but this four year period that has been
carved out of your lives by society they
it’s it’s given you an identity like a
high quality identity and freedom at the
same time and you’re not gonna get that
again in your life you’ve got a you’ve
got a respectable identity University
student and complete freedom associated
with that or as near as you’re ever
going to get and you’ve got these
unbelievable libraries that are full of
the writings of people who are who are
intelligent and articulate beyond
comprehension and you know and and you
can go there and you can learn all this
and you might think well why should you
learn it well you’ve learned it to get a
job or you learn it to get good grades
or you learn it to get a degree and
that’s all nonsense
it’s nonsense the reason that you come
to university to be educated is because
there is nothing more powerful than
someone who is articulate and who can
think and speak its power and I mean
power of the best sort and its 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 if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins too because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world
well there’s nothing more exciting to do
than that there’s nothing better you can
possibly do and to think that you’re
coming to University to be you know
trained to have a job it’s like great
that’s a hell of a lot better than being
unemployed and covered with cheeto dust
while you’re snacking away in front of
your video game in the basement you’re
spectacular you’ve you’re you’re all
capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise man
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here yeah they’re just everyone’s just
praying that you would come here and
manifest everything that you could
manifest and that’s what you should be
doing instead of waving placards and
complaining about how you’re oppressed
for God’s sake the only reason you’re
not rich is cuz you’re young you know
that’s the best really that’s them if
you look at the 1% even the dreaded 1%
you know most of those people are all
why well when you progress through life
if you’re reasonably successful you
trade in your promising youth for your
wealthy old age but you’re still bloody
old would you would you trade it would
you trade your youth for that like if
you factor age out of the economic
equation things look a lot different
well of course older people have more
money if they have any sense they’ve
been collecting it for their whole life
is that somehow unfair it’s not unfair
unless you want to want to be
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 and you
and you don’t want to be poverty or
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 so I
just don’t understand what’s happened to
the universities I can’t believe that
you’re not told when you come the first
day look man you are out you’re here on
a heroic mission you’re going to take
your capacity to articulate yourself to
levels that are undreamed-of you’re
gonna come out of here unstoppable
you’re going to be able to do anything
you want it’s like that’s what you’re
here for
instead you’re taught that well you know
the world is a pretty oppressive place
and you’re probably at the bottom of the
victim pile and and and there’s and
there’s there’s virtually nothing you
could do about it except no deconstruct
the patriarchy and it’s so weak beed and
so pathetic that
that university should be embarrassed
that that’s what they’re peddling to
students I’m embarrassed by them
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self destructive I need to take care of
myself as if I’m potentially valuable
and to lay out my life that way and so
that’s what that’s that chapter is about
and it’s it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes tell ins mother
made you know and she probably didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important mm-hmm you don’t know
how your actions echo and so it matters
what you do and and so part of what you
do is you want to treat yourself as if
what you do matters you know if you take
people then you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t
avoid doing what you knew you needed to
do what would you be like well you know
there are remarkable people who come
into the world from time to time and
there are people who do find out over
decades long periods what they could be
like if they were who they were if they
spoke their being forward and they’d be
get stronger and stronger and stronger
and we don’t know the limits to that we
do not know the limits to that probably
running at about 51% of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like 4 to 6
hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably four hours right there know it
you think well that’s 2025 hours a week
it’s a hundred hours a month that’s two
and a half full work weeks it’s half a
year of work weeks per year and so if
your life isn’t everything it could be
you could ask yourself well what would
happen if you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
10 times more efficient 20 times more
efficient that’s the Pareto distribution
you have no idea how efficient efficient
people get it’s completely oh it’s off
the charts it’s not so obvious to me
that people would take the meaningful
path now when you say well nihilist
suffered dreadfully because there’s no
meaning in their life and they still
suffer yeah but the advantages they have
no responsibility so that’s the payoff
and I actually think that’s the
motivation say well I can’t help being
nihilistic all my belief systems have
collapsed it’s like yeah maybe maybe
you’ve just allowed them to collapse
because it’s a hell of a lot easier than
acting them out and the price you pay is
some meaningless suffering but you can
always whine about that and people will
feel sorry for you if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell you’re asked to outline
the place you’d like to end up which is
your desired future and also the place
that you could end up if you let
everything fall apart is so that your
anxiety chases you
and your approach systems pull you
forward your maximally motivated debt
and it’s important because otherwise you
can be afraid of pursuing the things
that you want to pursue
right and that’s very common and so then
the fear inhibits you as the promise
pulls you forward but it makes you weak
because you’re afraid you want to get
your fear behind you pushing you and so
what you want to be is afraid more
afraid of not pursuing your goals then
you are of pursuing them putting
yourself in a challenging mind frame is
much better much easier on you psycho
physiologically because you don’t
produce you don’t go into the
generalized stress response to the same
degree and you’re activating your
exploratory and seeking systems which
are dopaminergic Lee mediated and that
involve positive emotion so if you can
face something voluntarily rather than
having to chase you it’s way better for
you psycho physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that they pop
their ugly little head up and you know
and you might want to turn away might
not want not want to think about it
which is the easiest way of turning away
right you just don’t attend to it you
know if you could have your life the way
you wanted it in three to five years if
you were taking care of yourself
properly
what would you want from your
friendships what would you want from
your intimate relationship how would you
like to structure your family what do
you want for your career well how are
you going to use your time outside of
your job and how are you gonna regulate
your mental physical mental and physical
health and maybe also your drug and
alcohol use because that’s that’s a good
place to auger down you know because
alcoholism for example wipes out you
know five to ten percent of people so
you want to keep that under control and
then and then so maybe you know you you
you develop a vision of what your life
what you would like your life to be and
that associates the so the goal well
once the goal is established and then
you break down the goal into micro
processes that you could implement the
micro process has become rewarding in
relation to their causal association
with the goal and that tangles in your
your incentive reward system and that’s
the thing that keeps you moving forward
and the way it works is that it works
better if it produces positive emotion
when it can see you moving towards a
valued goal okay well what’s the
implication of that better have a valued
goal because otherwise you can’t get any
positive motivation working out and so
the more valuable the goal in principle
the more the micro process is associated
with that goal start to take on a
positive charge and so what that means
is well you get up in the morning and
you’re excited about the day you’re
ready to go and so as far as I can tell
what you do is you specify your long
term ideal maybe you also specify a
place you want to stay the hell away
from so that you’re terrified to fail as
well as excited about succeeding because
that’s also useful you specify your goal
you do that you do that in some sense as
a unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile number one specify your damn
goals because how are you gonna hit
something if you don’t know what it is
that isn’t going to happen and often
people won’t specify their goals too
because they don’t like to specify can
dishes for failure so if you keep
yourself all vague and foggy which is
real easy because that’s just a matter
of not doing as well then you don’t know
when you fail and people might say well
I really don’t want to know when I fail
because that’s painful so I’ll keep
myself blind about when I fail that’s
fine except you’ll fail all the time
then you just won’t know it until you’ve
failed so badly that you’re done okay so
once you get your goal structure set up
you think okay if I could have this life
looks like that might be worth living
despite the fact that it’s going to be
you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life
such that all things considered that
justifies your effort okay so then what
do you do well then then you turn down
to the micro routines it’s like okay
well this is what I’m aiming for how
does that instantiate itself day to day
week to week month to month and that’s
where something like a schedule can be
unbelievably useful Google Calendar it’s
like make a damn schedule and stick to
it okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want what’s
the right ratio of responsibility to
reward and you can ask yourself that
just like you’d negotiate with someone
who is working for you it’s like okay go
I work tomorrow okay so I want you to
work tomorrow and you might say okay
well what are you gonna do for me that
makes it likely that I’ll work for you
well you could ask yourself that you
know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that’d be good great
you know and you you’re useless and
horrible so you’ll probably only
with about 70% accuracy but that beats
the hell out of zero right and if you
hit it even with 50% accuracy another
rule is well aim for 51% the next week
or 50 and a half percent for God’s sake
or because you’re gonna hit that
position where things start to loop back
positively and spiral you upward and so
so that’s one way that you can work on
your conscientiousness is a plan of life
you’d like to have the other way you do
that is by having a little conversation
with yourself about as if you don’t
really know who you are because you know
what you like you won’t do what you’re
told you won’t do what you tell yourself
to do you must have noticed that it’s
like you’re a bad employee and a worse
boss and both of those work you know for
you you don’t know what you want to do
and then when you tell yourself what to
do you don’t do it anyways you should
fire yourself and find someone else to
be but but you know my point is is that
you have to understand that you’re not
your own servant so to speak you’re
someone that you have to negotiate with
and that’s and you’re someone that you
want to present the opportunity of
having a good life to and that’s hard
for people because they don’t like
themselves very much so you know they’re
always like cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30 whatever maybe it’s a
hundred it’s somewhere in that range
one of the things you should be asking
yourself is when you spend an hour was
that well what have I paid someone 50
bucks to have had that hour and if the
answer is no it’s like well maybe you
should do something else with your time
and it depends on whether or not you
think that your times
while but the funny thing about not
assuming that is if you assume your time
isn’t worthwhile what happens is you
don’t just sit around sort of randomly
in a state of responsibility list bliss
what you do is you suffer existentially
he’s sad to see that people are
disenchanted and nihilistic and
depressed and anxious and aimless and
and perverse and vengeful and and all of
those things it’s terrible and then to
see people question whether that’s
necessary and then to start to rise out
of it it’s like it’s so fun like last
night I was at after my talk it’s
I don’t usually think about these things
but I was I was after my talk last night
and so all these people line up and you
know they have their 15 15 seconds with
me and they’re kind of tentative they’re
excited and attentive when they come up
to talk to me and then they have you
know 15 seconds of time to tell me
something I’m really listening to them
and they’re hesitant about whether or
not to share the good news about their
life you know and I think it’s often
because when people share good news
about their life people don’t
necessarily respond positively you know
they don’t get encouragement and people
need so little encouragement it’s just
unbelievable and so there comes
something good and I think ah that’s so
good you know if somebody says hold I’m
getting along way better with my father
I haven’t seen him for 10 years and now
we get along great
and then the power of that you can’t
overstate the power of that for
individuals to get their life together
the individual is an unbelievably
powerful force and every single person
who gets their act together a little bit
has the capacity to spread that around
them it’s it’s a chain reaction and so
it’s a lovely thing to see
after treat yourself like you matter
because if you don’t then you don’t take
care of yourself and you become vengeful
and and and cruel and you you take you
take it out on people around you and
you’re not a positive force none of
that’s good
so you suffer more and so does everyone
around you and there’s a malevolence
that enters into it none of that’s good
so that’s what happens if you don’t
treat yourself like you matter and then
