Psychology in the modern world, a podcast by dogs, Jordan be Peterson. Episode, one reality and the sacred a lecture Rico. By tv. Ontario Doktor Petersen Self Development programmes are available itself authoring. Dotcom, that's s De L, authoring done. You can also support this podcast unpatriotic. If you search Jordan Petersen Patriarch, I wanna talk to you today about what I think is a relatively way new way of looking at your experience, but maybe even more broadly than that in no way of looking at reality itself. You all come my

To university, I supposed to make your conceptions of reality more sophisticated, and you want to do that because you have to live in the world and the more sophisticated you're conceptions, the less likely you encounter, tragic or harmful circumstances that you will be unable to deal with it really matters. If you know what you're thinking and you know how to think over the last twenty years, I would say: there's been a revolution in psychology, and the revolution has involved a transformation in the way that we look at the world and that's what I want to talk to you about today, entitled this talk reality in the sacred strange title for a talk to modern people, because we don't really understand what the sacred means. Unless we live within a world view that centrally, I wouldn't say our camp, but at least tradition

for modern, free thinking, fundamentally, liberal people, the idea the sacred is an acronym stick or if not an economic, at least incomprehensible. So I want. I want to start with a story from the old testament. There's a scene in the old testament when the ancient Hebrews are moving the arc of the covenant and the arc of the government is a device that was manufactured in order to and the word of God, and there was a rule among the ancient Hebrews, which was you were not to touch the arc of the covenant, no matter what there's a story in the old testament where the bearers of the arc of the covenant they used to carry it. The bearers of the arc of cup of the covenant trip and a man reaches out to steady at and when he touches it. God strikes him dead and modern people. Look at a story like that, and the first thing they think is that seems a little bit harsh on the part of God. Give.

Tat. The man was attempting to do something that he believed was good, but what the story is designed to indicate in my opinion, is that there are certain things that you touch at your peril, regardless of your intentions and those things that you touch at your peril. Regardless of your intentions, most cultures regard as sacred as untouchable. I want to make a case for you today that those things exist and also why they exist and why it's necessary for you to know that they exist. I would also say that, if you're properly educated in the university, especially with regard to the humanities, which are in some conceptual trouble at the moment, what you are, what is it happens to you is that you are introduced in a relatively secular way to the concept of the sacred you're here in the university to learn about the eternal values of humankind, and I think that people who tell you

those values do not exist or that there are endlessly debatable. Do you in an unbelievable disservice Now I'm gonna tell you first how you think about the world. I think so this would be a newtonian view of the world, its newtonian deterministic and its view that dominated psychology and economics and Anthropology in political science. You name it for probably four hundred years but come to a crashing hauled in the last fifty years and the consequence of the consequences of that have been met in a number of domains, the old world presuppositions or something like this. The world, is made out of objects when you look at the world. You see the objects there. They are in front of you as a consequence of seeing the objects you think about what to do and, after you think about what to do in presence of the objects you act.

Now that seem self evident, because we look at the world, verily objects are, and it appears to you that you see them and then you think about them, and then you act, but there's a real problem with that. First problem is use. Have you been the sea, literally, who in visual cortex, is very large part of your brain and the reason that the visual cortex is so large that seeing is, as far as we can tell actually impossible. Now. The fact that seeing perception is impossible wasn't discovered by psychologists and it wasn't discovered by philosophers. Was discovered by people who working who were working on artificial intelligence and trying to make artificially intelligent machines, the presupposition of the people who are making intelligent machines was the hard part of

Rocky with the world is figuring out what to do once. You see the objects, but it turned out. The talking machines that could see objects was impossible and the reason for that, Is the boundaries between objects, are not obvious, they're not, this at all. In fact, it's very difficult to understand how it is. We separate things up at all? I let me give you an example. So if you think about yourself. When you look in the mirror, you see yourself as an object using your eyes, you see, who knows you see your face, is your body and that What you see when you look at other people, but that isn't all there is to you. In fact, that's hardly any of what there is to you. So you can say, for example, you exist at the level of the quantum particle you can perceive that fact. People didn't know that until seventy five years ago Above that level you exist at an atomic level and then a molecular level, and then you would is that the level of complex organs and then the interactions between those organs-

and then you and then your family and then so, your family belong to and then the ecosystem that the groups of your are, that that all your group's belong to, and so on and so on, and so on and so forth. Until What it is that you are can expand to encompass virtually anything. Now when you look at yourself, you don't see that You see yourself at a certain level of resolution when you look at the world, you see yourself at a certain level of resolution, but all those other levels are equally real and fully relevant and may in fact, Very little idea how it is that you are only able to see what you see almost nothing has obvious boundaries, and this has real world consequences. It's not.

