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Jordan Peterson: "You Must Believe in You" | Jordan Peterson Rules for Life | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Jordan Peterson: "You Must Believe in You"
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Summary
Core Theme
The content emphasizes the importance of embracing challenges and responsibility as fundamental to human strength and well-being, arguing that confronting life's inherent tragedy and malevolence, rather than seeking superficial pleasure, leads to personal growth and a meaningful existence.
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So when you know if you watch yourself,
you say, "Well, I had a particularly
good day at work." And what does that
mean? Well, it means that you lost your
sense of time, right? Because when
you're having not a good day at work,
it's like first it's 1 minute to three
and then it's
45 seconds to three and then it's 30
seconds. That's what school was like for
me. It was like click.
click.
So funny, you know, I went to I went to
my daughter's school. I used to get in
trouble for talking all the time.
Surprise, surprise. When I was a kid and
uh and I was bored stiff in school and
and so I would misbehave upon occasion
out of pure boredom. And about 21 years
ago, I went to my daughter's school to
sit for a class. It was about an hour
long. And uh I was sitting there and the
teacher had all the kids on the floor
[snorts] and was having some of the kids
read to the others. And some of the kids
who were reading couldn't read at all.
And I had exactly the same experience. I
was sitting there. It was like being it
was like being seven years old again.
And I could see the clock going
tick [clears throat] tick. And I
thought, you know, if I was in this
classroom for three days, I would misbehave
misbehave
40 years old. I would misbehave exactly
like I did when I was when I was six.
No. Well, that's no place to be, right?
Because that's you don't want to be in a
place that's stalifying. You don't want
to be in a place where there's no
challenge. You might even quit your job
if there's no challenge. Say, "Well,
that's a good job. It gives you
security." And you think, "God, I can't
stand this. It's eating away at my soul.
It's all security and no challenge. So
why do you want to challenge? Because
that's what you're built for. That's
what you're built for. You're built to
take on a maximal load, right? Because
that's what strengthens you. And you
need to be strong because life is
extraordinarily difficult. And because
the evil king is always whittling away
at the structure of the state and you
have to be awake and sharp to stop that
from happening so that you don't become
corrupt and so that your family doesn't
become corrupt and so that your state
doesn't have to be come be become
corrupt. You have to have your eyes open
and your wits sharp and your words at
the ready. And you have to be educated.
And you have to know about your history.
And you know have to know how to think
and you have to know how to read. And
you have to know how to speak. And you
have to know how to aim. And you have to
be willing to hoist the troubles of the
world up on your shoulders. And what's
so interesting about that, so
remarkable, and and this is something
that's really manifested itself to me as
I've been doing these public lectures.
I've been talking about responsibility
to people, which doesn't seem to happen
very often anymore, and the audiences
are dead quiet, and I lay out this idea
that life is tragedy tainted by
malevolence. And everyone says, "Yeah,
well, we already always suspected that,
but no one has ever said it quite so
bluntly." And it's quite a relief to
hear that I'm not the only person who
has those suspicions. And then the
second part of that is the better part
and it's the optimistic part which is
despite the fact that life is a tragedy
tainted by malevolence at every level of
existence there's something about the
human spirit that can thrive under
precisely those conditions if we allow
that to occur. Because as difficult as
life is and as horrible as we are, our
capacity to deal with that catastrophe
and to transcend that malevolent spirit
is more powerful than the than that
reality itself. And that's the
fundamental issue. I think that's the
fundamental issue of the Judeo-Christian
ethic with its emphasis on the divinity
of the individual as catastrophic as
life is and as malevolent as people can
be. And that's malevolent beyond belief fundamentally.
fundamentally.
The a person has in spirit the nobility
to set that right and to defeat evil.
And that and that more than that and
that the antidote to the catastrophe of
life and the suffering of life and the
tragedy of life that can drive you down
and destroy you is to take on exactly
that responsibility and to say well
there's plenty of work to be done and
isn't that terrible and there isn't
anything so bad that we can't make it
worse and certainly try very hard to do
so. But I have it within me to decide
that I'm going to stand up against that.
I'm going to strive to make the world a
better place. I'm going to strive to
constrain the malevolence that's in my
own heart and to set my family straight
and to work to work despite my tragic
lot for the betterment of anything of
everything that's in front of me. And
the consequence of that, the immediate
consequence of that is that when you
make the decision to take on all of that
voluntarily, which is to stand up
straight, by the way, with your
shoulders back, to take on that all that
on voluntarily, as soon as you make that
decision, then all the catastrophe
justifies itself in the nobility of your striving.
striving.
