A L S O B Y J O R D A N B . P E T E R S O N

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright © 2021 by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

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ISBN 9780593420164 (export edition)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Peterson, Jordan B., author.

Title: Beyond order : 12 more rules for life / Jordan B. Peterson.

Description: [New York, New York] : Penguin ; Portfolio, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020036330 (print) | LCCN 2020036331 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593084649 (hardcover) | ISBN

9780593084656 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Conduct of life.

Classification: LCC BJ1589 .P446 2021 (print) | LCC BJ1589 (ebook) | DDC 170/.44—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036330

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036331

All names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

To my wife, Tammy Maureen Roberts Peterson, whom I have loved deeply for fifty years, and who is admirable, in my estimation, in all regards, and beyond all reason.

Contents

Table of Illustrations

A Note from the Author in the Time of the Pandemic

Overture

RULE I | Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative

achievement

RULE II | Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at

that

RULE III | Do not hide unwanted things in the fog

RULE IV | Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been

abdicated

RULE V | Do not do what you hate

Rule VI | Abandon ideology

RULE VII | Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and

see what happens

RULE VIII | Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible

RULE IX | If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and

completely

RULE X | Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your

relationship

RULE XI | Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or

arrogant

RULE XII | Be grateful in spite of your suffering

Coda

Notes

Index

Table of Illustrations

1. The Fool: Inspired by Pamela Colman Smith, The Fool, from the Rider-Waite Tarot card deck, Rider & Son (1910).

2. Materia Prima: Inspired by Hermes Trismegistus, Occulta philosophia (1613). Also from H. Nollius, Theoria philosophiae hermeticae (Hanoviae: Apud P. Antonium, 1617).

3. St. George and the Dragon: Inspired by Paolo Uccello, Saint George and the Dragon (ca. 1458).

4. Atlas and the Hesperides: Inspired by John Singer Sargent, Atlas and the Hesperides (ca. 1922–1925).

5. Fallen Angel: Inspired by Alexandre Cabanel, Fallen Angel (1847).

6. In our Communal Farm: Inspired by B. Deykin, In Our Communal Farm, There Is No Place for Priests and Kulaks (1932).

7. Apprentice: Inspired by Louis-Emile Adan, Apprentice (1914).

8. Irises: Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh, Irises (1890).

9. The Temptation of St. Anthony: Inspired by Martin Schongauer, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (ca. 1470–1475).

10. The Love Drink: Inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, How Sir Tristram Drank of the Love Drink (1893).

11. Satan: Inspired by Gustave Doré, Satan, from John Milton, Milton’s Paradise Lost, with illustrations by Gustave Doré (London: Cassell & Company, Ltd., 1905).

12. St. Sebastian: Inspired by Martin Schongauer, Saint Sebastian (ca. 1480).

A Note from the Author in the Time of

the Pandemic

It is a perplexing task to produce a nonfiction book during the global

crisis brought about by the spread of COVID-19. It seems absurd, in

some sense, even to think about anything else but that illness during

this trying time. Nonetheless, binding all the thoughts contained in

any current work to the existence of the pandemic—which too shall

pass—seems like an error, as the normal problems of life will return at some point (and thankfully) to the forefront. That all means that an

author of the present day is inevitably going to make one mistake

(concentrating too much on the pandemic, which has an uncertain life

span, and producing a book that is instantly dated, in consequence) or

another (ignoring the pandemic, which is very much like failing to

attend to the proverbial elephant under the rug).

After considering this, as well as discussing the issues with my

publishers, I decided to write Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life according to the plan laid out for it several years ago, and to

concentrate on addressing issues not specific to the current time (thus, to risk the second error rather than the first). I suppose it may also be the case that those who have chosen to read this book or listen to the

audio version might be relieved to turn their attention to something

other than the coronavirus and the devastation it has wrought.

Overture

On the fifth of February 2020, I awoke in an intensive care ward in, of all places, Moscow. I had six-inch tethers attaching me to the sides of the bed because, in my unconscious state, I had been agitated enough

to try to remove the catheters from my arm and leave the ICU. I was

confused and frustrated not knowing where I was, surrounded by

people speaking a foreign language, and in the absence of my

daughter, Mikhaila, and her husband, Andrey, who were restricted to

short visiting hours and did not have permission to be there with me at my moment of wakening. I was angry, too, about being there, and

lunged at my daughter when she did visit several hours later. I felt

betrayed, although that was the furthest from the truth. People had

been attending to my various needs with great diligence, and in the

wake of the tremendous logistic challenges that come about from

seeking medical care in a truly foreign country. I do not have any

memory of anything that happened to me during the most recent

weeks preceding that, and very little between that moment and my

having entered a hospital in Toronto, in mid-December. One of the few

things I could recall, looking back to the earliest days of the year, was the time I had spent writing this book.

I wrote much and edited almost all of Beyond Order during a time when my family was plagued by sequential and overlapping bouts of

seriously impaired health, much of which was the subject of public

discussion, and for that reason requires some detailed explanation.

First, in January 2019, Mikhaila had to seek out a surgeon to replace

much of her artificial ankle, implanted about a decade earlier, as the

initial installation was never perfect, causing her serious pain and

trouble with movement as a consequence, and then came near to

failing. I spent a week with her at a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, for the week of that procedure and her initial recovery.

At the beginning of March, my wife, Tammy, underwent routine surgery in Toronto for a common and eminently treatable kidney

cancer. A month and a half after that surgery, which involved the

removal of one third of the organ in question, we learned that she was

actually suffering from an extremely rare malignancy, which had a

one-year fatality rate of close to 100 percent.

Two weeks later, the surgeons involved in her care removed the

remaining two thirds of her afflicted kidney, along with a substantial

proportion of the related abdominal lymphatic system. The surgery

appeared to bring the progression of the cancer to a halt, but produced leakage of fluid (up to four liters, or one gallon, a day) from her now-damaged lymphatic system—a condition known as chylous ascites—

which rivaled the original condition in danger. We journeyed to see a

medical team in Philadelphia, where within ninety-six hours of the

initial injection of a poppy seed oil dye, whose practical purpose was

the enhancement of images derived from CAT or MRI scans, the

complete cessation of Tammy’s fluid loss was achieved. This

breakthrough occurred on the very day of our thirtieth wedding

anniversary. She recovered rapidly and, to all appearances, completely

—a testament to the luck without which none of us can live, and to her

own admirable strength and resistance.

Unfortunately, while these events unfolded, my health fell apart. I

had begun to take an antianxiety agent at the beginning of 2017, after

suffering from what appeared to be an autoimmune reaction to

something I had consumed during the Christmas holiday period of

2016. * The food reaction made me acutely and continually anxious, as well as freezing cold, no matter what clothes I was wearing or how

many blankets I layered upon myself. Further, it lowered my blood

pressure so dramatically that whenever I tried to stand I would gray

out and be forced into a crouch half a dozen or more times before

trying again. I also experienced insomnia that appeared near total. My

family physician prescribed a benzodiazepine as well as a drug for

sleeping. I took the latter a mere handful of times before ceasing its

use entirely; the terrible symptoms I was experiencing, including the

insomnia, were almost immediately and entirely eradicated by the

benzodiazepine treatment, making the sleep agent unnecessary. I

continued the benzodiazepine for almost exactly three years, because

my life did seem unnaturally stressful during that time (the period when my life changed from the quiet existence of a university

professor and clinician to the tumultuous reality of a public figure),

and because I believed that this drug was—as is often claimed of

benzodiazepines—a relatively harmless substance.

Things changed, however, in March 2019, at the onset of my wife’s

medical battle. My anxiety spiked noticeably after Mikhaila’s

aforementioned hospitalization, surgery, and recovery. In

consequence, I asked my family physician to increase my dose of

benzodiazepine, so that I would not be preoccupied by nor preoccupy

others with my anxiety. Unfortunately, I experienced a marked

increase in negative emotion following the adjustment. I asked to have

the dosage raised yet again (by this time, we were attempting to deal

with the second of Tammy’s surgeries and its complications, and I

attributed my even more severe anxiety to that problem), but my

anxiety increased even further. I attributed all of this not to a

paradoxical reaction to the medication (which it was later diagnosed

as), but to the recurrence of a tendency toward depression that had

plagued me for years. * In any case, I ceased using the benzodiazepine entirely in May of that year, trying two doses of ketamine within a

week, as suggested by a psychiatrist with whom I consulted. Ketamine,

a nonstandard anesthetic/psychedelic, sometimes has overwhelming

and sudden positive effects on depression. It produced nothing for me

but two ninety-minute trips to hell. I felt to my bones as if I had

everything to feel guilty and ashamed about, with nothing gained by

my positive experiences.

A few days after the second ketamine experience, I began to suffer

the effects of acute benzodiazepine withdrawal, which were truly

intolerable—anxiety far beyond what I had ever experienced, an

uncontrollable restlessness and need to move (formally known as

akathisia), overwhelming thoughts of self-destruction, and the

complete absence of any happiness whatsoever. A family friend—a

physician—enlightened me as to the dangers of sudden

benzodiazepine withdrawal. I therefore started to take a

benzodiazepine once again—but a smaller dose than I had climbed to

previously. Many, but not all, of my symptoms abated. To deal with

those that remained, I also began to take an antidepressant that had

been of great use to me in the past. All it did, however, was make me exhausted enough to require an additional four or more hours of sleep

a day—which was not helpful in the midst of Tammy’s serious health

issues—as well as increase my appetite two- or threefold.

After about three months of terrible anxiety, uncontrollable

hypersomnia, viciously torturous akathisia, and excessive appetite, I

traveled to an American clinic that claimed to specialize in rapid

benzodiazepine withdrawal. Despite the good intentions of many of its

psychiatrists, the clinic managed only a slow cessation or tapering of

my benzodiazepine dosage, the negative effects of which I was already

experiencing and which were not and could not be controlled to any

significant degree whatsoever by the inpatient treatment offered.

I resided at that clinic, nonetheless, from mid-August, a mere few

days after Tammy had recovered from her postsurgical complications,

to late November, when I returned home to Toronto, much the worse

for wear. By this time, the akathisia (the disorder of uncontrollable

movement alluded to earlier) had increased to the point where I could

not sit or rest in any position for any length of time whatsoever

without severe distress. In December I checked in to a local hospital,

and it was at that point that my awareness of events prior to my

awakening in Moscow ends. As I later learned, Mikhaila and Andrey

removed me from the Toronto hospital in early January 2020,

believing that the treatment I received there was doing me more harm

than good (an opinion I concurred with entirely once I learned of it).

The situation I found myself in upon reattaining consciousness in

Russia was complicated by the fact that I had also developed double

pneumonia in Canada, although that was neither discovered nor

treated until I was in the Moscow ICU. However, I was there primarily

so that the clinic could facilitate my withdrawal from benzodiazepines, using a procedure either unknown or regarded as too dangerous in

North America. Since I had not been able to tolerate any decrease in

dosage whatsoever—apart from the initial reduction, months before—

the clinic placed me in a medically induced coma so that I might

remain unconscious during the very worst withdrawal symptoms. That

regimen started January 5 and lasted nine days, during which I was

also placed in a machine so that my breathing was mechanically

regulated. On January 14, I was taken off the anesthetic and the

intubation. I woke up for a few hours, and indicated during this time to Mikhaila that I was no longer suffering from akathisia, although I

remember nothing of this.

On January 23, I was moved to another ICU specializing in

neurological rehabilitation. I can recall waking up on the twenty-sixth for a short period, until my more complete return to consciousness, as

previously related, on February 5—ten days during which I passed

through a period of delirium of vivid intensity. Once that cleared, I

moved to a more homelike rehabilitation center in the outer suburbs

of Moscow. While there, I had to relearn how to walk and up and down

stairs, button my clothes, lie down in bed on my own, place my hands

in the proper position on a computer keyboard, and type. I did not

seem to be able to see properly—or, more accurately, see how to use

my limbs to interact with what I perceived. A few weeks later, after the problems in perception and coordination had essentially abated,

Mikhaila, Andrey, their child, and I relocated to Florida for what we

hoped would be some peaceful time of recuperation in the sun (very

much welcome after the cold grayness of midwinter Moscow). This

was immediately before worldwide concern erupted over the COVID-

19 pandemic.

In Florida, I attempted to wean off the medication prescribed by the

Moscow clinic, although I was still experiencing numbness in my left

hand and foot, trembling of those two extremities as well as the

muscles in my forehead, seizure activity, and crippling anxiety. All

these symptoms increased quite markedly as my intake of medication

decreased, reaching the point where about two months later I returned

to the dosages initially prescribed in Russia. This was a material

defeat, as the process of lessening their use had been fueled by an

optimism that was consequently shattered, as well as returning me to

a state of medication usage that I had paid a heavy price for trying to eliminate. I had family members and friends stay with me during this

time, thankfully, and their company helped me stay motivated to

continue while the symptoms I was experiencing grew unbearable,

particularly in the morning.

By the end of May, three months after leaving Russia, it had become

obvious that I was worsening instead of improving, and relying on the

people I loved and who reciprocated that emotion was both untenable

and unfair. Mikhaila and Andrey had been in touch with a Serbian clinic that practiced a novel approach to the problem of

benzodiazepine withdrawal, and they made arrangements to move me

there, only two days after that country had reopened after the

pandemic closure.

I am not going to make a claim that the events that befell my wife,

me, and those who were closely involved in her care added up, in the

final analysis, to some greater good. What happened to her was truly

awful. She experienced a severe and near-fatal crisis of health every

two or three days for more than half a year, and then had to cope with

my illness and absence. I was plagued, for my part, with the likely loss of someone whom I had befriended for fifty years and been married to

for thirty; the observation of the terrible consequences of that on her other family members, including our children; and the dire and

dreadful consequences of a substance dependence I had unwittingly

stumbled into. I am not going to cheapen any of that by claiming that

we became better people for living through it. However, I can say that

passing so near to death motivated my wife to attend to some issues

regarding her own spiritual and creative development more

immediately and assiduously than she might otherwise have, and me

to write or to preserve while editing only those words in this book that retained their significance even under conditions characterized by

extreme suffering. It is certainly thanks to family and friends (who are named specifically in the Coda of this book) that we are still alive, but it is also true that the meaningful immersion in what I was writing,

which continued during the entire time I have related—excepting my

unconscious month in Russia—provided me both with a reason to live

and a means of testing the viability of the thoughts with which I

wrestled.

I do not believe I have ever claimed—in my previous book or,

indeed, this one—that it would be necessarily sufficient to live by the rules I have presented. I think what I claimed—what I hope I claimed

—was this: When you are visited by chaos and swallowed up; when

nature curses you or someone you love with illness; or when tyranny

rends asunder something of value that you have built, it is salutary to know the rest of the story. All of that misfortune is only the bitter half of the tale of existence, without taking note of the heroic element of

redemption or the nobility of the human spirit requiring a certain responsibility to shoulder. We ignore that addition to the story at our peril, because life is so difficult that losing sight of the heroic part of existence could cost us everything. We do not want that to happen. We

need instead to take heart, and to take spirit, and to look at things

carefully and properly, and to live the way that we could live.

You have sources of strength upon which you can draw, and even

though they may not work well, they may be enough. You have what

you can learn if you can accept your error. You have medications and

hospitals, as well as physicians and nurses who genuinely and bravely

care to lift you up and help you through every day. And then you have

your own character and courage, and if those have been beat to a

bloody pulp and you are ready to throw in the towel, you have the

character and courage of those for whom you care and who care for

you. And maybe, just maybe, with all that, you can get through. I can

tell you what has saved me, so far—the love I have for my family; the

love they have for me; the encouragement they have delivered, along

with my friends; the fact that I still had meaningful work I could

struggle through while in the abyss. I had to force myself to sit down at the computer. I had to force myself to concentrate, and to breathe, and to keep from saying and meaning “to hell with it” during the endless

months that I was possessed by dread and terror. And I was barely

able to do it. More than half the time I believed that I was going to die in one of the many hospitals in which I resided. And I believe that if I had fallen prey to resentment, for example, I would have perished

once and for all—and that I am fortunate to have avoided such a fate.

Is it not possible (even though it may not always deliver us from the

terrible situation that we find ourselves in) that we would all be more able to deal with uncertainty, the horrors of nature, the tyranny of

culture, and the malevolence of ourselves and others if we were better

and more courageous people? If we strived toward higher values? If we

were more truthful? Wouldn’t the beneficial elements of experience be

more likely to manifest themselves around us? Is it not possible, if

your goals were noble enough, your courage adequate, your aim at the

truth unerring, that the Good thereby produced would . . . well, not

justify the horror? That is not exactly right, but it still comes close.

Such attitudes and actions might at least provide us with meaning

sufficient to stop our encounter with that terror and horror from corrupting us and turning the surrounding world into something all

too closely resembling hell.

Why Beyond Order? It is simple, in some regard. Order is explored territory. We are in order when the actions we deem appropriate

produce the results we aim at. We regard such outcomes positively,

indicating as they do, first, that we have moved closer to what we

desire, and second, that our theory about how the world works

remains acceptably accurate. Nonetheless, all states of order, no

matter how secure and comfortable, have their flaws. Our knowledge

of how to act in the world remains eternally incomplete—partly

because of our profound ignorance of the vast unknown, partly

because of our willful blindness, and partly because the world

continues, in its entropic manner, to transform itself unexpectedly.

Furthermore, the order we strive to impose on the world can rigidify

as a consequence of ill-advised attempts to eradicate from

consideration all that is unknown. When such attempts go too far,

totalitarianism threatens, driven by the desire to exercise full control where such control is not possible, even in principle. This means

risking a dangerous restriction of all the psychological and social

changes necessary to maintain adaptation to the ever-changing world.

And so we find ourselves inescapably faced with the need to move

beyond order, into its opposite: chaos.

If order is where what we want makes itself known—when we act in

accordance with our hard-won wisdom—chaos is where what we do

not expect or have remained blind to leaps forward from the potential

that surrounds us. The fact that something has occurred many times in

the past is no guarantee that it will continue to occur in the same

manner. 1 There exists, eternally, a domain beyond what we know and can predict. Chaos is anomaly, novelty, unpredictability,

transformation, disruption, and all too often, descent, as what we have come to take for granted reveals itself as unreliable. Sometimes it

manifests itself gently, revealing its mysteries in experience that

makes us curious, compelled, and interested. This is particularly likely, although not inevitable, when we approach what we do not

understand voluntarily, with careful preparation and discipline. Other

times the unexpected makes itself known terribly, suddenly,

accidentally, so we are undone, and fall apart, and can only put ourselves back together with great difficulty—if at all.

Neither the state of order nor the state of chaos is preferable,

intrinsically, to the other. That is the wrong way to look at it.

Nonetheless, in my previous book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, I focused more on how the consequences of too much chaos might be remediated.2 We respond to sudden and unpredictable change by preparing, physiologically and psychologically, for the

worst. And because only God Himself knows what this worst might be,

we must in our ignorance prepare for all eventualities. And the

problem with that continual preparation is that, in excess, it exhausts us. But that does not imply in any manner that chaos should be

eliminated (an impossibility, in any case), although what is unknown

needs to be managed carefully, as my previous book repeatedly

stressed. Whatever is not touched by the new stagnates, and it is

certainly the case that a life without curiosity—that instinct pushing us out into the unknown—would be a much-diminished form of

existence. What is new is also what is exciting, compelling, and

provocative, assuming that the rate at which it is introduced does not

intolerably undermine and destabilize our state of being.

Like 12 Rules for Life, the current volume provides an explication of rules drawn from a longer list of 42, originally published and

popularized on the Q and A website Quora. Unlike my previous book,

Beyond Order explores as its overarching theme how the dangers of too much security and control might be profitably avoided. Because

what we understand is insufficient (as we discover when things we are

striving to control nonetheless go wrong around us), we need to keep

one foot within order while stretching the other tentatively into the

beyond. And so we are driven to explore and find the deepest of

meanings in standing on the frontier, secure enough to keep our fear

under control but learning, constantly learning, as we face what we

have not yet made peace with or adapted to. It is this instinct of

meaning—something far deeper than mere thought—that orients us

properly in life, so that we do not become overwhelmed by what is

beyond us, or equally dangerously, stultified and stunted by dated, too narrow, or too pridefully paraded systems of value and belief.

What have I written about, more specifically? Rule I describes the relationship between stable, predictable social structures and

individual psychological health, and makes the case that such

structures need to be updated by creative people if they are to retain

their vitality. Rule II analyzes a centuries-old alchemical image,

relying on several stories—ancient and modern—to illuminate the

nature and development of the integrated human personality. Rule III

warns of the dangers of avoiding the information (vital to the

continual rejuvenation of the psyche) signaled by the emergence of

negative emotions such as pain, anxiety, and fear.

Rule IV argues that the meaning that sustains people through

difficult times is to be found not so much in happiness, which is

fleeting, but in in the voluntary adoption of mature responsibility for the self and others. Rule V uses a single example, drawn from my

experience as a clinical psychologist, to illustrate the personal and

social necessity of attending to the dictates of conscience. Rule VI

describes the danger of attributing the cause of complex individual

and social problems to single variables such as sex, class, or power.

Rule VII outlines the crucial relationship between disciplined

striving in a single direction and forging of the individual character

capable of resilience in the face of adversity. Rule VIII focuses on the vital importance of aesthetic experience as a guide to what is true,

good, and sustaining in the human world of experience. Rule IX makes

the case that past experiences, whose current recall remains laden

with pain and fear, can be stripped of their horror by voluntary verbal exploration and reconsideration.

Rule X notes the importance of explicit negotiation to maintenance

of the good will, mutual regard, and heartfelt cooperation without

which no true romance can be sustained. Rule XI opens by describing

the world of human experience in a manner that explains what

motivates three common but direly dangerous patterns of

psychological response, delineates the catastrophic consequences of

falling prey to any or all of them, and lays out an alternative route.

Rule XII makes the case that thankfulness in the face of the inevitable tragedies of life should be regarded as a primary manifestation of the

admirable moral courage required to continue our difficult march

uphill.*

I hope that I am somewhat wiser in my explication of this second set of 12 rules than I was four years ago, when I wrote about the first

dozen—not least because of the informative feedback I received in the

course of my efforts to formulate my ideas for audiences around the

world, in person, on YouTube, and through my podcast and blog.* I hope, in consequence, that I have managed to clarify some of the

issues that were perhaps left less than optimally developed in my

previous work, as well as presenting much that is original. Finally, I

hope that people find this book as helpful personally as they seem to

have found the first set of 12 Rules. It has been a source of immense

gratification that so many people have reported drawing strength from

the thoughts and the stories I have had the privilege of bringing forth and sharing.

RULE

I

DO NOT CARELESSLY DENIGRATE SOCIAL

INSTITUTIONS OR CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT

LONELINESS AND CONFUSION

For years, I saw a client who lived by himself.* He was isolated in many other ways in addition to his living situation. He had extremely

limited family ties. Both of his daughters had moved out of the

country, and did not maintain much contact, and he had no other

relatives except a father and sister from whom he was estranged. His

wife and the mother of his children had passed away years ago, and

the sole relationship he endeavored to establish while he saw me over

the course of more than a decade and a half terminated tragically

when his new partner was killed in an automobile accident.

When we began to work together, our conversations were decidedly

awkward. He was not accustomed to the subtleties of social

interaction, so his behaviors, verbal and nonverbal, lacked the dance-

like rhythm and harmony that characterize the socially fluent. As a

child, he had been thoroughly ignored as well as actively discouraged

by both parents. His father—mostly absent—was neglectful and

sadistic in his inclinations, while his mother was chronically alcoholic.

He had also been consistently tormented and harassed at school, and

had not chanced upon a teacher in all his years of education who paid

him any genuine attention. These experiences left my client with a

proclivity toward depression, or at least worsened what might have

been a biological tendency in that direction. He was, in consequence,

abrupt, irritable, and somewhat volatile if he felt misunderstood or

was unexpectedly interrupted during a conversation. Such reactions helped ensure that his targeting by bullies continued into his adult life, particularly in his place of work.

I soon noticed, however, that things worked out quite well during

our sessions if I kept mostly quiet. He would drop in, weekly or

biweekly, and talk about what had befallen and preoccupied him

during the previous seven to fourteen days. If I maintained silence for the first fifty minutes of our one-hour sessions, listening intently, then we could converse, in a relatively normal, reciprocal manner, for the

remaining ten minutes. This pattern continued for more than a

decade, as I learned, increasingly, to hold my tongue (something that

does not come easily to me). As the years passed, however, I noticed

that the proportion of time he spent discussing negative issues with

me decreased. Our conversation—his monologue, really—had always

started with what was bothering him, and rarely progressed past that.

But he worked hard outside our sessions, cultivating friends, attending artistic gatherings and music festivals, and resurrecting a long-dormant talent for composing songs and playing the guitar. As he

became more social, he began to generate solutions to the problems he

communicated to me, and to discuss, in the latter portion of the hours

we shared, some of the more positive aspects of his existence. It was

slow going, but he made continual incremental progress. When he first

came to see me, we could not sit together at a table in a coffee shop—

or, indeed, in any public space—and practice anything resembling a

real-world conversation without his being paralyzed into absolute

silence. By the time we finished, he was reading his original poetry in front of small groups, and had even tried his hand at stand-up

comedy.

He was the best personal and practical exemplar of something I had

come to realize over my more than twenty years of psychological

practice: people depend on constant communication with others to

keep their minds organized. We all need to think to keep things

straight, but we mostly think by talking. We need to talk about the

past, so we can distinguish the trivial, overblown concerns that

otherwise plague our thoughts from the experiences that are truly

important. We need to talk about the nature of the present and our

plans for the future, so we know where we are, where we are going,

and why we are going there. We must submit the strategies and tactics we formulate to the judgments of others, to ensure their efficiency and resilience. We need to listen to ourselves as we talk, as well, so that we may organize our otherwise inchoate bodily reactions, motivations,

and emotions into something articulate and organized, and dispense

with those concerns that are exaggerated and irrational. We need to

talk—both to remember and to forget.

My client desperately needed someone to listen to him. He also

needed to be fully part of additional, larger, and more complex social

groups—something he planned in our sessions together, and then

carried out on his own. Had he fallen prey to the temptation to

denigrate the value of interpersonal interactions and relationships

because of his history of isolation and harsh treatment, he would have

had very little chance of regaining his health and well-being. Instead, he learned the ropes and joined the world.

SANITY AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION

For Drs. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the great depth psychologists,

sanity was a characteristic of the individual mind. People were well-

adjusted, in their views, when the subpersonalities existing within

each of them were properly integrated and balanced in expression. The

id, the instinctive part of the psyche (from the German “it,”

representing nature, in all its power and foreignness, inside us); the

superego (the sometimes oppressive, internalized representative of

social order); and the ego (the I, the personality proper, crushed

between those two necessary tyrants)—all had their specialized

functions for Freud, who first conceptualized their existence. Id, ego, and superego interacted with each other like the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of a modern government. Jung, although

profoundly influenced by Freud, parsed the complexity of the psyche

in a different manner. For him, the ego of the individual had to find its proper place in relationship to the shadow (the dark side of the

personality), the anima or animus (the contrasexual and thus often

repressed side of the personality), and the self (the internal being of ideal possibility). But all these different subentities, Jungian and

Freudian alike, share one thing in common: they exist in the interior of the person, regardless of his or her surroundings. People are social

beings, however—par excellence—and there is no shortage of wisdom

and guidance outside of us, embedded in the social world. Why rely on

our own limited resources to remember the road, or to orient

ourselves in new territory, when we can rely on signs and guideposts

placed there so effortfully by others? Freud and Jung, with their

intense focus on the autonomous individual psyche, placed too little

focus on the role of the community in the maintenance of personal

mental health.

It is for such reasons that I assess the position of all my new clinical clients along a few dimensions largely dependent on the social world

when I first start working with them: Have they been educated to the

level of their intellectual ability or ambition? Is their use of free time engaging, meaningful, and productive? Have they formulated solid

and well-articulated plans for the future? Are they (and those they are close to) free of any serious physical health or economic problems? Do

they have friends and a social life? A stable and satisfying intimate

partnership? Close and functional familial relationships? A career—or,

at least, a job—that is financially sufficient, stable and, if possible, a source of satisfaction and opportunity? If the answer to any three or

more of these questions is no, I consider that my new client is

insufficiently embedded in the interpersonal world and is in danger of

spiraling downward psychologically because of that. People exist

among other people and not as purely individual minds. An individual

does not have to be that well put together if he or she can remain at

least minimally acceptable in behavior to others. Simply put: We

outsource the problem of sanity. People remain mentally healthy not

merely because of the integrity of their own minds, but because they

are constantly being reminded how to think, act, and speak by those

around them.

If you begin to deviate from the straight and narrow path—if you

begin to act improperly—people will react to your errors before they

become too great, and cajole, laugh, tap, and criticize you back into

place. They will raise an eyebrow, or smile (or not), or pay attention

(or not). If other people can tolerate having you around, in other

words, they will constantly remind you not to misbehave, and just as

constantly call on you to be at your best. All that is left for you to do is watch, listen, and respond appropriately to the cues. Then you might

remain motivated, and able to stay together enough so that you will

not begin the long journey downhill. This is reason enough to

appreciate your immersion in the world of other people—friends,

family members, and foes alike—despite the anxiety and frustration

that social interactions so often produce.

But how did we develop the broad consensus regarding social

behavior that serves to buttress our psychological stability? It seems a daunting task—if not impossible—in the face of the complexity that

constantly confronts us. “Do we pursue this or that?” “How does the

worth of this piece of work compare to the worth of that?” “Who is

more competent, or more creative, or more assertive, and should

therefore be ceded authority?” Answers to such questions are largely

formulated in consequence of intensive negotiation—verbal and

nonverbal—regulating individual action, cooperation, and

competition. What we deem to be valuable and worthy of attention

becomes part of the social contract; part of the rewards and

punishments meted out respectively for compliance and

noncompliance; part of what continually indicates and reminds: “Here

is what is valued. Look at that (perceive that) and not something else.

Pursue that (act toward that end) and not some other.” Compliance

with those indications and reminders is, in large measure, sanity itself

—and is something required from every one of us right from the early

stages of our lives. Without the intermediation of the social world, it would be impossible for us to organize our minds, and we would

simply be overwhelmed by the world.

THE POINT OF POINTING

I have the great good fortune of a granddaughter, Elizabeth Scarlett

Peterson Korikova, born in August 2017. I have watched her carefully

while she develops, trying to understand what she is up to and playing

along with it. When she was about a year and a half old, she engaged in all manner of unbearably endearing behaviors—giggling and laughing

when she was poked, high-fiving, bumping heads, and rubbing noses.

However, in my opinion, the most noteworthy of all the actions she undertook at that age was her pointing.

She had discovered her index finger, using it to specify all the

objects in the world she found interesting. She delighted in doing so,

particularly when her pointing called forth the attention of the adults surrounding her. This indicated, in a manner not duplicable in any

other way, that her action and intention had import—definable at least in part as the tendency of a behavior or attitude to compel the

attention of others. She thrived on that, and no wonder. We compete

for attention, personally, socially, and economically. No currency has a value that exceeds it. Children, adults, and societies wither on the vine in its absence. To have others attend to what you find important or

interesting is to validate, first, the importance of what you are

attending to, but second, and more crucially, to validate you as a

respected center of conscious experience and contributor to the

collective world. Pointing is, as well, a crucial precursor to the

development of language. To name something—to use the word for the

thing—is essentially to point to it, to specify it against everything else, to isolate it for use individually and socially.

When my granddaughter pointed, she did it publicly. When she

pointed to something, she could immediately observe how the people

close to her reacted. There is just not that much point, so to speak, in pointing to something that no one else cares about. So, she aimed her

index finger at something she found interesting and then looked

around to see if anyone else cared. She was learning an important

lesson at an early age: If you are not communicating about anything

that engages other people, then the value of your communication—

even the value of your very presence—risks falling to zero. It was in

this manner that she began to more profoundly explore the complex

hierarchy of value that made up her family and the broader society

surrounding her.

Scarlett is now learning to talk—a more sophisticated form of

pointing (and of exploration). Every word is a pointer, as well as a

simplification or generalization. To name something is not only to

make it shine forth against the infinite background of potentially

nameable things, but to group or categorize it, simultaneously, with

many other phenomena of its broad utility or significance. We use the

word “floor,” for example, but do not generally employ a separate word for all the floors we might encounter (concrete, wood, earth,

glass), much less all the endless variations of color and texture and

shade that make up the details of the floors that bear our weight. We

use a low-resolution representation: If it holds us up, we can walk on

it, and is situated inside a building, then it is a “floor,” and that is precise enough. The word distinguishes floors, say, from walls, but

also restricts the variability in all the floors that exist to a single concept—flat, stable, walkable indoor surfaces.

The words we employ are tools that structure our experience,

subjectively and privately—but are, equally, socially determined. We

would not all know and use the word “floor” unless we had all agreed

that there was something sufficiently important about floors to justify a word for them. So, the mere fact of naming something (and, of

course, agreeing on the name) is an important part of the process

whereby the infinitely complex world of phenomena and fact is

reduced to the functional world of value. And it is continual

interaction with social institutions that makes this reduction—this

specification—possible.

WHAT SHOULD WE POINT TO?

The social world narrows and specifies the world for us, marking out

what is important. But what does “important” mean? How is it

determined? The individual is molded by the social world. But social

institutions are molded, too, by the requirements of the individuals

who compose them. Arrangements must be made for our provisioning

with the basic requirements of life. We cannot live without food, water, clean air, and shelter. Less self-evidently, we require companionship,

play, touch, and intimacy. These are all biological as well as

psychological necessities (and this is by no means a comprehensive

list). We must signify and then utilize those elements of the world

capable of providing us with these requirements. And the fact that we

are deeply social adds another set of constraints to the situation: We

must perceive and act in a manner that meets our biological and

psychological needs—but, since none of us lives or can live in isolation,

we must meet them in a manner approved of by others. This means that the solutions we apply to our fundamental biological problems

must also be acceptable and implementable socially.

It is worth considering more deeply just how necessity limits the

universe of viable solutions and implementable plans. First, as we

alluded to, the plan must in principle solve some real problem.

Second, it must appeal to others—often in the face of competing plans

—or those others will not cooperate and might well object. If I value

something, therefore, I must determine how to value it so that others

potentially benefit. It cannot just be good for me: it must be good for me and for the people around me. And even that is not good enough—

which means there are even more constraints on how the world must

be perceived and acted upon. The manner in which I view and value

the world, integrally associated with the plans I am making, has to

work for me, my family, and the broader community. Furthermore, it

needs to work today, in a manner that does not make a worse hash of

tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year (even the next decade

or century). A good solution to a problem involving suffering must be

repeatable, without deterioration across repetitions—iterable, in a

word—across people and across time.

These universal constraints, manifest biologically and imposed

socially, reduce the complexity of the world to something

approximating a universally understandable domain of value. That is

exceptionally important, because there are unlimited problems and

there are hypothetically unlimited potential solutions, but there are a comparatively limited number of solutions that work practically,

psychologically, and socially simultaneously. The fact of limited

solutions implies the existence of something like a natural ethic—

variable, perhaps, as human languages are variable, but still

characterized by something solid and universally recognizable at its

base. It is the reality of this natural ethic that makes thoughtless

denigration of social institutions both wrong and dangerous: wrong

and dangerous because those institutions have evolved to solve

problems that must be solved for life to continue. They are by no

means perfect—but making them better, rather than worse, is a tricky

problem indeed.

So, I must take the complexity of the world, reduce it to a single point so that I can act, and take everyone else and their future selves into consideration while I am doing so. How do I manage this? By

communicating and negotiating. By outsourcing the terribly complex

cognitive problem to the resources of the broader world. The

individuals who compose every society cooperate and compete

linguistically (although linguistic interaction by no means exhausts the means of cooperation and competition). Words are formulated

collectively, and everyone must agree on their use. The verbal

framework that helps us delimit the world is a consequence of the

landscape of value that is constructed socially—but also bounded by

the brute necessity of reality itself. This helps give that landscape

shape, and not just any old shape. This is where hierarchies—

functional, productive hierarchies—more clearly enter the picture.

Things of import must be done, or people starve or die of thirst or

exposure—or of loneliness and absence of touch. What needs to be

done must be specified and planned. The requisite skills for doing so

must be developed. That specification, planning, and development of

skills, as well as the implementation of the informed plan, must be

conducted in social space, with the cooperation of others (and in the

face of their competition). In consequence, some will be better at

solving the problem at hand, and others worse. This variance in ability (as well as the multiplicity of extant problems and the impossibility of training everyone in all skilled domains) necessarily engenders a

hierarchical structure—based ideally on genuine competence in

relation to the goal. Such a hierarchy is in its essence a socially

structured tool that must be employed for the effective

accomplishment of necessary and worthwhile tasks. It is also a social

institution that makes progress and peace possible at the same time.

BOTTOM UP

The consensus making up the spoken and unspoken assumptions of

worth characterizing our societies has an ancient origin, developing

over the course of hundreds of millions of years. After all, “How should you act?” is just the short-term, immediate version of the fundamental

long-term question, “How should you survive?” It is therefore instructive to look into the distant past—far down the evolutionary

chain, right to the basics—and contemplate the establishment of what

is important. The most phylogenetically ancient multicellular

organisms (that is far enough for our purposes) tend to be composed

of relatively undifferentiated sensorimotor cells. 1 These cells map certain facts or features of the environment directly onto the motor

output of the same cells, in an essentially one-to-one relationship.

Stimulus A means response A, and nothing else, while stimulus B

means response B. Among more differentiated and complex creatures

—the larger and commonly recognizable denizens of the natural world

—the sensory and motor functions separate and specialize, such that

cells undertaking the former functions detect patterns in the world

and cells in the latter produce patterns of motor output. This

differentiation enables a broader range of patterns to be recognized

and mapped, as well as a broader range of action and reaction to be

undertaken. A third type of cell—neural—emerges sometimes, as well,

serving as a computational intermediary between the first two. Among

species that have established a neural level of operation, the “same”

pattern of input can produce a different pattern of output (depending,

for example, on changes in the animal’s environment or internal

psychophysical condition).

As nervous systems increase in sophistication, and more and more

layers of neural intermediation emerge, the relationship between

simple fact and motor output becomes increasingly complex,

unpredictable, and sophisticated. What is putatively the same thing or

situation can be perceived in multiple ways, and two things perceived

in the same manner can still give rise to very different behaviors. It is very difficult to constrain even isolated laboratory animals, for

example, so thoroughly that they will behave predictably across trials

that have been made as similar as possible. As the layers of neural

tissue mediating between sensation and action multiply, they also

differentiate. Basic motivational systems, often known as drives,

appear (hunger, thirst, aggression, etc.), adding additional sensory and behavioral specificity and variability. Superseding motivations, in turn

—with no clear line of demarcation—are systems of emotion. Cognitive

systems emerge much later, first taking form, arguably, as

imagination, and later—and only among human beings—as full-fledged language. Thus, in the most complex of creatures, there is an

internal hierarchy of structure, from reflex through drive to language-

mediated action (in the particular case of human beings), that must be

organized before it can function as a unity and be aimed at a point.2

How is this hierarchy organized—a structure that emerged in large

part from the bottom up, over the vast spans of evolutionary time? We

return to the same answer alluded to earlier: through the constant

cooperation and competition—the constant jockeying for resources

and position—defining the struggle for survival and reproduction. This

happens over the unimaginably lengthy spans of time that characterize

evolution, as well as the much shorter course of each individual life.

Negotiation for position sorts organisms into the omnipresent

hierarchies that govern access to vital resources such as shelter,

nourishment, and mates. All creatures of reasonable complexity and

even a minimally social nature have their particular place, and know it.

All social creatures also learn what is deemed valuable by other group

members, and derive from that, as well as from the understanding of

their own position, a sophisticated implicit and explicit understanding of value itself. In a phrase: The internal hierarchy that translates facts into actions mirrors the external hierarchy of social organization. It is clear, for example, that chimpanzees in a troop understand their social world and its hierarchical strata at a fine level of detail. They know

what is important, and who has privileged access to it. They

understand such things as if their survival and reproduction depend

upon it, as it does.3

A newborn infant is equipped with relatively deterministic reflexes:

sucking, crying, startling. These nonetheless provide the starting point for the immense range of skills in action that develop with human

maturation. By the age of two (and often much earlier than that, for

many skills), children can orient with all their senses, walk upright,

use their opposable-thumb-equipped hands for all sorts of purposes,

and communicate their desires and needs both nonverbally and

verbally—and this is of course a partial list. This immense array of

behavioral abilities is integrated into a complex assortment of

emotions and motivational drives (anger, sadness, fear, joy, surprise,

and more) and then organized to fulfill whatever specific, narrow

purpose inspires the child for the moment and, increasingly, over longer spans of time.

The developing infant must also hone and perfect the operation of

his or her currently dominant motivational state in harmony with all

his or her other internal motivational states (as, for example, the

separate desire to eat, sleep, and play must learn to coexist so each can manifest itself optimally), and in keeping with the demands, routines,

and opportunities of the social environment. This honing and

perfecting begin within the child’s maternal relationship and the

spontaneous play behavior within that circumscribed but still social

context. Then, when the child has matured to the point where the

internal hierarchy of emotional and motivational functions can be

subsumed, even temporarily, within a framework provided by a

conscious, communicable abstract goal (“let us play house”), the child

is ready to play with others—and to do so, over time, in an increasingly complex and sophisticated manner. 4

Play with others depends (as the great developmental psychologist

Jean Piaget observed5) upon the collective establishment of a shared goal with the child’s play partners. The collective establishment of a

shared goal—the point of the game—conjoined with rules governing

cooperation and competition in relationship to that goal or point,

constitutes a true social microcosm. All societies might be regarded as variations upon this play/game theme— E pluribus unum*—and in all functional and decent societies the basic rules of fair play, predicated upon reciprocity across situation and time, come inevitably to apply.

Games, like solutions to problems, must be iterable to endure, and

there are principles that apply to and undergird what constitutes that

iterability. Piaget suspected, for example, that games undertaken

voluntarily will outcompete games imposed and played under threat of

force, given that some of the energy that could be expended on the

game itself, whatever its nature, has to be wasted on enforcement.

There is evidence indicating the emergence of such voluntary game-

like arrangements even among our nonhuman kin.6

The universal rules of fair play include the ability to regulate

emotion and motivation while cooperating and competing in pursuit

of the goal during the game (that is part and parcel of being able to

play at all), as well as the ability and will to establish reciprocally

beneficial interactions across time and situation, as we already discussed. And life is not simply a game, but a series of games, each of which has something in common (whatever defines a game) and

something unique (or there would be no reason for multiple games).

At minimum, there is a starting point (kindergarten, a 0–0 score, a

first date, an entry-level job) that needs to be improved upon; a

procedure for enacting that improvement; and a desirable goal

(graduation from high school, a winning score, a permanent romantic

relationship, a prestigious career). Because of that commonality, there is an ethic—or more properly, a meta-ethic—that emerges, from the

bottom up, across the set of all games. The best player is therefore not the winner of any given game but, among many other things, he or she

who is invited by the largest number of others to play the most

extensive series of games. It is for this reason, which you may not

understand explicitly at the time, that you tell your children: “It’s not whether you win or lose. It’s how you play the game!” * How should you play, to be that most desirable of players? What structure must

take form within you so that such play is possible? And those two

questions are interrelated, because the structure that will enable you

to play properly (and with increasing and automated or habitual

precision) will emerge only in the process of continually practicing the art of playing properly. Where might you learn how to play?

Everywhere . . . if you are fortunate and awake.

THE UTILITY OF THE FOOL

It is useful to take your place at the bottom of a hierarchy. It can aid in the development of gratitude and humility. Gratitude: There are people whose expertise exceeds your own, and you should be wisely

pleased about that. There are many valuable niches to fill, given the

many complex and serious problems we must solve. The fact that there

are people who fill those niches with trustworthy skill and experience

is something for which to be truly thankful. Humility: It is better to presume ignorance and invite learning than to assume sufficient

knowledge and risk the consequent blindness. It is much better to

make friends with what you do not know than with what you do know,

as there is an infinite supply of the former but a finite stock of the latter. When you are tightly boxed in or cornered—all too often by your own stubborn and fixed adherence to some unconsciously worshipped

assumptions—all there is to help you is what you have not yet learned.

It is necessary and helpful to be, and in some ways to remain, a

beginner. For this reason, the Tarot deck beloved by intuitives,

romantics, fortune-tellers, and scoundrels alike contains within it the Fool as a positive card, an illustrated variant of which opens this

chapter. The Fool is a young, handsome man, eyes lifted upward,

journeying in the mountains, sun shining brightly upon him—about to

carelessly step over a cliff (or is he?). His strength, however, is

precisely his willingness to risk such a drop; to risk being once again at the bottom. No one unwilling to be a foolish beginner can learn. It was for this reason, among others, that Carl Jung regarded the Fool as the

archetypal precursor to the figure of the equally archetypal Redeemer,

the perfected individual.

The beginner, the fool, is continually required to be patient and

tolerant—with himself and, equally, with others. His displays of

ignorance, inexperience, and lack of skill may still sometimes be

rightly attributed to irresponsibility and condemned, justly, by others.

But the insufficiency of the fool is often better regarded as an

inevitable consequence of each individual’s essential vulnerability,

rather than as a true moral failing. Much that is great starts small,

ignorant, and useless. This lesson permeates popular as well as

classical or traditional culture. Consider, for example, the Disney

heroes Pinocchio and Simba, as well as J. K. Rowling’s magical Harry

Potter. Pinocchio begins as a wooden-headed marionette, the puppet

of everyone’s decisions but his own. The Lion King has his origin as a

naive cub, the unwitting pawn of a treacherous and malevolent uncle.

The student of wizarding is an unloved orphan, with a dusty cupboard

for a bedroom, and Voldemort—who might as well be Satan himself—

for his archenemy. Great mythologized heroes often come into the

world, likewise, in the most meager of circumstances (as the child of

an Israelite slave, for example, or newborn in a lowly manger) and in

great danger (consider the Pharaoh’s decision to slay all the firstborn male babies of the Israelites, and Herod’s comparable edict, much

later). But today’s beginner is tomorrow’s master. Thus, it is necessary

even for the most accomplished (but who wishes to accomplish still more) to retain identification with the as yet unsuccessful; to

appreciate the striving toward competence; to carefully and with true

humility subordinate him or herself to the current game; and to

develop the knowledge, self-control, and discipline necessary to make

the next move.

I visited a restaurant in Toronto with my wife, son, and daughter

while writing this. As I made my way to my party’s table, a young

waiter asked if he might say a few words to me. He told me that he had

been watching my videos, listening to my podcasts, and reading my

book, and that he had, in consequence, changed his attitude toward

his comparatively lower-status (but still useful and necessary) job. He had ceased criticizing what he was doing or himself for doing it,

deciding instead to be grateful and seek out whatever opportunities

presented themselves right there before him. He made up his mind to

become more diligent and reliable and to see what would happen if he

worked as hard at it as he could. He told me, with an uncontrived

smile, that he had been promoted three times in six months.

The young man had come to realize that every place he might find

himself in had more potential than he might first see (particularly

when his vision was impaired by the resentment and cynicism he felt

from being near the bottom). After all, it is not as if a restaurant is a simple place—and this was part of an extensive national organization,

a large, high-quality chain. To do a good job in such a place, servers

must get along with the cooks, who are by universal recognition a

formidably troublesome and tricky lot. They must also be polite and

engaging with customers. They have to pay attention constantly. They

must adjust to highly varying workloads—the rushes and dead times

that inevitably accompany the life of a server. They have to show up on time, sober and awake. They must treat their superiors with the proper

respect and do the same for those—such as the dishwashers—below

them in the structure of authority. And if they do all these things, and happen to be working in a functional institution, they will soon render themselves difficult to replace. Customers, colleagues, and superiors

alike will begin to react to them in an increasingly positive manner.