what happens if you don’t treat other
people like they matter
well you lie to them you cheat them you
steal you you enter into impulsive
relationships with them they can’t trust
you that doesn’t go anywhere they don’t
like you you you end up alone at best
and maybe like incarcerated at worst
like that doesn’t work and so you watch
the people around you who thrive
regardless of what they say they act out
the proposition that everyone matters
and then you have a functional Society
and I think ok well if if if when you
act out the proposition that everyone
matters you have a functional society
maybe that’s evidence that that
proposition is true it’s like I think
it’s I think it’s true one of the things
that’s really interesting about the old
testament is that and the Jews in the
Old Testament is that they don’t take
the path of Kain every time they’re
walloped by God which is like fairly
frequently they say we must have done
something wrong and we have to set our
self right and that’s a an unbelievably
heroic attitude because that’s the
alternative to cursing fate it’s like
you take the responsibility for failure
unto yourself and you think well if I
was just maybe if I just had my act
together a little bit more if I took
advantage of every opportunity that was
put in front of me if I wasn’t resentful
and bitter then I could have done
something that would have tilted the
situation in a different direction and
like that’s almost inevitably true
Dostoevsky I think said something like
every man is responsible for everything
that happens to him and everything that
happens to everyone else and that’s you
know that that’s that’s it’s a crazy
statement right it’s a crazy statement
and he was a pretty extreme person in
many many ways but there’s a level at
which that’s metaphysically true
you know because what happens is that
it’s you its failure to act often that’s
the most catastrophic you know I mean
I’ve it’s it’s it’s to not do the right
thing when the when the situation
presents itself and it’s very specific
you know you’re constantly in situations
where you could do the right thing if
you were willing to take a risk that’s
actually of relatively moderate size and
you know that you could take the risk
and you know that you should take the
risk and you don’t and that happens to
people all the time and then what
happens is the thing that they didn’t
oppose grows a little bit and they
shrink a little bit and that starts a
loop a psychologist’s have been not all
psychologists obviously but the
psychological profession is its neck
deep in this in this pathology has been
beating these self-esteem drum for 50
years
oh no you’re okay you should feel good
about yourself like you’re fine the way
you are it’s like you think well that’s
a calming message for people it’s like
no it’s not it’s not at all and I watch
my audience this is like it’s full of
people in the audience who think I’m
suffering a lot more than I think is
tenable a whole bunch of it’s my fault
my life is not in the order it should be
I know I’m doing 50 things wrong it’s
like what the hell’s wrong with me
what’s wrong with the people around me
this is really serious and some you know
well-meaning person comes up and says oh
you’re okay just the way you are it’s
like no one wants that message it’s like
no I’m not okay the way I am I’m not
okay at all the way I am I know that and
so you know when I’m when I’m speaking
to to when I’m speaking now I say to
people well oh you’re nowhere near what
you could be that’s that that’s the
positive message it’s like yeah you’re a
mess but you don’t have to stay that way
cause you’re a mess you know it
obviously you’re suffering away like
like so much you can barely tolerate it
it’s like that’s okay you can do
something about it so yeah that’s the
thing that that turns the lights on it’s
there’s a line in the New Testament
that’s relevant to that do not cast
pearls before swine and what that means
is that if people are not listening to
you stop talking to them and that’s
really that is the best piece of advice
that I can give you and what happens is
is that if you stop talking to people
who aren’t listening to you and start
watching them instead they will tell you
what they’re up to but so if you have
things to say you say them but you find
people that will listen talk to them the
ones who aren’t listening pull back
because you’re you’re devaluing what you
have to say by offering it to an
audience that does nothing but reject it
and that’s a good guideline to life in
general so you’re harmless you’re not
virtuous you’re just harmless you’re
like a rabbit rabbit isn’t virtuous
it’s just just can’t do anything except
get eaten it’s not virtuous if you’re a
monster and you don’t act monstrously
then you’re virtuous but you also have
to be a monster while you see this all
the time Harry Potter’s like that too
it’s like he’s flawed he’s hurt he’s got
evil in him he can talk to snakes man he
breaks rules all the time all the time
he’s not an obedient at all but you know
he has a good reason for breaking the
rules
and if he couldn’t break the rules him
and his little clique of rule breaking
you know troublemakers if they didn’t
break the rules
they wouldn’t attain the highest goal so
it’s very peculiar but it’s it’s very
fair it’s a very very very very common
mythological notion you know the hero
has to be the hero has to be a monster
but a controlled monster Batman is like
that I mean it’s it’s every words tore
story you always hear I know you stated
in the last lecture that the importance
for city life and to kind of have goals
to work towards right so my question was
where do you how do you do that if you
don’t know where you want to go because
that’s kind of where I got stuck on
you’re your future off offering program
because okay that’s that’s a good
question that’s a really good question
so there’s this notion in the Old
Testament that morality is following a
sequence of prohibitions there’s a bunch
of bad things you shouldn’t do and then
basically you’re good enough and and and
I think there’s wisdom in that I think
that’s kind of where children start
right you I mean I love children and all
that but they’re they’re they’re crazy
little creatures and they need to be you
know civilized and partly what you do is
you you lay prohibitions on them and
mostly what you’re trying to do is lay
prohibitions on them for the behaviors
that if they manifested would make their
life miserable so this is why this thing
that I’ve said the people has become
this crazy internet mean but that’s to
clean up your room and which which is a
lot better and more useful than people
think it’s a lot harder to but the thing
the first thing you do I think and I
learned this in part from Solzhenitsyn
when he was trying to iron out his soul
when he was in the gulag because he was
trying to figure out how he got there
how he contributed to how he got there
you know not Stellan and Hitler even
though they were kind of to blame you
know but he wasn’t much he could do
about that
I think what you have to do and this is
part of humility is you have to look
around you within your sphere of
influence like the direct sphere of
influence and fix the things that
announce themselves as in need of repair
and those are often small things you
know and they can be like your room put
it in order because the thing is it
isn’t exactly so important that your
room is in order although it is what’s
important is that you learn how to
distinguish between chaos and order and
to be able to act in a manner that
produces order and I think you can you
can do something as
let’s just sit on your bed and think
okay there’s probably like five things I
could do today so that tomorrow morning
is slightly better than this morning was
at least or at least I’m not falling
behind and those will usually be it’s
like having to eat a toad in the morning
right it’s like it’s not gonna be
something you want to do there’ll be
things you’re trying to avoid there
snakes essentially but if you ask
yourself like you’re asking someone
which i think is a form of prayer if you
ask yourself instead of telling yourself
you know what is it that I could do to
set things more right today that I would
actually do it’s usually some small
thing because you’re not that
disciplined you know then you can go do
it and then you you put the world
together a little more when you do that
and that spreads out but you also put
your you also construct yourself into
something that’s better able to call
order forth from chaos and that makes
you just incrementally stronger and then
the next day you can maybe take on a
slightly larger task and like you get
the benefit of compound interest if you
do that it’s a tremendously powerful
technique and they think if you do that
at some point instead of just having to
fix things up that are not good you’ll
start to get a glimmer of the positive
things that you could do you know the
positive things that you could do that
would actually constitute a vision and
now that’s what I would recommend if
you’re hungry and you eat well that’s
good but it’s over and then you’re on to
the next thing right it’s not exactly
sustaining it’s just necessary that’s
called consume Ettore reward by the way
this other reward system is incentive
reward and the incentive reward system
works on dopamine this neurochemical
dopamine which is also the neuro
chemical tracks that opiates and cocaine
and amphetamines the drugs that people
really like to abuse alcohol often for
some people activate and so you might
say if you don’t have enough meaning in
your life then you’re more prone to
addiction and that’s definitely the case
even with rats if you take a rat you put
him in a cage by himself and he has
nothing to do and then you give him
access to cocaine he’ll get
addicted to the point where he won’t do
anything but take cocaine but if you
throw the rat back in with a bunch of
other rats and he gets to do rat things
then it’s very hard to get him addicted
to cocaine and so the purposeless rat is
prone to addiction well it’s the same
with human beings now here’s a corollary
to that which is really cool so the
magnitude of the reward you experience
as you’re moving towards a goal is
proportionate to the importance of the
goal so that means the more important
the goal you pick the more possibility
there is for the kind of reward let’s
say that it’s really a state of being
that is life-affirming and it is
directly life-affirming in that you know
like if you’re in a football game and
you’re been it’s an important football
game and maybe you break a finger and
you know normally that’s that’s a
problem it hurts and you’re gonna stop
doing whatever you’re doing but if
you’re right in the middle of the game
then you’ll be so amped up on this
reward system that its analgesic it
stops the pain it also suppresses
anxiety so if you have a purpose then
its analgesic it takes some of the pain
out of life it’s very positive in that
it motivates and energizes you and
focuses you and makes you able to
remember and pay attention and it quells
fear and so those things are all direct
and so then you might think well what’s
the best possible goal well and that’s
that’s the purpose I would say of
religious training and philosophical
training it’s like just what the hell
are you doing in the world you have to
treat yourself like you matter because
if you don’t then you don’t take care of
yourself and you become vengeful and and
and cruel and you you take you take it
out on people around you and you’re not
a positive force none of that’s good
so you suffer more and so does everyone
around you and there’s a malevolence
that enters into it none of that’s good
so that’s what happens if you don’t
treat yourself like you matter and then
what happens if you don’t treat other
people like they matter
well you lie to them you cheat them you
steal you you you enter into impulsive
relationships with them they can’t trust
you that doesn’t go anywhere they don’t
like you you you end up alone at best
and maybe like in
incarcerated at worst like that doesn’t
work and so you watch the people around
you who thrive regardless of what they
say they act out the proposition that
everyone matters and then you have a
functional society and I think okay well
if if if when you act out the
proposition that everyone matters you
have a functional society maybe that’s
evidence that that proposition is true
it’s like I think it’s I think it’s true
g’day I’m scheduled and stick to it okay
so what’s the rule with the schedule
it’s not a bloody prison that’s the
first thing that people do wrong is well
I don’t like to have follow a schedule
it’s like well what kind of schedule are
you setting up well I should I have to
do this then I have to do this then I
have to do this you know and then I just
go play video games because who wants to
do all these things that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s gonna go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right cuz that’s a stupid day if you
have a bunch of those in a row you just
dig you know you dig yourself a hole and
then you bury yourself in it’s like
sorry that’s just not a good strategy
it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not Taran I
yourself like you’re negotiating with
someone that you care for that you would
like to be productive and have a good
life and and that’s how you make the
schedule it’s like and then you look at
the day and you think well if I had that
day that would be good
great you know and you you’re useless
and horrible so you’ll probably only hit
it with about 70 percent accuracy but
that beats the hell out of zero right
and if you hit it even with 50 percent
accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51 percent
the next week or 50 and a half percent
for God’s sake or because you’re gonna
hit that position where things start to
loop back positively and spiral you
upward one of the main reasons that
people don’t get what they want is
because they don’t actually figure out
what it is and the probability that
you’re going to get what would be good
for you let’s say which would even be
better than what you want right because
you know you might be what wrong about
what you want easily but maybe you could
get what would really be good for you
well why don’t you well because you
don’t try you don’t think okay here’s
what I would like if I could have it and
and I don’t mean I don’t mean in a way
that you manipulate the world to force
it to deliver you goods for status or
something like that that isn’t what I
mean I mean something like imagine that
you are taking care of yourself like you
were someone you actually cared for and
then you thought okay I’m caring for
this person I would like things to go as
well for them as possible
what would their life have to be like in
