what do you say to those of us that
don’t pursue their dreams and are locked
into their careers because they are too
afraid to take risks and pursue
something meaningful well the first
thing I would say is well you should be
afraid of taking risks and pursuing
something meaningful but you should be
more afraid of staying where you are if
it’s making you miserable it’s like the
first thing you want to do is dispense
with the idea that you get to have any
any permanent security outside of your
ability to contend and adapt it’s the
same issue with children it’s like
you’re paying a price by sitting there
being miserable you might say well the
devil I know is better than the one I
don’t it’s like don’t be so sure of that
the clock is ticking yeah and if you’re
miserable in your job now and you change
nothing in five years you’ll be much
more miserable and you’ll be a lot older
but this into the luxury to push you
what is meaningful our viewers have
mortgages they have children yeah they
have payments and loans it’s a luxury to
pursue because we lack the resources
well I don’t think I don’t remember now
I’m not talking about what makes you
happy it’s a luxury to pursue what makes
you happy it’s a moral obligation to
pursue what you find meaningful and that
doesn’t mean it’s easy it might require
sacrifice if you need to change your job
– let’s say you have family and and and
and children and a mortgage you have
responsibilities you’ve already picked
up those responsibilities you don’t just
get to walk away scot-free and say well
I don’t like my job I quit
that’s no strategy but what you might
have to do is you think well this job is
killing my soul all right so what do I
have to do about that well I have to
look for another job well no one wants
to hire me it’s like okay maybe you need
to educate yourself more maybe you need
to update your your curriculum vitae
your resume maybe you need to overcome
your fear of being interviewed maybe you
need to sharpen your social skills like
you you have to think about these things
strategically if you’re going to switch
careers you have to do it like an
intelligent responsible person that
might take you a couple of years of of
effort to do properly when you say
pursue something meaningful is it
to have a location I think it’s more
important to to have a an ethos an ethic
so I have a program for example called
the Future authoring program which is a
writing program that enables people to
develop a vision for their life and then
to develop a strategy and so it’s based
on the idea imagine that and it’s an
extension of the ideas in the book or at
least something along the same lines the
first thing that you want to do is
figure out imagine you were taking care
of yourself like you were someone you
cared for which is rule number two by
the way essentially then you should
figure out well if you could have what
you needed and wanted what would it be
what sort of friends would you have what
would your family relationships look
like how would you conduct yourself with
your children how would you educate
yourself you need to think through how
it is that your life could be properly
arranged if you had that ability and
then you can aim at that and the funny
thing is is that if you do pause it a
goal of that sort and work towards it
you will move towards it the goal will
change because you’ll learn things along
the way but I mean I’ve dealt with
hundreds of people in my clinical and
consulting practice and we set a goal we
develop a vision and work towards it and
it things inevitably get better for
people so it’s not a luxury it’s it’s
difficult it’s a moral responsibility
and it isn’t happiness it’s it’s not the
pursuit isn’t for happiness it’s a moral
responsibility to pursue what is meaning
absolutely so when you know if you watch
yourself you say well I had a
particularly good day at work and what
does that mean well it means that you
lost your sense of time right because
when you’re having not a good day at
work it’s like first it’s one minute to
three and then it’s
45 seconds 2 3 and then it’s 30 seconds
that’s what school was like for me it
was like clique so funny no I went to I
went to my daughter’s school I used to
get in trouble for talking all the time
it’s probably surprised when I was a kid
and and I was bored stiff in school and
and so I would misbehave upon occasion
out of pure boredom and vote 21 years
ago I went to my daughter’s school to
sit for a class it was about an hour
long and I was sitting there and the
teacher had all the kids on the floor
and was having some of the kids read to
the others and some of the kids who were
reading couldn’t read at all and I had
exactly the same experience I was
sitting there it was like being it’s
like being seven years old again I could
see the clock going tick tick and I
thought you know if I was in this
classroom for three days I would
misbehave fit 40 years old I would
misbehave exactly like I did when I was
when I was six
well that’s no place to be right because
that’s you don’t want to be in a place
that’s stultifying you don’t want to be
in a place where there’s no challenge
you might even quit your job if there’s
no challenge say well that’s a good job
it gives you security and you think god
I can’t stand this it’s eating away at
my soul it’s all security and no
challenge so why do you want to
challenge because that’s what you’re
built for that’s what you’re built for
you’re built to take on a maximal load
right because that’s what strengthens
you and you need to be strong because
life is extraordinarily difficult and
