The Art of Being Dangerous - Jordan Peterson Motivation

You said that a harmless man is not a good man.

A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.

How should people become more dangerous?

Becoming more articulate is definitely that's the primary array of weapons.

If you can think and speak and write, you are absolutely deadly.

Nothing can get in your way.

So that's why you learn to write.

It's like it's power and I mean power of the best sort.

It's authority and influence and respectability and competence.

And so you come to university to craft your highest skill

and your highest skill is to be found in articulated speech.

And if you're a master at formulating your arguments, you win everything.

You need to learn to think.

Because thinking makes you act effectively in the world.

Thinking makes you win the battles you undertake.

And those could be battles for good things.

And if you can formulate your arguments coherently and make a presentation,

if you can speak to people, if you can lay out a proposal, God,

people give you money, they give you opportunities, you have influence.

Teach Teach people to be articulate.

Because that's the most dangerous thing you can possibly be.

So and that's motivating if people know that.

It's like, well, why are you learning to write?

Because you're Here's your sword.

Here's your M-16, right?

Here's your bulletproof vest.

Like you learn how to use them.

It's very helpful for people to hear

that they should make themselves competent

and dangerous and take their proper place in the world.

Competent and dangerous?

Mhm.

Why dangerous?

Because it's the alternative to being weak.

Because it makes you formidable.

Even if the world was conspiring against me

and my failure was 95% the fault of external occurrences

and other people.

What did I do

that wasn't as good

as it could have been

and where did I fail to look

so that the probability of my failure was higher.

Now now to ask that question, you have to want the answer.

That's that's what it means to knock or to ask or to seek.

This this is no joke.

It's like you have to want to know

and it's a very painful thing to do

because especially if you had given it your all to the degree you were

able and you have reason to be bitter you're going to be searching for

the errors that you still made

and discovering your own errors is always extremely painful,

right?

Especially if there are errors that you're in love with.

And so you have to be willing to strip yourself down.

That's what humility means fundamentally.

But the advantage is this is why it's so useful to listen to people.

You might find out where you're stupid.

And then you could stop being stupid.

And so one of the reasons you confess your sins, let's say,

is because you want to discover where you're insufficient.

Now it's painful.

You know, it's painful to encounter an an impediment in the form of someone

else's opinion that might show you where you're blind

and ignorant or willfully blind even.

But the advantage to

that is you can rectify the error

and then as you move forward you're stronger.

You know, one of the things I taught my kids

and I hopefully at least somewhat successfully was

that you should always ask a stupid question.

And and that doesn't mean the sort of question

that someone who wasn't paying attention would ask.

If you're listening to someone

and you don't understand what they're saying

and you reveal that you're revealing your ignorance.

You know, and maybe you're in a room full of people

and you think you're the only person stupid enough to not get it,

which is very rarely the case, by the way.

The thing is though,

if you if you reveal

that ignorance to yourself

and to the other person they can rectify it.

And if you do that a thousand times, you're not ignorant anymore.

If you ask a thousand dumb questions and you listen to the answer,

then you know a thousand things, some of them deep,

that you didn't know before.

So, that's the That's the advantage to searching your soul, let's say,

for the for unrequited sins and attempting to atone.

That's not a delusion, right?

It's an attempt to set yourself right.

And so, you write an autobiography

because you need to know where you are

and who you are right now.

Because how the hell are you going to plot a pathway to the future

unless you know where you are?

And then you need to write about the future

because you aren't going to hit something unless you aim at it.

That's for sure.

And lots of times people won't aim at what they want because they're afraid.

The reason they're afraid is because if you specify what you want,

you've specified your conditions of failure.

You know when you fail.

And it's better just to keep it foggy.

It's like, well, I don't know if I'm succeeding or failing, but you know,

I can't really tell.

Well, great.

Except you can't hit anything you don't aim at.

And so, the future authoring problem program is like a it's a an attempt

to have you articulate your character.

And And so is the past authoring program.

Who are you?

Important events that have shaped who you are.

And you know, you may find

that some of those some of

that writing makes you emotional.

And I would say,

if you have a memory that's more than 18 months old, roughly speaking,

and when you bring it to mind, it it has an emotional impact,

especially a negative emotional impact,

there's it's like part of your soul is stuck back there.

And I know that's a metaphorical way of thinking about it,

but what I mean is

that the reason that you still experience the emotion is

because you have not solved the problem

that that situation faced you with.

It might be a real problem.

Like maybe you got tangled up with someone who was really bad,

and that's rough, man,

because you got to come up with a theory of malevolence to deal with

something like that,

and that's no joke.

But, if it still produces emotion, it means you haven't solved the problem.

And and your your brain is still tagging it as threat.

It's It's a part of your territory that you did not master.

Threat, threat, threat, threat, threat.

And until you take it apart, and articulation really helps that,

writing really helps that, then you're not going to free yourself from its grip.

Put yourself together.

And then maybe if you put yourself together, you know how to do that.

You know what's wrong with you, if you'll admit it.

You know there's a few things you could like polish up a little bit,

that you might even be able to manage in your insufficient present condition.

And so you might shine yourself up a little bit,

and then your eyes will be a little more open,

then you could shine yourself up a little bit more,

and then maybe you could bring your family together instead of having them be

the hateful,

spiteful, neurotic, infighting batch that you're like doomed to spend Christmas with.

So then you fix yourself up a little bit, kind of humbly, because,

you know, God, you're a fixer-upper if there ever was one.

And then you got to figure out, well,

what can you figure out how to make peace with your idiot brother?

And probably not, because he's just as dumb as you.

So then how the hell are you going to manage that?

