Latest / Motivation study / Jordan Peterson_ Want To Change Your Life_ Watch This

Transcript

Jordan Peterson_ Want To Change Your Life_ Watch This · Motivation study

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can think about this yourselves. I often
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: ask undergraduates, how many hours a day you waste, or
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: how many hours a week you waste. And the classic
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: answer is something like four to six hours a day. Now,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you think, well, that's 20, 25 hours a week. It's
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: 100 hours a month. That's two and a half full
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: work weeks. It's half a year of work weeks per year.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: And if your time is worth $ 20 an hour, which
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: is a radical underestimate, it's probably more like $ 50.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: If you're wasting 20 hours a week, you're wasting $ 50, 000
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a year. And you are doing that right now. And
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: it's because you're young, wasting $ 50, 000 a year is a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: way bigger catastrophe than it would be for me to
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: waste it because I'm not going to last nearly as long.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And so if your life isn't everything it could be,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you could ask yourself, well, what would happen if you
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: just stopped wasting the opportunities that are in front of you?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Because they're so busy already, right? They're so overwhelmed and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: preoccupied by their jobs that if you come in and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you say, well, here, this is going to increase your
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: efficiency by 20%. And here's the three weeks you'd have
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to spend doing that. And then the payoff would come
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: in the next years. They'll say, yeah, well, I'll do
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: that as soon as I have time. And as soon
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: as I have time is never. Never.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: You know, if you take people, and I've told you this,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: and you expose them voluntarily to things that they are
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: avoiding and are afraid of, you know, that they know
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: they need to overcome in order to meet their goals,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: their self-defined goals. If you can teach people to stand
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: up in the face of the things they're afraid of,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: they get stronger.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And you don't know what the upper limits to that are.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Because you might ask yourself, like, if for 10 years,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: if you didn't avoid doing what you knew you needed
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to do, by your own definitions, right, within the value
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: structure that you've created, to the degree that you've done that,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: what would you be like? And so if you act
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that way, of course, the terror of realizing that is
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that it actually starts to matter what you do. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you might say, well, that's better than living a meaningless existence.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's better for it to matter. But I mean, if
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you really asked yourself, would you be so sure if
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you had the choice? I can live with no responsibility whatsoever.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: The price I pay is that nothing matters. Or I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: can reverse it and everything matters. It's that willingness to wrestle.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: That's really something because it kind of indicates that you're
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: here as a contender, you know? You're not here to
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: be happy. You're not here to be complacent.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Away you go.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Away you go. Well, why? It's dangerous out there. It's like, yeah,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: no kidding. It's more dangerous here if you stay with me.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Why a lot? So you might lose your body out
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: there in the world, but if you stay here, you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: lose your soul. If you could have what you wanted
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: in this moment, and I could deliver it, what would
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: it be? How much of the mess that you see
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: around you would vanish if the mess.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: That you could put straight was put straight? The question
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: always is, why do something? Because doing nothing is easy.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: You just sit there and you don't do anything. That's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: real easy. The question is, why would you ever do anything?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And the answer to that has to be because you've
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: determined by some means that it's worthwhile. In many ways,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that's what you should be doing at university. That's exactly
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: what you should be doing is trying to figure out
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: who it is that you're trying to be, right? And
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you aim at that. And then you use everything you
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: learn as a means of building that person that you
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: want to be. And I really mean want to be.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I don't mean should be. Even those things are going
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to overlap.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: You know perfectly well that if you put your mind
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: to it and you make the proper sacrifices, there are
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: things you.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Can set straight. What advice do you have for a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: young man in his 20s? Make a plan.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Look at what you're interested in. Get disciplined about something.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Allow for the possibility that you have something important to
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: contribute to the world and that the world would be
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: a lesser place without that contribution. Don't be afraid of
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: taking on responsibilities It's where you find what sustains you
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: in your life. You can take on too much responsibility.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You have to be cautious in that regard, but that's
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: a less common problem than not taking on enough. A
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: lot of the things that people regard as traps are
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: actually the means to their life.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And then the next question might be, well, where should