order for that to be the case well
people don’t do that they don’t sit down
and think alright you know let’s let’s
figure it out you’ve got a life it’s
hard obviously it’s like three years
from now you can have what you need you
got to be careful about it you can’t
have everything you can have what would
be good for you but you have to figure
out what it is and then you have to aim
at it
well my experience with people has been
is if they figure out what it is that
would be good for them and then they aim
at it then they get it and it’s strange
because they don’t mess it sad that
simple because you know you may
formulate an idea about what would be
good for you and then you take ten steps
towards that and you find out that your
formulation was a bit off and so you
have to reformulate your goal you know
you’re kind of going like this as you
move towards the goal but a huge part of
the reason that people fail is because
they don’t ever setup the criteria for
success and so since success is a very
narrow line and very unlikely the
probability that you’re going to stumble
on it randomly is zero and so there’s a
proposition here in the proposition is
if you actually want something you can
have it now the question then would be
well what do you mean by actually want
and the answer is that you reorient your
life in every possible way to make the
probability that that will occur as
certain as possible and that’s a
sacrificial idea right it’s like you
don’t get everything obviously you
obviously but maybe you can have what
you need and maybe all you have to do to
get it is ask but asking isn’t a whim or
today’s wish it’s like you have to be
deadly serious about it you have to
think okay like I’m taking stock of
myself and if I was going to live
properly in the world and I was going to
set myself up such that being would
justify itself in my estimation and I
don’t mean as a harsh judge exactly what
is it that I would aim at sit on your
bed one day and ask yourself what’s what
remarkably stupid things am i doing on a
regular basis to absolutely screw up my
life
and if you actually asked that question
but you have to want to know the answer
right because that’s actually what
asking the question means it doesn’t
mean just mouthing the words it means
you have to decide that you want to know
you’ll figure that’s out so fast it’ll
make your hair curl stop doing the
things that you know are wrong that you
could stop doing right so it’s it’s a
fairly it’s a fairly limited attempt
first of all we’re not going to say that
you know what the good is or what the
truth is in any ultimate sense but we
will presume that there are things that
you’re doing that for one reason or
another you know are not in your best
interests there’s something about them
that you just know you should stop there
are kind of self-evident to you other
things you’re gonna be doubtful about
you’re not gonna know which way is up
and which way is down but there are
things that you’re doing that you know
you shouldn’t do now some of those you
won’t stop doing for whatever reason you
don’t have the discipline or maybe
there’s a secondary payoff or you don’t
believe it’s necessary or it’s too much
of a sacrifice or you’re angry or
resentful or or afraid
who knows so forget about those for now
but there’s another subset that you
could stop doing it might be little
thing well that’s fine stop doing it and
see what happens
and what will happen is your vision will
clear a little bit and then something
else will pop up in your field of
apprehension that you will also know you
should stop doing and that you could
stop doing because you’ve strengthened
yourself a bit by stopping doing the
particular stupid thing that you were
doing before that just puts you together
a little bit more and you can do that
repeatedly for for an indefinite period
of time and and you know that doesn’t
necessarily mean that you’re going to
ever be able to formulate a clear and
final picture of what constitutes the
truth and the good but it does mean that
you’ll be able to continually move away
from what’s untruth and what’s bad and
you know well that’s not a bad start
[Music]
the next best predictor of lifetime
success is conscientiousness well so and
although of the two aspects of
conscientiousness say orderliness and
and industriousness the better predictor
is industriousness so the question is
well what can you do about your
industriousness and the answer to that
is well that’s kind of rough too because
there’s a strong genetic component but
you can work on micro habits with
regards to your conscientiousness and I
think the best micro habits this is
partly to do with this future authoring
program processes I think the best thing
you can do with regards to your
conscientiousness is to set up some aims
for yourself goals that you actually
value and the future authoring program
helps people do that and basically it
does a situational analysis of it helps
you do a situational analysis of your
life more than a psychological analysis
I would say and so the questions are
something like well alright you’re gonna
have to put some effort into your life
and you need to be motivated to do that
and so what are the potential sources of
motivation well you could think about
them in in the Big Five manner you know
if you’re extroverted you want friends
if you’re agreeable you want an intimate
relationship if you’re a disagreeable
you want to win competitions if you’re
open you want to engage in creative
activity if you’re high in neuroticism
you want security okay so those are all
sources of potential motivation that you
could draw on that you could tailor to
your own you know your own personality
but then there are dimensions that you
want to consider your life across and so
we ask people about well you know if you
could have your life the way you wanted
it in three to five years if you were
taking care of yourself properly you
know what would you want from your
friendships what we do you want from
your intimate relationship how would you
like to structure your family what do
you want for your career well how are
you going to use your time outside of
your job and how are you gonna regulate
your mental physical mental and physical
health and maybe also your drug and
alcohol use because that’s that’s a good
place to auger down you know because
alcoholism for example wipes out you
know five to ten percent of people so
you want to keep that under control and
then and then so maybe you know you you
you develop a vision of what your life
what you would like your life to be and
that associates the so the goal well
once the goal is established and then
you break down
the goal into micro processes that you
can implement the micro process has
become rewarding in proportion in
relation to their causal association
with the goal and that tangles in your
your incentive reward system you know we
talked about the dopaminergic incentive
reward system and that’s the thing that
keeps you moving forward and the way it
works is that it works better if it
produces positive emotion win it can see
you moving towards a valued goal okay
well what’s the implication of that
better have a valued goal because
otherwise you can’t get any positive
motivation working out and so the more
valuable the goal in principle the more
the micro process is associated with
that goal start to take on a positive
charge and so what that means is well
you get up in the morning and you’re
excited about the day you’re ready to go
and so as far as I can tell what you do
is you specify your long term ideal
maybe you also specify a place you want
to stay the hell away from so that
you’re terrified to fail as well as
excited about succeeding because that’s
also useful you specify your goal you do
that you do that in some sense as a
unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile and then the next question
might be well where should you look for
worthwhile things and one would be well
you could consult your own temperament
and the other would be well you kind of
look at how look at what it is that
people accrue that’s valuable across the
lifespan look look what so you do a
structural analysis of the sub
components of human existence and I
already did that you need a family you
need friends like you don’t need to have
all these things but you better have
most of them family friends career
educational goals plans for you know
time outside of work attention to your
mental and physical health etc you know
those are that’s what life is about and
if you don’t have any of those things
well then all you’ve got left is misery
and suffering so that’s that’s a bad
that’s a bad deal for you so so once you
but once you set up that that goal
structure let’s say and that’s really in
many in many ways that’s what you should
be doing at universities is that’s
exactly what you should be doing is
trying to figure out who it is that
you’re trying to be right and you aim at
that and then you use everything you
learned as a means of building that
person that you want to be and and I
really mean want to be I don’t mean
should be even those things those things
are gonna overlap and it’s important to
distinguish between those because that’s
partly and this is back down to the
micro routine analysis so as I saying
while you’re gonna try to make yourself
more industrious okay number one specify
your damn goals because how are you
gonna hit something if you don’t know
what it is that isn’t going to happen
and often people won’t specify their
goals too because they don’t like to
specify conditions for failure so if you
keep yourself all vague and foggy which
is real easy because that’s just a
matter of not doing as well then you
don’t know when you fail and people
might say well I really don’t want to
know when I fail because that’s painful
it so I’ll keep myself blind about when
I fail that’s fine except you’ll fail
all the time then you just won’t know it
until you’ve failed so badly that you’re
done and that can easily happen by the
time you’re 40 so so I would recommend
that you don’t let that happen
so that’s willful blindness right you
could have known but you chose not to
okay so once you get your goal structure
set up you think okay if I could have
this life looks like that might be worth
living despite the fact that it’s going
to be you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort you don’t have to necessarily
have done anything wrong for things to
get completely out of control it’s a
terrifying doctrine but it’s not a
hopeless doctrine because it still says
that there’s a way forward there’s a
pathway forward and the pathway forward
is to adopt a mode of being that has
some nobility so that you can tolerate
yourself and perhaps even have some
respect for yourself as someone who’s
capable of standing up in the face of
that terrible vulnerable
and suffering and that the pathway
forward as far as the existentialists
are concerned is by well certainly by
the avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is no
up to as far as I’m concerned and some
of this is from clinical experience you
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t avoid doing what you knew
you needed to do by the death by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that what would
you be like well you know there are
remarkable people who come into the
world from time to time and there are
people who do find out over decades long
periods what they could be like if they
were who they were if they said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world in a number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now my experience is with people
that we’re probably running at about
fifty one percent of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like four to
six hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after your
done that’s probably four hours right
there know what you think well that’s
2025 hours a week it’s a hundred hours a
month that’s two and a half full work
weeks it’s half a year of work weeks per
year and if your time is worth $20 an
hour which is a radical under estimate
it’s probably more like 50 if you think
about it in terms of deferred wages if
you’re wasting 20 hours a week you’re
wasting $50,000 a year and you are doing
that right now and it’s because you’re
young wasting $50,000 a year is a way
bigger catastrophe than it would be for
me to waste it because I’m not gonna
last nearly as long and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient 20 times more
efficient that’s the purrito
distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely off it’s off the charts well
and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time not only do they
not do what they should to make things
better they actively attempt to make
things worse because they’re spiteful or
resentful or arrogant or deceitful or or
homicidal or genocide allor all of those
things all bundled together in an
absolutely pathological package if
people start really really trying just
to make things worse we have no idea how
much better they would get just because
of that so there’s this weird dynamic
that’s part of the existential system of
ideas between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are our major
causes of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to
at about nine billion by the way and
then it’ll decline rapidly but seven
billion people in the world and who are
you you’re just one little dust mote
among that seven billion and so it
really doesn’t matter what you do or
don’t do but that’s simply not the case
it’s the wrong model because you’re at
the center of a network you’re a node in
a network of course that’s even more
true now that we have social media
you’ll you know you’ll know a thousand
people at least over the course of your
life and they’ll know a thousand people
each and that puts you one person away
from a million and two persons away from
a billion and so that’s how you’re
connected and the things you do there
like dropping a stone in a pond the
ripples move outward and they affect
things in ways that you can’t fully
comprehend and it means that the things
that you do and that you don’t do are
far more important than you think and so
if you act that way of course the terror
of realizing that is that it actually
starts to matter what you do and you
might say well that’s better than living
a meaningless existence it’s better for
it to matter but I mean if you really
ask yourself would you be so sure if you
had the choice I can live with no
responsibility whatsoever the price I
pay is that nothing matters or I can
reverse it and everything matters but I
have to take the responsibility that’s
associated with that it’s not so obvious
to me that people would take the
meaningful path now when you say well
denialists suffered dreadfully because
