you’ve got this four year period that
has been carved out of your lives by
society they it’s given you an identity
like a high quality identity and freedom
at the same time and you’re not gonna
get that again in your life
you’ve got a you’ve got a respectable
identity University student and complete
freedom associated without or as near as
you’re ever going to get and you’ve got
these unbelievable libraries that are
full of the writings of people who are
who are intelligent and articulate
beyond comprehension and you know and
and you can go there and you can learn
all this and you might think well why
should you learn it well you’ve learned
it to get a job or you learn it to get
good grades or you learn it to get a
degree and that’s all nonsense it’s
nonsense
the reason that you come to university
to be educated is because there is
nothing more powerful than someone who
is articulate and who can think and
speak its power and I mean power of the
best sort and its authority and
influence and respectability and
competence and so you come to university
to craft your highest skill and your
highest skill is to be found in
articulated speech and if you’re if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins to because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world well there’s nothing more exciting
to do than that there’s nothing better
you can possibly do and to think that
you’re coming to university to be you
know trained to have a job it’s like
great that’s a hell of a lot better than
being unemployed and covered with cheeto
dust while you’re snacking away in front
of your video game in the basement
you’re spectacular you’ve you’re you’re
all capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise men
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here man they’re just everyone’s just
praying that you would come here and
manifest everything that you could
manifest and that’s what you should be
doing instead of waving placards and
complaining about how you’re oppressed
for God’s sake the only reason you’re
not rich is cuz you’re young you know
that’s the best really that’s them if
you look at the 1% even the dreaded 1%
you know most of those people are all
why well when you progress through life
if you’re reasonably successful you
trade in your promising youth for your
wealthy old age but you’re still bloody
old would you would you trade it would
you trade your youth for that like if
you factor age out of the economic
equation things look a lot different
well of course older people have more
money if they have any sense they’ve
been collecting it for their whole life
is that somehow unfair it’s not unfair
unless you want to want to be
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 and you
and you don’t want to be poverty or
poverty stricken when you’re 70 so I
just don’t understand what’s happened to
the universities I can’t believe that
you’re not told when you come the first
day look man you are out you’re here on
a heroic mission you’re going to take
your capacity to articulate yourself to
levels that are undreamed-of you’re
gonna come out of here unstoppable
you’re going to be able to do anything
you want it’s like that’s what you’re
here for instead you’re taught that well
you know the world is a pretty
oppressive place and you’re probably at
the bottom of the victim pile and and
and there’s and there’s there’s
virtually nothing you could do about it
except know deconstruct the patriarchy
and it’s so we need and so pathetic
that that university should be
embarrassed that that’s what they’re
peddling to students I’m embarrassed by
it
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self destructive I need to take care of
myself as if I’m potentially valuable
and to lay out my life that way and so
that’s what that’s that chapter is about
and it’s it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes tell ins mother
made you know and she probably didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important hmm you don’t know how
your actions echo and so it matters what
you do and and so part of what you do is
you want to treat yourself as if what
you do matters okay so if you’re
suffering you are obligated in a sense
to hold on to whatever rope someone
throws you and one of the things I do
with my clients all the time especially
if they’re really in trouble is to tell
them look I don’t know exactly what’s
gonna have helped you but don’t
arbitrarily throw out any possibilities
because you might not have that
three antidepressants help a lot of
people and there are technical reasons
why that’s the case so that’s a simple
answer it’s not relevant to what I
already described except that if you’re
offered a gift by your society and it
works try it I don’t care what your
presuppositions are apart from that lots
of the lots of time lots of the time you
see people who are suffering with
depression for example there’s a
multitude of reasons but I’ll take one
common reason you can think about it as
associated with the story of Peter Pan a
Peter Pan is someone who won’t grow up
right now the problem with Peter Pan is
he gets to be king but it’s king of
Neverland
Neverland doesn’t exist so being king of
nothing isn’t that helpful well one of
the things that you often see with
people who suffer from depression and
and I’m not making a blanket statement
about the cause of depression because
there’s lots of them is that people who
don’t have enough order in their life
tend to get overwhelmed so for example
if someone comes into me and sees to see
me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions I do have a job if you don’t
have a job you’re really in trouble in
our society first of all you your
biological rhythms tend to go off the
rails right away because there’s no
reason to go to bed at any particular
time and there’s no reason to get up and
for many people if they don’t get up at
the same time they follow up the
functioning of their circadian rhythms
and that’s enough to make them depressed
right off the bat especially if they
start napping during the afternoon they
don’t also don’t have a purpose people
aren’t good without a purpose and this
isn’t this isn’t hypothesizing we
absolutely understand the circuitry that
underlies positive emotion when you’re
attending to something you’re interested
in and you’re engaged it that’s when
you’re alive that’s when life is
worthwhile it’s so worthwhile that in
those moments you don’t even ask the
question about it the question itself
goes away because the meaning that
you’re Li United with is so powerful
that it can push back the adversity that
would otherwise characterize life
Nietzsche said the person who has a Y
can bear anyhow we know how it works
almost all the positive emotion that any
of you are likely to experience in your
life will not be a consequence of
attaining things
it will be a consequence of seeing that
things are working as you proceed
towards a goal you value that’s
completely different and you need to
know this because people are often
stunned for example they finish their
PhD thesis and their presupposition is
that they’re going to be elated for a
month and often instead they’re actually
depressed and they think what the hell
I’ve been working on this for seven
years and I handed it in and what do I
do now and that’s what depresses them
right it’s the what do I do now well
they’re fine if they enjoyed it
pursuing the thing as long as it was
working out they get a lot of enthusiasm
and excitement because that’s how our
nervous systems work most your positive
emotion is bold pursuit emotion if you
take drugs like cocaine or amphetamine
the reason they’re enjoyable is because
they turn on the systems that help you
pursue goals that’s why people like them
so if you don’t have a job you got no
structure that’s not good
plus you tend not to have a point so
you’re overwhelmed by chaotic lack of
structure and you don’t have any
positive emotion assuming you want to
get better there’s usually something you
can figure out that would constitute a
step towards some sort of concrete goal
and my presumption it’s a behavioral
presumptions fundamentally is that small
accruing gains that repeat unbelievably
powerful
you can Terran eyes yourself into doing
things but I wouldn’t recommend it what
I would recommend instead is that you
ask yourself what you’re willing to do
it’s a really effective technique it’s
like a meditative technique so for
