[ Featuring Jordan Peterson ]
"I've listened carefully to your Cain and Abel lecture
But waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
There is a part of me that revels in riding these waves, but can I harness them for a good?"
God you guys, you ask the hardest questions!
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
There's a part of me that revels in riding these waves, but can I harness them for good?
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
It's probably time for a little bit of individual psychoanalysis
You're generalising, you know, you say waves of contempt for existence itself
Keep coming but I don't believe that that's exactly right
I'm certainly not accusing you of being deceitful, it's more like low resolution
My suspicions are, is that there is a set of experiences that you've had
That are characteristic to your own personal life
That have caused you some bitterness and some resentment
And that those haven't been thought through
Usually thinking through means trying to take as much responsibility
For altering the conditions under which those things happened
Going forward into the future as possible
Like the purpose of memory is to stop you from doing the same stupid things in the future, right?
If you've had experiences that have made you bitter and resentful
Or are still engaged in experiences that are doing that
Then you need to do a careful micro-analysis of what those are and see if you can
See if you can flip your attitude in some manner
I'm not saying this is easy, but the first thing you could do
Is at least figure out what those memories are
You can kind of tell if something needs work from a memory perspective
If it occurred more than about 18 months ago and when you remember
It still causes like a wave of sadness or anger
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
There's a part of me that revels in riding these waves
But can I harness them for good?
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
What that means is that your brain is still targeting that experience as threatening and unexplored
And what that means is that, in some sense, part of you that could exist is still stuck in that memory
Because you can go back and do a careful causal analysis of the events
That led up to the unfortunate circumstance and try to map out your role, even if your role is minor
There is going to be things that you could've done differently to avoid it
And that's what you need to figure out for the future
I would say you try to shed all your personal resentment
A part of that too is to not take things too personally
There's nothing personal about the fact that terrible things happen to you
I mean unless you're directly causally involved
As it says, I believe in the Old Testament, rains on the just and the unjust alike
The tragedy and difficulty and even the confrontation with evil
Are built into the structure of existence and it's not aimed at you personally
It may be the price that we pay for existence itself
You could say well that price is too high to pay
But if you start thinking that way then you make everything much much worse
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
There's a part of me that revels in riding these waves, but can I harness them for good?
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
It seems better to shoulder your cross voluntarily
And stumble forward towards the light, that's the best strategy
And just because it's the best strategy doesn't even necessarily mean
It's always going to work, like this is no optimistic scenario
Like, a dragon is no optimistic scenario
Confront the dragon, get the gold and bring it back to share with the community
And you know that sounds all well and good but after all it is a dragon
And many people get eaten by them
The myth basically says, well, your best bet is to open your eyes
And speak the truth and look forward forthrightly
And confront the hydras that are raising their heads and their tentacles constantly
To frighten you and stop you, and to fight the tyranny of the social structure
When it's oppressing you unduly
And that's what you have to do but I would say if that contempt is there man
That's really worth digging into
That would be the place where you discover the Jungian shadow
Because you discover that contempt is an unbelievably destructive force
It would be useful for you to try to think about, you can use fantasy to do this
It's like ok if you let that contempt manifest itself fully in like a dream
Or a daydream and then you let it go on a rampage, what's the vision exactly?
I mean is it the destruction of the town?
Is it the destruction of the country?
Do you want the entire world to blow up?
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
There's a part of me that revels in riding these waves, but can I harness them for good?
Waves of contempt for existence itself keep coming
Are there specific people that you're angry at?
Or maybe you're angry at yourself?
Those waves of contempt are unarticulated elements of experience and they're part of your shadow
So, can you harness them for good?
Well, the more you understand your dark urges the more likely
You are to be able to regulate and control them and to use them as part of your power
A person who has authority is someone who's integrated the dangerous parts of themselves
And that's part of what gives their words gravitas and weight
And so, yes, I think that you can harness them for good
And I think that's the right thing to do, but it will involve a fair bit of painful soul searching