Doors that would otherwise remain closed to them—even invisible—

will be opened. Furthermore, the skills they acquire will prove

eminently portable, whether they continue to rise in the hierarchy of restaurateurs, decide instead to further their education, or change

their career trajectory completely (in which case they will leave with

laudatory praise from their previous employers and vastly increased

chances of discovering the next opportunity).

As might be expected, the young man who had something to say to

me was thrilled with what had happened to him. His status concerns

had been solidly and realistically addressed by his rapid career

advance, and the additional money he was making did not hurt, either.

He had accepted, and therefore transcended, his role as a beginner. He

had ceased being casually cynical about the place he occupied in the

world and the people who surrounded him, and accepted the structure

and the position he was offered. He started to see possibility and

opportunity, where before he was blinded, essentially, by his pride. He stopped denigrating the social institution he found himself part of and began to play his part properly. And that increment in humility paid

off in spades.

THE NECESSITY OF EQUALS

It is good to be a beginner, but it is a good of a different sort to be an equal among equals. It is said, with much truth, that genuine

communication can take place only between peers. This is because it is

very difficult to move information up a hierarchy. Those well

positioned (and this is a great danger of moving up) have used their

current competence—their cherished opinions, their present

knowledge, their current skills—to stake a moral claim to their status.

In consequence, they have little motivation to admit to error, to learn or change—and plenty of reason not to. If a subordinate exposes the

ignorance of someone with greater status, he risks humiliating that

person, questioning the validity of the latter’s claim to influence and status, and revealing him as incompetent, outdated, or false. For this

reason, it is very wise to approach your boss, for example, carefully

and privately with a problem (and perhaps best to have a solution at

hand—and not one proffered too incautiously).

Barriers exist to the flow of genuine information down a hierarchy, as well. For example, the resentment people lower in the chain of

command might feel about their hypothetically lesser position can

make them loath to act productively on information from above—or, in

the worst case, can motivate them to work at counterpurposes to what

they have learned, out of sheer spite. In addition, those who are

inexperienced or less educated, or who newly occupy a subordinate

position and therefore lack knowledge of their surroundings, can be

more easily influenced by relative position and the exercise of power,

instead of quality of argumentation and observation of competence.

Peers, by contrast, must in the main be convinced. Their attention

must be carefully reciprocated. To be surrounded by peers is to exist in a state of equality, and to manifest the give-and-take necessary to

maintain that equality. It is therefore good to be in the middle of a

hierarchy.

This is partly why friendships are so important, and why they form

so early in life. A two-year-old, typically, is self-concerned, although also capable of simple reciprocal actions. The same Scarlett whom I

talked about earlier—my granddaughter—would happily hand me one

of her favorite stuffed toys, attached to a pacifier, when I asked her to.

Then I would hand it, or toss it, back (sometimes she would toss it to

me, too—or at least relatively near me). She loved this game. We

played it with a spoon, as well—an implement she was just beginning

to master. She played the same way with her mother and her

grandmother—with anyone who happened to be within playing

distance, if she was familiar enough with them not to be shy. This was

the beginning of the behaviors that transform themselves into full-

fledged sharing among older children.

My daughter, Mikhaila, Scarlett’s mother, took her child to the

outdoor recreational space on top of their downtown condo a few days

before I wrote this. A number of other children were playing there,

most of them older, and there were plenty of toys. Scarlett spent her

time hoarding as many of the playthings as possible near her mother’s

chair, and was distinctly unimpressed if other children came along to

purloin one for themselves. She even took a ball directly from another

child to add to her collection. This is typical behavior for children two and younger. Their ability to reciprocate, while hardly absent (and

able to manifest itself in truly endearing ways), is developmentally limited.

By three years of age, however, most children are capable of truly

sharing. They can delay gratification long enough to take their turn

while playing a game that everyone cannot play simultaneously. They

can begin to understand the point of a game played by several people

and follow the rules, although they may not be able to give a coherent

verbal account of what those rules are. They start to form friendships

upon repeated exposure to children with whom they have successfully

negotiated reciprocal play relationships. Some of these friendships

turn into the first intense relationships that children have outside their family. It is in the context of such relationships, which tend strongly to form between equals in age (or at least equals in developmental stage), that a child learns to bond tightly to a peer and starts to learn how to treat another person properly while requiring the same in return.

This mutual bonding is vitally important. A child without at least

one special, close friend is much more likely to suffer later

psychological problems, whether of the depressive/anxious or

antisocial sort, 7 while children with fewer friends are also more likely to be unemployed and unmarried as adults. 8 There is no evidence that the importance of friendship declines in any manner with age.* All causes of mortality appear to be reduced among adults with high-quality social networks, even when general health status is taken into

consideration. This remains true among the elderly in the case of

diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, emphysema, and arthritis,

and for younger and older adults alike in the case of heart attacks.

Interestingly enough, there is some evidence that it is the provision of social support, as much or more than its receipt, that provides these

protective benefits (and, somewhat unsurprisingly, that those who give

more tend to receive more). 9 Thus, it truly seems that it is better to give than to receive.

Peers distribute both the burdens and joys of life. Recently, when

my wife, Tammy, and I suffered serious health problems, we were

fortunate enough to have family members (my in-laws, sister and

brother; my own mother and sister; our children) and close friends

stay with us and help for substantial periods of time. They were willing to put their own lives on hold to aid us while we were in crisis. Before

that, when my book 12 Rules for Life became a success, and during the extensive speaking tour that followed, Tammy and I were close to

people with whom we could share our good fortune. These were

friends and family members genuinely pleased with what was

happening and following the events of our lives avidly, and who were

willing to discuss what could have been the overwhelming public

response. This greatly heightened the significance and meaning of

everything we were doing and reduced the isolation that such a

dramatic shift in life circumstances, for better or worse, is likely to produce.

The relationships established with colleagues of similar status at

work constitute another important source of peer regulation, in

addition to friendship. To maintain good relationships with your

colleagues means, among other things, to give credit where credit is

due; to take your fair share of the jobs no one wants but still must be done; to deliver on time and in a high-quality manner when teamed

with other people; to show up when expected; and, in general, to be

trusted to do somewhat more than your job formally requires. The

approval or disapproval of your colleagues rewards and enforces this

continual reciprocity, and that—like the reciprocity that is necessarily part of friendship—helps maintain stable psychological function. It is

much better to be someone who can be relied upon, not least so that

during times of personal trouble the people you have worked beside

are willing and able to step in and help.

Through friendship and collegial relationships we modify our selfish

proclivities, learning not to always put ourselves first. Less obviously, but just as importantly, we may also learn to overcome our naive and

too empathic proclivities (our tendency to sacrifice ourselves

unsuitably and unjustly to predatory others) when our peers advise

and encourage us to stand up for ourselves. In consequence, if we are

fortunate, we begin to practice true reciprocity, and we gain at least

some of the advantage spoken about so famously by the poet Robert

Burns:

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An’ foolish notion:

What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,

An’ ev’n devotion! 10

TOP DOG

It is a good thing to be an authority. People are fragile. Because of that, life is difficult and suffering common. Ameliorating that suffering—

ensuring that everyone has food, clean water, sanitary facilities, and a place to take shelter, for starters—takes initiative, effort, and ability. If there is a problem to be solved, and many people involve themselves in

the solution, then a hierarchy must and will arise, as those who can do, and those who cannot follow as best they can, often learning to be competent in the process. If the problem is real, then the people who

are best at solving the problem at hand should rise to the top. That is not power. It is the authority that properly accompanies ability.

Now, it is self-evidently appropriate to grant power to competent

authorities, if they are solving necessary problems; and it is equally

appropriate to be one of those competent authorities, if possible, when there is a perplexing problem at hand. This might be regarded as a

philosophy of responsibility. A responsible person decides to make a

problem his or her problem, and then works diligently—even

ambitiously—for its solution, with other people, in the most efficient

manner possible (efficient, because there are other problems to solve,

and efficiency allows for the conservation of resources that might then be devoted importantly elsewhere).

Ambition is often—and often purposefully—misidentified with the

desire for power, and damned with faint praise, and denigrated, and

punished. And ambition is sometimes exactly that wish for undue

influence on others. But there is a crucial difference between

sometimes and always. Authority is not mere power, and it is extremely unhelpful, even dangerous, to confuse the two. When people

exert power over others, they compel them, forcefully. They apply the

threat of privation or punishment so their subordinates have little

choice but to act in a manner contrary to their personal needs, desires, and values. When people wield authority, by contrast, they do so

because of their competence—a competence that is spontaneously recognized and appreciated by others, and generally followed willingly, with a certain relief, and with the sense that justice is being served.

Those who are power hungry—tyrannical and cruel, even

psychopathic—desire control over others so that every selfish whim of

hedonism can be immediately gratified; so that envy can destroy its

target; so that resentment can find its expression. But good people are ambitious (and diligent, honest, and focused along with it) instead

because they are possessed by the desire to solve genuine, serious

problems. That variant of ambition needs to be encouraged in every

possible manner. It is for this reason, among many others, that the

increasingly reflexive identification of the striving of boys and men for victory with the “patriarchal tyranny” that hypothetically characterizes our modern, productive, and comparatively free societies is so

stunningly counterproductive (and, it must be said, cruel: there is

almost nothing worse than treating someone striving for competence

as a tyrant in training). “Victory,” in one of its primary and most

socially important aspects, is the overcoming of obstacles for the

broader public good. Someone who is sophisticated as a winner wins

in a manner that improves the game itself, for all the players. To adopt an attitude of naive or willfully blind cynicism about this, or to deny outright that it is true, is to position yourself—perhaps purposefully, as people have many dark motives—as an enemy of the practical

amelioration of suffering itself. I can think of few more sadistic

attitudes.

Now, power may accompany authority, and perhaps it must.

However, and more important, genuine authority constrains the arbitrary exercise of power. This constraint manifests itself when the authoritative agent cares, and takes responsibility, for those over

whom the exertion of power is possible. The oldest child can take

accountability for his younger siblings, instead of domineering over

and teasing and torturing them, and can learn in that manner how to

exercise authority and limit the misuse of power. Even the youngest

can exercise appropriate authority over the family dog. To adopt

authority is to learn that power requires concern and competence—

and that it comes at a genuine cost. Someone newly promoted to a

management position soon learns that managers are frequently more

stressed by their multiple subordinates than subordinates are stressed by their single manager. Such experience moderates what might

otherwise become romantic but dangerous fantasies about the

attractiveness of power, and helps quell the desire for its infinite

extension. And, in the real world, those who occupy positions of

authority in functional hierarchies are generally struck to the core by the responsibility they bear for the people they supervise, employ, and mentor.

Not everyone feels this burden, of course. A person who has become

established as an authority can forget his origins and come to develop

a counterproductive contempt for the person who is just starting out.

This is a mistake, not least because it means that the established

person cannot risk doing something new (as it would mean adopting

the role of despised fool). It is also because arrogance bars the path to learning. Shortsighted, willfully blind, and narrowly selfish tyrants

certainly exist, but they are by no means in the majority, at least in

functional societies. Otherwise nothing would work.

The authority who remembers his or her sojourn as voluntary

beginner, by contrast, can retain their identification with the

newcomer and the promise of potential, and use that memory as the

source of personal information necessary to constrain the hunger for

power. One of the things that has constantly amazed me is the delight

that decent people take in the ability to provide opportunities to those over whom they currently exercise authority. I have experienced this

repeatedly: personally, as a university professor and researcher (and

observed many other people in my situation doing the same); and in

the business and other professional settings I have become familiar

with. There is great intrinsic pleasure in helping already competent

and admirable young people become highly skilled, socially valuable,

autonomous, responsible professionals. It is not unlike the pleasure

taken in raising children, and it is one of the primary motivators of

valid ambition. Thus, the position of top dog, when occupied properly,

has as one of its fundamental attractions the opportunity to identify

deserving individuals at or near the beginning of their professional

life, and provide them with the means of productive advancement.

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARE NECESSARY—BUT INSUFFICIENT

Sanity is knowing the rules of the social game, internalizing them, and following them. Differences in status are therefore inevitable, as all

worthwhile endeavors have a goal, and those who pursue them have

different abilities in relationship to that goal. Accepting the fact of this disequilibrium and striving forward nonetheless—whether presently at

the bottom, middle, or top—is an important element of mental health.

But a paradox remains. The solutions of yesterday and today, upon

which our current hierarchies depend, will not necessarily serve as

solutions tomorrow. Thoughtless repetition of what sufficed in the

past—or, worse, authoritarian insistence that all problems have been

permanently solved—therefore means the introduction of great danger

when changes in the broader world makes local change necessary.

Respect for creative transformation must in consequence accompany

appropriate regard for the problem-solving hierarchical structures

bequeathed to us by the past. That is neither an arbitrary moral

opinion nor a morally relative claim. It is something more akin to

knowledge of twin natural laws built into the structure of our reality.

Highly social creatures such as we are must abide by the rules, to

remain sane and minimize unnecessary uncertainty, suffering, and

strife. However, we must also transform those rules carefully, as

circumstances change around us.

This implies, as well, that the ideal personality cannot remain an

unquestioning reflection of the current social state. Under normal

conditions, it may be nonetheless said that the ability to conform unquestioningly trumps the inability to conform. However, the refusal to conform when the social surround has become pathological—

incomplete, archaic, willfully blind, or corrupt—is something of even

higher value, as is the capacity to offer creative, valid alternatives. This leaves all of us with a permanent moral conundrum: When do we

simply follow convention, doing what others request or demand; and

when do we rely on our own individual judgment, with all its

limitations and biases, and reject the requirements of the collective? In other words: How do we establish a balance between reasonable

conservatism and revitalizing creativity?

First and foremost on the psychological front is the issue of temperament. Some people are temperamentally predisposed to

conservatism, and others to more liberal creative perception and

action.11 This does not mean that socialization has no ability to alter that predisposition; human beings are very plastic organisms, with a

long period of preadult development, and the circumstances we find

ourselves in can change us very drastically. That does not alter the fact, however, that there are relatively permanent niches in the human

environment to which different modes of temperament have adapted

to fill.

Those who tend toward the right, politically, are staunch defenders

of all that has worked in the past. And much of the time, they are

correct in being so, because of the limited number of pathways that

produce personal success, social harmony, and long-term stability. But

sometimes they are wrong: first, because the present and the future

differ from the past; second, because even once-functional hierarchies

typically (inevitably?) fall prey to internal machinations in a manner

that produces their downfall. Those who rise to the top can do so

through manipulation and the exercise of unjust power, acting in a

manner that works only for them, at least in the short term; but that

kind of ascendance undermines the proper function of the hierarchy

they are nominally part of. Such people generally fail to understand or do not care what function the organization they have made their host

was designed to fulfill. They extract what they can from the riches that lie before them and leave a trail of wreckage in their wake.

It is this corruption of power that is strongly objected to by those on the liberal/left side of the political spectrum, and rightly so. But it is critically important to distinguish between a hierarchy that is

functional and productive (and the people who make it so) and the

degenerate shell of a once-great institution. Making that distinction

requires the capacity and the willingness to observe and differentiate, rather than mindless reliance on ideological proclivity. It requires

knowing that there is a bright side to the social hierarchies we

necessarily inhabit, as well as a dark (and the realization that

concentrating on one to the exclusion of the other is dangerously

biased). It also requires knowledge that on the more radical, creative

side—the necessary source of revitalization for what has become

immoral and outdated—there also lurks great danger. Part of the danger is that very tendency of those who think more liberally to see

only the negative in well-founded institutions. The further danger

stems from the counterpart to the corrupt but conservative processes

that destabilize and destroy functional hierarchies: there are unethical radicals, just as there are crooked administrators, managers, and

executives. These individuals tend to be profoundly ignorant of the

complex realities of the status quo, unconscious of their own

ignorance, and ungrateful for what the past has bequeathed to them.

Such ignorance and ingratitude are often conjoined with the

willingness to use tired clichés of cynicism to justify refusal to engage either in the dull but necessary rigors of convention or the risks and

difficulties of truly generative endeavor. It is this corruption of creative transformation that renders the conservative—and not only the

conservative—appropriately cautious of change.

A few years before writing this, I had a discussion with a young

woman in her early twenties—the niece of someone who emailed me

after watching some of my online lectures. She appeared severely

unhappy, and said that she had spent much of the past six months

lying in bed. She came to talk to me because she was becoming

desperate. The only thing that stood between her and suicide, as far as she was concerned, was the responsibility she still maintained for an

exotic pet, a serval cat. This was the last remaining manifestation of an interest in biology that once gripped her, but which she abandoned,

much to her current regret, when she dropped out of high school. She

had not been well attended to by her parents, who had allowed her to

drift in the manner that had become disastrous over the span of

several years.

Despite her decline, she had formulated a bit of a plan. She said she

had thought about enrolling in a two-year program that would enable

her to finish high school, as a prerequisite for applying to a veterinary college. But she had not made the necessary detailed inquiries into

what would be required to carry out this ambition. She lacked a

mentor. She had no good friends. It was far too easy for her to remain

inactive and disappear into her isolation. We had a good conversation,

for about three quarters of an hour. She was a nice kid. I offered to

discuss her future in more detail if she would complete an online planning program designed by my professorial colleagues and me.*

All was going well until the discussion twisted toward the political.

After discussing her personal situation, she began to voice her

discontent with the state of the world at large—with the looming

catastrophe, in her opinion, of the effects of human activity on the

environment. Now, there is nothing wrong, in principle, with the

expression of concern for planet-wide issues. That is not the point.

There is something wrong, however, with overestimating your

knowledge of such things—or perhaps even considering them—when

you are a mid-twenty-year-old with nothing positive going on in your

life and you are having great difficulty even getting out of bed. Under those conditions, you need to get your priorities straight, and

establishing the humility necessary to attend to and solve your own

problems is a crucial part of doing just that.

As the verbal exchange continued, I found myself no longer engaged

in a genuine conversation with a lost young woman who had come to

speak with me. Instead, I became a hypothetically equal partner in a

debate with an ideologue who knew what was wrong, globally

speaking; who knew who was at fault for those global problems; who

knew that participating in the continuing destruction by manifesting

any personal desire whatsoever was immoral; and who believed,

finally, that we were all both guilty and doomed. Continuing the

conversation at that point meant I was (1) speaking not with this

young woman so much as with whatever or whomever took possession

of her while in the grip of generic, impersonal, and cynical ideas, and (2) implying that discussion of such topics under the circumstances

was both acceptable and productive.

There was no point in either outcome. So, I stopped (which did not

mean that the entire meeting had been a waste). It was impossible for

me not to conclude that some of what had reduced her to her

monthslong state of moral paralysis was not so much guilt about

potentially contributing to the negative effects of human striving on

the broader world, as it was the sense of moral superiority that

concern about such things brought her (despite the exceptional

psychological danger of embracing this dismal view of human

possibility). Excuse the cliché, but it is necessary to walk before you

can run. You may even have to crawl before you can walk. This is part of accepting your position as a beginner, at the bottom of the hierarchy you so casually, arrogantly, and self-servingly despise. Furthermore,

the deeply antihuman attitude that often accompanies tears shed for

environmental degradation and man’s inhumanity to man cannot but

help but have a marked effect on the psychological attitude that

defines a person’s relationship to him or herself.

It has taken since time immemorial for us to organize ourselves,

biologically and socially, into the functional hierarchies that both

specify our perceptions and actions, and define our interactions with

the natural and social world. Profound gratitude for that gift is the

only proper response. The structure that encompasses us all has its

dark side—just as nature does, just as each individual does—but that

does not mean careless, generic, and self-serving criticism of the status quo is appropriate (any more than knee-jerk objection to what might

be necessary change).

THE NECESSITY OF BALANCE

Because doing what others do and have always done so often works,

and because, sometimes, radical action can produce success beyond

measure, the conservative and the creative attitudes and actions

constantly propagate themselves. A functional social institution—a

hierarchy devoted to producing something of value, beyond the mere

insurance of its own survival—can utilize the conservative types to

carefully implement processes of tried-and-true value, and the

creative, liberal types to determine how what is old and out of date

might be replaced by something new and more valuable. The balance

between conservatism and originality might therefore be properly

struck, socially, by bringing the two types of persons together. But

someone must determine how best to do that, and that requires a

wisdom that transcends mere temperamental proclivity. Because the

traits associated with creativity, on the one hand, and comfort with the status quo, on the other, tend to be mutually exclusive, it is difficult to find a single person who has balanced both properly, who is therefore

comfortable working with each type, and who can attend, in an

unbiased manner, to the necessity for capitalizing on the respective forms of talent and proclivity. But the development of that ability can at least begin with an expansion of conscious wisdom: the articulated

realization that conservatism is good (with a set of associated

dangers), and that creative transformation—even of the radical sort—is

also good (with a set of associated dangers). Learning this deeply—

truly appreciating the need for both viewpoints—means at least the

possibility of valuing what truly diverse people have to offer, and of

being able to recognize when the balance has swung too far in one

direction. The same is true of the knowledge of the shadow side of

both. To manage complex affairs properly, it is necessary to be cold

enough in vision to separate the power hungry and self-serving

pseudoadvocate of the status quo from the genuine conservative; and

the self-deceptive, irresponsible rebel without a cause from the truly

creative. And to manage this means to separate those factors within

the confines of one’s own soul, as well as among other people.

And how might this be accomplished? First, we might come to

understand consciously that these two modes of being are integrally

interdependent. One cannot truly exist without the other, although

they exist in genuine tension. This means, first, for example, that

discipline—subordination to the status quo, in one form or another—

needs to be understood as a necessary precursor to creative

transformation, rather than its enemy. Thus, just as the hierarchy of

assumptions that make up the structure that organizes society and

individual perceptions is shaped by, and integrally dependent on,

restrictions, so too is creative transformation. It must strain against limits. It has no use and cannot be called forth unless it is struggling against something. It is for this reason that the great genie, the granter of wishes—God, in a microcosm—is archetypally trapped in the tiny

confines of a lamp and subject, as well, to the will of the lamp’s current holder. Genie—genius—is the combination of possibility and potential,

and extreme constraint.

Limitations, constraints, arbitrary boundaries—rules, dread rules,

themselves—therefore not only ensure social harmony and

psychological stability, they make the creativity that renews order

possible. What lurks, therefore, under the explicitly stated desire for complete freedom—as expressed, say, by the anarchist, or the nihilist

—is not a positive desire, striving for enhanced creative expression, as in the romanticized caricature of the artist. It is instead a negative

desire—a desire for the complete absence of responsibility, which is

simply not commensurate with genuine freedom. This is the lie of

objections to the rules. But “Down with Responsibility” does not make

for a compelling slogan—being sufficiently narcissistic to negate itself self-evidently—while the corresponding “Down with the Rules” can be

dressed up like a heroic corpse.

Alongside the wisdom of true conservatism is the danger that the

status quo might become corrupt and its corruption self-servingly

exploited. Alongside the brilliance of creative endeavor is the false

heroism of the resentful ideologue, who wears the clothes of the

original rebel while undeservedly claiming the upper moral hand and

rejecting all genuine responsibility. Intelligent and cautious

conservatism and careful and incisive change keep the world in order.

But each has its dark aspect, and it is crucial, once this has been

realized, to pose the question to yourself: Are you the real thing, or its opposite? And the answer is, inevitably, that you are some of both—

and perhaps far more of what is shadowy than you might like to

realize. That is all part of understanding the complexity we each carry within us.

PERSONALITY AS HIERARCHY—AND CAPACITY FOR

TRANSFORMATION

How, then, is the personality that balances respect for social

institutions and, equally, creative transformation to be understood? It is not so easy to determine, given the complexity of the problem. For

that reason, we turn to stories. Stories provide us with a broad

template. They outline a pattern specific enough to be of tremendous

value, if we can imitate it, but general enough (unlike a particular rule or set of rules) to apply even to new situations. In stories, we capture observations of the ideal personality. We tell tales about success and

failure in adventure and romance. Across our narrative universes,

success moves us forward to what is better, to the promised land;

failure dooms us, and those who become entangled with us, to the

abyss. The good moves us upward and ahead, and evil drags us backward and down. Great stories are about characters in action, and

so they mirror the unconscious structures and processes that help us

translate the intransigent world of facts into the sustainable,

functional, reciprocal social world of values.*

The properly embodied hierarchy of values—including the value of

conservatism and its twin, creative transformation—finds its

expression as a personality, in narrative—an ideal personality. Every

hierarchy has something at its pinnacle. It is for this reason that a

story, which is a description of the action of a personality, has a hero (and even if that someone is the antihero, it does not matter: the

antihero serves the function of identifying the hero through contrast,

as the hero is what the antihero is most decidedly not). The hero is the individual at the peak, the victor, the champion, the wit, the eventually successful and deserving underdog, the speaker of truth under

perilous circumstances, and more. The stories we create, watch, listen

to, and remember center themselves on actions and attitudes we find

interesting, compelling, and worthy of communication as a

consequence of our personal experience with both admirable and

detestable people (or fragments of their specific attitudes and actions), or because of our proclivity to share what has gripped our attention

with those who surround us. Sometimes we can draw compelling

narratives directly from our personal experience with individual

people; sometimes we create amalgams of multiple personalities, often

in concert with those who compose our social groups.

The client whose story was told in part earlier had a life usefully

employed as an example of the necessity of social engagement. That

tale did not, however, exhaust the significance of his transformed

attitudes and actions. While he was reconstructing his social life,

becoming an active participant in a range of collective activities, he

simultaneously developed a certain creative expertise that was equally

unexpected. He had not benefited from formal education beyond the

high school level, and did not have a personality that immediately

struck the external observer as markedly creative. However, the

personally novel social pursuits that attracted him were in the main

oriented toward aesthetic endeavor.

He first developed his eye for form, symmetry, novelty, and beauty as a photographer. The social advantages of this pursuit were

manifold: he joined a club that had its members attend biweekly

photography walks, where they would sojourn as a group of twenty or

so to parts of the city that were visually interesting, either for their natural beauty or uniqueness or for the attraction they held as

industrial landscapes. He learned a fair bit about photographic

equipment, technically, because of doing so. The group members also

critiqued one another’s work—and they did this constructively, which

meant that all of them appeared to indicate what errors had been

made but also what of value had been managed.

This all helped my client learn to communicate in a productive

manner about topics that might otherwise have been psychologically

difficult (touching as they did on criticisms that, because of their

association with creative vision, could easily have generated

counterproductively sensitive overreactions) and, as well, to

increasingly distinguish between visual images that were trite or dull

or conformist and those of genuine quality. After a few months, his

perception had developed sufficiently so that he began to win local

contests and generate small professional commissions. I had believed

from the beginning that his participation in the photography club was

well advised from the perspective of personality development, but I

was genuinely struck by the rapid development of his visual and

technical ability and very much enjoyed the times we spent in our

sessions reviewing his work.

After a few months of work on the photography front, my client

began to produce and to show me other images he had created, as well

—which were in their first incarnation decidedly amateurish abstract

line drawings done in pen. These essentially consisted of loops of

various sizes, joined continuously, on a single page: scribbles, really, although more controlled and evidently purposeful than mere

scribbles. As I had with the photographs (and the photography club), I

regarded these as psychologically useful—as an extension of creative

ability—but not as worthwhile artistic endeavors in their own right. He kept at it, however, generating several drawings a week, all the while

bringing what he had created to our sessions. What he produced

increased in sophistication and beauty with dramatic rapidity. Soon,

he was drawing complex, symmetrical, and rather dramatic black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings of sufficient intrinsic beauty to serve as

commercially viable T-shirt designs.

I had seen this sort of development clearly in the case of two other

clients, both characterized by intrinsically creative temperaments

(very well hidden in one of the cases; more developed, nurtured, and

obvious in the other). In addition, I had read accounts of clinical cases and personal development by Carl Jung, who noted that the

production of increasingly ordered and complex geometrical figures—

often circles within squares, or the reverse—regularly accompanied an

increase in organization of the personality. This certainly seemed true not only of my client, as evidenced by his burgeoning expertise at

photography and the development of his skill as a graphic artist, but

also of the two others I had the pleasure of serving as a clinical

therapist. What I observed repeatedly was, therefore, not only the

reconstruction of the psyche as a consequence of further socialization

(and the valuation of social institutions) but the parallel

transformation of primarily interior processes, indicated by a marked

increase in the capacity to perceive and to create what was elegant,

beautiful, and socially valued. My clients had learned not only to

submit properly to the sometimes arbitrary but still necessary

demands of the social world, but to offer to that world something it

would not have had access to had it not been for their private creative work.

My granddaughter, Scarlett, also came to exhibit behaviors that

were indicative of, if not her creative ability, then at least her

appreciation for creative ability, in addition to her socialization as an agent of socially valued pointing. When people discuss a story—

presented as a movie, or a play, or a book—they commonly attempt to

come to a sophisticated consensus about its point (sophisticated

because a group of people can generally offer more viewpoints than a

single individual; consensus because the discussion usually continues

until some broad agreement is reached as to the topic at hand). Now,

the idea that a story is a form of communication—and entertainment—

is one of those facts that appears self-evident upon first consideration, but that becomes more mysterious the longer it is pondered. If it is

true that a story has a point, then it is clear that it is pointing to

something. But what, and how? What constitutes pointing is obvious when it is an action specifying a particular thing, or a person by a

particular person, but much less obvious when it is something

typifying the cumulative behavior, shall we say, of a character in a

story.

The actions and attitudes of J. K. Rowling’s heroes and heroines

once again provide popular examples of precisely this process. Harry

Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger are typified in large part

by the willingness and ability to follow rules (indicating their expertise as apprentices) and, simultaneously, to break them. While those who

supervise them are inclined, equally, to reward both apparently

paradoxical forms of behavior. Even the technologies used by the

young wizards during their apprenticeship are characterized by this

duality. The Marauder’s Map, for example (which provides its bearer

with an accurate representation of explored territory in the form of the physical layout or geography of Hogwarts, the wizarding school, as

well as the locale of all its living denizens), can be activated as a

functional tool only by uttering a set of words that seem to indicate the very opposite of moral behavior: “I solemnly swear that I am up to no

good,” and deactivated, so that its function remains secret, with the

phrase “Mischief managed.”

It is no easy matter to understand how an artifact that requires such

statements to make it usable could possibly be anything but “no

good”—a tool of evil purpose, apparently. But, like the fact that Harry and his friends regularly but carefully break rules, and are equally

regularly and carefully rewarded for doing so, the Marauder’s Map

varies in its ethical desirability with the intent of its users. There is a strong implication throughout the series that what is good cannot be

simply encapsulated by mindless or rigid rule following, no matter

how disciplined that following, or how vital the rules so followed.

What this all means is that the Harry Potter series does not point to

drone-like subservience to social order as the highest of moral virtues.

What supersedes that obedience is not so obvious that it can be easily

articulated, but it is something like “Follow rules except when doing so undermines the purpose of those selfsame rules—in which case take

the risk of acting in a manner contrary to what has been agreed upon

as moral.” This is a lesson that seems more easily taught by

representations of the behaviors that embody it than transmitted by, say, rote learning or a variant rule. Meta-rules (which might be

regarded as rules about rules, rather than rules themselves) are not

necessarily communicated in the same manner as simple rules

themselves.

Scarlett, with her emphasis on pointing, learned soon after

mastering the comparatively straightforward physical act, to grasp the

more complex point of narratives. She could signify something with

her index finger at the age of a year and a half. By two and a half years, however, she could understand and imitate the far more intricate

point of a story. For a period of approximately six months, at the latter age, she would insist, when asked, that she was Pocahontas, rather

than Ellie (the name preferred by her father) or Scarlett (preferred by her mother). This was a staggering act of sophisticated thought, as far as I was concerned. She had been given a Pocahontas doll, which

became one of her favorite toys, along with a baby doll (also very well loved), who she named after her grandmother, my wife, Tammy.

When she played with the infant doll, Ellie was the mother. With

Pocahontas, however, the situation differed. That doll was not a baby,

and Ellie was not its mother. My granddaughter regarded herself,

instead, as the grown Pocahontas—mimicking the doll, which was

fashioned like a young woman, as well as the character who served as

the lead in the Disney movie of the same name, which she had raptly

observed on two separate occasions.

The Disney Pocahontas bore marked similarities to the main

protagonists of the Harry Potter series. She finds herself promised by

her father to Kocoum, a brave warrior who embodies, in all

seriousness, the virtues of his tribe, but whose behavior and attitudes are too rule bound for the more expansive personality of his bride-to-be. Pocahontas falls in love, instead, with John Smith, captain of a

ship from Europe and representative of that which falls outside of

known territory but is (potentially) of great value. Paradoxically,

Pocahontas is pursuing a higher moral order in rejecting Kocoum for

Smith—breaking a profoundly important rule (value what is most

valued in the current culture’s hierarchy of rules)—very much in the

same manner as the primary Potter characters. That is the moral of

both narratives: follow the rules until you are capable of being a

shining exemplar of what they represent, but break them when those very rules now constitute the most dire impediment to the

embodiment of their central virtues. And Elizabeth Scarlett, not yet

three years of age, had the intrinsic wisdom to see this as the point of what she was watching (the Disney movie) and using as a role-playing

aid (the doll Pocahontas). Her perspicacity in this regard bordered on

the unfathomable.

The same set of ideas—respect for the rules, except when following

those rules means disregarding or ignoring or remaining blind to an

even higher moral principle—is represented with stunning power in

two different Gospel narratives (which serve, regardless of your

opinion about them, as central traditional or classical stories

portraying a personality for the purposes of evoking imitation). In the first, Christ is presented, even as a child, as a master of the Jewish

tradition. This makes him fully informed as to the value of the past,

and portrays him as characterized by the respect typical, say, of the

genuine conservative. According to the account in Luke 2:42–52, *

Jesus’s family journeyed to Jerusalem every year at the Jewish holiday

of Passover:

And when he was twelve years old, they went up to

Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned,

the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and

his mother knew not of it.

But they, supposing him to have been in the company,

went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their

kinsfolk and acquaintance.

And when they found him not, they turned back again to

Jerusalem, seeking him.

And it came to pass, that after three days they found him

in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both

hearing them, and asking them questions.

And all that heard him were astonished at his

understanding and answers.

And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his

mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with

us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist

ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?

And they understood not the saying which he spake unto

them.

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and

was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings

in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour

with God and man.

A paradox emerges, however, as the entirety of the Gospel accounts

are considered—one closely associated with the tension between

respect for tradition and the necessity for creative transformation.

Despite the evidence of His thorough and even precocious

understanding and appreciation of the rules, the adult Christ

repeatedly and scandalously violates the Sabbath traditions—at least

from the standpoint of the traditionalists in His community, and much

to His own peril. He leads His disciples through a cornfield, for

example, plucking and eating the grains (Luke 6:1). He justifies this to the Pharisees who object by referring to an account of King David

acting in a similar manner, feeding his people when necessity

demanded it on bread that was reserved for the priests (Luke 6:4).

Christ tells his interlocutors quite remarkably “that the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5).

An ancient document known as the Codex Bezae,* a noncanonical variant of part of the New Testament, offers an interpolation just after the section of the Gospel of Luke presented above, shedding profound

light on the same issue. It offers deeper insight into the complex and

paradoxical relationship between respect for the rules and creative

moral action that is necessary and desirable, despite manifesting itself in apparent opposition to those rules. It contains an account of Christ addressing someone who, like Him, has broken a sacred rule: “On that

same day, observing one working on the Sabbath, [Jesus] said to him

O Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blest; but if

thou knowest not, thou art accursed, and a transgressor of the Law. ”12

What does this statement mean? It sums up the meaning of Rule I perfectly. If you understand the rules—their necessity, their

sacredness, the chaos they keep at bay, how they unite the

communities that follow them, the price paid for their establishment,

and the danger of breaking them—but you are willing to fully shoulder

the responsibility of making an exception, because you see that as

serving a higher good (and if you are a person with sufficient character to manage that distinction), then you have served the spirit, rather

than the mere law, and that is an elevated moral act. But if you refuse to realize the importance of the rules you are violating and act out of self-centered convenience, then you are appropriately and inevitably

damned. The carelessness you exhibit with regard to your own

tradition will undo you and perhaps those around you fully and

painfully across time.

This is in keeping with other sentiments and acts of Christ described

in the Gospels. Matthew 12:11 states: “And he said unto them, What

man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?”

Luke chapter 6 describes Him healing a man with a withered hand on

another Sabbath, stating “It is lawful on the Sabbath days to do good,

or to do evil? to save life, or destroy it?” (Luke 6:9). This

psychologically and conceptually painful juxtaposition of two moral

stances (the keeping of the Sabbath versus the injunction to do good)

is something else that constantly enrages the Pharisees, and is part of the series of events that eventually leads to Christ’s arrest and

Crucifixion. These stories portray the existential dilemma that

eternally characterizes human life: it is necessary to conform, to be

disciplined, and to follow the rules—to do humbly what others do; but

it is also necessary to use judgment, vision, and the truth that guides conscience to tell what is right, when the rules suggest otherwise. It is the ability to manage this combination that truly characterizes the

fully developed personality: the true hero.

A certain amount of arbitrary rule-ness must be tolerated—or

welcomed, depending on your point of view—to keep the world and its

inhabitants together. A certain amount of creativity and rebellion must be tolerated—or welcomed, depending on your point of view—to

maintain the process of regeneration. Every rule was once a creative

act, breaking other rules. Every creative act, genuine in its creativity, is likely to transform itself, with time, into a useful rule. It is the living interaction between social institutions and creative achievement that

keeps the world balanced on the narrow line between too much order

and too much chaos. This is a terrible conundrum, a true existential

burden. We must support and value the past, and we need to do that

with an attitude of gratitude and respect. At the same time, however,

we must keep our eyes open—we, the visionary living—and repair the

ancient mechanisms that stabilize and support us when they falter.

Thus, we need to bear the paradox that is involved in simultaneously

respecting the walls that keep us safe and allowing in enough of what

is new and changing so that our institutions remain alive and healthy.

The very world depends for its stability and its dynamism on the

subsuming of all our endeavors under the perfection—the sacredness—

of that dual ability.

Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative

achievement.

RULE II

IMAGINE WHO YOU COULD BE, AND THEN AIM

SINGLE-MINDEDLY AT THAT

WHO ARE YOU—AND WHO COULD YOU BE?

How do you know who you are? After all, you are complex beyond

your own understanding; more complex than anything else that exists,

excepting other people; complex beyond belief. And your ignorance is

further complicated by the intermingling of who you are with who you

could be. You are not only something that is. You are something that is becoming—and the potential extent of that becoming also transcends

your understanding. Everyone has the sense, I believe, that there is

more to them than they have yet allowed to be realized. That potential

is often obscured by poor health, misfortune, and the general tragedies and mishaps of life. But it can also be hidden by an unwillingness to

take full advantage of the opportunities that life offers—abetted by

regrettable errors of all sorts, including failures of discipline, faith, imagination, and commitment. Who are you? And, more importantly,

who could you be, if you were everything you could conceivably be?

Are such questions impossible to answer, or are there sources

available to us from which guidance might be derived? After all, we

have been observing ourselves behave—in our successes and failures—

for tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of years. During that time,

our shamans, prophets, mystics, artists, poets, and bards have distilled something vital from such observations—some concentrated essence

of what makes us human in actuality and possibility. In doing so, they

have provided us with representations of that vital essence, presenting itself to us as that which can be neither ignored nor forgotten. Those

creative people write and act out the dramas and tell us the stories that capture our imagination, and they fill our dreams with visions of what

might be. The deepest and most profound of these are remembered,

discussed, and otherwise honed collectively, and made the focus of

rituals that unite us across the centuries, forming the very basis of our cultures. These are the stories upon which the ritual, religious, and

philosophical edifices characterizing sophisticated, populous,

successful societies are built.

The stories we can neither ignore nor forget are unforgettable for

this reason (among others): They speak to something we know, but do

not know that we know. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates

believed that all learning was a form of remembering. Socrates posited

that the soul, immortal in its essence, knew everything before it was

born anew as an infant. However, at the point of birth all previous

knowledge was forgotten and had to be recalled through the

experiences of life. There is much to be said for this hypothesis,

strange as it might now appear. There is much that we could do—much that our bodies and minds are capable of doing—that remains

dormant, right down to the genetic level. Exposure to new experience

activates this dormant potential, releasing abilities built into us over the vast span of our evolutionary history. 1 This is perhaps the most basic manner in which our bodies retain past wisdom and draw upon

it when necessary. It is in this way, although not only in this way, that human possibility exists. Thus, there is something profound to be said

for the concept of learning as remembering.

Obviously, as well as “remembering” (as in the turning on of innate

but hidden possibilities), we can learn much that is new. This is one of the primary factors differentiating us from animals. Even complex and

intelligent mammals such as chimpanzees and dolphins tend to repeat

their species-typical behaviors generation after generation, with very

little change. Humans, by contrast, can and continually do seek out

and encounter what is new, investigate and adapt to it, and make it

part of themselves. We can, as well, translate something we already

know at one level of representation into knowledge at another. We can

watch the actions of a living creature, animal or human, and then

imitate them, translating our perceptions of their movement into new

movements of our own. We can even generalize such imitative acts,

catching the “spirit” of what or whom we are observing, and producing new ways of seeing and acting that are in some manner similar to that

spirit. * This is part of what makes up the basis of the deeply embodied implicit knowledge that forms so much of the basis of our true

understanding. We can also observe someone act or something occur

and write down what we see, translating action into language that

outlasts its utterance—and then communicate it later in the absence of

what or whom is being described. Finally, and most mysteriously, we

can imagine and then act out something that has simply not been seen

before, something that is truly original. And we can code and represent all that ability—adaptive action and its transformation—in the stories

we tell about those we admire, as well as those we hate. And that is

how we determine who we are, and who we could perhaps become.

Stories become unforgettable when they communicate sophisticated

modes of being—complex problems and equally complex solutions—

that we perceive, consciously, in pieces, but cannot fully articulate. It was for this reason, for example, that the biblical story of Moses and

the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt became such a powerful touchstone

for black slaves seeking emancipation in the United States:

Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land

Tell old Pharaoh

To let my people go.2

The biblical story of Exodus is properly regarded as archetypal (or

paradigmatic or foundational) by psychoanalytic and religious

thinkers alike, because it presents an example of psychological and

social transformation that cannot be improved upon. It emerged as a

product of imagination and has been transformed by constant

collective retelling and reworking into an ultimately meaningful form

that applies politically, economically, historically, personally, and

spiritually, all at the same time. This is the very definition of literary depth—something that reaches its apogee in certain forms of ancient,

traditional stories. The fact of that depth means that such accounts can be used diversely as a meaningful frame for any process of profound

change experienced by any individual or society (stable state, descent

into chaos, reestablishment of stability), and can lend that process multidimensional reality, context, powerful meaning, and motivation.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNFORGETTABLE

How might an unforgettable story come to be? What might precede its

revelation? It is at the very least the consequence of a long period of observation. Imagine a scientist monitoring the behavior of a wolf

pack, or a troop of chimps—indeed, any group of complex social

animals. He or she attempts to identify regularities in the behavior of the individuals and the group (patterns, in a word) and to articulate

those regularities—to encapsulate them in language. The scientist

might first relate a series of anecdotes about animal actions

emblematic of the general behavior of the species. He or she might

then abstract even further, attempting to generalize across anecdotes

with rule-like descriptions. I say “rule-like” because the animals are

not following rules. Rules require language. Animals are merely acting

out regularities. They cannot formulate, understand, or follow rules.

But human beings? We can observe ourselves acting, as a scientist

might—more accurately, as a storyteller might. Then we can tell the

stories to each other. The stories are already distillations of observed behavior (if they are not distillations, they will not be interesting;

relating a sequence of everyday actions does not make for a good

story). Once the story is established, we can analyze it, looking for

deeper patterns and regularities. If that analysis is successful, we can generalize across anecdotes with the formulation of rules, and then we

can learn, consciously, to follow those rules. Here is how this might

happen. We all react judgmentally when a child or adult—or, indeed, a

society—is acting improperly, unfairly, or badly. The error strikes us

emotionally. We intuit that a pattern upon which individual and social

adaptation depends has been disrupted and violated. We are annoyed,

frustrated, hurt, or grief-stricken at the betrayal. This does not mean that each of us, reacting emotionally, has been successful at

articulating a comprehensive philosophy of good and evil. We may

never put our finger on what has gone wrong. However, like children

unfamiliar with a new game but still able to play it, we know that the rules are being broken.

Something precisely like this is portrayed in the biblical story of

Exodus, the ancient account of the flight of the Hebrew slaves from

their Egyptian masters. Moses, who leads the escaping people, is

continually called upon by his followers to draw very fine moral

distinctions when they struggle with one another and seek his advice.

In consequence, he spends a very long time observing and

contemplating their behavior. It is as if the desert prophet had to

discover what rules he and his Israelite followers were already

struggling to act out, prior to his receipt of the explicit commandments from God. Remember: Every society is already characterized by

patterned behavior; otherwise it would be pure conflict and no

“society” at all. But the mere fact that social order reigns to some

degree does not mean that a given society has come to explicitly

understand its own behavior, its own moral code. It is therefore no

accident that in this story Moses serves as a judge for his followers—

and does so with sufficient duration and intensity to exhaust himself—

before he receives the Ten Commandments:

And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge

the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning

unto the evening.

And when Moses’ father in law saw all that he did to the

people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the

people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people

stand by thee from morning unto even?

And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people

come unto me to inquire of God:

When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge

between one and another, and I do make them know the

statutes of God, and his laws.

And Moses’ father in law said unto him, The thing that

thou doest is not good.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people

that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art

not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18: 13–18)

This difficult exercise in discrimination and judgment, observing and weighing, is an integral part of what prepared the biblical

patriarch for the receipt of divine revelation. If there had been no

behavioral base for those rules—no historical precedent codified in

traditional ethics, no conventions, and no endless hours of observation of the moral patterns—the commandments simply could not have been

understood and communicated, much less obeyed.

An unforgettable story captures the essence of humanity and

distills, communicates, and clarifies it, bringing what we are and what we should be into focus. It speaks to us, motivating the attention that inspires us to imitate. We learn to see and act in the manner of the

heroes of the stories that captivate us. These stories call to capacities that lie deep within our nature but might still never develop without

that call. We are dormant adventurers, lovers, leaders, artists, and

rebels, but need to discover that we are all those things by seeing the reflection of such patterns in dramatic and literary form. That is part of being a creature that is part nature and part culture. An

unforgettable story advances our capacity to understand our behavior,

beyond habit and expectation, toward an imaginative and then

verbalized understanding. Such a story presents us in the most

compelling manner with the ultimate adventure, the divine romance,

and the eternal battle between good and evil. All this helps us clarify our understanding of moral and immoral attitude and action, personal

and social. This can be seen everywhere, and always.

Question: Who are you—or, at least, who could you be? Answer:

Part of the eternal force that constantly confronts the terrible

unknown, voluntarily; part of the eternal force that transcends naivete and becomes dangerous enough, in a controlled manner, to

understand evil and beard it in its lair; and part of the eternal force that faces chaos and turns it into productive order, or that takes order that has become too restrictive, reduces it to chaos, and renders it

productive once again.

And all of this, being very difficult to understand consciously but

vital to our survival, is transmitted in the form of the stories that we cannot help but attend to. And it is in this manner that we come to

apprehend what is of value, what we should aim at, and what we could

be.