Thing. That's merely abstract the technical term. For this problem, the problem of how to bind your perceptions to limit them is called the frame problem frame problems discovered about forty years ago and the philosopher, Daniel Dennett, called it the most important philosophical discussion discovery of the last fifty years. The frame problem emerges to cause all sorts of trouble for people. So, for example, the when Henry Ford

invented the automobile while at least invented the modern procedure of building the automobile. What Ford presumed wasn't he was building an efficient means of transporting people from one place to the other. There were other unintended consequences, affords discovery, so, for example, for it happened to be a great supporter of fascism and the reason that he was a supporter of fascism bit was because he regarded the fashion, fascist political structure as a logical extension of the efficient methods that he used to assemble vehicles. So his mode of production was Did we manifested in a political philosophy? Furthermore, now two thousand and nine hundred years after the invention, The automobile we ve discovered some other things that the or was other than a place to move people from point a to point B. So, for example, it turns that the automobile and the internal combustion engine are among the most effective,

technologies ever devised to transform the nature of the atmosphere and heat up the world. Not only that the car is completely transform the nature of and these are all unintended consequences of the fact that the car was far more than what people thought it was her. You can say that about any technological structure, no knew what tv would do to the news. For example, no one knew it internet would do to the music industry. Everything that you interact with his far more complicated than you see. The most ancient ideas we have about the nature of reality make our are predicated on certain presupposition. The presupposition is this: there's two fundamental modes of being that characterize reality. What is that Salute and absolute as the sum total of everything. So if you think both things in their most unbounded possible form. If you think of things in there If, in a number of potential variations, you can think about that as one

all of reality, it appears clasp. We, the people, have regarded their encounters with the salute which has all those multiple levels of being that are beyond your perceptual capacity as equivalent to an encounter with God. Now. You know that in the islamic religion is against the rules to make a brave and image of any sort of Mohammed Right, the ideas it you're not supposed to make an image and among the and Hebrews. The idea was very similar. The Dallas say that top you shouldn't confuse the moon with a finger pointing to the moon and what all this means is that the Abbe It is always something that transcends the finite frame that you place around your perceptions. So what? You start talking about it, representing it, making stature of it or idolizing it. You lose your connection with the absolute because you turn it into something: that's understandable in concrete part of the wisdom, traditions that the world still maintains, make the constant moral.

Presupposition that you should always be aware of what it is that transcends both your understanding in your perception and you should keep firmly in mind that that exists now, when people too about God in the modern world, they tend to think about something. That's more than war has more the characteristics of a being, and I suppose that's where most of the debate about religious reality comes but the idea that there is an absolute that's outside of Europe, perceptual capacity seems to be to be merely a statement of fact given what we know now about the nature of perception, that the phenomena always transcends the manner in which you frame it. We ve also come to understand that not only does reality have multiple levels of existence, but in order to perceive it, you have to stand inside multiple frames. This is a picture of a french city with a war. City now, the walls are there to keep the people in and the law

Are there to keep what isn't in the walls out, and so you can think about that as a protective structure. I want to tell you how it is that you still inhabit a walled city and exactly what that means. So, for example, you think about this room and I'm going to tell you How is that this room allows you to see what it is that you see now interacting with a computer you. Actually, though, we interact with the computer, you interact with the keyboard and the screen. If the computer crashes, then you intervene was the computer and you find out as a general rule very annoying because you don't really understand the computer very well, and you don't actually see how complex it is until it stops working most of the time when you're interacting with the world you're doing things with the world you're interacting with it, in a way that produces some consequence that you want, and that means in that you perceptions are always framework by what you want and that's actually won. Reason why the world isn't just made out of objects,

is made out of things you use and things get in your way now always applying the frame like that to the world in order to simplify enough. So that you can understand, it aid in this process by all sorts of processes. You really don't notice is when you the world. You think, while there are the objects, but there's a thousand things, go one before you make that judgment? So will look at this room. When you walked in here, the room tells you what to do the reason it tells you- it is because all the seizure pointed in the same direction. There slanted in a particular way. When you walk in here and those other people sitting, you can see that Faces point to the front people's faces point towards what interests the room is set up to make you face the front. The theory behind the room. Is that the thing that's interesting in the room is happening at the front. It's a theatre what's happening at the front, is a drama right because theatres, there to promote and and and the drama electors, a dramatic act.

The room tells you what to do. If you don't have to think about what to do. When you come into a room like this, you can just do it because the room tells you what to do and then you can take. You can sit in here in relative comfort and listen to this lecture. Why can you said in your relative comfort. Other people around. You have been relatively carefully selected right as a consequence of analysis of their twelve years in school. University is made a determination that they know how to sit down and listen that hypothetically There are intelligent enough to understand the lecture the very unlikely to disrupt the proceedings with any unexpected. Burst of emotion or motivation. Now, with but he broke one of those rules. You can be sure that your eyes would move very rapidly away from me and directly towards the person who is causing the trouble, because that would take centre stage now this was actually supported by a million invisible process so, for example, by using

and here you don't have to worry about whether it's raining because there's a roof don't have to worry about whether the roof is going to fall in, because you make the presumption that the people who built the roof are competent and the electricity works, because the electricity's utility is run by people who are competent, so it's almost always on Billy hardly ever burn down. The electricity hardly ever fluctuate. There's thousands of people out there these hard as they can diligently to make this environment constant enough you can ignore all the thousands of things that your ignoring so that you can concentrate low enough to attend to the few things you are intending to well you in this room. You're in a walled city. There's multiple walls and those walls protect you from what's outside the walls, you can think about it. This way, This is a doubtless the image of reality. Now people, about this as a metaphysical symbol. But it's not a metaphysical symbol.