there’s no meaning in their life and
they still suffer yeah but the
advantages they have no responsibility
so that’s the payoff and I actually
think that’s the motivation say well I
can’t help being nihilistic all my
belief systems have collapsed it’s like
yeah maybe maybe you’ve just allowed
them to collapse because it’s a hell of
a lot easier than acting them out and
the price you pay is some meaningless
suffering but you can always whine about
that and people will feel sorry for you
and you have the option of taking the
pathway of the martyr so that’s a pretty
good deal all things considered
especially when the or when the
alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the twentieth
century it’s not just him even though
he’s the best example is that if you
live a pathological life you pathologize
your society and if enough people do
that then
it’s held really really and you can read
the Gulag Archipelago if you have the
fort it fortitude to do that and you’ll
see exactly what hell is like and then
you can decide if that’s a place you’d
like to visit or even more importantly
if it’s a light if it’s a place you’d
like to visit and take all your family
and friends because that’s what happened
in the 20th century good damn schedule
and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s going to go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right because that’s a stupid day if
you have a bunch of those in a row you
just dig you know you dig yourself a
hole and then you burn yourself and it’s
like sorry that’s just not a good
strategy it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not
tyrannize yourself
like you’re negotiating with someone
that you care for that you would like to
be productive and have a good life and
and that’s how you make the schedule
it’s like and then you look at the day
and you think well if I had that day
that’d be good great you know I knew
you’re useless and horrible so you’ll
probably only hit it with about 70%
accuracy but that beats the hell out of
zero right and if you hit it even with
50% accuracy another rule is well aim
for 51% the next week or 50 and a half
percent for God’s sake or because you’re
gonna hit that position where things
start to loopback positively and spiral
you up stop doing the things that you
know are wrong that you could stop doing
right so it’s it’s a fairly it’s a
fairly limited attempt first of all
we’re not gonna say that you know what
the good is or what the truth is in any
ultimate sense but we will presume that
there are things that you’re doing that
for one reason rather you know are not
in your best interests there’s something
about them that you just know you should
stop there are kind of self-evident to
you other things you’re gonna be
doubtful of it about you’re not gonna
know which way is up and which way is
down but there are things that you’re
doing that you know you shouldn’t do now
some of those you won’t stop doing for
whatever reason you don’t have the
discipline or maybe there’s a secondary
payoff or you don’t believe it’s
necessary or it’s too much of a
sacrifice or you’re angry or resentful
or or afraid who knows so forget about
those for now but there’s another subset
that you could stop doing it might be
little thing well that’s fine stop doing
it and see what happens and what will
happen is your vision will clear a
little bit and then something else will
pop up in your field of apprehension
that you will also know you should stop
doing and that you could stop doing
because you’ve strengthened yourself a
bit by stopping doing the particulars
stupid thing that you were doing before
that just puts you together a little bit
more and you could do that repeatedly
for for an indefinite period of time and
and you know that doesn’t necessarily
mean that you’re going to ever be able
to formulate a clear and final picture
of what constitutes the truth and the
good but it does mean that you’ll be
able to continually move away from
what’s untruth and what’s bad
and you know well that’s not a bad start
I’m just you know oh I can’t sleep at
night because I’m thinking about
something and usually what I’ll do is go
write it down I have some writing to do
so I get up and I go write down what I’m
thinking and that usually does the trick
but because I had been playing with
YouTube I thought well I’ll try making
YouTube video and telling people what
I’m thinking about and see if that
performs the same function as writing
and to me the function of writing while
it’s twofold one is conceivably to
communicate with people
although the fundamental purpose for me
is to clarify my thoughts so that I know
do you know because if you’re if
something is disturbing you what that
means is that it needs to be articulated
it what it’s the emergence of unexplored
territory something that disturbs you
that that’s the right way to think about
it it’s unmapped territory that’s
manifesting itself it’s like a Vista of
threat and possibility and you need to
articulate a path through it and so
that’s what I was doing it’s like I was
thinking well this is bothering me and
this seems to be why and here’s what I
think is going on and and so I made the
videos and in some sense I I didn’t
think anything more of it don’t have to
necessarily have done anything wrong for
things to get completely out of control
it’s a terrifying doctrine but it’s not
a hopeless doctrine because it still
says that there’s a way forward there’s
a pathway forward and the pathway
forward is to adopt a mode of being that
has some nobility so that you can
tolerate yourself and perhaps even have
some respect for yourself as someone
who’s capable of standing up in the face
of that terrible vulnerability and
suffering and that the pathway forward
as far as the existentialists are
concerned is by well certainly by the
avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is
though up to as far as I’m concerned and
some of this is from clinical experience
you know if you take people and I’ve
told you this and you expose them
voluntarily
things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t avoid doing what you knew
you needed to do by the depth by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that what would
you be like well you know there are
remarkable people who come into the
world from time to time and there are
people who do find out over decades long
periods what they could be like if they
were who they were if they said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world in the number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now my experience is with people
that were probably running at about 51
percent of our capacity something mean
you can think about this yourselves I
often ask undergraduates how many hours
a day you waste or how many hours a week
you waste and the classic answer is
something like 4 to 6 hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done
that’s probably four hours right there
know what do you think well that’s 2025
hours a week it’s a hundred hours a
month that’s two and a half full work
weeks it’s half a year of work weeks per
year and if your time is worth twenty
dollars an hour which is a radical under
estimate it’s probably more like fifty
if you think about it in terms of
deferred wages if you’re wasting 20
hours a week
you’re wasting fifty thousand dollars a
year
you are doing that right now and it’s
because you’re young wasting fifty
thousand dollars a year is a way bigger
catastrophe than it would be for me to
waste it because I’m not gonna last
nearly as long and so if your life isn’t
everything it could be you could ask
yourself well what would happen if you
just stopped wasting the opportunities
that are in front of you you be who
knows how much more efficient ten times
more efficient 20 times more efficient
that’s the Pareto distribution you have
no idea how efficient efficient people
get it’s completely it’s off the charts
well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time
not only do they not do what they should
to make things better they actively
attempt to make things worse because
they’re spiteful or resentful or
arrogant or deceitful or or homicidal or
genocide alors all of those things all
bundled together in an absolutely
pathological package if people start
really really trying just to make things
worse we have no idea how much better
they would get just because of that so
there’s this weird dynamic that’s part
of the existential system of ideas
between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are our major
causes of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to peak
at about nine billion by the way and
then it’ll decline rapidly but seven
billion people in the world and who are
you you’re just one little dust mote
among that seven billion and so it
really doesn’t matter what you do or
don’t do but that’s simply not the case
it’s the wrong model because you’re at
the center of a network you’re a node in
a network of course that’s even more
true now that we have social media
you’ll you know you’ll know a thousand
people at least over the course of your
life and they’ll know a thousand people
each and that puts you one person away
from a million and two persons away from
a billion and so that’s how you’re
connected and the things you do there
like dropping a stone in a pond the
ripples move outward and they affect
things in ways that you can’t fully
comprehend and it means that the things
that you do and that you don’t do are
far more important than you think and so
if you act that way of course the terror
of realizing that is that it actually
starts to matter what you do and you
might say well that’s better than living
a meaningless existence it’s better for
it to matter but I mean if you
really ask yourself would you be so sure
if you had the choice I can live with no
responsibility whatsoever the price I
pay is that nothing matters or I can
reverse it and everything matters but I
have to take the responsibility that’s
associated with that
it’s not so obvious to me that people
would take the meaningful path now when
you say well denialists suffered
dreadfully because there’s no meaning in
their life and they still suffer yeah
but the advantages they have no
responsibility so that’s the payoff and
I actually think that’s the motivation
say well I can’t help being nihilistic
all my belief systems have collapsed
it’s like yeah maybe maybe you’ve just
allowed them to collapse because it’s a
hell of a lot easier than acting them
out and the price you pay is some
meaningless suffering but you can always
whine about that and people will feel
sorry for you and you have the option of
taking the pathway of the martyr so
that’s a pretty good deal all things
considered especially when the or when
the alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the 20th century
it’s not just him even though he’s the
best example is that if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell really really and you can
read the Gulag Archipelago if you have
the four tit fortitude to do that and
you’ll see exactly what hell is like and
then you can decide if that’s a place
you’d like to visit or even more
importantly if it’s a light if it’s a
place you’d like to visit and take all
your family and friends because that’s
what happened in the 20th century I
started to pay very careful attention to
what I was saying I don’t know if that
happened voluntarily or involuntarily
but I could feel a sort of split
developing in my psyche and the split
and I’ve actually had students tell me
the same thing that has happened to them
after they’ve listened to some of the
material that that I’ve been describing
to all of you but split into two
let’s say and one part was the let’s say
the old me that was talking a lot and
that liked to argue and that liked ideas
and there was another part that was
watching that part like just with its
eyes open and neutrally judging and the
part that was neutrally judging was
watching the part that was talking and
going that isn’t your idea you don’t
really believe that you don’t really
know what you’re talking about that
isn’t true and I thought that’s really
interesting so now and that was
happening to like 95% of what I was
saying and so then I didn’t really know
what to do I thought okay this is
strange so maybe I’ve fragmented and
that’s just not a good thing at all I
mean it wasn’t like I was hearing voices
or anything like that I mean it wasn’t
like that it was it was well people have
multiple parts so then I had this weird
conundrum it’s like well which of those
two things are me is it the part that’s
listening and saying no that’s rubbish
that’s a lie that’s your doing that to
impress people you’re just trying to win
the argument you know was that me or was
the part that was going about my normal
verbal business me and I didn’t know but
I decided I would go with the critic and
then what I tried to do what I learned
to do I think was to stop saying things
that made me weak and now that I mean
I’m still trying to do that because I’m
always feeling when I talk whether or
not the words that I’m saying are either
making me a line or making me come apart
and I think the alignment I really do
think the alignment is it I think
alignment is the right way of
conceptualizing it because I think if
you say things that are as true as you
can say them let’s say then they
come up they come out of the depths
inside of you because we don’t know
where thoughts come from we don’t know
how far down into your sub structure the
thoughts emerge we don’t know what
processes of physiological alignment are
necessary for you to speak from the core
of your being we don’t understand any of
that we don’t even conceptualize that
but I believe that you can feel that and
I learned some of that from reading Carl
Rogers by the way who’s a great
clinician because he talked about mental
health in part as the coherence between
the spiritual or the or the abstract and
the physical that the two things were
aligned and and there’s a lot of idea of
alignment in psychoanalytic and clinical
thinking but anyways I decided that I
would start practicing not saying things
that would make me weak and what
happened was that I had to stop saying
almost everything that I was saying I
would say 95% of it as a hell of a shark
to wake up and I mean this was over a
few months but it’s a hell of a shark to
wake up and realize that you’re mostly
dead wood it’s a shark
you know and you might think well do you
really want all of that to burn off it’s
like well there’s nothing left but a
little ha spite of you it’s like well if
that 5% is solid then maybe that’s exactly what you want to have happen
carved out of your lives by society they
it’s it’s given you an identity like a
high quality identity and freedom at the
same time and you’re not gonna get that