example you can get up in the morning
you can think well you know I’d like to
have a good day today so I’d like to go
to bed tonight without feeling guilty
because I you know didn’t do some things
I said I was gonna do and I you know I’d
like to have kind of an interesting day
so you gotta fulfill my responsibilities
and I want to you know enjoy the day
then you can ask yourself well okay what
would I have to do in order for that to
happen that I would do and the
probability if you practice this for
three or four days is your brain will
just tell you say well you know there’s
that piece of homework that yeah I’m
done for like three weeks you should
knock that sucker off because it would
only take you ten minutes and you’ve
been avoiding it and torturing yourself
to death for you know like like 72 hours
straight and say well let’s figure out
what your aims are you got to have some
aims whatever they are and they might
say well I’m so depressed I don’t have
any aims and then I say well pick the
least objectionable of the aims and act
it out for a while and see what happens
because sometimes your emotions
your emotional systems are so fouled up
that you have to pretend you have to act
the thing out before you can start to
believe it you know there are remarkable
people who come into the world from time
to time and there are people who do find
out over decades long periods what they
could be like if they were who they were
if they spoke their being forward and
they be get stronger and stronger and
stronger and we don’t know the limits to
that we do not know the limits to that
probably running at about 51 percent of
our capacity something mean you can
think about this yourselves I often ask
undergraduates how many hours a day you
waste or how many hours a week you waste
and the classic answer is something like
4 to 6 hours a day you know in efficient
studying watching things on YouTube that
not only do you not want to watch that
you don’t even care about that make you
feel horrible about watching after
you’re done that’s probably for hours
right there know it you think well
that’s 2025 hours a week it’s a hundred
hours a month that’s two and a half full
work weeks it’s half a year of work
weeks per year and so if your life isn’t
everything it could be you could ask
yourself well what would happen if you
just stopped wasting the opportunities
that are in front of you you be who
knows how much more efficient 10 times
more efficient 20 times more efficient
that’s the Pareto distribution you have
no idea how efficient efficient people
get it’s completely it’s off the charts
it’s not so obvious to me that people
would take the meaningful path now when
you say well nihilist suffered
dreadfully because there’s no meaning in
their life and they still suffer yeah
but the advantages they have no
responsibility so that’s the payoff and
I actually think that’s the motivation
say well I can’t help being nihilistic
all my belief systems have collapsed
it’s like yeah maybe maybe you’ve just
allowed them to collapse because it’s a
hell of a lot easier than acting them
out and the price you pay is some
meaningless suffering but you can always
whine about that and people will feel
sorry for you if you live a pathological
life you pathologize your society and if
enough people do that then it’s hell
you’re asked to outline the place you’d
like to end up which is your desired
future and also the place that you could
end up if you let everything fall apart
is so that your anxiety cases
you and your approach systems pull you
forward your maximally motivated debt
and it’s important because otherwise you
can be afraid of pursuing the things
that you want to pursue right and that’s
very common and so then the fear
inhibits you as the promise pulls you
forward but it makes you weak because
you’re afraid you want to get your fear
behind you pushing you and so what you
want to be is afraid more afraid of not
pursuing your goals then you are of
pursuing them putting yourself in a
challenging mind frame is much better
much easier on you cycle physiologically
because you don’t produce you don’t go
into the generalized stress response to
the same degree and you’re activating
your exploratory and seeking systems
which are dopaminergic Lee mediated and
that involve positive emotion so if you
can face something voluntarily rather
than having to chase you it’s way better
for you cycle physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that they pop
their ugly little head up and you know
and you might want to turn away might
not to want not want to think about it
which is the easiest way of turning away
right you just don’t attend to it you
know if you could have your life the way
you wanted it in three to five years if
you were taking care of yourself
properly you know what would you want
from your friendships what
want from your intimate relationship how
would you like to structure your family
what do you want for your career well
how are you going to use your time
outside of your job and how are you
gonna regulate your mental physical
mental and physical health and maybe
also your drug and alcohol use because
that’s that’s a good place to auger down
you know because alcoholism for example
wipes out you know five to ten percent
of people so you want to keep that under
control and then and then so maybe you
know you you you develop a vision of
what your life what you would like your
life to be and that associates the so
the goal well once the goal is
established and then you break down the
goal into micro processes that you could
implement the micro process has become
rewarding in relation to their causal
association with the goal and that
tangles in your your incentive reward
system and that’s the thing that keeps
you moving forward and the way it works
is that it works better if it produces
positive emotion win it can see you
moving towards a valued goal okay well
what’s the implication of that better
have a valued goal because otherwise you
can’t get any positive motivation
working out and so the more valuable the
goal in principle the more the micro
process is associated with that goal
start to take on a positive charge and
so what that means is well you get up in
the morning and you’re excited about the
day you’re ready to go and so as far as
I can tell what you do is you specify
your long term ideal maybe you also
specify a place you want to stay the
hell away from so that you’re terrified
to fail as well as excited about
succeeding because that’s also useful
you specify your goal you do that you do
that in some sense as a unique
individual you want to you want to
specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile number one specify your damn
goals because how are you going to hit
something if you don’t know what it is
that isn’t going to happen and often
people won’t specify their goals too
because they don’t like to specify
conditions for failure so if you keep
yourself
vague and foggy which is real easy
because that’s just a matter of not
doing as well then you don’t know when
you fail and people might say well I
really don’t want to know when I fail
because that’s painful so I’ll keep
myself blind about when I fail that’s
fine except you’ll fail all the time
then you just won’t know it until you’ve
failed so badly that you’re done okay so
once you get your goal structure set up
you think okay if I could have this life
looks like that might be worth living
despite the fact that it’s going to be
you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort okay so then what do you do well
then then you turn down to the micro
routines it’s like okay well this is
what I’m aiming for how does that
instantiate itself day to day week to
week month to month and that’s where
something like a schedule can be
unbelievably useful Google Calendar it’s
like naked am schedule and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want what’s
the right ratio of responsibility to
reward and you can ask yourself that
just like you’d negotiate with someone
who is working for you it’s like okay
guy work tomorrow okay so I want you to
work tomorrow and you might say okay
well what are you gonna do for me that
makes it likely that I’ll work for you
well you could ask yourself that you
know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that would be good
great you know and you you’re useless
and horrible so you’ll probably only hit
it with about 70% accuracy
but that beats the hell out of zero