It's an unbelievably practical symbol, the Taoists is that the world reality is made up essentially of chaos in order. Chaos as all those things you don't understand, so I would The chaos is all those things that exist outside of your perceptual preconditions. Order was all the things you do understand and all the places you go where the things that you do produce the results. That you intend and doubtless would say. Everywhere, you go on like that. Everyone You go has things that you understand that are orderly and has things don't understand their chaotic and the chaotic things attracted Just because you already understand the orderly things, if something unexpected. You're nervous system automatically reacts to an oriented towards it, and sometimes I could be catastrophic, so this is experience that some of you will have in the next four years and out

there's a number of you that want to go to medical school for graduate school or to law, school or business school and a certain percentage of you will take the admission tests that determine whether or not you are able to take that path the percentage of you will score below the fifty percent on those tests and that will mean you will not be going to those institutions and when happens. First of all, yours Can tremble when you open the envelope to find out your results, and second, if you haven't achieve the score that you expected eulogy that you achieve your world will fall apart, And what that means is that you descend from the domain of order into the domain of chaos, and that happens to people all the time it happens to people when they develop an illness that serious that they, Control because then their body stops becoming something they can predict and starts to become something something that they can predict.

To two people with their in an intimate relationship and their betrayed. They assume fidelity and the person tells them that they have had an affair. That's chaos. That means you didn't know that person was the future. You imagine no longer exists. Your perception of people are erroneous at some level of analysis that you don't understand. Conceivable that your naive beyond belief and the the thing you believed about yourself and other people up to that point is false. And when the revelation occurs. That Knox are one of the wars that supports you, and you send accidentally into chaos. We regard that as one of the worst experiences of your life when that happened, your brain, knows exactly what to do. It stops thinking about the future. Saving up resources for the future. It puts you in emergency preparation mode, so you're ready anything at the drop of a hat, because you don't know what to do so. Your body prepares to do everything. It shifts,

Porthos all levels up it activates, you're, left and right courtesies. You're limerick system in your motivational systems. Are this inhibited turned on you sweat and you can't sleep, because the orderly structure that thought you inhabited that, provided you, security in direction has now disappeared the day We believe that the world is always an interplay between chaos in order and then, if you live, your life properly used, with one foot in order and one foot in chaos. Because, if you're only in order, nothing that's interesting ever happens to you. Nothing is anything but a repeat of all all the things that you already know, that's the state that fascists desire, because fascist desire things to be exactly the way they are forever and if you are in a state, its only characterized by chaos, at sea are overwhelmed or things a fall apart for you and there's too much of every thing for you to deal with now

speaking very wise people, no other things as well, and they know, for example, that chaos can turn into order. That's why there's a white dog in the middle of the black paisley- and they know that order can turn into chaos, which is why there's a black dog in the middle of the White Paper and the Dallas believed that a meal for life. The ultimately meaningful life is to be found on the border between chaos in order and I would say that you're nervous system tells you exactly when you are there and it's a kind of place, and you can tell when you're there, because you're secure enough confident, but not so. Secure you're, bored and you're in good enough to be awake, but not so interested that your terrified, when you're in a state like that, when you find things interesting full time: six by you and you're, no longer self, conscious, there's a mediaeval christian representation of the nature reality. On the outside. You have the virgin Mary in the Virgin Mary, you have God. The father had gone too far,

There is supporting a crucifix with an individual on the individual unchristian thinking is Christ. What does this image me. The world city divides order from chaos or order from nature. We think nature as the thing that, outside of what we understand. That's mother, nature mother nature, gives birth to all things. That's the idea that expressed in this image the virgin Mary standing for Mother Nature out of my Nature arises order and tradition. That's true for primates is like chimpanzees as much as its true for us any so animals that are grouped together have to form an orderly structure that taking a habit together, the lines their boundaries under goals, because otherwise They fight each other to the death and the state of untrammelled nature, as Hobbs pointed out its every man for himself.

And without the order that tradition, brains, there's nothing the chaos and chaos, murderous and unproductive. Who is a problem with order. You look at the history of the twentieth century. It's a toss up whether Nature has been harder on us or whether are governmental traditions have been harder on us. You know, of course, that the dictatorship of Hitler killed six million, Jews hundred and twenty million people in the Second World WAR, not know that Stalinists dictatorships in the Soviet Union, an estimated sixty million people in internal repression, not counting those people who died in the Second World WAR and the internal repression that characterized MAO's commune China, heal a hundred million people, and so the problem with tradition is that sometimes it's a wise king and sometimes it to king that eats

Sons, which means that, although we need tradition to guide us into structure, even the manner in which we perceive the world, our traditions can become market. An outdated and cruel In inhuman and as a consequence, they can pose a worse threat to us than chaos itself. Nature or chaos is exactly the same. That economists, structure, the figure on the left is a medusa, Gordon. If you look at our produce, as you probably already know, you turned to stone there, You turned to stone is because, when you look upon Nature or chaos. Without your normal veils paralyzes you physiologically. Just like a prey. Animal like a rabbit is terrified if it sees a wolf. For millions of years. Human beings were pray, animals,

