[Music]
the question is how do you differentiate
the utility of behavioral / psycho
therapeutic treatments for conditions
like depression versus medical
treatments okay so the first thing I
would say is don’t underestimate the
utility of medical interventions
depression is a cat catastrophe it
carries with it a very high suicide rate
and it also levels people out and it’s
really hard on their families and so and
it and it’s physiologically
extraordinarily damaging and so if
you’re in a depressive state and it’s
severe you can try an antidepressant
you’ll know in a month if it works if it
works well maybe it’ll help you get your
life together like we could say well
maybe you’re depressed because your life
isn’t very well together could be
sometimes people are depressed their
life is just it isn’t fine because no
one’s life is fine everyone’s life is a
tragedy but sometimes people have their
lives in order as much as you could
expect anyone to have they have friends
they have an intimate relationship they
have a career that they like you know
they’re they’re qualified industrious
people working hard on what they’re
doing and and and really playing a
minimum number of games with themselves
and they’re terribly depressed
antidepressant man that’s sometimes that
will just fix it and so hooray like your
biological entity if there’s something
out there that can help you strengthen
yourself so that you can prevail great
and you know people you hear everyone
takes antidepressants you know
everyone’s taking them just like no one
takes those bloody things without
serious consideration half the time I
spend with my clients who are depressed
is often the two years long attempt to
get them to tentatively try an
antidepressant because they’re so guilty
that they’re relying on an external
crutch to sort out their lives that they
can’t even tolerate it but you know I
say well look man what if you had
diabetes you’re not gonna take your
insulin it’s like you got stressed you
blew out at your weakest point that’s
what happens when you get stressed if
there’s something out there that might
help you it’s like try it
for God’s sake you’ll know in a month
and you just stop
that doesn’t work now having said that
you want to do a multi-dimensional
analysis it’s like well do you have any
friends do you have an intimate
relationship or are you pursuing one do
you have a reasonable career are you as
educated as you are intelligent do you
have something useful to do with your
time outside of work do you have a drug
or alcohol problem
are there other behavioral issues like
sleep dysregulation and lack of eating
that are contributing to the pathology
you want to differentiate all of that
and wherever you can make a behavioral
intervention so much the better
but sometimes – you’re dealing with
people whose lives are so wrecked that
they don’t even know where to start
they’re different than the ones who have
everything in order say and you say well
try this man maybe you won’t cut your
throat in the next month because if
you’re dead it’s going to be hard to
work with you and so so medical
interventions anything if you’re sick
you do what it’s necessary to get better
and you leave your pride behind if you
if you have to and that that says
nothing about the utility of the
behavioral interventions you want to hit
the problem with everything you have at
your disposal but some antidepressants
especially especially for people whose
lives are together and who are depressed
antidepressants can be absolutely
miraculous so you know when you hear
about the clinical evidence in their
favor being iffy and that’s partly
because the diagnosis of depression
isn’t very well formulated there’s it’s
very different to have a terrible life
than to be depressed and antidepressants
can only help you so much if you have a
you want to stay inside this little map
because it’s working you want to get
from point A to point eight point B and
this is good this indicates that you are
moving forward that’s the first thing it
indicates and the second thing it
indicates which is even more important
and you’ll never hear this from
behavioral psychologists is that your
map is correct so every time you move a
little bit forward and something that
you want happens it says oh the game I’m
playing is the right game and so not
only does the reward indicate progress
it indicates that the frame within which
progress is being calculated is the
right frame and that’s good because it’s
the frame that makes things irrelevant
and you want them to stay irrelevant so
if you don’t move forward and you start
to question the frame that’s way worse
than merely not moving forward
you get a bad examine what do you think
what the hell am i doing in university
anyways it’s like probably that’s not
the first place you should go with that
piece of information and you think well
why why is that worse well as far as I
can tell your map of you as University
student is a comprehensive
representation it tells you what you
should do every day it kind of tells you
where you’re going in the future and if
something emerges as an anomaly you get
worse grade than you expected and you
blow that whole map it’s like okay what
have you been doing for the last four
years what kind of high school student
were you how clueless are you about how
you’re arranging your future what’s your
identity going to be if you’re not going
to be a student where are you gonna end
up in five years it’s like so it’s like
a that little grade that bad grade is
like a portal through which snakes can
crawl and that’s exactly how you respond
to it especially if you open the door
too much well maybe this means that I
shouldn’t be in university well one of
the rules is don’t you want to you want
to constrain the anomalous event to the
minimal necessary domain it’s really
really important you want to do that
when you’re arguing with your partner
which you’ll do all the time we have an
argument well I should never have
married you it’s like no no that’s not
the first response that’s a bad response
or here’s a really good one you’ve
always done that sort of thing and you
always will it’s like oh good great it’s
like the only answer to that is to hit
someone because like you’re done right
you’re you’re like that you’ve always
like that there isn’t a chance that you
could be repaired and none of it is
acceptable it’s like the person’s gonna
fight with you right away because what
else are they gonna do so what you want
to do is you want to minimize it isn’t
rationalization you want to say okay
this person did something that disrupted
our joint map okay what’s the smallest
possible thing they could do to put it
back together and you have to know well
we need to make a plan so you don’t do
it again or we need to have a discussion
so that you know that it wasn’t a good
thing to do but I’m not going to go
after your whole character I’m gonna say
when I come home and you’re watching TV
just come to the door and say hello not
don’t you love me or something like that
it’s like no no you just have to walk to
the door and like give me a hug or
something and then that’s good enough
and so then the other person might be
able to tolerate that much corrective
information maybe if you’re kind of nice
about it and you also understand that
they’re probably going to have something
equally horrible to say about you in the
next 15 minutes because you’re gonna do
something stupid so so you don’t want to
you don’t want to open the door so that
every possible snake comes crawling
through because that’s a pathway to
depression and you actually see that
happening in depressed people is that
every small event produces a cascade
through their entire value system and
they end up saying well that’s just
another reason that I should jump off a
bridge and they really see it that way
it’s really awful because they’ve got no
defenses it’s like well I I didn’t do so
well in this course it’s like I’m gonna
get a bad mark in the or in the exam I’m
gonna get bad mark in the course that’s
going to screw up my ability to finish
my degree I’m never going to get into
the field of my choice it’s just another
piece of indication that I’m useless and
that life isn’t worthwhile bang I’m
going to jump off a bridge and if you’re
really depressed it’s like each of those
things hits you with the certainty of
truth it’s really not good and so you
want to be careful you want to be
careful about walking down that pathway
when you make a mistake you think okay
what’s the narrowest framework of
interpretation within which I can I can
understand this that will require
minimal behavioral change to decrease
the probability that it will happen
again
it’s Mental Hygiene fund
yes yeah we’ll get to that we’ll get to
that that is the next question
it’s because they don’t exist in
isolation so and that’s another thing
frequently when you when you hear
behavioral accounts of cognitive
processes they generally only focus on
as if it’s an isolated thing it’s not it
exists scalable it’s scalable a bunch of
ways it’s scalable temporarily because
what you do now is associated with what
you’ll do tomorrow and that with what
you’ll do next week and so forth
so it has to be scalable temporarily and
it’s also scalable socially right so it
has an effect on you that has an effect
on your family that has an effect on the
community and so forth and so you don’t
want to take it’s very difficult to
think through the effect of your action
and all those scaling levels
simultaneously but but you have
mechanisms that allow you to do that and
we’ll see I think that the sense of
let’s assume that you’re not lying to
yourself constantly so your head isn’t
full of chaos and garbage and you have
reasonable relationships with people in
the world I think that this is leaping
way ahead I think that your sense of
meaningful engagement with what you’re
doing is the psychophysiological marker
that you’re acting in a way that takes
all of the stacked representations into
account simultaneously because you’re
you’re you’re like you’re trying to
figure out where you are and you might
think well that means where I am in this
room but look this room is not a simple
thing right it’s nested it’s it’s a
subset of the university that’s a subset
of society it’s a subset of your life
the room is a complicated thing and you
need to figure out where you should be
in the room and you can’t do that sure
surely with perception because all you
see is me and some of the wall right
it’s you’ve got this little narrow this
little narrow portal and so you can’t
really rely on your perceptions to
orient you but you do orient yourself
and I think what you do is you its
engagement it’s like does this seem
meaningful and deep and engaging yes
then it’s an indication that it’s
serving multiple master
simultaneously so both maybe both
socially and also temporarily and so I
think the sense of meaning is actually
an instinct that Orient’s people in time
and space it’s not an empathy nomina
it’s the most fundamental form of
perception and that’s the only
optimistic thought that I’ve ever been
able to derive from psychology is that
that actually could be true it could be
that the sense of meaning is an
orienting reflex and that would be
wonderful if it was true because it
would make it real you know and it’s one
of the you know the one of the
devastating elements of nihilism is
something like well who the hell cares
what you’re doing what difference is it
going to make in a million years it’s
like your sense of meaning is just an
illusion you know you’re you’re a
limited creature in a limited place and
nothing you do really matters it’s like
that’s a powerful argument especially if
you’re an objective materialist and a
reductionist it’s a killer argument but
it looks to me like it’s wrong it’s
actually wrong because meaning looks to
me like it’s an actual phenomena it does
say that your your position properly
between chaos and order or something
like that it’s real so well so we’ll see
we’re going to develop that argument
because if if it’s real you want to know
that because it gives you something to
stand on
you know maybe it’s as real as pain but
it’s not pain it’s something positive
and you need something positive that you
can rely on alright so and the
psychoanalysts I think it air too much
on the side of the subject they tend to
think that too much of you is inside of
you and too little of you is outside of
you and part of the reason I believe
that is because of my clinical
experience I love the psychoanalyst man
they’re brilliant they’re brilliant
they’re deep they grapple with real
problems like with the problems when
