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[Assistant] And have been the dominant governing party in Canada for a long time. And so they went to Justin and said,


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[Assistant] Well, you know, it's you or a conservative, and you can imagine that's not a positive, uh, specter for someone who's on the left.


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[Assistant] Or even a liberal, especially, and Trudeau is quite a bit on the left.


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[Assistant] And, uh, they said, we need you to run. And then I thought, okay, well.


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[Assistant] The answer to that should have been no, because the...


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[Assistant] Trudeau Justin has no training for this, no experience. He's not, he's a part-time drama teacher fundamentally.


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[Assistant] He hadn't run a business. He just didn't know enough to be prime minister.


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[Assistant] But then I'm trying to put myself in this position and so it's like, okay, I don't know enough, but I'm young and.


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[Assistant] We don't want the conservatives, and they had had a run, a 10 year run, so maybe it was time for a new government. I could, maybe I could grow into this man.


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[Assistant] Maybe I could surround myself with good people and I could learn humbly and I could become


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[Assistant] The person I'm now pretending to be, which we all have to do as we move forward, right? And so, and so then I thought, okay.


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[Assistant] I think you made a mistake there because you ran only on your father's name and you didn't have the background, but let's give the devil his due and say that's no problem. Okay, so now what do you do? Well, you get elected and your first act is to make the cabinet 50% women, despite the fact that only 25% of the elected


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[Assistant] You don't make a decision like that after thinking it through. It's like, no, you just have your talent pool.


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[Assistant] For cabinet positions. That's what you did. There's enough cabinet positions. You know, you could argue that each of them met threshold. It's like, there's a big difference between threshold and excellence.


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[Assistant] I don't care about compassion. I don't regard compassion as a virtue. Compassion is a reflex, not a virtue.


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[Assistant] Love is a blend of compassion and encouragement and truth. Love is complicated, man. If I love you, if I love you, is it compassion or encouragement you want from me?


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[Assistant] Because the growth element, to foster the growth element, that requires judgment. Compassion and judgment, while even


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[Assistant] And have been conceptualized this way forever, two hands of God, mercy and justice. They have to operate in tandem, right? And mercy is.


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[Assistant] Flawed as you are, you're acceptable.


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[Assistant] And the answer to that is no. So it's like, well, that's where the judgment comes in. It's like, but you could be better. You could be more than you are.


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[Assistant] And that's the maternal and the paternal in some fundamental sense. And there has to be a active


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[Assistant] So even if, even if Trudeau was motivated by compassion and it's like, yeah, just how loving are you? First of all, no, it was a really bad decision. And then he, and he's expressed contempt for monetary policy. I'm not interested in monetary policy. It's like, okay, but you're prime minister. And he's expressed admiration for the Chinese communist party.


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[Assistant] Because they can be very efficient in their pursuit of environmental goals. It's like, oh yeah, efficiency, eh?


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[Assistant] The efficiency of the tyranny in the service of your terror.


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[Assistant] And so, and I've watched him repeatedly and I've listened to him a lot and I've tried to do that clinically and with some degree of dispassion. And that's hard too because his father, Pierre, devastated the West in 1982 with the national energy policy and


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[Assistant] Trudeau is doing exactly the same thing again. And so as a Westerner as well, I have an inbuilt animus and one that's well deserved because central Canada, especially the glittery, literati elite types in the Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto triangle have


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[Assistant] It's an utter and absolute bloody catastrophe and look what's happened in Europe.


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[Assistant] I've tried to steel man him, you know, I try to put myself in the position of the people that I'm criticizing. I think he's a narcissist.


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[Assistant] If you're not suited for the position, if you're not the man for the position, you can be absolutely 100% sure that the power will corrupt you. How could it not?


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[Assistant] I mean at the, at the least if you don't have the chops for the job.


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[Assistant] You have to devalue the job to the point where you can feel comfortable inhabiting it.


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[Assistant] So yes, I think that it's corrupted him. I mean, look at him doubling down. We wear masks in flights into Canada.


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[Assistant] We have to fill out an arrive can bureaucratic form on our phones because a passport isn't good enough. We can't get a passport. What if you're 85 and you don't know how to use a smartphone? Oh, well too bad for you. It's like, yes, it's corrupted him.


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[Assistant] No, if, if, if, if he was willing to talk to me, I'd talk cause I'd like to ask him, I have lots of things I'd like to ask him about. I mean, I've had political types in Canada on my podcast and tried to ask them questions.


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[Assistant] My observation has been that every chance he had to retreat from his pharaonic position, let's say, he doubled down. And these, our parliament is not running for the next year. It's still zoom in. It's still COVID lockdown parliament. For the next year, it's already been


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[Assistant] Fatally compromised, perhaps, by the lockdowns for the last couple of years. This is Parliament we're talking about.


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[Assistant] I was really trying to figure out, you know, the last two weeks thinking this through. It's like, how do you know? Let's say someone asked me a question.


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[Assistant] The principles by which the advice would be trustworthy. Okay, how do you know it's not trustworthy? Well, one potential response to that would be


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[Assistant] The claims are not in accordance with the facts, but you know, facts are tricky things and it depends on where you look for them. So that's a tough one to get right because.


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[Assistant] For example, Lomborg's fundamental critics argue about his facts, not just his interpretation of them.


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[Assistant] So that can't be an unerring guide. And so I thought, well, the facts exactly doesn't work. Cause when it's about everything, there's too many facts.


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[Assistant] So then how do you determine if someone's a trustworthy guide?


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[Assistant] Cause they are willing to use compulsion on other people when they could use goodwill. Like the farmers in Canada objected, they said, look,


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[Assistant] We have every economic reason to use as little fertilizer as we can. Cause it's expensive.


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[Assistant] We have satellite maps of where we put the fertilizer.


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[Assistant] We have cut our fertilizer use so substantially in the last 40 years, you can't believe it, and we grow way more food. We're already breaking ourselves in half.


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[Assistant] And if you know farmers, especially the ones who still survive, you think, you think those people don't know what they're doing. It's like, they're pretty damn sophisticated, man. Like way more sophisticated than our prime minister.


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[Assistant] And now you tell them, no, it's a 30% reduction. And we don't care how much food you're growing. So it's not a reduction that's...


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[Assistant] Dependent on amount of food produced per unit of fertilizer used, which would be, at least, you could imagine it. Okay, so you're producing this much food, and you use this much fertilizer, so you're hyper efficient.


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[Assistant] Maybe we take the 10% of farmers who are the least efficient in that.


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[Assistant] And we say to them, you have to get as efficient as the average farmer. And then they say, well, look, you know, our, our situation is different. We're in a more Northern climb. The soil's weaker. You know, you obviously have to bargain with that, but at least, at least you reward them for their productivity. Well, it's like, well, Holland isn't going to have beef. Well, where are they going to get it?


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[Assistant] Well, you don't need it. It's like, Oh, I see. You get to tell me what I can eat now. Do you? Really? Okay. And Holland is going to import food.


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[Assistant] From where that's more efficient on the fertilizer front? There's no one more efficient than Holland. Same with Canada? And like, isn't this going to make food prices more expensive? And doesn't that mean that hungry people die? Because that is what it means.


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[Assistant] Today, that's a crucial distinction because they say, well, ultimately the poor will benefit. Yeah, except the dead ones. Yes.


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[Assistant] I thought about it a lot. I laid out four reasons for the war and then I was criticized in the Atlantic for the argument was reduced to one reason, which was a caricature of the reason.


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[Assistant] I gave a variety of reasons why the war happened.


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[Assistant] On the part of the West in relationship to Russia and foreign policy over the last, since the wall fell. It's understandable because it's extremely complex. Hyper-reliance on Russia as a cardinal.


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[Assistant] Source of energy provision for Europe in the wake of idiot environmental globalist utopianism.


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[Assistant] The expansionist tendencies of Russia.


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[Assistant] That are analogous in some sense to the Soviet Union Empire building and then the last one, which is the one I got in trouble for, which is Putin's belief.


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[Assistant] Or willingness to manipulate his people into believing that Russia is a salvific force in the face of idiot Western wokeism.


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[Assistant] And that's the one I got in trouble for. It's like, while you're justifying Putin, it's like...


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[Assistant] It's not only, it's not only the Russians that think the West has lost its mind. Eastern Europeans think so too. And do I know that? It's like, well.