because the evil king is always
whittling away at the structure of the
state and you have to be awake and sharp
to stop that from happening so that you
don’t become corrupt and so that your
family doesn’t become corrupt and so
that your state doesn’t have to become
become corrupt you have to have your
eyes open and your wit sharp and your
words at the ready and you have to be
educated and you have to know about your
history and you know have to know how to
think and you have to know how to read
and you have to know how to speak and
you have to know how to aim and you have
to be willing to hoist the
bubbles of the world up on your
shoulders and what’s so interesting
about that so remarkable and and this is
something that’s really manifested
itself to me as I’ve been doing these
public lectures I’ve been talking about
responsibilities to people which doesn’t
seem to happen very often anymore and
the audience’s are dead quiet and I lay
out this idea that life is tragedy
tainted by malevolence and everyone says
yeah well we already always suspected
that but no one has ever said it quite
so bluntly and it’s quite a relief to
hear that I’m not the only person who
has those suspicions and then the second
part of that is the better part and it’s
the optimistic part which is despite the
fact that life is a tragedy tainted by
malevolence at every level of existence
there’s something about the human spirit
that can thrive under precisely those
conditions if we allow that to occur
because as difficult as life is and as
horrible as we are our capacity to deal
with that catastrophe and to transcend
that malevolent spirit is more powerful
than than that reality itself and that’s
the fundamental issue I think that’s the
fundamental issue of the judeo-christian
ethic with its emphasis on the divinity
of the individual as catastrophic as
life is and as malevolent as people can
be and that’s malevolent beyond belief
fundamentally the person has in spirit
the nobility to set that right and to
defeat evil and that and that more than
that and that the antidote to the
catastrophe of life and the suffering of
life and the tragedy of life that can
drive you down and destroy you is to
take on exactly that responsibility and
to say well there’s plenty of work to be
done and isn’t that terrible and there
isn’t anything so bad that we can’t make
it worse and certainly try very hard to
do so but I have it within me to decide
that I’m going to stand up against that
I’m going to strive to make the world a
better place I’m going to strive to
constrain the malevolence that’s in my
own heart and to set my family straight
and to work to work despite my tragic
loss for the
betterment of anything of everything
that’s in front of me and the
consequence of that the immediate
consequence of that is that when you
make the decision to take on all of that
voluntarily which is to stand up
straight by the way with your shoulders
back to take on that all that on
voluntarily as soon as you make that
decision then all the catastrophe
justifies itself in the nobility of your
striving and that’s what it means to be
an individual thank you when I was 25 or
so I probably weighed about 138 pounds I
smoked like a pack of cigarettes day I
drank tremendous amount of alcohol I was
from northern Alberta this rough little
town up and northern Alberta called
Fairview and you know there were long
winters there and my friends were heavy
drinkers and most of them dropped out of
school by the time they were 15 or 16
went off to work on the oil rigs and you
know it was a rough town and we drank a
lot I started when I was 14 and you know
and so I was I had a lot of bad habits
let’s say and things that were and I
wasn’t in great shape physically and I
was also still intellectually obsessed
by as I am now and so that would have
been that would have been in 85 but when
I but I decided around that about 85 84
or something like that maybe a little
earlier that I was really going to try
to get my act together and so I started
doing that I you know I first of all I
quit smoking well that took a long time
because I eventually had to quit
drinking to in order to quit smoking and
I started working out starting playing
sports which I’d never done I was a
small kid I mean skipped a grade and I
was a small small for my age so sports
were never especially team sports were
never really a domain of expertise for
me although I skied and went trapping
with my dad went you know cross-country
skiing and camping and all that so but
when I went to graduate school I started
swimming the first the first physical
exercise routine I did I enrolled in a
swim sir sighs course I think it was
called so it was me and this like really
overweight kid and like these 60 year
old women and men they could out
exercise me like mad it was really
embarrassing me and the overweight kid
you know we’d be just panting ourselves
3/4 to death at the end of the bloody
work out and these 60 year old women who
weren’t great shape or like you know
chatting away as if nothing was going on
at all in the pool so that was quite
embarrassing and as was going to the
weight room you know because when I
started I could barely best benchpress
75 pounds and people used to keep coming
over and helping me which was last thing
I bloody well wanted but certainly
needed it I got to the point where I
could benchpress 225 pounds I think that
was the best I did and I gained about 30
pounds of muscle in a year and a half so
that was good thing so like I was kind
of a wild man and you know I’m a little
bit manic in my in my temperament and so