people have real problems and I mean
profound problems they’re really
profound moral problems or problems of
good and evil really you know there are
things going on in their family that are
so terrible that well that there there
are sometimes fatal you know lie upon
lie upon lie upon lie for
Cades and decades and decades it’s awful
and that’s not exactly inside them it’s
out there in the world and lots of the
people that I see very famous critic of
psychology I can’t remember his name but
I probably will criticize the practice
of psychology quite effectively in the
leave in the early 60s the myth of
mental illness by Thomas says Szasz it’s
classic you should read it if you’re
interested in psychology read it like
it’s a classic and he basically said
most people have problems in living they
don’t have psychological problems and so
I’ve experienced despite my love for the
psychoanalysts very frequently what I’m
doing as a therapist is helping people
have a life that would work you know and
you can parameterize that it’s like what
do you need how about some friends that
people kind of like that how about an
intimate relationship with someone that
you can trust that maybe has a future
that’d be good how about a career that
puts you in a dominant Archy somewhere
so at least you’ve got some possibility
of rising some possibility of
stabilizing yourself and our schedule in
a routine because no one can live
without a routine you just forget that
if you guys don’t have a routine I would
recommend like you get one going because
you cannot be mentally healthy without a
routine you need to pick a time to get
up whatever time you want but pick one
and stick to it because otherwise you
dis regulate your circadian rhythms and
they regulate your mood and eat
something in the morning I had lots of
clients who’ve had anxiety disorders I
had one client who was literally
starving very smart girl sheet there’s
very little that she liked she kind of
tried to subsist on like half a cup of
rice a day she came to me and said I
have no energy I come home all I want to
do is watch the same movie over and over
what like is that weird
and I thought well it depends on how
hard you work you know it’s a little
weird but whatever it’s familiar you’re
looking for comfort so I did an analysis
of her diet it’s like three quarters of
a cup of rice it’s like you’re starving
eat something
you know you’ll feel better
so she modified her diet and you’re all
her anxiety went away and she had some
energy it’s like yeah you got to eat so
a schedule that’s a good thing man your
brain will thank you for it it will
stabilize your nervous system with it’s
a bit of a plan that’s a good thing you
need a career you need something
productive to do with your time you need
to regulate your use of drugs and
alcohol most particularly alcohol
you need a family like the family you
have your parents and all that be nice
if you all got along you could work on
that that’s a good thing to work on and
then you know you probably need children
at some point that’s life that’s what
life is and if you’re missing you know
you may have a good reason to not be
operating on one of those dimensions
it’s not mandatory but I can tell you
that if you’re not operating reasonably
well on four I think I mentioned six if
you’re not operating reasonably well on
at least three of them there’s no way
you’re going to be psychologically
thriving and that’s more pragmatic in
some sense than psychological right
human beings have a nature there’s
things we need and if we have them well
that’s good and if we don’t have them
well then we feel the lack and so
behaviorists behavioral psychologists
concentrate a lot more on that sort of
thing you know it’s practical it’s like
strategizing make a career plan figure
out how to negotiate because that’s
bloody important figure out how to say
what you need figure out how to tell the
truth to people figure out how to listen
to your partner in particular because if
you listen to them they will actually
tell you what they want and
sometimes you can give it to them and
maybe they’ll return the favor and if
you practice that for like 15 years well
then maybe you’re constantly giving each
other what you want well hooray that
would be good and then there’s two of
you under all circumstances and it’s
better to have two brains than one
because people think differently because
of their temperament mostly and so the
negotiation is where the wisdom arises
and it’s part of the transformation the
psychological transformation that’s
attendant on an intimate relationship
and one of the fundamental purposes of a
long-term intimate relationship so we’re
starting to be able to put the traits to
sort of nail the traits down to their
underlying biology with regards to
neuroticism well if you’re high in
neuroticism you’re more sensitive to
anxiety and that’s it regulated at least
in part by the hippocampus and and
generated in part by the amygdala
there’s another part of the brain called
the periagua aqueduct or gray that seems
to be associated with the experience of
pain and pain is quite a complex
phenomena depression is pain like grief
is pain like social isolation is pain
like disappointment is pain like there’s
anxiety components to that too and so
neuroticism seems to be something like
threshold for activation in those
negative emotion systems so if you’re
higher in neuroticism one unit of
uncertainty might produce let’s say
three units of psychophysiological
response whereas if you’re lower in
neuroticism one unit of uncertainty
might produce one unit of psycho
physiological response it’s hard you
know obviously that’s a simplified
schematic but there’s variability
because if something unexpected or her
threatening happens to you it isn’t
obvious how upset you should get one
answer what might be brush it off it’s
nothing another answer might be
it’s a bloody catastrophe and often when
something uncertain or threatening
occurs you don’t have enough information
at your disposal to make a full
determination of the potential import of
this of the circumstance especially if
it’s uncertain and so then you have to
guess at how upset you should be and
where you are on the normal distribution
with regards to trait neuroticism say
that sort of determines what your guests
on average is going to be so you know
the other with conscientiousness say you
might say well how hard should you work
well that’s a really difficult question
if you’re gonna die tomorrow and then
you probably shouldn’t work very hard
today at all so one thing you might say
is that the degree to which you should
work hard is dependent on your
assumptions about the stability of the
future we actually know this to be true
because if you put people in wildly
uncertain circumstances they discount
the future which is exactly what you
should do right it’s only makes sense to
store up goods for future consumption if
the future is likely to be very similar
to the past and the present you need a
stable society for that and
conscientiousness only works in a stable
society because all you do otherwise if
you’re piling up goods which is kind of
what conscientious people do is leaving
them there for the criminals to take or
waiting for the next chaotic upheaval to
wipe out everything that you’ve stored
and so even conscientiousness is a kind
of guess hard-working people say well
you know
sacrifice the present for the future
that’s great as long as the future is
going to be there and you can predict it
but if it’s not going to be there and
it’s unpredictable then the right
response is take what you can take right
now well the getting’s good
now you know obviously there are
troubles with that too it I’m speaking
you know I’m offering rough rules of
thumb but I’m trying to provide you with
some indication of how and why these
difference in value structures exist
because they’re applicable in different
environments you know sometimes in a
dangerous social environment it’s not
obvious that being an extroverted person
is a good idea because extroverted
people they stand out especially if
they’re extroverted and creative right
because not only are they noisy and and
dominant and assertive they’re also
colorful and and flamboyant and
provocative what happens to people is
that as they move towards zero positive
feedback loops get set up so they’re
more likely to hit zero and as they move
away from zero positive feedback loops
get set up so that they’re increasingly
more likely to move away from zero so
here’s an example let’s say
you’re not doing too bad so maybe you’re
in the middle of the normal distribution
then you lose your job okay and so let’s
say you’re a conscientious person and we
can say just for the sake of argument
that you lose your job because of mass
layoffs in your company so it has
nothing to do with you it’s
fundamentally it’s just like luck of the
draw basically but then what happens to
you well if you’re conscientious you’re
gonna you’re gonna go after yourself
pretty hard so you’re gonna and
especially if you’re also high in
neuroticism it’s gonna depress you to
lose your job and maybe you’re in a
situation where you just for one reason
or another you don’t have that many
other opportunities now maybe you should
look for them but maybe you’re in a
depressed strata of the economy or
you’re geographically located somewhere
that makes moving difficult or so on and
so forth you know so but you you lose a
job and then you start to get depressed
because of that well then as you start
to get depressed
you know it decreases the probability
that you’re gonna look for a job but
also maybe starts to put stress on your
family and it also starts to decrease
the probability that you’re in going to
engage in positive social interaction so
now not only are you unemployed and
suffering from economic stress but your
marriage is starting to suffer and
you’re starting to isolate yourself from
your friends and then of course as your
marriage suffers and the stress builds
up then that’s going to make you more
depressed and that’s going to keep you
even farther away from your friends and
that’s going to decrease the likelihood
that you’re gonna have enough positive
emotion and enthusiasm to look for
another job and then you know maybe you
want to add a bit of a drinking problem
to that just for fun and you can see
that you can get a spiral going that’s
just taking you down right and there’s
all sorts of things because lots of
times people conceptualize let’s say you
know you’re unemployed guy and you go to
counseling and you get a diagnosis of
depression and the thing about a
diagnosis of depression it’s sort of
like the assumption is there’s something
gone wrong with your psychological
structure it’s like if you’re unemployed
and you you’re depressed it isn’t
obvious at all that the problem is in
your head you know you know what I mean
it’s it doesn’t it doesn’t even obvious
that it’s a psychological problem it’s
just a problem and problems can take you
out and so the you know if you’re
unemployed and you’re under economic
stress and your marriage is starting to
shake and you’re isolating yourself from
your friends and you’re less likely to
be motivated to go look for a job you
sort of think about that as a depressive
spiral but you can also think of it as a
conspiracy in some sense of external
forces that are augering you into the
ground and we don’t tend to
conceptualize psychological disorders
that way but we should because lots of
times when people are suffering from
something that you could describe in
Psychological terminology and depression
is a very good example of that it isn’t
obvious that there’s something wrong
with them psychologically often they
just are in trouble and there isn’t a
category in in psychological diagnosis
for client in serious trouble but my
experience has been almost without
exception that the people that come to
see me come to see me because
something’s gone wrong with their life
not because they have a psychological
problem now you could say well there are
psychological inadequacies such as they
might be are interfering with their
ability to recover or maybe even served
as precursors to you know increase the
probability of the catastrophe and so a
well-functioning personality has all the
micro routines in place that’s actually
something that you help people with if
you’re a behavioral therapist because
one of the things you assume if you’re a
behavioral therapist is that sometimes
the reason people aren’t doing things is
because they don’t know how you know
sometimes maybe the person is depressed
but potentially high-functioning they
got all the damn micro routines they’re