MATERIA PRIMA: WHO YOU COULD BE (I)

I would like to try my hand at explaining the meaning of the

illustration, based on an ancient alchemical woodcut, that opens this

chapter. Describing what it signifies reveals how much information

can be contained within an image without the viewer possessing any

explicit understanding of its contents (such a picture is in fact better considered an early stage in the process by which such explicit

understanding develops). The ancient alchemist* who produced the picture was dreaming, in a very real sense, while doing so—dreaming

about what a person could be, and how that might come about.

At the very base of the image is a winged sphere. Atop that perches a

dragon. Standing on the dragon is a two-headed human figure—one

head male, the other female. The male head is associated with an

image of the Sun; the female, with the Moon. In between but also

above the two heads is the symbol for Mercury: god, planet, and metal,

simultaneously. A variety of additional symbols round out the picture.

Everything portrayed is enveloped in an egg-shaped container. This

arrangement indicates that the image is of many things inside one

thing—a multiplicity in a unity—just as an unhatched chick is

encapsulated within a single container but is many increasingly

differentiated and complex biological parts, particularly in its later

stages of development. In its entirety, the image is labeled materia

prima—Latin for the “primal element.”

The alchemists regarded the materia prima as the fundamental

substance from which everything else—matter and spirit included,

equally—emerged, or was derived. You can profitably consider that

primal element the potential we face when we confront the future,

including our future selves—or the potential we cannot help

upbraiding ourselves and others for wasting. It can also be usefully

conceptualized as the information from which we build ourselves and

the world, instead of the matter out of which we generally consider

reality composed. Each interpretation—potential and information—

has its advantages.

What does it mean that the world can be usefully considered as

potential or information? Think about what happens, for example,

when you stop by the mailbox and pick up your mail. Consider, as well,

what that mail is “made of.” Materially speaking, it is merely paper and ink. But that material substrate is essentially irrelevant. It would not matter if the message was delivered by email or voice—or in Morse

code, for that matter. What is relevant is the content. And that means

that each piece of mail is a container of content—of potential or

information, positive, neutral, or negative. Maybe, for example, it is a notification of investigation from your country’s tax department. This

means that, despite its apparently harmless presence in your hand, the

letter is tightly and inextricably connected to a gigantic, complex and oft-arbitrary structure that may well not have your best interests in

mind. Alternatively, perhaps it is something joyful, such as an

unexpected letter from someone loved or a long-awaited check. From

such a perspective, an envelope is a container—a mysterious container,

at least in potential—from which an entire new world might emerge.

Everyone understands this idea, even if they do not know it. If you

have been having trouble with the tax authorities, for example, and

you receive an official piece of mail from their agency, your blood

pressure will increase (or drop precipitously), your heart will pound,

your palms will sweat, and a feeling of intense fear, even doom, may

sweep over you. That is the instinctive response, associated with

preparation for action, that accompanies exposure to danger. And now

you will have to decide: are you going to open the letter and face what is “inside”? And, having done so, are you going to think your way

through the problem, terrible as that might be, and begin to address

it? Or are you going to ignore what you now know, pretend that

everything is all right (even though you know, emotionally—as a

consequence of your anxiety—that it is not), and pay the inevitable

psychological and physical price? It is the former route that will

require you to voluntarily confront what you are afraid of—the terrible, abstract monster—and, hypothetically, to become stronger and more

integrated as a result. It is the latter route that will leave the problem in its monstrous form and force you to suffer like a scared animal

confronted by a predator’s vicious eyes in the pitch of night.

A winged sphere, inscribed with a square, a triangle, and the

numerals 3 and 4 occupies the bottom third of the image in question.*

This singular entity or object was known by the alchemists as the

“round chaos.” 3 It is a container—the initial container of the

primordial element—the container of what the world, and the psyche, consists of before it becomes differentiated. This is the potential, or information. This is what attracts your attention unconsciously and

compels you to attend to something before you know why it has

gripped your interest. This is when and where what is new makes its

entrance into what is predictable and certain (for better or worse);

what flits about you, with little voluntary control—as if it is something winged—as your imagination and your attention move unpredictably

but meaningfully from association to association; and it is what you

are looking at when you have no idea what it is you are confronting.

Finally, it is what you cannot look away from when you are possessed

by horror, even as such potential for horror simultaneously adds vital

interest to life.

Strangely, the round chaos may be familiar to modern audiences

(again, even if they do not know it), because of the Harry Potter series of books and films. J. K. Rowling, the series author, takes some pains

to describe a sporting event, Quidditch, which helps to define and

unify Hogwarts. The point of Quidditch is to drive a ball (the Quaffle) through one of the three hoops guarded by the opposing team, while

flying about the playing pitch on enchanted brooms. Success in doing

so gains the scorer’s team 10 points. Simultaneously, two separate

players (one from each team) play another game—a game within the

game. Chosen for their exceptional skill in attention and flight, these two competitors—known as Seekers—attempt to locate, chase, and

capture a winged ball, the Snitch, which is identical in appearance to

the round chaos that sits at the bottom of the alchemist’s image. The

Snitch is golden—indicating its exceptional value and purity*—and zips around chaotically, at a very fast rate, darting, weaving, bobbing, and racing the Seekers as they pursue it astride their brooms. If a

Seeker captures the Snitch, his or her team gains 150 points (typically enough to ensure victory) and the entire game comes to an end. This

indicates that chasing and capturing whatever is represented by the

Snitch—and, by implication, the round chaos—is a goal whose

importance supersedes any other. * Why is Rowling’s game, conjured up for us by her deep imagination, structured in that manner? What

does her narrative idea signify? There are two ways of answering these

questions (although both answers relate importantly to each other):

First: In Rule I, we discussed the idea that the true winner of any game is the person who plays fair. This is because playing fair, despite the particularities of any given game, is a higher-order

accomplishment than mere victory. Striving to play fair, in the

ultimate sense—following the spirit of the rules, as well as the letter—

is an indication of true personality development, predicated as it is on concern for true reciprocity. The Seekers of the Snitch must ignore the details of the game of Quidditch, of which they are still a part, while attempting to find and seize the Snitch, just as the player of a real-world game must ignore the particularities of that game while

attending to what constitutes truly ethical play, regardless of what is happening on the playing field. Thus, the ethical player, like the

Seeker, indomitably pursues what is most valuable in the midst of

complex, competing obligations.

Second: Among the alchemists, the round chaos was associated with

the winged god Mercury, who served as messenger from the realm of

the divine, guide of souls to the underworld, and bringer of good

fortune. It is for this reason that the ancient symbol for Mercury is

located at the very pinnacle (the most important location) of the image in question. It is an attempt to indicate what guides the process that

the picture represents. Centuries ago, prior to the dawn of modern

chemistry, the god Mercury represented what inspires or attracts

interest involuntarily. He was the spirit who possessed a person when

his or her attention was drawn irresistibly to some person, situation,

or event. Imagine that there are very complex processes going on in

your mind unconsciously, highlighting events of potential worth and

distinguishing them from everything else constantly unfolding around

you. Imagine that those processes that distinguish value are alive,

which is certainly the case, and that they are complex and integrated

enough to be conceptualized as a personality. That is Mercury. The

draw he exerts on our attention reveals itself in a sense of significance

—in the sense that something happening around you is worth

attending to, or contains something of value. The Seeker—in real life,

as well as in Rowling’s Potter series and its Quidditch game—is he or

she who takes that sense of significance more seriously than anything

else. The Seeker is therefore the person who is playing the game that

everyone else is playing (and who is disciplined and expert at the

game), but who is also playing an additional, higher-order game: the pursuit of what is of primary significance. The Snitch (like the round

chaos) can therefore be considered the “container” of that primary

significance—that meaning—and, therefore, something revelatory

when pursued and caught. We might in this context remember what

has come to be known as the Golden Rule: “And as ye would that men

should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). There is

nothing more important than learning to strive under difficult and

frustrating circumstances to play fair. This is what should be chased,

so to speak, during any game (even though it is also important to try to obtain victory in the game).*

Each of us, when fortunate, is compelled forward by something that

grips our attention—love of a person; a sport; a political, sociological, or economic problem, or a scientific question; a passion for art,

literature, or drama—something that calls to us for reasons we can

neither control nor understand (try to make yourself interested in

something you just do not care about and see how well that works).

The phenomena that grip us ( phenomena: from the Greek word

phainesthai, “to appear, or to be brought to light”) are like lamps along a dark path: they are part of the unconscious processes devoted

to integrating and furthering the development of our spirits, the

furtherance of our psychological development. You do not choose what

interests you. It chooses you. Something manifests itself out of the

darkness as compelling, as worth living for; following that, something

moves us further down the road, to the next meaningful manifestation

—and so it goes, as we continue to seek, develop, grow, and thrive. It is a perilous journey, but it is also the adventure of our lives. Think of pursuing someone you love: catch them or not, you change in the

process. Think, as well, of the traveling you have done, or of the work you have undertaken, whether for pleasure or necessity. In all these

cases you experience what is new. Sometimes that is painful;

sometimes it is better than anything else that has ever happened to

you. Either way, it is deeply informative. It is all part of the potential of the world, calling you into Being, changing you forever—for better or

worse—in consequence of your pursuit.

Atop the round chaos perches a dragon. This is because what is

interesting and meaningful (and novel and unexpected, as those all go

together) manifests itself in a form that is both dangerous and promising, particularly when its grip is intense and irresistible. The

danger is, of course, signified by the presence of the immortal,

predatory reptile; the promise is hinted at, as a dragon archetypally

guards a great treasure. Thus, the drawing represents a psychological

progression. First, you find yourself interested in something. That

something (the round chaos) contains or is composed of potential, or

information. If it is pursued and caught, it releases that information.

Out of that information we build the world we perceive, and we build

ourselves as perceivers. Thus, the round chaos is the container from

which both matter (the world) and spirit (our psyches) emerge. There

is some numerological indication of this on the spherical body of the

round chaos itself: the number 3, accompanied by a triangle, which is

traditionally associated with spirit (because of its association with the Holy Trinity), and the number 4, associated with the world of matter

(because of its association with the four traditional elements: earth,

water, wind, and fire). The dragon, in turn, perched on top of the

round chaos, represents the danger and possibility of the information

within.

Atop the dragon stands a figure known as a Rebis, a single body

with two heads, one male, one female. The Rebis is a symbol of the

fully developed personality that can emerge from forthright and

courageous pursuit of what is meaningful (the round chaos) and

dangerous and promising (the dragon). It has a symbolically

masculine aspect, which typically stands for exploration, order, and

rationality (indicated by the Sun, which can be seen to the left of the male head), and a symbolically feminine aspect, which stands for

chaos, promise, care, renewal, and emotion (indicated by the Moon, to

the right of the female). In the course of normal socialization, it is

typical for one of these aspects to become more developed than the

other (as males are socialized in the male manner, to which they are

also inclined biologically, and females in the female manner).

Nonetheless, it is possible—with enough exploration, enough exposure

to the round chaos and the dragon—to develop both elements. That

constitutes an ideal—or so goes the alchemical intuition.

Out of the unknown—the potential that makes up the world—comes

the terrible but promising form of the dragon, peril and promise

united. It is an eternal dichotomy echoed by the presence of the two remaining symbols to the right and above the dragon’s tail: Jupiter,

representing the positive, and Saturn, the negative. Out of the

confrontation with peril and promise emerges the masculine and

feminine aspects of the psyche, working together in harmony. Guiding

the process is the spirit Mercurius, manifesting itself as meaning in the world, working through unconscious means to attract exploration to

what will unite the various discordant and warring elements of the

personality. This can all be read, appropriately, as a story of the

development of the ideal personality—an attempt, in image, to

describe what each of us could be.

POLYTHEISM INTO MONOTHEISM, AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE

VIRTUOUS HERO: WHO YOU COULD BE (II)

Now we are going to attempt a description of “who you could be” from

another perspective, taken from one of the earliest stories we have

been fortunate enough to rediscover. In the ancient Mesopotamian

Enuma Elish (translation: When on High) we have the oldest near-complete hero myth known, estimated at four thousand years of age in

its written form and, no doubt, far older as an oral tradition. The story begins when the primordial goddess Tiamat, embodiment of salt water

(as well as a monstrous aquatic dragon), enters into sexual union with

her equally primordial male consort, Apsu, the embodiment of fresh

water. This union gives rise to the initial realm of being, inhabited by the elder gods, the first children of Tiamat and Apsu.

To understand the beginning of this story, we need to know a few

things the ancients held to be fundamentally true. These are markedly

different from the truths of modern science. Before the dawn of the

scientific worldview, a mere six hundred years ago, reality was construed as all that which human beings experience. That which we

experience can be distinguished, conceptually, from reality as

objective world—pure physical being — by its more comprehensive contents, which include subjective experiences such as emotions,

dreams, visions, and motivational states such as hunger, thirst, and

pain. That which we experience is better compared to a novel or a

movie, which concentrates on the communication and sharing of subjective as well as objective states, than is reality as objective world, which we might liken to a scientific description of physical reality. It is the actual, particular, and unique demise of someone you love, for

example, compared to the listing of that death in the hospital records.

It is the drama of lived experience. It is because our own experience is genuinely literary, narrative, embodied, and storylike that we are so

attracted to fictional representations. Movies, plays, operas, TV

dramas—even the lyrics of songs—help us deal with our lived

experiences, which are something different and broader than the mere

material from which our experience hypothetically rises.

Engaging with the first part of the Enuma Elish requires us to

understand a second fundamental realization of the ancients: the

fundamentally social nature of our cognitive categories. That is why

everything is personified in children’s books: the Sun, the Moon, toys, animals—even machines. We see nothing strange in this, because it so

profoundly mirrors our perceptual tendencies. We expect children to

view and understand the world in this manner, and we can easily fall

back into doing so ourselves. Something should be clarified here: It is not truly accurate to state that the reality portrayed in children’s

fiction is personified. It is the case, instead (and this is a genuine

reversal of the presumption in question), that we directly and

naturally perceive reality as personified, and then must work very

diligently to strip that personification away, so that we can detect

“objective reality.” * We understand reality, therefore, as if it is constructed of personalities. That is because so much of what we

encounter in our hypersocial reality, our complex societies, is in fact personality—and gendered personality, at that, reflecting the billion

years or so since the emergence of sexual reproduction (ample time for

its existence to have profoundly structured our perceptions). We

understand male, and abstract from that the masculine. We

understand female, and abstract from that the feminine. Finally, we

understand the child, and abstract from that, most commonly, the son.

These basic divisions are clearly reflected in the creation story of the Enuma Elish, just as they are reflected in, or more accurately

underpin, our understanding of the stories we all know.

Tiamat, the primordial goddess, is chaos, a female monster, a dragon. She is the terror of nature, creative and destructive, mother

and slayer of us all. Apsu, her husband, is the eternal father. He is the order that we depend upon for security, and by which we are

simultaneously tyrannized. * These two most primal of deities come together in a productive, sexual union, “mingling their waters,” in the ancient words. In this fashion, they produce their first progeny, the

elder gods of Mesopotamia. These gods represent elements of the

world more differentiated than the primordial mother and father—

such as heaven and earth, mud and silt, and war and fire.* However, they are also careless, noisy, and impulsive as two-year-old children

(who are, after all, primal forces in their own right). Their continual ceaseless, thoughtless activity and general unconsciousness

culminates in a catastrophe: their mutual decision to wage war upon

and then slay Apsu, and consequent attempt to build a stable dwelling

place on his corpse.

Tiamat—chaos itself—already irritated by the brainless racket of her

children, is murderously enraged by the heedless slaughter of her

husband. The Terrible Goddess builds an army of eleven monsters to

deal with her wayward offspring, placing a demonic figure named

Kingu, whom she takes as a second husband, at their head, and

delivering to him the Tablet of Destinies (indicating his authority as

ultimate ruler of the universe). The relationship between this brilliant dramatic representation and how we use, or misuse, the gifts of our

culture is obvious: the careless demolition of tradition is the invitation to the (re)emergence of chaos. When ignorance destroys culture,

monsters will emerge.

While Tiamat busily arranges her army, the elder gods continue

their activity, pairing off, producing children, and then grandchildren, of their own. One of the latter, Marduk, appears particularly talented, powerful, and promising. He is born with eyes encircling his head. He

can see everywhere. He can speak magic words. He is something

entirely new—and this is noted early by his progenitors. While Marduk

matures, the elder gods are compelled to confront Tiamat, with whom

they are now at war. One after another they attempt to defeat her. All

return in abject failure. Finally, someone suggests that Marduk,

though still young, should be sent to confront his terrible

grandmother. Approached with this idea, he agrees, but only on the condition that he is awarded the right, henceforth—if he is victorious—

to hold the Tablet of Destinies, and sit atop the dominance hierarchy

of the gods.

It is in this manner that this ancient story describes the emergence

of monotheism out of polytheism. The Enuma Elish appears to be a dramatized account of the psychological or spiritual processes

comprising this transformation. The ancient Mesopotamian

civilization faced the necessity of incorporating and unifying many

diverse tribes and peoples, each of whom had their own gods. The god

who arose out of the conflict between all those gods (“Whose god is

supreme?”) was, therefore, a meta-god—a god composed of what was

most important about all gods. It was for such a reason, for example,

that fifty different names characterized Marduk. This emergence of

one from many is a very common process, described by the scholar of

myth Mircea Eliade as the war of the gods in heaven, a typical

mythological motif, as well as alluded to earlier. * It is the psychological counterpart, in the world of imagination, to the genuine

struggle of concepts of divinity and value on earth. Tribes unite. Each has its gods. The people comprising these multitudinous groups go to

war, concretely and conceptually, for what they believe—sometimes

for generations. It is as if the gods they follow were battling for

dominance over periods exceeding single human lives, using their

followers as proxies. That is reflected in the ancient stories. If and

when the gods come to an agreement about their relative positions—

more particularly, if they arrange themselves into a hierarchy—it

means that peace has genuinely been established, because peace is the

establishment of a shared hierarchy of divinity, of value. Thus, an

eternal question emerges whenever people of different backgrounds

are required to deal with one another on a relatively permanent basis:

What do all gods share that makes them gods? What is God, in

essence?

That is a very difficult question. It is, on the one hand, the question of value: What is of the highest importance? It is, on the other hand,

the question of sovereignty: What principle should rule? These are the

questions posed by those pondering the ultimate source of divine

significance itself. Their difficulty meant that they, and by extension

the question of God, had to be answered over centuries, over millennia. The answer emerged first in story form. The

Mesopotamians brilliantly intuited that the highest god—the highest

good—involved careful attention (the multiple, head-circling eyes of

Marduk) and effective language (the magic words of Marduk, capable

of generating a cosmos), in addition to the courage and strength to

voluntarily confront and overcome chaos, the unknown. It could be

argued that these are the defining features of the great central spirit of mankind, at least insofar as that spirit is noble and admirable.

The ancient Egyptians formulated an idea similar in many

important regards—which we will discuss later in detail—associating

their savior-god Horus, son of Osiris, with the sharp-eyed falcon, and

identifying him with the vision willing to search out, detect,

understand, and defeat evil (symbolized with the famous Egyptian

image of the single eye). Representing that reality— pay attention,

above all, even to what is monstrous and malevolent, and speak

wisely and truthfully—could be the single most important

accomplishment of our species. 4 It allows us to apprehend in dramatic form the fundamental necessity of coming to grips with what our

senses demonstrate to us, no matter how terrifying the reality

revealed. It allows for the possibility of bringing our explicit

understanding closer in line with our deepest being, making possible a

truer union of body and spirit through the partial comprehension and

imitation of the story. Most importantly, perhaps, it allows us to

realize the immense importance of words in transforming potential

into actuality, and helps us understand that the role we each play in

that transformation is in some vital sense akin to the divine.

After his election to the highest of places, Marduk challenges

Tiamat directly, encloses her, defeated, in a giant net, and cuts her into pieces, fashioning the heavens and the earth from her remains. One of

Marduk’s many names is, in fact, “he who makes ingenious things as a

consequence of the conflict with Tiamat. ”5 It might be noted, in this regard, that tens of thousands of years ago, men literally did construct the habitable world out of the pieces of monsters, making their early

dwellings from the giant bones of animals they had so courageously

speared. 6 Marduk simultaneously defeats his grandmother’s monstrous army, including the leader, Kingu, from whom he takes the

Tablet of Destinies, confirming his place as supreme leader of the cosmos. Then he returns home, enemies in tow. His compatriots

celebrate his victory and accede yet more completely to his leadership, before he assigns them their various duties. Then, after consulting Ea, the god of wisdom, Marduk determines to create man, to aid the gods

most fundamentally in the eternal task of maintaining the proper

balance between order and chaos—to release those very gods from

their service, and to transfer their burden onto our all-too-human

shoulders.*

The basic story is this: when order (Apsu) is carelessly threatened or

destroyed, the terrible forces of chaos from which the world was

originally derived appear once again in their most destructive,

monstrous, predatory guise. Then a hero, representing the highest of

values, must arise or be elected to confront this chaotic force. He does so successfully, deriving or producing something of great worth. What

the hero represents is the most important of the great forces that make up the human psyche. To think of it another way: the hero is the

embodied principle of action and perception that must rule over all the primordial psychological elements of lust, rage, hunger, thirst, terror, and joy. For chaos to remain effectively at bay (or, even better, tamed and therefore harnessed), this heroic principle must be regarded as the most important of all things that can organize and motivate mankind.

This means, at least, that it must be continually acted out, which is

what “regarded as important” actually means. It is in this way that the spirit of Marduk still possesses each individual who engages

courageously in the processes of encounter and confrontation that

eternally create and renew society. It is this that happens when each

small child learns to regulate and unite his emotions and motivations

into a coherent personality, and then goes out to challenge the

unknown world.

In slightly altered form, this is the story of St. George: The

inhabitants of an ancient city must obtain water from a well beside the nest of a dragon. To do so, however, they have to offer the dragon

some sacrifice—a sheep, under most circumstances, but a maiden, if

no sheep can be found. The young women of the city draw lots when

the supply of sheep is exhausted. One day it is the daughter of the king herself who loses. St. George appears, confronts the dragon with the

sign of the cross—symbol of the eternal Redeemer, the archetypal hero

—and frees the doomed princess. The city’s inhabitants then convert to

Christianity. Victory over the dragon—the predator, as such, the ruler

of unexplored territory—is victory over all the forces that have

threatened the individual and society, over evolutionary and historical spans of time, as well as the more abstract evil we all still face, without and within. The cross, for its part, is the burden of life. It is a place of betrayal, torture, and death. It is therefore a fundamental symbol of

mortal vulnerability. In the Christian drama, it is also the place where vulnerability is transcended, as a consequence of its acceptance. This

voluntary acceptance is also equivalent to victory over the dragon,

representation of chaos, death, and the unknown. By accepting life’s

suffering, therefore, evil may be overcome. The alternative is hell, at least in its psychological form: rage, resentment, and the desire for

revenge and destruction.

The same story is echoed in the tales of St. Patrick, who chases the

snakes out of Ireland, and St. Michael, who defeats the Christian

equivalent of Kingu, “that ancient serpent called the devil” (Revelation 12:9). This is the same story recounted by J. R. R. Tolkien in The

Hobbit, which was in turn derived from the ancient poem Beowulf, the tale of a hero defeating a pair of intelligent monsters—son, and then

worse, mother. 7 In The Hobbit, the hero develops character and wisdom (as a thief, strangely enough) during his quest to help discover the ancient treasure hoarded by the dragon. The story of Perseus and

Medusa, whose visage was so terrible that it turned onlookers to stone, is another variant, as is Pinocchio, who rescues his father from a

subaquatic monster, and dies and is reborn while doing so. Something

similar is portrayed in the first of the recent Avengers movies, in which Iron Man—the man who has transformed himself into a partly golden

superhero—defeats the alien dragon worms of the Chitauri (allied with

the satanic Loki). He then dies, is reborn, and gets the maiden (in the nonswooning guise of Ms. Pepper Potts). It must be understood: Such

stories would not even be comprehensible (not least to children, as

well as adults) if our evolutionary history had importantly differed,

and if our entire culture had not been shaped, implicitly and explicitly, by these ancient patterns.

All these heroes act out what was perhaps the greatest discovery ever made by man’s primordial ancestors: if you have the vision and

the courage (and a good stout stick, when necessary), you can chase

away the worst of snakes. No doubt the greatest of our ancestors were

beginning to threaten snakes with sticks when we still lived in trees.

No doubt it was those voluntarily snake-chasing ancestors who reaped

the benefits of their bravery in the form of nearby grateful maidens (or their ancestral arboreal equivalents)—and perhaps this is why dragons

hoard virgins, as well as gold. What constitutes the worst of all snakes and the stoutest of all sticks, however, might be regarded as the central religious questions of humanity. It is interesting to note that in The Hobbit, the worst snake is “only” a dragon, but in The Lord of the Rings, the worst snake, so to speak, is the much more abstract evil of the wizard Sauron. As humanity became more sophisticated in its

capacity to abstract, we increasingly appreciated the fact that

predatory monsters can come in many guises, only some of which are

animal in their form. Literature of an arguably more sophisticated

form endlessly echoes this realization.

HERO, DRAGON, DEATH, AND REBIRTH: WHO YOU COULD BE (III)

In the second volume of J. K. Rowling’s fantasy series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the castle of Hogwarts is threatened by strange, chaotic forces, due to the earlier and ongoing misbehavior of

several powerful adult wizards (as established in volume one). Now, it

is significant that Harry is orphaned: it is an integral part of the heroic pattern. He has his earthly parents, the thick and conventional

Dursleys, willfully blind, shortsighted, and terribly overprotective of (and, therefore, tragically dangerous to) Dudley, their unfortunate but predictably self-centered and bullying natural son. But Harry has his

heavenly parents, too, his true mother and father—symbolically,

Nature and Culture (variants of chaos and order). They exist as part of his intrinsically magical potential—the magical potential of all of us, in fact, as we are all children of Nature and Culture, with the tremendous potential that implies, as well as the more mundane offspring of our

particular parents.8

When Harry returns to Hogwarts after his summer vacation, he can detect strange and ominous noises emanating from somewhere in the

building. At the same time, various students and residents of

Hogwarts are found paralyzed—turned to stone—in diverse locations

around the building. Turned to stone: What could that possibly mean?

It certainly means to be unable to move—but it also signifies

something deeper. It means to be hunted; to become a rabbit

confronted by a wolf; to become the horrified and awestruck object of

the predatory gaze. Many herbivores, comparatively defenseless,

facing imminent and brutal death, freeze in place, paralyzed by fear,

depending on camouflage and immobility to render them invisible to

the terrible intentions of nearby red-toothed and razor-clawed

carnivores. Predatory, reptilian forms still particularly have that effect on human beings (hence our awed fascination, for example, with

dinosaurs). But to have no more courage than a rabbit is definitely not to be everything you could be.

Eventually Harry learns that the force turning his friends into stone

is a gigantic snake, a basilisk, whose gaze exerts a paralyzing force. He discovers that this serpent is continually slithering around the very

foundation of Hogwarts, in the immense waterworks that serve the

great castle. This basilisk is an analog to the great dragon faced by

Beowulf, hero of the thousand-year-old story that served as pattern for Tolkien’s adventures, perhaps the twentieth century’s closest cousins

to J. K. Rowling’s extensive fantasy. It is, as well, the great devouring shark of the movie Jaws, lurking in the black water of night, ready at a moment’s notice to pull the naked and unwary below; the fragility of

our homes and our institutions, which can collapse and leave us

stripped of their protective walls in a single terrible moment; and

more comprehensively, the underworld of the ancients, whose doors

gape open when everything predictable collapses. At the deepest of

levels, this is the chaos and potential that continually lurks under the order of our familiar worlds, psychological and social.

After much searching, Harry gains entrance to this underworld

labyrinth of pipes and tunnels, and finds the central chamber. He does

this, significantly, through the sewer, acting out the ancient alchemical dictum, in sterquilinis invenitur: in filth it will be found. * What does this mean? That which you most need to find will be found where you

least wish to look.* There, underground, Ginny (Virgin-ia), his best friend’s sister and Harry’s eventual serious romantic interest, lies

unconscious. She is the maiden—or the anima, the soul—forever

incarcerated by the dragon, as in the tale of St. George. It is up to

Harry, orphaned hero, to wake and rescue her (just as Tolkien’s Bilbo

helps take the gold from the terrible Smaug; just as Disney’s Prince

Phillip rescues Sleeping Beauty—both rescuing what is most valuable

from the clutches of a great dragon).*

And of course, the unknown is a great predator—the basilisk Harry

faces—and of course, that predator guards a great treasure, gold

beyond measure or the sleeping virgin, because the individual brave

enough to voluntarily beard the serpent in his lair is most likely to gain access to the untold riches that exist in potential, awaiting us in the adventure of our life, away from security and what is currently known.

Who dares wins*—if he does not perish. And who wins also makes himself irresistibly desirable and attractive, not least because of the development of character that adventure inevitably produces. And this

is what makes us forever more than rabbits.

And Harry, like Bilbo, can only manage this—can only perceive the

serpent, when it is invisible to everyone else—because he has a dark

side. Tolkien’s Bilbo must become a thief before he can become a hero.

He must incorporate his monstrousness, so that he can supersede his

naive harmlessness, before he is tough enough to face the terrors that

confront him. Harry is touched by evil in another manner, as part of

the incomparably dark wizard Voldemort’s soul is embedded within

him (although neither he nor Voldemort are initially aware of this). It is for this reason that the young wizard can speak with and hear (that

is, perceive) snakes. It is in keeping with this that he is disciplined and courageous, but also willing and ready to break the rules when

necessary.

While in the bowels of Hogwarts, Harry comes under attack by the

basilisk, which is under the control of Voldemort. Voldemort therefore

bears the same relationship to the basilisk in Hogwarts as Satan does,

strangely and incomprehensibly, to the vision-granting serpent in the

Genesis story of the Garden of Eden. Why might this be? It could be

said—and should be—that one form of serpentine chaos and danger is

the threat of the reptilian predator itself. But another form, more

abstract—more psychological, more spiritual—is human evil: the danger we pose to one another. At some point in our evolutionary and

cultural history, we began to understand that human evil could rightly

be considered the greatest of all snakes. So, the symbolic progression

might be (1) snake as evil predator, then (2) external human enemy as

snake/evil/predator, then (3) subjective, personal, or psychological

darkness/vengefulness/deceit as snake/evil/predator. Each of these

representations, which took untold centuries, perhaps millennia to

conceptualize, constitute a tangible increase in the sophistication of

the image of evil. 9

All such manifestations of serpentine chaos and danger are

apparently still first detected, processed, and symbolically

interassociated by the ancient brain systems that evolved to protect us from predatory reptiles. 10 And freezing—prompted by those systems—

solves the problem now, maybe, by hiding the individual who is

currently being preyed upon, but it leaves the predator alive for

tomorrow. Instead, the danger must be hunted down and destroyed—

and even that is too concrete to constitute a permanent solution to the problem of evil itself (rather than a solution to any particular exemplar of evil). Most profoundly and abstractly (paralleling the idea that the greatest predator, the greatest snake, is the evil that lurks within),

evil’s destruction manifests as the life of virtue that constrains

malevolence in its most abstracted and comprehensive form. It is for

this reason, for example, that the Disney prince Phillip of Sleeping Beauty fame is armed for his conflict with the great Dragon of Chaos by benevolent Nature (in the form of the feminine fairies that

accompany him and aid in his escape from Maleficent, the Evil Queen)

with the Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue.

Harry directly confronts the basilisk, down in the Chamber of

Secrets, deep below the wizarding castle, but is cornered and in great

peril. At that propitious moment, a phoenix kept by the wise

headmaster of Hogwarts arrives, provides the young hero with a

sword, and then attacks the giant snake, providing Harry with time to

regroup. Harry slays the basilisk with the weapon, but is fatally bitten in the process. This is another deep mythological echo: In the story of Genesis, for example, the encounter with the snake proves fatal to man

and woman alike, who become aware of their fragility and inevitable

death soon after they awaken and gain vision. It is also a harsh truth: predators devour, dragons lay waste, chaos destroys. The threat is real.

Even truth, virtue, and courage are not necessarily enough, but they

are our best bet. And sometimes a little death is the medication

necessary to forestall death itself. Fortunately, the phoenix has

magical, revivifying tears, which it cries into Harry’s wounds. Thus,

the young wizard revives, defeats Voldemort (a much more

challenging task than merely overcoming the gargantuan serpent),

rescues Ginny, and saves the school.

It is with the introduction of the phoenix to the story of St. George

that Rowling reveals another element of her intuitive genius. The

phoenix is a fowl that can die and be reborn forever. It has, therefore, throughout the ages, been a symbol of Christ, with whom the magical

bird shares many features. It is also, equally, that element of the

individual human personality that must die and regenerate, as it

learns, painfully, through the oft-tragic experience that destroys

previous certainty, replacing it first with doubt, and then—when

successfully confronted—with new and more complete knowledge. A

voluntary death-and-rebirth transformation—the change necessary to

adapt when terrible things emerge—is therefore a solution to the

potentially fatal rigidity of erroneous certainty, excessive order, and stultification.

HOW TO ACT

People exchange information about how to act in many ways. They

observe each other and imitate what they see. When they imitate, they

use their bodies to represent the bodies of others. But this imitation is not mindless, automatized mimicry. It is instead the ability to identify regularities or patterns in the behavior of other people, and then to

imitate those patterns. When a young girl plays at being a mother, for

example, she does not duplicate, gesture for gesture, what she has

previously observed of her mother’s actions. Instead she acts “as if”

she were a mother. If you ask the girl what she is doing, she will tell you that she is pretending to be a mother, but if you get her to describe what that means, particularly if she is a young child, her description

will be far less complete than her actions would indicate. This means she can act out more than she can say—just as we all can. If you

observed many little girls, acting out many mothers, you could derive a very good idea of what “mother” meant, in its purest form, even if you

had never seen an actual mother. If you were good with words, then

perhaps you could describe the essential elements of maternal

behavior and transmit them. You might do that best in the form of a

story.

It is easier and more direct to represent a behavioral pattern with

behavior than with words. Outright mimicry does that directly, action

for action. Imitation, which can produce new behaviors akin to those

that motivated the mimicry, takes that one step further. Drama—

formalized imitation, enacted upon a stage—is precisely behavior

portraying behavior, but distilled ever closer to the essence. Literature takes that transmission one more difficult step, portraying action in

the imagination of the writer and the reader, in the complete absence

of both real actors and a material stage. It is only the greatest of

storytellers who can manage that transformation, representing the

greatest and most vitally necessary of acts in the most interesting,

profound, and memorable words. Generations of great storytellers,

retelling, modifying, and editing great stories, therefore end up jointly creating the greatest of stories. Once cultures become literate

(something that has happened only recently, from the historical

perspective), those stories can be written down. It is at this point,

roughly, that myth and ritual might be said to transform themselves

into religion.

The imitation and communication of the greatest, most memorable

acts necessitates distillation and communication of the patterns of the deepest wisdom of mankind. If a great and memorable act is one

undertaken by a particularly admirable individual, a local hero, then

the greatest and most memorable acts possible would be those

undertaken by the spirit (embodied in part by particular individuals)

who exemplified what all local heroes everywhere have in common.

That hero of heroes—that meta-hero—would have to exist, logically, in

turn, in a place that was common across all places requiring heroism.

That place might be regarded as a meta-world—even though it is real,

even hyperreal (that is, more real in its abstraction across places than

our direct perceptions of a given, singular time or place). It is precisely this hyperreal meta-world that consists of the continual interactions

between chaos and order, which eternally serve as the battleground

between good and evil characterizing the hero. The undying pattern

that hero embodies, in turn—upon whose actions the individual and

society both depend—is the highest of all Gods. He is both child of and mediator between those twin forces, transforming chaos into habitable

order (as well as recasting order into chaos, so that it can be renewed, when it has become anachronistic and corrupt), as well as battling

mightily so that good might prevail.

Everyone requires a story to structure their perceptions and actions

in what would otherwise be the overwhelming chaos of being. Every

story requires a starting place that is not good enough and an ending

place that is better. Nothing can be judged in the absence of that end

place, that higher value. Without it, everything sinks into

meaninglessness and boredom or degenerates and spirals into terror,

anxiety, and pain. But, as time changes all things inexorably, every

specific, value-predicated story may fail, in its particular incarnation and locale, and need replacement by something newer, more

complete, but different. In consequence, the actor of a given story

(and, therefore, someone deeply affiliated with the plot and the

characterization) still must bow to the spirit of creative transformation that originally created and may need to destroy and re-create that

story. It is for this reason that spirit eternally transcends dogma, truth transcends presupposition, Marduk transcends the elder gods,

creativity updates society, and Christ transcends the law (as does

Harry Potter, along with his courageous but continually rule-breaking

friends). But it is important to remember, as we discussed in Rule I:

Those who break the rules ethically are those who have mastered them

first and disciplined themselves to understand the necessity of those

rules, and break them in keeping with the spirit rather than the letter of the law.

The second volume of Rowling’s series proposes that predatory evil

can be overcome by the soul willing to die and be reborn. The

complete series ends with a creatively transformed repetition of the

same message. The analogy with Christianity is obvious, and the

message, in essence, the same: The soul willing to transform, as deeply

as necessary, is the most effective enemy of the demonic serpents of ideology and totalitarianism, in their personal and social forms. The

healthy, dynamic, and above all else truthful personality will admit to error. It will voluntarily shed—let die—outdated perceptions, thoughts, and habits, as impediments to its further success and growth. This is

the soul that will let its old beliefs burn away, often painfully, so that it can live again, and move forward, renewed. This is also the soul that

will transmit what it has learned during that process of death and

rebirth, so that others can be reborn along with it.

Aim at something. Pick the best target you can currently

conceptualize. Stumble toward it. Notice your errors and

misconceptions along the way, face them, and correct them. Get your

story straight. Past, present, future—they all matter. You need to map

your path. You need to know where you were, so that you do not

repeat the mistakes of the past. You need to know where you are, or

you will not be able to draw a line from your starting point to your

destination. You need to know where you are going, or you will drown

in uncertainty, unpredictability, and chaos, and starve for hope and

inspiration. For better or worse, you are on a journey. You are having

an adventure—and your map better be accurate. Voluntarily confront

what stands in your way. The way—that is the path of life, the

meaningful path of life, the straight and narrow path that constitutes

the very border between order and chaos, and the traversing of which

brings them into balance.

Aim at something profound and noble and lofty. If you can find a

better path along the way, once you have started moving forward, then

switch course. Be careful, though; it is not easy to discriminate

between changing paths and simply giving up. (One hint: if the new

path you see forward, after learning what you needed to learn along

your current way, appears more challenging, then you can be

reasonably sure that you are not deluding or betraying yourself when

you change your mind.) In this manner, you will zigzag forward. It is

not the most efficient way to travel, but there is no real alternative, given that your goals will inevitably change while you pursue them, as

you learn what you need to learn while you are disciplining yourself.

You will then find yourself turning across time, incrementally and

gracefully, to aim ever more accurately at that tiny pinpoint, the X that

marks the spot, the bull’s-eye, and the center of the cross; to aim at the highest value of which you can conceive. You will pursue a target that

is both moving and receding: moving, because you do not have the

wisdom to aim in the proper direction when you first take aim;

receding, because no matter how close you come to perfecting what

you are currently practicing, new vistas of possible perfection will open up in front of you. Discipline and transformation will nonetheless lead you inexorably forward. With will and luck, you will find a story that is meaningful and productive, improves itself with time, and perhaps

even provides you with more than a few moments of satisfaction and

joy. With will and luck, you will be the hero of that story, the

disciplined sojourner, the creative transformer, and the benefactor of

your family and broader society.

Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.

RULE III

DO NOT HIDE UNWANTED THINGS IN THE FOG

THOSE DAMNED PLATES

I love my father-in-law. I respect him, too. He is extremely stable

emotionally—one of those tough or fortunate people (perhaps a little

of both) who can let the trials and tribulations of life roll off him and keep moving forward with little complaint and plenty of competence.

He is an old guy now, Dell Roberts—eighty-eight. He has had a knee

replaced, and is planning to get the remaining one done. He has had

stents inserted into his coronary arteries and a heart valve replaced.

He suffers from drop foot and sometimes slips and falls because of it.

But he was still curling a year ago, pushing the heavy granite rock

down the ice with a stick specifically designed for people who can no

longer crouch down as easily as they once could.

When his wife, Beth, now deceased, developed dementia at a

relatively young age, he took care of her in as uncomplaining and

unresentful a manner as anyone could imagine. It was impressive. I

am by no means convinced that I could have fared as well. He cared

for her right to the point where it became impossible for him to lift her out of whatever chair she had settled into. This was long after she had lost the ability to speak. But it was obvious by the way her eyes lit up when he entered the room that she still loved him—and the feeling was

mutual. I would not describe him as someone who is prone to

avoidance when the going gets tough. Quite the contrary.

When Dell was a much younger man, he was for several decades a

real estate dealer in Fairview, Alberta—the small town where I grew up

(we lived right across the street from the Roberts family, in fact).

During that time, he habitually went home for lunch, in accordance with the general custom. Beth typically prepared him soup (probably

Campbell’s, which everyone ate at that time—“M’m! M’m! Good!”),

and a sandwich. One day, without warning, he snapped at his wife:

“Why in the world do we always eat off these tiny plates? I hate eating off these tiny plates!”

She had been serving the sandwiches on bread-and-butter plates,

which average about six or seven inches in diameter, instead of full-

size dinner plates of ten to twelve inches. She related this story to her daughters, soon after, in a state of mild shock. This story has been

retold to much laughter at family gatherings many times since. After

all, she had been serving him lunch on those plates for at least twenty years by the time he finally said anything. She had no idea that he was annoyed by her table settings. He had never objected. And there is

something inexhaustibly amusing about that.

Now, it is possible that he was irritated by something else altogether

that day and did not really care about the plates. And in one sense, it is a trivial issue. But seen another way, it is not trivial at all, for two reasons. First, if something happens every day, it is important, and lunch was happening every day. In consequence, if there was

something about it that was chronically bothersome, even in a minor

sort of way, it needed to be attended to. Second, it is very common to

allow so-called minor irritations (which are not minor, as I said, if they happen constantly) to continue for years without comment or

resolution.

Here is the problem: Collect a hundred, or a thousand, of those, and

your life is miserable and your marriage doomed. Do not pretend you

are happy with something if you are not, and if a reasonable solution

might, in principle, be negotiated. Have the damn fight. Unpleasant as

that might be in the moment, it is one less straw on the camel’s back.

And that is particularly true for those daily events that everyone is

prone to regard as trivial—even the plates on which you eat your

lunch. Life is what repeats, and it is worth getting what repeats right.

JUST NOT WORTH THE FIGHT

Here is a more serious story of the same type. I had a client who had come to see me about her plans to move to private practice after many

years as an accountant with a large corporation. She was well

respected in her profession, and was a competent, kind, and careful

person. But she was also very unhappy. I presumed initially that her

unhappiness stemmed from anxiety about her career transition. But

she managed that move without a hitch during the time we continued

our sessions, while other issues rose to the forefront.

Her problem was not her career change. It was her marriage. She

described her husband as extraordinarily self-centered and

simultaneously overly concerned with how he appeared in the eyes of

others. It was a contradictory combination, in some manner, although

it is common enough to see this touching of opposites in a personality: If you lean too far in one direction, something else in you leans equally far in the other. So, despite the husband’s narcissism (at least from his wife’s perspective), he was in thrall to the opinions of everyone he met

—excepting the members of his own family. He also drank too much—

a habit which exaggerated his temperamental defects.

My client was not comfortable in her own home. She did not feel

there was anything truly of her within the apartment she shared with

her husband (the couple had no children). Her situation provided a

good example of how what is outside can profoundly reflect what is

inside (which is why I suggest to people who are in psychological

trouble that they might begin their recovery by cleaning up—and then

beautifying, if possible—their rooms). All their household furnishings, which she described as showy, ornate, and uncomfortable, had been

chosen by her husband. Furthermore, he avidly collected 1960s and

70s pop art, and the walls of the house were crowded with these items,

which he had spent time seeking out in galleries and otherwise

gathering for many years, often while she sat waiting outside in the

car.

She told me that she did not care about the furnishings and the

excess of decorative objects, but that was not really true. What was

true was that she did not care for them—not a bit. Neither the

showiness nor the furnishings nor the plethora of art works that made

up her husband’s collection appealed to her taste. She tended toward a

minimalist aesthetic (or perhaps that preference was a consequence of

her husband’s decorative excesses). It was never quite clear what she might have preferred, and perhaps that was part of the problem:

because she did not know what she liked (and was equally vague about

her dislikes), she was not in the strongest position to put forward her own opinions. It is difficult to win an argument, or even begin one, if you have not carefully articulated what you want (or do not) and need

(or do not).

However, she certainly did not enjoy feeling like a stranger in her

own home. For that reason, she never had friends over to visit, which

was also a nontrivial problem, contributing as it did to her feelings of isolation. But the furnishings and paintings continued to accrue, one

shopping expedition at a time, in Canada and abroad, and with each

purchase there was less of her in the house and in the marriage, and

increasingly more of her husband. Nonetheless, my client never went

to war. She never had a fit of anger. She never put her fist through a

particularly objectionable canvas hanging on the living room wall. In

all the decades of her married life, she never had an outburst of

genuine rage; she never directly and conclusively confronted the fact

that she hated her home and her subordination to her husband’s taste.

Instead, she let him have his way, repeatedly, increment by increment,

because she claimed that such trivialities were not worth fighting for.

And with each defeat, the next disagreement became more necessary—

although less likely, because she understood that a serious discussion, once initiated, risked expanding to include all the things that were

troublesome about her marriage, and that a real, no-holds-barred

battle would therefore likely ensue. Then everything wrong might spill

out and have to be faced and dealt with, by one means or another. So,

she kept silent. But she was chronically repressed and constantly

resentful, and felt that she had wasted much of the opportunity of her

life.

It is a mistake to consider the furnishings and the pop art paintings

as simple material objects. They were more truly and importantly

containers of information, so to speak, about the state of the marriage, and were certainly experienced as such by my client. Every single

object of art was the concrete realization of a victory (Pyrrhic though it may have been) and a defeat (or, at least, a negotiation that did not

occur and, therefore, a fight that was over before it started). And there

were dozens or perhaps hundreds of these: each a weapon in an unspoken, destructive, and decades-long war. Unsurprisingly, given

the circumstances, the couple split up—after thirty years of marriage. I believe the husband retained all the furniture and art.

Here is a thought, a terrifying and dispiriting thought, to motivate

improvement in your marriage—to scare you into the appalling

difficulties of true negotiation. Every little problem you have every

morning, afternoon, or evening with your spouse will be repeated for

each of the fifteen thousand days that will make up a forty-year

marriage. Every trivial but chronic disagreement about cooking,

dishes, housecleaning, responsibility for finances, or frequency of

intimate contact will be duplicated, over and over, unless you

successfully address it. Perhaps you think (moment to moment, at

least) that it is best to avoid confrontation and drift along in apparent but false peace. Make no mistake about it, however: you age as you

drift, just as rapidly as you age as you strive. But you have no direction when you drift, and the probability that you will obtain what you need

and want by drifting aimlessly is very low. Things fall apart of their

own accord, but the sins of men speed their deterioration: that is

wisdom from the ages. It may well be that conscious apprehension of

the horror of the same small hell forever repeated is precisely what is necessary to force you to confront the problems in your marriage and

negotiate in good and desperate faith to solve them. However, it is the easiest of matters, particularly in the short term, to ignore the prick of conscience and let the small defeats slide, day after day. This is not a good strategy. Only careful aim and wakeful striving and commitment

can eliminate the oft-incremental calamity of willful blindness, stem

the entropic tide, and keep catastrophe—familial and social alike—at

bay.