We're probably pray animals for large reptiles, which accounts, for example, for the reason that it appears that It's like us are naturally afraid of predatory, reptiles if you're, in the presence of something that violates your assumptions of safety, you'll freeze, you free so that the thing that might eat you can't see you and that's what turns you two stone. That's nature and it's terrible. Aspect and the terrible aspect of nature can freeze everyone- and you can be sure- and will seldom taught that you will counter that at some point in your life Primary buddhist dictum is that life is suffering, but what does that mean? It means that, because your finite, And your surrounded by something that's absolute in you're in a battle that you can never win because there's always more of what it is that you're trying to contend with them.

With you and than that and is for this reason, the tin You can't last is that the thing that your contending isn't. Even static it keeps changing, so what work for you yesterday won't necessarily work for you to world. This is an l chemicals. Of the Dallas Union, Yang Symbol and basically it says something that's more sophisticated and complex. It says that the world Made up of chaos in order things that you can predict to understand and things that you can't predicted I understand and inside the order, there's some chaos and inside that chaos there's some order and inside that order, there's some chaos and so on and so forth and equally the case for order. You have mother nature, representation of chaos, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. You have a representation of the great Father, that's security, and

currently two things you always have to contend with, Finally, in this representation you have a representative the individual at least a christian representation of the individual, not Christ, and it's a terrifying representation. It's a remarkable representation, because it's not a representation of transcendence, it's a representation of suffering and it's a funny kind of represent of suffering, because the manner in which the story unfolds is this Christ, as the architect individual the model for individuals from a psychological or mythological perspective, knows that is limited and knows that he's doomed to both suffering and death in then, garden of get seventy the night before his crucifixion has an argument with God, and the argument basically is do I So we have to do this and the answers For well now, actually you don't have to accept your suffering, but.

You don't have to voluntarily accept your suffering, but there are consequences. If you don't know, the christian stories painted on the idea that if you voluntarily, except you suffering, you can simultaneously transcended so workable philosophy Also something that we have very good support for from psychological perspective, so ample if I'm training, someone who has an anxiety disorders, panic disorder who can't order the house, without their heart rate, elevating without collapsing into a panic stricken heat without visiting the emergency ward, we time their hardway accelerates every time there in the subway every time there anymore so there's so I find it existence they can't even get out of their house the way you cure that person is by it. To voluntarily approached the things that they're afraid of, and it shows that physiologically. If I force you to accept a certain challenge your body, although into emergency preparation, mode and you'll become stressed, and that stress cause you physiological damage, including brain damage, if it sustained for long enough. But if I put

With the same challenging you accepted voluntarily, your brain doesn't produce stress hormones in completely different physiological systems. Kick in. And what that means is that people have evolved to modes for dealing with the unknown. One is voluntary approach and the other is panic. Stricken paralysis and flight. In this representation, you can see that there are crowds of people, standing in the wings of the open statue. Looking at that if I'd individual first thing- but you know you still see this, you still feel people doing things like. That they don't notice I went to a museum in New York and Nora Large number of paintings there from the late renaissance and they were all religiously themed like medieval paintings, except they they ve should a recognisable individuals and will it come from all over the world to look at those paintings are extremely valuable, painting snow. They were painted by

financial or Leonardo Da Vinci and each was probably valued for reasons that are very difficult to understand at something Meeting hundreds of millions of dollars. The late renaissance was the first time in human history where human beings dared to presume that sacred image. Could be given an individual human face. And that idea was actually what launched the enlightenment and launched. Development of modern culture. They relate reticent, bankers. The artists, in particular, where the first people deposit that there was some direct relationship between these sacred images and actual people. People come from all over the world to look at these paintings, even though they don't understand what they mean. I want to show you some images that describe how the idea of the suffering individual developed and what that means. The first thing I want to show you is this picture of Saint George and the dragon. Now you know the main street and runs through the university is named after Saint John

trade is a very old image, the This story, we know, which is a mesopotamian creation. Myth features a god who confront, say reptilian more stir and makes the world as a consequence of the conflict. He faces her she's terrifying. It cuts are up into pieces, none of the pieces he makes. Now the Mesopotamians five thousand years ago, we're trying to figure out what Nature of individuality was and what the nature of consciousness was presupposition which was dramatized, because these people told stories they didn't think the way we think and in an explicit philosophical, logical, meet with philosophical point. Just as they thought in stories, which is a natural way for people to think they came, conclusion that the object of their ultimate worship was the garden fronted. The dragon of chaos, cut it into pieces and made the world

and that idea has echo down through the ages. It's an idea that human beings have never lost. This idea is very interesting, so you see, castle in the background the well, you know what the council stands for. The castle stands for order, and it's a multi walled castle, because everyone's protected by multiple walls, but those walls are constantly breached. Now, young people, Specially modern young people are often very cynical about the traditions that they inhabit their cynical welcome, because they see the fact that the world is theoretically devolving into some kind of environmental catastrophe in this cynical because there's still worn because there's still hunger there sitting- because often the people who are teaching them their traditions don't seem to believe in them themselves, it's very easy for young people to look at the traditions that work and to notice the brakes but the truth of the matter is that throughout human history, tradition has always been anachronistic and out of date and what you see in images of Saint George and the dragon is that the dragons always breach the walls which means