well socialized they’re just dormant you
got to get them awake again and
implementing them but sometimes you get
someone in your practice say who’s just
being neglected like you cannot believe
right the parents never paid any
attention to them or maybe just punished
them every time they did something good
that’s really fun and then you know they
didn’t make friends and so they’re
really really big and and and poorly
articulated and so then what you do is
you work at the bottom of the micro
routines and get them to practice
building up all these little attributes
that they didn’t build up and you know
one of the things you can think about in
terms of character development is so now
maybe understand something about your
own personality you might say well what
could you do to improve your personality
and the answer is develop some of the
micro routines on the other side of the
personality distribution so if you’re
disagreeable as hell maybe you could
start learning how to do nice things for
people and that actually works by the
way so if you take disagreeable people
who are depressed
and you get them doing nice things for
other people their depression tends to
lift but then by the same token if
you’re agreeable then you should
practice doing some things for yourself
and being more tough minded in your
negotiations and so you can sort of
place yourself on the on the personality
trait distribution you know you’re
extrovert it’s like okay man learn to
spend some time with yourself right
you’re low in openness well try reading
a book that’s outside of your you know
your your sphere of interest now and
then if you’re conscientious well you
should probably learn how to relax
occasionally and and so forth so you can
I think partly what you’re doing is
you’re developing your personality is
not moving the mean much the average
where you know where you’re located but
you’re extending the standard deviation
so that you’re a bigger bag of tricks
than you were before and I think you can
practice that consciously it’s like
you’re hyper orderly it’s well get a dog
you know dogs they’re messy horrible
things you know it’s just what you need
if you’re hyper orderly because they’re
gonna leave hair everywhere and force
you live with it and so okay so and so
this is sort of you right this is your
personality it’s this connect collection
of root subroutines that you’ve turned
into a hierarchy and then there’s
something at the top of it and that’s
that’s a big question like what the hell
should be at the top of the hierarchy
because that’s the ultimate question of
unity and then the the clinicians would
say well it’s the self-actualized person
or it’s the self or something like that
you know that’s that’s the ID that’s the
implicit and perhaps explicit ideal that
you’re aiming for and you might say well
is does such thing exists that I would
say well do you admire people because
that’s your answer right do you despise
people well you like some people and you
don’t like others you respect some
people you don’t respect others well
you’re acting out the notion that
there’s at least an implicit ideal you
do the same thing when you go to movies
you know you you know who the hero is
you know who the bad guy is you’re
acting out the proposition that there’s
some sort of value hierarchy and there’s
some sort of manifestation of it that’s
coherent across time so you appear to
believe that and you know you are driven
at least to some degree by your own
inner ideals and so you tend to answer
the question is that real with an
affirmative and if you don’t there’s
catastrophic consequences Nietzsche and
the existentialist we’re very good at
detailing maths
like you let your value hierarchy
disintegrate well then what well part of
it is nihilistic chaos whoo that’s not
so much fun and then there’s the
alignment of nihilistic chaos with the
intrinsic desire that someone will come
along and tell you what to do right so
what happens is if you let this devolve
you end up with nihilistic exists not
with nihilistic chaos or the demand for
for the tyrant to come forward and we’ve
had that happen lots of times and
all right well so what happens when you
you lay out these little routines in the
world at different levels of analysis
well this is how your emotions function
broadly speaking you know you’re aiming
at something and this is an
oversimplification which is why I want
to show you this right when I show you
this assume that it’s made out of that
right it’s just a schematic
oversimplification because even if let’s
say that I’m trying to do something as
simple as walking towards the door I
mean that the action of walking towards
the door is predicated on the existence
of all the subroutines that enable me to
propel my body across time and space and
like there’s that took a lot of internal
organization to get that right it’s a
traumatized now and so you can treat it
like it’s invisible but implicit in any
one of these structures is this entire
structure and you actually see this in
therapy very frequently – okay one of
the things that I figured out over the
last years is this is a good proposition
so you know it’s pretty self-evident
that life is has got its rat’s nest of
miseries and that’s for sure and maybe
you could even make a categorical
statement that life is mostly a rat’s
nest of misery you know you can make a
pretty powerful argument for that but
then there’s a counter question which is
well what if you tried not to make it
any more miserable that had had to be
right then what then what would it be
like and my suspicions are is that law
about misery I would suspect that most
of that misery would go away because
it’s the unnecessary misery that really
brings you down you know it’s like well
someone has cancer it’s like that sucks
but it’s not like it’s not like you can
say
if only we had done this differently
then that wouldn’t have happened but
when someone’s out like torturing you in
a malevolent way or maybe you’re doing
the same you can always ask yourself
well really it’s this really necessary
is this just like an useless add-on to
the miseries of life that’s what
disheartens people and so even in your
own life if if you if you aren’t
suffering from self-imposed misery and
you’re only suffering from an escapable
misery maybe you could handle that and
you know you could you could survive you
could bear it and even maybe without
becoming irredeemably corrupt and so the
goal would be well yeah life is a rat’s
nest of miseries and maybe it has no
ultimate meaning we could say that for
feeling particularly pessimistic but it
still leaves one question open which is
if you didn’t do everything you could to
make it worse how good could you make it
be and the least answer is well it it
could be tragedy but maybe not hell and
I think that’s right I really believe
that that’s that’s the most pessimistic
proper statement the worst-case outcome
in the worst of all possible worlds is
that your life could be tragic but not
hell and that’s blood better than hell
right it’s it’s and you think I could
give you an example of the difference
you’re at your mother’s deathbed
well that’s tragedy here’s another
scenario you’re out your mother’s
deathbed and all you you and all your
idiot siblings are arguing well that’s
the difference between tragedy and hell
and you might be able to tolerate the
first circumstance and maybe it would
even bring you closer together with your
family members the second one no one can
bear that you walk away from a situation
like that sick of yourself and sick of
everything else – and you know it’s
often the case that tragic circumstances
bring out the Dragons because the stress
is high and all those things that people
haven’t dealt with they don’t have the
energy to repress and and all the
bitterness comes pouring forward it’s
like seriously man so that’s actually a
good it’s a rough lesson but it’s a good
hallmark for figuring out whether or not
you’re you’ve got yourself adjusted
properly and in relationship to your
siblings it’s like if you all gathered
around the bed of someone close who is
dying could you manage it if they
there is no it’s like well put your life
together because it’s going to happen
and you should be the person who’s there
that can do it and do it properly and
then maybe you’d find that it isn’t the
sort of thing that will undermine your
faith in life itself and I’ve seen I’ve
seen both of those situations you know
ugly ugly ugly situations you know
murderously ugly situations and then
their opposite where people have had
terrible things happening to happen to
them as a family and you know they pull
together and they rebuild their damn
ship and they sail away so that seems to
me to be a lot better that makes you
know when the flood comes right well
okay so the same thing the question
emerges well who are you well you could
say your this plan that’s what people
usually that’s how people usually
identify maybe they have no plan at all
and they’re just in chaos right that’s
like being in the belly of the beast
they’re nihilistic and chaos they have
no plan they’re just chaos itself and
that’s a very dreadful situation for
people to be in or maybe they conjure
together a plan that’s their identity
it’s kind of fragile and they’re holding
on to that with with everything they’ve
got it’s their little stick of wood that
they’re floating in the ocean clinging
to you know and so they’re identifying
really hard with that plan that’s what
happens when you’re an ideologue is that
you’re identifying really hard with that
plan the problem is is something comes
up to confront it well how do you act
well you can’t let go with a plan
because you drown then you cling to it
rigidly well that’s no good because then
you can’t learn anything then if that’s
you you’re a totalitarian you’re not
going to learn anything you’re going to
end up in something that’s close enough
to hell so that you won’t know the
difference and you might drag everyone
along with you that’s happened plenty of
times right it’s the whole story of the
20th century it happened over and over
and over and it happens in people’s
states it’s happens in their business
organizations that happens in their
cities that happens in their provinces
it happens in their States and it
happens in their psyches all at the same
time you can’t blame the manifestation
of that sort of thing on any of those
one levels it happens when a society
goes down that way it goes down
everywhere at the same time it’s not the
totalitarians at the top and all the
happy people striving to be
at the bottom it’s not that at all it’s
totalitarianism at every single level of
the hierarchy including the
psychological and so you don’t want to
be the thing you don’t want to be in
chaos that’s for sure but you don’t want
to be the thing that clings so
desperately to the raft that you can’t
let go when someone comes to rescue you
right you don’t want to be that so then
you think well exactly what are you
you know what the chaos you know what
the plan maybe your the thing that
confronts the obstacle and I would say
that’s the categorical lesson of of
psychology insofar as it has to do with
personal transformation that’s what you
always teach people in psychotherapy I
don’t care what sort of psychotherapists
you are you’re always teaching them the
same thing you’re the thing that can you
not
you’re not the plan you’re the thing
that can confront the obstacle to the
plant and then when you know even
further that the obstacle is not only an
obstacle but opportunity itself well
then your whole view of the world can
change because you might think well I’ve
got this plan something came up to
object to it it’s like it’s possible
that the thing that’s objecting has
something to teach you that will take
you to the place where you develop an
even better plant that’s a nice
framework to use it’s like are you so
sure that this is a problem is that the
only way that you can look at it or is
it an opportunity I mean I’m not trying
to be you know naively optimistic there
are some things that’s pretty hard to
extract gold from some dragons and maybe
the death of a family member is a good
example of that
but in even in a situation like that I
can tell you that it’s an opportunity
for it’s an opportunity for maturation
that’s for sure and the thing is you
might say well it’s pretty miserable to
go to be digging for gold when someone’s
falling into the grave well if they
really loved you first of all that’s
what they’ll want you to do and second
you’re gonna make their death a lot more
palatable experience for them if you’re
someone who can be in the room and be
helpful instead of be you know quivering