again in your life you’ve got a you’ve
got a respectable identity University
student and complete freedom associated
with that or as near as you’re ever
going to get and you’ve got these
unbelievable libraries that are full of
the writings of people who are who are
intelligent and articulate beyond
comprehension and you know and and you
can go there and you can learn all this
and you might think well why should you
learn it well you’ve learned it to get a
job or you learn it to get good grades
or you learn it to get a degree and
that’s all nonsense
it’s nonsense the reason that you come
to university to be educated is because
there is nothing more powerful than
someone who is articulate and who can
think and speak its power and I mean
power of the best sort and its 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 if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins too because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world
well there’s nothing more exciting to do
than that there’s nothing better you can
possibly do and to think that you’re
coming to University to be you know
trained to have a job it’s like great
that’s a hell of a lot better than being
unemployed and covered with cheeto dust
while you’re snacking away in front of
your video game in the basement you’re
spectacular you’ve you’re you’re all
capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise man
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here yeah they’re just everyone’s just
praying that you would come here and
manifest everything that you could
manifest and that’s what you should be
doing instead of waving placards and
complaining about how you’re oppressed
for God’s sake the only reason you’re
not rich is cuz you’re young you know
that’s the best really that’s them if
you look at the 1% even the dreaded 1%
you know most of those people are all
why well when you progress through life
if you’re reasonably successful you
trade in your promising youth for your
wealthy old age but you’re still bloody
old would you would you trade it would
you trade your youth for that like if
you factor age out of the economic
equation things look a lot different
well of course older people have more
money if they have any sense they’ve
been collecting it for their whole life
is that somehow unfair it’s not unfair
unless you want to want to be
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 and you
and you don’t want to be poverty or
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 so I
just don’t understand what’s happened to
the universities I can’t believe that
you’re not told when you come the first
day look man you are out you’re here on
a heroic mission you’re going to take
your capacity to articulate yourself to
levels that are undreamed-of you’re
gonna come out of here unstoppable
you’re going to be able to do anything
you want it’s like that’s what you’re
here for
instead you’re taught that well you know
the world is a pretty oppressive place
and you’re probably at the bottom of the
victim pile and and and there’s and
there’s there’s virtually nothing you
could do about it except no deconstruct
the patriarchy and it’s so weak beed and
so pathetic that
that university should be embarrassed
that that’s what they’re peddling to
students I’m embarrassed by them
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self destructive I need to take care of
myself as if I’m potentially valuable
and to lay out my life that way and so
that’s what that’s that chapter is about
and it’s it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes tell ins mother
made you know and she probably didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important mm-hmm you don’t know
how your actions echo and so it matters
what you do and and so part of what you
do is you want to treat yourself as if
what you do matters you know if you take
people then you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t
avoid doing what you knew you needed to
do what would you be like well you know
there are remarkable people who come
into the world from time to time and
there are people who do find out over
decades long periods what they could be
like if they were who they were if they
spoke their being forward and they’d be
get stronger and stronger and stronger
and we don’t know the limits to that we
do not know the limits to that probably
running at about 51% of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like 4 to 6
hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably four hours right there know it
you think well that’s 2025 hours a week
it’s a hundred hours a month that’s two
and a half full work weeks it’s half a
year of work weeks per year and so if
your life isn’t everything it could be
you could ask yourself well what would
happen if you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
10 times more efficient 20 times more
efficient that’s the Pareto distribution
you have no idea how efficient efficient
people get it’s completely oh it’s off
the charts it’s not so obvious to me
that people would take the meaningful
path now when you say well nihilist
suffered dreadfully because there’s no
meaning in their life and they still
suffer yeah but the advantages they have
no responsibility so that’s the payoff
and I actually think that’s the
motivation say well I can’t help being
nihilistic all my belief systems have
collapsed it’s like yeah maybe maybe
you’ve just allowed them to collapse
because it’s a hell of a lot easier than
acting them out and the price you pay is
some meaningless suffering but you can
always whine about that and people will
feel sorry for you if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell you’re asked to outline
the place you’d like to end up which is
your desired future and also the place
that you could end up if you let
everything fall apart is so that your
anxiety chases you
and your approach systems pull you
forward your maximally motivated debt
and it’s important because otherwise you
can be afraid of pursuing the things
that you want to pursue
right and that’s very common and so then
the fear inhibits you as the promise
pulls you forward but it makes you weak
because you’re afraid you want to get
your fear behind you pushing you and so
what you want to be is afraid more
afraid of not pursuing your goals then
you are of pursuing them putting
yourself in a challenging mind frame is
much better much easier on you psycho
physiologically because you don’t
produce you don’t go into the
generalized stress response to the same
degree and you’re activating your
exploratory and seeking systems which
are dopaminergic Lee mediated and that
involve positive emotion so if you can
face something voluntarily rather than
having to chase you it’s way better for
you psycho physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that they pop
their ugly little head up and you know
and you might want to turn away might
not want not want to think about it
which is the easiest way of turning away
right you just don’t attend to it you
know if you could have your life the way
you wanted it in three to five years if
you were taking care of yourself
properly
what would you want from your
friendships what would you want from
your intimate relationship how would you
like to structure your family what do
you want for your career well how are
you going to use your time outside of
your job and how are you gonna regulate
your mental physical mental and physical
health and maybe also your drug and
alcohol use because that’s that’s a good
place to auger down you know because
alcoholism for example wipes out you
know five to ten percent of people so
you want to keep that under control and
then and then so maybe you know you you
you develop a vision of what your life
what you would like your life to be and
that associates the so the goal well
once the goal is established and then
you break down the goal into micro
processes that you could implement the
micro process has become rewarding in
relation to their causal association
with the goal and that tangles in your
your incentive reward system and that’s
the thing that keeps you moving forward
and the way it works is that it works
better if it produces positive emotion
when it can see you moving towards a
valued goal okay well what’s the
implication of that better have a valued
goal because otherwise you can’t get any
positive motivation working out and so
the more valuable the goal in principle
the more the micro process is associated
with that goal start to take on a
positive charge and so what that means
is well you get up in the morning and
you’re excited about the day you’re
ready to go and so as far as I can tell
what you do is you specify your long
term ideal maybe you also specify a
place you want to stay the hell away
from so that you’re terrified to fail as
well as excited about succeeding because
that’s also useful you specify your goal
you do that you do that in some sense as
a unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile number one specify your damn
goals because how are you gonna hit
something if you don’t know what it is
that isn’t going to happen and often
people won’t specify their goals too
because they don’t like to specify can
dishes for failure so if you keep
yourself all vague and foggy which is
real easy because that’s just a matter
of not doing as well then you don’t know
when you fail and people might say well
I really don’t want to know when I fail
because that’s painful so I’ll keep
myself blind about when I fail that’s
fine except you’ll fail all the time
then you just won’t know it until you’ve
failed so badly that you’re done okay so
once you get your goal structure set up
you think okay if I could have this life
looks like that might be worth living
despite the fact that it’s going to be
you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life
such that all things considered that
justifies your effort okay so then what
do you do well then then you turn down
to the micro routines it’s like okay
well this is what I’m aiming for how
does that instantiate itself day to day
week to week month to month and that’s
where something like a schedule can be
unbelievably useful Google Calendar it’s
like make a damn schedule and stick to
it okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want what’s
the right ratio of responsibility to
reward and you can ask yourself that
just like you’d negotiate with someone
who is working for you it’s like okay go
I work tomorrow okay so I want you to
work tomorrow and you might say okay
well what are you gonna do for me that
makes it likely that I’ll work for you
well you could ask yourself that you
know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that’d be good great
you know and you you’re useless and
horrible so you’ll probably only
with about 70% accuracy but that beats
the hell out of zero right and if you
hit it even with 50% accuracy another
rule is well aim for 51% the next week
or 50 and a half percent for God’s sake
or because you’re gonna hit that
position where things start to loop back
positively and spiral you upward and so
so that’s one way that you can work on
your conscientiousness is a plan of life
you’d like to have the other way you do
that is by having a little conversation
with yourself about as if you don’t
really know who you are because you know
what you like you won’t do what you’re
told you won’t do what you tell yourself
to do you must have noticed that it’s
like you’re a bad employee and a worse
boss and both of those work you know for
you you don’t know what you want to do
and then when you tell yourself what to
do you don’t do it anyways you should
fire yourself and find someone else to
be but but you know my point is is that
you have to understand that you’re not
your own servant so to speak you’re
someone that you have to negotiate with
and that’s and you’re someone that you
want to present the opportunity of
having a good life to and that’s hard
for people because they don’t like
themselves very much so you know they’re
always like cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30 whatever maybe it’s a
hundred it’s somewhere in that range
one of the things you should be asking
yourself is when you spend an hour was
that well what have I paid someone 50
bucks to have had that hour and if the
answer is no it’s like well maybe you
should do something else with your time
and it depends on whether or not you
think that your times
while but the funny thing about not
assuming that is if you assume your time
isn’t worthwhile what happens is you
don’t just sit around sort of randomly
in a state of responsibility list bliss
what you do is you suffer existentially
he’s sad to see that people are
disenchanted and nihilistic and
depressed and anxious and aimless and
and perverse and vengeful and and all of
those things it’s terrible and then to
see people question whether that’s
necessary and then to start to rise out
of it it’s like it’s so fun like last
night I was at after my talk it’s
I don’t usually think about these things
but I was I was after my talk last night
and so all these people line up and you
know they have their 15 15 seconds with
me and they’re kind of tentative they’re
excited and attentive when they come up
to talk to me and then they have you
know 15 seconds of time to tell me
something I’m really listening to them
and they’re hesitant about whether or
not to share the good news about their
life you know and I think it’s often
because when people share good news
about their life people don’t
necessarily respond positively you know
they don’t get encouragement and people
need so little encouragement it’s just
unbelievable and so there comes
something good and I think ah that’s so
good you know if somebody says hold I’m
getting along way better with my father
I haven’t seen him for 10 years and now
we get along great
and then the power of that you can’t
overstate the power of that for
individuals to get their life together
the individual is an unbelievably
powerful force and every single person
who gets their act together a little bit
has the capacity to spread that around
them it’s it’s a chain reaction and so
it’s a lovely thing to see
after treat yourself like you matter
because if you don’t then you don’t take
care of yourself and you become vengeful
and and and cruel and you you take you
take it out on people around you and
you’re not a positive force none of
that’s good
so you suffer more and so does everyone
around you and there’s a malevolence
that enters into it none of that’s good
so that’s what happens if you don’t
treat yourself like you matter and then
what happens if you don’t treat other
people like they matter
well you lie to them you cheat them you
steal you you enter into impulsive
relationships with them they can’t trust
you that doesn’t go anywhere they don’t