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[Assistant] And I talked to 300 political and cultural leaders, and you might say, well they were all conservatives. It's like, actually, no they weren't.


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[Assistant] Most of them were conservatives, because it turns out that they're more willing to talk to me, but a good chunk of them were liberals by, by any stretch of the imagination, and a fair number of them were cancelled progressives.


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[Assistant] Well, the form was bifurcated, eh, because I said, look, Putin might believe this, and I actually think he does, because I read a bunch of Putin's speeches, and I have been reading them for 15 years. And my sense of people generally, and this was true of Hitler, it's like,


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[Assistant] He just did what he said he was going to do. And you might think, well, some people are so tricky, they have a whole body of elaborated speech.


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[Assistant] Good luck finding someone that sophisticated. First of all, if you say things long enough, you're gonna believe them.


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[Assistant] Well, you've thought a lot about AI systems. It's like, don't you become what you practice?


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[Assistant] And the answer to that is, well, absolutely. We even know the neurology. It's like when you first formulate a concept, huge swaths of your cortex are lit up, so to speak. But as you practice that, first of all, the right hemisphere stops participating and then the left


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[Assistant] Participates less and less until you build specialized machinery for exactly that conceptual frame. And then you start to see it, not just think it. And so if you're telling the same lies over and over,


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[Assistant] Who do you think you're fooling? Think, well I can withstand my own lies.


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[Assistant] Not if they're effective lies. And if they're effective enough to fool millions of people, and then they reflect them back to you, what makes you think you're going to be able to withstand that?


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[Assistant] You aren't. And so I do think Putin believes.


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[Assistant] To the degree that he believes anything, I do believe that he thinks of himself as a bulwark for


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[Assistant] Christendom against the degeneration of the West. And that's that third way that Dugan and Putin have been talking about, the philosopher Alexander Dugan and Putin for 15 years. Now, what that is, is very amorphous. Solzhenitsyn thought the Russians would have to re- return to


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[Assistant] The incremental development of orthodox Christianity to escape from the communist trap.


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[Assistant] And to some degree that's happened in Russia because there's been a return to Orthodox Christianity.


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[Assistant] Now you could say, yeah, but the Orthodox Church has just been co-opted by the state.


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[Assistant] And I would say there's some evidence for that. I've heard, for example, that the Metropolitan owns, now I don't know if this is true, owns five billion dollars worth of personal property. And I would say there's a bit of a moral hazard in that. And it's possible that the Orthodox Church has been co-opted.


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[Assistant] But there has been somewhat of an orthodox revival in Russia, and I don't think that's all bad. Now even if Putin doesn't believe any of this, if he's just a psychopathic manipulator, and unfortunately, I don't think that's true.


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[Assistant] I've read his speeches. It doesn't look like it to me. And he is by no means the worst Russian leader of the last hundred years.


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[Assistant] There, there certainly is, but, and I say that knowing that. Even if he doesn't believe it.


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[Assistant] And so, we're stuck with the, we're stuck with the claim in either case. And that's the point I was trying to make in the article.


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[Assistant] Well, here's another, here's another ugly thought, since we haven't had enough so far.


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[Assistant] Especially given that Europe was completely dependent on Putin for its energy supplies. Well, not completely, but you know what I mean. Materially and significantly. So maybe I had to go talk to him once every six months. Maybe he's in a bit of a bubble. Probably.


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[Assistant] Human bubble. Look, one of the things I've really learned, there's a real emphasis on hospitality in the Old Testament.


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[Assistant] I just brought all these scholars together to talk about Exodus. I have this security team with me, and they're tough military guys, but they're on board for this mission, let's say.


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[Assistant] And so they went out of their way to be hospitable to my academic guests. They laid out nice platters of meat and cheese and crackers. They spent all day preparing this house I had rented so that we could have a hospitable time with these scholars, most of whom I didn't know well, but who said they would come and spend eight days talking about this book with me.


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[Assistant] We rented some jet skis. We had a nice house. We had fun. We got to know each other.


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[Assistant] And we got to trust each other because we could see that we could have some fun and that we could let our hair down a bit. We didn't have to be on guard and that made the talks way deeper. And then we found out we couldn't get through Exodus in eight days. And so I had proposed very early on that we're going to double the length.


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[Assistant] And so I pulled eight people out of their lives for eight days. That's a-


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[Assistant] That's not an easy thing to do. It's also quite expensive. Daily Wire Plus people picked all that up.


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[Assistant] And they said, right, they said, yes, right away. Said, we'd love to do this again. Well, why? Well, partly because it was intellectually, it was unbelievably engaging. I learned so much. It'll take me like a year to digest it, if I can ever digest it. And, but they had, they had a really good time. And so when they were offered that combination of


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[Assistant] Intellectual challenge, let's say in hospitality, it was a no-brainer. They just said, every one of them said, if I can do it in any way, I will definitely be there. This ho- I went to Washington a bunch of times.


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[Assistant] And the culture of hospitality has broken down in Washington. 40% of congressmen sleep in their offices. They don't have apartments. Their family isn't there with them. They don't.


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[Assistant] Have social occasions with their fellow Democrats or Republicans, much less across the table.


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[Assistant] And so, and I tried to have some meetings in Washington that were bilateral a couple of times, get young Republican congressmen and Democrats together to talk. And as soon as they talk, they think, oh, it was so interesting because one of the lunches was about


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[Assistant] 15 people, half Democrats and half Republicans, and all I'd ask them to do was just spend three minutes talking about why you decided to become a congressman. Which is not a job I would take, by the way. You spend 25 hours a week fundraising on the telephone. Your family isn't there with you.


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[Assistant] You have to run for reelection every two years. You're beholden to the party apparatus. Right? You're vilified constantly. This is not...


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[Assistant] You know, people think, well, this is a job for the privileged. It's like, yeaah.


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[Assistant] You go and run for Congress and find out how much fun it is and put your family on the line and then have to beg for your job every two years while your enemies, the worst of your enemies and the worst of your friends are viciously henpecking you.


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[Assistant] So anyways, we had them all sit around a table and said, okay, just say why you ran for Congress.


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[Assistant] It was so cool, especially for a Canadian, because you Americans, you're so bloody theatrical, it's such something to watch.


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[Assistant] It was like Mr. Smith goes to Washington for every one of them. It's like, well, this country's given us so much where families have been so


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[Assistant] So, uh, we benefited so much from our, from our time here. We think this is a wonderful country. We really felt that we should give back.


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[Assistant] It didn't matter if they were Republican or Democrat. You couldn't tell the difference. No one could.


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[Assistant] And was it genuine? It's like, well, are you genuine? You think these people are worse than you? First of all, they're not. Second of all, they're probably better, all things considered. It's not that easy to become a congressman.


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[Assistant] And I'm sure there's some bad apples in the bunch, but by and large, you walk away from your meetings with these people and you think,


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[Assistant] Yep. Well, the great leaders that I've met, and I've met some now, they go listen to their constituents.


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[Assistant] What's, what's your life like and what are your problems?


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[Assistant] Tell me about them. And then they listen and then they're struck by them and then they gather up all that misery and they bring it to the congressional office or to the parliament and they think, here's what the people are crying out for. And the good leaders, that's a leader, leader listens. So I talked to Jimmy Carr about comedy and he's sold out.


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[Assistant] Which is what I do in some real sense. It's a thing I do that...


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[Assistant] It's most akin to what I'm doing on my book tours, I would say. It's the closest analogue. He said it's the most dialogical enterprise. I thought, well, why, what do you mean? Because see, it's just a monologue. And it's a prepared monologue. I mean, you have to.


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[Assistant] Interact dynamically with the audience while you're telling your jokes and you gotta get the timing right, but you have a body of jokes. Said, well, here's how you prepare the jokes. And I've been told this by other comedians. You go to 50 clubs before you go on your tour and you got some new material and you think it's funny and you go into a club and


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[Assistant] You lay out your new material and people laugh at some of it. And you pay attention to what they laugh at and what they don't laugh at.


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[Assistant] So you subject yourself to the judgement of the crowd. And you get rid of everything that isn't funny. And if you do that enough, even if you're not that funny, the crowd will tell you what's funny. So you can imagine, imagine you do 50 shows.


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[Assistant] And each is an hour long and you collect two minutes of humor from each show. So you throw away 90, you throw away two hours, more than 98% of it. Collect two minutes per show.