And that's what it means to be an
individual. Okay. So the question is why
don't why do people pursue rewards that
don't produce this resonance?
They don't have a value hierarchy. So
Pleasure Island, it's a good example.
Those kids that were brought there were
lost. So they didn't they didn't have
anywhere to go. They didn't have an
identity. So they default to local pleasure.
pleasure.
And that's better than none. Although
the problem with local pleasure, well,
as the narrative made clear, is that you
better look out if you're impulsive
because it's going to kick back on you
hard. And the reason is you're only
considering the immediate time frame.
And the problem is is that things
propagate across all the time frames.
And so just because something works
really well this second, cocaine for
example, doesn't mean that it's a
tenable solution to the class of all
problems. So usually often people pursue
local pleasure because that's the best
they can imagine. It's the best they've
been taught. They don't see another
alternative. So it could be ignorance.
It can be they don't want to adopt the
responsibility because part of the
problem with working at every level of
the hierarchy simultaneously is that
it's it's well it's like dancing to a
very complex waltz. let's say you have
to be paying attention to a very large
number of things simultaneously and
doing things right. It requires responsibility.
responsibility.
And so, you know, that's
it's a pain. It's a weight. Part of the
reason people drink alcohol is to get
rid of their responsibility. I mean,
that's, you know, you hear people drink
because they have problems. It's like,
yeah, yeah, no. Some people drink
because they're anxious and alcoholics
drink because they're in withdrawal, but
young people drink because they're sick
and tired of being responsible, because
it's annoying. It's like, "So, I'll
drink enough. I won't care about the
medium to long-term consequences because
alcohol, that's exactly what alcohol
does. It doesn't make you ignorant of
the medium to long-term consequences,
but it makes you not care about them.
And partly it's because it dampens
anxiety. So, it dampens anxiety, leaves
your positive emotion circuits intact,
so then you can go out there and do
stupid fun things. And that's like
that's a party really. Let's go do
stupid fun things. That's a party. But
the medium to learn long-term
consequences are
it's risky.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but
it's risky. So, yeah, they don't know
better. That's the answer, I would say.
So your unconscious value structures
determine the direction and content of
your perceptions. So it's built right
into the way you move your eyes because
you tend to look at things you value,
right? Or at things you're afraid of.
Like you look at things with veilance.
And part of the decision about what has
value is dependent on the implicit
structure of your moral system. Your p
because morality is about what's good
and what isn't. And that's been partly a
conscious construction of you, but it's
partly something you've been you've
picked up by interacting with people
like Mad Ever since you were born. You
don't know all the rules anymore than
the damn cricket did. You just don't and
you can't because you're too
complicated. But
you act them out. And then you also have
representations of how people act in
your imagination. Dreams are that's what
a dream is. That's what a fantasy is.
That's what that little movie that plays
inside your head when you remember what
you did is and you only remember the
gist, you know. So even the the
imagistic representation of your
behavior in your past, which is
basically your episodic memory, it's
already selecting and molding and
turning it into a relatable story. It
can't help but do that. It's the only
way you can represent it. And so you
don't know how you do that or why you do
that, but part of it's governed by this
implicit morality that's part of your
procedural memory system, part of the
way you act and part of the way you move
your eyes and listen to things and focus
on them. And that's all being
instantiated inside of you because of
this immense social your biology, but
also this immense social project that
you're continually engaged in. And so
that informs what you remember. It
informs what you imagine. It informs
what we collectively imagine. It informs
what we can collectively understand. And
partly what you're doing while you
become conscious of yourself is to map
the implicit structures that already
constitute you from society into
explicit representation. That's what
self-standing means. And you know when
you have that moment of insight about
something you've done, it's like you're
watching your this repetitive behavior
that you've manifested probably that got
you in trouble. You know, it's your
characteristic way of falling
accidentally into chaos and you talk
about it and you your problems. You talk
about them with your friends. You talk
about them and maybe you have dreams
about them and you're you're trying to
relate them and you have memories about
them that you can't get rid of because
they're negatively toned. And so you
talk about them and then someone comes
up with a a little statement that links
them together causally AND YOU THINK,
"AHA, that's what I'm doing." and then
maybe you can stop doing it or at least
you or at least maybe then you can think
of some strategies for not doing it
anymore. But it's not like you know it's
like you're acting it out. You know it
that way. But until that's al until the
representation matches that pattern that
click of insight doesn't occur. And
that's like a revelation. It's a really
good way of thinking about it because
the knowledge is there in its implicit
form and all of a sudden bang it's been
made explicit as a fantasy maybe or also
as a as a set of semantic statements.