you know I was I was kind of going every
direction at the same time so and you
know I don’t regret that I had a fine
time when I was a kid and but I needed
really to get disciplined and I had to
do it because I was working on these
hard problems that you know that I’ve
been discussing with all of you and I’ve
been working on them really you know
obsessively since I was probably about
18 maybe even earlier than that got to
the point around 25 when I was in
graduate school trying to get my PhDs
doing all my research like I published
15 papers by the time I graduated with
my PhD which was but I think by a fairly
large measure the most papers that any
graduate student at that time had ever
published at McGill I think that’s right
might have been twice as many or maybe
twice as many maybe even three times as
many and at the same time I wrote maps
of meaning which was a terrible terrible
terribly difficult thing to do because I
was writing about three hours a day
doing that and I couldn’t do all that
and continue with my misbehavior you
know my sort of my what would you say my
my my hedonistic my hedonistic my
massive hedonistic consumption of
alcohol and all of that I just couldn’t
keep it up and also work seriously on
the issues that were at hand so you know
I had to stop that’s a sacrifice I had
to stop
messing about and straight my cellphone
I I got married while my the woman who’s
my wife Tammy who I’ve known since she
was 8 years old she lived across the
street from me in this little town
called Fairview and I was in love with
her like the first time I saw her which
is quite bloody thing so that’s worked
out pretty well for me but she came to
live with me about the same time and you
know we decided jointly to get her act
together and we swore that we tell each
other the truth which I think she’s
actually done better than me like I
don’t think I don’t think she’s lied to
me ever in our entire marriage which is
unbelievable you know and it’s been so
useful because I can really tell her
things that we can really talk so I tell
you if you want to have a good
relationship man you embedded in the
truth because if you don’t embed it in
the truth you don’t have a relationship
it’s it’s just lies it’s it’s a tissue
of lies and it will it will dissolve in
the chaos as soon as the crisis comes
along so the truth is a terrible thing
but not not compared to falsehood so all
right so let’s look at the live chat
here you hear the egalitarian clarion
call everywhere everything should be
equal everything should be equally
distributed we should strive for equity
it’s like wrong especially if you’re a
conservative wrong what we want are just
hierarchies of competence not everyone’s
a neurosurgeon you know if your father
has a brain tumor you probably want a
hierarchy of competence for
neurosurgeons so you can pick the one
that’s the best so that he might not die
that’s what a hierarchy of competence is
for for the postmodernist there’s no
hierarchy that isn’t based on power well
because they think the world runs on
power and that’s why they’re willing to
use power to get what they want because
it’s the only thing they believe it but
a valid hierarchy of competence it’s God
we need those things man we need the
best plumbers we need the best
contractors we need the best we need we
need the best carpenters we need the
best lecturers there has to be a
hierarchy of quality not only so that we
know who the best are and can reward
them properly but so that we can reward
them so they keep being the best it’s
like you know if if you have a great
educator if you have a great leader if
you have a great thinker you want to
reward them so they keep thinking and
they keep educating so they can tell you
something it’s not a reward for their
intrinsic being it’s a calculated move
on your part to suck everything out of
them that’s valuable as fast as you can
that’s what a hierarchy of competence is
for and the idea that hierarchies of
competence don’t exist is it’s so
cynical it’s such a pathologically
cynical idea and it’s actually quite
patently untrue because here’s an
interesting tidbit from the
psychological literature let’s say you
want to determine what the best
predictors are for lifetime success in a
Western society well what would you hope
for
how about intelligence there would be a
good one let’s hope the smart people
occupy more positions of complexity
right because they’re smarter would you
want it any other way
ok and then so and that’s great the
number one predictor of accomplishment
in Western societies is intelligence so
that means the system works what’s the
number two predictor conscientiousness
well what’s that it’s a trait marker for
hard work so hookah hookah Ted smart
people who work hard now that doesn’t
account for every bit of the difference
between people in terms of their
hierarchical structure because
hierarchies aren’t perfect they’re
corrupt people get to the top sometimes
because they’re psychopathic although
believe me a hell of a lot less than you
think because a psychopath has to keep
moving from place to place because once
he reveals himself as deceitful and
untrustworthy he has to go find new
suckers to fleece so the idea that you
know there’s no distinction between a
CEO and a psychopath it’s like that’s
only made by someone who a knows nothing
about Psychopaths B knows nothing about
CEOs and C has something fundamental
against the entire capitalist structure
because it’s simply not true corrupt
sometimes greedy sometimes short-sighted
sometimes running companies that are
doing their best to augur themselves