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you look for worthwhile things? And one would be, well,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you could consult your own temperament. And the other would be, well,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you kind of look at how Look at what it
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is that people accrue that's valuable across the lifespan. But
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the other way you do that is by having a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: little conversation with yourself. As if you don't really know
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: who you are. Because you know what you're like. You
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: won't do what you're told. You won't do what you
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: tell yourself to do. You must have noticed that. It's
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like you're a bad employee and a worse boss. And
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: both of those work. you know, for you. You don't
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: know what you want to do, and then when you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: tell yourself what to do, you don't do it anyways.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: You should fire yourself and find someone else to be.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: You have to understand that you're not your own servant,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: so to speak. You're someone that you have to negotiate with,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and you're someone that you want to present the opportunity
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of having a good life to. And that's hard for people,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: because they don't like themselves very much.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So, you know, they're always like cracking the whip and
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: then procrastinating and cracking the whip and then procrastinating.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: It's like, God, so boring. Such a pathetic way of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: spending your time. And you know what that's like because
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you probably waste like six hours a day.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: You have to believe that your action has some redemptive
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: possibility because why would you do it otherwise? And you
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: might say, well, I kind of believe that. It's like, well,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that's not good enough. You kind of got to throw
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: yourself all into it. And what's the cost anyways? It's
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: not like you're going to get.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Out of this alive.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So you're pretty much all in, whether you want to
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: be or not. And maybe if you were voluntarily all in,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: things would be.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: A lot better than they are. I don't know what
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the hell you should do with your life. I can
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: help you figure it out, maybe. We can talk about it.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: But you are the person who has to decide if
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the things that you're aiming for you know, get you
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: out of bed in the morning. And then you've got
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to specify the transformation processes and start practicing them. And
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you have to understand that you're going to be bad
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: at it, but it doesn't matter because bad's fine. Persistent
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: is what you need to be. If you persist with
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: tiny improvements, if you persist, you win. It's direction that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: produces the primary, that produces primary positive emotion. And so...
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: If you need positive emotion to move through life, which
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you do, because you can't even move without positive emotion,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and also positive emotion is a good bulwark against terror
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and pain. If you need those things, then you need direction,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: you need a goal, you need a value structure. You
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: let all that nonsense burn away. And you might say, well,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I should leave behind. And the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: answer to that is, that's a lie. All you have
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to do is ask yourself. You'll come up with a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: list instantly of a hundred stupid things that you're doing
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that you know you could stop doing. Take on the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: consequences of error. And learn from it. And then you win. Constantly.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Because even if something goes sideways. You think. There's something
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to be derived from this. When you're in the world.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And something objects to you. Something that matters. Objects to you.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Then the entire unrealized world. Is in that thing that objects.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: It's all tangled up inside it. That's why it's the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: great dragon of chaos. It's everything that's outside of your
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: conceptual structure. And what is that? It's everything that lurks
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: outside of your walled city. And it's manifested itself like
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the snake in the garden. And the easiest thing to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: do is say, I'm not having anything to do with that.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: But the problem with that is, well, you get your
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: C- and you don't do anything about it. Maybe you're
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a little bitter and more resentful and your study habits
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: get a little worse. So the next time you get
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: like a D +. And then you collect a bunch
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of F's and then you stop going to school. Then
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: you stop showering, right? Then you end up jumping off
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the bridge. And so that's how the dragon eats you
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: when you don't pay attention to it. And so it's
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: no bloody wonder that people avoid, you know. It's really
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: no wonder that they avoid because error messages contain within
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: them the implicit world. Now, the upside of that is, well,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: they contain within them the implicit world. And the world
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: isn't all negative. And so maybe you get your C-
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and that's actually the best gift you ever got. Because
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: somebody finally took you and went, whack! You know, clue in!
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And so you take that apart and you think, oh,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to write. I don't know how
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to think.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I've never read anything in my life. My study habits
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: are abysmal. You know, like maybe I'm working at 2% efficiency, which...