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[Assistant] So you're not very funny at all. You're like funny 2% of the time. You aggregate that. Man, you're a scream.


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[Assistant] So, so that's what a leader does is, that is what a leader does is goes out and he aggregates the misery, you know, and the hopes. And then I do think that's revivify.


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[Assistant] To someone who would otherwise be cynical and jaded because then the person can say to themselves.


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[Assistant] Despite the inadequacies of the system and my inadequacies, I'm...


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[Assistant] I'm gathering up the misery and the hope and I'm...


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[Assistant] You know, could be worse. So anyways, I'm ready to go at eight because we're generally moving.


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[Assistant] And we usually use private flights now because the commercial airlines aren't reliable enough and you cannot not make a venue, right? So that's rule number one on the tour. You make the show.


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[Assistant] So everything, and then number, rule number two is anybody who causes any trouble on the tour is gone. Because there is zero room for error. Now...


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[Assistant] No. There's zero room for unnecessary, unaddressed errors. So because there's going to be errors. The guys I have around me now, if they make a mistake, they fix it right away. So.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like, like, 4,000 people typically.


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[Assistant] So, so then, I'm on the plane, and I'm usually, I usually write. Or often. Because there's no internet on the plane, and that's a good use of time. So I'm writing a new book, so I write on the plane.


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[Assistant] Then we land and we go to, it's usually early afternoon by then, we go to a hotel. It's usually a nice hotel. It's not corporate. I don't really like corporate hotels. My secretary and my, one of my logistics guys has got quite good at picking.


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[Assistant] Kind of adventurous hotels, boutique hotels are usually in the old parts of the city, especially in Europe, somewhere interesting. And so we go there and then.


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[Assistant] Lunch usually, and sometimes that's an air fryer and a steak in the hotel room and I leave a trail of air fryers behind me all across the world. And, uh, then.


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[Assistant] Tammy and I usually go out and have a walk or something and take a look at the city. And then I have a rest for like an hour and a half or an hour, half an hour.


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[Assistant] Now I have to sleep for 20 minutes and that's about all I can see, but I need to do that in the laid out.


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[Assistant] Yep, that gives me, that wakes me up again for the evening. And then Tam has to sleep longer. She's still recovering from her illness and so she has to sleep longer in the afternoon and that's absolutely necessary for both of us or things start to get frayed. And so then we go to the venue.


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[Assistant] And then I usually sit for an hour. If I'm going to lecture, I've been doing a lot of Q and A's and that's a little easier, but if I'm going to lecture, I have to sit for an hour. And then I think, okay.


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[Assistant] What question am I trying to investigate? I have to have that, that's the point. What mystery am I trying to unravel? It's usually associated with one of the rules in my book because technically it's a book tour, but each of those rules is an investigation into an ethic and each of them points to a deeper sort of mystery in some sense. And there's no end to the amount that can be explored. And so I have the question. My question might be something like, uh, put your,


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[Assistant] Put your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. Okay. What does that mean exactly? What does house mean? What does put, what does put mean, that active verb?


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[Assistant] What does perfect in order mean? Why before you criticize the world? What does it mean to criticize?


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[Assistant] What does it mean to criticize the world? How can you do that properly or improperly? So I start to think about how to decompose the question.


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[Assistant] That I've been maybe noodling around on that I would like to investigate further. Then I think, okay, how can I approach this problem? I think, well, I have this story.


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[Assistant] I have this story and I have this story but I haven't juxtaposed them before and there's going to be some interesting interaction in the juxtaposition. So I have the question and I kind of have a framework of interpretation.


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[Assistant] And then I have some potential narrative places I can go.


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[Assistant] And then I think, okay, I can go juggle that and see what happens. And so then what I want to do is.


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[Assistant] Concentrate on that process while attending to the audience to make sure that the words are landing. And then see if I can delve into it deeply enough so that a narrative emerges spontaneously.


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[Assistant] With an ending. Now, I'm sure you've experienced this in podcasts, right? Maybe I'm wrong, but my experience has been, if I fall into the conversation and we know about the timeframe, there'll be a natural narrative arc


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[Assistant] And then, so you'll kind of know when the midpoint is, and you'll kind of see when you're reaching a conclusion, and then if you really pay attention, you can see that's a good place to stop. It's kind of, you come to a point, and you have to be alert and patient to see that.


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[Assistant] And you have to be willing to be satisfied with where you've got to.


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[Assistant] But if you do that, and then it's like a comedian making the punchline work, it's like...


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[Assistant] The threads, well that's right, that's what we're trying to do, that thread.


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[Assistant] That thread is the proper balance between structure and spontaneity, and it manifests itself as the instinctive meaning.


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[Assistant] And that's the logos in the dialogues. And it really is the logos. And God only knows what that means.


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[Assistant] You know, I mean, the biblical claim is that Logos is the fundamental principle of reality. And I think that's true. I actually think that's true. Cause I think that that meaning that guides you, well, here's a way of thinking about it. I've been writing about this recently. What's real? Matter. It's like, okay, that's one answer. What's real? What matters is real. Cause that's how you act. Okay, that's different than matter. It's like, okay.


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[Assistant] What's the most real of what matters? How about pain? Why is it the most real? Try arguing it away. Good luck. So pain is the fundamental reality. Alright. Well that's rough. Doesn't that lead to nihilism and hopelessness?


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[Assistant] Yeaah, doesn't it lead to a philosophy that's antithetical towards being the most fundamental reality is pain? Yes. Is there anything more fundamental than pain?


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[Assistant] Well, it's a tough one, right? Cause you have to. Cause if you're a scientist, a materialist, think well.


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[Assistant] The matter is the most real. It's like, well, you don't know what the matter is. And so, and then when push comes to shove and it will, you'll find out what's most real.


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[Assistant] Well, you know, there's two traditions, right? In some sense, there's two logos traditions. There's the Greek rational enlightenment tradition. That's a logos tradition. And it insists that there's a logos in nature and that science is the way to approach it.


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[Assistant] And then there's the Judeo-Christian Logos, which is more embodied and more spiritual.


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[Assistant] And I would say the West is actually an attempt to unite those two. And it's the proper attempt to unite those two. Because they need to be united.


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[Assistant] And I see the union coming in your terms. You know, I talked to Franz de Waal, for example, about the animating principle of chimpanzee sovereignty. And that's pretty close biologically. Is it power?


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[Assistant] Cause that's the claim even from the biologist so often. The most dominant chimp has the best reproductive success. It's like, oh yeah, dominant, eh? You mean using compulsion? Okay, let's look. Are the chimps who use compulsion the most successful? And the answer is sporadically and rarely, and for short,


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[Assistant] Well, that's sporadically for short periods of time. Why? Because they meet an unpleasant end.


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[Assistant] The subordinates over whom they exercise arbitrary control, wait for a weak moment and then tear them into shreds, right? Every dictator's terror.


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[Assistant] And for good reason. And de Waal has showed that the alpha chimps, the males, who do have preferential mating access often, are often, and reliably, the best peacemakers and the most reciprocal. And so even among chimps, the principle of sovereignty is something like iterative, iterated reciprocity. And that's a way better principle than power.


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[Assistant] And it's something like, I've been thinking, what's the antithesis of the spirit of power? I think it's the spirit of play.


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[Assistant] And you know, you, I don't know what you think about that, but when you have a good podcast conversation, you already described it in some sense as play. It's like there's a structure, right? Cause it's an ordered conversation.


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[Assistant] But you want there to be play in the system. And if you get that right, then it's really engaging and then it seems to have its own narrative arc. I'm not trying to impose that even though that's another thing I don't do. I didn't come to this conversation.


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[Assistant] At all thinking, here's what I want out of a conversation with Lex Friedman. Like instrumentally, I thought, I'll go talk to Lex. Why? I like his podcasts.


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[Assistant] He's doing something right. I don't know what it is. He asks interesting questions. I'll go have a conversation with him. Where's it gonna go? Wherever it goes.


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[Assistant] I'm very nervous when I'm sitting down thinking through the structure.


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[Assistant] Initially, which is why my wife and I have been doing Q&As and that's easier on me.


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[Assistant] And, you know, now that's a bit of an exaggeration because I would return to themes that I had developed, but it's not really an exaggeration because I didn't ever just go over rote material. Ever.


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[Assistant] So it was, it's very demanding and that part's nerve wracking because I sit down, it's an hour before the show and I think, can I, can I do this? And you know, the answer is well, you did it a thousand times.