into the ground and so you know it’s bad
people running a dying organization but
generally speaking it’s not the case our
hierarchies of competence are reasonably
functional and not only are they
functional they’re valuable we need to
know who the comp
people are and we need to reward them
and even more importantly we need to
tell young people hey there’s some
hierarchies of competence out there like
a thousand of them go be a plumber man
but be a good one you know be an honest
one be I had a plumber once you know it
was the night it was the night before we
were putting drywall in our house we
were redoing a house and he had put in
all the plastic piping you know and I
was going to test the joints steel are
supposed to be glued together with this
pipe glue right and I said I told him I
had to test the joints and he said well
you don’t have to test my joints they
never leak and I thought yeah that’s
okay how about if I test them so I went
up on the third floor and filled the
pipes with water capping them in the
basement like you’re supposed to it like
half an hour later had two inches of
water in the basement there were 30
leaking joints that was the night before
the drywallers were supposed to show up
so well so he wasn’t particularly
competent that’s the point of that story
but even more so he had put a bunch of
the plastic pipe outside where the
drywall would be so it would have been
sticking through the wall so I spent a
frenetic night you know sawing through
plastic pipe and reglue in joints so
that my hope well so that the dryer
owners could come in what’s the point if
you’re going to be a plumber man be a
good plumber because otherwise all you
do is go out there and cause trouble we
don’t need people to cause more trouble
we need people to solve problems you
know and so you can be a tradesman and
you can be you can make a lot of money
as a trades person it’s a bloody
reliable honorable forthright productive
way of making a living and there is a
hell of a lot of difference between a
working man who knows what he’s doing
and one who doesn’t both in terms of
skill and ethics right and you work with
someone who knows what they’re doing
it’s a bloody pleasure they tell you
what they’re gonna do they tell you how
much it will cost they go and do it it
works and you pay them perfect
everyone’s happy and that’s what happens
when you have genuine hierarchies of
competence and so you till you listen to
these panderers of egalitarian
egalitarianism and equity and they fail
to recognize completely that there are
differences in rank between people it’s
not such a terrible thing that maybe you
wouldn’t be a great lawyer like it’s
certainly possible most people aren’t
but that doesn’t mean there isn’t
something you could be great at there’s
lots of hierarchies to a
attempt to climb and if you fail in one
go try in another but the point is
you’re still trying to aim for the top
and what the hell are you gonna do if
you don’t try to aim for the top you
know flap about uselessly and whine
about your life it’s not helpful they’ll
just make you miserable
you’re not reliable to anyone you can’t
help out in a crisis it’s like so you
tell young people and this is another
message for conservatives like I don’t
care what you’re gonna do but go out
there and make something of yourself for
God’s sake be an honest person and work
and get to the top of whatever it is
that you want to get to the top of you
know and and and and then stand up for
yourself like a respectable human being
and be a bit of a light on the world
instead of a blight you know and you can
tell young people that and they haven’t
been told that by anyone now and so the
young men are so hungry for that that
it’s it’s painful to watch
they’re so relieved when finalists
someone finally comes up and says hey
you know you should get your act
together a bit discipline yourself see
if you can learn to tell the truth
concentrate on something for a year or
two you could be a bloody world beater
they think really that’s possible wow
that would be that would be interesting
that might make life or life worth
living it’s like yeah it might so why
don’t you go do it that’s what the damn
universities were supposed to be
teaching people they’ve forgotten that I
went to Harvard a month ago a month and
a half you used to teach there and I
talked to a bunch of students you know
what I told them it’s not easy to get
into Harvard you know like you’re a
valedictorian if you’re at Harvard and
not only are you a valedictorian you’re
way better than most people at at least
two other things or you don’t get in and
so like it’s I don’t know what the
acceptance rate is like 5% and believe
me not everybody applies so it’s a very
selective school and so why am I saying
that it’s like these are high quality
kids so I told them what I just told you
it’s like here you are at Harvard like
get yourself educated man read some
books learn to talk learn to think make
yourself into something get the hell out
there and make the world that put you
here happy that you were put there in
that great institution you know and they
came up to me afterwards and said god I
wish someone would have told us that
when we were you know
first year it’s like Jesus why didn’t
someone tell the math for God’s sake
it’s supposed to be the greatest
university in the world is it so
difficult to figure that out
well it is if that is what you want to
have happen in the university you want
to make cringing melt shops who whine
about being victims while they’re going
to Ivy League institutions Jesus it’s
pathetic [Applause]