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: To find that out is so optimistic. I mean, if
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: you're barely hanging in there, but you're only working at 2%,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: you might imagine what you could.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Have as a life if you're working at like 50%.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So the C- can be the best gift you ever had,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and that's the goal that the dragon hoards. That's exactly
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: what that means. That doesn't prove that you're stupid. And
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: now it implies that you might be stupid, but it doesn't, right, really,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it does. And that's why you don't want to look
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: at it. Maybe it implies that you're lazy or implies
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that you're ignorant or like it implies all sorts of terrible,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: but you don't want to leap to that. And that's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: sort of the proclamation of innocence before guilt. Then what
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: do you do? Well, then you turn down to the micro-routines.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well, this is what I'm aiming for.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: How does that instantiate itself day to day, week to week,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: month to month? And that's where something like a schedule
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: can be unbelievably useful. Google Calendar. It's like, make a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: damn schedule and stick to it. Okay, so what's the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: rule with the schedule? It's not a bloody prison. That's
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the first thing that people do wrong. They say, well,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I don't like to follow a schedule. It's like, well,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what kind of schedule are you setting up?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I have to do this, then I have to
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: do this, then I have to do this, you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and then I just go play video games. Because who
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: wants to do all these things that I have to do?
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's like, wrong. Set the damn schedule up so that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you have the day you want. That's the trick. It's like, okay,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I've got tomorrow. If I was going to set it
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: up so it was the best possible day I could have,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: practically speaking, what would it look like? Well, then you
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: schedule that. And obviously, there's a bit of responsibility that's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: going to go along with that. Because if you have
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: any sense, one of the things that you're going to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: insist upon is that at the end of the day,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you're not in worse shape than you were at the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: beginning of the day, right? Because that's a stupid day.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: If you have a bunch of those in a row,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you just dig yourself a hole and then you bury
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: yourself in it. It's like, sorry, that's just not a
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: good strategy. Now it's okay. Now you've got your vision.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: You're trying to get through territory you don't understand and
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: here's your option no map a map that's not so
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: good but has some things about it or a great
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: map well obviously the great map is the thing you
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: want but the the map that something is way better
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: than the map that's nothing plus as you explore because
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: of your map you could start to fill in the
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: details let's say you you aim at something and you
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And you develop some skills along the way. And then
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: you get like a third of the way there. And
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you think, oh, that's not for me. It's like, well, yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: fair enough. But now you've still got the skills you developed.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: You know exactly why it's not for you now. And
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: then you can bring that wisdom back, even though it's
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: not perfect. You can bring it back to your next plan.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And so as you plan, you get better at planning,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: which is the crucial thing. So then we say to people,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: take your positive vision and make it into eight steps.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Statable goals right so and then rank them in a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: hierarchy break the goals into incremental goals so that you
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: have a reasonable Probability of succeeding spring within some time frame.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing you have to parameterize it with
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: regards to time frame That's right, and when you're in
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: the zone you're expanding your skills in a manner that's
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Intrinsically rewarding because you're succeeding and so you want to
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: set if you're good to yourself you think okay? I
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: need to set a goal, but I need to set
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: a goal and that someone as stupid and useless as
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: me could probably attain if they put some effort into it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Then you've got it perfectly because it's not so high
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: that it's grandiose or impossible that you fail necessarily and
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: then justify your bitterness.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I set a goal and I didn't attain it,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna set any more goals. It's like, no.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: You set a goal that was inappropriate and you're playing
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: a trick on yourself because you wanted to fail so
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: that you could justify not having to try, which isn't
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: in helpful.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You're still going to be a victim. It's like, there's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: no way out of that, man.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: So, you know, because life is this life is a
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: challenge that in some sense can't be surmounted. So there's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: no way out of your problem, but there are certainly proper.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Ways of dealing with it.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And then the next thing is, okay, you need a
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: rationale for them because you're going to have doubts and
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: other people are going to put up obstacles. Why would
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: it be good for you? Why would it be good
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: for your family if you attain that goal? Why would