right and if you hit it even with 50%
accuracy another rule is well aim for
51% the next week or 50 and a half
percent for God’s sake or because you’re
gonna hit that position where things
start to loop back positively and spiral
you upward and so so that’s one way that
you can work on your conscientiousness
it’s a plan of life you’d like to have
the other way you do that is by having a
little conversation with yourself about
as if you don’t really know who you are
because you know what you like you won’t
do what you’re told you won’t do what
you tell yourself to do you must have
noticed that it’s like you’re a bad
employee and a worse boss and both of
those work you know for you you don’t
know what you want to do and then when
you tell yourself what to do you don’t
do it anyways you should fire yourself
and find someone else to beat but but
you know my point is is that you have to
understand that you’re not your own
servant so to speak you’re someone that
you have to negotiate with and that’s
and you’re someone that you want to
present the opportunity of having a good
life to and that’s hard for people
because they don’t like themselves very
much so you know they’re always like
cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30 whatever maybe it’s a
hundred it’s somewhere in that range
one of the things you should be asking
yourself is when you spend an hour was
that well what have I paid someone 50
bucks to have had that hour and if the
answer is no it’s like well maybe you
should do something else with your time
and it depends on whether or not you
think that your time is worthwhile
but the funny thing about not assuming
that is if you assume your time isn’t
worthwhile what happens is you don’t
just sit around sort of randomly in a
state of responsibility list bliss what
you do is you suffer existentially and
so that seems like a stupid solution
good damned schedule and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have to follow
a schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s gonna go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were then then at the beginning of the
day right that’s a stupid day if you
have a bunch of those in a row you just
dig you know you dig yourself a hole and
then you bury yourself in it’s like
sorry that’s just not a good strategy
it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not
tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that
would like to be productive and have a
good life and and that’s how you make
the schedule it’s like and then you look
at the day and you think well if I had
that day that’d be good great you know
and you you’re useless and horrible so
you’ll probably only hit it with about
70% accuracy but that beats the hell out
of zero right and if you hit it even
with 50% accuracy another rule is well
aim for 51% the next week or 50 and a
half percent for God’s sake or because
you’re gonna hit that position where
things start to loop back positively and
spiral you up stop doing the things that
you know are wrong that you could stop
doing right so it’s it’s a fairly it’s a
fairly limited attempt first of all
we’re not going to say that you know
what the good is or what the truth is in
any ultimate sense but we will presume
that there are things that you’re doing
that for one reason another you know are
not in your best interests there’s
something about them that you just know
you should stop there are kind of
self-evident to you other things you’re
gonna be doubtful about you’re not gonna
know which way is up and which way is
down but there are things that you’re
doing that you know you shouldn’t do now
some of those you won’t stop doing for
whatever reason you don’t have the
discipline or maybe there’s a secondary
payoff or you don’t believe it’s
necessary or it’s too much of a
sacrifice or you’re angry or resentful
or or afraid who knows
so forget about those for now but
there’s another subset that you could
stop doing it might be little thing well
that’s fine stop doing it and see what
happens and what will happen is your
vision will clear a little bit and then
something else will pop up in your field
of apprehension that you will also know
you should stop doing and that you could
stop doing because you’ve strengthened
yourself a bit by stopping doing the
particular stupid thing that you were
doing before that just puts you together
a little bit more and you could do that
repeatedly for for an indefinite period
of time and and you know that doesn’t
necessarily mean that you’re going to
ever be able to formulate a clear and
final picture of what constitutes the
truth and the good but it does mean that
you’ll be able to continually move away
from what’s untruth and what’s bad and
you know well that’s not a bad start
you know I can’t sleep at night because
I’m thinking about something and usually
what I’ll do is go write it down I have
some writing to do so I get up and I go
write down what I’m thinking and that
usually does the trick but because I had
been playing with YouTube I thought well
I’ll try making YouTube video and
telling people what I’m thinking about
and see if that performs the same
function as writing and to me the
function of writing while it’s twofold
one is conceivably to communicate with
people
although the fundamental purpose for me
is to clarify my thoughts so that I know
do you know because if you’re if
something is disturbing you what that
means is that it needs to be articulated
it what it’s the emergence of unexplored
territory something that disturbs you
that that’s the right way to think about
it
it’s unmapped territory that’s
manifesting itself it’s like a Vista of
threat and possibility and you need to
articulate a path through it and so
that’s what I was doing it’s like I was
thinking well this is bothering me and
this seems to be why and here’s what I
think is going on and and so I made the
videos and in some sense I I didn’t
think anything more of it will have to
necessarily have done anything wrong for
things to get completely out of control
it’s a terrifying doctrine but it’s not
a hopeless doctrine because it still
says that there’s a way forward there’s
a pathway forward and the pathway
forward is to adopt a mode of being that
has some nobility so that you can
tolerate yourself and perhaps even have
some respect for yourself as someone
who’s capable of standing up in the face
of that terrible vulnerability and
suffering and that the pathway forward
as far as the existentialists are
concerned is by well certainly by the
avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is no
up to as far as I’m concerned and some
of this is from clinical experience you
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know
they know they need to overcome in order
to meet their goals their self defined
goals if you can teach people to stand
up in the face of the things they’re
afraid of they get stronger and you
don’t know what the upper limits to that
are because you might ask yourself like
if for 10 years if you didn’t avoid
doing what you knew you needed to do by
the depth by your own definitions right
within the value structure that you’ve
created to the degree that you’ve done
that what would you be like well you
know there are remarkable people who
come into the world from time to time
and there are people who do find out
over decades long periods what they
could be like if they were who they were
if they said if they spoke their being
forward and they’d get stronger and
stronger and stronger and we don’t know
the limits to that we do not know the
limits to that and so you could say well
in part perhaps the reason that you’re
suffering unbearably can be left at your
feet because you’re not everything you
could be and you know it and of course
that’s a terrible thing to admit and
it’s a terrible thing to consider but
there’s real promise in it right because
it means that perhaps there’s another
way that you could look at the world and
the number another way that you could
act in the world so what it would
reflect back to you would be much better
than what it reflects back to you now my
experience is with people that were
probably running at about 51% of our
capacity something mean you can think
about this yourselves I often ask
undergraduates how many hours a day you
waste or how many hours a week you waste
and the classic answer is something like
4 to 6 hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably 4 hours right there know what