CORRUPTION: COMMISSION AND OMISSION

Corruption of the form we are discussing is, in my opinion, integrally

linked to deception—to lying, more bluntly—and more important, to

self-deception. Now, strict logicians regard self-deception as an

impossibility. They cannot understand how it is possible for a person

to believe one thing and its opposite simultaneously. Logicians are not psychologists, however—and they obviously do not notice, or else fail

to take into account, the fact that they themselves have family

members, for example, for whom they at least occasionally feel love

and hate at the same time. Furthermore, it is not obvious what

“believe” means when discussing human belief, nor what is meant by

“simultaneously.” I can believe one thing today and another tomorrow

and very often get away with it, at least in the short term. And on many occasions I have experienced what was very nearly simultaneous belief

in one thing and its opposite while reading undergraduate university

papers, in which the writer made a claim in one paragraph and a

completely contradictory claim in the next. (Sometimes that happened

within the span of a single sentence.)

There are many conditions or circumstances under which self-

deception can theoretically occur. Psychoanalysts have explored many

of these, with Freud leading the way. Freud believed that much of

mental illness was due to repression, which is arguably and reasonably

considered a form of self-deception. For him, memories of

traumatically troubling events were unconsciously banished to

perdition in the unconscious, where they rattled around and caused

trouble, like poltergeists in a dungeon. Freud understood that the

human personality was not unitary. Instead, it consists of a loose,

fragmented cacophony of spirits, who do not always agree or even

communicate. The truth of this claim is self-evident, at least in one

simple manner: we can think about things—we can simulate potential

or alternative actions or events—without immediately having to act

them out. Dissociation of thought and action is necessary for abstract

thought even to exist. Thus, we can clearly think or say one thing and

do another. This is fine when merely thinking, prior to acting, but

perhaps not so good when we promise or claim to believe something

and then act in a manner indicating that we truly have faith in

something else. This is a form of deception, a disjunction in character, a contradiction between modes of being. It has even been named: to

claim one belief and then to act (or speak) in a different or even

opposite manner constitutes a performative contradiction, according to certain modern philosophers:1 an implicit lie, in my opinion. The holding of contradictory beliefs also becomes a problem when the

holder attempts to act out both simultaneously and discovers, often to his or her great chagrin, the paradox that makes such an attempt

impossible.

Freud catalogued an extensive list of phenomena akin to repression

—the active rejection of potentially conscious psychological material

from awareness—which he termed “defense mechanisms.” These

include denial (“the truth is not so bad”), reaction formation (“I really, really, really love my mother”), displacement (“the boss yells at me, I yell at my wife, my wife yells at the baby, the baby bites the cat”),

identification (“I am bullied, so I am motivated to be a bully”),

rationalization (a self-serving explanation for a low-quality action),

intellectualization (a favorite of the early, funny, neurotic Woody

Allen), sublimation (“I can always paint nude women”), and projection (“I am not touchy; you are just annoying”). Freud was an outstanding

philosopher of deceit. He was not afraid to point out the relationship

between dishonesty and psychopathology. Nonetheless, his ideas of

self-deception suffer, in my opinion, from two major errors.

First error: Freud failed to notice that sins of omission contributed

to mental illness as much as, or more than, the sins of commission,

listed above, that constitute repression. In doing so, he merely thought in the typical manner. People generally believe that actively doing

something bad (that is the sin of commission) is, on average, worse

than passively not doing something good (that is the sin of omission).

Perhaps this is because there are always good things we are not doing;

some sins of omission are therefore inevitable. In any case, there are

still times when willful blindness nonetheless produces more serious

catastrophes, more easily rationalized away, than the active or the

unconscious repression of something terrible but understood (the

latter being a sin of commission, because it is known). The former

problem—willful blindness—occurs when you could come to know

something but cease exploring so that you fail to discover something

that might cause you substantial discomfort. Spin doctors call this self-imposed ignorance “plausible deniability,” which is a phrase that

indicates intellectualized rationalization of the most pathological

order. It should be noted that such blindness is often regarded as an

outright crime. If you are a CEO, for example, and you suspect that

your treasurer is cooking the books, and you do not investigate

because you do not want to know, you may still be liable for your inaction—as is appropriate. Failing to look under the bed when you

strongly suspect a monster is lurking there is not an advisable strategy.

Second error: Freud assumed that things experienced are things

understood. In accordance with that assumption, he believed that a

memory trace existed, somewhere in the mind, that accurately

represented the past, like an objective video recording. These would be reasonable presumptions, if our experience was simply a series of

objectively real and self-evident events transmitted through our

senses, thought about, evaluated, and then acted upon. If this was all

true, traumatic experience would be accurately represented in

memory, even when pushed out of awareness by unconscious

mechanisms (or conscious—but Freud presumed the former) because

of its understood but terrible nature. However, neither reality nor our processing of reality is as objective or articulated as Freud

presupposed.

Imagine, for example, that you have been ignored, romantically—

more than you can tolerate—for several months by your wife or

husband. Then you encounter him or her leaning over the fence,

talking in a friendly manner (and perhaps no more than that) to an

attractive neighbor. How we process such anomalous, novel,

troublesome, or even traumatic experience is very rarely a matter of

perception, followed by conscious understanding and thought, then

emotion or motivation derived from that thought, then action. What

happens instead is akin to what we discussed at length in Rule I and

Rule II: We process the unknown world from the bottom up. We

encounter containers of information, so to speak, whose full import is

by no means self-evident. Upon witnessing your spouse talking to the

neighbor, therefore, it is not as if you think, in an altogether

articulated and fully developed philosophical form: “I have been

lonesome and deprived physically for months by my spouse. Although

I have not said anything in detail, this has caused me constant

frustration and pain. Now he (or she) is rubbing it in, as far as I am

concerned, by being so outgoing with a comparative stranger when I

have experienced so little attention.” It is much more likely that anger, grief, and loneliness have accumulated within you with each rejection,

bit by bit, until you are filled to the brim—and, now, overflowing.

That sudden appearance of negative emotion does not necessarily mean that you are even now fully conscious of its accumulation. You

may well (as in the case of my father-in-law, or my client) have

experienced the frustration build up gradually enough so that you

found yourself more irritable and unhappy, but that does not

necessarily mean that you noticed the cause. And what is the cause?

The range of possibilities is uncomfortably broad. Perhaps you are not

being ignored at all. Instead, you have been having trouble at work,

and that has produced a decrease in your overall confidence. In

consequence, you have become sensitized to any signs of rejection,

even imaginary, within your marriage. So, what you must determine is

not so much why your wife or husband is no longer attentive to you,

but what it is about your boss, colleagues, or career that is

destabilizing you. That puts the true cause of your discomfort a long

distance away from the symptoms (the feelings of rejection) that are

making you irritable, sensitive, and hurt. There is nothing obvious

about the relationship between cause and effect in such cases. Perhaps

you really are being ignored, just as you suspect. Perhaps it is a sign of an impending affair and a manifestation of the trajectory that leads to divorce. Both of those, if true, are serious problems. It is no wonder

you are upset. But you may remain stubbornly unwilling to consider

that your career or marriage is in trouble. And that is no surprise. But it is not helpful.

On top of all that is the general complexity of life, complicating the

search for clarity. Consider the question “What really happened?” say,

in a failed marriage, divorce, and child-custody battle. The answer to

that query is so complex that settling the disagreements frequently

requires court evaluation and multi-party assessment. Even then, one

or even both of the protagonists is unlikely to believe that the truth has been served. This is partly because events in general and interpersonal events specifically do not exist as simple, objective facts, independent of one another. Everything depends for its meaning—for the

information it truly represents—on the context in which it is

embedded, much of which is not available for perception or

consideration when the event in question occurs. The meaning of what

someone’s wife says to him today is dependent on everything both

have ever said to each other, everything they have ever done together,

and the contents of their mutual imaginations—and that does not exhaust the complexity. Such meaning may even be importantly

dependent on how, for example, the wife’s mother treated her father

(or her grandmother treated her grandfather), as well as the

relationship between men and women in the broader culture. That is

why domestic arguments so often spiral out of control, particularly

when a pattern of continual and effective communication has never

been established. One thing leads to a deeper thing, and that leads

deeper yet, until an argument that started over what size plates are

best used at lunchtime turns into a no-holds-barred war about

whether the marriage in question would be better dissolved. And there

is certainly fear of falling down a hole of that size (again, particularly when much has remained unspoken) that motivates the proclivity to

keep things to yourself when they would be better, but dangerously,

said.

WHAT IS THE FOG?

Imagine that you are afraid. You have reason to be. You are afraid of

yourself. You are afraid of other people. You are afraid of the world.

You are nostalgic for the innocence of the past; for the time before you learned the terrible things that shattered the trust characterizing your childhood. The knowledge you have gained of yourself, other people,

and the world has embittered more than enlightened. You have been

betrayed, hurt, and disappointed. You have become distrustful even of

hope itself, as your hope has been repeatedly shattered (and that is the very definition of hopelessness). The last thing you want is to know

more. Better to leave what is enshrouded in mystery. Better, as well, to avoid thinking too much (or at all) about what could be. When

ignorance is bliss, after all, ’tis folly to be wise.

Imagine, more precisely, that you are so afraid that you will not

allow yourself even to know what you want. Knowing would

simultaneously mean hoping, and your hopes have been dashed. You

have your reasons for maintaining your ignorance. You are afraid,

perhaps, that there is nothing worth wanting; you are afraid that if you specify what you want precisely you will simultaneously discover (and

all too clearly) what constitutes failure; you are afraid that failure is the most likely outcome; and, finally, you are afraid that if you define failure and then fail, you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was you that failed, and that it was your fault.

So, you do not allow yourself to know what you want. You manage

this by refusing to think it through. You are happy, satisfied, and

engaged sometimes and unhappy, frustrated, and nihilistic other

times, but you will not enquire deeply into why, because then you

would know, and then you would encounter yet-again shattered hope

and confirmed disappointment. You are also afraid, but for different

reasons, to allow others to know what you want. First, if they were to

find out just what you wanted, then they might tell you, and then you

would know, even if you were fighting against gathering that very

knowledge. Second, if they knew, they could then deny you what you

truly wanted, even needed, and hurt you much more efficiently than

they might if your deepest desires (and, therefore, your vulnerabilities) remained secret.

The fog that hides is the refusal to notice—to attend to—emotions

and motivational states as they arise, and the refusal to communicate

them both to yourself and to the people who are close to you. A bad

mood signifies something. A state of anxiety or sadness signifies

something, and not likely something that will please you to discover.

The most probable outcome of successfully articulating an emotion

that has accrued without expression over time is tears—an admission

of vulnerability and pain (which are also feelings that people do not

like to allow, particularly when they are feeling distrustful and angry).

Who wants to dig down into the depths of pain and grief and guilt

until the tears emerge? And voluntary refusal to take notice of our

emotional states is not the only impediment to dealing with them. If

your wife or husband (or whomever else you are tangled up with,

unhappily, at the moment) says something that comes too close to the

painful truth, for example, then a sharp and insulting remark will

often shut them up—and is therefore very likely to be offered. This is

partly a test: does the person being insulted care enough about you

and your suffering to dig past a few obstacles and unearth the bitter

truth? It is also partly, and more obviously, defensive: if you can chase someone away from something you yourself do not want to discover,

that makes your life easier in the present. Sadly, it is also very disappointing if that defense succeeds, and is typically accompanied

by a sense of abandonment, loneliness, and self-betrayal. You must

nonetheless still live among other people, and they with you. And you

have desires, wants, and needs, however unstated and unclear. And

you are still motivated to pursue them, not least because it is

impossible to live without desire, want, and need.Your strategy,

under such conditions? Show your disappointment whenever someone

close to you makes you unhappy; allow yourself the luxury and

pleasure of resentment when something does not go your way; ensure

that the person who has transgressed against you is frozen out by your

disapproval; force them to discover with as much difficulty as possible exactly what they have done to disappoint you; and, finally, let them

grope around blindly in the fog that you have generated around

yourself until they stumble into and injure themselves on the sharp

hidden edges of your unrevealed preferences and dreams. And maybe

these responses are tests, too—tests deeply associated with the lack of courage to trust: “If you really loved me, you would brave the terrible landscape that I have arrayed around myself to discover the real me.”

And perhaps there is even something to such claims, implicit though

they may be. A certain testing of commitment might have its utility.

Everything does not have to be given away for free. But even a little

unnecessary mystery goes a long way.

And you still must live with yourself. In the short term, perhaps you

are protected from the revelation of your insufficiency by your refusal to make yourself clear. Every ideal is a judge, after all: the judge who says, “You are not manifesting your true potential.” No ideals? No

judge. But the price paid for that is purposelessness. This is a high

price. No purpose? Then, no positive emotion, as most of what drives

us forward with hope intact is the experience of approaching

something we deeply need and want. And worse, when we are without

purpose: chronic, overwhelming anxiety, as focused purpose

constrains what is otherwise likely to be the intolerable chaos of

unexploited possibility and too much choice.

If you make what you want clear and commit yourself to its pursuit,

you may fail. But if you do not make what you want clear, then you will certainly fail. You cannot hit a target that you refuse to see. You cannot

hit a target if you do not take aim. And, equally dangerously, in both cases: you will not accrue the advantage of aiming, but missing. You

will not benefit from the learning that inevitably takes place when

things do not go your way. Success at a given endeavor often means

trying, falling short, recalibrating (with the new knowledge generated

painfully by the failure), and then trying again and falling short—often repeated, ad nauseam. Sometimes all that learning, impossible

without the failure, leads you to see that aiming your ambition in a

different direction would be better (not because it is easier; not

because you have given up; not because you are avoiding—but because

you have learned through the vicissitudes of your experience that what

you seek is not to be found where you were looking, or is simply not

attainable in the manner by which you chose to pursue it).

So, what might you do—what should you do—as an alternative to

hiding things in the fog? Admit to your feelings. This is a very tricky matter (and it does not simply mean “give in” to them). First, noting,

much less communicating, feelings of (petty) anger or pain due to

lonesomeness, or anxiety about something that might be trivial, or

jealousy that is likely unwarranted is embarrassing. The admission of

such feelings is a revelation of ignorance, insufficiency, and

vulnerability. Second, it is unsettling to allow for the possibility that your feelings, however overwhelming and convincing, might be

misplaced and, in your ignorance, pointing you in the wrong direction.

It is possible that you have misinterpreted the situation entirely, for reasons of which you remain fundamentally unconscious. It is for such

reasons that trust is vital: but trust of the mature and tragic sort. A naive person trusts because he or she believes that people are

essentially or even universally trustworthy. But any person who has

truly lived has been—or has—betrayed.

Someone with experience knows that people are capable of

deception and willing to deceive. That knowledge brings with it an

arguably justified pessimism about human nature, personal and

otherwise, but it also opens the door to another kind of faith in

humanity: one based on courage, rather than naivete. I will trust you—

I will extend my hand to you—despite the risk of betrayal, because it is possible, through trust, to bring out the best in you, and perhaps in

me. So, I will accept substantial risk to open the door to cooperation

and negotiation. And even if you do betray me, in a not-too unforgivable manner (assuming a certain degree, shall we say, of

genuine apology and contrition on your part), I will continue to extend my hand. And part of the way I will do that is by telling you what I am feeling.

A certain necessary humility must accompany such raw revelations.

I should not say—at least not ideally—“You have been ignoring me

lately.” I should say, instead, “I feel isolated and lonely and hurt, and cannot help but feel that you have not been as attentive to me over the last few months as I would have liked or that might have been best for

us as a couple. But I am unsure if I am just imagining all this because I am upset or if I am genuinely seeing what is going on.” The latter

statement gets the point across, but avoids the accusatory stance that

so often serves as the first defense against a serious, get-to-the-

bottom-of-things conversation. And it is very possible that you are

wrong about just what is causing you to feel the way you do. If you are, you need to know it, because there is no point in propagating errors

that are causing you and others pain and interfering with your future.

Best to find out what is true—best to disperse the fog—and find out if

the sharp objects you feared were lurking there are real or fantastical.

And there is always the danger that some of them are real. But it is

better to see them than to keep them occluded by the fog, because you

can at least sometimes avoid the danger that you are willing to see.

EVENTS AND MEMORIES

Events, as they lay themselves out in front of us, do not simply inform us of why they occur, and we do not remember the past in order to

objectively record bounded, well-defined events and situations. The

latter act is impossible, in any case. The information in our experience is latent, like gold in ore—the case we made in Rule II. It must be

extracted and refined with great effort, and often in collaboration with other people, before it can be employed to improve the present and the

future. We use our past effectively when it helps us repeat desirable—

and avoid repeating undesirable—experiences. We want to know what

happened but, more importantly, we want to know why. Why is

wisdom. Why enables us to avoid making the same mistake again and again, and if we are fortunate helps us repeat our successes.

Extracting useful information from experience is difficult. It

requires the purest of motivations (“things should be made better, not

worse”) to perform it properly. It requires the willingness to confront error, forthrightly, and to determine at what point and why departure

from the proper path occurred. It requires the willingness to change,

which is almost always indistinguishable from the decision to leave

something (or someone, or some idea) behind. Therefore, the simplest

response imaginable is to look away and refuse to think, while

simultaneously erecting unsurmountable impediments to genuine

communication.

Unfortunately, in the longer term, this willful blindness leaves life

murky and foggy; leaves it void, unseen, without form, confused—and

leaves you bewildered and astonished.2 This is all a strange concatenation of the psychological and the real, the subjective and the objective. Is something frightening, or am I afraid? Is something

beautiful, or am I imposing the idea of beauty upon it? When I become

angry with someone, is it because of something they have done, or my

lack of control? Such questions define the state of confusion you

occupy chronically when the bottom has fallen out of your world. That

state can have an objective element, because a fall is often caused by

something real, such as a death, a serious illness, or a bout of

unemployment; but it is also subjective, associated with a state

composed of pain, doubt, confusion, and the inability to choose—or

even perceive—a path forward.

The ground of Being is subject and object simultaneously—

motivation, emotion, and material thing all at once—before perception

is clarified, before the world is articulated. The wife remains

uncomprehended. The context of her speech remains unexplored, for

fear of what that exploration might reveal. The situation cannot be

described because the word is left vague and unformed. Our own

personal motivations begin in hidden form, and remain that way,

because we do not want to know what we are up to. The wheat remains

unseparated from the chaff. The gold remains in the clutches of the

dragon, as does the virgin. The philosopher’s stone remains

undiscovered in the gutter; and the information hidden in the round

chaos, beckoning, remains unexplored. Such omission is the voluntary refusal of expanded consciousness. After all, the pathway to the Holy

Grail has its beginnings in the darkest part of the forest, and what you need remains hidden where you least want to look.

If you pile up enough junk in your closet, one day, when you are

least prepared, the door will spring open, and all of what has been

packed inside, growing inexorably in the darkness, will bury you, and

you may not have enough time or energy left in your life to confront it, sort through it, keep what you need, and discard the rest. This is what it means to be crushed under excess baggage. This is the return of

Tiamat, the great Mesopotamian Goddess of Chaos, destroyer of those

who act improperly.

The world is full of hidden dangers and obstacles—and

opportunities. Leaving everything hidden in the fog because you are

afraid of the danger you may find there will be of little help when fate forces you to run headlong toward what you have refused to see.

Impaling yourself on sharp branches, stumbling over boulders, and

rushing by places of sanctuary, you will finally refuse to admit you

could have burned away the haze with the bright light of your

consciousness, had you not hidden it under a bushel. Then you will

come to curse man, reality, and God himself for producing such an

impenetrable maze of impediments and barriers. Corruption will

beckon to you, led as you increasingly will be by dark, unexamined

motivations—bred by failure, amplified by frustration—viciously

culminating in the resentful belief that those who have transgressed

against you are getting from you exactly what they deserve. This

attitude and the actions and inactions it will inevitably produce will

impoverish your life, your community, your nation, and the world.

This will in turn impoverish Being itself (and that will be exactly what your darkest unexamined motivations desire).

With careful searching, with careful attention, you might tip the

balance toward opportunity and against obstacle sufficiently so that

life is clearly worth living, despite its fragility and suffering. If you truly wanted, perhaps you would receive, if you asked. If you truly

sought, perhaps you would find what you seek. If you knocked, truly

wanting to enter, perhaps the door would open. But there will be times

in your life when it will take everything you have to face what is in

front of you, instead of hiding away from a truth so terrible that the only thing worse is the falsehood you long to replace it with.

Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.

RULE IV

NOTICE THAT OPPORTUNITY LURKS WHERE

RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN ABDICATED

MAKE YOURSELF INVALUABLE

In my dual role as clinical psychologist and professor, I have coached

many people in the development of their careers. Sometimes those I

am coaching consult me because their coworkers, subordinates, or

bosses will not do their jobs properly. They are supervised by, working alongside, or managing people who are narcissistic, incompetent,

malevolent, or tyrannical. Such things happen and must be dealt with

in whatever reasonable manner will bring them to a halt. I do not

encourage people to martyr themselves. It is a bad idea to sacrifice

yourself uncomplainingly so that someone else can take the credit.

Nonetheless, under such circumstances—if you are a wise and

attentive person—you might still notice that your unproductive

coworkers are leaving a plethora of valuable tasks undone. You might

then ask yourself, “What would happen if I took responsibility for

doing them?” It is a daunting question. What is left undone is often

risky, difficult, and necessary. But that also means—does it not?—that

it is worthwhile and significant. And you may have the eyes to see that there is a problem, despite your all-too-frequent blindness. How do

you know that it is not, therefore, your problem? Why do you notice this issue and not some other? This is a question worth considering in

depth.

If you want to become invaluable in a workplace—in any community

—just do the useful things no one else is doing. Arrive earlier and leave later than your compatriots (but do not deny yourself your life). 1

Organize what you can see is dangerously disorganized. Work, when you are working, instead of looking like you are working. And finally,

learn more about the business—or your competitors—than you already

know. Doing so will make you invaluable—a veritable lynchpin. People

will notice that and begin to appreciate your hard-earned merits.

You might object, “Well, I just could not manage to take on

something that important.” What if you began to build yourself into a

person who could? You could start by trying to solve a small problem—

something that is bothering you, that you think you could fix. You

could start by confronting a dragon of just the size that you are likely to defeat. A tiny serpent might not have had the time to hoard a lot of gold, but there might still be some treasure to be won, along with a

reasonable probability of succeeding in such a quest (and not too

much chance of a fiery or toothsome death). Under reasonable

circumstances, picking up the excess responsibility is an opportunity

to become truly invaluable. And then, if you want to negotiate for a

raise, or more autonomy—or more free time, for that matter—you can

go to your boss and say, “Here are ten things that were crying out to be done, each of them vital, and I am now doing all of them. If you help

me out a bit, I will continue. I might even improve. And everything,

including your life, will improve along with me.” And then, if your boss has any sense—and sometimes bosses do—then your negotiation will

be successful. That is how such things work. And do not forget that

there is no shortage of genuinely good people who are thrilled if they

can give someone useful and trustworthy a hand up. It is one of the

truly altruistic pleasures of life, and its depth is not to be

underestimated, or to be disregarded with the cheap cynicism that

masks itself as world-weary wisdom.

It appears that the meaning that most effectively sustains life is to

be found in the adoption of responsibility. When people look back on

what they have accomplished, they think, if they are fortunate: “Well, I did that, and it was valuable. It was not easy. But it was worth it.” It is a strange and paradoxical fact that there is a reciprocal relationship

between the worth of something and the difficulty of accomplishing it.

Imagine the following conversation: “Do you want difficulty?” “No, I

want ease.” “In your experience, has doing something easy been

worthwhile?” “Well, no, not very often.” “Then perhaps you really want

something difficult.” I think that is the secret to the reason for Being itself: difficult is necessary.

It is for this reason that we voluntarily and happily place limitations on ourselves. Every time we play a game, for example, we accept a set

of arbitrary restrictions. We narrow and limit ourselves, and explore

the possibilities thereby revealed. That is what makes the game. But it does not work without the arbitrary rules. You take them on

voluntarily, absurdly, as in chess: “I can only move this knight in an L.

How ridiculous. But how fun!” Because it is not fun, oddly enough, if

you can move any piece anywhere. It is not a game anymore if you can

make any old move at all. Accept some limitations, however, and the

game begins. Accept them, more broadly speaking, as a necessary part

of Being and a desirable part of life. Assume you can transcend them

by accepting them. And then you can play the limited game properly.

And this is all not merely of psychological import, and it is by no

means just a game. People need meaning, but problems also need

solving. It is very salutary, from the psychological perspective, to find something of significance—something worth sacrificing for (or to),

something worth confronting and taking on. But the suffering and

malevolence that characterize life are real, with the terrible

consequences of the real—and our ability to solve problems, by

confronting them and taking them on, is also real. By taking

responsibility, we can find a meaningful path, improve our personal

lot psychologically, and make what is intolerably wrong genuinely

better. Thus, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

RESPONSIBILITY AND MEANING

The idea that life is suffering is a relatively universal truism of

religious thinking. This is the first of the Four Noble Truths of

Buddhism as well as a key Hindu concept. There is a tradition that the

ancient Indian word for suffering— dukkha (from the Pali language) or duhka (from Sanskrit)—is derived from dus (bad) and kha (hole)—

particularly the hole in a horse-drawn cart wheel, through which the

axle passes. The proper place for such a hole is dead center, right on

target. The ride is likely to be very bumpy, otherwise—with the bumps

directly proportional in magnitude to the degree of offset. This is quite reminiscent, to me, of the Greek term hamartia, which is frequently translated as “sin,” in the context of Christian thought.

Hamartia was originally an archery term, and it meant to miss the mark or target. There are many ways that a target can be missed.

Frequently, in my clinical practice—and in my personal life—I

observed that people did not get what they needed (or, equally

importantly perhaps, what they wanted) because they never made it

clear to themselves or others what that was. It is impossible to hit a

target, after all, unless you aim at it. In keeping with this: People are more commonly upset by what they did not even try to do than by the

errors they actively committed while engaging with the world.2 At least if you misstep while doing something, you can learn from doing it

wrong. But to remain passive in the face of life, even if you excuse your inaction as a means of avoiding error—that is a major mistake. As the

great blues musician Tom Waits insists (in his song “A Little Rain”):

“You must risk something that matters.”

This is the colossal blunder made, for example, by the fictional Peter

Pan. “Pan”—a name echoing the Greek god of the wilds—means

“encompassing everything.” Peter Pan, the magical boy, is capable of

everything. He is potential itself, like every child, and that makes him magical, in the same way that every child is magical. But time whittles that magic away, transforming the fascinating potentiality of

childhood into the oft-apparently more mundane but genuine actuality

of adulthood. The trick, so to speak, is to trade that early possibility for something meaningful, productive, long term, and sustainable. Peter

Pan refuses to do so. This is at least in part because his major role

model is Captain Hook. Captain Hook is the archetypal Tyrannical

King, the pathology of order—a parasite and a tyrant, terrified of

death. He has his reasons. Death stalks Hook in the form of a crocodile with a clock in his stomach. That is time: ticktock, ticktock. That is life vanishing, as the seconds march by. The crocodile has had a taste of

Hook, too, and liked it. That is life, as well. It is not only cowards who are terrified by what lurks down in the chaotic depths. It is a rare

person who has not suffered through disappointment, disease, and the

death of a loved one by the time childhood ends. Such experiences can

leave those who have had them bitter, resentful, predatory, and

tyrannical—just like Hook. With a role model like the captain, it is no wonder Peter Pan does not want to grow up. Better to remain king of

the Lost Boys. Better to remain lost in fantasy with Tinkerbell, who

provides everything a female partner can provide—except that she

does not exist.

Wendy, the great love of Pan’s life, chooses to grow up, despite her

admiration for her friend Peter. She takes a husband, facing—even

welcoming—her maturation, and its lurking hints of mortality and

death. She consciously chooses to sacrifice her childhood for the

realities of adulthood, but gains real life in return. Peter remains a

child: magical, to be sure, but still a child—and life, limited, finite, and unique, passes him by. In the J. M. Barrie play Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, Pan is portrayed as unafraid of death,

which he faces on Marooners’ Rock. His attitude might be

misunderstood by inattentive viewers as courage. After all, Pan says,

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.” * But the psychologically insightful unseen narrator objects: “To live would be an awfully big

adventure” (truly, a statement about what might have happened had

the Boy King chosen Wendy), noting, immediately afterward, “but he

can never quite get the hang of it.” * Pan’s hypothetical lack of fear of death is not courage, but the manifestation of his basically suicidal

nature, the sickness of life (which he is constantly manifesting by his very refusal to mature).

It is by no means a good thing to be the oldest person at the frat

party. It is desperation, masquerading as cool rebelliousness—and

there is a touchy despondence and arrogance that goes along with it. It smacks of Neverland. In the same manner, the attractive potential of a

directionless but talented twenty-five-year-old starts to look hopeless and pathetic at thirty, and downright past its expiration date at forty.

You must sacrifice something of your manifold potential in exchange

for something real in life. Aim at something. Discipline yourself. Or

suffer the consequence. And what is that consequence? All the

suffering of life, with none of the meaning. Is there a better description of hell?

Life is duhka for the Buddhists—equally, perhaps, although less explicitly, for the Hindus. The Hebrew Scriptures, for their part,

chronicle the history of the suffering of the Jewish people, individually

and as a nation, although the triumphs are not ignored. Even those who are called on by YHWH Himself to move into the adventure of life

by no means escape catastrophe. Perhaps Abraham, the archetypal

Patriarch, had an intuition of this. He was clearly something of a Peter Pan himself. The biblical account insists that Abraham stayed safely

ensconced within his father’s tent until he was seventy-five years old (a late start, even by today’s standards). Then, called by God—inspired by the voice within, let us say, to leave family and country—he journeys

forward into life. And what does he encounter, after heeding the divine call to adventure? First, famine. Then tyranny in Egypt; the potential

loss of his beautiful wife to more powerful men; exile from his adopted country; conflicts over territory with his kinsmen; war, and the

kidnapping of his nephew; extended childlessness (despite God’s

promise to make him the progenitor of a great nation); and finally,

terrible conflict between his spouses.

The Abrahamic story made a great impact on me when I began to

study and appreciate it more deeply. It has at its core a strange

combination of pessimism and realistic, genuine encouragement. The

pessimism? Even if you are called by God Himself to venture out into

the world, as Abraham was, life is going to be exceptionally difficult.

Even under the best of all conceivable circumstances, almost

insuperable obstacles will emerge and obstruct your path. The

encouragement? You will have the opportunity to reveal yourself as

much stronger and more competent than you might imagine. There is

a potential within you (some of that magic so evident in childhood)

that will emerge when circumstances demand and transform you—

God willing—into someone who can prevail.

There is a very old idea, which I have only recently come to

comprehend, at least in part. It is something you see manifested in

many literary, imagistic, and dramatic forms, ancient and modern. It

has to do with responsibility and meaning, but its true significance

appears hidden, in precisely the same way that the wisdom dreams can

bring forth is so often hidden. It is associated with the labyrinthine

myth of the hero: He who speaks magic words, sees what others

cannot (or refuse to see), overcomes the giant, leads his people, slays the dragon, finds the treasure hard to attain, and rescues the virgin.

These are all variants of the same perceptual and behavioral pattern,

which is an outline of the universally adaptive pattern of being. The hero is also he who rescues his father from the belly of the beast. What could this idea, expressed so commonly in narrative form, possibly

mean?

RESCUE YOUR FATHER: OSIRIS AND HORUS

Consider the ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, Set, Isis, and Horus.*

The Egyptians regarded Osiris as the founding deity of the state. You

can profitably consider him to be an amalgam of all the personality

characteristics of all the people who established the astonishing

civilization on the Nile River. Osiris was worshipped as the culture-

establishing hero, whose world-creating exploits as a young, vibrant

god produced one of the first great and enduring civilizations. But he

aged, as all things do, and became willfully blind. The Egyptians

insisted that this crucially important figure in their mythology

possessed both of these attributes—and that insistence constituted a

great truth. The great founder-god became anachronistic but, more

importantly, he began to close his eyes when he knew full well he

should have kept them open. Osiris stopped paying attention to how

his kingdom was being run. That was willful blindness, and there is no

blaming that on mere age. It is a terrible temptation, as it allows for the sequestration into the future the trouble we could face today. That would be fine if trouble did not compound, like interest—but we all

know that it does.

Osiris’s decision to close his eyes when he should have kept them

open exacted a brutally heavy price: subjugation to his evil brother,

Set. The idea that the state had a malevolent brother was an axiom, we

might say, of the Egyptian worldview—no doubt the consequence of a

complex, long-standing civilization observing its own flaws—and

something that has retained its relevance to the current day. Once a

properly functional hierarchy has been established, an opportunity

opens for its positions of authority to be usurped, not by people who

have the competence demanded by the task at hand, but by those

willing to use manipulation, deceit, and compulsion to gain status and

control. It was all those counterproductive forces that the Egyptians

were attempting to conceptualize in the figure of Set, the enemy of illumination, enlightenment, vision, and consciousness.3 It was Set’s greatest ambition to rule Egypt, to take the place of the rightful

Pharaoh. By turning a blind eye to his evil brother’s machinations—by

refusing to see—Osiris allowed Set to gain strength. This proved fatal

(or as fatal as an error can be to an immortal). Set bided his time, until he caught Osiris in a moment of weakness. Then he dismembered him

and scattered the pieces over the Egyptian countryside. It was not (is

not) possible to finally kill Osiris, the eternal human impulse toward

social organization. That is a force that will not die. But it is possible to break him into pieces—to make it difficult for him to get his act

together—and that is exactly what Set managed.

Osiris, god of order, falls apart. This happens all the time, in

people’s individual lives, and equally in the history of families, cities, and states. Things fall apart when love affairs collapse, careers

deteriorate, or cherished dreams die; when despair, anxiety,

uncertainty, and hopelessness manifest themselves in the place of

habitable order; and when nihilism and the abyss make their dread

appearance, destroying the desirable and stable values of current life.

Under such circumstances, chaos emerges. And that is why the

goddess Isis, Queen of the Underworld and consort of Osiris, makes

her appearance when Osiris is destroyed by Set. Isis scours the

countryside, searching for the vital essence of Osiris. She finds it in the form of his dismembered phallus—vessel of the seminal idea, the

spermatic word, the fructifying principle—and makes herself pregnant.

What does this mean? The queen of the underworld, the goddess of

chaos, is also the force that eternally renews. All the potential

constrained by the previous system of apprehension, of category, of

assumption—all the invisible limitation imposed upon the inhabitants

of that orderly state—is released, for better and worse, when that

system breaks into pieces. Thus, when the center will no longer hold—

even at the darkest hour—new possibility makes itself manifest. It is

for this reason that the archetypal Hero is born when things are at

their worst.

The now pregnant Isis returns to her home in the underworld and

gives birth, in due time, to Horus, rightful son of the long-lost king, alienated as he matures from his now corrupted kingdom (something

we all experience during our maturation). His primary attribute is the eye—the famous Egyptian single eye—while his avatar is the falcon, a

bird that takes precise aim at its prey, strikes the target with deadly accuracy, and possesses an acuity of vision unparalleled in the

kingdom of living things. More importantly, however, Horus has the

will to see, along with the ability. This is courage itself: the refusal to shrink from what makes itself known, no matter how terrible it seems.

Horus is the great god of attention, and the Egyptians determined, in

their strange narrative manner—in a form of imaginative thinking that

stretched over thousands of years—that the faculty of attention should

rule over all others. Horus differs from Osiris, his father, in his

willingness to see. He sees his uncle Set, for example, precisely for

what he is. Set is pure malevolence; evil itself. Nonetheless, upon his maturity, Horus returns to the kingdom usurped from his father and

confronts his uncle. They engage in an epic battle. The young god and

rightful heir to the throne sees the opportunity lurking where

responsibility has been abdicated, and is unwilling to look away. This

is no feat for the faint of heart—not when it is taken all the way to its logical conclusion; not when the corruption and the willful blindness is exposed, all the way to the bottom. To look upon evil with eyes

unshielded is dangerous beyond belief, regardless of how necessary it

is to look. This is represented by Horus’s initial partial defeat: During their confrontation, Set tears out one of his courageous nephew’s eyes.

Despite the damage he sustains, Horus emerges victorious. It is of

vital importance to reiterate, in light of this victory, the fact that he enters the battle voluntarily. It is a maxim of clinical intervention—a consequence of observation of improvement in mental health across

many schools of practical psychological thought—that voluntary

confrontation with a feared, hated, or despised obstacle is curative. We become stronger by voluntarily facing what impedes our necessary

progress. This does not mean “bite off more than you can chew” (any

more than “voluntarily enter battle” means “seek conflict carelessly”).

We are well advised to take on challenges at precisely the rate that

engages and compels alertness, and forces the development of

courage, skill, and talent, and to avoid foolhardy confrontation with

that which lies beyond current comprehension.

How is it possible to gauge the rate at which challenges should be sought? It is the instinct for meaning—something far deeper and older

than mere thought—that holds the answer. Does what you are

attempting compel you forward, without being too frightening? Does it

grip your interest, without crushing you? Does it eliminate the burden

of time passing? Does it serve those you love and, perhaps, even bring

some good to your enemies? That is responsibility. Constrain evil.

Reduce suffering. Confront the possibility that manifests in front of

you every second of your life with the desire to make things better,

regardless of the burden you bear, regardless of life’s often apparently arbitrary unfairness and cruelty. All other approaches merely deepen

the pit, increase its heat, and doom those who inhabit it to continual

worsening of their already serious problems. Everyone knows it.

Everyone’s conscience proclaims it. Everyone’s true friend or loved

one observes it and despairs when they see someone for whom they

care failing to do what needs to be done.

Horus takes his eye back from the defeated Set and banishes him

beyond the borders of the kingdom. There is no killing Set. He is

eternal as Osiris, eternal as Isis and Horus. The evil that threatens at all levels of experience is something—or someone—that everyone has

to contend with always, psychologically and socially. But for a time evil can be overcome, banished, and defeated. Then peace and harmony

can prevail for as long as people do not forget what brought them both

about.

Horus recovers his eye. A sensible person, in such a situation, would

thank his lucky stars, place his eye back into its empty socket, and get on with his life. But that is not what Horus does. He returns, instead, to the underworld, to the belly of the beast, to the kingdom of the

dead, where he knows he will find the spirit of Osiris. Dismembered

though he may be, near death—even dead, in a sense—Osiris inhabits

the underworld domain of chaos itself. That is the dead father in the

belly of the beast. Horus finds the once-great king and grants to him

the eye torn out by Set. Once again—because of the sacrifice and vision of his son—the ancient of days can see. Horus then takes his father,

vision restored, and returns with him to the kingdom, so they can rule

in tandem. The Egyptians insisted that it was this combination of

vision, courage, and regenerated tradition that constituted the proper

sovereign of the kingdom. It was this juxtaposition of wisdom and youth that comprised the essence of the power of the Pharaoh, his

immortal soul, the source of his authority.

When you face a challenge, you grapple with the world and inform

yourself. This makes you more than you are. It makes you increasingly

into who you could be. Who could you be? You could be all that a man

or woman might be. You could be the newest avatar, in your own

unique manner, of the great ancestral heroes of the past. What is the

upper limit to that? We do not know. Our religious structures hint at

it. What would a human being who was completely turned on, so to

speak, be like? How would someone who determined to take full

responsibility for the tragedy and malevolence of the world manifest

himself? The ultimate question of Man is not who we are, but who we

could be.

When you peer into an abyss, you see a monster. If it is a small

abyss, then it is a small monster. But if it is the ultimate abyss, then it is the ultimate monster. That is certainly a dragon—perhaps even the

dragon of evil itself. The conceptualization of the monster in the abyss is the eternal predator lurking in the night, ready and able to devour

its unsuspecting prey. That is an image that is tens of millions of years old, something coded as deeply in the recesses of our biological

structure as anything conceptual can be coded. And it is not just the

monsters of nature, but the tyrants of culture and the malevolence of

individuals. It is all of that, with the latter dominant, terrible as that is to consider. And it is in the nature of mankind not to cower and freeze as helpless prey animals, nor to become a turncoat and serve evil itself, but to confront the lions in their lairs. That is the nature of our

ancestors: immensely courageous hunters, defenders, shepherds,

voyagers, inventors, warriors, and founders of cities and states. That is the father you could rescue; the ancestor you could become. And he is

to be discovered in the deepest possible place, as that is where you

must go if you wish to take full responsibility and become who you

could be.

AND WHO MIGHT THAT BE?

Let us agree, to begin with, that you have a minimum moral obligation to take care of yourself. Maybe you are just selfishly interested in

taking care of yourself. But then the questions arise: What do you

mean by “care”? Which “yourself” are you talking about? We will just

consider pure selfishness to begin with, uncontaminated self-interest.

That keeps it simple. That means, for starters, that you are free do

anything you want—because you do not have to care about anyone

else. But then something in you might well object: “Wait just a

moment. That will not work.” Why not? Well, which self are you taking

care of? Are you taking care of the you that specifically exists this

minute? What will happen, then, in the next? Because the future is

coming, as certainly, for all intents and purposes, as the sun rises in the morning. And you are best advised to be ready for it.

You know the risks if you choose to maximize now at the expense of

later. Imagine that you are about to utter something thoughtless and

angry. You think, “Take no prisoners,” and say whatever comes to

mind, no matter how unjust and cruel. You experience a release of

positive emotion and enthusiasm along with that, as well as the

satisfying venting of resentment. Immediately thereafter, however,

you are in trouble, and that trouble might stick around for a very long time. You have clearly not acted in your best interests, even though

you did just what you selfishly wanted to. And no one with any sense

tells their beloved son or daughter, “Look, kid, just do exactly what

feels good in the moment, and to hell with everything else. It does not matter.” You do not say that, because you know full well that the

future is coming for your child as surely as it comes for you. The mere fact that something makes you happy in the moment does not mean

that it is in your best interest, everything considered. Life would be

simple if that were the case. But there is the you now, and the you

tomorrow, and the you next week, and next year, and in five years, and

in a decade—and you are required by harsh necessity to take all of

those “yous” into account. That is the curse associated with the human

discovery of the future and, with it, the necessity of work—because to

work means to sacrifice the hypothetical delights of the present for the potential improvement of what lies ahead.

Now, there is some utility in discounting the importance of the

“yous” who exist far enough into the future, because the future is

uncertain. It is not the case that you should be as concerned about the effects of your current actions twenty years down the road as you are

now, because there is a very high probability that you are here right

now (if you are reading this) and somewhat less of a chance that you

will be around then. And then there are the errors of prediction you

will make when looking so far ahead. But the mounting uncertainty of

distance in time does not stop sensible people from preparing for their later years. Here is what the future means: If you are going to take care of yourself, you are already burdened (or privileged) with a social

responsibility. The you for whom you are caring is a community that

exists across time. The necessity for considering this society of the

individual, so to speak, is a burden and an opportunity that seems

uniquely characteristic of human beings.

Animals do not seem to consider the future in the same manner as

we do. If you visit the African veldt, and you observe a herd of zebras, you will often see lions lazing about around them. And as long as the

lions are lying around relaxing, the zebras really do not mind. This

attitude seems a little thoughtless, from the human perspective. The

zebras should instead be biding their time until the lions go to sleep.

Then they should run off to a corner of the field in a herd and conspire a bit. And then several dozen of them should rush the sleeping lions

and stomp them to death. That would be the end of the lion problem.

But that is not what zebras do. They think, “Ah, look at those relaxed

lions! Relaxed lions are never a problem!” Zebras do not seem to have

any real sense of time. They cannot conceptualize themselves across

the temporal expanse. But human beings not only manage such

conceptualization, they cannot shake it. We discovered the future,

some long time ago—and now the future is where we each live, in

potential. We treat that as reality. It is a reality that only might be—

but it is one with a high probability of becoming now, eventually, and we are driven to take that into account.

You are stuck with yourself. You are burdened with who you are

right now and who you are going to be in the future. That means that if you are treating yourself properly, you must consider your repetition

across time. You are destined to play a game with yourself today that

must not interfere with the game you play tomorrow, next month, next

year, and so on. Thus, narrow selfishness is destined to be

nonproductive. It is for this reason, among others, that a strictly individualist ethic is a contradiction in terms. There is in fact little difference between how you should treat yourself—once you realize

that you are a community that extends across time—and how you

should treat other people.

In a marriage, for example, you face the same problem with your

marital partner as you do with yourself: You are stuck with the

consequences of an iterating game. You can treat your husband or wife

any old way right now, this moment, no matter how horrid and

thoughtless that way might be, but you are going to wake up with him

or her tomorrow, and next month, and a decade from now (and, if not

that person, then someone else equally unfortunate). If you treat the

person you are committed to in a manner that does not work when it is

repeated across time, then you are playing a degenerating game, and

you are both going to suffer terribly for it. This problem is not

materially different from failing to make peace with your future self.

The consequences are identical.

HAPPINESS AND RESPONSIBILITY

People want to be happy, and no wonder. I have longed deeply, many

times, for the return of happiness—hoping for its current presence—

and I am certainly not alone in that. However, I do not believe you

should pursue happiness. If you do so, you will run right into the iteration problem, because “happy” is a right-now thing. If you place

people in situations where they are feeling a lot of positive emotion,

they get present-focused and impulsive.4 This means “make hay while the sun shines”—take your opportunities while things are good and act

now. But now is by no means everything, and unfortunately,

everything must be considered, at least insofar as you are able. In

consequence, it is unlikely that whatever optimizes your life across

time is happiness. I am not denying its desirability, by the way. If

happiness comes to you, welcome it with gratitude and open arms (but

be careful, because it does make you impetuous).

What might serve as a more sophisticated alternative to happiness?

Imagine it is living in accordance with the sense of responsibility,

because that sets things right in the future. Imagine, as well, that you must act reliably, honestly, nobly, and in relationship to a higher good, in order to manifest the sense of responsibility properly. The higher

good would be the simultaneous optimization of your function and the

function of the people around you, across time, as we have discussed

previously. That is the highest good. Imagine that you make that aim

conscious, that you articulate that aim as an explicit goal. Then a

question arises: “What is the consequence of that psychologically?”

First, consider that most of the positive emotion people experience

does not come from attaining something. There is the simple pleasure

(more accurately, the satisfaction) that comes from having a good

meal when hungry, and there is the more complex but similar

satisfaction that is associated with accomplishing something difficult

and worthwhile. Imagine, for example, that you graduate from grade

12. Graduation Day marks the event. It is a celebration. But the next

day that is over, and you immediately face a new set of problems (just

as you are hungry again only a few hours after a satisfying meal). You

are no longer king of the high school: you are bottom dog in the work

force, or a freshman at a postsecondary institution. You are in the

position of Sisyphus. You strove and struggled to push your boulder to

the pinnacle, and you find yourself, instead, at the foot of the

mountain.

There is a near-instantaneous transformation that comes as a

consequence of attainment. Like impulsive pleasure, attainment will

produce positive emotion. But, also like pleasure, attainment is

unreliable. Another question thus emerges: “What is a truly reliable

source of positive emotion?” The answer is that people experience

positive emotion in relationship to the pursuit of a valuable goal.

Imagine you have a goal. You aim at something. You develop a strategy

in relationship to that aim, and then you implement it. And then, as

you implement the strategy, you observe that it is working. That is what produces the most reliable positive emotion. 5 Imagine over time that the attitudes and actions that manage this most effectively (in a

competition that is very Darwinian) come, eventually, to dominate

over all others.6 Imagine that is true psychologically and socially, simultaneously. Imagine that this occurs in your own life, but also

across the centuries, as everyone interacts and talks and raises a particular mode of being to primary status.