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: it be good for the broader community? Because if it's
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: a good goal, it should be good for you.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: That's fine. But if it's a really good goal, it
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: should be good for you in a way that's good
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: for other people. Win-win-win. Yes, exactly.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: And if you're going to decide what your goals are,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: why not set up the ones that benefit you?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: The largest number of people simultaneously.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: If you can do that, you should start with your
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: own concerns because you have to take care of yourself.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Basic needs first. Yes.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Put your own oxygen mask on, then put your child's
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: oxygen mask on. Yeah. Right. And then you can, as
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: you build up the basis of competence locally, you might
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: develop enough skills so that you can expand that outward.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And it also gives your goal a certain amount of nobility.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And so if someone challenges you and says, well, why
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: are you doing that? That seems stupid.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: You could say, I'm doing that because it helps me
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: take care of myself, but it benefits my family, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: here's the reasons why. And this is the repercussions out
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: into the broader community. People who are putting up objections
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and doubts aren't armed to deal with that.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Kind of response.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: And then when you have those doubts in your mind
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: that plague you, you say, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: it's because, well, I have to take care of myself,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: because otherwise I'm pathetic and useless and bitter and cruel,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and then I'm going somewhere terrible, so that's a bad idea,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: and here's how it would help my family, and here's
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: how it would help the community, and that's a good
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: enough set of reasons.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Unless I can think of better ones. Without better ones,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that's good enough. When the unknown emerges, you tend to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: experience anxiety. And then there's the known, and I define
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the known very specifically and very carefully. The known is
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the place you are when what you're doing produces the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: results you want. And I say want because that brings
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: motivation and emotion into the game. So you're motivated to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: pursue something. You pursue it and what you want happens.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Not only do you get what you want, but you
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: get validation for the structure that governs your perceptions and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: your actions. Attention, for example, is mediated by unconscious forces.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And you know that. You know that perfectly well. You know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: if you're sitting down to study, For example, your conscious
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: intent is to study. But you know perfectly well that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: all sorts of distraction fantasies are going to enter the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: theatre of your imagination non-stop and annoyingly. And there isn't
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: really a lot you can do about that except maybe
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: wait it out. You know, so you'll be sitting there
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: reading and... your attention will flicker away. You'll think about,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you want to watch Jane the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Virgin on Netflix or something like that. Or maybe it's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: time to have a peanut butter sandwich. Or you should
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: get the dust bunnies out from underneath the bed. Or
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it's time to go outside and have a cigarette. Or
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: maybe it's time for a cup of coffee. Or it's
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: like all these subsystems in you that would like something aren't...
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: very happy just to sit there while you read this
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: thing that you're actually bored by and So they pop
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: up and try to take control of your perceptions and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: your actions non-stop Maybe you think well, this is a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: stupid course. Anyways, why do I have to read this
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: damn paper? And what am I doing in university? And
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: what's the point of life? It's like well you can
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: really get going if you're trying to avoid doing your
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: homework and and and then you might think well, what
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: is it in you that's trying to avoid because I
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: After all, you took the damn course and you told
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: yourself to sit down. Why don't you listen? Well, because
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you're a mess. That's basically why. You haven't got control
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: over yourself at all. I don't know how to start
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: improving my life. Someone might say that. And I would say, well,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you're not aiming low enough.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Regulate your habits. Try to get up at approximately the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: same time. each morning. I would recommend that you get
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: up approximately when other people get up. So that would
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: be something in the neighborhood of 7.30 or 8 in
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: the morning, or perhaps earlier, perhaps a little bit later,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: but you want to stabilize that because your circadian rhythms
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: operate more, what would you call it, fluidly, and your
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: mood is likely to be regulated better if there's islands
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of stability in your daily routines. Human beings like daily routines,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: just like dogs like daily routines. And so regulate your sleep.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I would say when you get up in the morning,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: eat breakfast. That's a really important thing to do. I
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: can't tell you how many people I've treated in my
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: clinical practice whose proclivity for emotional instability and depression, anxiety,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: general hopelessness, emotional pain and gloom and doom, as well