like you you you end up alone at best
and maybe like incarcerated at worst
like that doesn’t work and so you watch
the people around you who thrive
regardless of what they say they act out
the proposition that everyone matters
and then you have a functional Society
and I think ok well if if if when you
act out the proposition that everyone
matters you have a functional society
maybe that’s evidence that that
proposition is true it’s like I think
it’s I think it’s true one of the things
that’s really interesting about the old
testament is that and the Jews in the
Old Testament is that they don’t take
the path of Kain every time they’re
walloped by God which is like fairly
frequently they say we must have done
something wrong and we have to set our
self right and that’s a an unbelievably
heroic attitude because that’s the
alternative to cursing fate it’s like
you take the responsibility for failure
unto yourself and you think well if I
was just maybe if I just had my act
together a little bit more if I took
advantage of every opportunity that was
put in front of me if I wasn’t resentful
and bitter then I could have done
something that would have tilted the
situation in a different direction and
like that’s almost inevitably true
Dostoevsky I think said something like
every man is responsible for everything
that happens to him and everything that
happens to everyone else and that’s you
know that that’s that’s it’s a crazy
statement right it’s a crazy statement
and he was a pretty extreme person in
many many ways but there’s a level at
which that’s metaphysically true
you know because what happens is that
it’s you its failure to act often that’s
the most catastrophic you know I mean
I’ve it’s it’s it’s to not do the right
thing when the when the situation
presents itself and it’s very specific
you know you’re constantly in situations
where you could do the right thing if
you were willing to take a risk that’s
actually of relatively moderate size and
you know that you could take the risk
and you know that you should take the
risk and you don’t and that happens to
people all the time and then what
happens is the thing that they didn’t
oppose grows a little bit and they
shrink a little bit and that starts a
loop a psychologist’s have been not all
psychologists obviously but the
psychological profession is its neck
deep in this in this pathology has been
beating these self-esteem drum for 50
years
oh no you’re okay you should feel good
about yourself like you’re fine the way
you are it’s like you think well that’s
a calming message for people it’s like
no it’s not it’s not at all and I watch
my audience this is like it’s full of
people in the audience who think I’m
suffering a lot more than I think is
tenable a whole bunch of it’s my fault
my life is not in the order it should be
I know I’m doing 50 things wrong it’s
like what the hell’s wrong with me
what’s wrong with the people around me
this is really serious and some you know
well-meaning person comes up and says oh
you’re okay just the way you are it’s
like no one wants that message it’s like
no I’m not okay the way I am I’m not
okay at all the way I am I know that and
so you know when I’m when I’m speaking
to to when I’m speaking now I say to
people well oh you’re nowhere near what
you could be that’s that that’s the
positive message it’s like yeah you’re a
mess but you don’t have to stay that way
cause you’re a mess you know it
obviously you’re suffering away like
like so much you can barely tolerate it
it’s like that’s okay you can do
something about it so yeah that’s the
thing that that turns the lights on it’s
there’s a line in the New Testament
that’s relevant to that do not cast
pearls before swine and what that means
is that if people are not listening to
you stop talking to them and that’s
really that is the best piece of advice
that I can give you and what happens is
is that if you stop talking to people
who aren’t listening to you and start
watching them instead they will tell you
what they’re up to but so if you have
things to say you say them but you find
people that will listen talk to them the
ones who aren’t listening pull back
because you’re you’re devaluing what you
have to say by offering it to an
audience that does nothing but reject it
and that’s a good guideline to life in
general so you’re harmless you’re not
virtuous you’re just harmless you’re
like a rabbit rabbit isn’t virtuous
it’s just just can’t do anything except
get eaten it’s not virtuous if you’re a
monster and you don’t act monstrously
then you’re virtuous but you also have
to be a monster while you see this all
the time Harry Potter’s like that too
it’s like he’s flawed he’s hurt he’s got
evil in him he can talk to snakes man he
breaks rules all the time all the time
he’s not an obedient at all but you know
he has a good reason for breaking the
rules
and if he couldn’t break the rules him
and his little clique of rule breaking
you know troublemakers if they didn’t
break the rules
they wouldn’t attain the highest goal so
it’s very peculiar but it’s it’s very
fair it’s a very very very very common
mythological notion you know the hero
has to be the hero has to be a monster
but a controlled monster Batman is like
that I mean it’s it’s every words tore
story you always hear I know you stated
in the last lecture that the importance
for city life and to kind of have goals
to work towards right so my question was
where do you how do you do that if you
don’t know where you want to go because
that’s kind of where I got stuck on
you’re your future off offering program
because okay that’s that’s a good
question that’s a really good question
so there’s this notion in the Old
Testament that morality is following a
sequence of prohibitions there’s a bunch
of bad things you shouldn’t do and then
basically you’re good enough and and and
I think there’s wisdom in that I think
that’s kind of where children start
right you I mean I love children and all
that but they’re they’re they’re crazy
little creatures and they need to be you
know civilized and partly what you do is
you you lay prohibitions on them and
mostly what you’re trying to do is lay
prohibitions on them for the behaviors
that if they manifested would make their
life miserable so this is why this thing
that I’ve said the people has become
this crazy internet mean but that’s to
clean up your room and which which is a
lot better and more useful than people
think it’s a lot harder to but the thing
the first thing you do I think and I
learned this in part from Solzhenitsyn
when he was trying to iron out his soul
when he was in the gulag because he was
trying to figure out how he got there
how he contributed to how he got there
you know not Stellan and Hitler even
though they were kind of to blame you
know but he wasn’t much he could do
about that
I think what you have to do and this is
part of humility is you have to look
around you within your sphere of
influence like the direct sphere of
influence and fix the things that
announce themselves as in need of repair
and those are often small things you
know and they can be like your room put
it in order because the thing is it
isn’t exactly so important that your
room is in order although it is what’s
important is that you learn how to
distinguish between chaos and order and
to be able to act in a manner that
produces order and I think you can you
can do something as
let’s just sit on your bed and think
okay there’s probably like five things I
could do today so that tomorrow morning
is slightly better than this morning was
at least or at least I’m not falling
behind and those will usually be it’s
like having to eat a toad in the morning
right it’s like it’s not gonna be
something you want to do there’ll be
things you’re trying to avoid there
snakes essentially but if you ask
yourself like you’re asking someone
which i think is a form of prayer if you
ask yourself instead of telling yourself
you know what is it that I could do to
set things more right today that I would
actually do it’s usually some small
thing because you’re not that
disciplined you know then you can go do
it and then you you put the world
together a little more when you do that
and that spreads out but you also put
your you also construct yourself into
something that’s better able to call
order forth from chaos and that makes
you just incrementally stronger and then
the next day you can maybe take on a
slightly larger task and like you get
the benefit of compound interest if you
do that it’s a tremendously powerful
technique and they think if you do that
at some point instead of just having to
fix things up that are not good you’ll
start to get a glimmer of the positive
things that you could do you know the
positive things that you could do that
would actually constitute a vision and
now that’s what I would recommend if
you’re hungry and you eat well that’s
good but it’s over and then you’re on to
the next thing right it’s not exactly
sustaining it’s just necessary that’s
called consume Ettore reward by the way
this other reward system is incentive
reward and the incentive reward system
works on dopamine this neurochemical
dopamine which is also the neuro
chemical tracks that opiates and cocaine
and amphetamines the drugs that people
really like to abuse alcohol often for
some people activate and so you might
say if you don’t have enough meaning in
your life then you’re more prone to
addiction and that’s definitely the case
even with rats if you take a rat you put
him in a cage by himself and he has
nothing to do and then you give him
access to cocaine he’ll get
addicted to the point where he won’t do
anything but take cocaine but if you
throw the rat back in with a bunch of
other rats and he gets to do rat things
then it’s very hard to get him addicted
to cocaine and so the purposeless rat is
prone to addiction well it’s the same
with human beings now here’s a corollary
to that which is really cool so the
magnitude of the reward you experience
as you’re moving towards a goal is
proportionate to the importance of the
goal so that means the more important
the goal you pick the more possibility
there is for the kind of reward let’s
say that it’s really a state of being
that is life-affirming and it is
directly life-affirming in that you know
like if you’re in a football game and
you’re been it’s an important football
game and maybe you break a finger and
you know normally that’s that’s a
problem it hurts and you’re gonna stop
doing whatever you’re doing but if
you’re right in the middle of the game
then you’ll be so amped up on this
reward system that its analgesic it
stops the pain it also suppresses
anxiety so if you have a purpose then
its analgesic it takes some of the pain
out of life it’s very positive in that
it motivates and energizes you and
focuses you and makes you able to
remember and pay attention and it quells
fear and so those things are all direct
and so then you might think well what’s
the best possible goal well and that’s
that’s the purpose I would say of
religious training and philosophical
training it’s like just what the hell
are you doing in the world you have to
treat yourself like you matter because
if you don’t then you don’t take care of
yourself and you become vengeful and and
and cruel and you you take you take it
out on people around you and you’re not
a positive force none of that’s good
so you suffer more and so does everyone
around you and there’s a malevolence
that enters into it none of that’s good
so that’s what happens if you don’t
treat yourself like you matter and then
what happens if you don’t treat other
people like they matter
well you lie to them you cheat them you
steal you you you enter into impulsive
relationships with them they can’t trust
you that doesn’t go anywhere they don’t
like you you you end up alone at best
and maybe like in
incarcerated at worst like that doesn’t
work and so you watch the people around
you who thrive regardless of what they
say they act out the proposition that
everyone matters and then you have a
functional society and I think okay well
if if if when you act out the
proposition that everyone matters you
have a functional society maybe that’s
evidence that that proposition is true
it’s like I think it’s I think it’s true
g’day I’m scheduled and stick to it okay
so what’s the rule with the schedule
it’s not a bloody prison that’s the
first thing that people do wrong is well
I don’t like to have follow a schedule
it’s like well what kind of schedule are
you setting up well I should I have to
do this then I have to do this then I
have to do this you know and then I just
go play video games because who wants to
do all these things that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s gonna go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right cuz that’s a stupid day if you
have a bunch of those in a row you just
dig you know you dig yourself a hole and
then you bury yourself in it’s like
sorry that’s just not a good strategy
it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not Taran I
yourself like you’re negotiating with
someone that you care for that you would
like to be productive and have a good
life and and that’s how you make the
schedule it’s like and then you look at
the day and you think well if I had that
day that would be good
great you know and you you’re useless
and horrible so you’ll probably only hit
it with about 70 percent accuracy but
that beats the hell out of zero right
and if you hit it even with 50 percent
accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51 percent
the next week or 50 and a half percent
for God’s sake or because you’re gonna
hit that position where things start to
loop back positively and spiral you
upward one of the main reasons that
people don’t get what they want is
because they don’t actually figure out
what it is and the probability that
you’re going to get what would be good
for you let’s say which would even be
better than what you want right because
you know you might be what wrong about
what you want easily but maybe you could
get what would really be good for you
well why don’t you well because you
don’t try you don’t think okay here’s
what I would like if I could have it and
and I don’t mean I don’t mean in a way
that you manipulate the world to force
it to deliver you goods for status or
something like that that isn’t what I
mean I mean something like imagine that
you are taking care of yourself like you
were someone you actually cared for and
then you thought okay I’m caring for
this person I would like things to go as
well for them as possible
what would their life have to be like in
order for that to be the case well
people don’t do that they don’t sit down
and think alright you know let’s let’s
figure it out you’ve got a life it’s
hard obviously it’s like three years
from now you can have what you need you