in the corner and feeling that the
entire world is collapsing in on you I
mean that’s another you want to be the
useful person at the funeral how’s that
for a goal that’s a good goal man you
know that you’ve got yourself together
in a situation like that because you’re
gonna be at them and maybe you want to
be the person on whose shoulder people
cry that’d be a good goal that’s kind of
you know I don’t like being I
evilly optimistic so when I tell you to
get your life together I’m not going to
say roses and sunshine it’s like that’s
that’s that’s that’s pablum for fools
but it really is something to be the
reliable person out of funeral there’s
this idea in union psychology called the
circumambulation and you only had this
idea that you had a potential future
self which would be in potential
everything that you could be and that it
manifests itself moment to moment in
your present life by making you
interested in things and the things that
you’re interested in are the things that
would guide you along the path that
would lead you to maximal development
now it sounds up like a metaphysical
idea or a or a mystical idea even but
but it’s not it’s it’s not it’s a really
profoundly biological idea the idea is
something like well you’re set up so
that you’re automatically interested in
those things that was fully expand you
as a well adapted creature well like
there’s nothing radical about that idea
how well what else could possibly be the
case unless there’s something
fundamentally flawed about you that is
what the situation would be it’s kind of
interesting to think about how that
would be manifest moment to moment but
the idea is something like well your
interest is captured by those things
that lead you down the path of
development well I better be the case
okay so that’s fine and so there’s some
utility and pursuing those things that
you’re interested in that’s the call to
adventure let’s say so and the call to
adventure takes you all sorts of places
now the problem with the call to
adventure is like what the hell do you
know you might be interested in things
that are kind of warped and bent and
often it’s the case that when new parts
of people manifest themselves and grip
their interest say they do it very badly
and shoddily and so you stumble around
like an idiot when you try to do
something new that’s where the fool is
the precursor to the savior from the
from the symbolic perspectives because
you have to be a fool before you can be
a master and if you’re not willing to be
a fool then you can’t be a master so so
you’re gonna it’s an error error ridden
process and that’s also laid out in the
Old Testament stories but
the first thing that happens to all
these patriarchal figures when God kicks
them out of their father’s house when
they’re like 84 is that they they run
into all sorts of trouble and some of
its social and some of its natural and
some of it’s a consequence of their own
moral inadequacy so they’re fools and
but but the thing that’s so interesting
is that despite the fact that they’re
fools they’re still supposed to go on
the adventure and that they’re capable
of learning enough as a consequence of
moving forward on the adventure so that
they straighten themselves out across
time and so it’s something like this
this circumambulation that young talked
about was this continual will return to
this this continual circling in some
sense of who you could be you might
notice for example that there are themes
in your life you know when you go back
across your experiences you see you kind
of have your typical experience that
sort of repeats itself and there might
be variation on it like a musical theme
but it’s it’s like you’re circling
yourself and getting closer to yourself
as you move across time
that’s the circumambulation now you
remember that for a sec cause we’ll go
back to it okay so imagine that
something glimmers before you it’s an an
interest that’s dawning and you decide
well first of all you’re paralyzed do
you think well how do I know if I should
pursue that it’s probably a stupid idea
and the proper response to that is
you’re right it probably is a stupid
idea because almost all all ideas are
stupid and so the probability that as
you move forward on your adventure that
you’re gonna get it right the first time
is zero it’s just not gonna happen
and so then you might think well maybe
I’ll just wait around until I get the
right idea and which people do right so
they’re like 40 year old thirteen year
olds which is not a good idea so they
wait around until it’s waiting for godot
until they finally got it right but the
problem is you’re too stupid to know
when you’ve got it right so waiting
around isn’t gonna help because even if
it the perfect opportunity manifested
itself to you in your incomplete form
the probability that you would recognize
it as the perfect opportunity is zero
you might even think it’s the worst
possible idea that you’ve ever heard of
anywhere highly likely highly likely so
so you have there’s niche
Nietzsche called that a will will to
stupidity which I really liked so
because he thought of stupidity as being
it you know it’s it’s you have to take
it into account fundamentally and work
with it and so and so you can take these
tentative steps on your pathway to
destiny and you can assume that you’re
gonna do it badly and that’s really
useful because you don’t have to beat
yourself up it’s pretty easy to do it
badly but the thing is it’s way better
to do it badly than not to do it at all
and that’s a continual message that
echoes through these historical stories
in Genesis it’s like these are flawed
people they should have got the hell out
of their house way before they did and
they go out and they stumble around in
tyranny and famine and self betrayal and
and violence and but it’s a hell of a
lot better than just rotting away at
home and that’s the that’s great so
that’s good and so why is that well okay
so you you start your path and you think
that you’re heading you know towards
your star and so you go in that
direction and then because you’re here
the world looks a particular way but
then when you move here the world looks
different and you’re different as a
consequence of having made that voyage
and so what that means is that now that
thing that glimmers in front of you is
going to have shifted its location
because you weren’t very good at
specifying it to begin with and now that
you’re a little sharper and more focused
than you were it’s it’s going to reveal
itself with more accuracy to you and so
then you have to take you know it’s
almost like 180 degree reversal but it
isn’t because you know you’ve I mean
you’ve gone this far and that’s a long
ways to get that far but that’s a lot
farther than you would be if you just
stayed where you were waiting and so it
doesn’t matter that you overshoot
continually because as you overshoot
even if you don’t learn what you should
have done you’re going to continually
learn what you shouldn’t keep doing and
if you learn enough about what you
shouldn’t keep do
then that’s tantamount at some point to
learning at the same time what you
should be doing so it’s okay so it’s
like this now what’s cool about it
though I think is that as you progress
the degree of overshooting starts to
decline right and that we know that
there’s nothing hypothetical about that
as you learn a new skill like even to
play it play a song on the piano for
example you over shoot madly he’s making
all sorts of mistakes to begin with and
then the mistakes they disappear there’s
a great TED talk I think it was about
this guy set up a really advanced
computational recording system in his
home and recorded every single utterance
his young child made while learning to
speak and then he put together the
child’s attempts to say certain phonemes
and put them in the list and you can
hear the child deviating madly to begin
with and then after hundreds and
hundreds of repetitions just zeroing
right in on the exact phoneme so you
know I you might not know this but when
kids babble because they start babbling
when they’re quite young they babble
every human phoneme including all sorts
of phonemes that adults can’t say and
then they they die into their language
so that after they learn say English
then there’s all sorts of phonemes they
can no longer hear or pronounce but to
begin with it’s all there which is
really quite interesting but so they see
as they learn a particular language they
zero in on the proper way to pronounce
that and their errors minimize and every
time you learn something that’s how it
is and that’s really useful to know too
because it means that it’s okay to
wander around stupidly before you fix
your destination now you see that echoed
in Exodus right because what happens is
that the Egyptians or the Hebrews
escaped a tyranny which is kind of
whatever you do personally and
psychologically when you escape from
your previous set of stupidly held and
ignorant and stubborn axioms it’s like
away from that tyranny it’s like great i
freed myself from that well then what
well you think well now I’m on the way
it’s no you’re not now you’re in the
desert
where you wander around stupidly you
know and worship the wrong things until
you finally organize yourself morally
again and head in the proper direction
so that’s worth knowing too because you
think well I got rid of a lot of things
baggage excess baggage that I didn’t
need in my life and now everything’s
okay it’s like no it’s not you’ve got
rid of a whole set of scaffolds that
were keeping you in place even though
they were pathological and now you have
nothing and nothing actually turns out
to be better than something pathological
but you you’re still stuck with the
problem of nothing and and that’s well
that’s exactly why Exodus is structured
the way that it is it’s that you escape
from eternity it’s hooray we’re no
longer slaves yeah well now you’re
nihilistic and lost it’s not necessarily
an improvement but it is but it is the
pre let’s see it’s also useful to know
that because you can also be deluded
into the idea that imagine that you’re
trying to become enlightened which might
mean to turn all those parts of you on
that could be turned on you think well
that’s just a linear pathway uphill you
know it’s just from one success to
another it’s no it’s not it’s like here
you are and you’re not doing too badly
and the first step is a complete bloody
catastrophe it’s worse and then maybe
you can pull yourself together and you
hit a new plateau and then that crumbles
and shakes and bang it’s worse again and
so because part of the reason that
people don’t become enlightened is
because it’s punctuated by intermittent
deserts essentially by intermittent
catastrophes and if you don’t know that
well then you’re basically screwed
because you go ahead on your movement
forward and you collapse and you think
well that didn’t work I collapsed it’s
like no that’s par for the course it’s
not indication that you failed it’s just
indication that it’s really hard and
that when you learn something you also
unlearn something and the thing you
unlearned is probably useful and
unlearning it actually is painful
you know let’s say if you have to get
out of a bad relationship it’s like not
every not any really there isn’t any
relationship that’s a hundred percent
bad and so when you jump out of it well
maybe you’re in better shape but you’re
still lonesome and disoriented you don’t
know what your past was and you don’t
know what your present is and you don’t
know what your future is it’s that’s not
that’s why people
a with the devil they know instead of
you know looking for the devil they
don’t know so so anyways the fact that
you’re full of faults doesn’t mean you
have to stop and thank God for that
that’s a really useful thing and the
fact that you’re full of faults doesn’t
mean that you can’t learn and so you can
pause it an ideal and you’re gonna be
wrong about it but it doesn’t matter
because what you’re right about is
positing the ideal moving towards it if
the actual ideal isn’t conceptualize
perfectly well first surprise surprise
cuz like what are you going to do that’s
perfect so it doesn’t matter that it’s
imperfect
imperfect it just matters that you do it
and that you move forward so that’s
really that’s really positive news as
far as I’m concerned because you can
actually do that right you can do it
badly anyone can do that so that’s
that’s useful okay so like if you’re an
efficient person you would have just
done that but you’re not but who cares
you know you still end up in the in the
same place and maybe the trip is even
more interesting who knows probably – interesting