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: as capacity to concentrate, were properly regulated or inhibited or
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: reduced by merely ensuring that they ate a, I would
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: say a protein and fat rich breakfast relatively soon after
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: they wake up. And that's especially true if they're stressed.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And as it turns out that if you stress yourself
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: after a fast, which is of course what you've undertaken,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: if you haven't eaten since the night before, that your
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: body produces enough insulin to deplete the sugar in your blood.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And then it's very difficult for you to become regulated
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: properly with regards to your metabolism until you sleep again.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And so it can be regulating your sleep and your
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: breakfast eating habits in particular can be in a very
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: effective way of regulating your mood and increasing your capacity
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: to concentrate. The other thing I would say is that
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: scheduling your time is also extraordinarily useful. And so I
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: can tell you a little bit about how to use
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: schedules effectively. You should develop a long-term plan. You have
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: to set up your long-term vision. And then I would say,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: once you set up that vision so that you know
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: how to orient yourself, then you should start designing your days.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And you can do that very effectively with a calendar
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: like Google Calendar. Many people say, well, I hate using
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a schedule or I hate using a calendar. What you're
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: doing is using the calendar as an external tyrant that's
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: telling you what you should do if you were going
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: to be a conventionally good person each day. So you
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: load yourself up with arbitrary responsibilities. But that's not really
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: how you should use a schedule. What you should use
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a schedule to do is to design the day that
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: you would most like to have. And obviously, that's going
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to include accepting some responsibility and undertaking to make progress
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: on those things that you have to make progress on
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: to keep your life from collapsing into chaos. But it
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: should also mean that you schedule in activities that make
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: you actually want to have that day. And so if
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you're using a schedule properly, that it can be your friend.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And that can also be something that can increase your
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: capacity to concentrate. And then I would say, well, if
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: you're very scattered, then you can start to train yourself.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: You might say, well, I need to learn to read
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: without distraction. So maybe what you do, you say, okay, well,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: for the next week, I'm going to read 10 minutes
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: a day, and I'm going to try to limit the distractions.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And if you're successful at that, then you could try
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: 12 minutes a day. And if you're successful at that,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you could try 15 minutes a day. And the trick
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: is to set a goal for yourself that is slightly
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: beyond your current level of performance, enough to be challenging,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: enough to be worthwhile if you accomplish, but not so
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: difficult that you're likely to fail. And then practice incrementally,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: day by day, trying to inculcate the habits that you
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: want to inculcate. And assume that it'll take you a
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: number of months or even a number of years in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: order to become very fluent at the habit. The important
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: thing is to start improving incrementally. because incremental improvement pays
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: off like compound interest. And so I would also say
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: that the trajectory that you're on is more important than
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: your starting point. And that's also an extraordinarily optimistic observation,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: because it means that direction is more important than current position.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And I mean, current position matters, obviously, but I don't
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: think it does matter as much as direction. If you
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: want to learn to concentrate more, define what constitutes concentration.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: break it into micro habits, and then start practicing instantiation
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: of those micro habits.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Make a plan.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Look at what you're interested in. Get disciplined about something.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Allow for the possibility that you have something important to
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: contribute to the world, and that the world would be
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a lesser place without that contribution. Don't be afraid of
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: taking on responsibility. It's where you find yourself. what sustains
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you in your life. You can take on too much responsibility.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You have to be cautious in that regard, but that's
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: a less common problem than not taking on enough. A
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: lot of the things that people regard as traps are
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: actually the means to their life.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: The unconscious contains habits, once voluntary, now automatized and dissociated
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: elements of the personality, which may lead to parasitic existence.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting one. I would relate that more to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: procedural memory. You know, so what you've done is practice
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: certain habits, whatever they might be. Let's call them bad habits.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And you'd like those things to get under control, but
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you can't. So maybe when you're speaking, for example, you
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: use like and you know, and you say um a lot.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And you've practiced that. So you're really good at it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And you'd like to stop it. But you don't get to.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Because you've built that little machine right into your being. Right?