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[Assistant] But that's not this time. It's like, can I come up with a question? Can I think through the structure? Can I pull off the spontaneous?


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[Assistant] And that's hard. It takes effort and it's nerve wracking.


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[Assistant] And then the question is, well, you're going to find out while you do it. And so then I go out on stage and I don't talk to the audience. I talk to one person at a time.


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[Assistant] And you can talk to one person, you know, cause you know how to do that. So I talked to a person and not too long cause I don't want to make them too nervous. And then someone else and someone else. And then I'm in contact with the audience and then I can tell.


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[Assistant] If the words are landing and I listen, it's like, are they wrestling around? Are they dead quiet? Cause you want dead quiet.


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[Assistant] You bet. Well, and I also, here's a good rule if you're learning to speak publicly. I never say a word.


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[Assistant] Till everyone is 100% quiet. And that's, it's a great way to start a talk because


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[Assistant] You're set in the frame, eh, and if the frame is, well I'll talk while you're talking, the message is, well you can talk. This is a place where everybody can talk. It's like, no it's not. This is a place where people pay to hear me talk. So I'm not gonna talk till everyone's listening. And so, then you get that stillness.


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[Assistant] And then it comes, turns into a kind of nervous expectations, like what the hell is he doing? It's not manipulative. It's a sense of timing.


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[Assistant] It's like just when that's right, you think, okay, now it's time to start.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and that's, and that's a great thing. I mean, you love that at a concert when everyone, it's not silence then, but when everyone's attention is unified and everyone's moving in unison, it's like we're all worshipping the same thing.


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[Assistant] Right, and that would be the point of the conversation, the point of the lecture. And the worship is the direction of attention towards it.


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[Assistant] And it's union, it's communion because everyone's doing it at the same time. And so.


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[Assistant] I mean, there's not much difference between a lecture theatre and a church in that regard, right? It's the same fundamental layout and structure. And they're very integrally associated with one another. One really grew out of the other. The lecture theatre grew out of the church. So it's, it's perfectly reasonable to be thinking about it in those terms. And so, and then, okay, so after the lecture, we play a piece of music.


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[Assistant] Is a piece of music that I've been producing with some musicians for a couple of books I'm going to release in the fall. Terrible books. ABC of childhood tragedy. They're called dark, dark books.


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[Assistant] We set them to music and so we play a piece from that and then afterwards I usually meet about 150 people to have photographs and so each of those is a little


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[Assistant] A lot. It's, it's very intense. 10 seconds with every person. You think, well, how can 10 seconds be intense? It's like pay enough attention.


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[Assistant] It's like being at a, in a wedding lineup, at a wedding that you want to be at.


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[Assistant] And that's so weird, eh, cause I bought these expensive suits when I went on tour.


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[Assistant] And it broke my heart because I spent so much money on them. I thought, God, that's completely unconscionable. I thought, no way, man.


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[Assistant] Like 60% of the audience comes in two or three piece suits. They're all dressed up.


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[Assistant] Then there's this line to greet me and they're all happy to see me. That's not so hard to take. You know, although it is in a sense, right? Because.


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[Assistant] Normal interactions are pretty shallow, and you think, I don't want shallow interactions. It's like, yes you do most of the time.


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[Assistant] And I'm an unpleasant travel companion for my wife sometimes because of that. Although I think we've worked that out, thank God, because we're doing a lot of traveling. But most of the security guards and the border personnel, all those people, they know me. And as a general rule, they're positively predisposed to me. And so if I'm peevish or irritable,


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[Assistant] It's not good. And so that's a tight rope to walk to because I do not like that creeping totalitarianism, but by the same token, you know, if you're just one of the crowd, just


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[Assistant] You know, sometimes you, it's good just to be one of the crowd and then you're a little irritable and people can just brush that off. But if you're someone they have dared to open their heart to, cause that's what admiration is, and then you're, and you betray that, then that's a real, they'll never forget it. And then they'll tell everyone too. So.


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[Assistant] It takes a lot of alertness. And so Tammy and our life has got complicated because in Toronto, for example, we can't really just go for a walk.


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[Assistant] It's always a high drama production cause always people come up and they have some.


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[Assistant] Heart rending story to tell and I'm not being cynical about that. Yes. It's a hard thing to bear.


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[Assistant] Because people don't do that. They don't just open themselves up to you like that and share the tragedy of their life.


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[Assistant] But that's an everyday occurrence. And so when we go up to our cottage, which is out of the city, it's a relief, you know, because.


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[Assistant] As wonderful as that is, like it's a weird, I have a weird life because everywhere I go, it's very weird.


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[Assistant] It's like I'm surrounded by old friends because I walk down the street in any city now, virtually.


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[Assistant] And people say, hello Dr. Peterson, so nice to see you. Or they say better things than that. Very rarely bad things. One...


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[Assistant] One experience in 5,000 maybe, very rare, although you don't forget those either. But it's very, it's very strange.


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[Assistant] You're right about that. And I mean, that's, I suppose, in some sense, part of the pain of opening yourself up to people. Because they also,


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[Assistant] Tammy has been struck particularly, she said, I really never knew what men were like. I said, well what do you mean? She said, I cannot believe how polite the men are when they come and talk to you. Because it's always the same, the pattern's very similar.


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[Assistant] And I'm doing everything I can to not be the guy who's bothered by that. It's like, who do you think you are? You're the guy that what is famous and now is above that. You don't want to be that guy.


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[Assistant] So you want to be grateful all the time when people open up like that.


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[Assistant] And so you got to be alert and on point to do that properly, like right away. Cause for these, for you, it's five seconds or 10 seconds or 20 seconds, whatever it is. But for them.


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[Assistant] Well, that was often when I got caught in Twitter traps. You know, cause I'm so burnt out by then from the, from the talk and the, and the audience interactions and the whole day.


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[Assistant] Because it's a new city, it's a new hotel, it's a new 5,000 people, it's a new book chapter, it's a whole new horizon of ideas, and it's off to another city the next day. I'm so burnt out by then that I'm not as good at


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[Assistant] Controlling my impulses as I might be and Twitter was a real catastrophe for that cause it would hook me and then I couldn't, like I used to when I was working on my book.


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[Assistant] A lot. I used to call Tammy and say, look, you have to come and get me. I can't stop.


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[Assistant] I can't stop. I got tiredy and then I kind of, cause it's part of a kind of hypo, hypomanic focus. I couldn't quit. It's like, Oh no, I, I'm still writing. I need to get away from this, but I couldn't stop. And so it's better to, to read something, book.


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[Assistant] Stephen King. I was reading a lot of Stephen King when I was on tour last time. That was good. I like Stephen King a lot. Great narratives. Great, and great characterization. You know? So, and ...


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[Assistant] There's a familiarity about Stephen King's writing too, that it's, he writes about people you know. And so I really found that a relief. And so that was useful. And that in order to tolerate this, let's say, or to be able to sustain it,


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[Assistant] Well, let's take a lot of negotiation on the part of Tammy and I because


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[Assistant] She's dragged into this and, you know, her life is...


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[Assistant] Part of this, whatever this is, and she's had to find her way and has. For example, now she has a different hotel room than me when we travel.


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[Assistant] And she, she found that she didn't want to be on the tour this spring and I was ill again for part of it and that made it complicated.


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[Assistant] And part of me was not happy with that. It's like, what do you mean you need your, like, are we not married anymore? It's like you need your own room. And she said, well, you know, I can't.


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[Assistant] She has to do exercises because she was really sick and she has to keep herself in shape and, and she has to have some time to do that. She does a lot of prayer and meditation and she needs the time and she has her own podcast, which is going quite well and she needs the time and, and I trust her and she said, well, I need this in order to continue. And I thought, well, okay, if you need this in order to continue,


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[Assistant] Yes, because she went away and didn't say, well, I, I don't want to be on the tour. I don't want to do this anymore. She went away and prayed, let's say, how can I continue to do this? And that was the answer. And so she has her own hotel room and


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[Assistant] That was a really good decision on her part and she's very good and getting better all the time at figuring out.


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[Assistant] What has to happen for her to make this sustainable? And all that's been is a plus. Cause I don't want to travel without her and


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[Assistant] Well, there's another element to it too that I didn't tell you about, so that was a typical day, but it's missing a big component because usually we also have a dinner.