don’t pursue their dreams and are locked
into their careers because they are too
afraid to take risks and pursue
something meaningful well the first
thing I would say is well you should be
afraid of taking risks and pursuing
something meaningful but you should be
more afraid of staying where you are if
it’s making you miserable it’s like the
first thing you want to do is dispense
with the idea that you get to have any
any permanent security outside of your
ability to contend and adapt it’s the
same issue with children it’s like
you’re paying a price by sitting there
being miserable you might say well the
devil I know is better than the one I
don’t it’s like don’t be so sure of that
the clock is ticking yeah and if you’re
miserable in your job now and you change
nothing in five years you’ll be much
more miserable and you’ll be a lot older
but this into the luxury to push you
what is meaningful our viewers have
mortgages they have children yeah they
have payments and loans it’s a luxury to
pursue because we lack the resources
well I don’t think I don’t remember now
I’m not talking about what makes you
happy it’s a luxury to pursue what makes
you happy it’s a moral obligation to
pursue what you find meaningful and that
doesn’t mean it’s easy it might require
sacrifice if you need to change your job
– let’s say you have family and and and
and children and a mortgage you have
responsibilities you’ve already picked
up those responsibilities you don’t just
get to walk away scot-free and say well
I don’t like my job I quit
that’s no strategy but what you might
have to do is you think well this job is
killing my soul all right so what do I
have to do about that well I have to
look for another job well no one wants
to hire me it’s like okay maybe you need
to educate yourself more maybe you need
to update your your curriculum vitae
your resume maybe you need to overcome
your fear of being interviewed maybe you
need to sharpen your social skills like
you you have to think about these things
strategically if you’re going to switch
careers you have to do it like an
intelligent responsible person that
might take you a couple of years of of
effort to do properly when you say
pursue something meaningful is it
to have a location I think it’s more
important to to have a an ethos an ethic
so I have a program for example called
the Future authoring program which is a
writing program that enables people to
develop a vision for their life and then
to develop a strategy and so it’s based
on the idea imagine that and it’s an
extension of the ideas in the book or at
least something along the same lines the
first thing that you want to do is
figure out imagine you were taking care
of yourself like you were someone you
cared for which is rule number two by
the way essentially then you should
figure out well if you could have what
you needed and wanted what would it be
what sort of friends would you have what
would your family relationships look
like how would you conduct yourself with
your children how would you educate
yourself you need to think through how
it is that your life could be properly
arranged if you had that ability and
then you can aim at that and the funny
thing is is that if you do pause it a
goal of that sort and work towards it
you will move towards it the goal will
change because you’ll learn things along
the way but I mean I’ve dealt with
hundreds of people in my clinical and
consulting practice and we set a goal we
develop a vision and work towards it and
it things inevitably get better for
people so it’s not a luxury it’s it’s
difficult it’s a moral responsibility
and it isn’t happiness it’s it’s not the
pursuit isn’t for happiness it’s a moral
responsibility to pursue what is meaning
absolutely so when you know if you watch
yourself you say well I had a
particularly good day at work and what
does that mean well it means that you
lost your sense of time right because
when you’re having not a good day at
work it’s like first it’s one minute to
three and then it’s
45 seconds 2 3 and then it’s 30 seconds
that’s what school was like for me it
was like clique so funny no I went to I
went to my daughter’s school I used to
get in trouble for talking all the time
it’s probably surprised when I was a kid
and and I was bored stiff in school and
and so I would misbehave upon occasion
out of pure boredom and vote 21 years
ago I went to my daughter’s school to
sit for a class it was about an hour
long and I was sitting there and the
teacher had all the kids on the floor
and was having some of the kids read to
the others and some of the kids who were
reading couldn’t read at all and I had
exactly the same experience I was
sitting there it was like being it’s
like being seven years old again I could
see the clock going tick tick and I
thought you know if I was in this
classroom for three days I would
misbehave fit 40 years old I would
misbehave exactly like I did when I was
when I was six
well that’s no place to be right because
that’s you don’t want to be in a place
that’s stultifying you don’t want to be
in a place where there’s no challenge
you might even quit your job if there’s
no challenge say well that’s a good job
it gives you security and you think god
I can’t stand this it’s eating away at
my soul it’s all security and no
challenge so why do you want to
challenge because that’s what you’re
built for that’s what you’re built for
you’re built to take on a maximal load
right because that’s what strengthens
you and you need to be strong because
life is extraordinarily difficult and
because the evil king is always