tradition is always under attack from chaos. Of course, it is because the futures different than the past, in the past should be abandoned because of you abandoned asked, and you knocked on all your walls, you fall into a pit of chaos and that classically speaking, is indistinguishable indistinguishable from hell and I can tell you that if you spend long enough in that state, you'll become bitter and cruel, because that's what happens to people who suffer endlessly. Say George is a different kind of individual when the walls come crumble down as they always do. He decides to go out and to confront the dragon. Now dragons are very strange creatures, as you may have already noted. First of all, they don't exist. Second of all, they have very weird propensities. So, for example, they what gold and they tend to travel. Regions in their letter which you also admit is very strange behaviour for a reptile.

Now. The idea behind this is that's very, very complicated idea. It's all presented pictorial. The idea That's the thing that lurks under me. If you look to the right of the picture, you can see that there is a cave, the cave, those down into the ground and weigh down into the round is the terrifying place. That's underneath everything the dragon curls out from time to time to threaten the structure of everything. That's no saint George comes out to confront the dragon voluntarily overcomes it and in this, gee rescues the virgin that the dragon has been guarding. It's a very complicated story. It means that the things the terrify you contain things of value. That's also what which of the goal that the dragon hordes represent. It means something else as well. It means that

The individual man whose likely to go out and confront chaos when tradition is crumbling, is more likely to find a mate. This is Jonah Jonah out a very weird experiencing swallowed by a whale very strange whale as you as you might well note its Either way, I would of course, mediaeval people didn't really know what whales word, so they were guessing what away it wasn't so, we offer medieval person would have been a big fish would have been a squid. There would be some monstrous thing like a shark that lurks in the deep. Be able to segregate, although things out biologically there their powers of collective observation worth that good. So the way offer them was what lurks underneath in the darkness. Right NEA with Jonah was the now and then what lurks underneath the darkest rises up to swallow you. But if you

It is proper than you can come back out. The other side changed the story of redemption so, for example,. Imagine that you are worried about relationship and maybe what that happy about it. You know it was better than no relationship at all. And then the person you are no relationship betrayed you, and maybe they did that, because you actually work that happy with relationship anyways may they did because you know big naive or maybe they did because you're liberties to get along with and as a consequence, a little bit on the boring side, and so they first leave you it's a catastrophe, because your world falls apart. But when you Falls apart, you somewhere new, possible to learn something new in that place, so you might learn, for example, that you should be a little sharper than next time that you go up. Someone, or you should be a little bit more careful about picking up on clothes that your partners bore with you or that. Maybe you should stop associate with lying psychopath and your life would a lot more positive and stopped

Thinking that you have the capacity to redeem somebody that is not after redemption in the least What that means now and then is that when you fall into the bell, of a whale and your swallowed up by something that lurks underneath that you can come out the other side transformed and that's actually how people learn Every time you learn something you learn, because something you did didn't work and that it hoses you to the part of the world that you don't understand every time you are exposed to part world that you don't understand, you have the possibility. Of rebuilding the structures that you used to interpret the whirl, that's all lives more important to notice that you wrong than it is to prove that you write one of the things they use Was to learn and university is precisely that it might be useful to us. To people with annoy you on the off chance that they know something that if they tell you, you can use instead of dying talking to people who agree with what you say. Is like walking around in the desert.

You already know everything that they say the reason associating with them in that situation is so that they never say anything to challenges. You because you're afraid that, if you go outside of what you understand that you won't built is tolerate the chaos, but it isn't case. People have an unbelievable capacity to face and overcome things. They don't understand and nodded that that's essentially, what gives if its meaning the Buddhist say life is suffering, and you think, That's the case. Why bother with it? people do ask that question and they ask it in ways that result in their own destruction and worse. The destruction of others. So, for example, people who become particularly cruel particularly the genocidal manner, are more than willing to dispense with as many human beings is that they can possibly train their sights on because they're so disgusted by the nature of human limitation that they'd rather eradicated and lots of people become suicidal because they can There are the conditions of their own existence.

Bring is real and its inescapable. So the question is: what do you do about it? You notice in your own life- and you can do this by watching your own life. I often ask my plans to do this. They look watch your life for a week. Four pretend you don't know who you are, because you don't know who you are at all. What. You understand most about yourself- are the arbitrary presuppositions that you use to him yourself in and you act as if those presuppositions are true, so that The revelation of the full nature of your character won't terrify you people hide in their own boxes and it's not surprising, but it's what a good idea, because life is too hard to hide in a box. You can manage it. If you do that. If you want, you suffer weak, you'll, see certain things. You'll see some of the time. Resentful and annoyed and those it when you're either taking advantage of yourself you're thinking improperly some of the time you'll be bored,