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[Assistant] Cultural representatives, I suppose, 10 to 30 from each country, because I have a network of people who have networks.


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[Assistant] Who are setting me up with key decision makers in each country.


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[Assistant] And so then we have like an hour and a half of that. Now, sometimes that's on a day when I don't have a talk, but sometimes the talks are back to back. And so she also has to.


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[Assistant] That is almost never a problem. Even when I was unbelievably ill. For about three years. I thought about that a lot too, you know.


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[Assistant] It appeared in some sense that the reason I was ill was because I was taking benzodiazepines. That isn't why. I was ill and then I took them.


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[Assistant] For about a month and that made it way worse and so then I cut back a lot and then, then things really got out of hand and so.


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[Assistant] Well, I had a lot of immune, my daughter, as everyone knows, has a very reactive immune system and Tammy has three immunological conditions, each of them quite serious.


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[Assistant] And I had psoriasis and peripheral uveitis, which is an autoimmune condition and alopecia areata and uh, chronic gum disease, all of which appeared to be allergy related. And so Michaela seems to have got all of that.


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[Assistant] And so that, and that I think was at the bottom of, cause I also had this proclivity to depression that was part of my family history.


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[Assistant] But I think that was all immunological as far as I can tell. So one of the things that's happened to me, I always noticed I really couldn't breathe. Like I could breathe about one fifth as much as I sometimes could. And so I was always short of breath and it looks like what that was perhaps was I was always on the border of an anaphylactic reaction, which is not pleasant.


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[Assistant] That's hypersympathetic activation, no parasympathetic activation. I couldn't relax at all.


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[Assistant] Allergic response, yeaah. So anyways that was what seemed


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[Assistant] I don't like to talk about this much because it's so bloody radical and you know, I don't like to propagate it, but this diet seems to have stopped all of that. I don't have psoriasis. All of the patches have gone.


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[Assistant] My grump, gum disease, which is incurable. I had multiple surgeries to deal with it. It's completely gone. Took three years. My right eye, which was quite cloudy, has cleared up completely.


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[Assistant] Well, that's an optimization of death day because you're, when you fast, your body logically and obviously, if you think about it biologically is well, what is your body scavenge first? Well, damaged tissue. So.


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[Assistant] And I know the literature on fasting to some degree and it's very compelling literature. If you starve dogs down, I think it's 20% below rats too, below their optimal body weight, they live 30% longer. Yeah.


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[Assistant] You know, I wonder how much of that's associated with, well, imagine that


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[Assistant] Yeaah, it's more difficult socially and Tammy seems to only be able to eat lamb.


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[Assistant] Although she might be able to eat non-aged beef and, uh, that makes traveling complicated too, right?


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[Assistant] Yeaah, well, c'est la vie. And maybe that's a form of craziness, but...


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[Assistant] That's a really good question. We tried to work that out with this essay app that my son and I have developed because if you're going to write, the first question is, well, what should I write about?


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[Assistant] What's the name of the app? SA.app. And, uh, well, the first question is, well, what bugs you? What's bugging you? This is such a cool thing. It's like, where's my destiny? Well, what bothers you?


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[Assistant] Well, that's where your destiny is. Your destiny is to be found in what bothers you. Why did those things bother you? There's a lot of things you could be bothered by. Like a million things, man. But some things grip you. They bug you and they might make you resentful and bitter because they bug you so much. Like they're your things, man. They've got you. So then I look for a question that I would like the answer to. That I don't, and I would really like the answer to it.


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[Assistant] So I don't assume I already have the answer. Cause I would actually really like to have the answer. So if I could get a better answer, great. And so that's the first thing. And that's like a prayer. It's like, okay, here's a mystery. I would like to delve into it further. Well, so that's humility. It's like, here's a mystery.


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[Assistant] Which means, I don't know. I would like to delve into it further. Which means, I don't know enough already. And then, then comes the revelation. It's like, well, what's a revelation? Well, if you ask yourself a question, it's a real question. Do you get an answer or not? An answer is, well, yeaah, thoughts start to appear in your head.


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[Assistant] Then maybe they come from the place that's designed to make things better. Maybe your intent is to make things worse. Then they come from hell. And you think, not really. It's like, you're so sure about that, are you?


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[Assistant] It's conscious and habitual, right? Cause as you practice something consciously, it becomes habitual, but it's conscious. It's like I, when I sit down.


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[Assistant] Before I do a lecture, I think, okay, what's the goal here? To do the best job I can. To what end? Well, people are coming here.


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[Assistant] Not for political issues, they're coming here because they're trying to make their lives better. Okay so what are we doing?


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[Assistant] We're conducting a joint investigation into the nature of that which makes life better. Okay, what's my role? To do as good a job about that as possible.


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[Assistant] What state of mind do I have to be in? Am I annoyed about the theatre? Or am I...


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[Assistant] Am I clued in and thrilled that 4,000 people have showed up at substantial expense and trouble to come and listen to me talk?


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[Assistant] And if I'm not in that state of mind, I think, well, maybe I need something to eat or maybe I need to talk to someone because that ingratitude is no place to start. It's like I should be thrilled to be there. Obviously.


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[Assistant] And so that, that orientation has to be there. And then I, is it conscious? All this is conscious. What am I serving? The highest good I can conceptualize. What is that? I have some sense, but I don't know it in the final analysis, which is why the investigation is being conducted. Who's doing it? Me, whoever I'm communing with, and the audience.


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[Assistant] And so I want, I try to get myself and I chase everybody away for that. It's like, I have to do that by myself.


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[Assistant] Yes, at that point I make, I just make point notes and it's usually about maybe 30 notes. But then I, on stage I never refer to them and I often don't even use the structure that I laid out.


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[Assistant] I try to feel and see if the words are stepping stones or foundation stones, right? It's like, is this solid? Is this word solid? Is this phrase solid? Is this sentence solid? It's a real sense of


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[Assistant] Fundamental foundation under each word, and I suppose people ask me if I pray, and I would say, I pray before every word.


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[Assistant] Well, when you're, when you're asking questions, like you're very clear headed and present in your


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[Assistant] Ability to ask questions and inquire. So how do you do that?


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[Assistant] Well, neurologically, there's a production center and an editing center. And those can be separately affected by strokes. And so,


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[Assistant] Often when people are writing or talking, they try to activate both at the same time.


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[Assistant] And that's so people will try to write an essay and get every sentence right in the first draft. That's a big mistake. And so then you might say, well, how can you be careful with your words, but carefree? And the answer is orient yourself properly, right? While in the conversation we're having, you have an orientation structure. You want to be prepared. You want to be attentive.


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[Assistant] Then you want to have an interesting conversation and you want to have the kind of interesting conversation that other people want to listen to that will be good for them in some manner. Okay, so that's pretty good frame.


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[Assistant] And, and then you kind of scour your heart and you think, is that really what you want? Are you after fame or after notoriety? Are you after money? I'm not saying any of those things are necessarily bad, but.


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[Assistant] They're not optimal, especially if you're not willing to admit them, right? And so they can contaminate you. So you want to be decontaminated, so you have the right trip, let's say.


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[Assistant] With the right goal in mind, then you can


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[Assistant] And I think you can get better and better at this, then you can trust what's going to happen. You know, so for example, before I came here,


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[Assistant] I mean, I presume you have a reason for doing the podcast with me. What's the reason?


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[Assistant] So now you've got the best of both worlds because you get to talk to people and you get to build robots.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so that, well, so that's quite a frame for a discussion, right? You had all sorts of reasons and then you think, well, are you just letting the conversation go where it will? It's like, well, not exactly. You spent all this time


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[Assistant] It's not like this came about by accident, this conversation. You spent all this time framing it.


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[Assistant] All of that provides the implicit substructure for the play in the conversation.


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[Assistant] If you have that implicit, here's another way, this is very much worth knowing.


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[Assistant] If you get the implicit structure of perception right, everything becomes a game.


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[Assistant] And not only that, a game you want to play and maybe in the final analysis, a game you'd want to play forever. So.


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[Assistant] You know, that's obviously a distant beckoning ideal, but we know when games need rules, or there's no play.


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[Assistant] Take your preoccupation with suffering seriously. It's a serious business.


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[Assistant] Right? And that's part of that, to circle back to the beginning, let's say. That's that willingness to gaze into the abyss, which is obviously what you were doing when you went to Ukraine. It's like...