whittling away at the structure of the
state and you have to be awake and sharp
to stop that from happening so that you
don’t become corrupt and so that your
family doesn’t become corrupt and so
that your state doesn’t have to become
become corrupt you have to have your
eyes open and your wit sharp and your
words at the ready and you have to be
educated and you have to know about your
history and you know have to know how to
think and you have to know how to read
and you have to know how to speak and
you have to know how to aim and you have
to be willing to hoist the
bubbles of the world up on your
shoulders and what’s so interesting
about that so remarkable and and this is
something that’s really manifested
itself to me as I’ve been doing these
public lectures I’ve been talking about
responsibilities to people which doesn’t
seem to happen very often anymore and
the audience’s are dead quiet and I lay
out this idea that life is tragedy
tainted by malevolence and everyone says
yeah well we already always suspected
that but no one has ever said it quite
so bluntly and it’s quite a relief to
hear that I’m not the only person who
has those suspicions and then the second
part of that is the better part and it’s
the optimistic part which is despite the
fact that life is a tragedy tainted by
malevolence at every level of existence
there’s something about the human spirit
that can thrive under precisely those
conditions if we allow that to occur
because as difficult as life is and as
horrible as we are our capacity to deal
with that catastrophe and to transcend
that malevolent spirit is more powerful
than than that reality itself and that’s
the fundamental issue I think that’s the
fundamental issue of the judeo-christian
ethic with its emphasis on the divinity
of the individual as catastrophic as
life is and as malevolent as people can
be and that’s malevolent beyond belief
fundamentally the person has in spirit
the nobility to set that right and to
defeat evil and that and that more than
that and that the antidote to the
catastrophe of life and the suffering of
life and the tragedy of life that can
drive you down and destroy you is to
take on exactly that responsibility and
to say well there’s plenty of work to be
done and isn’t that terrible and there
isn’t anything so bad that we can’t make
it worse and certainly try very hard to
do so but I have it within me to decide
that I’m going to stand up against that
I’m going to strive to make the world a
better place I’m going to strive to
constrain the malevolence that’s in my
own heart and to set my family straight
and to work to work despite my tragic
loss for the
betterment of anything of everything
that’s in front of me and the
consequence of that the immediate
consequence of that is that when you
make the decision to take on all of that
voluntarily which is to stand up
straight by the way with your shoulders
back to take on that all that on
voluntarily as soon as you make that
decision then all the catastrophe
justifies itself in the nobility of your
striving and that’s what it means to be
an individual thank you when I was 25 or
so I probably weighed about 138 pounds I
smoked like a pack of cigarettes day I
drank tremendous amount of alcohol I was
from northern Alberta this rough little
town up and northern Alberta called
Fairview and you know there were long
winters there and my friends were heavy
drinkers and most of them dropped out of
school by the time they were 15 or 16
went off to work on the oil rigs and you
know it was a rough town and we drank a
lot I started when I was 14 and you know
and so I was I had a lot of bad habits
let’s say and things that were and I
wasn’t in great shape physically and I
was also still intellectually obsessed
by as I am now and so that would have
been that would have been in 85 but when
I but I decided around that about 85 84
or something like that maybe a little
earlier that I was really going to try
to get my act together and so I started
doing that I you know I first of all I
quit smoking well that took a long time
because I eventually had to quit
drinking to in order to quit smoking and
I started working out starting playing
sports which I’d never done I was a
small kid I mean skipped a grade and I
was a small small for my age so sports
were never especially team sports were
never really a domain of expertise for
me although I skied and went trapping
with my dad went you know cross-country
skiing and camping and all that so but
when I went to graduate school I started
swimming the first the first physical
exercise routine I did I enrolled in a
swim sir sighs course I think it was
called so it was me and this like really
overweight kid and like these 60 year
old women and men they could out
exercise me like mad it was really
embarrassing me and the overweight kid
you know we’d be just panting ourselves
3/4 to death at the end of the bloody
work out and these 60 year old women who
weren’t great shape or like you know
chatting away as if nothing was going on
at all in the pool so that was quite
embarrassing and as was going to the
weight room you know because when I
started I could barely best benchpress
75 pounds and people used to keep coming
over and helping me which was last thing
I bloody well wanted but certainly
needed it I got to the point where I
could benchpress 225 pounds I think that
was the best I did and I gained about 30
pounds of muscle in a year and a half so
that was good thing so like I was kind
of a wild man and you know I’m a little
bit manic in my in my temperament and so
you know I was I was kind of going every