And so then you maybe you get somewhere that way,

and your family's sort of functioning, and you find out, well,

that kind of relieved a little bit of suffering,

although it reduced the opportunities for spiteful revenge,

and that's kind of a pain in the neck.

And so then you get your family together a little bit,

and you're a little clued in then, at least a bit,

because you've done something difficult that's actually difficult.

You're a little wiser,

and so then maybe you could put a tentative finger out beyond the family,

and try to change some little thing without wrecking it.

It's like our society is complex,

and we teach our students that they could just fix it.

It's like, go fix a military helicopter

and see how far you get with

that.

It's like, you're going to get it done.

You're like a chimp with a wrench.

Whack.

Oh, look, it's better.

It's like, no, it's not better.

Things are complicated, and to fix things is really hard,

and you have to be like a golden tool to fix things,

and you're not.

How do you overcome the suffering of life?

Just be a better person.

That's how you do it.

Well, that's hard.

It takes responsibility.

And I think, you know, if you said to someone,

you want to have a meaningful life, everything you do matters.

That's the definition of a meaningful life.

But everything you do matters.

You're going to have to carry that with you.

Or do you want to just forget about the whole meaning thing,

and then you don't have any responsibility, because who the hell cares?

And you can wander through life doing whatever you want,

gratifying impulsive desires for how useful that's going to be.

And you're stuck in meaninglessness, but you don't have any responsibility.

Which one do you want?

Well, ask yourself, which one are you pursuing?

I've realized that it's scary

when you find a thing

that you're going to fully commit yourself to the pursuit of,

especially if it's excellence that you're going after,

because there's no more room for your inadequacies to hide.

There's no more ejector seat, right?

I've committed to this.

Commit to at least one thing.

>> As hard as you can, and and and see what happens.

I had a rule with my clients, because, you know, you might say, well,

I've gone halfway down this path, and I found out it's wrong.

Well, how do you distinguish that from just giving up?

Well, that's a really hard question, right?

It's It's a moral hazard.

Cuz it's inappropriate to continue in a direction you now realize to be wrong,

but it's also inappropriate to give up and use that rationalization as an excuse.

And how do you distinguish >> Especially since as not transparent to ourselves.

>> Well, right, exactly.

So, that is genuinely a moral hazard.

You can change course

as long as the next thing you do is equally

or more difficult.

Cuz that's a check against just giving up.

So, you want to discipline yourself

so you can get yourself organized

so that you can go in a particular direction.

So, that when you find the right direction,

you can really go in that direction.

And that does require an apprenticeship of sorts.

And it it might not matter in some sense exactly what the apprenticeship is

as long as it is rigorous.

Right?

And so, that's sort of a bridge between moral relativism and moral absolutism.

There's lots of games you can play.

It's not that obvious a priori which is the best game.

So, that's kind of a morally relative stance.

There's multiple playable games.

But then the absolute is, "Yeah, but you have to play one of them.

You have to learn to play one of them.

Have become an expert at least one of them."

And then that's not a relative proposition.

And I I believe that's true.

I That seems to me to be the case.

So, you want to commit to something.

And then you have When you commit to something,

you require yourself to bring all of your disparate components moving in a single

direction,

united in a single direction.

So, it's a unifying It's a unifying act.

And then once having been unified, well,

then you can bring that unity to bear on a variety of different tasks.

But you have to bring it together first.

So, and that that makes sense developmentally.

You see children start out

as a disparate bundle of motivations

and emotions sort of warring with one another.

And then they can integrate

that into single games

that they can play with themselves.

And then they integrate that with games they start to play with other people.

And all of that is integration.

It's not subjugation.

It's not repression.

Not if it's a good game.

It's integration.

You want to get integrated

because then you have all the horses

that are pulling your chariot pulling in the same direction.

And you're much more likely to get to where you want to go then.

And also much more likely to specify a good place to go.

Do you think that there's a usefulness in having a a nemesis to motivate

you?

I try to avoid making enemies of people

or groups or ideas

or Don't make unnecessary enemies.

But there is an extra level of fire

that gets lit underneath you

when you're going up against someone.

And I miss it sometimes.

There's a price that you pay for peace.

Yeah, well, then you just have to look at yourself harder

and find the nemesis.

Cuz it's there all the time.

Right?

I mean, there's always parts of yourself that you can overcome.

Now, if you need something to grapple with you probably do.

You can find that.

You just look inside.

You'll find something to grapple with.

You know, inadequacy, weakness, susceptibility to temptation, narcissism, pride, envy, revenge, resentment, frustration,

lack of faith, all of that.

That that'll keep you occupied if you really grapple with it.

And yeah, I mean, that's an ancient theological question.

You know, what's up with the devil?

Why why is the why does the possibility of evil exist?

Why is there a eternal adversary?

Why would God God construct a reality where an adversary exists?

And maybe it's because all things considered a world with an adversary is a

better world.

Just like a garden with a snake in it is a better garden.

These things aren't easy to understand.

No no snake, no necessity to contend with snakes.

Right?

So, why be awake at all?

No adversary, no challenge.

Why be challenged?

Because maybe you're better for the challenge.

And maybe that's the challenge to see

if you can be better for the challenge.

But that should be internal.

Well, fundamentally, well, if it isn't,

you'll find it externally cuz you'll demonize someone to turn them into Satan

so that you can find an adversary.

And then that's very unfortunate for you and for them.

That's the problem. >> as big a battle.

It's like you you battle with someone external who's malevolent, let's say,

or you think they are, and usually you've got that mostly wrong,

but not always.

But if the battle is inside, which is where it's supposed to be,

but most fundamentally, then well, then it's the ultimate It is the ultimate challenge.

And that's the infinite game.

The external one is >> Battle between good

and evil on a playing field of chaos

and order.

It's the eternal game.