happen the way

you wanted them to happen. And so maybe

you say, geez, that was a boring and

stupid class anyways. This gives me an

excuse to get out, and so that's not

such a negative thing. Or you think, oh

well, I really better buckle down and

study. And you decide to stay in the

class. So basically, what you've done is

maintained your framework. I'm going to

work through this class, but you're

you're you've decided to modify some of

the sub routines that make up that

frame. you say, well, I should study

more next time or I have to prioritize

this class compared to other classes.

So, it's a micro alteration within the

overarching framework. But another thing

you can do is say

to hell with the class. I just won't

I'll just drop it.

And so the advantage to that is problem

gone. The disadvantage is well now you

have a different problem which is okay

fine you dropped the class. Do you have

another class that you can replace it

with? Is that a good way of dealing with

a micro failure? You know, to move up a

level of analysis and throw out the

whole frame because you could also say,

well, maybe I should just drop out of

university and maybe I should go hang

myself. You know, that's well, it's the

same line of logic. It's just taken up

to a higher degree of abstraction. And

so, generally speaking, you don't want

to solve a problem by moving up a level

and wiping out the frame within which

the problem was experienced. you you

want to do that carefully because in

principle the frame that you were

working within had already you'd already

assigned value to it and worked at it.

You've already invested in it. It's a

big sacrifice to blow out the whole

frame. Now sometimes you can do it. So

anyways, what happens is well, you get

the bad grade and you're upset about it.

And so you've been plunged from your

happy, satiated state, let's say, into a

state of relative chaos. And the chaos

is, oh, I hit an obstacle. I didn't

expect it. And now I don't know what to

do. And so what does it mean to not know

what to do? Well,

it can mean I need to study harder.

It can mean I should drop this course.

It can mean I should major in a

different subject. It could mean maybe I

shouldn't be in university. It could

mean maybe my future plans have been

formulated badly. It can mean my future

plans have been formulated badly because

I don't understand myself very well and

I've been telling lies about my past.

Right? The thing can really expand on

you. And that's what the chaotic domain

is. That's the remanifestation of those

things that you had considered

irrelevant. Right? Because when you go

to pick up the exam, you've got your

identity as a competent student intact.

You're not questioning whether you

should be in the course or whether you

should be in that major or whether you

should be in university. None of that.

That's all in the implicitly accepted

category. And as soon as the anomalous

event emerges,

all of those things that you had

rendered axiomatic start to become

questionable. And that's like the shark

coming up out coming up from the depths

to pull you down. And that's the classic

way of of representing that and of

symbolizing it. That's Jonah and the

whale for example. So it's something is

manifest itself from the deep unknown

and pulls you under like an alligator at

a at a water hole which is I'm sure one

of the sources from which we derived

that particular kind of mythological

representation because you can imagine

that when we were on the after living on

trees we had to go down to the damn

water holes and you've you've watched

enough nature programs to know what a

Nile crocodile can do to a water

buffalo. It's not pretty. And so to go

down to the water, the chaotic water and

the source of all life as well, right,

is to risk an encounter with the

terrible thing that lurks in the depths.

And so we use that as a central metaphor

for for for mapping the sorts of things

that happen happen to us in a much more

abstract space. And you you know that

because one of the things you're going

to do, let's say that the the professor

uh there's a professor obviously who

gave you the bad grade. Okay. So one

logical presupposition is that you're in

some sense insufficient in relationship

to the course. But another logical and

instantaneous categorization is to throw

that person into the category of

malevolent predator. And you'll do that

by becoming upset and cursing the person

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YouTube Transcript:Jordan Peterson: "Life is Suffering"