direction at the same time so and you
know I don’t regret that I had a fine
time when I was a kid and but I needed
really to get disciplined and I had to
do it because I was working on these
hard problems that you know that I’ve
been discussing with all of you and I’ve
been working on them really you know
obsessively since I was probably about
18 maybe even earlier than that got to
the point around 25 when I was in
graduate school trying to get my PhDs
doing all my research like I published
15 papers by the time I graduated with
my PhD which was but I think by a fairly
large measure the most papers that any
graduate student at that time had ever
published at McGill I think that’s right
might have been twice as many or maybe
twice as many maybe even three times as
many and at the same time I wrote maps
of meaning which was a terrible terrible
terribly difficult thing to do because I
was writing about three hours a day
doing that and I couldn’t do all that
and continue with my misbehavior you
know my sort of my what would you say my
my my hedonistic my hedonistic my
massive hedonistic consumption of
alcohol and all of that I just couldn’t
keep it up and also work seriously on
the issues that were at hand so you know
I had to stop that’s a sacrifice I had
to stop
messing about and straight my cellphone
I I got married while my the woman who’s
my wife Tammy who I’ve known since she
was 8 years old she lived across the
street from me in this little town
called Fairview and I was in love with
her like the first time I saw her which
is quite bloody thing so that’s worked
out pretty well for me but she came to
live with me about the same time and you
know we decided jointly to get her act
together and we swore that we tell each
other the truth which I think she’s
actually done better than me like I
don’t think I don’t think she’s lied to
me ever in our entire marriage which is
unbelievable you know and it’s been so
useful because I can really tell her
things that we can really talk so I tell
you if you want to have a good
relationship man you embedded in the
truth because if you don’t embed it in
the truth you don’t have a relationship
it’s it’s just lies it’s it’s a tissue
of lies and it will it will dissolve in
the chaos as soon as the crisis comes
along so the truth is a terrible thing
but not not compared to falsehood so all
right so let’s look at the live chat
here you hear the egalitarian clarion
call everywhere everything should be
equal everything should be equally
distributed we should strive for equity
it’s like wrong especially if you’re a
conservative wrong what we want are just
hierarchies of competence not everyone’s
a neurosurgeon you know if your father
has a brain tumor you probably want a
hierarchy of competence for
neurosurgeons so you can pick the one
that’s the best so that he might not die
that’s what a hierarchy of competence is
for for the postmodernist there’s no
hierarchy that isn’t based on power well
because they think the world runs on
power and that’s why they’re willing to
use power to get what they want because
it’s the only thing they believe it but
a valid hierarchy of competence it’s God
we need those things man we need the
best plumbers we need the best
contractors we need the best we need we
need the best carpenters we need the
best lecturers there has to be a
hierarchy of quality not only so that we
know who the best are and can reward
them properly but so that we can reward
them so they keep being the best it’s
like you know if if you have a great
educator if you have a great leader if
you have a great thinker you want to
reward them so they keep thinking and
they keep educating so they can tell you
something it’s not a reward for their
intrinsic being it’s a calculated move
on your part to suck everything out of
them that’s valuable as fast as you can
that’s what a hierarchy of competence is
for and the idea that hierarchies of
competence don’t exist is it’s so
cynical it’s such a pathologically
cynical idea and it’s actually quite
patently untrue because here’s an
interesting tidbit from the
psychological literature let’s say you
want to determine what the best
predictors are for lifetime success in a
Western society well what would you hope
for
how about intelligence there would be a
good one let’s hope the smart people
occupy more positions of complexity
right because they’re smarter would you
want it any other way
ok and then so and that’s great the
number one predictor of accomplishment
in Western societies is intelligence so
that means the system works what’s the
number two predictor conscientiousness
well what’s that it’s a trait marker for
hard work so hookah hookah Ted smart
people who work hard now that doesn’t
account for every bit of the difference
between people in terms of their
hierarchical structure because
hierarchies aren’t perfect they’re
corrupt people get to the top sometimes
because they’re psychopathic although
believe me a hell of a lot less than you
think because a psychopath has to keep
moving from place to place because once
he reveals himself as deceitful and
untrustworthy he has to go find new
suckers to fleece so the idea that you
know there’s no distinction between a
CEO and a psychopath it’s like that’s
only made by someone who a knows nothing
about Psychopaths B knows nothing about
CEOs and C has something fundamental
against the entire capitalist structure
because it’s simply not true corrupt
sometimes greedy sometimes short-sighted
sometimes running companies that are
doing their best to augur themselves
into the ground and so you know it’s bad