This implies something crucial: no happiness in the absence of

responsibility. No valuable and valued goal, no positive emotion. You

might object, “Well, what exactly constitutes a valid goal?” Imagine

that you are pursuing something pleasurable, but short term and

trivial. The wise part of you will be comparing that pursuit to the

possible goal of acting in the best interest of your community of future selves and your community of other people. Perhaps you are unwilling

to allow yourself to realize that wisdom: You do not wish to bear the

responsibility—not in place of an immediate, impulsive focus on

pleasure. You are fooling yourself, however, especially at the deeper

levels of your being, if you believe such avoidance will prove

successful. The wise and ancient parts of you, seriously concerned with your survival, are neither easy to deceive nor to set aside. But you take aim at a trivial goal anyway, and develop a rather shallow strategy to

attain it, only to find it is not satisfying because you do not care

enough. It does not matter to you—not deeply. Furthermore, the fact

that you are not pursuing the goal you should rightly be pursuing

means that you are feeling guilty, ashamed, and lesser at the same

time.

This is not a helpful strategy. It is not going to work. I have never

met anyone who was satisfied when they knew they were not doing

everything they should be doing. We are temporally aware creatures:

We know that we are continually and inescapably playing an iterated

game from which we cannot easily hide. No matter how much we wish

to discount the future completely, it is part of the price we paid for

being acutely self-conscious and able to conceptualize ourselves across the entire span of our lives. We are stuck with it. There is no escaping from the future—and when you are stuck with something and there is

no escaping from it, the right attitude is to turn around voluntarily and confront it. That works. And so, instead of your short-term impulsive

goal, you lay out a much larger-scale goal, which is to act properly in relationship to the long term for everyone.

PICK UP THE EXTRA WEIGHT

There is a proper way to behave—an ethic—and you are destined to

contend with it. You cannot help but calculate yourself across time,

and everyone else across time, and you are reporting back to yourself,

inevitably, on your own behavior and misbehavior. What works across

multiple time frames and multiple places for multiple people

(including yourself)—that is the goal. It is an emergent ethic, hard to formulate explicitly, but inescapable in its existence and its

consequences, and an ineradicably deep part of the game of Being.

Great players are attractive. Attractive people attract mates. The closer we match the pattern—the emergent pattern—the more likely we are to

survive and protect our families. The playing field selects the players on the basis of their ethical behavior. And we are therefore biologically prepared to respond positively to and to imitate the Great Player—and

to disapprove, even violently, of the deceiver, the cheat, and the fraud.

And it is your conscience—your instinct for moral virtue—that

indicates deviation from the path. When your child purposefully trips

an opponent during a soccer game, or fails to pass to an open

teammate with a great opportunity to score, you frown. You feel

shame, as you should, because you are witnessing the betrayal of

someone you love, by someone you love—and that is your child’s self-

betrayal. Something similar occurs when you violate your own sense of

propriety. It is the same instinct, and it is best attended to. If you do not follow the right path, you will wander off a cliff and suffer

miserably—and there is simply no way that the most profound parts of

yourself are going to allow that without protest.

You might rationalize: “There is no cliff here now. There is no cliff I can see nearby. And a cliff I will not tumble off for ten years is a long way away.” But the part of your psyche that is most profound

invariably objects: “Such thinking is not appropriate. It will not do.

What is ten years away is still real, despite its distance (allowing for unavoidable errors of prediction). If there is a catastrophe waiting

there, we are not going to aim at it now. Not without objection.” If

your behavior suggests that you are tilting in that direction, then you are going to feel guilty and horrible about it, if you are lucky and even minimally awake. And thank God for that. If the cost of betraying

yourself, in the deepest sense, is guilt, shame, and anxiety, the benefit of not betraying yourself is meaning—the meaning that sustains. That

is the most valuable of opportunities that lurks where responsibility

has been abdicated.

If you attend to your conscience, you will begin to determine that

some of the things you are doing are wrong. More precisely: if you are

alerted to the possibility of your own wrongdoing by your conscience,

and you then begin to engage in a true dialogue with that same agent,

you will begin to develop a clear picture of what is wrong—and, by

implication, of what is right. Right is not least the opposite of wrong—

and wrong is in some clear sense more blatant and obvious. A sense of

right can therefore be developed and honed through careful attention

to what is wrong. You act and betray yourself, and you feel bad about

that. You do not know exactly why. You try to avoid thinking about it,

because it is less painful and easier in the short term not to think

about it. You try with all your might to ignore it, but all that does is increase your sense of self-betrayal and further divide you against

yourself.

So, you reconsider, perhaps, and you confront your discomfort. You

note your disunity and the chaos that comes with it. You ask yourself—

you pray to discover—what you did wrong. And the answer arrives.

And it is not what you want. And part of you must therefore die, so

that you can change. And the part that must die struggles for its

existence, puts forward its rationale, and pleads its case. And it will do so with every trick in its possession—employing the most egregious

lies, the bitterest, most resentment-eliciting memories of the past, and the most hopelessly cynical attitudes about the future (indeed, about

the value of life itself). But you persevere, and discriminate, judge, and decide exactly why what you did was wrong, and you start to

understand, by contrast, what might have been right. And then you

determine to start acting in accordance with your conscience. You

decide that it is a partner, despite its adversarial form. You put all that you have discovered to be right into action, and you begin your ascent.

You start to monitor yourself, ever more careful to ensure you are

doing the right thing—listening to what you say, watching yourself act, trying not to deviate from the straight and narrow path. That becomes

your goal.

An idea begins to take shape: “I am going to live my life properly. I am going to aim at the good. I am going to aim at the highest good I

can possible manage.” Now, all the parts of you taking care of your

future self are on board. You are all aimed in one direction. You are no longer a house divided against itself. You are standing solidly on a firm foundation. You are no longer so easy to dissuade or discourage. Your

resolution trumps your nihilism and despair. The struggle you have

had with your own tendency to doubt and dissimulate protects you

against the unwarranted and cynical criticisms of others. There is a

high goal, a mountain peak, a star that shines in the darkness,

beckoning above the horizon. Its mere existence gives you hope—and

that is the meaning without which you cannot live.

Remember Pinocchio? When Geppetto wants to transform the

wooden-headed puppet he created into something real, he first raises

his eyes above the horizon and wishes on a star. It is the same star that announces Pinocchio’s birth at the beginning of the movie and whose

light is reflected in the golden badge granted to Jiminy Cricket at the close. It is the same star, symbolically speaking, that announces the

birth of Christ in the depths of the darkness. Geppetto focuses on the

star and makes a wish. The wish is that his marionette with strings

controlled by someone or something else will become real. The story of

the puppet and his temptations and trials is a psychological drama. We

all understand it, even though we cannot necessarily articulate that

understanding. It is necessary to lift your eyes above the horizon, to

establish a transcendent goal, if you wish to cease being a puppet,

under the control of things you do not understand and perhaps do not

want to understand. Then all the subsystems or subpersonalities that

might otherwise be pursing their own limited fulfillment will join

together under the aegis of the truly ideal, and the consequence of that will be an engagement that approximates the ultimate or total. Under

such conditions, all the parts of you are going to be on board. That is the psychological equivalent of monotheism. That is the emergence of

the higher self that might be the true servant of God, in whatever

metaphysical reality potentially underlies what is obvious to our blind and limited mortal selves.

What is the antidote to the suffering and malevolence of life? The

highest possible goal. What is the prerequisite to pursuit of the highest

possible goal? Willingness to adopt the maximum degree of responsibility—and this includes the responsibilities that others

disregard or neglect. You might object: “Why should I shoulder all that burden? It is nothing but sacrifice, hardship, and trouble.” But what

makes you so sure you do not want something heavy to carry? You

positively need to be occupied with something weighty, deep,

profound, and difficult. Then, when you wake up in the middle of the

night and the doubts crowd in, you have some defense: “For all my

flaws, which are manifold, at least I am doing this. At least I am taking care of myself. At least I am of use to my family, and to the other

people around me. At least I am moving, stumbling upward, under the

load I have determined to carry.” You can attain some genuine self-

respect that way—but it is not a mere shallow psychological construct

that has to do with how you are construing yourself in the moment. It

is far deeper than that—and it is not only psychological. It is real, as well as psychological.

Your life becomes meaningful in precise proportion to the depths of

the responsibility you are willing to shoulder. That is because you are now genuinely involved in making things better. You are minimizing

the unnecessary suffering. You are encouraging those around you, by

example and word. You are constraining the malevolence in your own

heart and the hearts of others. A bricklayer may question the utility of laying his bricks, monotonously, one after another. But perhaps he is

not merely laying bricks. Maybe he is building a wall. And the wall is

part of a building. And the building is a cathedral. And the purpose of the cathedral is the glorification of the Highest Good. And under such

circumstances, every brick laid is an act that partakes of the divine.

And if what you are doing in your day-to-day activity is not enough,

then you are not aiming at the construction of a proper cathedral. And

that is because you are not aiming high enough. Because if you were,

then you would experience the sense of meaning in relationship to

your sufficiently high goal, and it would justify the misery and

limitations of your life. If you have something meaningful to pursue,

then you are engrossed in life. You are on a meaningful path. The most

profound and reliable instinct for meaning—if not perverted by self-

deceit and sin (there is no other way to state it)—manifests itself when you are on the path of maximum virtue.

The sense of meaning is an indicator that you are on that path. It is an indication that all the complexity that composes you is lined up

within you, and aimed at something worth pursuing—something that

balances the world, something that produces harmony. It is something

you hear made manifest in music, and the profound sense of meaning

that music intrinsically produces. Maybe you are a nihilistic death-

metal punk. You are deeply skeptical and pessimistic. You find

meaning nowhere. You hate everything, just on principle. But then

your favorite nihilistic death-metal punk band lead guitarist and his

bandmates start to blast out their patterned harmonies—each in

alignment with the other—and you are caught! “Ah, I do not believe in

anything—but, God, that music!” And the lyrics are destructive and

nihilistic and cynical and bitter and hopeless but it does not matter,

because the music beckons and calls to your spirit, and fills it with the intimation of meaning, and moves you, so that you align yourself with

the patterns, and you nod your head and tap your feet to the beat,

participating despite yourself. It is those patterns of sound, layered

one on top of another, harmoniously, moving in the same direction,

predictably and unpredictably, in perfect balance: order and chaos, in

their eternal dance. And you dance with it, no matter how scornful you

are. You align yourself with that patterned, directional harmony. And

in that you find the meaning that sustains.

You are possessed of an instinct—a spirit—that orients you toward

the highest good. It calls your soul away from hell and toward heaven.

And because it is there, you find yourself frequently disillusioned.

People disappoint you. You betray yourself; you lose a meaningful

connection to your workplace, boss, or partner. You think, “The world

is not set right. It is deeply troubling to me.” That very

disenchantment, however, can serve as the indicator of destiny. It

speaks of abdicated responsibility—of things left undone, of things

that still need to be done. You are irritated about that need. You are annoyed with the government, you are embittered and resentful about

your job, you are unhappy with your parents, and you are frustrated

with all these people around you who will not take on responsibility.

There are, after all, things that are crying out to be accomplished. You are outraged that what needs to be done is not being done. That anger

—that outrage—is, however, a doorway. That observation of abdicated

responsibility is the indication of destiny and meaning. The part of you that is oriented toward the highest good is pointing out the disjunction between the ideal you can imagine—the ideal that is possessing you—

and the reality you are experiencing. There is a gap there, and it is

communicating its need to be filled. You can give way to fury, in

consequence, and blame it on someone else—and it is not as if other

people are not contributing to the problems. Or you can come to

understand that your very disappointment is an indication to you from

the most fundamental levels of your being that there is something

wrong that needs to be set right—and, perhaps, by you. What is it, that concern, that care, that irritation, that distraction? It is not the call to happiness. It is the call to the action and adventure that make up a real life. Consider, once again, the biblical story of Abraham. God comes to Abraham, and says,

Go from your country, your people and your father’s

household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I

will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I

will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through

you. (Genesis 12:1–3)

That late bloomer Abraham has been hanging around his father’s

tent for far too many years, to put it mildly. But if God’s call comes, it is better to heed it, no matter how late (and in that, there is real hope, for those who believe that they have delayed too long). Abraham leaves

his country, and his people, and his father’s household, and journeys

out into the world, following the still small voice; following God’s call.

And it is no call to happiness. It is the complete bloody catastrophe we previously described: famine, war, and domestic strife. All this might

make the reasonable individual (not to mention Abraham himself)

doubt the wisdom of listening to God and conscience, and of adopting

the responsibility of autonomy and the burden of adventure. Better to

be lying in a hammock, devouring peeled grapes in the security of

Dad’s tent. What calls you out into the world, however—to your

destiny—is not ease. It is struggle and strife. It is bitter contention and the deadly play of the opposites. It is probable—inevitable—that the

adventure of your life will frustrate and disappoint and unsettle you,

as you heed the call of conscience and shoulder your responsibility and endeavor to set yourself and the world right. But that is where the

deep meaning that orients you and shelters you is to be found. That is

where things will line up for you; where things that have been

scattered apart and broken will come together; where purpose will

manifest itself; where what is proper and good will be supported and

what is weak and resentful and arrogant and destructive will be

defeated. That is where the life that is worth living is to be eternally found—and where you can find it, personally, if only you are willing.

Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been

abdicated.

RULE

V

DO NOT DO WHAT YOU HATE

PATHOLOGICAL ORDER IN ITS DAY-TO-DAY GUISE

I once had a client who was subject to a barrage of constant idiocy as

part of her work in a giant corporation. She was a sensible, honest

person who had withstood and managed a difficult life and who

genuinely wished to contribute and work in a manner commensurate

with her good sense and honesty. She became subject while employed

in the corporate environment to a long, in-person and email-mediated

dispute about whether the term “flip chart” (a common phrase,

referring to a large pad of paper sheets, typically supported by a

tripod) was in fact a term of abuse. For those of you who still find it difficult to believe that conversations such as this occupy the hours of corporate workers, try a quick Google search. “Flip chart derogatory”

will suffice. You will see immediately that concern about this issue

genuinely and rather widely exists. Many meetings were held by her

superiors at work to discuss this issue.

“Flip” was apparently at one time a derogatory term for Filipino (I

could find little evidence for its use now). Even though the former slur has nothing whatsoever to do with “flip chart,” the administrators of

her firm felt that their time was well spent discussing the

hypothetically prejudicial nature of the phrase and formulating a

replacement term, the use of which eventually became mandatory

among employees. This was all despite the fact that no employee of

Filipino nationality or descent had ever complained about the

corporation’s use of the term. According to the Global Language

Monitor (languagemonitor.com), which monitors but does not approve politically correct word usage, the proper term is now “writing block,” despite the fact that a flip chart is in no way a “block.”

In any case, the corporation in question settled on “easel pad,”

which seems somewhat more descriptively accurate—not that this

comparatively elegant solution detracts from the foolishness in

question. After all, we are still left with “flip-flopped,” “flippant,” “flip-flops,” “flippers,” and so on, and at least the first two of those sound more derogatory on first exposure than “flip chart,” if we are going to concern ourselves with such things. Now, you might wonder: “What

difference does this minor change in terminology really make? It is a

trivial problem. Why would someone become concerned about the fact

that such change is being discussed? Why not ignore it, as it is best to ignore so much folly, and concentrate on something of more

importance?” Because, of course, you could claim that paying

attention to someone attending to such issues is as much a waste of

time as attending to the discussion in the first place. And I would say that is precisely the conundrum Rule V is trying to address. When do

you stop participating in a worrisome process that you see, or think

you see, unfolding in front of you?

My client first wrote me about the fact that not only was the string

of communication discussing the use of “flip chart” well received by

her coworkers, but that a contest of sorts immediately emerged to

identify and communicate additional words that might also be

offensive.* “Blackboard” was mentioned, as was “master key” (the former perhaps because referring to anything as “black”—even if it is

black—is somehow racist in our hypersensitive times; the latter

because of its hypothetical relationship to terminology historically

associated with slavery). My client tried to make sense of what she was witnessing: “Such discussions give people the superficial sense of

being good, noble, compassionate, openhearted, and wise. So, if for

the sake of argument anyone disagrees, how could that person join the

discussion without being considered anticompassionate, narrow

minded, racist and wicked?”

She was also perturbed because no one at her workplace was

apparently bothered that any given group of people might endow

themselves with the authority to ban words (and to disdain or even

discipline those who continued to use them) without perceiving any ethical overreach on their part, and without perceiving the danger of

such censorship, which could easily extend, say, to personal opinions,

topics of conversation—or, for that matter, books. Finally, she believed that the entire discussion constituted a prime example of “diversity,”

“inclusivity,” and “equity”—terms that had become veritable mantras

for the departments of Human Resources or Learning and

Development (the latter of which she worked for). She regarded them

as “engines of corporate indoctrination and ideological propaganda”

and as part of the manner in which the political correctness that

characterizes, above all, many university programs extends its reach

into the broader culture. More importantly, however, she asked me in

one of her letters, “Is this a case where enough is enough?” When and

where do we stop? If a tiny minority of people even hypothetically

finds some words offensive, then what? Do we continue to ban words

endlessly?”

What my client was perceiving—at least as far as she was concerned

—was not a single event, hypothetically capable of heading those involved in it down a dangerous path, but a clearly identifiable and

causally related variety or sequence of events, all heading in the same direction. Those events seemed to form a coherent pattern, associated

with an ideology that was directional in its intent, explicitly and

implicitly. Furthermore, the effect of that directionality had been

manifesting itself, by all appearances, for a reasonable amount of time, not only in the corporate world my client inhabited, but in the broader world of social and political institutions surrounding the corporation

for which she worked. Although rather isolated in the department she

happened to work in (the very epicenter of the ideological blitz of the corporation in question), she could see around her evidence that the

processes disturbing her were also having a detrimental effect on other people. And then there was the effect on her conscience. It is

important to understand that these issues were not minor

philosophical concepts to her. They were bothering her deeply and

upsetting her life.

It is, of course, the case that being required to do stupid, hateful

things is demoralizing. Someone assigned a pointless or even

counterproductive task will deflate, if they have any sense, and find

within themselves very little motivation to carry out the assignment.

Why? Because every fiber of their genuine being fights against that

necessity. We do the things we do because we think those things

important, compared to all the other things that could be important.

We regard what we value as worthy of sacrifice and pursuit. That

worthiness motivates us to act, despite the fact that action is difficult and dangerous. When we are called upon to do things that we find

hateful and stupid, we are simultaneously forced to act contrary to the structure of values motivating us to move forward stalwartly and

protecting us from dissolution into confusion and terror. “To thine

own self be true, ”1 as Polonius has it, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. That

“self”—that integrated psyche—is in truth the ark that shelters us when the storms gather and the water rises. To act in violation of its precepts

—its fundamental beliefs—is to run our own ship onto the shoals of

destruction. To act in violation of the precepts of that fundamental self is to cheat in the game we play with ourselves, to suffer the emptiness of betrayal, and to perceive abstractly and then experience in

embodied form the loss that is inevitably to come.

What price did my client pay for her initial subjugation to the

arbitrary dictates of her managers? She was an immigrant from a

former Soviet bloc country and had experienced more than a sufficient

taste of authoritarian ideology. In consequence, her inability to

determine how she might object to what was happening left her feeling

both weak and complicit. Furthermore, no sensible person could

possibly remain motivated to put forth effort anywhere such as her

workplace had become, where absurdities of a conceptual sort were

not only continually occurring but encouraged or, even worse,

required. Such “action” makes a mockery of productive work itself—

even the very idea of productive work (and that is in fact part of the

true motivation for such behavior: those jealous of genuine

competence and productivity have every reason to undermine and

denigrate even the concept of both). So, what did she do about the

demoralizing state in which she found herself?

My client did not feel sufficiently confident in her position or in the ability of her managers to engage in a genuine conversation with them

about her objections, although it was clear from my conversations with

her that she wished very much to escape from the situation. In

consequence, she began to develop what might be considered a rearguard action. She was already involved in developing in-house

education projects for the company, as we mentioned. It was possible

for her, therefore, to begin to branch out, offering her services as a

speaker at a variety of corporate conferences. Although she never

directly confronted the flip chart issue (and may have been wise to

avoid doing so), she began to speak out against the kind of

pseudoscience that characterizes many of the ideas that corporate

managers, particularly in Human Resources departments, regard as

valid. She presented a number of talks, for example, criticizing the

widespread fad of “learning styles”—a theory predicated on the idea

that there are between four and eight different modalities that

individuals prefer and that aid them if used when they are trying to

master new ideas. These include, for example, visual, auditory, verbal, physical, and logical, among others.

The problem with the learning styles theory? Most basically: there is

simply no evidence whatsoever for its validity. First, although students may express a preference for information being delivered in one form

over another, practically delivering it in that form does not improve

their academic performance. 2 Second (and this makes sense, given the first problem), there is no evidence that teachers can accurately assess the “learning style” of their students. 3 So, although it was not possible for my client to directly confront the particular foolishness that was

disturbing her, after long strategizing and much work she did manage

to push back very effectively against the ignorance that characterized

what passed for psychological knowledge among a substantial subset

of her coworkers (as well as those who worked in other companies,

where the same things were taking place). She had also done some

work as a journalist for one of the major newspapers in Albania, her

country of origin, and began to make continuing to do so a higher

priority. This did not pay well, but she developed a stellar professional reputation there, and fought hard in print for what she believed in,

warning the citizens of her once-Communist-dominated state of the

move toward totalitarian opinion beginning to make itself attractive to people in the West.

What price did she pay for her decision to stand up and fight? To

begin with, she had to face her fear of reprisal, as well as the fact that

such fear—in combination with the profound distaste she felt for the ideological maneuvers characterizing her workplace—was destroying

her interest in her office profession, as well as making her feel

inadequate and cowardly. Then, she had to broaden her professional

activities: first, taking the risk of offering herself as a speaker at

corporate conventions (and people are generally very loath to talk

publicly—it is a common fear, often severe enough to interfere with

career progression4); second, mastering the literature, enabling her to speak in a credible and informed manner; and third, presenting

material that, given its critical nature, was bound to offend a

reasonable proportion of those in the audience (precisely those who

had accepted and who were propagating the theories that she was now

discrediting). This all meant the facing of her fear—of inaction, as well as action. These moves challenged her deeply—but the consequence

was an expansion of personality and competence, as well as the

knowledge that she was making a genuine social contribution.

I believe that the good that people do, small though it may appear,

has more to do with the good that manifests broadly in the world than

people think, and I believe the same about evil. We are each more

responsible for the state of the world than we believe, or would feel

comfortable believing. Without careful attention, culture itself tilts

toward corruption. Tyranny grows slowly, and asks us to retreat in

comparatively tiny steps. But each retreat increases the possibility of the next retreat. Each betrayal of conscience, each act of silence

(despite the resentment we feel when silenced), and each

rationalization weakens resistance and increases the probability of the next restrictive move forward. This is particularly the case when those pushing forward delight in the power they have now acquired—and

such people are always to be found. Better to stand forward, awake,

when the costs are relatively low—and, perhaps, when the potential

rewards have not yet vanished. Better to stand forward before the

ability to do so has been irretrievably compromised. Unfortunately,

people often act in spite of their conscience—even if they know it—and

hell tends to arrive step by step, one betrayal after another. And it

should be remembered that it is rare for people to stand up against

what they know to be wrong even when the consequences for doing so

are comparatively slight. And this is something to deeply consider, if

you are concerned with leading a moral and careful life: if you do not object when the transgressions against your conscience are minor, why

presume that you will not willfully participate when the transgressions get truly out of hand?

Part of moving Beyond Order is knowing when you have such a

reason. Part of moving Beyond Order is understanding that your

conscience has a primary claim on your action, which supersedes your

conventional social duty. If you decide to stand up and refuse a

command, if you do something of which others disapprove but you

firmly believe to be correct, you must be in a position to trust yourself.

This means that you must have attempted to live an honest,

meaningful, productive life (of precisely the sort that might

characterize someone else you would tend to trust). If you have acted

honorably, so that you are a trustworthy person, it will be your

decision to refuse to comply or to act in a manner contrary to public

expectation that will help society itself maintain its footing. By doing so you can be part of the force of truth that brings corruption and

tyranny to a halt. The sovereign individual, awake and attending to his or her conscience, is the force that prevents the group, as the necessary structure guiding normative social relations, from becoming blind and

deadly.

I do not want to end this section on a falsely optimistic note. I know

from further correspondence with my client that she shifted her

employment from one large organization to another several times in

the years that followed. In one case, she found a good position, where

it was possible to engage in productive, sensible, meaningful work.

However, although successful there, she was laid off during a

corporate reorganization, and has since found the other companies she

has worked for as thoroughly possessed by the current linguistic and

identity-politics fads as her original place of employment. Some

dragons are everywhere, and they are not easy to defeat. But her

attempts to fight back—her work debunking pseudoscientific theories;

her work as a journalist—helped buttress her against depression and

bolster her self-regard.

FORTIFY YOUR POSITION

When culture disintegrates—because it refuses to be aware of its own

pathology; because the visionary hero is absent—it descends into the

chaos that underlies everything. Under such conditions, the individual

can dive voluntarily as deeply as he or she dares into the depths and

rediscover the eternal principles renewing vision and life. The

alternative is despair, corruption, and nihilism—thoughtless

subjugation to the false words of totalitarian utopianism and life as a miserable, lying, and resentful slave.

If you wish instead to be engaged in a great enterprise—even if you

regard yourself as a mere cog—you are required not to do things you

hate. You must fortify your position, regardless of its meanness and

littleness, confront the organizational mendacity undermining your

spirit, face the chaos that ensues, rescue your near-dead father from

the depths, and live a genuine and truthful life. Otherwise, nature

hides her face, society stultifies, and you remain a marionette, with

your strings pulled by demonic forces operating behind the scenes—

and one more thing: it is your fault. No one is destined in the

deterministic sense to remain a puppet.

We are not helpless. Even in the rubble of the most broken-down

lives, useful weapons might still be found. Likewise, even the giant

most formidable in appearance may not be as omnipotent as it

proclaims or appears. Allow for the possibility that you may be able to fight back; that you may be able to resist and maintain your soul—and

perhaps even your job. (But a better job may also beckon if you can

tolerate the idea of the transformation.) If you are willing to

conceptualize yourself as someone who could—and, perhaps more

importantly, should—stand fast, you may begin to perceive the

weapons at your disposal. If what you are doing is causing you to lash

out at others impulsively; if what you are doing is destroying your

motivation to move forward; if your actions and inactions are making

you contemptuous of yourself and, worse, of the world; if the manner

in which you conduct your life is making it difficult for you to wake

happily in the morning; if you are plagued by a deep sense of self-

betrayal—perhaps you are choosing to ignore that still small voice,

inclined as you may be to consider it something only attended to by the weak and naive.

If you are at work, and called upon to do what makes you

contemptuous of yourself—weak and ashamed, likely to lash out at

those you love, unwilling to perform productively, and sick of your life

—it is possible that it is time to meditate, consider, strategize, and

place yourself in a position where you are capable of saying no.*

Perhaps you will garner additional respect from the people you are

opposing on moral grounds, even though you may still pay a high price

for your actions. Perhaps they will even come to rethink their stance—

if not now, with time (as their own consciences might be plaguing

them in that same still small manner).

PRACTICALITIES

Perhaps you should also be positioning yourself for a lateral move—

into another job, for example, noting as you may, “This occupation is

deadening my soul, and that is truly not for me. It is time to take the painstaking steps necessary to organize my CV, and to engage in the

difficult, demanding, and often unrewarding search for a new job” (but

you have to be successful only once). Maybe you can find something

that pays better and is more interesting, and where you are working

with people who not only fail to kill your spirit, but positively

rejuvenate it. Maybe following the dictates of conscience is in fact the best possible plan that you have—at minimum, otherwise you have to

live with your sense of self-betrayal and the knowledge that you put up with what you truly could not tolerate. Nothing about that is good.

I might get fired. Well, prepare now to seek out and ready yourself for another job, hopefully better (or prepare yourself to go over your

manager’s head with a well-prepared and articulate argument). And

do not begin by presuming that leaving your job, even involuntarily, is necessarily for the worst.

I am afraid to move. Well, of course you are, but afraid compared to what? Afraid in comparison to continuing in a job where the center of

your being is at stake; where you become weaker, more contemptible,

more bitter, and more prone to pressure and tyranny over the years?

There are few choices in life where there is no risk on either side, and it is often necessary to contemplate the risks of staying as thoroughly as the risks of moving. I have seen many people move, sometimes after

several years of strategizing, and end up in better shape,

psychologically and pragmatically, after their time in the desert.

Perhaps no one else would want me. Well, the rejection rate for new job applications is extraordinarily high. I tell my clients to assume 50:1, so their expectations are set properly. You are going to be passed over, in many cases, for many positions for which you are qualified.

But that is rarely personal. It is, instead, a condition of existence, an inevitable consequence of somewhat arbitrary subjection to the

ambivalent conditions of worth characterizing society. It is the

consequence of the fact that CVs are easy to disseminate and difficult

to process; that many jobs have unannounced internal candidates (and

so are just going through the motions); and that some companies keep

a rolling stock of applicants, in case they need to hire quickly. That is an actuarial problem, a statistical problem, a baseline problem—and

not necessarily an indication that there is something specifically

flawed about you. You must incorporate all that sustainingly

pessimistic realism into your expectations, so that you do not become

unreasonably downhearted. One hundred and fifty applications,

carefully chosen; three to five interviews thereby acquired. That could be a mission of a year or more. That is much less than a lifetime of

misery and downward trajectory. But it is not nothing. You need to

fortify yourself for it, plan, and garner support from people who

understand what you are up to and are realistically appraised of the

difficulty and the options.

Now it may also be that you are lagging in the development of your

skills and could improve your performance at work so that your

chances of being hired elsewhere are heightened. But there is no loss

in that. You cannot effectively pronounce “no” in the presence of

corrupt power when your options to move are nonexistent. In

consequence, you have a moral obligation to place yourself in a

position of comparative strength, and to do then what is necessary to

capitalize on that strength. You may also have to think through worst-

case situations and to discuss them with those who will be affected by

your decisions. But it is once again worth realizing that staying where

you should not be may be the true worst-case situation: one that drags you out and kills you slowly over decades. That is not a good death,

even though it is slow, and there is very little in it that does not speak of the hopelessness that makes people age quickly and long for the

cessation of career and, worse, life. That is no improvement. As the old and cruel cliché goes: If you must cut off a cat’s tail, do not do it half an inch at a time. You may well be in for a few painful years of belated

recognition of insufficiency, and required to send out four or five or

ten job applications a week, knowing full well that the majority will be rejected with less than a second look. But you need to win the lottery

only once, and a few years of difficulty with hope beat an entire

dejected lifetime of a degenerating and oppressed career.

And let us be clear: It is not a simple matter of hating your job

because it requires you to wake up too early in the morning, or to drag yourself to work when it is too hot or cold or windy or dry or when you are feeling low and want to curl up in bed. It is not a matter of

frustration generated when you are called on to do things that are

menial or necessary such as emptying garbage cans, sweeping floors,

cleaning bathrooms, or in any other manner taking your lowly but

well-deserved place at the bottom of the hierarchy of competence—

even of seniority. Resentment generated by such necessary work is

most often merely ingratitude, inability to accept a lowly place at the beginning, unwillingness to adopt the position of the fool, or arrogance and lack of discipline. Refusal of the call of conscience is by no means the same thing as irritation about undesirably low status.

That rejection—that betrayal of soul—is truly the requirement to

perform demonstrably counterproductive, absurd, or pointless work;

to treat others unjustly and to lie about it; to engage in deceit, to

betray your future self; to put up with unnecessary torture and abuse

(and to silently watch others suffer the same treatment). That rejection is the turning of a blind eye, and the agreement to say and do things

that betray your deepest values and make you a cheat at your own

game. And there is no doubt that the road to hell, personally and

socially, is paved not so much with good intentions as with the

adoption of attitudes and undertaking of actions that inescapably

disturb your conscience.

Do not do what you hate.

RULE VI

ABANDON IDEOLOGY

THE WRONG PLACES

After I published my last book, my wife, Tammy, and I embarked on a

lengthy speaking tour throughout the English-speaking world and a

good part of Europe, particularly in the north. Most of the theaters I

spoke at were old and beautiful, and it was a delight to be in buildings with such rich architectural and cultural histories, where so many of

the bands we loved had played, and where other performing artists

had had their great moments. We booked 160 theaters—generally with

a capacity of about 2,500 to 3,000 people (although there were

smaller venues in Europe, and larger in Australia). I was—and am—

struck to the core by the fact that there was such an extensive audience for my lectures—and that we found that audience seemingly

everywhere. The same surprise extends to my YouTube and podcast

appearances—on my own channels, in interviews on others, and in the

innumerable clips that people have voluntarily cut from my longer

talks and discussions with journalists. These have been watched or

listened to hundreds of millions of times. And finally, there is the

aforementioned book, which will have sold something like four million

copies in English by the time the present volume is published, and

which will be translated into fifty additional languages, assuming

matters continue as they are now. It is not at all easy to know what to think about finding myself with an audience like that.

What is going on? Any sensible person would be taken aback—to

put it mildly—by all of this. It seems that my work must be addressing

something that is missing in many people’s lives. Now, as I mentioned

previously, I am relying for much of my content on the ideas of great psychologists and other thinkers, and that should count for something.

But I have also been continually considering what else more specific (if anything) might be attracting people’s attention, and have been relying on two sources of information to try to determine exactly that. The

first is the response I get directly from individuals themselves, when I meet them in the immediate aftermath of one of my lectures or when

they stop me on the street, in airports, cafés, or other public places.

In one midwestern American city (I think it might have been

Louisville), a young man met me after my lecture and said, “Quick

story. Two years ago, I was released from prison. Homeless. Broke. I

started listening to your lectures. Now I have a full-time job, and I own my apartment, and my wife and I just had our first child—a daughter.

Thank you.” And the “thank you” was accompanied with direct eye

contact and a firm handshake, and the story was told in the voice of

conviction. And people tell me very similar stories on the street, often in tears, although the one I just related was perhaps a bit more

extreme than the average tale. They share very private good news (the

kind you share only with people to whom you can safely tell such

things). And I feel greatly privileged to be one of those people,

although it is emotionally demanding to be the recipient of continual

personal revelations, regardless (or maybe even because) of the fact

that they are so positive. I find it heart-wrenching to see how little

encouragement and guidance so many people have received, and how

much good can emerge when just a little more is provided. “I knew you

could do it” is a good start, and goes a long way toward ameliorating

some of the unnecessary pain in the world.

So, that is one form of story that I hear, continually, in many

variants. When we meet, one on one, people also tell me that they

enjoy my lectures and what I have written because what I say and

write provides them with the words they need to express things they

already know, but are unable to articulate. It is helpful for everyone to be able to represent explicitly what they already implicitly understand.

I am frequently plagued with doubts about the role that I am playing,

so the fact that people find my words exist in accordance with their

deep but heretofore unrealized or unexpressed beliefs is reassuring,

helping me maintain faith in what I have learned and thought about

and have now shared so publicly. Helping people bridge the gap between what they profoundly intuit but cannot articulate seems to be

a reasonable and valuable function for a public intellectual. And then

there is the final piece of information bearing on whatever it is that I am accomplishing. I have garnered it as a direct consequence of the

live lectures that I have had so many opportunities to deliver. It is a privilege and a gift to be able to talk repeatedly to large groups of

people. It provides a real-time opportunity to judge the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. It also allows me to formulate and immediately test new ideas for their communicability and their ability to grip attention and, thereby, to judge their quality—at least in part. This occurs during the talk when I attend to how the audience responds.

In 12 Rules for Life, Rule 9: Assume that the person you are

listening to might know something you do not, I suggest that when

speaking to a large group you should nonetheless always be attending

to specific individuals—the crowd is somewhat of an illusion.

However, you can augment your individual-focused visual attention by

simultaneously listening to the entire group, so that you hear them

rustling around, laughing, coughing, or whatever they happen to be

doing, while you concentrate on perceiving specific individuals. What

you want to see from the person you are facing is rapt attention. What

you want to hear from the crowd is dead silence. You want to hear

nothing. Achieving that means your listeners are not distracted by everything they could be thinking about while in attendance. If you are an audience member at a performance, and you are not completely

enthralled by the content, you become preoccupied by some slight

physical discomforts, and shift from place to place. You become aware

of your own thoughts. You begin to think about what you need to do

tomorrow. You whisper something to the person beside you. That all

adds up to discontent in the audience, and audible noise. But if you, as speaker, are positioned properly on stage, physically and spiritually,

then everybody’s attention will be focused with laser-like intensity on whatever you are saying, and no one will make a sound. In this

manner, you can tell what ideas have power.

While watching and listening in the way I just described to all the

gatherings I have spoken to, I became increasingly aware that the

mention of one topic in particular brought every audience (and I mean

that without exception) to a dead-quiet halt: responsibility—the very topic we made central in this book in Rule IV: Notice that opportunity

lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. That response was

fascinating—and not at all predictable. Responsibility is not an easy

sell. Parents have been striving forever to make their kids responsible.

Society attempts the same thing, with its educational institutions,

apprenticeships, volunteer organizations, and clubs. You might even

consider the inculcation of responsibility the fundamental purpose of

society. But something has gone wrong. We have committed an error,

or a series of errors. We have spent too much time, for example (much

of the last fifty years), clamoring about rights, and we are no longer

asking enough of the young people we are socializing. We have been

telling them for decades to demand what they are owed by society. We

have been implying that the important meanings of their lives will be

given to them because of such demands, when we should have been

doing the opposite: letting them know that the meaning that sustains

life in all its tragedy and disappointment is to be found in shouldering a noble burden. Because we have not been doing this, they have grown

up looking in the wrong places. And this has left them vulnerable:

vulnerable to easy answers and susceptible to the deadening force of

resentment. What about the unfolding of history has left us in this

position? How has this vulnerability, this susceptibility, come about?

PERHAPS HE IS ONLY SLEEPING

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the German philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche famously announced “God is dead.” This utterance

has become so famous that you can even see it scribbled on the walls

of public bathrooms, where it often takes the following form: “God is

dead” —Nietzsche. “Nietzsche is dead” —God. Nietzsche did not make

this claim in a narcissistic or triumphant manner. The great thinker’s

opinion stemmed from his fear that all the Judeo-Christian values

serving as the foundation of Western civilization had been made

dangerously subject to casual rational criticism, and that the most

important axiom upon which they were predicated—the existence of a

transcendent, all-powerful deity—had been fatally challenged.

Nietzsche concluded from this that everything would soon fall apart, in a manner catastrophic both psychologically and socially.

It does not require a particularly careful reader to note that

Nietzsche described God, in The Gay Science, as the “holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned,” and modern human

beings as “the murderers of all murderers. ”1 These are not the sorts of descriptions you might expect from a triumphant rationalist

celebrating the demise of superstition. It was instead a statement of

absolute despair. In his other works, particularly in The Will to Power, Nietzsche describes what would occur in the next century and beyond

because of this murderous act. 2 He prophesied (and that is the correct word for it) that two major consequences would arise—apparent

opposites, although each linked inextricably and causally together—

and both associated with the death of traditional ritual, story, and

belief.

As the purpose of human life became uncertain outside the

purposeful structure of monotheistic thought and the meaningful

world it proposed, we would experience an existentially devastating

rise in nihilism, Nietzsche believed. Alternatively, he suggested, people would turn to identification with rigid, totalitarian ideology: the

substitute of human ideas for the transcendent Father of All Creation.

The doubt that undermines and the certainty that crushes: Nietzsche’s

prognostication for the two alternatives that would arise in the

aftermath of the death of God.

The incomparable Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky addressed

the same question as Nietzsche—at about the same time—in his

masterwork The Possessed (alternatively known as Demons or The Devils). 3 The protagonist in that novel, Nikolai Stavrogin, is wed to the same ideals that eventually birthed revolutionary communism,

although he lives his fictional life decades before the full-fledged

turmoil began in what became the Soviet Union. The appearance of

these ideals was not a positive development, in Dostoevsky’s view. He

could see that the adoption of a rigid, comprehensive utopian ideology, predicated on a few apparently self-evident axioms, presented a

political and spiritual danger with the potential to far exceed in

brutality all that had occurred in the religious, monarchical, or even

pagan past. Dostoyevsky, like Nietzsche, foresaw that all of this was

coming almost fifty years (!) before the Leninist Revolution in Russia.

That incomprehensible level of prophetic capacity remains a stellar

example of how the artist and his intuition brings to light the future far before others see it.

Nietzsche and Dostoevsky both foresaw that communism would

appear dreadfully attractive—an apparently rational, coherent, and

moral alternative to religion or nihilism—and that the consequences

would be lethal. The former wrote, in his inimitably harsh, ironic, and brilliant manner, “In fact, I even wish a few experiments might be

made to show that in socialistic society life denies itself, and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man is still

unexhausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and

demonstratio ad absurdum—even if it were accomplished only by a vast expenditure of lives—to seem worthwhile to me. ”4 The socialism Nietzsche referred to was not the relatively mild version later popular in Britain, Scandinavia, and Canada, with its sometimes genuine

emphasis on the improvement of working-class life, but the full-blown

collectivism of Russia, China, and a host of smaller countries. Whether we have truly learned the “practical lesson”—the demonstration of the

absurdity of the doctrine—as a consequence of Nietzsche’s predicted

“vast expenditure of lives” remains to be seen.

Nietzsche appears to have unquestioningly adopted the idea that the

world was both objective and valueless in the manner posited by the

emergent physical sciences. This left him with a single remaining

escape from nihilism and totalitarianism: the emergence of the

individual strong enough to create his own values, project them onto

valueless reality, and then abide by them. He posited that a new kind

of man—the Übermensch (the higher person or superman)—would be

necessary in the aftermath of the death of God, so that society would

not drift toward the opposing rocky shoals of despair and

oversystematized political theorizing. Individuals who take this route, this alternative to nihilism and totalitarianism, must therefore

produce their own cosmology of values.

However, the psychoanalysts Freud and Jung put paid to that

notion, demonstrating that we are not sufficiently in possession of

ourselves to create values by conscious choice. Furthermore, there is

little evidence that any of us have the genius to create ourselves ex

nihilo—from nothing—particularly given the extreme limitations of our experience, the biases of our perceptions, and the short span of

our lives. We have a nature—or, too often, it has us—and only a fool

would now dare to claim that we have sufficient mastery of ourselves

to create, rather than discover, what we value. We have the capacity

for spontaneous revelatory experience—artistic, inventive, and

religious. We discover new things about ourselves constantly, to our

delight—and also to our dismay, as we are so often overcome by our

emotions and motivations. We contend with our nature. We negotiate

with it. But it is not at all obvious that the individual will ever be

capable of bringing the new values that Nietzsche so fervently longed

for into being.

There are other problems with Nietzsche’s argument, as well. If

each of us lives by our own created and projected values, what remains

to unite us? This is a philosophical problem of central importance.

How could a society of Übermenschen possibly avoid being at constant

odds with one another, unless there was something comparable about

their created values? Finally, it is by no means obvious that any such

supermen have ever come into existence. Instead, over the last century

and a half, with the modern crisis of meaning and the rise of

totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany, the USSR, and Communist

China, we appear to have found ourselves in exactly the nihilistic or

ideologically possessed state that Nietzsche and Dostoevsky feared,

accompanied by precisely the catastrophic sociological and

psychological consequences they foretold.

It is also by no means self-evident that value, subjective though it

appears to be, is not an integral part of reality, despite the undeniable utility of the scientific method. The central scientific axiom left to us by the Enlightenment—that reality is the exclusive domain of the

objective—poses a fatal challenge to the reality of religious experience, if the latter experience is fundamentally subjective (and it appears to be exactly that). But there is something complicating the situation that seems to lie between the subjective and the objective: What if there are experiences that typically manifest themselves to one person at a time

(as seems to be the case with much of revelation), but appear to form a meaningful pattern when considered collectively? That indicates

something is occurring that is not merely subjective, even though it

cannot be easily pinned down with the existing methods of science. It could be, instead, that the value of something is sufficiently

idiosyncratic—sufficiently dependent on the particularities of time,

place, and the individual experiencing that thing—that it cannot be

fixed and replicated in the manner required for it to exist as a scientific object. This does not mean, however, that value is not real: It means only that it is so complex that it cannot yet and may never fit itself

within the scientific worldview. The world is a very strange place, and there are times when the metaphorical or narrative description

characteristic of culture and the material representation so integral to science appear to touch, when everything comes together—when life

and art reflect each other equally.

The psyche—the soul—that produces or is the recipient of such

experiences appears incontrovertibly real: the proof lying not least in our actions. We all axiomatically assume the reality of our individual

existences and conscious experiences, and we extend the same

courtesy to others (or else). It is by no means unreasonable to suggest that such existence and experience has a deep underlying biological

and physical structure. Those with a psychoanalytic bent certainly

assume so, as do many who study biological psychology, particularly if

they focus on motivation and emotion.5 That structure, accepted as a given by scientists and by the general population in equal measure,

appears to manifest religious experience as part of its basic function—

and that religious function has enough commonality across people to

make us at least understand what “religious experience” means—

particularly if we have had a taste of it at some point in life.

What does that imply? It might be that the true meaning of life is

available for discovery, if it can be discovered at all, by each individual, alone—although in communication with others, past and present. It

may well be, therefore, that the true meaning of life is not to be found in what is objective, but in what is subjective (but still universal). The existence of conscience, for example, provides some evidence for that,

as does the fact that religious experiences can reliably be induced

chemically, as well as through practices such as dancing, chanting,

fasting, and meditating. Additionally, the fact that religious ideas are capable of uniting vast numbers of people under a single moral

umbrella (although such ideas can divide across sects, as well) also

indicates something universal calling from within. Why do we so easily assume that nothing about that is real, given its apparent commonality

and necessity—given, as well, the near certainty that the capacity for

valuing is an ancient evolved function, selected for by the very reality we are attempting to define and understand?

We have seen the consequences of the totalitarian alternatives in

which the collective is supposed to bear the burdens of life, lay out the proper pathway, and transform the terrible world into the promised

utopia. The communists produced a worldview that was attractive to

fair-minded people, as well as those who were envious and cruel.

Perhaps communism may even have been a viable solution to the

problems of the unequal distribution of wealth that characterized the

industrial age, if all of the hypothetically oppressed were good people and all of the evil was to be found, as hypothesized, in their

bourgeoisie overlords. Unfortunately for the communists, a

substantial proportion of the oppressed were incapable,

unconscientious, unintelligent, licentious, power mad, violent,

resentful, and jealous, while a substantial proportion of the oppressors were educated, able, creative, intelligent, honest, and caring. When the frenzy of dekulakization swept through the newly established Soviet

Union, it was vengeful and jealous murderers who were redistributing

property, while it was competent and reliable farmers, for the most

part, from whom it was violently taken. One unintended consequence

of that “redistribution” of good fortune was the starvation of six

million Ukrainians in the 1930s, in the midst of some of the most

fertile land in the world.

The other major villains of the twentieth century, Germany’s

National Socialists, were, of course, also powerful and dangerous

ideologues. It has been suggested that Hitler’s acolytes were inspired

by Nietzsche’s philosophy. This claim may hold some truth in a

perverse manner, as they were certainly trying to create their own

values, although not as the individuals whose development the

philosopher promoted. It is more reasonable to say that Nietzsche

identified the cultural and historical conditions that made the rise to influence of ideas akin to those promoted by the Nazis extremely

likely. The Nazis were trying to create a post-Christian, postreligious perfect man, the ideal Aryan, and certainly formulated that ideal in a

manner not in accordance with the dictates of either Judaism or Christianity. Thus, the perfect Aryan could be and certainly was

conceptualized by the Nazis as a “higher man.” This does not mean

that the Nazi ideal as postulated bore any resemblance to the

Nietzschean ideal. Quite the contrary: Nietzsche was a fervent admirer

of individuality and would have considered the idea of the higher man

as state creation both absurd and abhorrent.

THE FATAL ATTRACTION OF THE FALSE IDOL

Consider those who have not gone so far as to adopt the discredited

ideologies of the Marxist-Leninists and the Nazis, but who still

maintain faith in the commonplace isms characterizing the modern

world: conservatism, socialism, feminism (and all manner of ethnic-

and gender-study isms), postmodernism, and environmentalism,

among others. They are all monotheists, practically speaking—or

polytheistic worshippers of a very small number of gods. These gods

are the axioms and foundational beliefs that must be accepted, a

priori, rather than proven, before the belief system can be adopted,

and when accepted and applied to the world allow the illusion to

prevail that knowledge has been produced.

The process by which an ism system can be generated is simple in

its initial stages but baroque enough in its application to mimic (and

replace) actual productive theorizing. The ideologue begins by

selecting a few abstractions in whose low-resolution representations

hide large, undifferentiated chunks of the world. Some examples

include “the economy,” “the nation,” “the environment,” “the

patriarchy,” “the people,” “the rich,” “the poor,” “the oppressed,” and

“the oppressors.” The use of single terms implicitly hypersimplifies

what are in fact extraordinarily diverse and complex phenomena (that

masked complexity is part of the reason that the terms come to carry

so much emotional weight). There are many reasons, for example, why

people are poor. Lack of money is the obvious cause—but that

hypothetical obviousness is part of the problem with ideology. Lack of

education, broken families, crime-ridden neighborhoods, alcoholism,

drug abuse, criminality and corruption (and the political and

economic exploitation that accompanies it), mental illness, lack of a life plan (or even failure to realize that formulating such a plan is

possible or necessary), low conscientiousness, unfortunate

geographical locale, shift in the economic landscape and the

consequent disappearance of entire fields of endeavor, the marked

proclivity for those who are rich to get richer still and the poor to get poorer, low creativity/entrepreneurial interest, lack of encouragement

—these are but a few of the manifold problems that generate poverty,

and the solution to each (assuming that a solution exists) is by no

means obviously the same. Nor are the villains hiding behind each

putative and differentiable cause the same villains (assuming that

there are even villains to be found).

All such problems require careful, particularized analysis, followed

by the generation of multiple potential solutions, followed by the

careful assessment of those solutions to ensure that they are having

their desired effect. It is uncommon to see any serious social problem

addressed so methodically. It is also rare that the solutions generated, even by methodical process, produce the intended outcome. The great

difficulty of assessing problems in sufficient detail to understand what is causing them, followed by the equally great difficulty of generating and testing particularized solutions, is sufficient to deter even the

stouthearted, let us say, from daring to tackle a true plague of

mankind. Since the ideologue can place him or herself on the morally

correct side of the equation without the genuine effort necessary to do so validly, it is much easier and more immediately gratifying to reduce the problem to something simple and accompany it with an evildoer,

who can then be morally opposed.

After breaking the world into large, undifferentiated pieces,

describing the problem(s) that characterize each division, and

identifying the appropriate villains, the ism theorist then generates a small number of explanatory principles or forces (which may indeed

contribute in some part to the understanding or existence of those

abstracted entities). Then he or she grants to that small number

primary causal power, while ignoring others of equal or greater

importance. It is most effective to utilize a major motivational system or large-scale sociological fact or conjecture for such purposes. It is also good to select those explanatory principles for an unstated

negative, resentful, and destructive reason, and then make discussion of the latter and the reason for their existence taboo for the ideologue and his or her followers (to say nothing of the critics). Next, the faux theorist spins a post-hoc theory about how every phenomenon, no

matter how complex, can be considered a secondary consequence of

the new, totalizing system. Finally, a school of thought emerges to

propagate the methods of this algorithmic reduction (particularly

when the thinker is hoping to attain dominance in the conceptual and

the real worlds), and those who refuse to adopt the algorithm or who

criticize its use are tacitly or explicitly demonized.

Incompetent and corrupt intellectuals thrive on such activity, such

games. The first players of a given game of this sort are generally the brightest of the participants. They weave a story around their causal

principle of choice, demonstrating how that hypothetically primary

motivational force profoundly contributed to any given domain of

human activity. Sometimes this is even helpful, as such activity may

shed light on how a motivation heretofore taboo to discuss or consider

might play a larger role in affecting human behavior and perception

than was previously deemed acceptable (this is what happened, for

example, with Freud, and his emphasis on sex). Their followers,

desperate to join a potentially masterable new dominance hierarchy

(the old one being cluttered by its current occupants), become

enamored of that story. While doing so, being less bright than those

they follow, they subtly shift “contributed to” or “affected” to “caused.”

The originator(s), gratified by the emergence of followers, start to shift their story in that direction as well. Or they object, but it does not

matter. The cult has already begun.

This kind of theorizing is particularly attractive to people who are

smart but lazy. Cynicism serves as an aid, too, as does arrogance. The

new adherents will be taught that mastering such a game constitutes

education, and will learn to criticize alternative theories, different

methods, and increasingly, even the idea of fact itself. If an

impenetrable vocabulary accompanies the theory, so much the better.

It will then take potential critics some valuable time even to learn to decode the arguments. And there is a conspiratorial aspect that rapidly comes to pervade the school where such “education” occurs, and

where such activity is increasingly all that is permitted: Do not criticize

the theory—and do not get singled out. Do not become unpopular.

Even: Do not receive a bad grade, or a poor review, for expressing a

taboo opinion (and even when this does not occur in practice, the fear

that it might keeps many students and professors, or employees and

employers, in check).

Freud, as we noted, attempted to reduce motivation to sexuality, to

libido. The same can be done quite effectively by anyone sufficiently

literate, intelligent, and verbally fluent. This is because “sexuality”

(like any multifaceted single term) can be defined as tightly or as

loosely as necessary by those who use it for comprehensively

explanatory purposes. No matter how defined, sex is a crucially

important biological phenomenon—key to complex life itself—and its

influence may therefore be genuinely detected or plausibly invented in

any important field of endeavor and then exaggerated (while other

factors of significant import are diminished in importance). In this

manner, the single explanatory principle can be expanded indefinitely,

in keeping with the demands placed upon it.

Marx did the same thing when he described man in a fundamentally

economic, class-based manner, and history as the eternal battleground

of bourgeoisie and proletariat. Everything can be explained by running

it through a Marxist algorithm. The wealthy are wealthy because they

exploit the poor. The poor are poor because they are exploited by the

wealthy. All economic inequality is undesirable, unproductive, and a

consequence of fundamental unfairness and corruption. There is, of

course—as in the case of Freud—some value in Marx’s observations.

Class is an important element of social hierarchies, and tends to

maintain itself with a certain stability across time. Economic well-

being, or the lack thereof, is of crucial significance. And the damnable fact of the Pareto distribution6—the tendency of those who have more to get more (which seems to apply in any economic system)—does

mean that wealth accumulates in the hands of a minority of people.

The people who make up that minority do change substantively,

regardless of the aforementioned class stability, 7 and that is a crucial point, but the fact that the comparatively rich are always a minority—

and a small one, at that—seems dismally immutable.

Regardless of its hypothetical virtues, however, the implementation

of Marxism was a disaster everywhere it was attempted—and that has

motivated attempts by its unrepentant would-be present-day adherents to clothe its ideas in new garb and continue forward, as if

nothing of significance has changed. Thinkers powerfully influenced

by Marx and overwhelmingly influential in much of the academy today

(such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida) modified the Marxist

simplification essentially by replacing “economics” with “power”—as if

power were the single motivating force behind all human behavior (as

opposed, say, to competent authority, or reciprocity of attitude and

action).

Ideological reduction of that form is the hallmark of the most

dangerous of pseudo-intellectuals. Ideologues are the intellectual

equivalent of fundamentalists, unyielding and rigid. Their self-

righteousness and moral claim to social engineering is every bit as

deep and dangerous. It might even be worse: ideologues lay claim to

rationality itself. So, they try to justify their claims as logical and thoughtful. At least the fundamentalists admit devotion to something

they just believe arbitrarily. They are a lot more honest. Furthermore, fundamentalists are bound by a relationship with the transcendent.

What this means is that God, the center of their moral universe,

remains outside and above complete understanding, according to the

fundamentalist’s own creed. Right-wing Jews, Islamic hard-liners, and

ultra-conservative Christians must admit, if pushed, that God is

essentially mysterious. This concession provides at least some

boundary for their claims, as individuals, to righteousness and power

(as the genuine fundamentalist at least remains subordinate to

Something he cannot claim to totally understand, let alone master).

For the ideologue, however, nothing remains outside understanding or

mastery. An ideological theory explains everything: all the past, all the present, and all the future. This means that an ideologue can consider

him or herself in possession of the complete truth (something

forbidden to the self-consistent fundamentalist). There is no claim

more totalitarian and no situation in which the worst excesses of pride are more likely to manifest themselves (and not only pride, but then

deceit, once the ideology has failed to explain the world or predict its future).

The moral of the story? Beware of intellectuals who make a

monotheism out of their theories of motivation. Beware, in more

technical terms, of blanket univariate (single variable) causes for diverse, complex problems. Of course, power plays a role in history, as does economics. But the same can be said of jealousy, love, hunger,

sex, cooperation, revelation, anger, disgust, sadness, anxiety, religion, compassion, disease, technology, hatred, and chance—none of which

can definitively be reduced to another. The attraction of doing so is,

however, obvious: simplicity, ease, and the illusion of mastery (which

can have exceptionally useful psychological and social consequences,

particularly in the short term)—and, let us not forget, the frequent

discovery of a villain, or set of villains, upon which the hidden

motivations for the ideology can be vented.

RESSENTIMENT

Ressentiment8—hostile resentment—occurs when individual failure or insufficient status is blamed both on the system within which that

failure or lowly status occurs and then, most particularly, on the

people who have achieved success and high status within that system.

The former, the system, is deemed by fiat to be unjust. The successful

are deemed exploitative and corrupt, as they can be logically read as

undeserving beneficiaries, as well as the voluntary, conscious, self-

serving, and immoral supporters, if the system is unjust. Once this

causal chain of thought has been accepted, all attacks on the successful can be construed as morally justified attempts at establishing justice—

rather than, say, manifestations of envy and covetousness that might

have traditionally been defined as shameful.

There is another typical feature of ideological pursuit: the victims

supported by ideologues are always innocent (and it is sometimes true

that victims are innocent), and the perpetrators are always evil (evil perpetrators are also not in short supply). But the fact that there exist genuine victims and perpetrators provides no excuse to make low-resolution, blanket statements about the global locale of blameless

victimization and evil perpetration—particularly of the type that does

not take the presumed innocence of the accused firmly into account.

No group guilt should be assumed—and certainly not of the

multigenerational kind.9 It is a certain sign of the accuser’s evil intent,

and a harbinger of social catastrophe. But the advantage is that the ideologue, at little practical costs, can construe him or herself both as nemesis of the oppressor and defender of the oppressed. Who needs

the fine distinctions that determination of individual guilt or

innocence demands when a prize such as that beckons?

To take the path of ressentiment is to risk tremendous bitterness.

This is in no small part a consequence of identifying the enemy

without rather than within. If wealth is the problem at issue, for

example, and the wealthy perceived as the reason for poverty and all

the other problems of the world, then the wealthy become the enemy—

indistinguishable, in some profound sense, from a degree of evil

positively demonic in its psychological and social significance. If

power is the problem, then those who have established any authority

at all are the singular cause of the world’s suffering. If masculinity is the problem, then all males (or even the concept of male) must be

attacked and vilified.* Such division of the world into the devil without and the saint within justifies self-righteous hatred—necessitated by the morality of the ideological system itself. This is a terrible trap: Once the source of evil has been identified, it becomes the duty of the

righteous to eradicate it. This is an invitation to both paranoia and

persecution. A world where only you and people who think like you are

good is also a world where you are surrounded by enemies bent on

your destruction, who must be fought.

It is much safer morally to look to yourself for the errors of the

world, at least to the degree to which someone honest and free of

willful blindness might consider. You are likely to be much more clear

minded about what is what and who is who and where blame lies once

you contemplate the log in your own eye, rather than the speck in your

brother’s. It is probable that your own imperfections are evident and

plentiful, and could profitably be addressed, as step one in your

Redeemer’s quest to improve the world. To take the world’s sins onto

yourself—to assume responsibility for the fact that things have not

been set right in your own life and elsewhere—is part of the messianic

path: part of the imitation of the hero, in the most profound of senses.

This is a psychological or spiritual rather than a sociological or

political issue. Consider the characters fabricated by second-rate

crafters of fiction: they are simply divided into those who are good and

those who are evil. By contrast, sophisticated writers put the divide inside the characters they create, so that each person becomes the

locus of the eternal struggle between light and darkness. It is much

more psychologically appropriate (and much less dangerous socially)

to assume that you are the enemy—that it is your weaknesses and

insufficiencies that are damaging the world—than to assume saintlike

goodness on the part of you and your party, and to pursue the enemy

you will then be inclined to see everywhere.

It is impossible to fight patriarchy, reduce oppression, promote

equality, transform capitalism, save the environment, eliminate

competitiveness, reduce government, or to run every organization like

a business. Such concepts are simply too low-resolution. The Monty

Python comedy crew once offered satirical lessons for playing the

flute: blow over one end and move your fingers up and down on the

holes.10 True. But useless. The necessary detail is simply not there.

Similarly, sophisticated large-scale processes and systems do not exist in a manner sufficiently real to render their comprehensive unitary

transformation possible. The idea that they do is the product of

twentieth-century cults. The beliefs of these cults are simultaneously

naive and narcissistic, and the activism they promote is the resentful

and lazy person’s substitute for actual accomplishment. The single

axioms of the ideologically possessed are gods, served blindly by their proselytizers.

Like God, however, ideology is dead. The bloody excesses of the

twentieth century killed it. We should let it go, and begin to address

and consider smaller, more precisely defined problems. We should

conceptualize them at the scale at which we might begin to solve them,

not by blaming others, but by trying to address them personally while

simultaneously taking responsibility for the outcome.

Have some humility. Clean up your bedroom. Take care of your

family. Follow your conscience. Straighten up your life. Find

something productive and interesting to do and commit to it. When

you can do all that, find a bigger problem and try to solve that if you dare. If that works, too, move on to even more ambitious projects.

And, as the necessary beginning to that process . . . abandon ideology.

RULE VII

WORK AS HARD AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN ON AT

LEAST ONE THING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS

THE VALUE OF HEAT AND PRESSURE

When coal is subjected to intense heat and pressure, far below the

Earth’s surface, its atoms rearrange themselves into the perfect

repeating crystalline alignment characterizing a diamond. The carbon

that makes up coal also becomes maximally durable in its diamond

form (as diamond is the hardest of all substances). Finally, it becomes capable of reflecting light. This combination of durability and glitter gives a diamond the qualities that justify its use as a symbol of value.

That which is valuable is pure, properly aligned, and glitters with light

—and this is true for the person just as it is for the gem. Light, of

course, signifies the shining brilliance of heightened and focused

consciousness. Human beings are conscious during the day, when it is

light. Much of that consciousness is visual and therefore dependent on

light. To be illumined or enlightened is to be exceptionally awake and

aware—to attain a state of being commonly associated with divinity.

To wear a diamond is to become associated with the radiance of the

Sun, like the king or queen whose profile is stamped on the sunlike

disc of the gold coin, a near-universal standard of worth.

Heat and pressure transform the base matter of common coal into

the crystalline perfection and rare value of the diamond. The same can

be said of a person. We know that the multiple forces operating in the

human soul are often not aligned with one another. We do the things

we wish we would not do and do not do the things we know we should

do. We want to be thin, but we sit on the couch eating Cheetos and

despairing. We are directionless, confused, and paralyzed by indecision. We are pulled in all directions by temptations, despite our stated will, and we waste time, procrastinate, and feel terrible about it, but we do not change.

It was for such reasons that archaic people found it easy to believe

that the human soul was haunted by ghosts—possessed by ancestral

spirits, demons, and gods—none of whom necessarily had the best

interests of the person at heart. Since the time of the psychoanalysts, these contrary forces, these obsessive and sometimes malevolent

spirits, have been conceptualized psychologically as impulses,

emotions, or motivational states—or as complexes, which act like

partial personalities united within the person by memory but not by

intent. Our neurological structure is indeed hierarchical. The powerful instinctual servants at the bottom, governing thirst, hunger, rage,

sadness, elation, and lust, can easily ascend and become our masters,

and just as easily wage war with one another. The resilience and

strength of a united spirit is not easy to attain.

A house divided against itself, proverbially, cannot stand. Likewise,

a poorly integrated person cannot hold himself together when

challenged. He loses union at the highest level of psychological

organization. He loses the properly balanced admixture of properties

that is another feature of the well-tempered soul, and cannot hold his

self together. We know this when we say “He lost it” or “He just fell

apart.” Before he picks up the pieces and rearranges them, such a

person is likely to fall prey to domination by one or more partial

personalities. This might be a spirit of rage, or anxiety, or pain, leaping in to occupy the person when his temper is lost. You can see this

occurring most clearly in the case of a two-year-old having a tantrum.

He has lost himself temporarily, and is for the moment pure emotion.

This is an occurrence that is often deeply upsetting to the two-year-old himself, and one of an intensity that would be terrifying to beholders if manifested by an adult. The archaic motivational systems governing

anger merely push the toddler’s developing personality aside, and have

their way with his mind and actions. This is a true and unfortunate

defeat for the still-fragile centralizing ego, struggling against powerful forces toward psychological and social integration.

Lack of internal union also makes itself known in the increased suffering, magnification of anxiety, absence of motivation, and lack of pleasure that accompany indecision and uncertainty. The inability to

decide among ten things, even when they are desirable, is equivalent

to torment by all of them. Without clear, well-defined, and

noncontradictory goals, the sense of positive engagement that makes

life worthwhile is very difficult to obtain. Clear goals limit and simplify the world, as well, reducing uncertainty, anxiety, shame, and the self-devouring physiological forces unleashed by stress. The poorly

integrated person is thus volatile and directionless—and this is only

the beginning. Sufficient volatility and lack of direction can rapidly

conspire to produce the helplessness and depression characteristic of

prolonged futility. This is not merely a psychological state. The

physical consequences of depression, often preceded by excess

secretion of the stress hormone cortisol, are essentially

indistinguishable from rapid aging (weight gain, cardiovascular

problems, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s).1

The social consequences are just as serious as the biological. A

person who is not well put together overreacts to the slightest hint of frustration or failure. He cannot enter into productive negotiations,

even with himself, because he cannot tolerate the uncertainty of

discussing potential alternative futures. He cannot be pleased, because he cannot get what he wants, and he cannot get what he wants because

he will not choose one thing instead of another. He can also be

brought to a halt by the weakest of arguments. One of his multiple,

warring subpersonalities will latch on to such arguments, often

contrary to his best interest, and use them, in the form of doubts, to

buttress its contrarian position. A deeply conflicted person can

therefore be stopped, metaphorically, with the pressure of a single

finger exerted on his chest (even though he may lash out against such

an obstacle). To move forward with resolve, it is necessary to be

organized—to be directed toward something singular and identifiable.

Aim. Point. All this is part of maturation and discipline, and

something to be properly valued. If you aim at nothing, you become

plagued by everything. If you aim at nothing, you have nowhere to go,

nothing to do, and nothing of high value in your life, as value requires the ranking of options and sacrifice of the lower to the higher. Do you

really want to be anything you could be? Is that not too much? Might it not be better to be something specific (and then, perhaps, to add to

that)? Would that not come as a relief—even though it is also a

sacrifice?

THE WORST DECISION OF ALL

When I was in graduate school at McGill University in Montreal

studying for my clinical PhD, I noticed a pronounced improvement in

character in everyone who continued in the progressively more

difficult five- to six-year program. Their social skills improved. They became more articulate. They found a profound sense of personal

purpose. They served a useful function in relation to others. They

became more disciplined and organized. They had more fun. This was

all despite the facts that the graduate courses were often of lower

quality than they might have been, the clinical placements unpaid and

difficult to come by, and the relationships with graduate supervisors

sometimes (but by no means always) subpar. Those beginning

graduate work were often still immature and confused. But the

discipline imposed upon them by the necessity of research—and more

particularly, thesis preparation—soon improved their characters. To

write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in

part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.

When I became a professor and started mentoring undergraduate

and graduate students, I observed the same thing. The undergrad

psychology students who allied themselves with a lab (and therefore

took on additional work) obtained better grades than those who

burdened themselves less. Taking on the functions of junior

researchers helped them establish a place and a community, while

requiring them to discipline themselves, not least by necessitating

more efficient use of their time. I observed a similar process when

working as a clinical psychologist. I typically encouraged my clients to choose the best path currently available to them, even if it was far from their ideal. This sometimes meant tolerating at least a temporary

decrease in ambition, or in pride, but had the advantage of

substituting something real for something available only in fantasy.

Improvements in mental health almost invariably followed.

Is there anything worth committing to? I am now old enough to

have seen what happens when the various manners in which this

question might be answered manifest themselves. In my career as

undergraduate, graduate student, professor, clinical psychologist,

researcher, and in my various additional forays, I have seen the same

twin paths of development manifest themselves repeatedly. Both are

available, in principle, to everyone—to each of the half-developed,

wandering, prematurely cynical, questioning, doubtful, and hopeful

fools that we all are to varying degrees when young and on the brink of adulthood. It has become self-evident to me that many commitments

have enduring value: those of character, love, family, friendship, and

career foremost among them (and perhaps in that order). Those who

remain unable or unwilling to establish a well-tended garden, so to

speak, in any or all those domains inevitably suffer because of it.

However, commitment requires its pound of flesh. To pursue an

undergraduate degree means sacrifice and study, and the choice of a

given discipline means forgoing the possibility of other pathways of

study. The same goes for selecting a partner or group of friends.

Cynicism about such things, or mere indecision or doubt, finds an easy

but truly adversarial ally in the mindlessly nihilistic rationality that undermines everything: Why bother? What difference is it going to

make in a thousand years? What makes one pathway preferable to

another—or to none—anyway?

It is possible to be content, or even happy, with one partner or

another, or with one group of friends or another, or with one career or another. In some sense, the satisfaction that these arrangements bring

could have been generated by different choices. They are also each

deeply flawed: romantic partners can be fickle and complex, as can

friends, and every career or job is characterized by frustration,

disappointment, corruption, arbitrary hierarchy, internal politics, and sheer idiocy of decision making. We could conclude from that lack of

specific or ideal value that nothing matters more than anything else—

or to draw the even more hopeless allied conclusion that nothing

therefore matters at all. But those who draw such conclusions, no

matter how well armed they are with rationally coherent arguments,

pay a high price. People suffer for it if they quit before completing an undergraduate degree or the study of a trade. And this means “quit,”

not fail, although the two can be difficult to distinguish. Sometimes

people fail because they just cannot manage the job, despite good

intentions and necessary discipline. It takes a certain verbal capacity to operate effectively as a lawyer, and a certain degree of facility with mechanical objects, for example, to become a carpenter. Sometimes

the match between person and choice is so poor that even

commitment will not suffice to bring about the desired end. But very

often failure is a consequence of insufficient single-mindedness,

elaborate but pointless rationalization, and rejection of responsibility.

And little good comes of that.

People who do not choose a job or a career commonly become

unmoored and drift. They may attempt to justify that drifting with a

facade of romantic rebelliousness or prematurely world-weary

cynicism. They may turn to casual identification with avant-garde

artistic exploration or treat the attendant despair and aimlessness with the pursuit of hard-core alcohol and drug use and their instant

gratifications. But none of that makes for a successful thirty-year-old (let alone someone a decade older). The same holds true for people

who cannot choose and then commit to a single romantic partner, or

are unable or unwilling to be loyal to their friends. They become

lonely, isolated, and miserable, and all that merely adds the additional depth of bitterness to the cynicism that spurred the isolation in the

first place. That is not the sort of vicious circle that you want to

characterize your life.

The people I knew who finished their undergraduate degrees or

trade programs were better for it. Not “good,” necessarily. Not

functioning optimally. Not necessarily thrilled with their choices, or

devoid of doubt and misgiving. Not even certain to continue in pursuit

of what they had studied. But far better than those who withdrew and

drifted. The commitments and the sacrifices thereby entailed matured

those who endured and made them better people. So, what is the

conclusion? There are many things to which we might commit

ourselves. A case can be made for the arbitrary and even meaningless

nature of any given commitment, given the plethora of alternatives,

given the corruption of the systems demanding that commitment. But

the same case cannot be made for the fact of commitment itself: Those who do not choose a direction are lost. It is far better to become

something than to remain anything but become nothing. This is

despite all the genuine limitations and disappointments that becoming

something entails. Everywhere, the cynic despairs, are bad decisions.

But someone who has transcended that cynicism (or more accurately,

replaced it with an even more profound doubt—that is, the doubt that

doubt itself is an ultimately reliable guide) objects: the worst decision of all is none.

DISCIPLINE AND UNITY

The discipline that enables concentration on one thing begins young.

At a very early age, children begin to order the multiplicity of emotions and motivations that constitute their basic instincts of survival into the strategies of cooperation and competition that involve others,

voluntarily—and children who are well constituted and fortunate

manage this in a manner that is simultaneously socially desirable and

psychologically healthy. When a child’s self-directed experience is

interrupted by the emergence of an instinctual system (when the child

is hungry, angry, tired, or cold), the good parent steps in, solving the problem disrupting the child’s fragile unity or, better yet, teaching the child to solve the problem himself. When the latter process has been

completed with sufficient thoroughness, the child is ready to join the

social world. This must happen by the age of four, or it may never

happen.2 A child must be sufficiently self-organizing to be desirable to his or her peers by the age of four or risk permanent social ostracism.

A child who is still having temper tantrums by that age runs precisely

that risk.

The process of integration is furthered by peers—friends—for the

child well trained or fortunate enough to be accepted. When a child

plays a game with others, she is disciplining herself. She is learning to subordinate all her competing impulses to the dictates of that game—

one thing, despite the potential multiplicity of rules; learning to

subjugate herself voluntarily to its rules and well-defined goals. To

play in such a manner, she must transform herself into a functional

subunit of a larger social machine. This can be interpreted as a sacrifice of individuality, if individuality is defined as limitless choice of impulsive gratification. But it is much more accurately development of individuality, considered at a higher level: the properly functioning and integrated individual tempers the desires of the present with the

necessities of the future (including the necessity of playing well with others). It is in this manner that the multifarious games of childhood

temper the screaming cacophony of late infancy. The payoff for such

development is, of course, the security of social inclusion, and the

pleasure of the game.

This, it should be noted, is not repression. This point must be made clear, as people believe that the things discipline imposed by choice

prevents us from doing will somehow be lost forever. It is this belief, in large part—often expressed with regard to creativity—that makes so

many parents afraid of damaging their children by disciplining them.

But proper discipline organizes rather than destroys. A child terrified into obedience or shielded from every possible chance of misbehavior

is not disciplined, but abused. A child who has been disciplined

properly, by contrast—by parents, other adults, and most significantly, by other children—does not battle with, defeat, and then permanently

inhibit her aggression. Such a child does not even sublimate that aggression, or transform it into something different. Instead, she

integrates it into her increasingly sophisticated game-playing ability, allowing it to feed her competitiveness and heighten her attention, and making it serve the higher purposes of her developing psyche. A well-socialized child does not therefore lack aggression. She just becomes extremely good at being aggressive, transmuting what might

otherwise be a disruptive drive into the focused perseverance and

controlled competitiveness that make for a successful player. By the

dawn of adolescence, such a child can organize herself into ever more

complex games—joint, goal-directed activities that everyone plays

voluntarily, and that everyone enjoys and benefits from, even if only

one person or one team can win at a time. This ability is civilization

itself in its nascent form, at the level of the individual player and

group. This is where both cooperation and the opportunity to compete

and win make themselves simultaneously manifest. This is all

necessary preparation for the more permanent choices that must be made for a successful adulthood.

It is certainly possible—and reasonable—to have some doubt and to

argue about which game might best be played here and now; but it is

not reasonable to state that all games are therefore unnecessary.

Likewise, although it may be possible to argue about which morality is

the necessary morality, it is not possible to argue that morality itself is thus unnecessary. Doubt about which game is appropriate right now is

not relativism. It is the intelligent consideration of context. The fact that happiness is not appropriate, for example, at a funeral, does not

mean that happiness itself lacks value. Likewise, the claim that

morality is both necessary and inevitable is not totalitarian. It is

merely the observation that basic, primitive unidimensional values

must be subsumed under socially organized structures for peace and

harmony to exist and be maintained. It was the bringing together of a

warring multiplicity under the unifying doctrines of Christianity that

civilized Europe. It could, perhaps, have been Buddhism,

Confucianism, or Hinduism, insofar as the East is also both broadly

civilized and unified. But it could not have been the absence of any

doctrine whatsoever. Without a game, there is no peace, only chaos.

Furthermore, the game that exists must be playable (as we discussed

in Rule IV: Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has

been abdicated). This means that it must be structured by a

communally acceptable set of rules—by only those constraints that

many people are willing to abide by, for a long time. It is possible that many such games exist, theoretically, but it is at least equally possible that there are only a few. In any case, the rules of Christianity and the rules of Buddhism are by no means arbitrary, by no means nonsensical

superstition, any more than the rules of a playable game are merely

arbitrary or nonsensically superstitious. To think that peace can exist without the overarching and voluntarily accepted game is to

misunderstand the ever-present danger of the fragmented tribalism to

which we can so easily and devastatingly regress.

Once the social world has forced the child to integrate his multiple

subpersonalities, he can play with others. After that, he should be

ready to engage in the more serious games that make up jobs or

professions, with their highly structured expectations, skills, and rules.

He must learn those, as well as—when older—the dance of the sexes.

He must integrate his socialized personality with that of another, so

that the couple he makes with that other can exist together peacefully, productively, within society, over the long term—while maintaining

voluntary willingness to do so. This is the dual process of psychological and social integration that accompanies apprenticeship, all associated

with the outsourcing of sanity. Adherence to this process will make

him a socially sophisticated, productive, and psychologically healthy

adult, capable of true reciprocity (and, perhaps, the temporary

suspension of the demand of reciprocity necessary to raise children).

But the story of integration and socialization does not end here.

This is because two things are happening at once, during an

apprenticeship worthy of the name (just as learning to play a game

and learning to be a good sport happen at the same time, while

playing). Initially, the apprentice must become a servant of tradition, of structure, and of dogma, just as the child who wants to play must

follow the rules of the game. At its best, this servitude means grateful alliance, in one form or another, with the institutions typically

considered patriarchal. Apprenticeship means heat and pressure (as

new workmen are tried by their peers, as articling law students are

tried by their employers, as medical residents are tried by physicians, nurses, and patients). The goal of this heat and pressure is

subordination of an undeveloped personality (by no means

“individual” at this point) to a single path, for the purposes of

transformation from undisciplined beginner to accomplished master.

The master, who is the rightful product of apprenticeship, is,

however, no longer the servant of dogma. Instead, he is now himself

served by dogma, which he has the responsibility to maintain as well

as the right to change, when change is necessary. This makes the

master, who once allowed himself to be enslaved, an emergent

follower of spirit—the wind (spirit) that bloweth where it listeth (John 3:8). The master can allow himself his intuitions, as the knowledge

obtained by the discipline he has acquired will enable him to criticize his own ideas and assess their true value. He may therefore more

clearly perceive the fundamental patterns or principles that underlie

the dogmas of his discipline, and draw inspiration from those, instead

of blindly adhering to the rules as currently articulated or embodied.

He may even rely on the integrated union of his personality and his training to modify or transform even those more fundamental, deeply

intuited principles, in the service of an even higher union.

DOGMA AND SPIRIT

The limiting disciplines that serve both as precondition for a game and for the development of a unity of being can usefully be considered

Thou Shalt Nots—rules that highlight what is definitely not to be done, while whatever is supposed to be done is taking place. Abiding by

these rules produces a development of character—character with a

particular nature or essence (we have already discussed this as, say,

the development of personal desirability as a player of many games, or

sequences of games). As is the case in many other situations, it

appears that this idea is already implicit in the stories that make up

the bedrock of our culture. This is particularly evident in the Gospel of Mark, which is a commentary on what are among the most influential

Rules of the Game ever formulated—the Mosaic Ten Commandments

(and, even more broadly, a commentary on rules themselves). The

commandments follow:

1. Though shalt have no other gods before me.

2. Though shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honor thy father and thy mother.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet.

The first speaks to the necessity of aiming at the highest possible

unity; the second to the danger of worshipping false idols (by

confusing the representation, or the image, with the ineffable it is

supposed to represent); the third means that it is wrong to claim moral inspiration from God while knowingly committing sinful acts; the

fourth means that it is necessary to leave time to regularly consider

what is truly valuable or sacred; the fifth keeps families together,

mandating honor, respect, and gratitude from children as just reward

for the sacrifices made by parents; the sixth prevents murder

(obviously) but, by doing so, also protects the community from

potential descent into constant and potentially multigenerational

feuding; the seventh mandates the sacredness of the marriage vow,

predicated on the assumption (like the fifth) that the stability and

value of the family is of paramount importance; the eighth allows for

honest, hardworking people to reap the benefits of their efforts

without fear that what they have produced will be taken from them

arbitrarily (and, thereby, makes civilized society a possibility); the

ninth maintains the integrity of the law, reducing or eliminating its use as a weapon; and the tenth is a reminder that envy and the resentment

it breeds is a destructive force of the highest power.

It is worthwhile thinking of these Commandments as a minimum

set of rules for a stable society—an iterable social game. The

Commandments are rules established in the book of Exodus, and part

of that unforgettable story. But they are also pointers to something

else—something that simultaneously emerges from and transcends the

rules and constitutes their essence. The core idea is this: subjugate

yourself voluntarily to a set of socially determined rules—those with

some tradition in their formulation—and a unity that transcends the

rules will emerge. That unity constitutes what you could be, if you

concentrate on a particular goal and see it through.

There is a story relevant to this idea in the Gospel of Mark. The

pertinent section begins with Christ journeying to the temple of

Jerusalem, where He casts out the moneychangers and merchants and

addresses the crowd with an irresistible charisma. And, as the tale

goes, “the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they

might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was

astonished at his doctrine” (Mark 11:18). In consequence, they begin to conspire, questioning this strange prophet, hoping to entice Him into

a heretical and therefore potentially fatal statement, sending to Him

“certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his

words” (Mark 12:13). Christ deals masterfully, to say the least, with the questioners, reducing them to an aggrieved and resentful silence. The

section ends with what is arguably the most difficult and treacherous

of questions, posed by a particularly cunning but also perhaps

begrudgingly admiring interlocutor (Mark 12:28–34):

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them

reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered

them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of

all?

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the

commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one

Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy

strength: this is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy

neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment

greater than these.

And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said

the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but

he:

And to love him with all the heart, and with all the

understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the

strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than

all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said

unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no

man after that durst ask him any question.

What does this all mean? The personality integrated by disciplined

adherence to a set of appropriate rules is simultaneously (although

perhaps unknowingly) guided by or imitating the highest possible

ideal—precisely that ideal that constitutes whatever common element

of “moral” makes all the rules good, just, and necessary. That ideal,

according to Christ’s answer, is something singular (the “one Lord”),

thoroughly embodied (loved with “all thy heart,” “soul,”

“understanding,” and “strength”), and then manifested as a love that is identical for self and all mankind.

Western culture is “unconsciously” underpinned by a very profound

drama, reflecting all this, because of its origin in Judeo-Christian

conceptualization. Psychologically speaking, Christ is a representation, or an embodiment, of the mastery of dogma and the (consequent)

emergence of spirit. Spirit is the creative force that gives rise to what becomes dogma, with time. Spirit is also that which constantly

transcends such time-honored tradition, when possible. It is for this

reason that an apprenticeship ends with a masterpiece, the creation of

which signifies not only the acquisition of the requisite skill, but the acquisition of the ability to create new skills.

Although Christ commits many acts that might be considered

revolutionary, as we discussed in Rule I, He is nonetheless explicitly

portrayed in the Gospels as the master of tradition, and says of

Himself, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the

prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17, KJV).

The New International Version of the Bible perhaps puts it more

comprehensibly: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or

the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Christ therefore presents Himself as both the product of tradition, and the very thing that creates and transforms it. The same pattern of

creative conflict pervades the Old Testament, which is in large part a

series of stories about the spirit in prophetic opposition to the

inevitable corruption of dogma harnessed to serve power. It is the

personality who mimics that model who might be regarded as truly

Western, in the deepest of psychological senses.

If you work as hard as you can on one thing, you will change. You

will start to also become one thing, instead of the clamoring multitude you once were. That one thing, developed properly, is not only the

disciplined entity formed by sacrifice, commitment, and

concentration. It is that which creates, destroys, and transforms

discipline itself—civilization itself—by expressing its unity of

personality and society. It is the very Word of truth, upon whose

function all habitable order, wrenched out of chaos, eternally depends.

Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.

RULE VIII

TRY TO MAKE ONE ROOM IN YOUR HOME AS

BEAUTIFUL AS POSSIBLE

CLEANING YOUR ROOM IS NOT ENOUGH

I have become known for encouraging people to clean up their rooms.

Perhaps that is because I am serious about that prosaic piece of advice, and because I know that it is a much more difficult task than it

appears. I have been unsuccessfully cleaning up my room, by the way

—my home office (which I generally keep in relatively pristine

condition)—for about three years now. My life was thrown into such

chaos over that period by the multitude of changes I experienced—

political controversies, transformation of career, endless travel,

mountains of mail, the sequence of illnesses—that I simply became

overwhelmed. The disorganization was heightened by the fact that my

wife and I had just finished having much of our house renovated, and

everything we could not find a proper place for ended up in my office.

There is a meme floating around the internet, accusing me of

hypocrisy on account of this: a still taken from a video I shot in my

office, with a fair bit of mess in the background (and I cannot say that I look much better myself). Who am I to tell people to clean up their

rooms before attempting to fix the rest of the world when, apparently,

I cannot do it myself? And there is something directly synchronistic

and meaningful about that objection, because I am not in proper order

at that moment myself, and my condition undoubtedly found its

reflection in the state of my office. More piled up every day, as I

traveled, and everything collected around me. I plead exceptional

circumstances, and I put many other things in order during the time

my office was degenerating, but I still have a moral obligation to get back in there and put it right. And the problem is not just that I want to clean up the mess. I also want to make it beautiful: my room, my

house, and then, perhaps, in whatever way I can manage, the

community. God knows it is crying out for it.

Making something beautiful is difficult, but it is amazingly

worthwhile. If you learn to make something in your life truly beautiful

—even one thing—then you have established a relationship with

beauty. From there you can begin to expand that relationship out into

other elements of your life and the world. That is an invitation to the divine. That is the reconnection with the immortality of childhood,

and the true beauty and majesty of the Being you can no longer see.

You must be daring to try that.

If you study art (and literature and the humanities), you do it so

that you can familiarize yourself with the collected wisdom of our

civilization. This is a very good idea—a veritable necessity—because

people have been working out how to live for a long time. What they

have produced is strange but also rich beyond comparison, so why not

use it as a guide? Your vision will be grander and your plans more

comprehensive. You will consider other people more intelligently and

completely. You will take care of yourself more effectively. You will

understand the present more profoundly, rooted as it is in the past,

and you will come to conclusions much more carefully. You will come

to treat the future, as well, as a more concrete reality (because you will have developed some true sense of time) and be less likely to sacrifice it to impulsive pleasure. You will develop some depth, gravitas, and

true thoughtfulness. You will speak more precisely, and other people

will become more likely to listen to and cooperate productively with

you, as you will with them. You will become more your own person,

and less a dull and hapless tool of peer pressure, vogue, fad, and

ideology.

Buy a piece of art. Find one that speaks to you and make the

purchase. If it is a genuine artistic production, it will invade your life and change it. A real piece of art is a window into the transcendent,

and you need that in your life, because you are finite and limited and

bounded by your ignorance. Unless you can make a connection to the

transcendent, you will not have the strength to prevail when the

challenges of life become daunting. You need to establish a link with what is beyond you, like a man overboard in high seas requires a life

preserver, and the invitation of beauty into your life is one means by

which that may be accomplished.

It is for such reasons that we need to understand the role of art, and

stop thinking about it as an option, or a luxury, or worse, an

affectation. Art is the bedrock of culture itself. It is the foundation of the process by which we unite ourselves psychologically, and come to

establish productive peace with others. As it is said, “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4). That is exactly right. We live by

beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. We cannot live without

some connection to the divine—and beauty is divine—because in its

absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic. And we must be

sharp and awake and prepared so that we can survive properly, and

orient the world properly, and not destroy things, including ourselves

—and beauty can help us appreciate the wonder of Being and motivate

us to seek gratitude when we might otherwise be prone to destructive

resentment.

MEMORY AND VISION

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the

stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of

eternity too great for the eye of man.

—WILLIAM BLAKE, FROM “PROVERBS OF HELL,” The Marriage of

Heaven and Hell

When I was a child, I knew the contours and details of all the houses

in my immediate neighborhood. I knew the back alleys, the places

behind the fences, the location of each crack in the pavement, and the

shortcuts that could be taken from one place to another. My

geographical locale was not large, but I had explored it thoroughly and my knowledge of it was very detailed. Now that I am an adult, the

same is not true. I lived in Fairview, the town I grew up in for most of my childhood and adolescence, for only nine years, but I am still able

to picture in high resolution the street I lived on. I have lived in

Toronto, on the same street, for more than twice as long, but I still

have only a vague sense of the houses that surround mine.

I do not think that is a good thing. I feel far less at home because of it. It is as if when I walk down the street and glance at a local house, I think of “house” as an icon (because, really, what practical difference does it make to me what particularities characterize each house?), and

then my attention is turned to something else. I do not see the house,

with its specific shingles, colors, flowers, and architectural details, despite the interest that might have been elicited in me had I paid

careful attention. By this point in my life, I have seen so many houses in so many places that I know what a house is likely to do when I walk

by it—which is very little. Thus, I ignore the engaging idiosyncrasies

and beauties of its details—its unique character, for better or worse—

and see just enough to stay oriented as I walk past and continue to

think and be elsewhere as I do so. There is real loss in that. I am

simply not there in my adult neighborhood the same way I was as a child in my hometown. I am separated from the reality of the world.

And a very deep feeling of belonging is missing in some important way

because of that.

Perception has been replaced for me with functional, pragmatic

memory. This has made me more efficient, in some ways, but the cost

is an impoverished experience of the richness of the world. I

remember when I started working as a junior professor in Boston,

when my kids were about two and three years old. I was very

preoccupied with my work, trying to keep up, trying to advance my

career, trying to make enough money to support my family on a single

income. I would come home and take a walk with Tammy and our

children, Mikhaila and Julian. I found it very difficult to remain

patient with them. I had too much work to do, always—or believed I

did—and had disciplined myself through years of effort to focus

continually on that. If we went for a walk, I wanted to know exactly

where we were going, just how long it would take to get there, and

precisely when we were going back. This is no attitude to adopt when trying to have a pleasant and reasonable time with toddlers. Not if you want to immerse yourself in the experience. Not if you want to watch

and participate in the pleasure they take in their timeless discovery.

Not unless you want to risk missing something of crucial import.

It was very difficult for me to relax and focus on the present and

watch my little kids pursue their meandering route through the

neighborhood, with no particular destination, purpose, or schedule in

mind, engaging themselves deeply in an encounter with a local dog,

bug, or earthworm, or in some game they invented on the way. Now

and then, however, I could snap briefly into that same frame of

reference (that is one of the wonderful gifts provided by young

children) and see the pristine world they inhabited, still untrammeled

by practiced and efficient memory, capable of producing pure joy in

the newness of everything. But I was still possessed enough by my

future concerns to be involuntarily pulled back into intense

preoccupation with getting the next thing done.

I knew perfectly well that I was missing out on beauty and meaning

and engagement, regardless of whatever advantages in efficiency my

impatience brought. I was narrow, sharp, and focused, and did not

waste time, but the price I paid for that was the blindness demanded

by efficiency, accomplishment, and order. I was no longer seeing the

world. I was seeing only the little I needed to navigate it with

maximum speed and lowest cost. None of that was surprising. I had

the responsibilities of an adult. I had a demanding job. I had to take

care of my family, and that meant sacrificing the present and

attending to the future. But having little children around and noticing their intense preoccupation with the present, and their fascination

with what was directly around them, made me very conscious of the

loss that accompanied maturity. Great poets are expressly aware of

this, and they do what they can to remind the rest of us:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

Turn wheresoe’er I may,

By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more. . . .

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:—

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

—But there’s a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone;

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, “ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD”

Some, in fact, never lose the glorious vision of childhood. This is

particularly true of artists (and, indeed, seems a vital part of what

makes them artists). William Blake, the English painter, printmaker,

and poet, appears to have been one such person. He inhabited a

uniquely visionary world. Blake perceived something closer to what

the philosopher Immanuel Kant termed “the thing in itself” 1 than do most mortals, left as we are with the pale reflection of our

surroundings that our increasingly restricted mature perceptions

deliver to us. Blake was also exquisitely sensitive to the metaphoric or dramatic significance of each apparently isolated event—the manner

in which each event is rife with endless poetically echoing

connotations:

Every Farmer Understands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eternity

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight

The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar

Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death

The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air

Does to Rags the Heavens tear

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun

Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

The poor Mans Farthing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands

Or if protected from on high

Does that whole Nation sell & buy

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rotting Grave shall neer get out

He who respects the Infants faith

Triumphs over Hell & Death

—WILLIAM BLAKE, “AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE” (LINES 67–90)

The vision of a true artist such as Blake is truly too much, because

what is beyond our memory-restricted perceptions is too much. It is

the unfathomable totality of the world, past, present, and future bound up together: every level connected to every other level, nothing

existing in isolation, everything implying something vital but beyond our comprehension, and all of it speaking of the overwhelming

mystery of Being. The visionary concentrates on something we all see,

hypothetically: a vase of flowers, perhaps, in all its complexity and

beauty, each bloom springing forth out of nothingness, before its

dissolution and return; a haystack in the spring, and its appearance in the summer, autumn, and winter, observing and portraying the

absolute mystery of its existence, with its different shades of light and color, as well as the underlying commonality of form, which we can

easily confuse with the full and incomprehensible actuality of what is

there.

How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an

immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?

—WILLIAM BLAKE, FROM “A MEMORABLE FANCY,” The Marriage of

Heaven and Hell

To perceive Van Gogh’s painting Irises—from which the illustration that begins this chapter is derived—is, for example, to gaze through a

window back into the eternity that our perceptions once revealed, so

that we can remember how awe inspiring and miraculous the world

really is, under the mundane familiarity to which we have reduced it.

To share in the artist’s perception reunites us with the source of

inspiration that can rekindle our delight in the world, even if the

drudgery and repetition of daily life has reduced what we see to the

narrowest and most pragmatic of visions.

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, “ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD”

All of this is very frightening. It is frightening to perceive the shells of ourselves that we have become. It is frightening to glimpse, even for a moment, the transcendent reality that exists beyond. We think we

border our great paintings with luxurious, elaborate frames to glorify

them, but we do it at least as much to insist to ourselves that the glory of the painting itself ends at the frame. That bounding, that bordering, leaves the world we are familiar with comfortably intact and

unchanged. We do not want that beauty reaching out past the

limitations imposed on it and disturbing everything that is familiar.