in case you either undisciplined or you're, probably pursuing something you don't want to pursue and the time you'll actually be engaged in life and the times. We are engaged in life. You won't notice that your there right that this distinction subject. An object disappears when you're engaged something that you find meaningful. Purpose of life. As far as I can tell forms Mythology from studying psychology for decades is defined, of being so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant, or maybe that is even acceptable and I would say as well that people know what they're doing that You know what you're doing that in part, because you're no longer resentful is a cheese. I could do this forever timeless is timeless. That's associated with that state of being from a mythological perspective, that's equivalent to breathe habitation of the kingdom of God. That's the point where you are that so meaningful that it enables you to bear the harsh preconditions of life without becoming resigned

full bitter or cruel and theirs nothing that you can pursue a new life that will be half as useful as that you're nervous system, being an evolves structure, is for universe that is composed of the interaction between chaos, in order both to the most fundamental constance that we know they try send the mirror perception of all everywhere. You go in chaos in order traditional chinese doctors, though, in the people's houses to die. Why is that? Someone in that house is suffering they walk in and they think it's too much order here. I've been in houses like that? That's a house where all the furniture is covered with plastic. That's a house where you put a glass owner wooden table. The mistress of the house runs over with. Coaster, slits it under immediately and gives you a dirty look. That's ok where the children never play in the living room. That's a place where.

The lines in the carpet or vacuum so precisely that there actually parallel that's a place where There's so much order that no one can survive, because the person who runs the house is a tyrant and then anyone sick in that house is sick because their suffering from an excess of order, and then you can walk into a house. That's completely different, and you can even see this in your own room. If you want everything's incomplete disarray, You can't even look at that place. You're, sick. The moment You crossed the threshold everywhere you look, there's parts of and transformed chaos yelling to you do something about this loser. You walk into your study and you have a stack of paper. In the midst of which is buried. Your homework you'll is that you have a very tough time. Looking at that stack of papers, And the reason for that is that the stack of papers,

you ignoring that's aging, and causing a more trouble with each passing day is a portal into order through which chaos is flowing. And if you ignore that long enough, the chaos will flow through that portal and take over your room and then take over your life, and you might think well that's a very strange way of looking at things and I suppose it is, but just as an experiment to see whether or not this is true, try not pay, your taxes for ten years and see what happens. This is an all representation right ATLAS with the world its impatient that says that that's the proper way to live right, that the way that you live properly so that you can withstand the nature of your own being is to pick up a load. That's heavy enough, so that, if you carry it, you have some selfish. That's a very weird idea, because its frequently the case that people do everything they can to lighten their load, but the pro

carrying a light load. Is that, then you have nothing, that's useful to do and if you have nothing useful to do Oh you have wronged you. Unless you are extremely fortunate, it will only be the case for very short periods of time is meaningless, suffering and there nothing worse for your sold and meaningless suffering. Look around. You see the people that you respect and- and I don't mean that you think about respecting- I mean the ones that your your whole, being your boy being, tells you to respect you'll, see that it's always people who ve picked up something here and carrying it successful. You think now what it means to be a human being, And when you say that you can think, while perhaps life is worthwhile, despite the fact that the assent nature of reality is suffering. There's an old jewish idea, and I is that man and God or in a sense twins, so very

Strange idea, but it seems to hinge on something like this: the classic attributes of God. These the attributes of the absolute are omniscience omnipotence and omnipresence. Do anything be anything. Can translate the other one momentarily. There's a question that goes along with that. What is being that's characterized by the absolute attributes of God, lack an answer that is limitation. That's an unbelievably interesting idea The reason is so interesting is because one of the things that law psychology is increasingly telling us is that without the limitation, that a creature like us with the structure of our car Business rings to bear on world there's no reality. What reality is an emergent consequence of the interaction between something that's painfully limited like us, and whatever the absolutely is, which is something that is complete

without borders, and what that implies in a sense is that. Without limitation there's no being with, limitation, their suffering without suffering, then there's no being well, you might think. Well, perhaps there should be no being Lots of people are their whole lives in order to see if they can make that possibility, and that's where you three, we don't have any more. But the alternative is to presume that being is worth the suffering and defined we're being that allows you to make that plane. In reality,. I would say in a sense: that's your existential destiny. If you're here at university, rather than a trade school, MR figure out how to be a human being and that's all more important job in any specific time, limited concrete, permit, pragmatic plan unlimited possibility for good really individuals are way more powerful than they think they're more power. Oh for evil, but are also more powerful for good he's.