people running a dying organization but
generally speaking it’s not the case our
hierarchies of competence are reasonably
functional and not only are they
functional they’re valuable we need to
know who the comp
people are and we need to reward them
and even more importantly we need to
tell young people hey there’s some
hierarchies of competence out there like
a thousand of them go be a plumber man
but be a good one you know be an honest
one be I had a plumber once you know it
was the night it was the night before we
were putting drywall in our house we
were redoing a house and he had put in
all the plastic piping you know and I
was going to test the joints steel are
supposed to be glued together with this
pipe glue right and I said I told him I
had to test the joints and he said well
you don’t have to test my joints they
never leak and I thought yeah that’s
okay how about if I test them so I went
up on the third floor and filled the
pipes with water capping them in the
basement like you’re supposed to it like
half an hour later had two inches of
water in the basement there were 30
leaking joints that was the night before
the drywallers were supposed to show up
so well so he wasn’t particularly
competent that’s the point of that story
but even more so he had put a bunch of
the plastic pipe outside where the
drywall would be so it would have been
sticking through the wall so I spent a
frenetic night you know sawing through
plastic pipe and reglue in joints so
that my hope well so that the dryer
owners could come in what’s the point if
you’re going to be a plumber man be a
good plumber because otherwise all you
do is go out there and cause trouble we
don’t need people to cause more trouble
we need people to solve problems you
know and so you can be a tradesman and
you can be you can make a lot of money
as a trades person it’s a bloody
reliable honorable forthright productive
way of making a living and there is a
hell of a lot of difference between a
working man who knows what he’s doing
and one who doesn’t both in terms of
skill and ethics right and you work with
someone who knows what they’re doing
it’s a bloody pleasure they tell you
what they’re gonna do they tell you how
much it will cost they go and do it it
works and you pay them perfect
everyone’s happy and that’s what happens
when you have genuine hierarchies of
competence and so you till you listen to
these panderers of egalitarian
egalitarianism and equity and they fail
to recognize completely that there are
differences in rank between people it’s
not such a terrible thing that maybe you
wouldn’t be a great lawyer like it’s
certainly possible most people aren’t
but that doesn’t mean there isn’t
something you could be great at there’s
lots of hierarchies to a
attempt to climb and if you fail in one
go try in another but the point is
you’re still trying to aim for the top
and what the hell are you gonna do if
you don’t try to aim for the top you
know flap about uselessly and whine
about your life it’s not helpful they’ll
just make you miserable
you’re not reliable to anyone you can’t
help out in a crisis it’s like so you
tell young people and this is another
message for conservatives like I don’t
care what you’re gonna do but go out
there and make something of yourself for
God’s sake be an honest person and work
and get to the top of whatever it is
that you want to get to the top of you
know and and and and then stand up for
yourself like a respectable human being
and be a bit of a light on the world
instead of a blight you know and you can
tell young people that and they haven’t
been told that by anyone now and so the
young men are so hungry for that that
it’s it’s painful to watch
they’re so relieved when finalists
someone finally comes up and says hey
you know you should get your act
together a bit discipline yourself see
if you can learn to tell the truth
concentrate on something for a year or
two you could be a bloody world beater
they think really that’s possible wow
that would be that would be interesting
that might make life or life worth
living it’s like yeah it might so why
don’t you go do it that’s what the damn
universities were supposed to be
teaching people they’ve forgotten that I
went to Harvard a month ago a month and
a half you used to teach there and I
talked to a bunch of students you know
what I told them it’s not easy to get
into Harvard you know like you’re a
valedictorian if you’re at Harvard and
not only are you a valedictorian you’re
way better than most people at at least
two other things or you don’t get in and
so like it’s I don’t know what the
acceptance rate is like 5% and believe
me not everybody applies so it’s a very
selective school and so why am I saying
that it’s like these are high quality
kids so I told them what I just told you
it’s like here you are at Harvard like
get yourself educated man read some
books learn to talk learn to think make
yourself into something get the hell out
there and make the world that put you
here happy that you were put there in
that great institution you know and they
came up to me afterwards and said god I
wish someone would have told us that
when we were you know
first year it’s like Jesus why didn’t
someone tell the math for God’s sake
it’s supposed to be the greatest
university in the world is it so
difficult to figure that out
well it is if that is what you want to
have happen in the university you want
to make cringing melt shops who whine
about being victims while they’re going
to Ivy League institutions Jesus it’s
pathetic [Applause]
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