do you think well that’s 2025 hours a
week it’s a hundred hours a month that’s
two and a half full work weeks it’s half
a year of work weeks per year and if
your time is worth 20 dollars an hour
which is a radical under estimate it’s
probably more like 50 if you think about
it in terms of deferred wages if you’re
wasting 20 hours a week
you’re wasting fifty thousand dollars a
year and you are doing that right now
and it’s because
young wasting $50,000 a year is a way
bigger catastrophe than it would be for
me to waste it because I’m not gonna
last nearly as long and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient twenty times
more efficient that’s the Pareto
distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely off its off the charts
well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time not only do they
not do what they should to make things
better they actively attempt to make
things worse because they’re spiteful or
resentful or arrogant or deceitful or or
homicidal or genocide alors all of those
things all bundled together in an
absolutely pathological package if
people start really really trying just
to make things worse we have no idea how
much better they would get just because
of that so there’s this weird dynamic
that’s part of the existential system of
ideas between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are major causes
of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to peak
at about 9 billion by the way and then
it’ll decline rapidly but 7 billion
people in the world and who are you
you’re just one little dust mote among
that 7 billion and so it really doesn’t
matter what you do or don’t do but
that’s simply not the case it’s the
wrong model because you’re at the center
of a network you’re a node in a network
of course that’s even more true now that
we have social media you’ll you know
you’ll know a thousand people at least
over the course of your life and they’ll
know a thousand people each and that
puts you one person away from a million
and two persons away from a billion and
so that’s how you’re connected and the
things you do there like dropping a
stone in a pond the ripples move outward
and they affect things in ways that you
can’t fully comprehend and it means that
the things that you do and that you
don’t do are far more important than you
think
and so if you act that way of course the
terror of realizing that is that it
actually starts to matter what you do
and you might say well that’s better
than living a meaningless existence it’s
better for it to matter
I mean if you really ask yourself would
you be so sure if you had the choice I
can live with no responsibility
whatsoever the price I pay is that
nothing matters
or I can reverse it and everything
matters but I have to take the
responsibility that’s associated with
that it’s not so obvious to me that
people would take the meaningful path
now when you say well denialists
suffered dreadfully because there’s no
meaning in their life and they still
suffer yeah but the advantages they have
no responsibility so that’s the payoff
and I actually think that’s the
motivation say well I can’t help being
nihilistic all my belief systems have
collapsed it’s like yeah maybe maybe
you’ve just allowed them to collapse
because it’s a hell of a lot easier than
acting them out and the price you pay is
some meaningless suffering but you can
always whine about that and people will
feel sorry for you and you have the
option of taking the pathway of the
martyr so that’s a pretty good deal all
things considered especially when the
art part when the alternative is to bear
your burden properly and to live
forthrightly in the world well what
Solzhenitsyn figured out and so many
people in the 20th century it’s not just
him even though he’s the best example is
that if you live a pathological life you
pathologize your society and if enough
people do that then it’s hell really
really and you can read the Gulag
Archipelago if you have the four tit
fortitude to do that and you’ll see
exactly what hell is like and then you
can decide if that’s a place you’d like
to visit or even more importantly if
it’s a light if it’s a place you’d like
to visit and take all your family and
friends because that’s what happened in
the 20th century I started to pay very
careful attention to what I was saying I
don’t know if that happened voluntarily
or involuntarily but I could feel a sort
of split developing in my psyche and the
split and I’ve actually had students
tell me the same thing that has happened
to them after they’ve listened to some
of the material that that I’ve been
describing to all of you but split into
two
let’s say and one part was the let’s say
the old me that was talking a lot and
that liked to argue and that liked ideas
and there was another part that was
watching that part like just with its
eyes open and neutrally judging and the
part that was neutrally judging was
watching the part that was talking and
going that isn’t your idea you don’t
really believe that you don’t really
know what you’re talking about that
isn’t true and I thought that’s really
interesting so now I’ve and that was
happening to like 95% of what I was
saying and so then I didn’t really know
what to do I thought okay this is
strange so maybe I’ve fragmented and
that’s just not a good thing at all I
mean it wasn’t like I was hearing voices
or anything like that I mean it wasn’t
like that it was it was well people have
multiple parts so then I had this weird
conundrum it’s like well which of those
two things are me is it the part that’s
listening and saying no that’s rubbish
that’s a lie that’s you’re doing that to
impress people you’re just trying to win
the argument you know was that me or was
the part that was going about my normal
verbal business me and I didn’t know but
I decided I would go with the critic and
then what I’d tried to do what I learned
to do I think was to stop saying things
that made me weak and now that I mean
I’m still trying to do that because I’m
always feeling when I talk whether or
not the words that I’m saying are either
making me a line or making me come apart
and I think the alignment I really do
think the alignment is I think alignment
is the right way of conceptualizing it
because I think if you say things that
are as true as you can say them let’s
say then they come up
they come out of the depths inside of
you because we don’t know where thoughts
come from we don’t know how far down
into your sub structure the thoughts
emerge we don’t know what processes of
physiological alignment are necessary
for you to speak from the core of your
being we don’t understand any of that we
don’t even conceptualize that but I
believe that you can feel that and I
learned some of that from reading Carl
Rogers by the way who’s a great
clinician because he talked about mental
health in part as the coherence between
the the the spiritual or the or the
abstract and the physical that the two
things were aligned and and there’s a
lot of idea of alignment in
psychoanalytic and clinical thinking but
anyways I decided that I would start
practicing not saying things that would
make me weak and what happened was that
I had to stop saying almost everything
that I was saying I would say 95% of it
as a hell of a shark to wake up and I
mean this was over a few months but it’s
a hell of a shark to wake up and realize
that you’re mostly dead wood it’s a
shark
you know and you might think well do you
really want all of that to burn off it’s
like well there’s nothing left but a
little ha spite of you it’s like well if
that 5% is solid then maybe that’s
exactly what you want to have happen
has been carved out of your lives by
society they it’s given you an identity
like a high quality identity and freedom
at the same time and you’re not gonna
get that again in your life
you’ve got a you’ve got a respectable
identity University student and complete
freedom associated without or as near as
you’re ever going to get and you’ve got
these unbelievable libraries that are
full of the writings of people who are
who are intelligent and articulate
beyond comprehension and you know and
and you can go there and you can learn
all this and you might think well why
should you learn it well you’ve learned
it to get a job or you learn it to get
good grades or you learn it to get a
degree and that’s all nonsense it’s
nonsense
the reason that you come to university