You know maybe you're you have a crush
on someone and you don't notice it and
maybe you find yourself having a fantasy
about them. You think oh
that means something that indicates
something. Maybe you don't want to know
that that's what you want but the
fantasy will tell you. And one of the
things Jung suggested, and this is sort
of out of the Freudian tradition of free
associations, is watch yourself. Watch
your fantasies because they're always
happening. And so, and they'll tell you
something. And so, one of the things I
do when when I'm interacting with my
clients is we'll have a discussion and
then they'll their eyes will drift a
little bit and I'll know that they're
that something's flitted through their
mind, you know, and that means we've
touched on something that has multip a
multiplicity of elements. And so I'll
stop and say, "Look, I noticed that you
maybe you teared up." That's another
thing to really watch. Or maybe you
laughed or you drifted at least. It's
like it's because some other thought has
entered your field of consciousness. And
then if you can get the person to grab
those thoughts to notice them, then you
can often figure out the avenues along
which that particular conversation might
unfold. That's a complex. That's a union
complex or a psychoanalytic complex.
It's like there's an emotional core that
produces a whole range of associated
ideas. And that thing's got a life. It's
like a micro personality. And it might
have resentment in it, might have anger.
It's often negative emotion tinged
because though negative emotion tinged
episodes are still problems and they
will emerge automatically because your
threat detection systems force them onto
your consciousness essentially. So you
watch and where when you drift you'll
drift and the fantasy is partly a
representation of the problem space you
know that happens when you wake up at 3
in the morning and you're worried about
things right because actually what
happens is you wake up during threat
processing and if you're depressed
actually that gets so intense you can't
sleep so then you just lay there all
night worrying not fun and those are
fantasies about the negative elements of
your past present and future and the
fantasies can also breed solutions
And that's partly why Freud regarded
dreams as wish fulfillments. It's partly
and he wasn't that was where he stopped.
It's not correct. It's partially
correct. It's like the fantasy will
provide you with a problem and a
potential solution, but they're more
like problem identification mechanisms.
The fantasies with
the possibility of a solution built in.
And so a way of thinking about that is that
that you
you
can generate potential futures. So
they're like each segregable
environments according to the rules of
your fantasy. Then you can generate
little avatars of yourself that inhabit
each of those little universes and you
can run them as simulations and then you
can watch what happens in the
simulation. And if it's a catastrophe
then you don't have to act it out. And
that's exactly not exactly that's akin
to what you're doing when you go watch a
movie except that is much more coherent
and well thought through you know and
than a than just a dream which is often
quite fragmentaryary. And that that's
partly because the dream is willing to
sacrifice coherence
to play with category structures, you
know, and that's why in dreams things
can change from one thing into another
really weirdly or scenes can change from
one scene into another without a logic.
The logic gets loosened.
so that the expanse of your thinking can
widen. And it's it's not it's dangerous
to do that. And that's partly why you do
it when you're asleep and paralyzed. You
know, you don't run around and act out
your your pseudapodle fantasies, you
know, where you're stretching yourself
out into the world. There's no risk.
Exactly. And so, although it can be bad
enough so you wake up in terror, you
know, but that's better than being in a
crocodile's mouth by a large margin.
Anyways, back to these these birds.
These are used later in the movie as
manifestations of the Holy Spirit
roughly speaking and of course that's a
standard Christian symbol although as I
mentioned the the dove
often represents the Holy Spirit and
we'll talk about that later but um this
movie has very strong pagan elements in
it as I mentioned before as opposed to
strictly Christian symbolism but but
that's a foreshadowing and what it
foreshadows is that well a new day has
dawned it's the emergence of new consciousness
consciousness
And everything last night went well,
really well. Everything in the let's
call it the unconscious say after time
stops that all went well. And so the new
day is full of promise. And so the birds
are singing and the sun is shining and
like hooray. And so that's exactly so
that sets this is the next scene, right?