got to be careful about it you can’t
have everything you can have what would
be good for you but you have to figure
out what it is and then you have to aim
at it
well my experience with people has been
is if they figure out what it is that
would be good for them and then they aim
at it then they get it and it’s strange
because they don’t mess it sad that
simple because you know you may
formulate an idea about what would be
good for you and then you take ten steps
towards that and you find out that your
formulation was a bit off and so you
have to reformulate your goal you know
you’re kind of going like this as you
move towards the goal but a huge part of
the reason that people fail is because
they don’t ever setup the criteria for
success and so since success is a very
narrow line and very unlikely the
probability that you’re going to stumble
on it randomly is zero and so there’s a
proposition here in the proposition is
if you actually want something you can
have it now the question then would be
well what do you mean by actually want
and the answer is that you reorient your
life in every possible way to make the
probability that that will occur as
certain as possible and that’s a
sacrificial idea right it’s like you
don’t get everything obviously you
obviously but maybe you can have what
you need and maybe all you have to do to
get it is ask but asking isn’t a whim or
today’s wish it’s like you have to be
deadly serious about it you have to
think okay like I’m taking stock of
myself and if I was going to live
properly in the world and I was going to
set myself up such that being would
justify itself in my estimation and I
don’t mean as a harsh judge exactly what
is it that I would aim at sit on your
bed one day and ask yourself what’s what
remarkably stupid things am i doing on a
regular basis to absolutely screw up my
life
and if you actually asked that question
but you have to want to know the answer
right because that’s actually what
asking the question means it doesn’t
mean just mouthing the words it means
you have to decide that you want to know
you’ll figure that’s out so fast it’ll
make your hair curl stop doing the
things that you know are wrong that you
could stop doing right so it’s it’s a
fairly it’s a fairly limited attempt
first of all we’re not going to say that
you know what the good is or what the
truth is in any ultimate sense but we
will presume that there are things that
you’re doing that for one reason or
another you know are not in your best
interests there’s something about them
that you just know you should stop there
are kind of self-evident to you other
things you’re gonna be doubtful about
you’re not gonna know which way is up
and which way is down but there are
things that you’re doing that you know
you shouldn’t do now some of those you
won’t stop doing for whatever reason you
don’t have the discipline or maybe
there’s a secondary payoff or you don’t
believe it’s necessary or it’s too much
of a sacrifice or you’re angry or
resentful or or afraid
who knows so forget about those for now
but there’s another subset that you
could stop doing it might be little
thing well that’s fine stop doing it and
see what happens
and what will happen is your vision will
clear a little bit and then something
else will pop up in your field of
apprehension that you will also know you
should stop doing and that you could
stop doing because you’ve strengthened
yourself a bit by stopping doing the
particular stupid thing that you were
doing before that just puts you together
a little bit more and you can do that
repeatedly for for an indefinite period
of time and and you know that doesn’t
necessarily mean that you’re going to
ever be able to formulate a clear and
final picture of what constitutes the
truth and the good but it does mean that
you’ll be able to continually move away
from what’s untruth and what’s bad and
you know well that’s not a bad start
[Music]
the next best predictor of lifetime
success is conscientiousness well so and
although of the two aspects of
conscientiousness say orderliness and
and industriousness the better predictor
is industriousness so the question is
well what can you do about your
industriousness and the answer to that
is well that’s kind of rough too because
there’s a strong genetic component but
you can work on micro habits with
regards to your conscientiousness and I
think the best micro habits this is
partly to do with this future authoring
program processes I think the best thing
you can do with regards to your
conscientiousness is to set up some aims
for yourself goals that you actually
value and the future authoring program
helps people do that and basically it
does a situational analysis of it helps
you do a situational analysis of your
life more than a psychological analysis
I would say and so the questions are
something like well alright you’re gonna
have to put some effort into your life
and you need to be motivated to do that
and so what are the potential sources of
motivation well you could think about
them in in the Big Five manner you know
if you’re extroverted you want friends
if you’re agreeable you want an intimate
relationship if you’re a disagreeable
you want to win competitions if you’re
open you want to engage in creative
activity if you’re high in neuroticism
you want security okay so those are all
sources of potential motivation that you
could draw on that you could tailor to
your own you know your own personality
but then there are dimensions that you
want to consider your life across and so
we ask people about well you know if you
could have your life the way you wanted
it in three to five years if you were
taking care of yourself properly you
know what would you want from your
friendships what we do you want from
your intimate relationship how would you
like to structure your family what do
you want for your career well how are
you going to use your time outside of
your job and how are you gonna regulate
your mental physical mental and physical
health and maybe also your drug and
alcohol use because that’s that’s a good
place to auger down you know because
alcoholism for example wipes out you
know five to ten percent of people so
you want to keep that under control and
then and then so maybe you know you you
you develop a vision of what your life
what you would like your life to be and
that associates the so the goal well
once the goal is established and then
you break down
the goal into micro processes that you
can implement the micro process has
become rewarding in proportion in
relation to their causal association
with the goal and that tangles in your
your incentive reward system you know we
talked about the dopaminergic incentive
reward system and that’s the thing that
keeps you moving forward and the way it
works is that it works better if it
produces positive emotion win it can see
you moving towards a valued goal okay
well what’s the implication of that
better have a valued goal because
otherwise you can’t get any positive
motivation working out and so the more
valuable the goal in principle the more
the micro process is associated with
that goal start to take on a positive
charge and so what that means is well
you get up in the morning and you’re
excited about the day you’re ready to go
and so as far as I can tell what you do
is you specify your long term ideal
maybe you also specify a place you want
to stay the hell away from so that
you’re terrified to fail as well as
excited about succeeding because that’s
also useful you specify your goal you do
that you do that in some sense as a
unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile and then the next question
might be well where should you look for
worthwhile things and one would be well
you could consult your own temperament
and the other would be well you kind of
look at how look at what it is that
people accrue that’s valuable across the
lifespan look look what so you do a
structural analysis of the sub
components of human existence and I
already did that you need a family you
need friends like you don’t need to have
all these things but you better have
most of them family friends career
educational goals plans for you know
time outside of work attention to your
mental and physical health etc you know
those are that’s what life is about and
if you don’t have any of those things
well then all you’ve got left is misery
and suffering so that’s that’s a bad
that’s a bad deal for you so so once you
but once you set up that that goal
structure let’s say and that’s really in
many in many ways that’s what you should
be doing at universities is that’s
exactly what you should be doing is
trying to figure out who it is that
you’re trying to be right and you aim at
that and then you use everything you
learned as a means of building that
person that you want to be and and I
really mean want to be I don’t mean
should be even those things those things
are gonna overlap and it’s important to
distinguish between those because that’s
partly and this is back down to the
micro routine analysis so as I saying
while you’re gonna try to make yourself
more industrious okay number one specify
your damn goals because how are you
gonna hit something if you don’t know
what it is that isn’t going to happen
and often people won’t specify their
goals too because they don’t like to
specify conditions for failure so if you
keep yourself all vague and foggy which
is real easy because that’s just a
matter of not doing as well then you
don’t know when you fail and people
might say well I really don’t want to
know when I fail because that’s painful
it so I’ll keep myself blind about when
I fail that’s fine except you’ll fail
all the time then you just won’t know it
until you’ve failed so badly that you’re
done and that can easily happen by the
time you’re 40 so so I would recommend
that you don’t let that happen
so that’s willful blindness right you
could have known but you chose not to
okay so once you get your goal structure
set up you think okay if I could have
this life looks like that might be worth
living despite the fact that it’s going
to be you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort you don’t have to necessarily
have done anything wrong for things to
get completely out of control it’s a
terrifying doctrine but it’s not a
hopeless doctrine because it still says
that there’s a way forward there’s a
pathway forward and the pathway forward
is to adopt a mode of being that has
some nobility so that you can tolerate
yourself and perhaps even have some
respect for yourself as someone who’s
capable of standing up in the face of
that terrible vulnerable
and suffering and that the pathway
forward as far as the existentialists
are concerned is by well certainly by
the avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is no
up to as far as I’m concerned and some
of this is from clinical experience you
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t avoid doing what you knew
you needed to do by the death by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that what would
you be like well you know there are
remarkable people who come into the
world from time to time and there are
people who do find out over decades long
periods what they could be like if they
were who they were if they said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world in a number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now my experience is with people
that we’re probably running at about
fifty one percent of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like four to
six hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after your
done that’s probably four hours right
there know what you think well that’s
2025 hours a week it’s a hundred hours a
month that’s two and a half full work
weeks it’s half a year of work weeks per
year and if your time is worth $20 an
hour which is a radical under estimate
it’s probably more like 50 if you think
about it in terms of deferred wages if
you’re wasting 20 hours a week you’re
wasting $50,000 a year and you are doing
that right now and it’s because you’re
young wasting $50,000 a year is a way
bigger catastrophe than it would be for
me to waste it because I’m not gonna
last nearly as long and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient 20 times more
efficient that’s the purrito
distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely off it’s off the charts well
and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time not only do they
not do what they should to make things
better they actively attempt to make
things worse because they’re spiteful or
resentful or arrogant or deceitful or or
homicidal or genocide allor all of those
things all bundled together in an
absolutely pathological package if
people start really really trying just
to make things worse we have no idea how
much better they would get just because
of that so there’s this weird dynamic
that’s part of the existential system of
ideas between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are our major
causes of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to
at about nine billion by the way and
then it’ll decline rapidly but seven
billion people in the world and who are
you you’re just one little dust mote
among that seven billion and so it
really doesn’t matter what you do or
don’t do but that’s simply not the case
it’s the wrong model because you’re at
the center of a network you’re a node in
a network of course that’s even more
true now that we have social media
you’ll you know you’ll know a thousand
people at least over the course of your
life and they’ll know a thousand people
each and that puts you one person away
from a million and two persons away from
a billion and so that’s how you’re
connected and the things you do there
like dropping a stone in a pond the
ripples move outward and they affect
things in ways that you can’t fully
comprehend and it means that the things
that you do and that you don’t do are
far more important than you think and so
if you act that way of course the terror
of realizing that is that it actually
starts to matter what you do and you
might say well that’s better than living
a meaningless existence it’s better for
it to matter but I mean if you really
ask yourself would you be so sure if you
had the choice I can live with no
responsibility whatsoever the price I
pay is that nothing matters or I can
reverse it and everything matters but I
have to take the responsibility that’s
associated with that it’s not so obvious
to me that people would take the
meaningful path now when you say well
denialists suffered dreadfully because
there’s no meaning in their life and
they still suffer yeah but the
advantages they have no responsibility
so that’s the payoff and I actually
think that’s the motivation say well I
can’t help being nihilistic all my