We do the same with museums, those asylums for genius: we isolate

everything that is great—everything that could in principle be

distributed throughout the world. Why cannot every small town have a

shrine devoted to one great piece of art, instead of having every piece collected in a manner impossible for anyone ever to take in at once? Is not one masterpiece enough for a room, or even for a building? Ten

great works of art, or a hundred, in a single room is absurd, given that each is a world in and of itself. Such mass collection is a degrading of the unique singular particularity and worth of what is priceless and

irreplaceable. It is fear that entices us to imprison art. And no wonder.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d

the earth much?

Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the

origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are

millions of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor

look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in

books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from

me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

—WALT WHITMAN, “SONG OF MYSELF”

It can be overwhelming to open ourselves up to the beauty in the

world that we as adults have painted over with simplicity. In not doing so, however—in not taking a proper walk with a young child, for

example—we lose track of the grandeur and the awe the untrammeled

world is constantly capable of producing, and reduce our lives to bleak necessity.

THE LAND YOU KNOW, THE LAND YOU DO NOT KNOW, AND THE

LAND YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE

You inhabit the land you know, pragmatically and conceptually. But

imagine what lies just outside of that. There exists an immense space

of things you do not know, but which other people might comprehend,

at least in part. Then, outside of what anyone knows, there is the space of things that no one at all knows. Your world is known territory,

surrounded by the relatively unknown, surrounded by the absolutely

unknown—surrounded, even more distantly, by the absolutely

unknowable. Together, that is the canonical, archetypal landscape.

The unknown manifests itself to you in the midst of the known. That

revelation—sometimes exciting, but often quite painful—is the source

of new knowledge. But a fundamental question remains: How is that

knowledge generated? What is comprehended and understandable

does not just leap in one fell swoop from the absolutely unknown to

the thoroughly and self-evidently articulated. Knowledge must pass

through many stages of analysis—a multitude of transformations—

before it becomes, let us say, commonplace.

The first stage is that of pure action—reflex action, at the most basic of levels.2 If something surprises you, you react to it first with your body. You crouch defensively, or freeze, or run away in panic. Those

are all forms of representation and categorization, in nascent form.

Crouch means predatory attack. Freeze means predatory threat. Panic

means terror necessitating escape. The world of possibility begins to

actualize itself with such instinctual, embodied action, unconscious

and uncontrollable. The first realization of possibility, of potential, is not conceptual. It is embodied, but it is still representational. (It is no longer the thing in itself we referred to earlier, but the transmutation of that thing into a commensurate physical response. That is a

representation.)

Maybe you are at home, at night. Assume you are alone. It is dark

and late. An unexpected noise startles you, and you freeze. That is the first transmutation: unknown noise (a pattern) to frozen position.

Then your heart rate rises, in preparation for (unspecified) action.3

That is the second transmutation. You are preparing to move. Next,

your imagination populates the darkness with whatever might be

making the noise. 4 That is the third transmutation, part of a complete and practical sequence: embodied responses (freezing and heart-rate

increase) and then imagistic, imaginative representation. The latter is part of exploration, which you might extend by overcoming your terror

and the freezing associated with it (assuming nothing else too

unexpected happens) and investigating the locale, once a part of your

friendly house, from where the noise appeared to emanate. You have

now engaged in active exploration—a precursor to direct perception

(hopefully nothing too dramatic); then to explicit knowledge of the

source; and then back to routine and complacent peace, if the noise

proves to be nothing of significance. That is how information moves

from the unknown to the known. (Except that sometimes the noise

does not prove insignificant. Then there is trouble.)

Artists are the people who stand on the frontier of the

transformation of the unknown into knowledge. They make their

voluntary foray out into the unknown, and they take a piece of it and

transform it into an image. Maybe they do it through choreography

and dance—by representing the manifestation of the world in physical

display, communicable, although not in words, to others. Maybe they

do it by acting, which is a sophisticated form of embodiment and

imitation, or by painting or sculpting. Perhaps they manage it through

screenwriting, or by penning a novel. After all that come the

intellectuals, with philosophy and criticism, abstracting and articulating the work’s representations and rules.

Consider the role that creative people play in cities. They are

typically starving a bit, because it is virtually impossible to be

commercially successful as an artist, and that hunger is partly what

motivates them (do not underestimate the utility of necessity). In their poverty, they explore the city, and they discover some ratty, quasi-criminal area that has seen better days. They visit, look, and poke

about, and they think, “You know, with a little work, this area could be cool.” Then they move in, piece together some galleries, and put up

some art. They do not make any money, but they civilize the space a

bit. In doing so, they elevate and transform what is too dangerous into something cutting edge. Then a coffee shop pops up, and maybe an

unconventional clothing store. The next thing you know, the

gentrifiers move in. They are creative types, too, but more conservative (less desperate, perhaps; more risk averse, at least—so they are not the first ones on the edge of the frontier). Then the developers show up.

And then the chain stores appear, and the middle or upper class

establishes itself. Then the artists have to move, because they can no

longer afford the rent. That is a loss for the avant-garde, but it is okay, even though it is harsh, because with all that stability and

predictability the artists should not be there anymore. They need to

rejuvenate some other area. They need another vista to conquer. That

is their natural environment.

That edge, where artists are always transforming chaos into order,

can be a very rough and dangerous place. Living there, an artist

constantly risks falling fully into the chaos, instead of transforming it.

But artists have always lived there, on the border of human

understanding. Art bears the same relationship to society that the

dream bears to mental life. You are very creative when you are

dreaming. That is why, when you remember a dream, you think,

“Where in the world did that come from?” It is very strange and

incomprehensible that something can happen in your head, and you

have no idea how it got there or what it means. It is a miracle: nature’s voice manifesting itself in your psyche. And it happens every night.

Like art, the dream mediates between order and chaos. So, it is half

chaos. That is why it is not comprehensible. It is a vision, not a fully

fledged articulated production. Those who actualize those half-born visions into artistic productions are those who begin to transform what we do not understand into what we can at least start to see. That is the role of the artist, occupying the vanguard. That is their biological

niche. They are the initial civilizing agents.

The artists do not understand full well what they are doing. They

cannot, if they are doing something genuinely new. Otherwise, they

could just say what they mean and have done with it. They would not

require expression in dance, music, and image. But they are guided by

feel, by intuition—by their facility with the detection of patterns—and that is all embodied, rather than articulated, at least in its initial

stages. When creating, the artists are struggling, contending, and

wrestling with a problem—maybe even a problem they do not fully

understand—and striving to bring something new into clear focus.

Otherwise they are mere propagandists, reversing the artistic process,

attempting to transform something they can already articulate into

image and art for the purpose of rhetorical and ideological victory.

That is a great sin, harnessing the higher for the purposes of the lower.

It is a totalitarian tactic, the subordination of art and literature to politics (or the purposeful blurring of the distinction between them).

Artists must be contending with something they do not understand,

or they are not artists. Instead, they are posers, or romantics (often

romantic failures), or narcissists, or actors (and not in the creative

sense). They are likely, when genuine, to be idiosyncratically and

peculiarly obsessed by their intuition—possessed by it, willing to

pursue it even in the face of opposition and the overwhelming

likelihood of rejection, criticism, and practical and financial failure.

When they are successful they make the world more understandable

(sometimes replacing something more “understood,” but now

anachronistic, with something new and better). They move the

unknown closer to the conscious, social, and articulated world. And

then people gaze at those artworks, watch the dramas, and listen to the stories, and they start to become informed by them, but they do not

know how or why. And people find great value in it—more value,

perhaps, than in anything else. There is good reason that the most

expensive artifacts in the world—those that are literally, or close to

literally, priceless—are great works of art.

I once visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It contained a collection of great and famous Renaissance paintings—

each worth hundreds of millions of dollars, assuming they were ever

made available for purchase. The area containing them was a shrine, a

place of the divine—for believers and atheists alike. It was in the most expensive and prestigious of museums, located on real estate of the

highest quality and desirability, in what might well be the most active and exciting city in the world. The collection had been put together

over a great expanse of time, and with much difficulty. The gallery was packed with people, many of whom had voyaged there as part of what

must be most properly regarded as a pilgrimage.

I asked myself, “What are these people up to, coming to this place,

so carefully curated, traveling these great distances, looking at these paintings? And what do they believe they are up to?” One painting

featured the Immaculate Conception of Mary, brilliantly composed.

The Mother of God was rising to heaven, in a beatific state,

encapsulated in a mandorla of clouds, embedded with the faces of

putti. Many of the people gathered were gazing, enraptured, at the

work. I thought, “They do not know what that painting means. They do

not understand the symbolic meaning of the mandorla, or the

significance of the putti, or the idea of the glorification of the Mother of God. And God, after all, is dead—or, so goes the story. Why does the painting nonetheless retain its value? Why is it in this room, in this

building, with these other paintings, in this city—carefully guarded,

not to be touched? Why is this painting—and all these others—beyond

price and desired by those who already have everything? Why are

these creations stored so carefully in a modern shrine, and visited by

people from all over the world, as if it were a duty—even as if it were desirable or necessary?”

We treat these objects as if they are sacred. At least that is what our actions in their vicinity suggest. We gaze at them in ignorance and

wonder, and remember what we have forgotten; perceiving, ever so

dimly, what we can no longer see (what we are perhaps no longer

willing to see). The unknown shines through the productions of great

artists in partially articulated form. The awe-inspiring ineffable begins to be realized but retains a terrifying abundance of its transcendent

power. That is the role of art, and that is the role of artists. It is no

wonder we keep their dangerous, magical productions locked up, framed, and apart from everything else. And if a great piece is

damaged anywhere, the news spreads worldwide. We feel a tremor run

through the bedrock of our culture. The dream upon which our reality

depends shakes and moves. We find ourselves unnerved.

ONE ROOM

I live with my wife in a small semidetached house, with a living room

that cannot be larger than 12’ x 12’. But we worked to make that room

extremely beautiful, while endeavoring to do the same with the rest of

the house. In the living room hung some large paintings (not to

everyone’s taste, certainly: they were Soviet realist/impressionist

pieces, some illustrating the Second World War, some representing

the triumph of communism), as well as a variety of cubist miniatures

and South American pieces heavily influenced by the native tradition.

Prior to our recent renovations the room had held at least twenty-five

paintings, including about fifteen smaller pieces (12” x 12”). There was even one—reminiscent of a medieval etching, although painted on

canvas—on the ceiling, where I had attached it with magnets. It was

from a Romanian church. The largest was 6’ high and about 8’ wide. (I

know perfectly well that aggregating all these paintings together in

such a small space contradicts my earlier point about devoting a room

or even a building to a single work of art, but I have only a single

house, so I plead necessity: If I wanted to collect paintings, they had to be put where I was able to put them.) In the rest of the house, we used thirty-six different colors, and a variety of different glosses on the

walls and the trim throughout the building—all from a palette that

matched a large realist painting of a railway yard in Chicago in the

1950s, created by the same artist who helped us plan and then

renovate our home.

I bought the Soviet pieces on eBay from Ukrainian junk dealers

specializing in Soviet-era artifacts. At one point, I had a network of

about twenty people in the Ukraine sending me photographs of

whatever paintings they had scrounged from the ruins of the Soviet

bureaucracy. Most were awful. But some were amazing. I have a great

painting, for example, of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, standing in front of a rocket and a radar installation, and another from the

1970s of a lonesome soldier writing his mother in front of a large

radio. It is really something to see relatively modern events

memorialized in oil by talented artists. (The Soviets kept their

academies functioning continuously from the nineteenth century

onward and, although tremendous restrictions were placed on what

could be produced, those who passed through them became highly

skilled painters.)

The Soviet paintings eventually took over our house. Most of them

were small and insanely inexpensive, and I bought dozens of them.

The Soviet era produced its own impressionism, often depicting

landscapes, rougher and harsher than the classic French versions but

much to my taste and reminiscent of where I grew up in western

Canada. While seeking them out, I exposed myself to a larger number

of paintings, I like to think, than anyone else in history. For at least four years, starting in 2001, I searched eBay, looking at roughly a

thousand paintings a day,* seeking the one or two in that number that were of genuine quality. It was most often a Russian or Soviet

landscape selling for a song—better paintings than I had ever seen in

galleries or museum collections in Toronto. I would place them in a

list of items I was interested in—an eBay feature—print them out, lay

them on the floor, and then ask my wife, Tammy, to help me narrow

my choices. She has a good eye and a fair bit of training as an artist.

We would discard anything we found to be flawed and purchase what

remained. Because of this, my kids grew up surrounded by art, and it

certainly left an impression. Many of my paintings now hang in their

respective dwellings. (They tended to avoid the more political Soviet

propaganda, which I was interested in because of its historical

significance and because of the ongoing war on the canvases between

art—a consequence of the painter’s undeniable talent—and the

propaganda that art was doomed to serve. I can tell you that the art

shines through the propaganda as the years pass by. That is something

very interesting to observe.)

I also tried, at about that time, to make my university office

beautiful. After I was transferred from an office I had already put some work into, the same artist who helped redesign the interior of our

house (and from whom I also purchased many large paintings, which also hang in our house) tried to help me transform my new factory-like, fluorescent-lit catastrophe of a 1970s sealed-windows hellhole

office into something that someone with some sense could sit in for

thirty years without wanting to die. Faculty members were forbidden

to undertake any major modifications to these spaces, due to union

requirements (or administration interpretations of those

requirements). So, my artist friend and I devised an alternate plan.

We decided to insert some heavy, nickel-plated hooks into the

cinderblock, in pairs about four feet apart and seven feet above the

ground, and then to hang from those hooks good three-quarter-inch

sanded and stained wood sheets with cherry veneer on one side. Voila:

wood-paneled office, for the cost of about eight seventy-five-dollar

pieces of plywood, plus some labor. We were going to install these on a weekend, when there was no one else around. Then we planned to

paint the drop ceilings (carefully, as asbestos lurked above the tiles).

Hell is a place of drop ceilings, rusted ventilation grates, and

fluorescent lights; the dismal ugliness and dreariness and general

depression of spirit that results from these cost-saving features no

doubt suppresses productivity far more than the cheapest of

architectural tricks and the most deadening of lights saves money.

Everyone looks like a corpse under fluorescents. Penny-wise and

pound-foolish indeed.

We were going to paint the ceiling with a paint called Hammerite,

which looks like beaten metal once it dries. That would have

transformed the unavoidable industrial aesthetic, which can be

attractive if handled wisely, into something thoughtful and unique.

This could also have been done for minimal cost. A good carpet,

perhaps Persian (also very inexpensive on eBay), some reasonably

high-quality curtains, and a decent industrial desk: one weekend of

secretive work, and an office that a civilized person could inhabit

without resentment and self-contempt.

But I made a fatal error. I spoke to one of the senior administrators

of the psychology department about my plans. She and I had

previously discussed the sheer ugliness of the floor our area inhabited and the dismal state of all the offices, and I thought we had established consensus that improvement was warranted. I assumed she was on

board. We had even talked about transforming her corner office. I began to excitedly share my intentions. She looked displeased instead

of happy, and said unexpectedly, “You cannot do that.” I shook my

head in disbelief and thought: “What? I am planning to make

something exceedingly ugly better, quickly, with no trouble, for no

money to speak of—and your response is, ‘You cannot do that!?’” I

said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, if you do it, everyone else

will want to do it.” Four responses flashed through my mind: One:

“No, they would not.” Two: “Everyone could do it, because it would be dirt cheap.” Three: “I thought we were sane adults, having a

productive conversation about improving something important in a

university, but we are actually children squabbling in a kindergarten

playground.” Four: “I thought I was speaking with someone sane and

reasonable, but I was clearly wrong.” She finished the conversation

with a direct threat: “Do not push me on this.” Stupid me. I asked for

permission. (Not really: I was trying to communicate something

motivating, beautiful, and exciting. But it boiled down to a power

game.) I shared none of my four responses, however—although I was

sorely tempted to voice all of them—and immediately recalibrated my

strategy.

My artist friend and I were already more than conversant with the

essential insanity and intransigence of mid-level bureaucracies, so we

had already dreamed up a less expansive plan B. This involved the

careful choosing of paint for the walls (rather than the much

preferable wood), with some accent painting where that was possible,

and matching carpets and drapery. I still had to fight the

administration to get the precise colors I had chosen (which suited the industrial feel of the office), but won that battle. Plan B was not as

good as plan A, but it was still much better than the status quo. Later, I added a dropped copper ceiling, using lightweight adhesive plastic

tiles that mimic decorative metal quite accurately, hung a few

paintings, and added a couple of suitable statues. Students, colleagues, and visitors come in and do a double take. My office is a place of

creativity and beauty, and not a bloody horrible fluorescent-lit factory.

Visitors are surprised, therefore—surprised, relieved, and pleased.

Not long after, I discovered that the department was now bringing

potential new hires into my office to show them what kind of creative

freedom was possible at the University of Toronto. I thought that was insanely comical. I thought about all of that for a long time. The

resistance I encountered was somewhat incomprehensible in its

strength. I wondered, “God, people seem to be afraid of what I am

doing in this office. Perhaps there is a reason—an important reason—I

do not understand.” Then I came across a story by the biologist Robert

Sapolsky. It was about wildebeest.5 Wildebeest are herd animals and very difficult to distinguish from one another (maybe not for other

wildebeest, but certainly for those who wish to study them). They

blend together. At one point in the past, this presented a serious

problem to biologists needing to observe individual animals for

enough time to derive some conclusions about their behavior. They

would watch a wildebeest, look away for a moment to make notes, and

be unable to locate the same animal when they glanced back up.

Eventually, they settled on a potential solution. The biologists drove

up adjacent to the herd in a Jeep, armed with a bucket of red paint and a stick with a rag on it. They dabbed a red spot on one of the

wildebeest’s haunches. Now they could track the activities of that

particular animal, and hopefully learn something new about

wildebeest behavior. But guess what happened to the wildebeest, now

differentiated from the herd? The predators, always lurking around

the herd, took it down. Lions—a major wildebeest threat—cannot

easily bring a single wildebeest down unless they can identify it. They cannot hunt a blur of indistinguishable herd animals. They cannot

track down four wildebeest at a time. They must organize their hunt

around an identifiable individual. Thus, when lions go after the little ones or the ones that limp, they are not culling the weak, in some

natural display of beneficial altruism. They would rather dine on a

nice, healthy, delicious, juicy wildebeest than one that is tiny, old, or ill. But they must be able to identify their prey. What is the moral of the story? Make yourself colorful, stand out, and the lions will take you down. And the lions are always there.

If you stick your neck out, then the sword will come. Many, many

cultures have a saying like that. The English version? “The poppy that

grows higher than the rest is the first one to have its head removed by the scythe.” In Japan: “The nail that sticks up above the rest is the first to get hit by the hammer.” This is a nontrivial observation: hence its

commonality. Artistic, creative endeavor is high risk, while the probability of return is low. But the probability of exceptionally high return does exist, and creative endeavor, while dangerous and unlikely

to be successful, is also absolutely vital to the transformation that

enables us to keep our footing. Everything changes. Pure

traditionalism is doomed for that very reason. We need the new,

merely to maintain our position. And we need to see what we have

become blinded to, by our very expertise and specialization, so that we do not lose touch with the Kingdom of God and die in our boredom,

ennui, arrogance, blindness to beauty, and soul-deadening cynicism.

Plus, are we helpless prey animals, cowering and protecting ourselves,

hiding and camouflaging, or are we human beings?

NOT DECORATION

People are often upset by abstract art, or by art that appears to devote itself to producing negative reactions such as disgust or horror merely for the shock value. I have a tremendous respect for ideals of

traditional beauty and, therefore, some sympathy for that response,

and there is little doubt that many who merely disdain tradition mask

the sentiment with artistic pretension. However, the passage of time

differentiates truly inspired work from the fraudulent sort, even if

imperfectly, and what is not crucial is generally left behind. It is easy to make the opposite error, as well: that art should be pretty and easily appreciated, without work or challenge: it should be decorative; it

should match the living-room furniture. But art is not decoration. That is the attitude of a naive beginner, or of someone who will not let their terror of art allow them to progress and learn.

Art is exploration. Artists train people to see. Most people with any

exposure to art now regard the work of the impressionists, for

example, as both self-evidently beautiful and relatively traditional.

This is in no small part because we all perceive the world now, at least in part, in the manner that only impressionists could manage in the

latter half of the nineteenth century. We cannot help doing so, because the impressionist aesthetic has saturated everything: advertisements,

movies, popular posters, comic books, photographs—all forms of

visual art. Now we all see the beauty of light that only the impressionists could once apprehend. They taught us this. But when

the impressionists first displayed their paintings—in the Salon des

Refusés of 1863, as the traditional Paris Salon had rejected them—the

pieces were met with laughter and contempt. The idea of perceiving

that way (paying particular attention to light, essentially, rather than form) was so radical that it caused people to have emotional fits.

I am often struck by how common even the tropes of cubism, much

more extreme and strange in some ways than impressionism, have

become part and parcel of our visual vernacular. I have seen the

multidimensional but flattened faces of the genre even in comic books.

The same is true of surrealism, which has become popularly integrated

almost to the point of cliché. It is worth repeating: Artists teach people to see. It is very hard to perceive the world, and we are so fortunate to have geniuses to teach us how to do it, to reconnect us with what we

have lost, and to enlighten us to the world. It is for such psychological reasons that lines such as Christ’s can be profitably considered:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who,

then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among

them.

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and

become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom

of heaven. (Matthew 18:1–3)

Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of

what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a

manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is

lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love,

play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these.

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, “ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD”

Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible.

RULE IX

IF OLD MEMORIES STILL UPSET YOU, WRITE THEM

DOWN CAREFULLY AND COMPLETELY

BUT IS YESTERDAY FINISHED WITH YOU?

Imagine you undertook some truly terrible actions in the past. You

betrayed or hurt people in a genuinely damaging manner. You

damaged their reputation with gossip and innuendo. You took credit

for their work. You robbed them materially or spiritually. You cheated

on them. Or imagine, instead, that you have been the target of some

such events—and let us also assume you have become wise enough to

try to avoid repeating the experience. In both circumstances (as

perpetrator or victim) the actual events and the associated memories

evoke fear, guilt, and shame. Why?

In the first case, you have betrayed yourself. You did not play the

medium- to long-term game properly, and are suffering the

consequences. You are not the sort of person other people choose to

have around. You might not even be the sort of person you want to

have around. In the second case, you were badly mistreated by

someone else. In some real sense, however, it does not matter whether

you were suffering because of self-betrayal or at the hands of others.

What does matter is that you do not desire any recurrence.

Now, if you recall the memory, or if it comes back unbidden,

complete with terror, shame, and guilt, this means something specific.

It means that you fell into a hole—a pit, more accurately—or were

pushed there. And that is not good. But what is worse is that you do

not know why. Perhaps you trusted other people too easily. Perhaps

you were too naive. Perhaps you were willfully blind. Perhaps you

encountered genuine malevolence, on the part of another or yourself (and that is the worst situation, and the one most difficult to

overcome). But at one level of analysis, whether you fell or were

pushed makes little difference—not to the emotional systems that have

emerged over the course of evolution and now serve to protect you.

They care about one thing and one thing only: that you do not repeat a

mistake.

The alarms those systems activate are fear-based (that is too weak a

phrase—terror-based is more accurate, the kind of terror limited to

neither time nor place), and all they care about is reminding you of the still-extant danger. A part of reality, and a perilous part, has remained unmapped, low resolution, lacking sufficient detail—and so has a part

of you. You are not sharp, alert, dangerous, wary, wise, or kind enough

—who knows?—so that the terror systems protecting you are confident

in your ability to wend your way successfully through the same maze if

it once again manifests itself in front of you.

Learn from the past. Or repeat its horrors, in imagination,

endlessly.

Frequently, people do not so much repress the terrible things that

happened in the past as refuse to think them through, pushing them

out of their mind or occupying themselves with other activities. They

have their reasons. And sometimes traumatized people appear literally

unable to understand what befell them. It can be prohibitively difficult for abused children, for example, to generate a worldview

philosophically sophisticated enough to span the full spectrum of

human motivation. They simply cannot understand why someone

might torment them physically or abuse them sexually. If they are

young enough, it is likely that they do not even explicitly comprehend

what is happening. Comprehending such matters is exceptionally

challenging, even for adults. But in some unfortunate and arguably

unjust sense, it does not matter. Refusal or inability both leave a

geographic area in memory—unexplored, active, and rife with danger.

It is a psychological truism that anything sufficiently threatening or

harmful once encountered can never be forgotten if it has never been

understood. 1

To orient ourselves in the world, we need to know where we are and

where we are going. Where we are: that concept must optimally

include a full account of our experience of the world to date. If you do not know what roads you have traversed, it is difficult to calculate

where you are. Where we are going: that is the projection of our

ultimate ideal—by no means simply a question, say, of

accomplishment, love, wealth, or power, but development of the

character that makes all fortunate outcomes more likely and all

unfortunate outcomes less likely. We map the world so that we can

make the move from where we are—from point A—to where we are

going—to point B. We use our map to guide our movement, and we

encounter successes and obstacles along the way.

The successes are both confidence building and exhilarating. Not

only are we moving toward our ultimate desire, we appear to be doing

so properly (and are therefore not only moving ahead but validating

our map). The obstacles and failures are, by contrast, anxiety

provoking, depressing, and painful. They indicate our profound

ignorance. They indicate that we do not understand with sufficient

depth where we have been, where we are, or where we are going. They

indicate that something we have built with great difficulty and wish

above all to protect is flawed—to a degree both serious and not fully

understood.

We must recollect our experiences and derive from them their

moral. Otherwise, we remain in the past, plagued by reminiscences,

tormented by conscience, cynical for the loss of what might have been,

unforgiving of ourselves, and unable to accept the challenges and

tragedies facing us. We must recollect ourselves or suffer in direct

proportion to our ignorance and avoidance. We must gather

everything from the past that we avoided. We must rekindle every lost

opportunity. We must repent for missing the mark, meditate on our

errors, acquire now what we should have acquired then, and put

ourselves back together. And I am not saying this is always possible. I have seen people so lost that there was not enough spark left to

survive. The person in the present had been rendered too insignificant

to confront, in his or her current condition, what was avoided even by

a once-healthier self in the past. And cynicism about the future

rationalizes the avoidance and deception. That is hell, and there is no limit to its depth. The humility required to clamber out of such hell

exists in precise proportion to the magnitude of the unrequited errors

of the past. And that is enough to send a shudder of true terror down the spine of anyone even partly awakened. We are not allowed, it

seems, to avoid the responsibility of actualizing potential. And if we

have made a mistake in the past, and left what could be unmanifest—

regardless of the reason—then we pay the price for that in the inability to forget, and in the emotion that constitutes the pangs of conscience

for past misbehavior.

Imagine that when you are very young, the map of the world you

use to guide your immature self is correspondingly underdeveloped,

like a child’s drawing of a house: always straight and centered,

portraying only the front; always (or close enough) with a door and

two windows; always with a square for the outside wall and a triangle

for the roof; always with a chimney and smoke (which is a surprise,

because smoking chimneys are not all that common now). The sun is

shining irrepressibly—a circle with rays emanating from it. There are a few flowers—single lines with the schematic of a bloom at the top, and

two leaves halfway up the “stems.” It is a very low-resolution

representation of a house. It is more hieroglyph than drawing; more

concept than sketch. It is something that represents the idea of house, or perhaps home, generically, like the words “house” or “home”

themselves. However, it is almost always enough: The child who drew

the picture knows it is a house, and the other children and the adults

who see the picture know it is a house. The drawing does the trick. It

fulfills its purpose. It is a good-enough map.

But all too often appalling events occur within houses. These are not

so easy to represent. Maybe the house has adults in it—parents,

grandparents, uncles, or aunts—who say such things as “Never—and I

mean never—speak to anyone about what happens here.” A few

squares, a triangle, a smattering of flowers, and a benevolent solar orb offer only an inadequate representation of the horrors characterizing

such a dwelling place. Maybe what is happening inside the house is

beyond both tolerability and understanding. But how can what is

terrifying be beyond understanding? How can trauma even exist

without comprehension? Is not understanding in some sense a

prerequisite to experience itself? These are all great mysteries. But

everything is not experienced at the same level of conception. We have

all been petrified by the unknown, even though that seems a

contradiction in terms. But the body knows what the mind does not yet grasp. And it remembers. And it demands that understanding be

established. And there is simply no escaping that demand. If

something befalls us—or, perhaps worse, we engage in some act—that

freezes us in terror and nauseates us to recall, we are bound by

implacable fate to transform raw horror into understanding, or suffer

the consequences.

DO NOT FALL TWICE INTO THE SAME PIT

I had a client who began speaking to me almost immediately after we

met of the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood at the hands of of an older cousin, with whom she lived. She became markedly tearful and

upset when she recounted her experiences. I asked her how old she

was when the abuse occurred. She told me she was four. She described

her attacker as much larger, stronger, and older than her. I allowed my imagination to roam freely as she spoke, making the assumptions I

believed (or my fantasy presumed) were justified by the nature of her

description. I envisioned the nefarious, sadistic, and criminal

machinations of a late adolescent or young adult. Then I asked her

how much difference in age there was between her and her victimizer.

She replied, “Two years. He was two years older than me.” This came

as a genuine surprise. It changed the picture in my mind almost

completely.

I told her what I had been imagining, because I wanted her to know

what assumptions I had been formulating as she related her story.

Then I said, “You know, you are all grown up now, and have been for a

long time. But you told me your story in the same way that you might

have told it when you were four, when the molestation was still

occurring—or at least with many of the same emotions. And there is no

doubt that you remember your cousin as much larger and stronger and

older than you. A six-year-old is, after all, half again as old as a four-year-old, and from that younger child’s perspective, perhaps more

akin to an adult. But your cousin was six—almost as much a child as

you. So, here is another way you might consider thinking about what

happened. First, recall the six-year-olds with whom you are now

familiar. You know that they are still immature and cannot be held accountable as adults might be for their actions, even though they

might also not be altogether innocent. I am not trying to minimize the

seriousness of what happened to you, and I am not questioning the

intensity of your emotions. But I am asking you to consider the

situation as if you became aware of its occurrence among two children

you presently know. Kids are curious. They play doctor. And if the

adults around them are not paying attention properly, such games can

get out of hand. Would it be possible to consider that you were not

molested by an overpowering and malevolent force—the way you

might be if you were raped now? Maybe, instead, you and your cousin

were very poorly supervised children.”

In some important way, the memories she retained of her childhood

experiences had not altered as she matured. She was still experiencing

the terror of a four-year-old, helpless in the hands of someone old

enough to be perceived as grown-up. But her twenty-seven-year-old

self needed to update that memory. She was no longer at risk for such

treatment, in any obvious manner. And it came as a great relief to her

to reframe what had happened. She could now consider it as a

potential consequence of curiosity untrammeled by adult attention.

This shifted her view of her cousin, the situation, and herself. She

could now see the event from the perspective of an adult. This freed

her from much of the terror and shame still associated with the

memories, and it did so with remarkable rapidity. She confronted the

horrors of the past voluntarily, finding a causal explanation that was

much less traumatic—lacking, as it did, the vision of her cousin as a

malevolent, powerful perpetrator and her as the inevitably hapless

victim of such a force. All this transformation occurred in a single

session. Such can be the power of the story surrounding the terrible

events of our pasts.

This experience left me with a profound philosophical quandary.

The memories my client brought into my office had remained

unchanged for decades. The memories she walked out with were

markedly altered. Which, then, were real? It could easily be argued

that her original story was more accurate. It was, after all, as direct an imprint as might be left on the open book of a four-year-old’s mind. It had not been altered (and therefore changed) by any previous

therapeutic intervention. Was it not, then, the genuine article? But it is also the case that an event that means one thing one day might come

to mean something quite different another. Is it so unusual for us to

better understand what motivated the otherwise inexplicable behavior

of our parents, for example, as we ourselves enter parenthood? And

which memory is more accurate: the partial picture of adult

motivation we have as children, or the revised recollections made

possible by maturity? If it is the latter—and that does not seem

unreasonable (and certainly seemed true in the case of my client)—

how is it that an altered memory can become more accurate than one

retaining its original configuration?

POSSESSED BY GHOSTS

I recall another client who remembered, in a striking sense, and

changed. His memories were shrouded much more profoundly in

mystery, and his remembrance was of a slower, more surprising, and

unlikelier sort. He was a young, gay African American man who was

suffering from a set of incomprehensible mental and physical

symptoms. A psychiatrist had recently diagnosed him with

schizophrenia, but his aunt, who had taken him to the hospital for

evaluation, believed that insufficient time had been spent on her

nephew’s evaluation. She contacted me for a second opinion and

brought him to my office. I saw him alone.

He was shy and reserved, but neatly and carefully dressed, and

appeared fully oriented when I started to gather his history.

Furthermore, he wore eyeglasses—and they were well taken care of,

lacking tape on the bridge or arms, and with lenses that were perfectly clean. These observations were all relevant, as far as I was concerned.

Schizophrenics lose the ability to monitor themselves effectively, so

unkempt clothing and damaged eyeglasses—particularly with badly

smudged lenses—are telling features (not invariably: so those of you

with subpar eyewear are not required to consider yourself classified).

In any case, he also had a full-time job of reasonable complexity

(another rarity for someone with schizophrenia), and he could carry

on a conversation with no problem, apart from his tendency toward shyness. I accepted him as a client, and we began to meet regularly.

I had to see him a few times before I could determine why the

psychiatrist had diagnosed him with such a serious disorder. He began

by telling me that for the last four years he had been depressed and

anxious. There was nothing markedly uncommon in that. His

symptoms followed on the heels of a serious fight with his boyfriend

and the permanent cessation of their relationship, which had lasted

several years. Nothing in that was unusual, either. The two had been

living together. Their partnership was important to him, emotionally

and practically—and the dissolution of an intimate relationship

produces unhappiness and confusion in most everyone, and can

trigger more severe and lasting anxiety and depression in people who

are so predisposed. The duration was out of the ordinary, however.

People typically pick up the pieces and move on in under a year. That

is not a hard-and-fast rule, but four years is a long time. That piqued my curiosity. He also revealed something else very much out of the

ordinary. He told me that he experienced strange, convulsive bodily

movements—every night—while attempting to sleep. His body would

contort into a fetal position, and his arms would cross over his face.

Then he would relax, only to find himself repeating the movements. So

it went, for hours. Apart from being concerning because of its

incomprehensibility, it was interfering badly with his sleep. This had

been going on for about the same amount of time as the anxiety and

depression, and the poor sleep, if not the movements themselves, was

certainly a contributing factor. I asked him what he thought was

happening. He said, with a laugh, “My family thinks I am possessed,

and I am not sure they are wrong.”

My client’s familial background was somewhat unusual. His

parents, immigrants to Canada from the southern United States, were

uneducated to a marked degree, very superstitious and religious, and

apparently serious in the belief that spirits inhabited their son. I asked him, “Did you by chance tell the psychiatrist about being possessed?”

He said, “Yes.” I thought, “Well, that explains why he diagnosed you

with schizophrenia.” That explanation, in tandem with the strange

physical symptoms, would have been sufficient, in my experience.*

However, after meeting with this man for several sessions, it was clear

to me that whatever was plaguing him was not schizophrenia. He was perfectly rational and lucid. But what in the world could be causing

these strange, nightly, seizure-like convulsions? I had never

encountered anything of the sort. My first hypothesis was that he

suffered from a very severe form of sleep paralysis. This is a

reasonably common condition. It generally occurs when people are

sleeping on their backs (which he tended to do). A person with sleep

paralysis semi-awakens, but not enough to stop dreaming, nor to

escape from the inability to move that characterizes the rapid-eye-

movement (REM) phase of sleeping. When you are dreaming, the

same brain areas that govern active movement when you are awake

are often stimulated (you experience this as the sense of moving while

in your dream). You do not move around in sync with that brain

activation because your voluntary musculature is switched off,

physiologically, by a specialized neurochemical mechanism that has

exactly that function.2 Otherwise you would get out of bed and act out your dream and get yourself into trouble very quickly.

During a sleep paralysis episode, the sufferer wakes up enough to be

semi-aware of the real world, but is still in REM paralysis and

dreaming. All sorts of strange experiences can occur in such a state.

Many people have, for example, claimed to have been abducted and

medically examined by aliens. 3 This otherwise inexplicable nighttime phenomenon (barring the existence of curious and surgically inclined

extraterrestrials) has been blamed on this condition of immobility and

the often bizarre and frightening fantasies that accompany it.4 He was quite bright, literate, and curious, so I gave him a book called The Terror That Comes in the Night, 5 which illuminates the strange phenomena that can accompany sleep paralysis. The author, David

Hufford, describes the night terror his title refers to as a variant of the

“Old Hag” experience (a term from folklore). Those who have had such

an experience (up to 15 percent of the population) describe fear and

paralysis, sensations of suffocation, and encounters with malign

entities. My client read the book, but told me that he did not believe

what Hufford described accurately characterized her experience. He

felt the same way about the sleep paralysis hypothesis more generally.

For one thing, the convulsions occurred before he fell asleep; second,

he did not experience the inability to move.

I learned much more about him as we continued to get to know one another. I learned, for example, that he had studied history as an

undergraduate, and had completed his degree. I learned that his

parents had been exceptionally strict with him through his childhood

and teenage years. They never allowed him to stay overnight at his

friends’ houses, and they monitored his behavior very closely until he

escaped to university. He also related a fair bit more about the fight

that occurred immediately before the breakup of his last relationship.

He had returned with his boyfriend to their shared apartment after

having a few drinks and arguing in public. At home, the fight escalated to physical conflict. They began pushing each other around, with

increasing violence. After one particularly aggressive shove, my client fell to the living room floor. While lying there, he swept his boyfriend’s feet out from underneath him. Then my client picked himself up off

the floor and headed for the door. He returned several days later when

he knew he would not be at home to pack up his belongings and move.

That was the end of their existence as a couple.

But there was an element of his personality at play in this conflict

that was not obvious. In consequence, he was struck very deeply by his

boyfriend’s assault. He told me while discussing this sequence of

events that he did not believe people were capable of violence. I said,

“What do you mean by that? You earned a history degree. You have

obviously read about the horrors and atrocities of the human past. You

watch the news . . .” He said that, as a matter of fact, he did not watch the news. “Fair enough,” I replied, “but what about everything you

learned in university? Did not that teach you that human aggression is

both real and exceptionally common?” He said, “I read the books, but I

just put everything I had learned into a compartment and did not

think any further about it.” I thought that was a striking answer,

particularly in combination with something else he told me. “When I

was a child,” he said, “I picked up the idea that people were only good.

My parents taught me that adults were angels.” I asked, “What do you

mean by that? That adults never did anything bad or wrong?” He said,

“No, you do not understand. My parents taught me and my sister and

brother that adults were literally God’s angels, and that they were only good.” I said, “You believed this?” He said that he had believed it

deeply, partly because he had been so sheltered, partly because his

parents had been so insistent, and partly, of course, because it was comforting.

I suggested that something had to be done about his naivete. It was

not doing him any good. He was far too old and intelligent to maintain

faith in such a childish dream. We discussed this in detail, speaking

about the horrific events of the twentieth century and the mass

shootings and other terrors of the more recent past. I asked him to

explain such occurrences, and to pay more attention to any examples

of his own anger and hostility. However, he denied the very existence

of the latter and could not generate any convincing explanations for

the former.

So, I assigned him a book called Ordinary Men. 6 That book excruciatingly details how a group of ordinary policemen from

Germany were turned into cold-blooded executioners in Poland during

the Nazi occupation. To call the account chilling is to say almost

nothing. I told him with all due seriousness that he had to read the

book as if it really happened, and more, as if he and the people he

knew were capable of the same heinous acts. It was time for him to

grow up. We had established a very solid rapport by this time, and

when I told him that his rose-colored view of the world was presenting

him with danger sufficient to destroy his life he took me seriously. The next time I saw him, a week later, he had finished the book. His face

had hardened. He looked older and wiser. I had seen this happen

frequently in my clinical practice when people incorporated the darker

parts of themselves, instead of—let us say—compartmentalizing them.

They no longer had the habitual look of deer caught in the headlights.

They looked like people from whom decisions emanated, rather than

people to whom things merely happened. Then I asked him to read

The Rape of Nanking,7 about Japanese atrocities in China in 1937. It is a horrifying book. The woman who wrote it committed suicide. My

client read that, too, and we talked about it. He emerged sadder, but

wiser. His nighttime symptoms, however, did not abate.

Nonetheless, his comments about adults-as-angels, claims to have

compartmentalized his knowledge of evil, and the presence of the

inexplicable convulsions had started some wheels turning in the far

recesses of my brain. Many years earlier, I had another client (a young woman, as is more typically the case) who had hysterical epilepsy—a

classic case of Freudian hysteria, where bodily symptoms were expressing psychological problems. She had been raised in the rural

Midwest, in a very repressed, Victorian-like Christian fundamentalist

atmosphere. She had one of her “seizures” in my office—full grand

mal. The sight of it left me cold. I watched impassively as she thrashed and convulsed violently for several minutes, eyes rolled back. I did not worry. I did not feel sorry for her. I did not feel anything. I thought,

“Why is this not affecting me? My client is having, by all evidence, a

serious convulsive episode.” I did not call an ambulance. When she

came out of it and sat back down, dazed, I told her that I had

responded to her seizure neither physically nor emotionally as if it

were real, despite its otherwise fully credible manifestation.

Previously, after pulling similar stunts (consciously? unconsciously?

some mixture of the two?), she had barely skirted consignment to a

psychiatric ward. She had also risked a diagnosis of psychosis and

prescription for the medication accompanying that. We had some very

serious talks about what she was doing. I let her know that I did not

buy her epilepsy—that I had experienced it as false, even though it

seemed quite real to her. (She had been tested, by the way, for

epilepsy, and the results had come back equivocal.)

So, she was plausibly someone who “somatized,” or physically

represented their psychological symptoms. Freud noted that such

somatization was often symbolic—that the manner in which the

physical disability or oddity manifested had some meaningful

relationship with the trauma that had precipitated it. Her hysterical

epilepsy appeared to originate in her ambivalence and ignorance about

sex, a substantial degree of childish immaturity, and some dangerous

game-playing on her part. We made a lot of progress in our

discussions. She was far from unintelligent, and the wiser part of her

prevailed. Her seizures came to an end, along with the equally

dangerous drama. Even better, she avoided the psych ward and

continued with her university career. In any case, I learned then that

Freudian hysterics existed, because I had just worked with one.

I began to hypothesize that my current client was suffering, in a

similar manner, from a somatization disorder. I knew about the fight

that had terminated his last relationship, just before the onset of his symptoms. Perhaps his strange movements were somehow associated

with that event? I also knew from his own account that he compartmentalized—that he put things in a corner of his mind where

he would not think about them again. I did not have much experience

with hypnosis but knew both that people capable of

compartmentalization tended to be highly hypnotizable, and that

hypnosis had been used with some success (albeit many years ago)

with somatization disorders. Freud used hypnosis to treat his

hysterical clients, who were apparently quite numerous during the

Victorian period, at least in the upper class, fixated as they were on the sexual, the theatrical, and the dramatic. 8 So, I thought I might try hypnosis to treat my client.

Now, I often used guided relaxation techniques on my clients,

sitting them comfortably in their armchair in my office, asking them to focus on different parts of their body, from the soles of their feet, step by step up their legs and torso, with a brief detour down their arms, to the top of their head, focusing on their breathing and relaxing. After

seven or eight minutes of the relaxation instructions, I would count

back from ten to one, requesting after each count or two that they

relax more deeply. It was a reasonably good, quick treatment for

agitation, anxiety, and insomnia. I decided to start this way, because

hypnosis employs essentially the same technique, adding questions

about past trauma or other relevant issues once relaxation had been

established. Its effectiveness varies substantially from person to

person.9 (That is why stage performers who use hypnosis on audience members will bring twenty people to the front of the theater, run

through the initial hypnotic suggestions, and then retain only the few

who are obviously responsive.) In any case, I told my client that I

thought hypnotizing him and talking about the night he fought with

his boyfriend might be useful. I told him why (suggesting that his

nighttime movements might be associated with that event). Then I

told him exactly how we were going to do it, and that he was free to

refuse or agree. I would stop whenever he asked me to, if he asked;

and he would remember everything when we were finished.

He agreed to try, so I began: “Sit comfortably in your chair. Place

your hands on the arms of the chair or in your lap—wherever you are

most comfortable. Close your eyes. Listen carefully to the noises that

you hear in the world around you, and then turn your attention inward

to your breathing. Breathe in deeply. . . . Hold it. . . . Breathe out. Move your attention down your body from your breathing to your thighs,

and lower legs, and feet. Let your feet rest heavily on the floor. Pay

attention to your toes, and the soles of your feet, and your ankles, and remember to breathe slowly, regularly, and deeply. Let all the tension

flow out of your feet. Do not forget to breathe slowly, regularly, and

deeply. Pay attention to your calves, and your shins . . .” and so on, up the whole body. Usually.

My client fell spontaneously into a deep hypnotic trance before I got

past his feet. His head lolled heavily. I asked if he could hear me.

“Yes,” he said, barely audibly. I had to advance my chair and put my

ear within inches of his mouth to make out what he was saying. I asked

him if he knew where he was. “In your office,” he said. That was good.

I said, “We are returning to the time when you had a fight with your

boyfriend, before you moved out. Tell me what happened.” He said,

“We had just returned to our apartment. We had both been drinking.

We were fighting about finances and our future at the bar. We both got

angry. We walked through the doorway of our house—there.” He half

gestured with his arm, although it was still mostly limp, like the rest of his body. I was watching his eyes dart back and forth, like those of

someone in REM sleep, under three-quarter-closed lids. “I was

walking backward. We were moving toward the living room. I pushed

him. Then he pushed me back. I pushed him again. He pushed me

backward over our coffee table and onto the floor. He picked up our

floor lamp and held it over his head. I looked directly into his eyes. I had never seen an expression so hostile. I curled into a ball and

crossed my hands over my face to protect myself.” He said all this very slowly, gesturing awkwardly and minimally all the while, pointing as if toward the area in the apartment he was imagining. It was uncannily

as if he were reliving the experience in real time. I glanced at the clock.

The explanation, preparation, relaxation, and the slow recounting had

taken us up to the one-hour mark—our normal session duration. I

said, “I do not want to push you too far. We are running out of time.

When you are ready, and comfortable, you might open your eyes and

wake up fully. We could continue next week.” But he did not respond.

His head continued to loll forward, and his eyes kept moving. I called

his name. No change.

This worried me, quite frankly. I had never heard of someone failing to emerge from a trance when requested. I was not sure what to do.

Fortunately, however, he was the last client I was seeing that evening, so I had some time. I thought, “Well, he is in a deep trance and truly

immersed in this account. Maybe he needs to tell the whole story. Let

us continue and see what happens. When he is finished with his

account, I will try to bring him around again.” I went out to the

hallway to speak with his waiting aunt, and informed her that we

required a bit more time. I returned to my office and sat back down,

near him as before. I said, “What happened then?” He replied, “The

expression on his face—I had never seen someone look like that

before. I was forced to realize then that my boyfriend could want to

hurt me; that one person—even if adult—could truly desire to bring

harm to another. It was the first time I truly learned that such events were possible.” He began to weep, but continued his account: “I

knocked his feet from under him, got up, and started running. He

chased me out of the living room, down the hallway of our house, and

through the front door. I could run faster, and got ahead of him. It was about four in the morning. It was still dark. I was terrified. I got far enough ahead of him to hide behind some nearby cars. He could not

find me. I watched him looking for a long while. Then he gave up and

turned around.” He was sobbing openly by this point. “When I was

sure he was gone, I went to my mother’s place and stayed there. I

could not believe what had happened. He might have killed me, and he

was going to do it on purpose. I couldn’t stand it. I pushed it from my mind and tried never to think about it again.”