to be educated is because there is
nothing more powerful than someone who
is articulate and who can think and
speak its power and I mean power of the
best sort and its authority and
influence and respectability and
competence and so you come to university
to craft your highest skill and your
highest skill is to be found in
articulated speech and if you’re if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins to because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world well there’s nothing more exciting
to do than that there’s nothing better
you can possibly do and to think that
you’re coming to university to be you
know trained to have a job it’s like
great that’s a hell of a lot better than
being unemployed and covered with cheeto
dust while you’re snacking away in front
of your video game in the basement
you’re spectacular you’ve you’re you’re
all capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise men
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here man they’re just everyone’s just
praying that you would come here and
manifest everything that you could
manifest and that’s what you should be
doing instead of waving placards and
complaining about how you’re oppressed
for God’s sake the only reason you’re
not rich is cuz you’re young you know
that’s the best really that’s them if
you look at the 1% even the dreaded 1%
you know most of those people are all
why well when you progress through life
if you’re reasonably successful you
trade in your promising youth for your
wealthy old age but you’re still bloody
old would you would you trade it would
you trade your youth for that like if
you factor age out of the economic
equation things look a lot different
well of course older people have more
money if they have any sense they’ve
been collecting it for their whole life
is that somehow unfair it’s not unfair
unless you want to want to be
poverty-stricken when you’re 70 and you
and you don’t want to be poverty or
poverty stricken when you’re 70 so I
just don’t understand what’s happened to
the universities I can’t believe that
you’re not told when you come the first
day look man you are out you’re here on
a heroic mission you’re going to take
your capacity to articulate yourself to
levels that are undreamed-of you’re
gonna come out of here unstoppable
you’re going to be able to do anything
you want it’s like that’s what you’re
here for instead you’re taught that well
you know the world is a pretty
oppressive place and you’re probably at
the bottom of the victim pile and and
and there’s and there’s there’s
virtually nothing you could do about it
except know deconstruct the patriarchy
and it’s so we need and so pathetic
that that university should be
embarrassed that that’s what they’re
peddling to students I’m embarrassed by
it
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self destructive I need to take care of
myself as if I’m potentially valuable
and to lay out my life that way and so
that’s what that’s that chapter is about
and it’s it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes tell ins mother
made you know and she probably didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important hmm you don’t know how
your actions echo and so it matters what
you do and and so part of what you do is
you want to treat yourself as if what
you do matters okay so if you’re
suffering you are obligated in a sense
to hold on to whatever rope someone
throws you and one of the things I do
with my clients all the time especially
if they’re really in trouble is to tell
them look I don’t know exactly what’s
gonna have helped you but don’t
arbitrarily throw out any possibilities
because you might not have that
three antidepressants help a lot of
people and there are technical reasons
why that’s the case so that’s a simple
answer it’s not relevant to what I
already described except that if you’re
offered a gift by your society and it
works try it I don’t care what your
presuppositions are apart from that lots
of the lots of time lots of the time you
see people who are suffering with
depression for example there’s a
multitude of reasons but I’ll take one
common reason you can think about it as
associated with the story of Peter Pan a
Peter Pan is someone who won’t grow up
right now the problem with Peter Pan is
he gets to be king but it’s king of
Neverland
Neverland doesn’t exist so being king of
nothing isn’t that helpful well one of
the things that you often see with
people who suffer from depression and
and I’m not making a blanket statement
about the cause of depression because
there’s lots of them is that people who
don’t have enough order in their life
tend to get overwhelmed so for example
if someone comes into me and sees to see
me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions I do have a job if you don’t
have a job you’re really in trouble in
our society first of all you your
biological rhythms tend to go off the
rails right away because there’s no
reason to go to bed at any particular
time and there’s no reason to get up and
for many people if they don’t get up at
the same time they follow up the
functioning of their circadian rhythms
and that’s enough to make them depressed
right off the bat especially if they
start napping during the afternoon they
don’t also don’t have a purpose people
aren’t good without a purpose and this
isn’t this isn’t hypothesizing we
absolutely understand the circuitry that
underlies positive emotion when you’re
attending to something you’re interested
in and you’re engaged it that’s when
you’re alive that’s when life is
worthwhile it’s so worthwhile that in
those moments you don’t even ask the
question about it the question itself
goes away because the meaning that
you’re Li United with is so powerful
that it can push back the adversity that
would otherwise characterize life
Nietzsche said the person who has a Y
can bear anyhow we know how it works
almost all the positive emotion that any
of you are likely to experience in your
life will not be a consequence of
attaining things
it will be a consequence of seeing that
things are working as you proceed
towards a goal you value that’s
completely different and you need to
know this because people are often
stunned for example they finish their
PhD thesis and their presupposition is
that they’re going to be elated for a
month and often instead they’re actually
depressed and they think what the hell
I’ve been working on this for seven
years and I handed it in and what do I
do now and that’s what depresses them
right it’s the what do I do now well
they’re fine if they enjoyed it
pursuing the thing as long as it was
working out they get a lot of enthusiasm
and excitement because that’s how our
nervous systems work most your positive
emotion is bold pursuit emotion if you
take drugs like cocaine or amphetamine
the reason they’re enjoyable is because
they turn on the systems that help you
pursue goals that’s why people like them
so if you don’t have a job you got no
structure that’s not good
plus you tend not to have a point so
you’re overwhelmed by chaotic lack of
structure and you don’t have any
positive emotion assuming you want to
get better there’s usually something you
can figure out that would constitute a
step towards some sort of concrete goal
and my presumption it’s a behavioral
presumptions fundamentally is that small
accruing gains that repeat unbelievably
powerful
you can Terran eyes yourself into doing
things but I wouldn’t recommend it what
I would recommend instead is that you
ask yourself what you’re willing to do
it’s a really effective technique it’s
like a meditative technique so for
example you can get up in the morning
you can think well you know I’d like to
have a good day today so I’d like to go
to bed tonight without feeling guilty
because I you know didn’t do some things
I said I was gonna do and I you know I’d
like to have kind of an interesting day
so you gotta fulfill my responsibilities
and I want to you know enjoy the day
then you can ask yourself well okay what
would I have to do in order for that to
happen that I would do and the
probability if you practice this for
three or four days is your brain will
just tell you say well you know there’s
that piece of homework that yeah I’m
done for like three weeks you should
knock that sucker off because it would
only take you ten minutes and you’ve
been avoiding it and torturing yourself
to death for you know like like 72 hours
straight and say well let’s figure out