belief systems have collapsed it’s like
yeah maybe maybe you’ve just allowed
them to collapse because it’s a hell of
a lot easier than acting them out and
the price you pay is some meaningless
suffering but you can always whine about
that and people will feel sorry for you
and you have the option of taking the
pathway of the martyr so that’s a pretty
good deal all things considered
especially when the or when the
alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the twentieth
century it’s not just him even though
he’s the best example is that if you
live a pathological life you pathologize
your society and if enough people do
that then
it’s held really really and you can read
the Gulag Archipelago if you have the
fort it fortitude to do that and you’ll
see exactly what hell is like and then
you can decide if that’s a place you’d
like to visit or even more importantly
if it’s a light if it’s a place you’d
like to visit and take all your family
and friends because that’s what happened
in the 20th century good damn schedule
and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s going to go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right because that’s a stupid day if
you have a bunch of those in a row you
just dig you know you dig yourself a
hole and then you burn yourself and it’s
like sorry that’s just not a good
strategy it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not
tyrannize yourself
like you’re negotiating with someone
that you care for that you would like to
be productive and have a good life and
and that’s how you make the schedule
it’s like and then you look at the day
and you think well if I had that day
that’d be good great you know I knew
you’re useless and horrible so you’ll
probably only hit it with about 70%
accuracy but that beats the hell out of
zero right and if you hit it even with
50% accuracy another rule is well aim
for 51% the next week or 50 and a half
percent for God’s sake or because you’re
gonna hit that position where things
start to loopback positively and spiral
you up stop doing the things that you
know are wrong that you could stop doing
right so it’s it’s a fairly it’s a
fairly limited attempt first of all
we’re not gonna say that you know what
the good is or what the truth is in any
ultimate sense but we will presume that
there are things that you’re doing that
for one reason rather you know are not
in your best interests there’s something
about them that you just know you should
stop there are kind of self-evident to
you other things you’re gonna be
doubtful of it about you’re not gonna
know which way is up and which way is
down but there are things that you’re
doing that you know you shouldn’t do now
some of those you won’t stop doing for
whatever reason you don’t have the
discipline or maybe there’s a secondary
payoff or you don’t believe it’s
necessary or it’s too much of a
sacrifice or you’re angry or resentful
or or afraid who knows so forget about
those for now but there’s another subset
that you could stop doing it might be
little thing well that’s fine stop doing
it and see what happens and what will
happen is your vision will clear a
little bit and then something else will
pop up in your field of apprehension
that you will also know you should stop
doing and that you could stop doing
because you’ve strengthened yourself a
bit by stopping doing the particulars
stupid thing that you were doing before
that just puts you together a little bit
more and you could do that repeatedly
for for an indefinite period of time and
and you know that doesn’t necessarily
mean that you’re going to ever be able
to formulate a clear and final picture
of what constitutes the truth and the
good but it does mean that you’ll be
able to continually move away from
what’s untruth and what’s bad
and you know well that’s not a bad start
I’m just you know oh I can’t sleep at
night because I’m thinking about
something and usually what I’ll do is go
write it down I have some writing to do
so I get up and I go write down what I’m
thinking and that usually does the trick
but because I had been playing with
YouTube I thought well I’ll try making
YouTube video and telling people what
I’m thinking about and see if that
performs the same function as writing
and to me the function of writing while
it’s twofold one is conceivably to
communicate with people
although the fundamental purpose for me
is to clarify my thoughts so that I know
do you know because if you’re if
something is disturbing you what that
means is that it needs to be articulated
it what it’s the emergence of unexplored
territory something that disturbs you
that that’s the right way to think about
it it’s unmapped territory that’s
manifesting itself it’s like a Vista of
threat and possibility and you need to
articulate a path through it and so
that’s what I was doing it’s like I was
thinking well this is bothering me and
this seems to be why and here’s what I
think is going on and and so I made the
videos and in some sense I I didn’t
think anything more of it don’t have to
necessarily have done anything wrong for
things to get completely out of control
it’s a terrifying doctrine but it’s not
a hopeless doctrine because it still
says that there’s a way forward there’s
a pathway forward and the pathway
forward is to adopt a mode of being that
has some nobility so that you can
tolerate yourself and perhaps even have
some respect for yourself as someone
who’s capable of standing up in the face
of that terrible vulnerability and
suffering and that the pathway forward
as far as the existentialists are
concerned is by well certainly by the
avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is
though up to as far as I’m concerned and
some of this is from clinical experience
you know if you take people and I’ve
told you this and you expose them
voluntarily
things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know that they know they
need to overcome in order to meet their
goals their self defined goals if you
can teach people to stand up in the face
of the things they’re afraid of they get
stronger and you don’t know what the
upper limits to that are because you
might ask yourself like if for ten years
if you didn’t avoid doing what you knew
you needed to do by the depth by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that what would
you be like well you know there are
remarkable people who come into the
world from time to time and there are
people who do find out over decades long
periods what they could be like if they
were who they were if they said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world in the number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now my experience is with people
that were probably running at about 51
percent of our capacity something mean
you can think about this yourselves I
often ask undergraduates how many hours
a day you waste or how many hours a week
you waste and the classic answer is
something like 4 to 6 hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done
that’s probably four hours right there
know what do you think well that’s 2025
hours a week it’s a hundred hours a
month that’s two and a half full work
weeks it’s half a year of work weeks per
year and if your time is worth twenty
dollars an hour which is a radical under
estimate it’s probably more like fifty
if you think about it in terms of
deferred wages if you’re wasting 20
hours a week
you’re wasting fifty thousand dollars a
year
you are doing that right now and it’s
because you’re young wasting fifty
thousand dollars a year is a way bigger
catastrophe than it would be for me to
waste it because I’m not gonna last
nearly as long and so if your life isn’t
everything it could be you could ask
yourself well what would happen if you
just stopped wasting the opportunities
that are in front of you you be who
knows how much more efficient ten times
more efficient 20 times more efficient
that’s the Pareto distribution you have
no idea how efficient efficient people
get it’s completely it’s off the charts
well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time
not only do they not do what they should
to make things better they actively
attempt to make things worse because
they’re spiteful or resentful or
arrogant or deceitful or or homicidal or
genocide alors all of those things all
bundled together in an absolutely
pathological package if people start
really really trying just to make things
worse we have no idea how much better
they would get just because of that so
there’s this weird dynamic that’s part
of the existential system of ideas
between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are our major
causes of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to peak
at about nine billion by the way and
then it’ll decline rapidly but seven
billion people in the world and who are
you you’re just one little dust mote
among that seven billion and so it
really doesn’t matter what you do or
don’t do but that’s simply not the case
it’s the wrong model because you’re at
the center of a network you’re a node in
a network of course that’s even more
true now that we have social media
you’ll you know you’ll know a thousand
people at least over the course of your
life and they’ll know a thousand people
each and that puts you one person away
from a million and two persons away from
a billion and so that’s how you’re
connected and the things you do there
like dropping a stone in a pond the
ripples move outward and they affect
things in ways that you can’t fully
comprehend and it means that the things
that you do and that you don’t do are
far more important than you think and so
if you act that way of course the terror
of realizing that is that it actually
starts to matter what you do and you
might say well that’s better than living
a meaningless existence it’s better for
it to matter but I mean if you
really ask yourself would you be so sure
if you had the choice I can live with no
responsibility whatsoever the price I
pay is that nothing matters or I can
reverse it and everything matters but I
have to take the responsibility that’s
associated with that
it’s not so obvious to me that people
would take the meaningful path now when
you say well denialists suffered
dreadfully because there’s no meaning in
their life and they still suffer yeah
but the advantages they have no
responsibility so that’s the payoff and
I actually think that’s the motivation
say well I can’t help being nihilistic
all my belief systems have collapsed
it’s like yeah maybe maybe you’ve just
allowed them to collapse because it’s a
hell of a lot easier than acting them
out and the price you pay is some
meaningless suffering but you can always
whine about that and people will feel
sorry for you and you have the option of
taking the pathway of the martyr so
that’s a pretty good deal all things
considered especially when the or when
the alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the 20th century
it’s not just him even though he’s the
best example is that if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell really really and you can
read the Gulag Archipelago if you have
the four tit fortitude to do that and
you’ll see exactly what hell is like and
then you can decide if that’s a place
you’d like to visit or even more
importantly if it’s a light if it’s a
place you’d like to visit and take all
your family and friends because that’s
what happened in the 20th century I
started to pay very careful attention to
what I was saying I don’t know if that
happened voluntarily or involuntarily
but I could feel a sort of split
developing in my psyche and the split
and I’ve actually had students tell me
the same thing that has happened to them
after they’ve listened to some of the
material that that I’ve been describing
to all of you but split into two
let’s say and one part was the let’s say
the old me that was talking a lot and
that liked to argue and that liked ideas
and there was another part that was
watching that part like just with its
eyes open and neutrally judging and the
part that was neutrally judging was
watching the part that was talking and
going that isn’t your idea you don’t
really believe that you don’t really
know what you’re talking about that
isn’t true and I thought that’s really
interesting so now and that was
happening to like 95% of what I was
saying and so then I didn’t really know
what to do I thought okay this is
strange so maybe I’ve fragmented and
that’s just not a good thing at all I
mean it wasn’t like I was hearing voices
or anything like that I mean it wasn’t
like that it was it was well people have
multiple parts so then I had this weird
conundrum it’s like well which of those
two things are me is it the part that’s
listening and saying no that’s rubbish
that’s a lie that’s your doing that to
impress people you’re just trying to win
the argument you know was that me or was
the part that was going about my normal
verbal business me and I didn’t know but
I decided I would go with the critic and
then what I tried to do what I learned
to do I think was to stop saying things
that made me weak and now that I mean
I’m still trying to do that because I’m
always feeling when I talk whether or
not the words that I’m saying are either
making me a line or making me come apart
and I think the alignment I really do
think the alignment is it I think
alignment is the right way of
conceptualizing it because I think if
you say things that are as true as you
can say them let’s say then they
come up they come out of the depths
inside of you because we don’t know
where thoughts come from we don’t know
how far down into your sub structure the
thoughts emerge we don’t know what
processes of physiological alignment are
necessary for you to speak from the core
of your being we don’t understand any of
that we don’t even conceptualize that
but I believe that you can feel that and
I learned some of that from reading Carl
Rogers by the way who’s a great
clinician because he talked about mental
health in part as the coherence between
the spiritual or the or the abstract and
the physical that the two things were
aligned and and there’s a lot of idea of
alignment in psychoanalytic and clinical
thinking but anyways I decided that I
would start practicing not saying things
that would make me weak and what
happened was that I had to stop saying
almost everything that I was saying I
would say 95% of it as a hell of a shark
to wake up and I mean this was over a
few months but it’s a hell of a shark to
wake up and realize that you’re mostly
dead wood it’s a shark
you know and you might think well do you
really want all of that to burn off it’s
like well there’s nothing left but a
little ha spite of you it’s like well if
that 5% is solid then maybe that’s exactly what you want to have happen
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