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It's neurologically wired. And it's not under conscious control. And
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: anything you practice becomes that. It becomes part of you.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And that's another element of the unconscious. But it's not
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: some casual self-help doctrine. It's that if you don't. organize
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: yourself properly, you'll pay for it. And in a big way,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and so will the people around you. And I would say,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: start where you can start. You know, if something announces
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: itself to you as in need of repair, that you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: could repair, then, hey, fix it. You fix a hundred
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: things like that, your life will be a lot different. Now,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I often tell people to fix the things you repeat
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: every day because people tend to think of those as trivial.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: You get up, you brush your teeth, you have your breakfast,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you have your routines that you go through
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: every day.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Well, those probably constitute 50% of your life. And people think, well,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: they're mundane. I don't need to pay attention to them.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, that's exactly wrong. The things you
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: do every day, those are the most important things you do,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: hands down. Well, there isn't anything better to have than
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a problem that's worth solving.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Like, that's really worth solving.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Right? And so the more of that you take on,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: the more you have a reason to get out of
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: bed in the morning, no matter what. Like, I'm getting up.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I'm trudging forward. It doesn't matter what I'm suffering from.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I've got things that need to be done. They're necessary.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And that gives you that sense of purpose that is
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: the antidote to bitterness. So, yeah, there's lots of reasons to,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: you know, because I thought for a long time, imagine that,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: imagine you have a choice in front of you because
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: you do.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So here's the choice.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Your life is either meaningful or meaningless. Okay, so let's
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: go through the meaningless part first. Because you think, well,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: of course, I don't want it to be meaningless. It's like, yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: just hold on a second. Nothing you do matters. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: so impulsive pleasure is the order of the day. No responsibility.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: You can do whatever you want. It's like Pleasure Island
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: in Pinocchio. It's like Neverland in Peter Pan. You're still
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a kid. You can play all the time. Impulsive pleasure.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: and no responsibility. That's the reward for meaninglessness. Well, but
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: then the other side is, okay, well, let's say you
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: want your life to be meaningful. It's like, okay, then
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: what you do matters. It actually matters, right? Make a mistake,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: hurts you, hurts your family, hurts the world in a
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: deeper way than you think. And you have to be
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: awake to that. And then you have to take it
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: on yourself. So you're at a particular stage right now,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And that stage would involve a particular worldview and the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: behaviors that go along with that. So the perceptions and behaviors.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: But it's not enough.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Because you haven't mastered the whole world and you're making
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: mistakes all the time. And then there's other neurological mechanisms.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: So maybe that's a more left hemisphere phenomenon, the instantiation
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of that identity. Then there's right hemisphere mechanisms that are
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: tracking your errors and keeping track of them. And the
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: errors are an indication that your theory is incomplete. So
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the errors accumulate and the information around the errors accumulate
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and another identity starts to become formulated.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Solves all the problems your previous identity did, but also
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: some additional ones. When you have an aha moment like that,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: it's the manifestation of that next identity that's making itself known. It's,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you know, because it's being built from the bottom up.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: It isn't explicit yet. Then you'll encounter an explicit statement.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: You mentioned a couple there and they map onto that.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And that's the aha.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yes. Oh, yes.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: That's what ties together these things that I've been wrestling
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: with in the back of my mind. Right.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Someone made it explicit.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And that's what well, that's one of the great things
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: about language that can also help fill in the gaps, too, because,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: you know, You can start to make arguments based on
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: that observation that I have. That's the manifestation.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: That's my sense of it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: There's this balance that has to be obtained between tradition
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: and transformation. We have to have respect for both of them.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: You have to take into account what the consequence for
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: your actions is going to be on the 50-year-old Tom
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: and the 80-year-old Tom.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: How do we know when something needs to be changed?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: So we have to argue about it. And in order
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to argue about it effectively, we have to be able
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to talk to each other.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Across our identity boundaries.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And then we can decide, well, should this be maintained
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: or should this be transformed? When you make your ideal explicit,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: it turns into your judge. Well, then you can listen
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to that judge. And move forward and transform. But, you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: it's pretty damn harsh. Because especially to begin with, you
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: posit an ideal. Especially if you're in a mess. God,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: every bit of you is being judged as unworthy. It's like, wow,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: we can be really bad. We should do something about that.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Like that was unacceptable.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Unacceptable. Well, was it or not? How unacceptable?