the question is how do you differentiate
the utility of behavioral / psycho
therapeutic treatments for conditions
like depression versus medical
treatments okay so the first thing I
would say is don’t underestimate the
utility of medical interventions
depression is a cat catastrophe it
carries with it a very high suicide rate
and it also levels people out and it’s
really hard on their families and so and
it and it’s physiologically
extraordinarily damaging and so if
you’re in a depressive state and it’s
severe you can try an antidepressant
you’ll know in a month if it works if it
works well maybe it’ll help you get your
life together like we could say well
maybe you’re depressed because your life
isn’t very well together could be
sometimes people are depressed their
life is just it isn’t fine because no
one’s life is fine everyone’s life is a
tragedy but sometimes people have their
lives in order as much as you could
expect anyone to have they have friends
they have an intimate relationship they
have a career that they like you know
they’re they’re qualified industrious
people working hard on what they’re
doing and and and really playing a
minimum number of games with themselves
and they’re terribly depressed
antidepressant man that’s sometimes that
will just fix it and so hooray like your
biological entity if there’s something
out there that can help you strengthen
yourself so that you can prevail great
and you know people you hear everyone
takes antidepressants you know
everyone’s taking them just like no one
takes those bloody things without
serious consideration half the time I
spend with my clients who are depressed
is often the two years long attempt to
get them to tentatively try an
antidepressant because they’re so guilty
that they’re relying on an external
crutch to sort out their lives that they
can’t even tolerate it but you know I
say well look man what if you had
diabetes you’re not gonna take your
insulin it’s like you got stressed you
blew out at your weakest point that’s
what happens when you get stressed if
there’s something out there that might
help you it’s like try it
for God’s sake you’ll know in a month
and you just stop
that doesn’t work now having said that
you want to do a multi-dimensional
analysis it’s like well do you have any
friends do you have an intimate
relationship or are you pursuing one do
you have a reasonable career are you as
educated as you are intelligent do you
have something useful to do with your
time outside of work do you have a drug
or alcohol problem
are there other behavioral issues like
sleep dysregulation and lack of eating
that are contributing to the pathology
you want to differentiate all of that
and wherever you can make a behavioral
intervention so much the better
but sometimes – you’re dealing with
people whose lives are so wrecked that
they don’t even know where to start
they’re different than the ones who have
everything in order say and you say well
try this man maybe you won’t cut your
throat in the next month because if
you’re dead it’s going to be hard to
work with you and so so medical
interventions anything if you’re sick
you do what it’s necessary to get better
and you leave your pride behind if you
if you have to and that that says
nothing about the utility of the
behavioral interventions you want to hit
the problem with everything you have at
your disposal but some antidepressants
especially especially for people whose
lives are together and who are depressed
antidepressants can be absolutely
miraculous so you know when you hear
about the clinical evidence in their
favor being iffy and that’s partly
because the diagnosis of depression
isn’t very well formulated there’s it’s
very different to have a terrible life
than to be depressed and antidepressants
can only help you so much if you have a
you want to stay inside this little map
because it’s working you want to get
from point A to point eight point B and
this is good this indicates that you are
moving forward that’s the first thing it
indicates and the second thing it
indicates which is even more important
and you’ll never hear this from
behavioral psychologists is that your
map is correct so every time you move a
little bit forward and something that
you want happens it says oh the game I’m
playing is the right game and so not
only does the reward indicate progress
it indicates that the frame within which
progress is being calculated is the
right frame and that’s good because it’s
the frame that makes things irrelevant
and you want them to stay irrelevant so
if you don’t move forward and you start
to question the frame that’s way worse
than merely not moving forward
you get a bad examine what do you think
what the hell am i doing in university
anyways it’s like probably that’s not
the first place you should go with that
piece of information and you think well
why why is that worse well as far as I
can tell your map of you as University
student is a comprehensive
representation it tells you what you
should do every day it kind of tells you
where you’re going in the future and if
something emerges as an anomaly you get
worse grade than you expected and you
blow that whole map it’s like okay what
have you been doing for the last four
years what kind of high school student
were you how clueless are you about how
you’re arranging your future what’s your
identity going to be if you’re not going
to be a student where are you gonna end
up in five years it’s like so it’s like
a that little grade that bad grade is
like a portal through which snakes can
crawl and that’s exactly how you respond
to it especially if you open the door
too much well maybe this means that I
shouldn’t be in university well one of
the rules is don’t you want to you want
to constrain the anomalous event to the
minimal necessary domain it’s really
really important you want to do that
when you’re arguing with your partner
which you’ll do all the time we have an
argument well I should never have
married you it’s like no no that’s not
the first response that’s a bad response
or here’s a really good one you’ve
always done that sort of thing and you
always will it’s like oh good great it’s
like the only answer to that is to hit
someone because like you’re done right
you’re you’re like that you’ve always
like that there isn’t a chance that you
could be repaired and none of it is
acceptable it’s like the person’s gonna
fight with you right away because what
else are they gonna do so what you want
to do is you want to minimize it isn’t
rationalization you want to say okay
this person did something that disrupted
our joint map okay what’s the smallest
possible thing they could do to put it
back together and you have to know well
we need to make a plan so you don’t do
it again or we need to have a discussion
so that you know that it wasn’t a good
thing to do but I’m not going to go
after your whole character I’m gonna say
when I come home and you’re watching TV
just come to the door and say hello not
don’t you love me or something like that
it’s like no no you just have to walk to
the door and like give me a hug or
something and then that’s good enough
and so then the other person might be
able to tolerate that much corrective
information maybe if you’re kind of nice
about it and you also understand that
they’re probably going to have something
equally horrible to say about you in the
next 15 minutes because you’re gonna do
something stupid so so you don’t want to
you don’t want to open the door so that
every possible snake comes crawling
through because that’s a pathway to
depression and you actually see that
happening in depressed people is that
every small event produces a cascade
through their entire value system and
they end up saying well that’s just
another reason that I should jump off a
bridge and they really see it that way
it’s really awful because they’ve got no
defenses it’s like well I I didn’t do so
well in this course it’s like I’m gonna
get a bad mark in the or in the exam I’m
gonna get bad mark in the course that’s
going to screw up my ability to finish
my degree I’m never going to get into
the field of my choice it’s just another
piece of indication that I’m useless and
that life isn’t worthwhile bang I’m
going to jump off a bridge and if you’re
really depressed it’s like each of those
things hits you with the certainty of
truth it’s really not good and so you
want to be careful you want to be
careful about walking down that pathway
when you make a mistake you think okay
what’s the narrowest framework of
interpretation within which I can I can
understand this that will require
minimal behavioral change to decrease
the probability that it will happen
again
it’s Mental Hygiene fund
yes yeah we’ll get to that we’ll get to
that that is the next question
it’s because they don’t exist in
isolation so and that’s another thing
frequently when you when you hear
behavioral accounts of cognitive
processes they generally only focus on
as if it’s an isolated thing it’s not it
exists scalable it’s scalable a bunch of
ways it’s scalable temporarily because
what you do now is associated with what
you’ll do tomorrow and that with what
you’ll do next week and so forth
so it has to be scalable temporarily and
it’s also scalable socially right so it
has an effect on you that has an effect
on your family that has an effect on the
community and so forth and so you don’t
want to take it’s very difficult to
think through the effect of your action
and all those scaling levels
simultaneously but but you have
mechanisms that allow you to do that and
we’ll see I think that the sense of
let’s assume that you’re not lying to
yourself constantly so your head isn’t
full of chaos and garbage and you have
reasonable relationships with people in
the world I think that this is leaping
way ahead I think that your sense of
meaningful engagement with what you’re
doing is the psychophysiological marker
that you’re acting in a way that takes
all of the stacked representations into
account simultaneously because you’re
you’re you’re like you’re trying to
figure out where you are and you might
think well that means where I am in this
room but look this room is not a simple
thing right it’s nested it’s it’s a
subset of the university that’s a subset
of society it’s a subset of your life
the room is a complicated thing and you
need to figure out where you should be
in the room and you can’t do that sure
surely with perception because all you
see is me and some of the wall right
it’s you’ve got this little narrow this
little narrow portal and so you can’t
really rely on your perceptions to
orient you but you do orient yourself
and I think what you do is you its
engagement it’s like does this seem
meaningful and deep and engaging yes
then it’s an indication that it’s
serving multiple master
simultaneously so both maybe both
socially and also temporarily and so I
think the sense of meaning is actually
an instinct that Orient’s people in time
and space it’s not an empathy nomina
it’s the most fundamental form of
perception and that’s the only
optimistic thought that I’ve ever been
able to derive from psychology is that
that actually could be true it could be
that the sense of meaning is an
orienting reflex and that would be
wonderful if it was true because it
would make it real you know and it’s one
of the you know the one of the
devastating elements of nihilism is
something like well who the hell cares
what you’re doing what difference is it
going to make in a million years it’s
like your sense of meaning is just an
illusion you know you’re you’re a
limited creature in a limited place and
nothing you do really matters it’s like
that’s a powerful argument especially if
you’re an objective materialist and a
reductionist it’s a killer argument but
it looks to me like it’s wrong it’s
actually wrong because meaning looks to
me like it’s an actual phenomena it does
say that your your position properly
between chaos and order or something
like that it’s real so well so we’ll see
we’re going to develop that argument
because if if it’s real you want to know
that because it gives you something to
stand on
you know maybe it’s as real as pain but
it’s not pain it’s something positive
and you need something positive that you
can rely on alright so and the
psychoanalysts I think it air too much
on the side of the subject they tend to
think that too much of you is inside of
you and too little of you is outside of
you and part of the reason I believe
that is because of my clinical
experience I love the psychoanalyst man
they’re brilliant they’re brilliant
they’re deep they grapple with real
problems like with the problems when
people have real problems and I mean