what your aims are you got to have some
aims whatever they are and they might
say well I’m so depressed I don’t have
any aims and then I say well pick the
least objectionable of the aims and act
it out for a while and see what happens
because sometimes your emotions
your emotional systems are so fouled up
that you have to pretend you have to act
the thing out before you can start to
believe it you know there are remarkable
people who come into the world from time
to time and there are people who do find
out over decades long periods what they
could be like if they were who they were
if they spoke their being forward and
they be get stronger and stronger and
stronger and we don’t know the limits to
that we do not know the limits to that
probably running at about 51 percent of
our capacity something mean you can
think about this yourselves I often ask
undergraduates how many hours a day you
waste or how many hours a week you waste
and the classic answer is something like
4 to 6 hours a day you know in efficient
studying watching things on YouTube that
not only do you not want to watch that
you don’t even care about that make you
feel horrible about watching after
you’re done that’s probably for hours
right there know it you think well
that’s 2025 hours a week it’s a hundred
hours a month that’s two and a half full
work weeks it’s half a year of work
weeks per year and so if your life isn’t
everything it could be you could ask
yourself well what would happen if you
just stopped wasting the opportunities
that are in front of you you be who
knows how much more efficient 10 times
more efficient 20 times more efficient
that’s the Pareto distribution you have
no idea how efficient efficient people
get it’s completely it’s off the charts
it’s not so obvious to me that people
would take the meaningful path now when
you say well nihilist suffered
dreadfully because there’s no meaning in
their life and they still suffer yeah
but the advantages they have no
responsibility so that’s the payoff and
I actually think that’s the motivation
say well I can’t help being nihilistic
all my belief systems have collapsed
it’s like yeah maybe maybe you’ve just
allowed them to collapse because it’s a
hell of a lot easier than acting them
out and the price you pay is some
meaningless suffering but you can always
whine about that and people will feel
sorry for you if you live a pathological
life you pathologize your society and if
enough people do that then it’s hell
you’re asked to outline the place you’d
like to end up which is your desired
future and also the place that you could
end up if you let everything fall apart
is so that your anxiety cases
you and your approach systems pull you
forward your maximally motivated debt
and it’s important because otherwise you
can be afraid of pursuing the things
that you want to pursue right and that’s
very common and so then the fear
inhibits you as the promise pulls you
forward but it makes you weak because
you’re afraid you want to get your fear
behind you pushing you and so what you
want to be is afraid more afraid of not
pursuing your goals then you are of
pursuing them putting yourself in a
challenging mind frame is much better
much easier on you cycle physiologically
because you don’t produce you don’t go
into the generalized stress response to
the same degree and you’re activating
your exploratory and seeking systems
which are dopaminergic Lee mediated and
that involve positive emotion so if you
can face something voluntarily rather
than having to chase you it’s way better
for you cycle physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that they pop
their ugly little head up and you know
and you might want to turn away might
not to want not want to think about it
which is the easiest way of turning away
right you just don’t attend to it you
know if you could have your life the way
you wanted it in three to five years if
you were taking care of yourself
properly you know what would you want
from your friendships what
want from your intimate relationship how
would you like to structure your family
what do you want for your career well
how are you going to use your time
outside of your job and how are you
gonna regulate your mental physical
mental and physical health and maybe
also your drug and alcohol use because
that’s that’s a good place to auger down
you know because alcoholism for example
wipes out you know five to ten percent
of people so you want to keep that under
control and then and then so maybe you
know you you you develop a vision of
what your life what you would like your
life to be and that associates the so
the goal well once the goal is
established and then you break down the
goal into micro processes that you could
implement the micro process has become
rewarding in relation to their causal
association with the goal and that
tangles in your your incentive reward
system and that’s the thing that keeps
you moving forward and the way it works
is that it works better if it produces
positive emotion win it can see you
moving towards a valued goal okay well
what’s the implication of that better
have a valued goal because otherwise you
can’t get any positive motivation
working out and so the more valuable the
goal in principle the more the micro
process is associated with that goal
start to take on a positive charge and
so what that means is well you get up in
the morning and you’re excited about the
day you’re ready to go and so as far as
I can tell what you do is you specify
your long term ideal maybe you also
specify a place you want to stay the
hell away from so that you’re terrified
to fail as well as excited about
succeeding because that’s also useful
you specify your goal you do that you do
that in some sense as a unique
individual you want to you want to
specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you ever do anything and
the answer that has to be because you’ve
determined by some means that it’s
worthwhile number one specify your damn
goals because how are you going to hit
something if you don’t know what it is
that isn’t going to happen and often
people won’t specify their goals too
because they don’t like to specify
conditions for failure so if you keep
yourself
vague and foggy which is real easy
because that’s just a matter of not
doing as well then you don’t know when
you fail and people might say well I
really don’t want to know when I fail
because that’s painful so I’ll keep
myself blind about when I fail that’s
fine except you’ll fail all the time
then you just won’t know it until you’ve
failed so badly that you’re done okay so
once you get your goal structure set up
you think okay if I could have this life
looks like that might be worth living
despite the fact that it’s going to be
you know anxiety provoking and
threatening and there’s gonna be some
suffering and loss involved in all of
that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort okay so then what do you do well
then then you turn down to the micro
routines it’s like okay well this is
what I’m aiming for how does that
instantiate itself day to day week to
week month to month and that’s where
something like a schedule can be
unbelievably useful Google Calendar it’s
like naked am schedule and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have follow a
schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want what’s
the right ratio of responsibility to
reward and you can ask yourself that
just like you’d negotiate with someone
who is working for you it’s like okay
guy work tomorrow okay so I want you to
work tomorrow and you might say okay
well what are you gonna do for me that
makes it likely that I’ll work for you
well you could ask yourself that you
know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that would be good
great you know and you you’re useless
and horrible so you’ll probably only hit
it with about 70% accuracy
but that beats the hell out of zero
right and if you hit it even with 50%
accuracy another rule is well aim for
51% the next week or 50 and a half
percent for God’s sake or because you’re
gonna hit that position where things
start to loop back positively and spiral
you upward and so so that’s one way that
you can work on your conscientiousness
it’s a plan of life you’d like to have
the other way you do that is by having a
little conversation with yourself about
as if you don’t really know who you are
because you know what you like you won’t
do what you’re told you won’t do what
you tell yourself to do you must have
noticed that it’s like you’re a bad
employee and a worse boss and both of
those work you know for you you don’t
know what you want to do and then when
you tell yourself what to do you don’t
do it anyways you should fire yourself
and find someone else to beat but but
you know my point is is that you have to
understand that you’re not your own
servant so to speak you’re someone that
you have to negotiate with and that’s
and you’re someone that you want to
present the opportunity of having a good
life to and that’s hard for people
because they don’t like themselves very
much so you know they’re always like
cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30 whatever maybe it’s a
hundred it’s somewhere in that range
one of the things you should be asking
yourself is when you spend an hour was
that well what have I paid someone 50
bucks to have had that hour and if the
answer is no it’s like well maybe you
should do something else with your time
and it depends on whether or not you
think that your time is worthwhile
but the funny thing about not assuming
that is if you assume your time isn’t
worthwhile what happens is you don’t
just sit around sort of randomly in a
state of responsibility list bliss what
you do is you suffer existentially and
so that seems like a stupid solution
good damned schedule and stick to it
okay so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have to follow
a schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do
it’s like wrong set the damn schedule up
so that you have the day you want that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s gonna go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were then then at the beginning of the
day right that’s a stupid day if you
have a bunch of those in a row you just
dig you know you dig yourself a hole and
then you bury yourself in it’s like
sorry that’s just not a good strategy
it’s a bad strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in what’s the
right ratio of responsibility to reward
and you can ask yourself that just like
you’d negotiate with someone who is
working for you it’s like okay you gotta
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay well
what are you gonna do for me that makes
it likely that I’ll work for you well
you could ask yourself that you know
maybe you do an hour of responsibility
and then you play a video game for 15
minutes I don’t know whatever turns your
crank man but you know you have to
negotiate with yourself and not
tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that
would like to be productive and have a
good life and and that’s how you make
the schedule it’s like and then you look
at the day and you think well if I had
that day that’d be good great you know
and you you’re useless and horrible so
you’ll probably only hit it with about
70% accuracy but that beats the hell out
of zero right and if you hit it even
with 50% accuracy another rule is well
aim for 51% the next week or 50 and a
half percent for God’s sake or because
you’re gonna hit that position where
things start to loop back positively and
spiral you up stop doing the things that
you know are wrong that you could stop
doing right so it’s it’s a fairly it’s a
fairly limited attempt first of all
we’re not going to say that you know
what the good is or what the truth is in
any ultimate sense but we will presume
that there are things that you’re doing
that for one reason another you know are
not in your best interests there’s
something about them that you just know
you should stop there are kind of
self-evident to you other things you’re
gonna be doubtful about you’re not gonna
know which way is up and which way is
down but there are things that you’re
doing that you know you shouldn’t do now
some of those you won’t stop doing for
whatever reason you don’t have the
discipline or maybe there’s a secondary
payoff or you don’t believe it’s
necessary or it’s too much of a
sacrifice or you’re angry or resentful
or or afraid who knows
so forget about those for now but
there’s another subset that you could
stop doing it might be little thing well
that’s fine stop doing it and see what
happens and what will happen is your
vision will clear a little bit and then
something else will pop up in your field
of apprehension that you will also know
you should stop doing and that you could
stop doing because you’ve strengthened
yourself a bit by stopping doing the
particular stupid thing that you were
doing before that just puts you together
a little bit more and you could do that
repeatedly for for an indefinite period
of time and and you know that doesn’t
necessarily mean that you’re going to
ever be able to formulate a clear and
final picture of what constitutes the
truth and the good but it does mean that
you’ll be able to continually move away
from what’s untruth and what’s bad and
you know well that’s not a bad start
you know I can’t sleep at night because
I’m thinking about something and usually
what I’ll do is go write it down I have
some writing to do so I get up and I go
write down what I’m thinking and that
usually does the trick but because I had
been playing with YouTube I thought well
I’ll try making YouTube video and
telling people what I’m thinking about
and see if that performs the same
function as writing and to me the
function of writing while it’s twofold
one is conceivably to communicate with
people
although the fundamental purpose for me
is to clarify my thoughts so that I know
do you know because if you’re if
something is disturbing you what that
means is that it needs to be articulated
it what it’s the emergence of unexplored
territory something that disturbs you
that that’s the right way to think about
it
it’s unmapped territory that’s
manifesting itself it’s like a Vista of
threat and possibility and you need to
articulate a path through it and so
that’s what I was doing it’s like I was
thinking well this is bothering me and
this seems to be why and here’s what I
think is going on and and so I made the
videos and in some sense I I didn’t
think anything more of it will have to
necessarily have done anything wrong for
things to get completely out of control
it’s a terrifying doctrine but it’s not
a hopeless doctrine because it still
says that there’s a way forward there’s
a pathway forward and the pathway
forward is to adopt a mode of being that
has some nobility so that you can
tolerate yourself and perhaps even have
some respect for yourself as someone
who’s capable of standing up in the face
of that terrible vulnerability and
suffering and that the pathway forward
as far as the existentialists are
concerned is by well certainly by the
avoidance of deceit particularly in
language but also by the adoption of
responsibility for the conditions of
existence and some attempt on your part
to actually rectify them and the thing
that’s so interesting about that is no
up to as far as I’m concerned and some
of this is from clinical experience you
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them voluntarily
to things that they are avoiding and are
afraid of you know
they know they need to overcome in order
to meet their goals their self defined
goals if you can teach people to stand
up in the face of the things they’re
afraid of they get stronger and you
don’t know what the upper limits to that
are because you might ask yourself like
if for 10 years if you didn’t avoid
doing what you knew you needed to do by
the depth by your own definitions right
within the value structure that you’ve
created to the degree that you’ve done
that what would you be like well you
know there are remarkable people who
come into the world from time to time
and there are people who do find out
over decades long periods what they
could be like if they were who they were
if they said if they spoke their being
forward and they’d get stronger and
stronger and stronger and we don’t know
the limits to that we do not know the
limits to that and so you could say well
in part perhaps the reason that you’re
suffering unbearably can be left at your
feet because you’re not everything you
could be and you know it and of course
that’s a terrible thing to admit and
it’s a terrible thing to consider but
there’s real promise in it right because
it means that perhaps there’s another
way that you could look at the world and
the number another way that you could
act in the world so what it would
reflect back to you would be much better
than what it reflects back to you now my
experience is with people that were
probably running at about 51% of our
capacity something mean you can think
about this yourselves I often ask
undergraduates how many hours a day you
waste or how many hours a week you waste
and the classic answer is something like
4 to 6 hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably 4 hours right there know what
do you think well that’s 2025 hours a
week it’s a hundred hours a month that’s
two and a half full work weeks it’s half
a year of work weeks per year and if
your time is worth 20 dollars an hour
which is a radical under estimate it’s
probably more like 50 if you think about
it in terms of deferred wages if you’re
wasting 20 hours a week
you’re wasting fifty thousand dollars a
year and you are doing that right now
and it’s because
young wasting $50,000 a year is a way
bigger catastrophe than it would be for
me to waste it because I’m not gonna
last nearly as long and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient twenty times
more efficient that’s the Pareto
distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely off its off the charts
well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time not only do they
not do what they should to make things
better they actively attempt to make
things worse because they’re spiteful or
resentful or arrogant or deceitful or or
homicidal or genocide alors all of those
things all bundled together in an
absolutely pathological package if
people start really really trying just
to make things worse we have no idea how
much better they would get just because
of that so there’s this weird dynamic
that’s part of the existential system of
ideas between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are major causes
of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt it
isn’t merely that your fate depends on
whether or not you get your act together
and to what degree you decide that
you’re going to live out your own
genuine being it isn’t only your fate
it’s the fate of everyone that you’re
networked with and so you know you think
well there’s nine billion seven billion
people in the world we’re going to peak
at about 9 billion by the way and then
it’ll decline rapidly but 7 billion
people in the world and who are you
you’re just one little dust mote among
that 7 billion and so it really doesn’t
matter what you do or don’t do but
that’s simply not the case it’s the
wrong model because you’re at the center
of a network you’re a node in a network
of course that’s even more true now that
we have social media you’ll you know
you’ll know a thousand people at least
over the course of your life and they’ll
know a thousand people each and that
puts you one person away from a million
and two persons away from a billion and
so that’s how you’re connected and the
things you do there like dropping a
stone in a pond the ripples move outward
and they affect things in ways that you
can’t fully comprehend and it means that
the things that you do and that you
don’t do are far more important than you
think
and so if you act that way of course the
terror of realizing that is that it
actually starts to matter what you do
and you might say well that’s better
than living a meaningless existence it’s
better for it to matter
I mean if you really ask yourself would
you be so sure if you had the choice I
can live with no responsibility
whatsoever the price I pay is that
nothing matters
or I can reverse it and everything
matters but I have to take the
responsibility that’s associated with
that it’s not so obvious to me that
people would take the meaningful path
now when you say well denialists
suffered dreadfully because there’s no
meaning in their life and they still
suffer yeah but the advantages they have
no responsibility so that’s the payoff
and I actually think that’s the
motivation say well I can’t help being
nihilistic all my belief systems have
collapsed it’s like yeah maybe maybe
you’ve just allowed them to collapse
because it’s a hell of a lot easier than
acting them out and the price you pay is
some meaningless suffering but you can
always whine about that and people will
feel sorry for you and you have the
option of taking the pathway of the
martyr so that’s a pretty good deal all
things considered especially when the
art part when the alternative is to bear
your burden properly and to live
forthrightly in the world well what
Solzhenitsyn figured out and so many
people in the 20th century it’s not just
him even though he’s the best example is
that if you live a pathological life you
pathologize your society and if enough
people do that then it’s hell really
really and you can read the Gulag
Archipelago if you have the four tit
fortitude to do that and you’ll see
exactly what hell is like and then you
can decide if that’s a place you’d like
to visit or even more importantly if
it’s a light if it’s a place you’d like
to visit and take all your family and
friends because that’s what happened in
the 20th century I started to pay very
careful attention to what I was saying I
don’t know if that happened voluntarily
or involuntarily but I could feel a sort
of split developing in my psyche and the
split and I’ve actually had students
tell me the same thing that has happened
to them after they’ve listened to some
of the material that that I’ve been
describing to all of you but split into
two
let’s say and one part was the let’s say
the old me that was talking a lot and
that liked to argue and that liked ideas
and there was another part that was
watching that part like just with its
eyes open and neutrally judging and the
part that was neutrally judging was
watching the part that was talking and
going that isn’t your idea you don’t
really believe that you don’t really
know what you’re talking about that
isn’t true and I thought that’s really
interesting so now I’ve and that was
happening to like 95% of what I was
saying and so then I didn’t really know
what to do I thought okay this is
strange so maybe I’ve fragmented and
that’s just not a good thing at all I
mean it wasn’t like I was hearing voices
or anything like that I mean it wasn’t
like that it was it was well people have
multiple parts so then I had this weird
conundrum it’s like well which of those
two things are me is it the part that’s
listening and saying no that’s rubbish
that’s a lie that’s you’re doing that to
impress people you’re just trying to win
the argument you know was that me or was
the part that was going about my normal
verbal business me and I didn’t know but
I decided I would go with the critic and
then what I’d tried to do what I learned
to do I think was to stop saying things
that made me weak and now that I mean
I’m still trying to do that because I’m
always feeling when I talk whether or
not the words that I’m saying are either
making me a line or making me come apart
and I think the alignment I really do
think the alignment is I think alignment
is the right way of conceptualizing it
because I think if you say things that
are as true as you can say them let’s
say then they come up
they come out of the depths inside of
you because we don’t know where thoughts
come from we don’t know how far down
into your sub structure the thoughts
emerge we don’t know what processes of
physiological alignment are necessary
for you to speak from the core of your
being we don’t understand any of that we
don’t even conceptualize that but I
believe that you can feel that and I
learned some of that from reading Carl
Rogers by the way who’s a great
clinician because he talked about mental
health in part as the coherence between
the the the spiritual or the or the
abstract and the physical that the two
things were aligned and and there’s a
lot of idea of alignment in
psychoanalytic and clinical thinking but
anyways I decided that I would start
practicing not saying things that would
make me weak and what happened was that
I had to stop saying almost everything
that I was saying I would say 95% of it
as a hell of a shark to wake up and I
mean this was over a few months but it’s
a hell of a shark to wake up and realize
that you’re mostly dead wood it’s a
shark
you know and you might think well do you
really want all of that to burn off it’s
like well there’s nothing left but a
little ha spite of you it’s like well if
that 5% is solid then maybe that’s
exactly what you want to have happen
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