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Was it change your life unacceptable?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Better be.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: If you want it not to happen again. And it's
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: not like the next time it happens we'll make the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: previous time look like a picnic. We're way more powerful
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: than we were. We're getting so powerful that Each individual
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: is now a force of almost unimaginable destructive power, if
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: they so choose to be.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And that's just going to.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: That power is going to continue to increase. And what
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: that means is that the degree to which each of
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: us has our act together is going to be something
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: upon which the world increasingly depends for its maintenance. Well,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: when you look back on your past, it's generally... having
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: done something difficult that you remember.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Positively, I would say.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So then there's something about you that craves difficulty, optimal
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: difficulty at least. Seeing yourself move towards a desired goal
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: is the essence of the positive emotion that nourishes us.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: And I mean that technically. That's dopaminergically mediated incentive reward.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And so you don't have to get to the goal
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: you have to aspire to the goal and move towards
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: it and that then that doesn't even matter if the
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: goal recedes which it will as you approach it because
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: your you know your ability to conjure up what constitutes
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: the ideal is going to become more sophisticated as you
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: move towards it and you might think well that's terrible
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: but it isn't because it means the game doesn't have
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: to end.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's going to get better.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And better and better your ambition if you have any
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: sense is actually to become competent do you want to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: be competent and dangerous or do you want to be
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: vague and useless It is definitely the case that there
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: is no more exceptional form of the capacity to be
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: dangerous than to be articulate.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And so it's a moral endeavor in some real sense.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: To become articulate is to become the master of your
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: own tongue. Every advantage comes with a disadvantage. So if
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you're extroverted, you're social and you're positive, but you're impulsive
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and you can tilt towards hedonism and you can't stand
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: being alone. No matter where you land in the temperamental landscape,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: you're going to have your associated faults and temptations. You've
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: got a goal, and you'll see that as you progress
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: towards the goal, there'll be obstacles that emerge, and some
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: of them you don't want to confront.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: That's why it's useful to order your room. Chaotic room
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: makes you anxious. Why? Too many pathways, man.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: People don't really repress the things they don't want to face.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: They just fail to unpack them. You want a horizon
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: of ever-expanding possibility. We're built to walk uphill. And when
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: you reach the pinnacle of the hill, you want to
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: stop and appreciate the vision. But the next thing you
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: want is a higher hill in the distance. Beware of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: unintended consequences. It's like, oh no, this thing will just
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: do what I want it to do and nothing else.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: It's like, no.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: It turns out that not only is what we want
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: from each other the real thing, but that's also the
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: adventure of your life.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And so if you aren't truthful.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: And that means, unfortunately, especially at the beginning, when you
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: start to be truthful, it means deeply coming to terms
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: with your inadequacies in humility. So it's very painful. Without that,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: you don't have the adventure of your life. You have
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: the role that you've acquiesced to. And that'll take all
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: the meaning out of your life. It's good for you
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: to go take your place in the world. Have some ambition.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Have a vision. Have a goal. Have a strategy. Try
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: to be a good person. Not because.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: It's your duty precisely because that's the proper way to live.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: You sit on the bed and say, okay, man, I'm
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: ready to learn something. What's one thing I'm doing wrong
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: that I know I'm doing wrong that I could fix?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: You meditate on that, you'll get an answer. You grow
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: in proportion to the weight you take on voluntarily. And
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: it's also true that we have no idea what.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: The upper limit to that is. It's from the uphill
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: climb that we derive our value. And I mean this technically.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: So almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: emotion that fills us with enthusiasm, and that's experienced in
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: relationship to a goal. And so in some sense, you
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: want a goal that you can never attain. So you
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: can always move closer to the goal that recedes as
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: you move towards it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: You think, well, that's frustrating. It's like Sisyphus pushing the
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: rock uphill.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: But it's not because as you pursue that goal, you
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: put yourself together and your life does get better and
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: richer and more abundant. That's why the highest levels of
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: virtue and goal are in some sense transcendent. You want
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: them to be above everything you're doing so you can
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: continually move towards something that's more sublime and better.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: That's what you are. You're here to live, not to sleep.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And the problem with the vision of Mai Tai's on
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the beach is that, well, first of all, that's a
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: vision of drug-induced unconsciousness. Second, it's only going to work
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: for about a week. Third, you're going to be a
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: laughingstock in a month and depressed and aimless and goalless.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: No, that's not. You want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And so it does happen to people because they've staked
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: their soul on the attainment of an instrumental goal. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: it can be a pretty high-order goal. But then you think,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: now I'm there.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Now what?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Well, the answer can't be Well, I'm going to live
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: in the lap of luxury and never have to leave
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the faith.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: What do you want to be?