profound problems they’re really
profound moral problems or problems of
good and evil really you know there are
things going on in their family that are
so terrible that well that there there
are sometimes fatal you know lie upon
lie upon lie upon lie for
Cades and decades and decades it’s awful
and that’s not exactly inside them it’s
out there in the world and lots of the
people that I see very famous critic of
psychology I can’t remember his name but
I probably will criticize the practice
of psychology quite effectively in the
leave in the early 60s the myth of
mental illness by Thomas says Szasz it’s
classic you should read it if you’re
interested in psychology read it like
it’s a classic and he basically said
most people have problems in living they
don’t have psychological problems and so
I’ve experienced despite my love for the
psychoanalysts very frequently what I’m
doing as a therapist is helping people
have a life that would work you know and
you can parameterize that it’s like what
do you need how about some friends that
people kind of like that how about an
intimate relationship with someone that
you can trust that maybe has a future
that’d be good how about a career that
puts you in a dominant Archy somewhere
so at least you’ve got some possibility
of rising some possibility of
stabilizing yourself and our schedule in
a routine because no one can live
without a routine you just forget that
if you guys don’t have a routine I would
recommend like you get one going because
you cannot be mentally healthy without a
routine you need to pick a time to get
up whatever time you want but pick one
and stick to it because otherwise you
dis regulate your circadian rhythms and
they regulate your mood and eat
something in the morning I had lots of
clients who’ve had anxiety disorders I
had one client who was literally
starving very smart girl sheet there’s
very little that she liked she kind of
tried to subsist on like half a cup of
rice a day she came to me and said I
have no energy I come home all I want to
do is watch the same movie over and over
what like is that weird
and I thought well it depends on how
hard you work you know it’s a little
weird but whatever it’s familiar you’re
looking for comfort so I did an analysis
of her diet it’s like three quarters of
a cup of rice it’s like you’re starving
eat something
you know you’ll feel better
so she modified her diet and you’re all
her anxiety went away and she had some
energy it’s like yeah you got to eat so
a schedule that’s a good thing man your
brain will thank you for it it will
stabilize your nervous system with it’s
a bit of a plan that’s a good thing you
need a career you need something
productive to do with your time you need
to regulate your use of drugs and
alcohol most particularly alcohol
you need a family like the family you
have your parents and all that be nice
if you all got along you could work on
that that’s a good thing to work on and
then you know you probably need children
at some point that’s life that’s what
life is and if you’re missing you know
you may have a good reason to not be
operating on one of those dimensions
it’s not mandatory but I can tell you
that if you’re not operating reasonably
well on four I think I mentioned six if
you’re not operating reasonably well on
at least three of them there’s no way
you’re going to be psychologically
thriving and that’s more pragmatic in
some sense than psychological right
human beings have a nature there’s
things we need and if we have them well
that’s good and if we don’t have them
well then we feel the lack and so
behaviorists behavioral psychologists
concentrate a lot more on that sort of
thing you know it’s practical it’s like
strategizing make a career plan figure
out how to negotiate because that’s
bloody important figure out how to say
what you need figure out how to tell the
truth to people figure out how to listen
to your partner in particular because if
you listen to them they will actually
tell you what they want and
sometimes you can give it to them and
maybe they’ll return the favor and if
you practice that for like 15 years well
then maybe you’re constantly giving each
other what you want well hooray that
would be good and then there’s two of
you under all circumstances and it’s
better to have two brains than one
because people think differently because
of their temperament mostly and so the
negotiation is where the wisdom arises
and it’s part of the transformation the
psychological transformation that’s
attendant on an intimate relationship
and one of the fundamental purposes of a
long-term intimate relationship so we’re
starting to be able to put the traits to
sort of nail the traits down to their
underlying biology with regards to
neuroticism well if you’re high in
neuroticism you’re more sensitive to
anxiety and that’s it regulated at least
in part by the hippocampus and and
generated in part by the amygdala
there’s another part of the brain called
the periagua aqueduct or gray that seems
to be associated with the experience of
pain and pain is quite a complex
phenomena depression is pain like grief
is pain like social isolation is pain
like disappointment is pain like there’s
anxiety components to that too and so
neuroticism seems to be something like
threshold for activation in those
negative emotion systems so if you’re
higher in neuroticism one unit of
uncertainty might produce let’s say
three units of psychophysiological
response whereas if you’re lower in
neuroticism one unit of uncertainty
might produce one unit of psycho
physiological response it’s hard you
know obviously that’s a simplified
schematic but there’s variability
because if something unexpected or her
threatening happens to you it isn’t
obvious how upset you should get one
answer what might be brush it off it’s
nothing another answer might be
it’s a bloody catastrophe and often when
something uncertain or threatening
occurs you don’t have enough information
at your disposal to make a full
determination of the potential import of
this of the circumstance especially if
it’s uncertain and so then you have to
guess at how upset you should be and
where you are on the normal distribution
with regards to trait neuroticism say
that sort of determines what your guests
on average is going to be so you know
the other with conscientiousness say you
might say well how hard should you work
well that’s a really difficult question
if you’re gonna die tomorrow and then
you probably shouldn’t work very hard
today at all so one thing you might say
is that the degree to which you should
work hard is dependent on your
assumptions about the stability of the
future we actually know this to be true
because if you put people in wildly
uncertain circumstances they discount
the future which is exactly what you
should do right it’s only makes sense to
store up goods for future consumption if
the future is likely to be very similar
to the past and the present you need a
stable society for that and
conscientiousness only works in a stable
society because all you do otherwise if
you’re piling up goods which is kind of
what conscientious people do is leaving
them there for the criminals to take or
waiting for the next chaotic upheaval to
wipe out everything that you’ve stored
and so even conscientiousness is a kind
of guess hard-working people say well
you know
sacrifice the present for the future
that’s great as long as the future is
going to be there and you can predict it
but if it’s not going to be there and
it’s unpredictable then the right
response is take what you can take right
now well the getting’s good
now you know obviously there are
troubles with that too it I’m speaking
you know I’m offering rough rules of
thumb but I’m trying to provide you with
some indication of how and why these
difference in value structures exist
because they’re applicable in different
environments you know sometimes in a
dangerous social environment it’s not
obvious that being an extroverted person
is a good idea because extroverted
people they stand out especially if
they’re extroverted and creative right
because not only are they noisy and and
dominant and assertive they’re also
colorful and and flamboyant and
provocative what happens to people is
that as they move towards zero positive
feedback loops get set up so they’re
more likely to hit zero and as they move
away from zero positive feedback loops
get set up so that they’re increasingly
more likely to move away from zero so
here’s an example let’s say
you’re not doing too bad so maybe you’re
in the middle of the normal distribution
then you lose your job okay and so let’s
say you’re a conscientious person and we
can say just for the sake of argument
that you lose your job because of mass
layoffs in your company so it has
nothing to do with you it’s
fundamentally it’s just like luck of the
draw basically but then what happens to
you well if you’re conscientious you’re
gonna you’re gonna go after yourself
pretty hard so you’re gonna and
especially if you’re also high in
neuroticism it’s gonna depress you to
lose your job and maybe you’re in a
situation where you just for one reason
or another you don’t have that many
other opportunities now maybe you should
look for them but maybe you’re in a
depressed strata of the economy or
you’re geographically located somewhere
that makes moving difficult or so on and
so forth you know so but you you lose a
job and then you start to get depressed
because of that well then as you start
to get depressed
you know it decreases the probability
that you’re gonna look for a job but
also maybe starts to put stress on your
family and it also starts to decrease
the probability that you’re in going to
engage in positive social interaction so
now not only are you unemployed and
suffering from economic stress but your
marriage is starting to suffer and
you’re starting to isolate yourself from
your friends and then of course as your
marriage suffers and the stress builds
up then that’s going to make you more
depressed and that’s going to keep you
even farther away from your friends and
that’s going to decrease the likelihood
that you’re gonna have enough positive
emotion and enthusiasm to look for
another job and then you know maybe you
want to add a bit of a drinking problem
to that just for fun and you can see
that you can get a spiral going that’s
just taking you down right and there’s
all sorts of things because lots of
times people conceptualize let’s say you
know you’re unemployed guy and you go to
counseling and you get a diagnosis of
depression and the thing about a
diagnosis of depression it’s sort of
like the assumption is there’s something
gone wrong with your psychological
structure it’s like if you’re unemployed
and you you’re depressed it isn’t
obvious at all that the problem is in
your head you know you know what I mean
it’s it doesn’t it doesn’t even obvious
that it’s a psychological problem it’s
just a problem and problems can take you
out and so the you know if you’re
unemployed and you’re under economic
stress and your marriage is starting to
shake and you’re isolating yourself from
your friends and you’re less likely to
be motivated to go look for a job you
sort of think about that as a depressive
spiral but you can also think of it as a
conspiracy in some sense of external
forces that are augering you into the
ground and we don’t tend to
conceptualize psychological disorders
that way but we should because lots of
times when people are suffering from
something that you could describe in
Psychological terminology and depression
is a very good example of that it isn’t
obvious that there’s something wrong
with them psychologically often they
just are in trouble and there isn’t a
category in in psychological diagnosis
for client in serious trouble but my
experience has been almost without
exception that the people that come to
see me come to see me because
something’s gone wrong with their life
not because they have a psychological
problem now you could say well there are
psychological inadequacies such as they
might be are interfering with their
ability to recover or maybe even served
as precursors to you know increase the
probability of the catastrophe and so a
well-functioning personality has all the
micro routines in place that’s actually
something that you help people with if
you’re a behavioral therapist because
one of the things you assume if you’re a
behavioral therapist is that sometimes
the reason people aren’t doing things is
because they don’t know how you know
sometimes maybe the person is depressed
but potentially high-functioning they
got all the damn micro routines they’re
well socialized they’re just dormant you