Hey stories that I've been telling you about. They have some to say to you, they say. Life is uncertain You'll never know enough, and Norway, you. Never can do enough, and not only that everything that you stand on a shaky and then they simply still have to stand on it. Standing on it, you have to improve, it how life goes on and that's how you live your life and if you forget those things or, if you undermine them, you in the same situation, The unfortunate man was. Did I told you about in the old testament who reached out to touch something? He should have left alone To that agreement, your human you, to abide by. A certain set of truth I told you about today- are as follows: Can tell something that's to a minimal set. This chaos there's order, you're stuck with both of them. And they both have a cost, and they both have advantages and your job

To figure out how to serve as the appropriate mediator between the two tell when you're doing that, because, when you're doing that dismal circumstances of your life, manifest them selves to you, eminently acceptable- and it's not situation that you know that you placed herself in a position in nature where everything is in harmony and that's the place to aim for at this point in the lecture. There's a question and answer period. Question what how do you take your ideas about embracing suffering and apply them to treatments for mental illness? The first thing I would say is that, if you're dealing with someone who's depressed and there we depressed, you should try it giving them anti depressants, because if they die, you can't help them

so if you're suffering you are obligated innocence to hold to whatever rope. Someone throws you and one of the things I do with my point. All the time, especially if there really in trouble, is to tell the look I don't know exactly. What's gonna have help you, but don't arbitrarily throw out any possibilities, because you might not have that luxury and Egypt help alot of people, and there are technical reasons. Why that's the case? So that's it The answer is not relevant to what I already described, except that, if your offer to give by your society and it works, try it. I don't care what you're presuppositions are. Apart from that lots of lots of time lots of the time you see, people who are suffering with depression, for example, there's a multitude reasons, but I'll take one common reason. You can think about it, as associated with the story of Peter PAN Appeal, as someone who will grow up right now, the problem

Japan is he gets to be king, but its king of Neverland NET doesn't exist. So being king of nothing. Isn't that helpful? Well, one of the things that you often see with people who suffer from depression and and I'm not making a blanket statement about the cause of death because there's lots of them is that people who don't have enough order in their life tend to get overwhelmed so, for example, comes into me and see to see me and they their depressed. I was asked him a very standard set of questions. You have a job. If you don't have a job, you really in trouble in our society. First of all, you: u? Biological rhythms, to go off the rails right away, because there's no reason to go to bed at any particular time and there's no reason to get up and for many people if they don't get up? At the same time, they followed the functioning of their security. It is not enough to make them depressed right off the bat, especially if they start napping during the afternoon. Also don't have a purpose. People are Without a purpose- and- and this isn't this isn't Papa Sizing,

we absolutely understand the circuitry that underlies positive emotion. We know how it works. Almost all the positive emotion that any of you are likely to experience in your life will not be a consequence of attaining things. It will be a consequence of seeing that things are working as you proceed towards a boy. You value that's completely different, and you need to know this because people are often stand. For example, they finished their phd thesis and their presupposition is that they're going to be delayed for a month and often instead, there we depressed and they think one hell. I've been working on this for seven years and handed it in and what do I do now and then that's what depresses them right? It's the! What do I do now, while they are fine if they enjoy to pursuing the thing long as it was working out, they get a lot of enthusiasm and excitement because that's our nervous system, work most. Your positive emotion is born pursuit. Emotion. If you take drugs like coke your amphetamine, the reason their enjoyable is because they turn on the systems that help you pursue goals. That's what people like them so

Don't have a job. You got no structure, that's not good! Plus, you cannot have a poor so you're over well by chaotic lack of structure, and you don't have any positive emotion while the any friends. So sometimes you see people who depressing have no job. If no, and you have no intimate relationship. They haven't you health problems, and they the drug and alcohol problem. My experience has been, if you have three of those problems, it's almost impossible to Hell, you're so deeply mired in chaos that you can't get out because you make progress on one front in one of the other, problems pose you down. So one of the things I tell people who are depressed is like don't sacrifice your stability get a job. Even if it's not the job, you exactly what get a damn job you need a job find some France get out in the dating circuit, see if you can establish an intimate relationship put together

of the foundation line and that there are like pillars that your life rests on. Well, that's the practical thing to do so. That's one example with regards to depression, question too: how do your clients respond to the suggestion that they establish structure in their life as an antidote to depression? Well, the thing is you don't just launched on them? You know you got a negotiate with the person and yours to teach them to negotiate with themselves, and this is something that is very useful to know. You can tyrannise yourself into doing things, but I wouldn't recommend it. What would I would recommend instead? Is that you ask yourself what you're willing to do? It's a really effective technique. It's like a meditative technique, so, for example,

and get up the morning. You can think. Well, you know I'd like to have a good day today. So I'd like to go to bed tonight without feeling guilty, because I you know, I didn't do some things. I said I was gonna do and you know I'd like to have kind of an interesting day she got to fulfil my response. No, it isn't I wanna know enjoy. Today, then, you can ask yourself: well, ok, What would I have to do in order for that to happen that I would do and the probability if you practices for three or four days Brain will just tell you say: well, you know, there's that piece of Homer Thea, I'm done for three weeks. You knocked out Sakharov as we know it, Ten minutes and you ve been avoiding it. Torturing yourself to death, for you know like like semi two hours straight. If you do that years, little interesting thing you can do, and you know maybe this is little obligation- should clean up, and so what would you do in a situation like that, is you teach the person to negotiate with himself? well, let's figure out what you aims are you gonna have to meet

whatever they are, they might say: well, I'm so depressed. I don't have any aims and then I say well pick the least objectionable of the aims and acted out for wild see what happens because sometimes your emotions, your emotional systems, are so followed up that you have to pretend you have to act. The thing out. For you can start to believe it. I mean people always assume they have to believe in them out, but but that's sometimes with lots of times it isn't so the trick, if you're doing there did it work with someone in your helping them establishes structures to find out what they'll do now if they want, you get better which has not given, because there are often pay off for not getting better. That's, basically, the paths of being a martyr or maybe the payoffs of doing what you're entirely pathological family members