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[Assistant] It's gazing into the abyss that makes you better. The thing is, and this is maybe where Nietzsche's idea is not as differentiated as it became.


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[Assistant] Sometimes your gaze can be forcefully directed towards the abyss. And then you're traumatized. If it's involuntary and accidental, it can kill you. The more it's voluntary,


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[Assistant] The more transformative it is. And that's part of that idea about facing death and hell. It's like, can you tolerate death and hell? And the answer is, this terrible answer is


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[Assistant] Yes, to the degree that you're willing to do it voluntarily. And then you might ask, well, why should I have to subject myself to death and hell? I'm innocent. And then the answer to that is,


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[Assistant] Voluntary, yeaah. Yeaah. Well that's why the central Christian doctrine is pick up your cross and follow me. And I'm speaking


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[Assistant] Not in religious terms, saying that. I'm just speaking as a psychologist. It's like one of the things we've learned in the last hundred years is


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[Assistant] The first thing I do as a clinician, if someone comes to me and says they're depressed is ask myself a question. Well, what does this person mean by that? So I have to find out like.


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[Assistant] Powerful negative emotion. So they need to be differentiated. But then the next question you have to ask is, well, are you depressed? Or do you have a terrible life? Or is it some combination of the two? So if you're depressed, as far as I can tell, you don't have a terrible life.


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[Assistant] You have friends, you have family, you have an intimate relationship, you have a job or a career. You're about as educated as you should be given your intelligence. Use your time outside of work wisely. You're not beholden to alcohol or other temptations.


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[Assistant] Sometimes there's a biochemical route to that treatment of that. My experience has been as a clinician is if you're depressed, but you have a life and you take an antidepressant, it will probably help you a lot. Now, maybe you're not depressed. Exactly. You just have a terrible life. What does that look like?


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[Assistant] You have no relationship. Your family is a mess. You got no friends. You got no plan. You got no job.


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[Assistant] Use your time outside of work, not only badly, but destructively.


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[Assistant] You have a drug or alcohol habit or some other vice, pornography addiction.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you're completely unengaged in the surrounding community. You have no scaffolding whatsoever to support you in your current mode of being or you move forward. And then, as a therapist, well, you do two things. Well, if it's depression, per se, well, like I said, there's sometimes a biochemical route, a nutritional route.


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[Assistant] There's ways that can be addressed. It's probably physiological if you're at least in part, if you're depressed, but you have an okay life. Sometimes it's conceptual.


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[Assistant] You can turn to dreams sometimes to help people because dreams contain the seeds of the potential future.


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[Assistant] And if your person is a real good dreamer and you can analyze dreams, that can be really helpful. But that seems to be only true for more creative people. And for the people who just have a terrible life, it's like, okay, you have a terrible life. Well, let's pick a front.


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[Assistant] How about you need, how about you need a friend? Like one sort of friend. Do you know how to shake hands and introduce yourself? I'll have the person show me. So let's do it for a sec. So. Hi, I'm Jordan.


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[Assistant] And people don't know how to do that. And then they can't even get the ball rolling.


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[Assistant] You know, and there's these elementary social skills that


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[Assistant] Hypothetically, if you were well cared for, you learned when you were like three. And sometimes people have, I had lots of clients to whom no one ever paid any attention and they needed like 10,000 hours of attention. And some of that was just listening because they had 10,000 hours of conversations they never had with anyone and they were all tangled up in their head and they had to just, one client in particular, I worked with this person for


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[Assistant] What she wanted from me was for me just to shut the hell up for 50 minutes, which is very hard for me and to just tell me what had happened to her.


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[Assistant] And then what happened at the end of the conversation, then I could discuss a bit with her.


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[Assistant] And then as we progressed through the years, the amount of time that we spent in discussion increased in proportion in the sessions until by the time we stopped seeing each other when my clinical practice collapsed.


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[Assistant] We were talking about 80% of the time, but she literally, she had never been attended to properly ever. And so she was an uncarved block in the Taoist sense, right? She hadn't been subjected to those flaming swords that separated the wheat from the chaff. And so you can do that in therapy. If you're listening and you're depressed, I would say if you can't,


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[Assistant] Find a therapist and that's getting harder and harder because it's actually become illegal to be a therapist now because you have to agree with your clients, which is a terrible thing to do with them. Just like it's terrible just to arbitrarily oppose them. You could do the.


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[Assistant] Self-authoring program online, because it helps you write an autobiography.


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[Assistant] And so if you have memories that are more than 18 months old that bother you when you think them up, part of you is locked inside that. An undeveloped part of you is still


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[Assistant] Trapped in that, that's a metaphorical way of thinking about it. That's why it still has emotional significance. So you can write about your past experiences, but I would say wait for at least 18 months if something bad has happened to you. Cause otherwise you just hurt yourself again by encountering it.


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[Assistant] You can bring yourself up to date with an autobiography. There's an analysis of faults and virtues, that's the present authoring, and then there's a guided writing exercise that helps you make a future plan. That's...


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[Assistant] Young men who do that could go to college. Young men who do that, 90 minutes. Just the future authoring, 90 minutes. They're 50% less likely to drop out.


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[Assistant] Oh man, sometimes, oh my God, sometimes it's way worse than that. Like I had clients who were so depressed, they literally couldn't get out of bed. So what's their first step? It's like, can you sit up once today? No.


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[Assistant] Can you prop yourself up on your elbows once today? Like you just, you scale back the dragon.


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[Assistant] Till you find one that's conquerable that moves you forward. There's a, there's a rubric for life. Scale back the dragons till you find one conquerable and it'll give you a little bit of gold.


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[Assistant] Aggregates exponentially increase and failures do too by the way, but aggregates exponentially increase. So once you start the ball rolling, it can get zipping along pretty good. This person that I talked about, uhm,


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[Assistant] Was incapable of sitting with me in a cafe when we first met, just talking, even though I was her therapist, but by the end, she was doing stand-up comedy. So, you know, it took years, but


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[Assistant] Still, most people want to stand up comedy. That's, that's quite the bloody achievement. She, she would read her poetry on stage too.


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[Assistant] So for someone who was petrified into paralysis by social anxiety and who had to start very small, it was a hell of an accomplishment.


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[Assistant] Do something for other people.


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[Assistant] You're doing something for yourself while you're doing that, even if you don't know it for sure. Cause you're a community across time.


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[Assistant] I want to help a job to find a job, do your best with the customers. Don't be above your job. You're going to get an entry level job when you're a kid or what else would you want? You want to be the boss? What do you know? You don't know anything. You could be the boss of your job.


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[Assistant] You know, if you're working in a grocery store or you're working in a convenience store, assuming you're not working for terrified tyrants.


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[Assistant] You can be nice to the customers. You can develop your social skills. You can learn how to handle boss employee relationship. You can be there 15 minutes early and leave 15 minutes late. Like you can learn in an entry level job, man. And I'll tell you.


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[Assistant] If you take an entry level job and you learn and it's a reasonably decent place, you will not be in an entry level job for long. Because everyone who's competent is desperate for competent people. And if you go and show yourself as competent, there'll be a trial period, but if you go show yourself as competent, all sorts of doors you didn't even know were there will start opening like mad.


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[Assistant] Yep, yep, yep, for discipline. You know, I mean, I said in one of the chapters in my books is focused on putting your house in order. It's like, well, how do you start? Make your bed! You know?


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[Assistant] It actually took me quite a long time in my life before I made my bed regularly in the morning. Most of my life was in pretty good order, but that was one thing I didn't have in order. My clothes in my closet as well, all that's in order. Not all of it. I'm cleaning out some drawers right now, but.


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[Assistant] Look around and see what bugs you in your room. Just look.


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[Assistant] It's like, okay, I'm in my room. Do I like this room? No, it bugs me. Okay. Why? Well, the paint's peeling there and it's dusty there and...


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[Assistant] Yeah, but not too much. So the rule is pick something you know would make, pick a problem, pick a solution to it that you know would help, that you could do, that you would do.


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[Assistant] So you have to negotiate with yourself. It's like, well, I won't clean up this room. How do you know? I've been in here for 10 years and I've never cleaned it up. It's like, well obviously that's too big a dragon for you. Would you clean one drawer? Find out.


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[Assistant] And so imagine now you want to be happy when you open that drawer and you think, well, that's stupid. It's like, is it?


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[Assistant] Okay, so that's three minutes, uh.