got to get them awake again and
implementing them but sometimes you get
someone in your practice say who’s just
being neglected like you cannot believe
right the parents never paid any
attention to them or maybe just punished
them every time they did something good
that’s really fun and then you know they
didn’t make friends and so they’re
really really big and and and poorly
articulated and so then what you do is
you work at the bottom of the micro
routines and get them to practice
building up all these little attributes
that they didn’t build up and you know
one of the things you can think about in
terms of character development is so now
maybe understand something about your
own personality you might say well what
could you do to improve your personality
and the answer is develop some of the
micro routines on the other side of the
personality distribution so if you’re
disagreeable as hell maybe you could
start learning how to do nice things for
people and that actually works by the
way so if you take disagreeable people
who are depressed
and you get them doing nice things for
other people their depression tends to
lift but then by the same token if
you’re agreeable then you should
practice doing some things for yourself
and being more tough minded in your
negotiations and so you can sort of
place yourself on the on the personality
trait distribution you know you’re
extrovert it’s like okay man learn to
spend some time with yourself right
you’re low in openness well try reading
a book that’s outside of your you know
your your sphere of interest now and
then if you’re conscientious well you
should probably learn how to relax
occasionally and and so forth so you can
I think partly what you’re doing is
you’re developing your personality is
not moving the mean much the average
where you know where you’re located but
you’re extending the standard deviation
so that you’re a bigger bag of tricks
than you were before and I think you can
practice that consciously it’s like
you’re hyper orderly it’s well get a dog
you know dogs they’re messy horrible
things you know it’s just what you need
if you’re hyper orderly because they’re
gonna leave hair everywhere and force
you live with it and so okay so and so
this is sort of you right this is your
personality it’s this connect collection
of root subroutines that you’ve turned
into a hierarchy and then there’s
something at the top of it and that’s
that’s a big question like what the hell
should be at the top of the hierarchy
because that’s the ultimate question of
unity and then the the clinicians would
say well it’s the self-actualized person
or it’s the self or something like that
you know that’s that’s the ID that’s the
implicit and perhaps explicit ideal that
you’re aiming for and you might say well
is does such thing exists that I would
say well do you admire people because
that’s your answer right do you despise
people well you like some people and you
don’t like others you respect some
people you don’t respect others well
you’re acting out the notion that
there’s at least an implicit ideal you
do the same thing when you go to movies
you know you you know who the hero is
you know who the bad guy is you’re
acting out the proposition that there’s
some sort of value hierarchy and there’s
some sort of manifestation of it that’s
coherent across time so you appear to
believe that and you know you are driven
at least to some degree by your own
inner ideals and so you tend to answer
the question is that real with an
affirmative and if you don’t there’s
catastrophic consequences Nietzsche and
the existentialist we’re very good at
detailing maths
like you let your value hierarchy
disintegrate well then what well part of
it is nihilistic chaos whoo that’s not
so much fun and then there’s the
alignment of nihilistic chaos with the
intrinsic desire that someone will come
along and tell you what to do right so
what happens is if you let this devolve
you end up with nihilistic exists not
with nihilistic chaos or the demand for
for the tyrant to come forward and we’ve
had that happen lots of times and
all right well so what happens when you
you lay out these little routines in the
world at different levels of analysis
well this is how your emotions function
broadly speaking you know you’re aiming
at something and this is an
oversimplification which is why I want
to show you this right when I show you
this assume that it’s made out of that
right it’s just a schematic
oversimplification because even if let’s
say that I’m trying to do something as
simple as walking towards the door I
mean that the action of walking towards
the door is predicated on the existence
of all the subroutines that enable me to
propel my body across time and space and
like there’s that took a lot of internal
organization to get that right it’s a
traumatized now and so you can treat it
like it’s invisible but implicit in any
one of these structures is this entire
structure and you actually see this in
therapy very frequently – okay one of
the things that I figured out over the
last years is this is a good proposition
so you know it’s pretty self-evident
that life is has got its rat’s nest of
miseries and that’s for sure and maybe
you could even make a categorical
statement that life is mostly a rat’s
nest of misery you know you can make a
pretty powerful argument for that but
then there’s a counter question which is
well what if you tried not to make it
any more miserable that had had to be
right then what then what would it be
like and my suspicions are is that law
about misery I would suspect that most
of that misery would go away because
it’s the unnecessary misery that really
brings you down you know it’s like well
someone has cancer it’s like that sucks
but it’s not like it’s not like you can
say
if only we had done this differently
then that wouldn’t have happened but
when someone’s out like torturing you in
a malevolent way or maybe you’re doing
the same you can always ask yourself
well really it’s this really necessary
is this just like an useless add-on to
the miseries of life that’s what
disheartens people and so even in your
own life if if you if you aren’t
suffering from self-imposed misery and
you’re only suffering from an escapable
misery maybe you could handle that and
you know you could you could survive you
could bear it and even maybe without
becoming irredeemably corrupt and so the
goal would be well yeah life is a rat’s
nest of miseries and maybe it has no
ultimate meaning we could say that for
feeling particularly pessimistic but it
still leaves one question open which is
if you didn’t do everything you could to
make it worse how good could you make it
be and the least answer is well it it
could be tragedy but maybe not hell and
I think that’s right I really believe
that that’s that’s the most pessimistic
proper statement the worst-case outcome
in the worst of all possible worlds is
that your life could be tragic but not
hell and that’s blood better than hell
right it’s it’s and you think I could
give you an example of the difference
you’re at your mother’s deathbed
well that’s tragedy here’s another
scenario you’re out your mother’s
deathbed and all you you and all your
idiot siblings are arguing well that’s
the difference between tragedy and hell
and you might be able to tolerate the
first circumstance and maybe it would
even bring you closer together with your
family members the second one no one can
bear that you walk away from a situation
like that sick of yourself and sick of
everything else – and you know it’s
often the case that tragic circumstances
bring out the Dragons because the stress
is high and all those things that people
haven’t dealt with they don’t have the
energy to repress and and all the
bitterness comes pouring forward it’s
like seriously man so that’s actually a
good it’s a rough lesson but it’s a good
hallmark for figuring out whether or not
you’re you’ve got yourself adjusted
properly and in relationship to your
siblings it’s like if you all gathered
around the bed of someone close who is
dying could you manage it if they
there is no it’s like well put your life
together because it’s going to happen
and you should be the person who’s there
that can do it and do it properly and
then maybe you’d find that it isn’t the
sort of thing that will undermine your
faith in life itself and I’ve seen I’ve
seen both of those situations you know
ugly ugly ugly situations you know
murderously ugly situations and then
their opposite where people have had
terrible things happening to happen to
them as a family and you know they pull
together and they rebuild their damn
ship and they sail away so that seems to
me to be a lot better that makes you
know when the flood comes right well
okay so the same thing the question
emerges well who are you well you could
say your this plan that’s what people
usually that’s how people usually
identify maybe they have no plan at all
and they’re just in chaos right that’s
like being in the belly of the beast
they’re nihilistic and chaos they have
no plan they’re just chaos itself and
that’s a very dreadful situation for
people to be in or maybe they conjure
together a plan that’s their identity
it’s kind of fragile and they’re holding
on to that with with everything they’ve
got it’s their little stick of wood that
they’re floating in the ocean clinging
to you know and so they’re identifying
really hard with that plan that’s what
happens when you’re an ideologue is that
you’re identifying really hard with that
plan the problem is is something comes
up to confront it well how do you act
well you can’t let go with a plan
because you drown then you cling to it
rigidly well that’s no good because then
you can’t learn anything then if that’s
you you’re a totalitarian you’re not
going to learn anything you’re going to
end up in something that’s close enough
to hell so that you won’t know the
difference and you might drag everyone
along with you that’s happened plenty of
times right it’s the whole story of the
20th century it happened over and over
and over and it happens in people’s
states it’s happens in their business
organizations that happens in their
cities that happens in their provinces
it happens in their States and it
happens in their psyches all at the same
time you can’t blame the manifestation
of that sort of thing on any of those
one levels it happens when a society
goes down that way it goes down
everywhere at the same time it’s not the
totalitarians at the top and all the
happy people striving to be
at the bottom it’s not that at all it’s
totalitarianism at every single level of
the hierarchy including the
psychological and so you don’t want to
be the thing you don’t want to be in
chaos that’s for sure but you don’t want
to be the thing that clings so
desperately to the raft that you can’t
let go when someone comes to rescue you
right you don’t want to be that so then
you think well exactly what are you
you know what the chaos you know what
the plan maybe your the thing that
confronts the obstacle and I would say
that’s the categorical lesson of of
psychology insofar as it has to do with
personal transformation that’s what you
always teach people in psychotherapy I
don’t care what sort of psychotherapists
you are you’re always teaching them the
same thing you’re the thing that can you
not
you’re not the plan you’re the thing
that can confront the obstacle to the
plant and then when you know even
further that the obstacle is not only an
obstacle but opportunity itself well
then your whole view of the world can
change because you might think well I’ve
got this plan something came up to
object to it it’s like it’s possible
that the thing that’s objecting has
something to teach you that will take
you to the place where you develop an
even better plant that’s a nice
framework to use it’s like are you so
sure that this is a problem is that the
only way that you can look at it or is
it an opportunity I mean I’m not trying
to be you know naively optimistic there
are some things that’s pretty hard to
extract gold from some dragons and maybe
the death of a family member is a good
example of that
but in even in a situation like that I
can tell you that it’s an opportunity
for it’s an opportunity for maturation
that’s for sure and the thing is you
might say well it’s pretty miserable to
go to be digging for gold when someone’s
falling into the grave well if they
really loved you first of all that’s
what they’ll want you to do and second
you’re gonna make their death a lot more
palatable experience for them if you’re
someone who can be in the room and be
helpful instead of be you know quivering