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: A giant infant with a gold bottle? You never have
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: to do anything but lay in your back and suck?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: It's like, you see the problem with that as a conceptualization.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: It's no, you want to be like an active warrior
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: moving uphill with your sword in hand.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And that's dynamic. That's exciting.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: People are afraid of the truth because often if you
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: reveal it, it causes conflict in the moment. Telling the
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: truth is definitely an adventure. Seeking for sure, but also telling.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Another way of going about it is to just say
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: what you think and see what happens. That's an adventure
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: because you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: So look, there's this old idea that it's necessary to
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: have faith in the truth. And so here's a way
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: of thinking about that. Someone asks you a question and
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: you might think, well, here's the outcome I want. And
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: so here's how I'm going to answer that question. So
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: that's one way of approaching it. But another way of
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: approaching it is, you ask me a question, I'm going
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: to think about the answer, and I'm just going to
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: tell you what I think. And it doesn't matter what
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: the outcome is, because I'm willing to see what the
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: outcome will be, predicated on the idea that there isn't
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a better outcome than the one that truth produces. Even
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: if it's harsh and terrible in the short term, and
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: sometimes it is, it's like there isn't a better way
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: of doing it. You might say, well, how do you
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: know that? And the answer is, well, I don't know that.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: That's why it's an article of faith. Because I believe,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: and I believe this deeply, the being that you produce
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: as a consequence of telling the truth is good by definition.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Even though it's harsh and often uncomfortable because you get
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: in trouble. One of the things that I've really learned
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: recently or learned to articulate better is that there's a
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: very tight relationship Between aspiration and responsibility. The first question
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: might be, do you need to aspire to something? And
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: the answer is, well, yes, because you have to do something.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: If you just sit there, you'll die. You can't just
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: sit there. You have to go act out in the world. Okay,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: so act towards what? Well, that's whatever your aspiration is.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: You have to have an aim. Okay, well, what should
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the aim be? Well, it should be something worth doing,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: let's say. Why do something that you don't feel is
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: worth doing? What do you think is worth doing? Well,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: if you watch other people and you judge when they're
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: doing something worthwhile, you usually judge them positively if you
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: see that they're taking responsibility, at least for themselves. What,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: do you want to be completely useless so other people
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: have to take care of you?
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: That's pretty pathetic.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And maybe you could get your act together so you're
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: taking care of yourself and your family. And maybe you
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: could even do better than that and take care of
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: yourself and your family and your community.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Well, good for you. That's responsibility and that's an aim.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Well, here's one of the things that's cool about that
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: is that your life doesn't have meaning without aspiration or
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: an aim. Okay, so you need a hierarchy of values.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: There's got to be something at the top. It's got
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: to be something important. If you don't have that, your
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: life doesn't have any meaning.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So if you criticize the hierarchy or even the idea
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of hierarchy, you destroy the idea of aspiration. And then
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: people have nothing. Well, that's not helpful.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: People are built for a struggle and they're built for
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: a weight. And you want to take on a heavy
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: burden voluntarily. See if you can put yourself together. See
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: what you can do out in the world while you're
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: waiting to die.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: It's an all-in game. It better be worthwhile.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It took me a long time to understand that belief
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: regulated emotion. So what happens is that if you act
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: out your identity, if you act out your beliefs in
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the world, and what you want doesn't happen, what happens
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: is that your body defaults into emergency preparation for action.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And the reason for that is you've wandered too far
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: away from the campfire and now you're in the forest
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and maybe you're naked. And so what do you do then?
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And the answer is, well, you don't know what to do.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: So what do you do when you don't know what
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: to do? And the answer is you prepare to do everything.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: And the problem with that is that it's unbelievably draining psychophysiologically.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Like it hurts you. And there's an immense physiological literature
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: detailing the cost of exactly that kind of response. People
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: stay where what they do has the results they want.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: That's partly why you want to be around people who
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: share your cultural presuppositions. It's very hard on us not
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: to be where we know that what we want is
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: going to happen. We hate that. And no wonder there
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: are varying degrees of that, obviously. You can really be
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: where you don't know what's going to happen or you
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: can only be there to some degree. But by and large,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: we're conservative creatures. Even if we're liberal in temperament, we
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: can't tolerate that much uncertainty. You might ask, well, why?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: And the answer is, well, because you can be hurt, pain,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: you can be damaged, you can become intolerably anxious, and
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: you can die. So it's no wonder you're sensitive or
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: very sensitive to negative emotions.