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[Assistant] Week, that's 12 minutes a month. That's two hours a year. So maybe your life is made out of, you've got 16 hours a day.


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[Assistant] 144 in 12 hours. Yeah, let's say 200. 205 minute chunks.


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[Assistant] I got it approximately. It's approximately right. So.


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[Assistant] You got two hundred five minute chunks. And they repeat. A lot of them repeat.


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[Assistant] So if you get every one of those right, they're trivial, right? Who cares what my sock drawer looks like? It's like, eh, fair enough man, but that's your life. The things you repeat every day.


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[Assistant] The mundane things. Think I could get all those mundane things right.


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[Assistant] That's the game rules. It's like now the mundane is in place.


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[Assistant] Now you can play because all the mundane's in place and this is actually true. So with children, imagine you want your children to play.


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[Assistant] Well play is very fragile neurologically. Any competing motivation or emotion will suppress play. So everything has to be in order.


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[Assistant] Everything has to be a walled garden before the children will play. That's a good way of thinking about it.


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[Assistant] So you put everything in order and you think, oh my god, now I'm tyrannized by this order. It's like, no you aren't, not if it's voluntary. And then the order is the precondition for the freedom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then all of a sudden you get all these things in order, it's like, oh, look at this, I've got some room to play here. And then, then maybe you're not depressed. No, it's often not that simple, you know.


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[Assistant] Not that simple. Try putting your room in order. Perfect order.


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[Assistant] If you do that for 200 days, your life is in order.


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[Assistant] You know, I thought I did that with my clients a lot, so a lot of them would come home from work, the guys, eh, and their wives would meet them at the door and it'd be a fight right away.


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[Assistant] You know, and it's a clash there because he comes home and he's tired and hungry. He's worked all day and he's hoping that


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[Assistant] You know, he gets welcomed when he comes back to the home, but then the wife is at home and she's been with the kids all day and she's tired and hungry and she's hoping that when he comes home, he'll show her some appreciation for what's happened today and then they


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[Assistant] Like it's a bit of a fight for 20 minutes and then the whole evening is screwed. And so then you think, okay, here's the deal.


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[Assistant] It's knock and the door will open. Okay, you get to pick what happens when you come home, but you have to figure out what it is. So now this is the deal. You treat yourself properly.


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[Assistant] You imagine coming home and it goes the way you want and need it to go. Okay. What does that look like?


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[Assistant] You get to have it, but you have to know what it is. What does it look like? And you think, okay, I want to come home. I want to be happy about coming home. I come home. I open the door. I say, hello, honey, I'm home.


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[Assistant] My wife says, Hi, it's so nice to hear your voice. She comes up. She says, Hi, dear. She gives you a hug. She says, How was your day?


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[Assistant] And you say, well, we'll sit and talk about that. How was your day? Well, we'll sit and talk about that. Do you need something to eat? Probably. Let's go sit and talk about our day. It's like, that sounds pretty good. Okay.


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[Assistant] That sounds pretty good. Might not be perfect, but sounds a hell of a lot better than what we're doing now. So how about we go talk to, we'll go talk to your wife and say, okay, this is what's happening when I come home. I would like it to be better. What would you like to have happen if you could have what you wanted?


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[Assistant] And so she sits down and she thinks, okay, if he comes home, what do I want to have happen? And then now you got two visions and you say, well, what would you like? And you listen and she says,


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[Assistant] What would you like? Can you tell her? And then you think, okay, now how can we bring these visions together?


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[Assistant] So not only do we both get what we want, but because we've brought them together, we even get more than we want. Well, who wouldn't agree to that? Unless they were aiming down.


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[Assistant] And that's so exciting, it's not a compromise. It's a union of ideals. That even makes a better ideal. And then you get to come home, and then there's another rule that goes along with that. Which is, please, dear, have the grace.


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[Assistant] To allow me to do this stupidly and badly, while I learn, at least 20 times.


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[Assistant] And I'll give you the same leeway. And then we'll practice stupidly for 20 times and we'll talk about it. And then maybe we'll get it right for the next 10,000 times.


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[Assistant] Right? And you can do that with your whole, you can do that with your whole life, and you can do that with your kids, and you can do that with your family. Like it's not easy, but you can do, it's a lot easier than the alternative.


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[Assistant] That's a good question. I was asked that multiple times.


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[Assistant] On my tour, three times in a row, in fact, cause we ask people to use this Slido gadget.


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[Assistant] Because it's, it's putting the cart before the horse. Here's the right question.


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[Assistant] You answer that question and you will not have any problem answering the previous question. It's like, what do I want in a partner? If I offered everything I could do a partner, who would I be? You work on that. Ask that question. Just ask, just ask yourself. Okay. I have to be the person that women would want. Okay. What do they want?


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[Assistant] Willing to delay gratification. So you dance with a woman. It's like, what's she doing? What are you two doing? Well, it's a pattern.


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[Assistant] There's patterns happening around you. That's the music. Patterns. Patterns of being. That's the music. Now can you align yourself with the patterns of being gracefully? That's what she's checking out. And then can you do that with her?


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[Assistant] And then can you do that in a playful and attentive manner and keep your bloody hands to yourself for at least a minute? And so, can you dance?


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[Assistant] In a playful manner, it's like you can go through this in your imagination and you know, you'll know, you know.


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[Assistant] Horrible abyss separating you from that ideal. But the harder you work on offering other people what they need and want, the more people will line up to play with you.


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[Assistant] So it's the wrong question. It's like, how can I be the best partner possible? And then you think, well, if I do that, people would just take advantage of me. And that's the non-naive objection.


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[Assistant] Right? Because the naive person's saying, well, I'll be good and everyone will treat me right. It's like the cynic says, no, I'll be good and someone will take me out.


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[Assistant] And then you think, well, what do you do about that objection? And the answer is, well, you factor that in. And that's why you're supposed to be, what is it? As soft as a dove and as wise as a serpent. It's like, I know you're full of snakes. I know it. Maybe I know it more than you do. But we'll play anyways.


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[Assistant] And that's a good, that's right, voluntarily, right? It's like, what's so cool about that is that even though the person you're dealing with is full of snakes,


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[Assistant] If you offer your hand in trust and it's real, you will evoke the best in them.


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[Assistant] And that's true even, I've dealt with people who are pretty damn criminal and pretty psychopathic. And sometimes dangerously so.


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[Assistant] And you tread very lightly when you're dealing with someone like that, especially if they're intoxicated. And even then, your best bet is that alert trust. It's the, it's the only fact, the only thing I know that


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[Assistant] The guy had one client who was a paranoid, he was a paranoid psychopath. That's a bad combination. He was a bad guy, man. He had like four restraining orders.


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[Assistant] On him. And restraining orders don't work on the sort of people that you put restraining orders on. And he used to be harassed now and then by, you know, a bureaucrat in a bank with, with delusions of power. And he would say to them, he, he used to kind of act this out to me when I was talking to him, he'd say,


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[Assistant] And he meant it and he would do it. He had this obsessional psychopathic vengeance that was just like right there, paranoid to the hilt and paranoid people are hyper acute. So they're watching you for any sign of.


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[Assistant] Deceit or manipulation, and they're really good at it. Cause like they're 100% focused, that's what paranoia is, it's 100% focused on that. And even under those circumstances, if you step carefully enough, you can,


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[Assistant] Maybe. You can avoid the axe. That's a good thing to know if you ever meet someone truly dangerous.


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[Assistant] Well, you know, the cosmic drama that's Satan versus Christ. It's like, well, who's that about? It's not about you.


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[Assistant] I'm speaking just as a psychologist or as a literary critic. Those are characters. At least they're that. Well, are they human characters? Well, obviously. Well, are they archetypal human characters? Yes.


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[Assistant] What does that mean, cosmically and ontologically? I don't know. Is the world a story?


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[Assistant] I know, those are, those are unsuffice, not great literature though. It's very rare in great literature. What you have in great literature generally is the internal drama, right? In, as the literature becomes more pop, I would say.


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[Assistant] The characters are more unitary. So there's a real bad guy and he's all bad and there's a real good guy and he's all good. And that's not as interesting.


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[Assistant] It's not as sophisticated. When you reach Dostoevsky in Heights in, in literary representation or Shakespearean Heights, you can identify with the villain.


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[Assistant] And that's, that's when literature re- really reaches its pinnacle in some sense.


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[Assistant] Why do you, I'm not arguing with it. Why do you think that?


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[Assistant] That's why no one enters the kingdom of heaven unless they become like a child. That's Prince Michigan. Dostoevsky knew that. So that's why he liked the idiot. That's so interesting.


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[Assistant] See, I think I like crime and punishment because while you identified with Michigan, I think I identified more with Raskolnikov because I was tempted by Luciferian intellect, you know, in the manner that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a, in a manner very similar to the manner he was tempted. But I mean, I think, I think you can make a case that the Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's crowning achievement.


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[Assistant] And that's something, man. Alright, he ruined literature for me.


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[Assistant] Cause everything else just felt insipid afterwards. Not everything. Not everything. I found some books that, in my experience, hit that pinnacle. Uhm, The Master and Margarita.


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[Assistant] That's a deadly book. I've read that, I think, four times and I still, there's still, it's unbelievably deep. Uh, there's a Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek writer. Some of his books are, his writing is amazing as well.


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[Assistant] You know, you have to be deaf in some fundamental sense, not to encounter a great dead friend and fail to learn. No, and, and I mean, I tried to separate the wheat from the chaff when I read, you know, when I read all the great clinicians, all of them, perhaps not.


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[Assistant] Those who are foremost in the pantheon and I tried to pull out what I could and that was a lot. I learned a lot from Freud. I learned a lot from Rogers and I learned a lot from, well, from Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. I'm going to do a course on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche for this Peterson Academy. This is coming up in January.


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[Assistant] I hadn't thought about doing them together. That'd be fun. That's a good idea.


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[Assistant] You know, there's uncanny parallelisms in their writing and their lives.


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[Assistant] So uhm, and Dostoevsky is deeper than Nietzsche, but that's because he was a writer of fiction.


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[Assistant] The thing that Dostoevsky had over Nietzsche is, Nietzsche had to make things propositional in some real sense because he was a philosopher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to propositionalize things that are outside your ken, but you can characterize them. And so, in the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan is a more developed character than Alyosha.


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[Assistant] In, in, in the explicit sense, he can make better arguments. But Alosha wins, like Michigan, because he's the better man.


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[Assistant] And so Dostoevsky had that edge over Nietzsche. He said, well, Ivan is this brilliant rationalist, atheist, materialist, and puts forward an argument on that front that's still unparalleled, as far as I'm concerned, and overwhelms Alyosha, who cannot respond, but Alyosha is still the better man. So, which is very interesting, you know, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well it's, it's, you know, one of the things I did learn perhaps from looking into the abyss to the degree that I have had to or was willing to.


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[Assistant] Was that at some level you have to make a fundamental statement of faith.


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[Assistant] When God creates the world, after each day, He says He saw that it was good. You think, well, is it good?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, there's a tough question. You know, do you want to bring a child into a world such as this, which is a fundamental question of whether or not it's good. It's an act of faith to declare that it's good because the evidence is ambivalent. And so then you think, okay, well, am I going to act as if it's good? And what would happen if I did? And maybe the answer to that is, I think this is the answer.


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[Assistant] The more you act out the proposition that it's good, the better it gets.


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[Assistant] And so that's, Dostoevsky said, this is something else. Every man is not only responsible for everything he does, but for everything everyone else does. It's like ...


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[Assistant] And the answer to that might be yes. That's a terrifying idea. And, and it's certainly, you can see that it's true in some sense because people certainly respond to you in kind with how you treat them. That's certainly the case.


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[Assistant] And I would say, where's that adventure to be found? In faith? What's the faith? The highest value is love and truth is its handmaiden.


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[Assistant] That's a statement of faith, right? Cause you can't tell. You have to act it out to see if it's, if it's true.


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[Assistant] And so you can't even find out without, and that's so peculiar. You have to make the commitment a priori. It's like a marriage. It's the same thing.


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[Assistant] It's like, well, is this the person for me? That's the wrong question. How do I find out if this is the person for me? By binding myself to them.


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[Assistant] Well, maybe the same thing is true of life, right? You bind yourself to it.


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[Assistant] And that tighter you bind yourself to it, the more you find out what it is. And that's like a radical embrace.


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[Assistant] And it's, it's a really radical embrace. That's the crucifix symbol. And more than that, because like I said, the, the full passion story isn't death. It isn't even unjust death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It isn't even unjust death and the crucifixion of the innocent, which is really getting pretty bad. It's unjust, torturous, innocent death, attendant upon betrayal and tyranny, followed by hell. Well, that's a hell of a thing to radically embrace. It's like bring it on.


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[Assistant] It's handmaiden. I thought about that for a long time, right? This hierarchy of ideal.


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[Assistant] And the thing about truth, that bitter truth, let's say, that cynical truth, is it can break the shackles of naivety. And actually,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A burnt cynicism is a moral improvement over a blind naivety. Even though one is in some ways positive, but only because it's protected. And the other is bitter and dark, but still better.


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[Assistant] But you're not done at that point. You're just barely started. It's like you're cynical. You're not cynical enough.


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[Assistant] It's like, how cynical are you? Are you, I'm an Auschwitz prison guard level of cynical?


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[Assistant] Cause you have to be, you have to go down pretty deep into the weeds before you find that part of you. But you can find it if you want. And then you think, well, I want to stop this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that was the question you posed. In some sense, you're obsessed with say what happened on these mass scale catastrophes in the communist countries. It's like, well, millions of people participated. So you could have, and maybe you would have enjoyed it. So what part of that is you? And you can find it if you want.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I think about climate change.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I think about climate change.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I think about climate change.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when no one remembers my birthday.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when no one remembers my birthday.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when no one remembers my birthday.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I can't see my friends.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I can't see my friends.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when a movie doesn't end happily.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when a movie doesn't end happily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes me sad when a movie doesn't end happily.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I am away from my family for too long.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I am away from my family for too long.


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[Assistant] It makes me sad when I am away from my family for too long.


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[Assistant] On Mondays, I usually go to the library.


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[Assistant] On Wednesday mornings, I usually go to the supermarket.


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[Assistant] On Wednesday mornings, I usually go to the supermarket.


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[Assistant] On Wednesday mornings, I usually go to the supermarket.


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[Assistant] On Thursday evenings, I usually go to yoga class.


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[Assistant] On Thursday evenings, I usually go to yoga class.


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[Assistant] On Thursday evenings, I usually go to yoga class.


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[Assistant] On Christmas Eve, I usually go to my parents' house.


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[Assistant] On Christmas Eve, I usually go to my parents' house.


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[Assistant] On Christmas Eve, I usually go to my parents' house.


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[Assistant] What should we do for your grandparent's 50th anniversary?


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[Assistant] What should we do for your grandparent's 50th anniversary?


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[Assistant] What should we do for your grandparent's 50th anniversary?


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[Assistant] You should never drink water from the tap in Mexico.


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[Assistant] You should never drink water from the tap in Mexico.


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[Assistant] You should never drink water from the tap in Mexico.


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[Assistant] You should never dive into the shallow end of the pool.


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[Assistant] You should never dive into the shallow end of the pool.


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[Assistant] You should never dive into the shallow end of the pool.


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[Assistant] After drinking, I like to eat fast food.


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[Assistant] After drinking, I like to eat fast food.


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[Assistant] After a long day, I like to watch TV.


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[Assistant] After a long day, I like to watch TV.


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[Assistant] After going on a hike, I like to take a shower.


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[Assistant] After going on a hike, I like to take a shower.


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[Assistant] After school, I like to go to my friend's house.


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[Assistant] After school, I like to go to my friend's house.


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[Assistant] What kind of podcasts do you listen to?


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[Assistant] What kind of podcasts do you listen to?


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[Assistant] What do you know about your boyfriend's past relationships?


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[Assistant] What do you know about your boyfriend's past relationships?


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[Assistant] What do you know about your boyfriend's past relationships?


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I'm eating a good meal.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I'm eating a good meal.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I'm eating a good meal.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I am traveling to a new place.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I am traveling to a new place.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when I am traveling to a new place.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when the people around me are happy.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when the people around me are happy.


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[Assistant] I am happiest when the people around me are happy.


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[Assistant] What do you think about the remake of Beauty and the Beast?


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[Assistant] What do you think about the remake of Beauty and the Beast?


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[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you forgot about my birthday.


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[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you forgot about my birthday.


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[Assistant] I'm upset with you because you forgot about my birthday.