in the corner and feeling that the
entire world is collapsing in on you I
mean that’s another you want to be the
useful person at the funeral how’s that
for a goal that’s a good goal man you
know that you’ve got yourself together
in a situation like that because you’re
gonna be at them and maybe you want to
be the person on whose shoulder people
cry that’d be a good goal that’s kind of
you know I don’t like being I
evilly optimistic so when I tell you to
get your life together I’m not going to
say roses and sunshine it’s like that’s
that’s that’s that’s pablum for fools
but it really is something to be the
reliable person out of funeral there’s
this idea in union psychology called the
circumambulation and you only had this
idea that you had a potential future
self which would be in potential
everything that you could be and that it
manifests itself moment to moment in
your present life by making you
interested in things and the things that
you’re interested in are the things that
would guide you along the path that
would lead you to maximal development
now it sounds up like a metaphysical
idea or a or a mystical idea even but
but it’s not it’s it’s not it’s a really
profoundly biological idea the idea is
something like well you’re set up so
that you’re automatically interested in
those things that was fully expand you
as a well adapted creature well like
there’s nothing radical about that idea
how well what else could possibly be the
case unless there’s something
fundamentally flawed about you that is
what the situation would be it’s kind of
interesting to think about how that
would be manifest moment to moment but
the idea is something like well your
interest is captured by those things
that lead you down the path of
development well I better be the case
okay so that’s fine and so there’s some
utility and pursuing those things that
you’re interested in that’s the call to
adventure let’s say so and the call to
adventure takes you all sorts of places
now the problem with the call to
adventure is like what the hell do you
know you might be interested in things
that are kind of warped and bent and
often it’s the case that when new parts
of people manifest themselves and grip
their interest say they do it very badly
and shoddily and so you stumble around
like an idiot when you try to do
something new that’s where the fool is
the precursor to the savior from the
from the symbolic perspectives because
you have to be a fool before you can be
a master and if you’re not willing to be
a fool then you can’t be a master so so
you’re gonna it’s an error error ridden
process and that’s also laid out in the
Old Testament stories but
the first thing that happens to all
these patriarchal figures when God kicks
them out of their father’s house when
they’re like 84 is that they they run
into all sorts of trouble and some of
its social and some of its natural and
some of it’s a consequence of their own
moral inadequacy so they’re fools and
but but the thing that’s so interesting
is that despite the fact that they’re
fools they’re still supposed to go on
the adventure and that they’re capable
of learning enough as a consequence of
moving forward on the adventure so that
they straighten themselves out across
time and so it’s something like this
this circumambulation that young talked
about was this continual will return to
this this continual circling in some
sense of who you could be you might
notice for example that there are themes
in your life you know when you go back
across your experiences you see you kind
of have your typical experience that
sort of repeats itself and there might
be variation on it like a musical theme
but it’s it’s like you’re circling
yourself and getting closer to yourself
as you move across time
that’s the circumambulation now you
remember that for a sec cause we’ll go
back to it okay so imagine that
something glimmers before you it’s an an
interest that’s dawning and you decide
well first of all you’re paralyzed do
you think well how do I know if I should
pursue that it’s probably a stupid idea
and the proper response to that is
you’re right it probably is a stupid
idea because almost all all ideas are
stupid and so the probability that as
you move forward on your adventure that
you’re gonna get it right the first time
is zero it’s just not gonna happen
and so then you might think well maybe
I’ll just wait around until I get the
right idea and which people do right so
they’re like 40 year old thirteen year
olds which is not a good idea so they
wait around until it’s waiting for godot
until they finally got it right but the
problem is you’re too stupid to know
when you’ve got it right so waiting
around isn’t gonna help because even if
it the perfect opportunity manifested
itself to you in your incomplete form
the probability that you would recognize
it as the perfect opportunity is zero
you might even think it’s the worst
possible idea that you’ve ever heard of
anywhere highly likely highly likely so
so you have there’s niche
Nietzsche called that a will will to
stupidity which I really liked so
because he thought of stupidity as being
it you know it’s it’s you have to take
it into account fundamentally and work
with it and so and so you can take these
tentative steps on your pathway to
destiny and you can assume that you’re
gonna do it badly and that’s really
useful because you don’t have to beat
yourself up it’s pretty easy to do it
badly but the thing is it’s way better
to do it badly than not to do it at all
and that’s a continual message that
echoes through these historical stories
in Genesis it’s like these are flawed
people they should have got the hell out
of their house way before they did and
they go out and they stumble around in
tyranny and famine and self betrayal and
and violence and but it’s a hell of a
lot better than just rotting away at
home and that’s the that’s great so
that’s good and so why is that well okay
so you you start your path and you think
that you’re heading you know towards
your star and so you go in that
direction and then because you’re here
the world looks a particular way but
then when you move here the world looks
different and you’re different as a
consequence of having made that voyage
and so what that means is that now that
thing that glimmers in front of you is
going to have shifted its location
because you weren’t very good at
specifying it to begin with and now that
you’re a little sharper and more focused
than you were it’s it’s going to reveal
itself with more accuracy to you and so
then you have to take you know it’s
almost like 180 degree reversal but it
isn’t because you know you’ve I mean
you’ve gone this far and that’s a long
ways to get that far but that’s a lot
farther than you would be if you just
stayed where you were waiting and so it
doesn’t matter that you overshoot
continually because as you overshoot
even if you don’t learn what you should
have done you’re going to continually
learn what you shouldn’t keep doing and
if you learn enough about what you
shouldn’t keep do
then that’s tantamount at some point to
learning at the same time what you
should be doing so it’s okay so it’s
like this now what’s cool about it
though I think is that as you progress
the degree of overshooting starts to
decline right and that we know that
there’s nothing hypothetical about that
as you learn a new skill like even to
play it play a song on the piano for
example you over shoot madly he’s making
all sorts of mistakes to begin with and
then the mistakes they disappear there’s
a great TED talk I think it was about
this guy set up a really advanced
computational recording system in his
home and recorded every single utterance
his young child made while learning to
speak and then he put together the
child’s attempts to say certain phonemes
and put them in the list and you can
hear the child deviating madly to begin
with and then after hundreds and
hundreds of repetitions just zeroing
right in on the exact phoneme so you
know I you might not know this but when
kids babble because they start babbling
when they’re quite young they babble
every human phoneme including all sorts
of phonemes that adults can’t say and
then they they die into their language
so that after they learn say English
then there’s all sorts of phonemes they
can no longer hear or pronounce but to
begin with it’s all there which is
really quite interesting but so they see
as they learn a particular language they
zero in on the proper way to pronounce
that and their errors minimize and every
time you learn something that’s how it
is and that’s really useful to know too
because it means that it’s okay to
wander around stupidly before you fix
your destination now you see that echoed
in Exodus right because what happens is
that the Egyptians or the Hebrews
escaped a tyranny which is kind of
whatever you do personally and
psychologically when you escape from
your previous set of stupidly held and
ignorant and stubborn axioms it’s like
away from that tyranny it’s like great i
freed myself from that well then what
well you think well now I’m on the way
it’s no you’re not now you’re in the
desert
where you wander around stupidly you
know and worship the wrong things until
you finally organize yourself morally
again and head in the proper direction
so that’s worth knowing too because you
think well I got rid of a lot of things
baggage excess baggage that I didn’t
need in my life and now everything’s
okay it’s like no it’s not you’ve got
rid of a whole set of scaffolds that
were keeping you in place even though
they were pathological and now you have
nothing and nothing actually turns out
to be better than something pathological
but you you’re still stuck with the
problem of nothing and and that’s well
that’s exactly why Exodus is structured
the way that it is it’s that you escape
from eternity it’s hooray we’re no
longer slaves yeah well now you’re
nihilistic and lost it’s not necessarily
an improvement but it is but it is the
pre let’s see it’s also useful to know
that because you can also be deluded
into the idea that imagine that you’re
trying to become enlightened which might
mean to turn all those parts of you on
that could be turned on you think well
that’s just a linear pathway uphill you
know it’s just from one success to
another it’s no it’s not it’s like here
you are and you’re not doing too badly
and the first step is a complete bloody
catastrophe it’s worse and then maybe
you can pull yourself together and you
hit a new plateau and then that crumbles
and shakes and bang it’s worse again and
so because part of the reason that
people don’t become enlightened is
because it’s punctuated by intermittent
deserts essentially by intermittent
catastrophes and if you don’t know that
well then you’re basically screwed
because you go ahead on your movement
forward and you collapse and you think
well that didn’t work I collapsed it’s
like no that’s par for the course it’s
not indication that you failed it’s just
indication that it’s really hard and
that when you learn something you also
unlearn something and the thing you
unlearned is probably useful and
unlearning it actually is painful
you know let’s say if you have to get
out of a bad relationship it’s like not
every not any really there isn’t any
relationship that’s a hundred percent
bad and so when you jump out of it well
maybe you’re in better shape but you’re
still lonesome and disoriented you don’t
know what your past was and you don’t
know what your present is and you don’t
know what your future is it’s that’s not
that’s why people
a with the devil they know instead of
you know looking for the devil they
don’t know so so anyways the fact that
you’re full of faults doesn’t mean you
have to stop and thank God for that
that’s a really useful thing and the
fact that you’re full of faults doesn’t
mean that you can’t learn and so you can
pause it an ideal and you’re gonna be
wrong about it but it doesn’t matter
because what you’re right about is
positing the ideal moving towards it if
the actual ideal isn’t conceptualize
perfectly well first surprise surprise
cuz like what are you going to do that’s
perfect so it doesn’t matter that it’s
imperfect
imperfect it just matters that you do it
and that you move forward so that’s
really that’s really positive news as
far as I’m concerned because you can
actually do that right you can do it
badly anyone can do that so that’s
that’s useful okay so like if you’re an
efficient person you would have just
done that but you’re not but who cares
you know you still end up in the in the
same place and maybe the trip is even
more interesting who knows probably – interesting
Please follow and like us: