And then you get cruel, bitter and resentful.

And then you start to actively try to make the world's worst place.

And so so because you can't suffer pointlessly without becoming bitter, and you can't become bitter without becoming cruel.

So you need a name.

That question is, then the question better.

What?

You should, Dave.

Yeah.

Better aim, that's for sure.

So then the question is, what should you be?

Welcome, Everyone.

Back to school.

Greens podcast.

We've got the legendary Jordan Peterson in the house.

Get to see a sir could see and very excited about this.

You've got a book out called 12 Rules for Life makes you guys check this out.

You probably already got it.

But if you don't, I'm telling you, go pick it up right now.

An antidote to chaos.

Uh, you've had so much attention over this last couple of years, and I've been digging into the research and just been fascinated by everything that you've been up.

Thio and I just love your stance on the vision you have for humanity in terms of how we can all live better lives.

And I think you simplify a lot of things in this book, which some things people don't like to simplify it like to complicate.

And I think that's what's gotten you.

A lot of attention is that you try to really simplify a lot of these.

Well, I try to make everything concrete so that it's actually implementable, right?

I mean, there's a lot of high level abstractions in the book because it ranges up into the theological and the philosophical, but it's always grounded in what you can actually do in your life.

Practically, you wantto bridge that gap from the highest abstraction down to the lowest level of behavior so that it becomes implementable.

That's how philosophical concepts take on their meaning because they have to.

They have to have some impact on the way you see the world, and the way you act in the world or they're not fully realized they're not understood has partly what we mean.

I would say when we say that we understand something, it's kind of a state strange phrase to understand something, but it means to be able to embody it in a shift of view and a shift of action and then you've got it.

It's graspable.

It's in your hand.

Embody something in a shift of you, mother, you're saying what is the same thing?

Because your perceptions are very tightly linked to your actions.

Because, of course, when you're acting you're aiming at something.

You have to be devoted towards some some some aims.

Some target.

Would we play that Odin sports all the time.

That's why sports are so entertaining for people is because they dramatized the idea of a MME.

Right and then not only of aimed but of the pursuit of excellence in pursuit of that aim.

That's the game, and the reason it's a spectacle in the reason that people participate in it is because it dramatizes something absolutely essential about life.

And so you want to take philosophical abstractions, and you want to use them to, to structure your aim, and then your perceptions organize around.

That came on and then you act it out and then you've got that's then then it's It's become part of your life is not just a it is not just a philosophical abstraction that floats free in space.

Why is there so much conflict in the world?

is because there's so many different perceptions that people have well, they think should be right or was sure Well, part of it is part of it.

Of course, there's conflict because we have real problems.

And so life is actually difficult.

Independent of the psychological foolishness, let's say independent of the obstacles that we put in our own path like it's already, it's already fatally challenging.

Right?

Life is the ultimate challenge.

We will die.

Yes, yes.

And so there is a challenge.

Yes, well, sort of fear paying all those Yes, all the thing.

All Everything that goes along with suffering is a challenge, and it's it's It's the full challenge because it takes everything you have.

And so part of the reason we disagree is because there are complex problems to solve.

And then we also disagree because we're willfully blind and because we're more ignorant than we should be.

And we're not everything we should be.

And we took towards malevolence from time to time, and we betray each other and ourselves.

And so we take a bad lot in many ways and make it worse.

Not always, obviously, and we don't have to, but that's sort of the baseline that we're working against.

I think people are most disappointed in life when they're disappointed in themselves.

You know, they see that they've made things worse than they had to be, even though the baseline can be pretty brutal.

So, yeah, so the book and all my lectures, I suppose are are, are put forward in an attempt to take the high level philosophical abstractions and to make them into something that's actionable and to take the next best action in your life to improve your life.

So we want to suffer as much while and hopefully also so that people around you don't have to either.

So one of the things I've been talking to my audience is a boat.

Is the relationship between responsibility and meaning, which is What would you say?

It's a It's a constant refrain in the book.

It's one of its underlying message is, let's say or themes is a better way of thinking about it.

Um, you know, if you start with the presumption that there's a baseline of suffering in life and that that can be exaggerated by as a consequence of human failing as a consequence of malevolence and betrayal and self betrayal and deceit and all those things that we do to each other and ourselves that we know that aren't good.

That amplifies the suffering.

That's sort of the baseline against which you have to work.

And and it's contemplation of that often that makes people hopeless and depressed and anxious and overwhelmed and all of that, and and they have the reasons.

But you need something to put up against that, and what you put up against that is meaning.

Meaning is actually the instinct that helps you guide yourself through that catastrophe.

And most of that meaning is to be found in the adoption of responsibility.

So if you think, for example, if you think about the people that you admire while you think about when you have a clear conscience first, because that's a good thing to aim at, which is something different than happiness, right?

A clear conscience is different than happiness.

That's better.

Yeah, that's better.

Guilting yourself, you're not feeling bad about us.

That's right.

You feel that you've just to claim you've justified your existence, right?

And so you're not waking up a three in the morning in a cold sweat, thinking about all the terrible things that you've involved yourself in, what you said to someone that you shouldn't have said and why you acted or what opportunity you lost or yeah, or or the things that you've that you've let go, that you should have capitalized on all of that.

And so if you think about the times when you're at peace with yourself with regards to how you're conducting yourself in the world, it's almost always conditions under which you've adopted responsibility, right at least the most.

The most guilt I think that you can experience, perhaps, is the sure knowledge that you're not even taking care of yourself so that you're leaving that responsibility to other people because that's pretty pathetic.

And I unless your psychopathic and you know and you're living a parasitical life on DDE that characterizes a very small minority of people and an even smaller minority think that's justifiable.

But most of the time you're in guilt and shame because you're not, you're you're not.

Not only are you not taking care of yourself, let's say so.

Someone else has to, but you're not living up to your full potential And so there's a existentially wait that goes along with that souls.

You suffer even more who, when you don't take care of yourself or take the best actions or do the work that you know, you can D'oh!

You rely on someone else too.

Support you financially, emotionally, physically what?

Home?

Whatever.

Maybe.

Yeah, because you're not only you're not only not being what you could be, you're interfering with someone else being what they could be, right?

So you're you're not only avoid, you're a drain.

Jesus, that's a catastrophe.

And but we usually don't even know it when we were in that situation because we're in a depressed state or were or we don't want to see it.

You know, you wake up at three in the morning and you know, and so and then you think of the people that you so you admire yourself.

Or perhaps you could at least live with yourself when you're taking responsibility, at least for yourself.

And so that settles your conscience.

But then if you look at the people that you spontaneously admire and so the act of spontaneously admiring someone is the manifestation of the instinct for meaning rights.

And this is partly why people are so enamored of sports figures, because the sports figures are playing out the drama of attaining the goal of attaining a certain kind of, let's say, psychological and physical perfection in pursuit of the gold.

That's the drama and to spontaneously admire that is to have that instinct for meaning latch onto something that could be used as a model.

And then that model should be transcribed into something that's applicable in life.

When you really like to see in an athletic performance, you really like to see someone who's extremely disciplined and in shape do something physically remarkable but and to stretch themselves even beyond their previous exploits, because you really like to see a brilliant move in an athletic match.

But you also like to see that person in Sconce Tin a broader moral framework so that not only are they trying to win and disciplining themselves in pursuit of that victory and then stretching themselves so they're continually getting better, but they're doing it in a way that helps develop their whole team, and that's good for the sport in general.

And that reflects well on the broader culture a great leader and their team.

They're positive.

They're good sportsmen.

Who against the competitors, not negative towards other people.

They're lifting them up.

Thio.

Yeah, like the ultimate.

That's right.

So the human, that's right so that they can.

They can work for their own improvement in a way that simultaneously works for the improvement of their team and and and for this sport.

And while I meant to the degree that that spills over into the broader culture, so much the better.

So that's all being dramatized in a in an athletic event.

And it's really it's not philosophical.

It's concrete dramatized in the world.

And that's what the game's represent.

And so well, it's partly because, well, it's some sense.

Life is a game, It is, is in that you're always the analogy is that in life, like in sports, you're you're you're setting forth the name and then arranging your perceptions in your actions in pursuit of that and that you also we generally do it while cooperating and competing with other people.

That's also the game like element as well.

All of that's dramatized in athletics.

That's like philosophy for people who aren't philosophical and I'm not being smart about that.

It's like it really is philosophy for people who aren't being philosophical because it's played out, you know, and you can see it, too.

You can see the spontaneous appreciation for the human spirit manifest itself when you see people rise to their feet spontaneously in a sports arena, when they see someone do something particularly remarkable, see an athlete who's extremely trained stretch themselves beyond what you think is a normative human limit, and everyone celebrates that like spontaneously.

So it's quite something, too.

Yeah to behold.

So take me back to a responsibility and meeting when we're watching sports for someone to do this act.

What does this do for us With interns, responsibility and meaning?

Well, it it helps us figure out what we can imitate.

Give us a model.

Yes, it's a model model of something that I respect.

While even what philosophy is or even theology, for that matter is an abstract mortal, like it's laid out in words.

Now the problem often is.

It becomes so abstract that people don't know how to bring it back down to throwing bodies.

Yes, where is something like like the drama of a sports event is sort of midway between philosophy and action, right in.

So it's it's not entirely abstracted because it's not only coated in words, it's acted out visual.

You can see an example of what this happens, and you can try to reverse engineer.

How they Yes, exactly.

Well, at least at least you, the fact that you admire the person means that you might start to try to act like them.

Now it's not easy, and maybe that would mean maybe that would mean that you start to discipline yourself with regards to a particular sport.

But it might also be that you start to mimic or are at least affected in some way by their sportsman sportsmanlike behavior right, which is the ground of a certain kind of ethic.

Because if you can play well with others, which is sort of the hallmark of a good sport than that actually means that you're a reasonably sophisticated and civilized person, it's really important to learn to play well with others.

There isn't that's the ground of ethics, and you can do it there and that setting.

Then hopefully you could translate into well, well, right that's exactly right.

That's what goal.

Well, that's what you hope for.

Yeah, that's the goal of this.

So if the if the goal of the game is to put the ball through the ball into the net, then the goal of having games is to produce people who can take proper aim no matter where they are.

Right?

That's exactly what we're trying to do with with with with athletics.

So, uh, so I've been talking to my audience is a lot about that about well, there's more to it, too, because if the background of life is is, there's an ineradicable component of suffering.

And that's complicated by, let's say, malevolence and the proclivity of people to be trade themselves and others, which which complicates it, makes it worse then the if you don't have a noble aim, and if that isn't imbuing your life with sustainable meaning, then you fall prey to all the catastrophe, the pain and the anxiety and the anger that that suffering generates.