Name: Jordan Peterson - How To Stop Rotting Away At Home
Uploaded: 2019-07-02T14:19:16.000Z
Duration: 12 min 3 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

There's this idea in Jungian psychology, called the circumambulation.

And Jung had this idea, that you had a potential, future self,

which would be, in potential, everything that you could be.

And that it manifests itself - moment to moment, in your present life - by making you interested in things.

And the things that you're interested in, are the things that would guide you along the path, that would lead you to maximal development.

Now, it sounds like a metaphysical idea, or a mystical idea even, but it's not.

It's not, it's a really profoundly biological idea.

"Well, you're set up so that you're automatically interested in those things, that would fully expand you as a well-adapted creature".

Well, like... there's nothing radical about that idea.

How el- what else could possibly be the case?

Unless there's something fundamentally flawed about you, that is what the situation would be.

It's kinda interesting to think, about how that would be manifested moment to moment, but the idea is something like:

"Well, your interest is captured by those things that lead you down the path of development".

Well, that better be the case.
Okay, so that's fine.

And so, there's some utility in pursuing those things, that you're interested in.

So... and the call to adventure takes you all sorts of places.

Now, the problem with the call to adventure is - like, what the hell do you know?

You might be interested in things, that are kinda warped and bent.

And often it's the case, that when new parts of people manifest themselves,

and grip their interest, say, they do it very badly and shoddily.

And so, you stumble around like an idiot, when you try to do something new.

That's why the fool is the precursor to the Savior, from the... from the symbolic perspective.

It's cause you have to be a fool,
before you can be a master,

and if you're not willing to be a fool,
then you can't be a master. So...

-error ridden process,
and that's also laid out in the Old Testament stories,

because the first thing that happens to all these patriarchal figures,

when God kicks them out of their father's house when they're like 84, is that they-

They run into all sorts of trouble.
And some of it's social, and some of it's natural,

some of it's a consequence of their moral inadequacy.

the thing that's so interesting, is that despite the fact that they're fools, they're still supposed to go on the adventure,

and that they're capable of learning enough, as a consequence of moving forward on the adventure,

so that they straighten themselves out across time.

this circumambulation, that Jung talked about, was this

continual - we'll return to this - this continual circling, in some sense, of who you could be.

You might notice, for example, that there are themes in your life, you know,

when you go back across your experiences, you see- you kind of have your typical experience, that sort of repeats itself.

There might be variation on it, like a musical theme, but it's- it's like...

you're circling yourself and getting closer to yourself, as you move across time.

That's the circumambulation.
Now, remember that for a sec, because we'll go back to it.

Okay, so imagine that something glimmers before you,

it's an- an interest that's dawning, and you decide-

well first of all, you're paralyzed, you think:

"Well, how do I know if I should pursue that?
It's probably a stupid idea".

You're right, it probably is a stupid idea,
because almost all ideas are stupid.

The probability that - as you move forward on your adventure - that you're gonna get it right, the first time, is zero.

And so, then you might think: "Well, maybe I'll just wait around, until I get the right idea".

And which people do, right? So they're like 40-year-old thirteen year olds, which is not a good idea.

And so, they wait around until-
it's Waiting for Godot, until they finally got it right,

but the problem is - you're too stupid to know when you've got it right,

Because even if the perfect opportunity manifested itself to you, in your incomplete form,

the probability, that you would recognize it as the perfect opportunity, is zero.

You might even think it's the worst possible idea that you've ever heard of anywhere.

[stutter] So- so you ha- there's- Nietzsche-

Nietzsche called that a "will to stupidity", which I really liked,

so... because he thought of stupidity as being, it-

You know, it'-s it's- you have to take it into account, fundamentally, and work with it.

And so- and so you can take these tentative steps, on your pathway to destiny.

And you can assume, that you're gonna do it badly.

And that's really useful, because you don't have to beat yourself up. It's pretty easy to do it badly.

But the thing is - it's way better to do it badly, than not to do it at all.

And that's the continual message, that echoes through these historical stories in Genesis.

They- they should have got the hell out of their house way before they did.

And they go out, and they stumble around in tyranny, and famine, and self-betrayal, and- and violence and...

But it's a hell of a lot better,
than just rotting away at home.

And that's the-
that's great, so, that's good.

And so, why is that? Well okay, so you you start your path,

and you think that you're heading, you know, towards your star,

then - because you're here, the world looks a particular way,

but then, when you move here, the world looks different.

And you're different, as a consequence of having made that voyage.

And so, what that means, is that now that thing that glimmers in front of you,

Because you weren't very good at specifying it to begin with,

and now that you're a little sharper and more focused than you were,

it's- it's going to reveal itself with more accuracy to you.

You know, it's almost like a 180° reversal.
But it isn't, because you know, you've...

I mean, you've gone this far,
and that's a long ways to get that far.

But, that's a lot farther than you would be,
if you just stayed where you were, waiting.

So, it doesn't matter that you overshoot, continually.

even if you don't learn, what you should have done,

you're going to continually learn, what you shouldn't keep doing.

And, if you learn enough about what you shouldn't keep doing, then...