you do because they actually want you to fail. Assuming you want to get better, there's, usually something you can figure out. That would constitute a step towards some sort of concrete goal and my presumption, it's a behavioral presumptions fundamentally, is that small accruing gains that repeat unbelievably power so you know what you need. This is another thing to know about in your own life. It's something I learned in part from reading. The writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a great russian philosopher novelist said you can look at your life and you can see what isn't right about it. We all you have to do is look, and then you can start to fix that and the way you fix it is by. Noticing what you could be in fact fix. You know people are often trying to fix things they can't fix, which I would not recommend, because if you try to fix something, you can't fix you'll just room it like you can find all sorts of undergraduates

quickly willing to restructure the you know the international economic system, who cannot keep the room clean and there is actually a gap there. You know which end it surprising that people don't actually notice. So I would say if you pay attention you can Let me let me give an example, because rooms are full of stories in the stories have have effects on you. So there is a classic experiment, so you take two groups undergraduates, you bring it into your lab and you give one group on multiple choice test that has loops, undergraduates you bringing into your lab- and you give one group on multiple choice test that has a bunch of words in it that are associated with being old, and you give the our group, the same multiple choice test, except the words or associate with being young. This is it panel of the content of the test is just descriptions. And then you the undergraduates ass. They walked back to the elevators, the ones who read the ones you completed. The multiple choice tested had more words, associate with aging walks, lower back to the elevators.

They don't know that and they don't overdoing it and that that studies been replicated in various forms. Many many times your unbelievably sensitive to the story that you're environments because your environment is not made out of objects. That's just wrong. You're environment is basically made out of something like tools and obstacles, you're tool using creature, retool, perceiving creature, the things you like. If I take you out of this room- and I said well what was in the room- you're not going to say in a random patterns in the carpet, because they're they're real just as good an object as anything else, you gotta see chairs, because you can sit on them and you can say handrails because you can hold them. You can say stairs because you can walk down them. That's what you see, that's what you interact with and if you pay attention to your environment, which is you by the way extended all of your experiences you, it will tell you all the time what you should do, all you have to do it, but then you have to decide if you want to do it. One of the things I ve noticed about people, because I've wondered once I started studying these mythological stories, and I got this idea about the fact that

It can be meaningful enough to justify its suffering. I thought that such a good idea, because it's not optimistic, exactly know some people will tell you what you can be happy. It's like those people are idiot. I'm telling you they're idiots, there's gotta be things have come along the flat knew so hard. You won't believe it, and you know be them in so of life is to be happy y know situations. What are you doing? Why even live but lot isn't life isn't to be happy if you're happy, you're, bloody fortunate and you should enjoy it, you should because it's the grace of God, so to speak with regards to the meaning I thought well, people know what they're doing something meaningful. They can tell us why the hell, don't they do meaningful things all the time it seems obvious. You could do it it's hard because other people weren't you to do other things and it's a struggle but everything's a struggle, and then I thought well. Oh I get it. I see why it took me about ten years to figure this out. People have

choice, choice, number one, nothing you do means anything, that's kind of a drag rights, meaninglessness of life and all about existential eggs. You know that's kind of a paid, but topside of nothing that you do be mean is meaningful. Is he'll have to do anything. You ve got no responsibility. Now you have to suffer because things are meaningless. Pathetic. Price to pay for being able to be completely useless, the alternative, the alternative is, thing. You do matters really. If you make a mistake, it's a real mistake few betray someone you till the world a little more sharply towards evil, rather than good. It matters what you do well, if you buy back, then you can have a meaningful life, but there's no mocking around. It means responsibility. It means that the decisions you make our important. It means that when you do something wrong, it's wrong. Well, you want that.

Are we centres of her own morality, see that's a very hard question, because people don't always mean the same thing when they say their own moral compass now also adhere here. Here's here's what I mean by that technically part of the way. The reason that you're able to distinguish between wrong is because you are a certain kind of biological organism and then another reason is that your head is full of other people right all the people you ve met all the people that you interact with their own, telling you away to behave, that's good in a way that isn't there are circumstances under which your conscience should bear the duty you have. Your conscience should override the duty you have to social norms, but before you break a rule, because you think,

might be doing a good thing. You bloody well better, make sure you have your head screwed on straight, because every time you tell yourself a lie and every time you act out of falsehood. You disturb the pristine integrity of your nervous system, and the report's will give you about the nature of the world will be distorted. As the points of that. So here you have a moral obligation to follow. The dictates of your conscience We also have a moral obligation to make sure that your life is straighten up, so that you can rely on your own judgment and you can't separate those things. Thank you for listening,

one of psychology in the modern world with Doktor Jordan be Petersen that was episode, one reality and the sacred you can support this podcast by donating the amount of your choice of Jordan Peterson's patriotic, which you can access by googling, Jordan Petersen. Patriarch. Thank you for listening.