So it sets the tenor for that scene just
like the introductory song does. So So
anyways, then you see all these kids
playing and enthusiastic. So they're off
to school which is presented in a
positive light and so that's out where
you get socialized. So is Pinocchio is
ready to go beyond the boundaries of the
familial home and he's ready because his
father prepared him and because his
mother prepared him and so he goes off
and he's not going off alone. He's going
with his conscience and which is sort of
the intern you could think about it
again as the internalized representation
of nature and society. And so he's not
going out there alone even though he's
not very good at it. And so he's pretty
excited about this and so is Jeppetto.
See Jeppetto is standing there paralyzed
with terror and the kid isn't phobic of
the outside world. And so that's he's
he's right he's treating it as an
adventure. I mean even though
well it's an adventure but adventures
can be dangerous. What if the other you
can imagine a kid especially one who's
like high neuroticism who hasn't been
encouraged sufficiently to overcome
that. Let's say their primary idea might
be, well, what if the other kids don't
like me? That's a big one. What if the
teachers don't like me? What if the
other kids won't play with me? It's
like, yeah, what if? That's rough, man.
And if if you're not a playful kid, it
could easily be the case. So, but that's
not Pinocchio. He's like spinning out,
ready to go. And so, good. Good. He's
got naive
but enthusiastic. Okay. Well, that at
least gets the ball rolling. Now, you've
got these two evil creatures here, the
fox and the cat. Um, I think this one's
based on one of the Markx brothers,
actually, Harpo Marks, who I believe
never said anything. But be that as it
may, they're these near do well
characters. Um, the fox in particular.
Now, fox is a standard trickster animal,
right? It's a it's uh it's it's it's a
classic animal, maybe because it's it's
good at hiding and it's good at hunting.
I don't know exactly why, but it's and
coyotes are like that, too. They're
classic trickster animals. Um, he's kind
of like Wy Coyote, in fact. You know,
the the the Warner Brothers character
whose genius at large and of course
whose arrogance continually gets him
walloped. And this character has a lot
of features like that, but he he's he
feigns being a an English gentleman of
like the 1890s and pretends to be
educated and and uh he has a kind of
highblown way of talking and he's a
fraud through and through and he's got
he's got this, you know, sidekick who is
barely there at all and he he doesn't
treat him that well, but he's got
someone to lord it over. So that keeps
his dominance hierarchy thing going
well. And the fact that he's like a
second rate companion, well, he never
really notices that, although he'll
treat him contemptuously whenever he
gives a chance. What's my advice to
young men seeking a woman for marriage
and family? Yeah.
Well, okay, fine. That's the same qu
second question. That's that's pretty
straightforward, man. I mean, you can't
eliminate the necessity of being
attracted to one another. That's
important and that's mysterious, you
know. Um, so for example, here's a funny
thing. If you, one of the things we know
that attracts people to one another is
bilateral symmetry.
And so if you take men and you rank them
by the symmetry of their faces,
and then you give the asymmetrical men
t-shirts to wear, clean t-shirts for a
day, and the symmetrical men clean
t-shirts to wear for a day. And then you
give the t-shirts to women, and you have
them rate the the odor. the women rate
the odor of the symmetrical men as more
attractive than the odor of the
asymmetrical men. And then and there are
other uh factors that determine sexual
attractiveness that are based on
biological factors that are so that
deeply embedded in terms of smell for
example. So u women also tend to uh not
be sexually attracted to the o to the
scent of men whose who have if I
remember correctly it's Rh factors that
would make for potential trouble in
childbirth and the often the reason that
the women give for not preferring the
scent of those men is that they smell
too much like their brother something
like that. So there's weird mysterious
things that determine whether or not
people are sexually and physically
attracted to each other. And I think
it's very important that that's part of
a marital relationship. The next most
important thing is trust. Man, it's like
there there's no marriage that's
successful without trust. You guys you
got to tell each other the truth. And
one of the reasons that Jung believed
that marriage as a and an oath and a
Carl Jung as a bond was necessary. It's
really wise. It's like, you know,
telling the truth to someone is no
simple thing because there's a bunch of
things about all of us that are terrible
and weak and reprehensible and shameful
and all of those things. And they kind
of have to be brought out into the open
and dealt with. And you're not going to
tell the truth about yourself to someone
who can run away screaming when you
reveal who you are. And so the the
marriage bond is something like, "Okay,
here's the deal.
I'm going to handcuff myself to you and
you're going to handcuff yourself to me
and then we're going to tell each other
the truth and neither of us are going to
get to run away. And so our once we know
the truth then we're either going to
live together in mutual torment or we're
going to try to deal with that truth and
straighten ourselves out and straighten
ourselves out jointly. And that's going
to make us us more powerful and more
resilient and more and deeper and wiser
as we progress together through life.
And and I think that's absolutely
brilliant because if you leave a back
door open, man, you're going to use it.
That's for sure. And the oath is there.
And this was Jung's commentary on the
spiritualization of of the human pair
bone by Christian marriage for example
which which emphasized uh the the what
would you call it the subordination of
both members of the marital union to a
higher order uh personality that was
embodied in the figure of the logos. So
the idea is that in in the Christian
marriage for example, the man isn't the
boss and the woman isn't the boss. The
boss is the mutual personality composed
by the seeking of truth in both of them.
And that's conceptualized as their their
joint subjugation to the logos. And that
is absolutely dead on, man. It's like
the ruler of your marital life should be
your vow to tell each other the truth.
Because like in hard times during your
life when you've done something stupid
and idiotic that might take you down and
you don't have anybody that you can turn
to, you know, if you have a partner that
you can trust, you can go say, "Hey, you
know, I made a big financial mistake,
man, and it's really torturing me and I
feel like a complete idiot and it's
really dangerous." And the person there
is going to help you figure out what to
do about it. And they're going to know
that when they make a stupid mistake,
and they're bloody well going to, that
they can come and talk to you and that
you guys are going to work your way
through it. And that's a big deal. And
there's a couple of things our culture
gets really wrong. And one is it
devalues marriage. That's really a very
bad idea because marriage is marriage is
like a third of your life and maybe
more. And kids are a third of your life
and your your your life outside of
marriage and kids is a third of your
life, you know, approximately speaking.
And to miss any of that is a massive
massive mistake. Now, having said that,
I will also say that for some people
missing one or more of those is
necessary because they have a reason.
You know, maybe they're brilliantly
creative artists and they need to devote
themselves entirely to their career or
they're outstanding in some way and so
they need they can justify the sacrifice
of one part of that triad of being to
another part. But for but generally
speaking, it's a very dangerous thing
and and it it it shouldn't be done. And
also kids get an absolutely terrible
rap, you know, because kids are
delightful if they're well behaved. One
of the chapters in my new book is called
don't let your children do anything that
makes you dislike them. And you can do
that, especially if you discuss it
thoroughly with your spouse, your the
person that's helping you discipline the
kids. And children are the best company
because they're really enthusiastic
about everything. They love doing new
things. They really love you, so they're
happy that you're around. Um, all you
have to do is make sure they're not too
hot and they're not too cold and they've
had something to eat and they're not too
tired and you don't expect them to stay
engaged in something for longer than
they can manage. Cuz we used to take our
kids when they were little out to
restaurants, for example, and they could
sit there no problem and behave really
nicely when they were two and three, but
they couldn't do it for more than about
45 minutes. You can't push your luck.
But I also noticed with little kids is
that they got antsy and unreasonable
about 5 to 10 minutes before the adults
did too. It's just the adults were too
stupid to notice. The kids would notice
right away. So, um, so back to marriage.
Well, you look for someone that you're
attracted to, that you love, and then
you look for someone that you can bloody
well trust, and then you tell them the
truth. And and that way maybe you can
get through life and you can have
someone to weave the rope of your being
with and together to make to make your
joint rope stronger and you can have
some continuity in your narrative and
you can have children and then you can
have grandchildren and like you can have
a life man and there's nothing you're so
fortunate if you can manage that and so
okay so there's that one. So what's my
advice to young men seeking a woman for
marriage and family? Yeah. Well, and
also, you know, marry someone you think
would be a good mother and that has
enough sense, generally speaking, to
know that she wants children. Now, some
women don't want children and fair
enough, and some women perhaps shouldn't
have children. That's also possible. But
the general rule of thumb is, especially
once a woman's, you know, in her mid20s,
if she doesn't know that she wants
children or won't admit it, unless she
has a viciously important reason, then
she's not oriented properly
psychologically. She she she isn't she
doesn't know what's important in life.
Now, that might also be the case with
you, and it probably is, but as a rule
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