He fell silent. I called his name. He responded. I asked him, “Do you

know that you are in my office and sitting in the chair you usually

occupy?” He nodded. “Are you finished telling me your story?” He

replied in the affirmative. I said, “You did well. It was very brave of you to go through all that. Are you ready to open your eyes?” He said that

he was. I said, “Take your time. When you are ready, come back fully

awake, slowly. You are going to feel relaxed and well. You will

remember everything you just told me and everything that happened

here.” He nodded. A few moments later he opened his eyes. I asked

him what had happened—what he remembered. He briefly recounted

the evening’s events, including our initial discussion about hypnosis. I

then called in his aunt and told her that he needed to rest at home, with someone in attendance, because the session had been intense.

Adults were not angels, and people could not only hurt each other—

they could desire that hurt with all their heart. But my client did not know what to do with such knowledge, sheltered as he was, deluded as

he was by his parents—blind as he allowed himself to remain with his

“compartmentalization.” This did not stop the inarticulate elements of

his being from endeavoring to dramatically represent and bring

toward consciousness both the fact of intended harm and everything

more broadly evil such intent implied. He found himself compelled to

duplicate precisely the defensive bodily movements he had made to

during the fight with his boyfriend.

The next week, my client did not show up for his session. I thought

“Oh, God. Maybe I did him some serious damage.” However, he

arrived on time the next week. He apologized for missing the last

session, but said that he had become extremely upset and was in

consequence too scrambled to attend or even to contact me. I asked

why. He said, “The day after we last met, I was sitting in a restaurant downtown, and I saw my old boyfriend!” It was an uncanny

coincidence. “It really rattled me, you know,” he continued, “but

nothing came of it, and I calmed down in a day or two. And guess

what?” “What?” I said. “I only had convulsions one night this week!

And they only lasted a few minutes!” I said, “That is great! That is

really great! What a relief! What do you think changed?” He said,

“What really got to me in that fight was not our disagreement about

what future we wanted. It was not the physical contact—the pushing

and shoving. It was the fact that he truly wished me harm. I could see

it in his face. His look truly terrified me. I could not handle it. But I can understand it better now.”

I asked him if I could hypnotize him again. “You are obviously

better,” I said, “but I want to make sure that we got everything.” He

agreed, and we began. He fell into a trance just as easily. But this time, he condensed the story. He got through the whole account in fifteen

minutes, as opposed to the ninety required previously. He had

extracted what was important: the fact that he was in danger; the fact

that someone wanted to hurt him; the fact that he had defended

himself successfully—the fact that the world was a place inhabited by

demons, so to speak, as well as angels. When I asked him to come out of the trance, in the same way I had before, he opened his eyes almost

immediately, and was calm and fully aware.

The change in his condition was remarkable. The next week, he said

that his symptoms had disappeared completely. No more convulsions

—and no more belief in the untarnished goodness of mankind. He had

grown up and faced the reality of his own experience, as well as the

nature of the world. It was something to see. Conscious acceptance of

the presence of malevolence cured him of years of suffering. He now

understood and admitted enough of the potential dangers that

surrounded him to make his way in reasonable safety through the

world. It was no longer necessary for what he had learned but refused

to acknowledge to force itself upon him in its dramatic, embodied

manner. He made what he now knew part of his personality—part of

the map that would guide him henceforth in his actions—and freed

himself from the ghosts that possessed him.

UNCOMPREHENDED MALEVOLENCE

I had another client, a young man who was terribly bullied in his first year of vocational college. When he first came to see me, he could

barely talk, and was taking a high dose of antipsychotic medication.

When he sat in the chair in front of the desk in my office, he would

twist his head and shoulders back and forth in a very abnormal and

mechanical manner. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me

that he was trying to make the shapes go away. Apparently, he could

perceive geometric images of some kind in front of him, and felt

compelled to manipulate them. I never did understand exactly what

that signified, except that he was in a world of his own.

I spent several months working with him, and did it in a more

structured manner than previously—having, in the interim, developed

the tools to do so. This client could only communicate a little at the

beginning of our work together, but that was enough to start the ball

rolling. Some girl at the college had developed a crush on him. He

informed her that her romantic interest was not reciprocated. She

became exceedingly vindictive, and set out to make his life hell. She

spread rumors about his sexual habits. She encouraged some of her male friends to physically threaten him at school. She had people on

hand to humiliate him constantly and unmercifully in transit to and

from campus. Noting his distress, his parents alerted the school, but

nothing was done to stop the ongoing torment. Unable or unwilling to

tolerate the mounting peer pressure, the friends he had only recently

made began to avoid and then entirely abandoned him. He began to

break down, and as his behavior became stranger, his outcast status

was cemented into place. And he broke.

I asked him to let me know exactly what happened—and to reach a

long way back while formulating his answer. I wanted to understand

what, if anything, made him vulnerable to the situation he found

himself in, and what exactly had happened when he was being

tormented by his spurned admirer. And I structured this so that he

could write, as well as talk (more accurately, so that he could talk

about what he was writing). My colleagues and I had developed an

online writing exercise* to provide some helpful structure for those delving into and making sense of their past. I asked my young client to try it. Because he was too impaired in his motivation and his thoughts

to complete the process at home, I had him do his writing in my office.

I set him at my computer and asked him to read each question in the

exercise aloud to me before writing his answer, and then to read that

aloud as well. If I failed to understand something he had written or felt that more detail was required, I suggested he clarify the issues at hand with more writing and read me his revisions.

The exercise opened by asking him to break his life into key epochs

—sections of his autobiographical past that lent themselves naturally

to categorization as a unit or theme. That might be, say, age two

through kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, high school,

college, etc.—although some people are inclined, particularly as they

get older, to group their experiences according to the various

relationships of which they were a member. After he subdivided his

past in the manner he chose, the exercise then asked him to identify

key experiences during each of those epochs: events that he believed,

in retrospect, shaped him as a person, for better or worse. Obviously,

events of the latter type are likely to be marked in memory by negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, or the desire for revenge—and,

perhaps, by a strong tendency to avoid remembering and considering altogether.

My client broke his life into the epochs that seemed relevant to him,

and then identified the key events, both positive and negative,

characterizing each period. Next, he analyzed them causally, coming to

understand why some things had gone well, while others had

deteriorated so terribly. He concentrated most intensely on what gave

rise to the most disturbing events of the past—assessing particulars of his own behavior, motivations of other people, and characteristics of

time and place. He considered what effects those produced, for better

and worse (because we can learn things from difficult experiences),

and thought through what might have happened or been done

differently. The consequence of all this, at least in principle, was the mining of past experiences for their true perceptual and behavioral

significance, and an update of his autobiographical map.

As his account progressed from day care through public schooling—

he had divided his life into sections defined by school grade—he

became increasingly articulate. Recollecting his life was putting him

back together. As he wrote, read what he wrote, and answered the

questions I put to him while listening, his account of the past became

more detailed and his understanding of it deeper. We discussed the

undesirable things that children do to each other, and that led us to

the topic of malevolence and evil—in the adult world, as well. He was

very naive about this. He expressed the belief that people were

universally good (even though he had experience to the contrary). He

had no theory of motivation for destruction, cruelty, and the desire for mayhem.

We walked through his life, developing a particularly detailed

account of everything he had suffered at the hands of his tormentor.

He became sophisticated enough to articulate some initial

understanding of her motivations. She had been spurned and was, in

consequence, hurt, embarrassed, and angry. He had not realized either

how much impact his rejection might produce or how much impact

rejection can have on people in general. He did not seem to

understand, furthermore, that he had the right to defend himself. We

talked about what he could have done differently, or might do

differently in the future, to protect himself. He realized that he had

taken far too much insult at school without reaching out for help. He could have let the appropriate administrative staff at the college know what was going on. He could have confronted his tormentor directly,

publicly, earlier in the abuse, and demanded that she stop. He could

have let his classmates know that the only reason he was being

tormented was because he had refused a date, and that she was so

fragile and brittle that she could not handle the rejection and was

inventing lies for revenge. In the extreme, he could have had her

charged with criminal harassment and defamatory libel. None of these

strategies would have been sure to work, but they would have been

worth trying, and were certainly justified and necessary under the

circumstances.

As he worked through the memories of his recent month at college,

his psychotic symptoms receded dramatically. At every session he

attended, he was more clearheaded. He stopped manifesting his

strange behaviors. He enrolled in summer school and finished his

remaining coursework. It was a near-miraculous recovery.

POTENTIAL INTO ACTUALITY

It is far from uncommon for people to worry, sometimes unbearably,

about what lies ahead of them. That worry is a both a consequence of

and an investigation into the multiple pathways extending from now

into the future. Concerns line themselves up, often involuntarily, for

consideration: troublesome issues at work, problems with friends and

loved ones, practical issues of economic and material survival. Each

concern requires multiple decisions: What problems should be solved?

In what order should action proceed? What strategy should be

employed? All of this requires something like choice—free choice, free

will. And the choice to act seems voluntary; it is a simple thing

(although very psychologically unsatisfying) to succumb to paralysis of will.

To decide, by contrast, voluntarily and freely, is difficult and

demanding. It feels nothing like the automatic processes of reflexive or habitual pathways moving us thoughtlessly forward. We do not appear

to ourselves to be driven by the past, in some fundamentally

deterministic manner, like a mechanical clock in which the spring drives the gears that turn the hands and tell the time. Instead, when

we decide, we actively confront the future. We seem destined to face

something akin to unformed potential and to determine what will

emerge as the present—and then the past.

We literally make the world what it is, from the many things we

perceive it could be. Doing so is perhaps the primary fact of our being, and perhaps of Being itself. We face a multitude of prospects—of

manifold realities, each almost tangible—and by choosing one pathway

rather than another, reduce that multitude to the singular actuality of reality. In doing so, we bring the world from becoming into Being. This is the most profound of mysteries. What is that potential that

confronts us? And what constitutes our strange ability to shape that

possibility, and to make what is real and concrete from what begins, in some sense, as the merely imaginary?

There is something else of perhaps equal import allied with this,

impossible as that might seem, given the very unlikeliness of the role

we appear to play in the shaping of reality. Not only do our choices

play a determining role in transforming the multiplicity of the future

into the actuality of the present, but—more specifically—the ethics of

our choices play that role. Actions based upon the desire to take

responsibility; to make things better; to avoid temptation and face

what we would rather avoid; to act voluntarily, courageously, and

truthfully—these make what comes into Being much better, in all

ways, for ourselves and for others, than what arises as a consequence

of avoidance, resentment, the search for revenge, or the desire for

mayhem. This means that if we act ethically, in the deepest and most

universal of senses, then the tangible reality that emerges from the

potential we face will be good instead of dreadful—or at least as good

as we can make it.

Everyone seems to know this. We are universally tormented by our

consciences for what we know we should have done yet did not do. We

are tormented equally by what we did but know we should not have

done. Is this not a universal experience? Can anyone escape the pangs

of conscience at four o’clock in the morning after acting immorally or

destructively, or failing to act when action was necessary? And what is the source for that inescapable conscience? If we were the source of

our own values and masters of our own houses, then we could act or fail to act as we choose and not suffer the pangs of regret, sorrow, and shame. But I have never met anyone who could manage that. Even the

most psychopathic of people seemed motivated at least to mask their

malfeasance with a layer of lies (with the depth of that layer precisely proportionate to the severity of the impropriety in question). Even the most malevolent, it appears, must find justification for his or her evil.

If we fail to hold ourselves to that standard of responsibility, then

other people regard us as lacking in ethics and integrity. And it does

not end there. Just as we hold people (including ourselves)

accountable for the wrongs they have done, or the good they have

failed to do, we also believe (or at least act out the proposition) that someone who has made a good decision freely, deserves whatever

benefit might come of that decision. It is for that reason that we

believe each person should justly receive the fruit of their honest and voluntary labor. There seems something natural and inevitable about

such judgments; something at work within them that is universal and

inescapable, psychologically and socially. What all this means is that

everyone—child, adult, self, others—will rebel against being treated as a cog in a wheel, incapable of choice and devoid of freedom, and

(similarly) that it is practically impossible to establish a positive

relationship with any other (or even our private selves) without that

attribution of personal agency, free will, and responsibility.

THE WORD AS SAVIOR

The twin ideas that we all are, as sovereign individuals, first,

voluntarily participating in the act of creation itself and, second,

determining the quality of that creation with the ethics of our choices finds reflection in myriad manners within our relationships, private

and public. These ideas are also encapsulated and represented in the

narratives, the fundamental narratives, that sit at the base of our

culture. These stories—whatever their ultimate metaphysical

significance—are at least in part a consequence of our watching

ourselves act across eons of human history, and distilling from that

watching the essential patterns of our actions. We are cartographers,

makers of maps; geographers, concerned with the layout of the land.

But we are also, more precisely and accurately, charters of courses,

sailors and explorers. We recall the places we started from, the

positions we occupied when our stories began. We remember the

pitfalls and successes of the past so that we can avoid the former and

repeat the latter. To do so, we need to know where we have been,

where we currently are, and in what direction we are headed. We

reduce that account to its causal structure: we need to know what

happened and why, and we need to know it as simply and practically

as possible.

It is for such reasons we are so captivated by people who can tell a

story—who can share their experiences concisely and precisely, and

who get to the point. That point—the moral of the story—is what they

learned about who and where they were or are, and where they are

going and why. Such information is irresistible to us all. It is how (and why) we derive wisdom from the risks taken by those before us, and

who lived to tell the story: “This is what life was like then. This is what we wanted, and why. This is what we envisioned, and how we

strategized, planned, and then acted. Sometimes, we succeeded and

realized our aims. But too often (and this is what is crucial to a great story): here is how what we did not expect occurred, here is how we

were knocked off the path, here are the tragedies we encountered and

the mistakes we made—and here is how we put the world back

together (or failed to do so).” We value such stories particularly if they have attained the pinnacle of generalizability, representing heroic

battles with the unknown, as such, or the dissolution of tyrannical

order into revivifying chaos and the (re)establishment of benevolent

society.10 This can be seen everywhere that people tell and listen avidly to stories: and that is literally everywhere.11

The most fundamental stories of the West are to be found, for better

or worse, in the biblical corpus. That collection of ancient and

eminently influential books opens with God Himself, in His Fatherly

guise, portrayed as the ordered entity who confronts chaos and creates

habitable order in consequence:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was

upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon

the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

This formlessness, void, darkness, and water (a confusing

conglomeration of attributes) is a consequence of the translation of a

biblical Hebrew phrase, tohu wa-bohu (

), made up of two

words, tohuw and bohuw. Tohuw is even more complicated than mere formlessness, etc.; it also means “that which is laid waste,” “vanity”

(which might be something likely to be laid to waste, psychologically

speaking), and “desert” (which is uninhabitable and void). 12 It is also associated with another Hebrew word, tehom (

), which is the

source of the phrase “the deep.” Tehom, in turn, means “the abyss,”

and is associated with an earlier Sumerian term, Tiamat,13 who is the great mother goddess/dragon (and denizen of salt water) who creates

the world with her consort, Apsu, in the Mesopotamian creation myth

Enuma Elish.

According to the Genesis account, there exists something—a

potential, let us say, associated symbolically with the abyss, with the oceanic depths—but also with desert, dragons,

maternality/matriarchy, emptiness, formlessness, and darkness.14 This is all the attempt of poetry and metaphor to give initial, ordered,

conceptual form to the formless. The abyss is what terrifies, what is at the end of the earth, what we gaze upon when contemplating our

mortality and fragility, and what devours hope. Water is depth and the

source of life itself. The desert is a place of abandonment, isolation, and loneliness, as well as the interregnum between tyranny and the

promised land. The dragon is the ancient image of the predator as

such—the fire-breathing tree-cat-snake-bird15—eternally lurking in the forest beyond the familiar confines of tribe and village. It is as well the Leviathan hidden in the salt water, the depths—the terrible monster

Jehovah refers to overcoming in Job 41:25–34 and in many other

places in the Old Testament accounts.16

God has an attribute, or an alternative Person, or a faculty, or a tool that aids Him or that He relies on when confronting possibility and the void. That is the Word, from the Christian perspective—but certainly

the capacity for speech, regardless of religious framework, Jewish or

Christian. There is a continual insistence in Genesis on the importance of speech. The act of creation on each day begins with the phrase “and

God said” (with additional emphasis on the act of naming: “and God called”). The seven days of creation begin:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided

the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called

Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

(Genesis 1:3–5)

Almost immediately after God first reveals Himself, His creative

actions, and the initial creation (thus, almost instantly after we are

introduced to Him), He creates human beings. Three features of that

creation stand forth, in addition to its immediacy: the insistence that mankind is to have dominion* over the rest of creation; the shocking and incomprehensibly modern and egalitarian insistence that God

created man and woman equally in His own image (stated twice;

Genesis 1:27); and the equally unlikely and miraculous insistence that

the creation of humanity was, like the rest of the Creation, good. If

God is, above all, as He is initially described, that implies that the men and women created in His image share with Him something of import

—or, more to the point, they share an analogous destiny, necessity, or

responsibility.

The Word—the tool God uses to transform the depths of potential—

is truthful speech. It appears necessarily allied, however, with the

courage to confront unrealized possibility in all its awful potential, so that reality itself may be brought forth. Perhaps both this Truth and

Courage must finally be subsumed, in turn, under the broader

principle of Love—love for Being itself, despite its fragility, tyranny, and betrayal; love that has as its aim what is best for the best in

everything. It is that combination of Truth, Courage, and Love

comprising the Ideal, whose active incarnation in each individual does

in fact take the potential of the future and make the best of it. And who would deny this? No one teaches a beloved son to cringe in terror and

cowardice from what confronts him. No one teaches a beloved

daughter that deceit will set the world right, and that whatever works

expediently is to be practiced, honored, and mimicked. And no one tells anyone he or she cares for that the proper response to Being is

hatred and the desire to produce pain, suffering, mayhem, and

catastrophe. Thus, it can be assumed from analysis of our own

behavior that we know the difference between the pathway of good

and the pathway of evil, and that we believe above all (despite our

conscious resistance and prideful argument) in the existence of both.

But there is yet more: the insistence of God on the goodness of

creation reflected the fact that Truth, Courage, and Love were united

in His creative action. Thus, there is an ethical claim deeply embedded in the Genesis account of creation: everything that emerges from the

realm of possibility in the act of creation (arguably, either divine or human) is good insofar as the motive for its creation is good. I do not believe there is a more daring argument in all of philosophy or in

theology than this: To believe this, to act it out, is the fundamental act of faith.

There is an argument presented much later in the biblical narrative,

in the New Testament. Christ says the following words to His

followers. It is a commentary on the potential for completing your life, for reclaiming what you have lost—or even discovering what you did

not know was there:

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and

ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh

findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will

he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give

him a serpent?

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto

your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? (Luke 11:9–13)

This is not a casual statement. It is not naive. It is not a matter of

asking for a present, unearned. God is no granter of casual wishes. * It

is a matter, first, of truly Asking. This means being willing to let go of anything and everything that is not in keeping with the desire.

Otherwise there is no Asking. There is only an immature and too-often

resentful whim and wish: “Oh, that I could have what I want, without

doing what is necessary.” That will not suffice. So, to ask, seek, and

knock is to do everything required to gather what has been left

unfinished and to complete it, now. And to ask, seek, and knock is, as

well, to determine what must be asked for. And that has to be

something that is worthy of God. Why else would it be granted? How

else could it possibly be granted?

Imagine for a moment you have been given all you need. There is

possibility within you, waiting for the proper demand to release itself.

There is all that is outside of you, waiting to inform and teach you. But all of it is necessary—the good, bad, and unbearable. You know that

when something does not go well, you should analyze the problem,

resolve it, apologize, repent, and transform. An unsolved problem

seldom sits there, in stasis. It grows new heads, like a hydra. One lie—

one act of avoidance—breeds the necessity for more. One act of self-

deception generates the requirement to buttress that self-deceptive

belief with new delusions. One devastated relationship, unaddressed,

damages your reputation—damages your faith in yourself, equally—

and decreases the probability of a new and better relationship. Thus,

your refusal or even inability to come to terms with the errors of the

past expands the source of such error—expands the unknown that

surrounds you, transforms that unknown into something increasingly

predatory.

And, while that is happening, you get weaker. You are less than you

could be because you did not change. You did not become who you

could have become as a consequence of that change—and worse: you

have now taught yourself, by your own example, that such turning

away is acceptable, and you are therefore more likely to commit the

same error in the future. And what you failed to face is now larger.

This is not the kind of causal process, the kind of positive feedback

loop, that you want to find yourself trapped within. So, you must

confess, at least to yourself, and repent, at least within yourself, and you must change, because you were wrong. And you must humbly ask,

and knock, and seek. And that is the great barrier to the enlightenment

of which we are all capable in principle. This is not to claim that the courage necessary to confront the full horrors of life is easy to muster.

But the alternative is worse.

It is our destiny to transform chaos into order. If the past has not

been ordered, the chaos it still constitutes haunts us. There is

information—vital information—resting in the memories that affect us

negatively. It is as if part of the personality is still lying latent, out in the world, making itself manifest only in emotional disruption. What

is traumatic but remains inexplicable indicates that the map of the

world that guides our navigation is insufficient in some vital manner.

It is necessary to understand the negative well enough so that it can be circumvented as we move into the future if we do not wish to remain

tormented by the past. And it is not the expression of emotion

associated with unpleasant events that has curative power. It is the

development of a sophisticated causal theory: Why was I at risk? What

was it about the world that made it dangerous? What was I doing or

not doing to contribute to my vulnerability? How can I change the

value hierarchy I inhabit to take the negative into account so that I can see and understand it? How much of my old map do I have to let

crumble and burn—with all the pain dying tissue produces—before I

can change enough to take my full range of experience into account?

Do I have the faith to step beyond what should and must die and let

my new and wiser personality emerge? To some great degree, we are

our assumptions. They structure the world for us. When basic axioms

of faith are challenged (“People are basically good”), the foundation

shakes and the walls crumble. We have every reason to avoid facing

the bitter truth. But making what is—and what was—clear and fully

comprehended can only protect us. If you are suffering from memories

that will not stop tormenting you, there is possibility—possibility that could be your very salvation—waiting there to be discovered.

If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and

completely.

RULE

X

PLAN AND WORK DILIGENTLY TO MAINTAIN THE

ROMANCE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP

THE UNBEARABLE DATE

I am not a couples’ therapist. But sometimes, when I see a client, it

becomes necessary to include his or her intimate partner in one or

more sessions. I do that only when directly asked. I also make it clear that the couple should seek out a marital counseling specialist if that is their central goal. However, if one of the primary problems my client is addressing is dissatisfaction in the marriage, it is often

counterproductive to speak with only one member of the couple.

Finally, it is often the case (and no wonder, really) that the partner in question does not trust his or her better half’s therapist—me—and a

meeting with all three of us can go a long way toward rectifying that.

Prior to meeting with a couple, I will have discussed some basic

rules for relationship improvement with my client. Let us say he or she has decided to make some time for romance: four hours a week or

something like that (I am speaking here of adults, with their full share of responsibilities). Maybe that much can be managed. Maybe even

more is possible. But there is not that much time in seven days, and

the situation must be set up correctly and carefully. And when all this is first practiced—all this conscious negotiation and enactment—it is

going to be done badly and stupidly, with all the attendant pain,

resentment, and vengefulness. And then such negative emotion can be

nursed and the relationship damaged—sometimes permanently.

Perhaps my client and his or her partner have become estranged from one another over several years when we first start to discuss their situation. They are not happy, and they hate me—maybe even more

than they hate each other. They sit there, distant, arms crossed and

eyes rolling (hopefully not the latter: that is a bad sign1). Neither will give an inch. I ask them when they last did something romantic

together; when they last went out together for a date. They laugh

ruefully, if things have not gone too far, or scoff outright. I suggest, nonetheless, that they try going out with each other; or more, that they start making dates a regular practice. The former suggestion is bad

enough; the second, intolerable. They indicate: “We are not going on

any damn dates. We dated before we got married, when it was

appropriate. Besides, all we will do is fight.”

And here is my take on that angry, bitter, and shallow response:

“This is the theory you are putting forth: You are never going to

accompany each other on another date in your entire married life. (So

much for romance and intimacy.) Instead, you are just going to give

that up. Why not, instead, risk the time? Take each other somewhere

nice. Dare to put your arm around your partner, or your hand on a

knee (and not your own, either). I know you are angry with each other,

and probably for good reason. I have met both of you: I understand

why you both feel that way :-). But just try it. You do not have to like it.

You do not have to expect to be good at it, or give up your anger, or

have a good time. You just have to tolerate it.”

They both leave incensed at me for suggesting such an irritating

idea. But they agree grudgingly, and at their next session inform me:

“It happened just as we told you: we had an absolutely wretched time.

We fought before we went out, while we were out, and again, when we

returned home. We are certainly not going to risk a date again.” They

often evince a certain pride at reaching such a conclusion, as both had generally decided ahead of time that the whole idea was pointless. So,

I ask: “That is the plan, is it? You are going to be married for sixty

years. You put a small amount of begrudging effort into having one

date. You were already not getting along, so there was a negligible

probability you were going to take any pleasure in it. Besides that,

irritated at me as you were for my childish suggestion, you were both

motivated to make it go horribly, just as it did. So, you are done with

it. And now you have decided that this is how you are going to conduct yourselves across the decades you have promised each other: with

spite and bitterness instead of mutual regard?

“Let us try thinking about it this way, instead: Neither of you have

any skill at dating. One attempt is therefore going to be insufficient.

Maybe you need fifteen dates—or forty—because you have lost the

knack, need the practice, and must develop the habit and goodwill.

Perhaps neither of you are very romantic to begin with; or if you were

once, those days have long gone. This is a skill you must learn, not an unearned gift from Cupid.”

Assume you are married—or the equivalent. Assume, as well, that

you have, or could have, a romantic interlude twice a week. It may be

less; it may be more: but we will do the arithmetic for twice weekly.

That is a hundred times a year. Let us imagine that you are going to be married thirty more years. Thirty times one hundred is three thousand

times. Is there not some possibility that you could devote a fraction of all that time to perfecting your technique, seduction, communication,

and lovemaking? What does it matter, therefore, if you have fifteen

miserable dates before managing one that verges on acceptable? That

is fifteen times out of a possible three thousand. That is half a percent of the romantic time you could possibly spend together. Maybe you

could dare even more to determine if things could be set right between

you. Why would you possibly assume that something as complex as

maintaining a marriage could be managed without commitment,

practice, and effort?

“So maybe the first date is wretched and horrible. You never want to

repeat it but you do, because you would rather save your marriage

than quit outright. And maybe the next one is five percent better. And

maybe after some repeated attempts you remember for at least a brief

moment why you once liked the person you married. Perhaps you

manage something a little more exciting than putting your arm around

him or her, and perhaps receive a bit of a response from someone who

actually cares for you somewhere in their now cold and shriveled

heart. And if you are in it for the long run, as indicated by the original marital vows, perhaps you will put in the time to get it right.”

And maybe the couple has enough sense to do the arithmetic and

contemplate all that wasted time, as well as the bitterness, resentment,

and deadness of life without romance, and they agree to go on another date, or two, or three, or ten—and by the tenth session they come to

see me, smiling, and tell me they had a pretty good time. And then we

have an even more serious discussion about just what it takes to

maintain love and respect, and invoke desire and response. How do

you find the mystery in the other person over the long run? Can you

muster up the will and the romantic imagination and the playfulness

to manage that, each time you are together intimately, for the next

three thousand occasions? That is going to require some thoughtful

effort.

For each person is in truth an unfathomable enigma. With care, you

might keep rediscovering, in the person you have chosen, enough

residual mystery to maintain the spirit that first brought you together.

With care, you can avoid stowing each other away in a conveniently

sized box, punishment at hand should either of you dare to emerge,

and contempt for the consequent predictability you both now face

lurking not so far beneath the surface. If you are fortunate, you might rekindle that glimpse you had when you first were attracted to each

other, of what your life could be like if you were better people than you are. That is what happens two people fall under the spell of love. For a while, both become better than they were, and see that, but then that

magic fades away. Both receive that experience as a gift. Both have

their eyes open and can see what is visible to no one else. Such love is a glimpse of what could be, if the relationship remained true. It is

delivered as a gift initially, from fate, but requires tremendous effort to realize and maintain. And once that is understood, the goal is clear.

BEDROCK

The sexual aspect of a relationship can often tell us a great deal about the whole, but not always. I have known couples who fought like

proverbial cats and dogs and who had a wildly successful sex life (at

least in the short term), and other couples who were well suited to

each other temperamentally but one or the other could not find the

spark. People and their relationships are too complex to reduce to a

single aspect—but it is still reasonable to note that a good marriage is

accompanied by mutual desire, mutually requited. Unfortunately, desire is not something that can be managed in isolation: “Let us fix

our sex life” is a resolution too narrow in ambition to fulfill its aim.

There must be a broader, relationship-wide strategy in place to

maintain romance with your partner across time. Regardless of what

that strategy might be, its success is going to depend on your ability to negotiate. To negotiate, you and the person you are negotiating with

must first know what you each need (and want)—and second, be

willing to discuss both forthrightly. There are many serious obstacles

both to knowing what you need and want, and to discussing it. If you

allow yourself to know what you want, then you will also know

precisely when you are failing to get it. You will benefit, of course,

because you will also know when you have succeeded. But you might

also fail, and you could well be frightened enough by the possibility of not getting what you need (and want) that you keep your desires vague

and unspecified. And the chance that you will get what you want if you

fail to aim for it is vanishingly small.

Aim is likely a problem for you. If you have a partner, the problem

may be compounded. The person you have chosen is unlikely to be any

smarter about you than you are, except in minor instances (and is in

fact likely to be even more in the dark with regard to your innermost

desires). Your failure to specify your desires means your unfortunate

lover will have to guess what would please and displease you, and is

likely to be punished in some manner for getting it wrong.

Furthermore, given all the things you could want—and do not want—it

is virtually certain that your lover will get it wrong. In consequence, you will be motivated to blame them, at least implicitly, or

nonverbally, or unconsciously, for not caring enough to notice what

you are unwilling even to notice yourself. “If you really loved me,” you will think—or feel, without thinking—“I would not have to tell you

what would make me happy.” This is not a practical approach to a

happy marriage.

That is all bad enough, but there is a second and equally severe

problem lurking in the byways. If you have solved the problem of

knowing what you want, admitted it to yourself in a verbalizable form,

and let someone else know your wishes, you have then granted them a

dangerous source of power. The person whom you have made your

confidant is now in a position to fulfill your desires, but could equally deprive you of what you want, embarrass you for wanting it, or hurt

you in some other manner, because you have now made yourself

vulnerable. Naive people are possessed of the delusion that everyone is good, and that no one—particularly someone loved—would be

motivated to cause pain and misery, either for revenge, as a

consequence of blindness, or merely for the pleasure of doing so. But

people who have matured enough to transcend their naivete have

learned that they can be hurt and betrayed both by themselves and at

the hands of others. So why increase the odds of being hurt by letting

someone in? It is to defend against such betrayal that naivete is often replaced by cynicism, and it must be said in all truth that the latter is an improvement over the former. But such substitution is not the final

word in wisdom, and thank God for that. Trust in turn trumps

cynicism, and true trust is not naivete. Trust between people who are

not naive is a form of courage, because betrayal is always a possibility, and because this is consciously understood. This applies with

particular force within the confines of an intimate relationship. To

trust is to invite the best in your partner to manifest itself, with

yourself and your freely given trust as the enticement. This is a risky business, but the alternative is the impossibility of true intimacy, and the sacrifice of what could have been two minds in dialogue working in

tandem to address the difficult problems of life for a single mind

striving in solitude.

Romance requires trust—and the deeper the trust, the deeper the

possibility for romance. But trust has its requirements, as well, apart from the courage required of the individuals wise enough to distrust

but brave enough to risk putting their faith in a partner. The first of those requirements is truth. You cannot maintain trust in yourself if

you lie. You cannot maintain trust in yourself, likewise, if you act in a manner that would require a lie if it was discovered. Similarly, you

cannot maintain trust in your partner if he or she lies, or betrays you in action or in silence. So, the vow that makes a marriage capable of

preserving its romantic component is first and foremost the decision

not to lie to your partner.

There are also immense practical advantages to this, if practiced

properly. There will come a time in your life when you have done

something you should not have done or failed to do something that you should have done. You may need advice. You may need support.

You may need exactly what your partner could provide, if only you

dared to allow them to help. And at some time they are going to find

themselves in exactly the same position. Life is too difficult to

negotiate alone. If you tell your partner the truth, and you strive to act so that you can tell the truth about how you act, then you have

someone to rely on when the seas become high and your ship

threatens to founder. This can literally be a matter of life or death. In a relationship where romance remains intact, truth must be king.

CHRIST IN THE CANDLE

I have a friend of Scandinavian descent, although he is Canadian. He

married a Canadian woman, also of Scandinavian descent. They

decided to get married in Sweden, as a tribute to their joint ancestry.

They were both at least nominally Christian, so they were married in a

ceremony reflecting that. During their exchange of vows, the bride and

groom held a lit candle aloft between them. I spent a long time

thinking about the significance of that ritual.

There is an ancient conceit in the book of Genesis (2:21–22) that

Eve was taken out of Adam—created from his rib. Woman from man:

this presents something of a mystery, reversing, as it does, the

normative biological sequence, where males emerge from females at

birth. It also gave rise to a line of mythological speculation, attempting to account for the strangeness of this creative act, predicated on the

supposition that Adam, the original man produced by God, was

hermaphroditic—half masculine and half feminine—and only later

separated into the two sexes. This implies not only the partition of a

divinely produced unity, but the incompleteness of man and woman

until each is brought together with the other. 2 The fact that the candle is held jointly indicates the binding of the two celebrants. The fact that the candle is held aloft, lit, implies that something higher—something

superordinate—is representing or performing the union. Light, light in

the heavens, light in the darkness, illumination, enlightenment. Prior

to the invention of modern electric lights, candles were often used for

this purpose. Evergreens, the standard choice for Christmas trees, represent life unending, as they do not “die” annually in the same

manner as their deciduous counterparts. Such trees therefore

symbolize the Tree of Life, which serves as the very foundation of the

cosmos. 3 So, we illuminate the Tree of Life, at or near December 21, the darkest time of year, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. 4 That is why Christmas is located where it is on the calendar; the reappearance

of the light is associated with the birth of the Universal Savior—

signifying the eternal reemergence of light in the Stygian blackness.

Christ has long been regarded as the second (perfected) Adam and,

just as there was speculation about the hermaphroditic nature of the

first Adam prior to God’s creation of the independent sexes, there is a line of speculation about Christ’s spiritual perfection being a

consequence of the ideal balance of masculine and feminine

elements. *5 It is very difficult for individuals joining themselves together to become desperate enough to cease their hiding and

avoidance, live in truth, and repair themselves in the light cast by their joint existence. It is for this reason that both swear the dread vow of permanence (“What God has joined together, let not man put asunder”

[Matthew 19:6]). “I am bound to you,” claims one party to the

agreement. “And I to you,” says the other, and both think, if they have any sense, that they should each transform themselves and one

another, to forestall any unnecessary suffering. So, what is the

superordinate principle to which both marital partners must bow? It is

not illumination as mere verbal abstraction. It is not that they are only supposed to think and speak the truth. It is that they are supposed to

act it out. And that is the ancient idea that the Word should be made

flesh.

The individuals who make up a married couple might well engage in

a lifelong struggle concerning a single inappropriately conceptualized

question: “Who is subordinate to whom in a marriage?” After all, each

might reason, as people commonly do, that such an arrangement is a

zero-sum game, with one winner and one loser. But a relationship

does not have to be and should not be a question of one or the other as winner, or even each alternating in that status, in an approximation of fairness. Instead, the couple can decide that each and both are

subordinate to a principle, a higher-order principle, which constitutes

their union in the spirit of illumination and truth. That ghostly figure, the ideal union of what is best in both personalities, should be

constantly regarded as the ruler of the marriage—and, indeed, as

something as close to divine as might be practically approached by

fallible individuals. That is what the ceremony of the candle

represents: Neither participant rules the other. Instead, both bow to

the principle of illumination. In that circumstance, it is not that one must abide by what the other wants (or vice versa). Instead, it is that both should be oriented toward the most positive future possible, and

agree that speaking the truth is the best pathway forward. That

orientation and truthfulness will engender a transformative dialogue,

verbal and nonverbal, if the partners in the arrangement commit to

abiding by the consequence of that dialogue. Voluntary subordination

to this higher-order principle of illumination both unifies and

revitalizes.

Imagine that you have just participated in such a ceremony. What

does your participation signify? Do you believe in the ideas that you have just acted out? Do you believe that man and woman were once

together, as a single being, were then separated, and must be restored

as a unity? You can believe it dramatically, poetically, and

metaphorically instead of merely rationally and mechanically, and that

can lead you to deep truths. Do you want to find your soul mate? It is a romantic trope, obviously, but there are deep reasons for the existence of romantic fictions. Maybe you take someone on a date to a romantic

movie. You both watch the movie hero and heroine find their soul

mates. If you are fortunate, while you are watching you are thinking,

“Well, maybe this person I am sitting with is the one for me, too.” In

the best of all situations, that is also what your date is hoping for.

Maybe that is too much to hope for in real life. But the romantic part

of you is longing for it regardless.

There is an inevitable yearning in our natures for the completion

that someone else might provide. There is a sense that you are missing

something, otherwise, and that only the proper romantic union will

provide it. It is true, too—you are indeed missing something. If you

were not, sex would never have evolved. The entire biological course of our destiny, since reproduction progressed past the mere division of

cells, appears driven by the fact that it was better for two dissimilar

creatures to come together to produce a comparatively novel version of themselves than to merely clone their current embodiment. You have

your idiosyncrasies, your blind spots, your biases. Some of these are

implicit. They are often paired inextricably with your unique talents:

you seldom gain an advantage without a corresponding disadvantage,

and you are a particular person, with particular attributes. If you are on your own, you are inevitably lopsided, one-sided. That is often not

for the best.

There is unrealized utility in the marital institution about which we

have become cynical—a consequence of our immaturity and naivete. A

marriage is a vow, and there is a reason for it. You announce jointly,

publicly: “I am not going to leave you, in sickness or health, in poverty or wealth—and you are not going to leave me.” It is actually a threat:

“We are not getting rid of each other, no matter what.” You are

shackled together, like two angry cats at the bottom of a barrel with

the lid on. In principle, there is no escape. If you have any sense

(besides the optimism of new love) you also think, “Oh, God. That is a

horrifying possibility.” The part of you that claims to desire freedom

(but really wants to avoid any permanent and therefore terrifying

responsibility) desires a trapdoor through which escape might be

made, if and when it is necessary. That seems convenient—and it is

true that there are unbearable marriages—but it is an option with

extreme perils. Do you really want to keep asking yourself for the rest of your life—because you would always have the option to leave—if you

made the right choice? In all likelihood, you did not. There are seven

billion people in the world. At least a hundred million (let us say)

might have made good partners for you. You certainly did not have

time to try them out, and the probability that you found the

theoretically optimal person approaches zero. But you do not find so much as make, and if you do not know that you are in real trouble.

Furthermore, if you have an escape route, there will not be enough

heat generated in the chamber you find yourself jointly trapped in to

catalyze the change necessary in both of you—the maturation, the

development of wisdom—because maturation and the development of

wisdom require a certain degree of suffering, and suffering is

escapable as long as there is an out.

You are not going to get along with your partner—not easily, unless you agree to be tyrannized and silent (and even then you will take your revenge)—because you are different people. No one just simply gets

along, precisely because of that. And not only are you different from

your partner, but you are rife with inadequacies and so is he—or she.

And that is not bad enough. There is also the fact that even people of

good will and character locked together in matrimony will face the

mundane, quotidian, dull, tragic, and terrible together, because life

can be—and certainly will be at some point—difficult to the point of

impossibility. It is going to be tough. Even if you strive to pull

yourselves together, and succeed at that admirably, there are going to

be brutal times, and they are not necessarily going to be brief. Maybe

life will be better if you stay together—that is the hope, and the

likelihood, as far as I can tell—but the brutal times will still be there.

What is going to make you voluntarily deal with your differences and

establish a genuine agreement, a true consensus? You are going to

have to negotiate in good faith, continually, to come to some sort of

peaceful and productive accommodation. And if you do not? You are

going to have your hands around each other’s throats for sixty years.

In clinical practice, I have seen whole families in that situation.

Imagine five people in a circle. Imagine further that each has their

hands around the neck of the person in front of them. All are

squeezing with just enough force to kill in a few decades. This is a

decision, formulated over years of unspoken argument and refusal to

negotiate: “I am going to kill you. It is just going to take me a lifetime.”

It is very possible that you have someone you might like to slowly

throttle in your family, or who is currently doing it to you. Perhaps

not, hopefully not (perhaps you would not admit it even if you knew it

was true)—but it is common enough. If you do not negotiate peace

with your partner, that is the situation you will find yourself in. There are three fundamental states of social being: tyranny (you do what I

want), slavery (I do what you want), or negotiation. Tyranny is

obviously not so good for the person enslaved, but it is also not good

for the tyrant—because he or she becomes a tyrant, and there is

nothing ennobling about that. There is nothing but cynicism, cruelty,

and the hell of unregulated anger and impulsivity. Slavery is not good

either, likewise for the slave and the tyrant. Slaves are miserable,

wretched, angry, and resentful. They will take any and all chances whatsoever available to them to take revenge on their tyrants, who will in consequence find themselves cursed and damaged by their slaves. It

is not easy to get the best out of someone by arbitrarily brandishing a stick at them, particularly when they try to do something good (and

that diminution of spirit is the cruelest trick of the tyrant). But you can be certain, you want-to-be tyrants, that your slaves will take their

revenge where they can, even if that means merely being much less

than they could be.

My wife told me a terrible story once, about a couple she observed

while volunteering in a palliative care ward. The husband was dying,

and his wife was trimming his nails—a little too close. With each clip, there was blood, as she trimmed close enough to damage the quick.

You see something like that, and wisdom speaks its terrible truth: “I

know exactly what is going on there.” That is the end stage of an unbelievably deceitful and brutal relationship. It is subtle. It does not announce itself loudly as murderous. No one knows, except the couple

(even though they are perhaps striving with all their might, under the

circumstances, not to know) and the careful observer, who sees a

dying man and a wife who has determined, for whatever reasons, to

make his death a little worse. That is not a desirable outcome. You do

not want to end up in that situation, or anything like it. You want to

negotiate. The question is, “What is going to make you desperate

enough to negotiate?” And that is one of the mysteries that must be

addressed if you wish to keep the romance alive in your relationship.

NEGOTIATION, TYRANNY, OR SLAVERY

Negotiation is exceptionally difficult. We already discussed the

problems associated with determining what you want and then

mustering up the courage to tell someone exactly that. And there are

the tricks that people use, too, to avoid negotiation. Perhaps you ask

your partner what he or she wants—perhaps during a difficult

situation. “I don’t know” is a common answer (you get that from

children, too, and even more often from adolescents). It is not

acceptable, however, in a discussion that cannot in good faith be

avoided. Sometimes “I don’t know” truly means what it is supposed to mean—the person who utters the phrase is at a genuine loss—but often

it means, instead: “I don’t want to talk about it, so go away and leave me alone.” Irritation or outright anger, sufficient to deter the

questioner, often accompanies this response. That brings the

discussion to a halt, and it can stay halted forever. Maybe that has

happened once or twice or a dozen times too often, so you—the

questioner, in this instance—have had enough of your partner’s

refusal, or you have decided that you are done being cowardly or a

victim of your own misplaced compassion and you are not about to

take “I don’t know” for an answer. In consequence, you persist in

pursuing your target. “Well, guess,” you might say. “Throw something on the table, for God’s sake. I do not care what it is. Even if it is wrong, it is at least a start.” “I don’t know” means not only “Go away and leave me alone.” It also frequently means “Why don’t you go away, do all the

work necessary to figure out what is wrong, and come back and tell me

—if you’re so smart,” or “It is intolerably rude of you to refuse to allow me to remain in my willful or dangerous ignorance, given that it

obviously bothers me so much to think about my problems.” It is not

rude, though—or even if it is, you still need to know what your partner wants, and so does he or she, and how in the world are either or both

of you going to figure it out if you cannot even get the conversation off the ground? It is not rude. It is a cruel act of love.

Persistence under such conditions is a necessity, a terrible necessity, akin to surgery. It is difficult and painful because it takes courage and even some foolhardiness to continue a discussion when you have been

told in no uncertain terms by your partner to go the hell away (or

worse). It is a good thing, however—an admirable act—because a

person bothered by something they do not wish to talk about is very

likely to be split internally over the issue at hand. The part that wants to avoid is the part that gets angry. There is a part that wants to talk, too, and to settle the issue. But doing so is going to be cognitively

demanding, ethically challenging, and emotionally stressful. In

addition, it is going to require trust, and people test trust, not least by manifesting anger when approached about something touchy just to

determine if the person daring the approach cares sufficiently to

overcome a serious barrier or two or three or ten to get to the horrible

bottom of things. And avoidance followed by anger is not the only trick in the book.

The next serious hurdle is tears. Tears are easily mistaken for the

distress due to sadness, and they are very effective at bringing

tenderhearted people to a dead halt as a consequence of their

misplaced compassion. (Why misplaced? Because if you leave the

person alone because of their tears, they quit suffering right then, but continue with their unresolved problem until they solve it, which

might be never.) Tears, however, are just as often anger (perhaps more

often) as they are sadness or distress. If the person you are chasing

down and cornering is red-faced, for example, in addition to their

tears, then he or she is probably angry, not hurt (that is not inevitably the case, but it is a reasonably common sign). Tears are an effective

defense mechanism, as it takes a heart of stone to withstand them, but

they tend to be the last-ditch attempt at avoidance. If you can get past tears, you can have a real conversation, but it takes a very determined interlocutor to avoid the insult and hurt generated by anger (defense

one) and the pity and compassion evoked by tears (defense two). It

requires someone who has integrated their shadow (their

stubbornness, harshness, and capacity for necessary emotionless

implacability) and can use it for long-term benefit. Do not foolishly

confuse “nice” with “good.”

Remember the options previously discussed: negotiation, tyranny,

or slavery. Of those, negotiation is the least awful, even though it is no joke to negotiate, and it is perhaps the most difficult of the three, in the short term, because you have to fight it out, now, and God only

knows how deep you are going to have to go, how much diseased

tissue you will have to remove. For all you know, you are fighting with the spirit of your wife’s grandmother, who was treated terribly by her

alcoholic husband, and the consequences of that unresolved abuse and

distrust between the sexes are echoing down the generations. Children

are amazing mimics. They learn much of what they know implicitly

long before they can use language, and they imitate the bad along with

the good. It is for this reason that it has been said that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children to the third and fourth

generation (Numbers 14:18).

Hope, of course, can drive us through the pain of negotiation, but hope is not enough. You need desperation, as well, and that is part of

the utility of “till death do us part.” You are stuck with each other, if you are serious—and if you are not serious, you are still a child. That is the point of the vow: the possibility of mutual salvation, or the closest you can manage here on Earth. In a truly mature marriage, if your

health holds out, you are there for the aforementioned sixty years, like Moses in the desert searching for the Promised Land, and there is

plenty of trouble that must be worked through—all of it—before peace

might be established. So, you grow up when you marry, and you aim

for peace as if your soul depends upon it (and perhaps that is more

serious than your life depending on it), and you make it work or you

suffer miserably. You will be tempted by avoidance, anger, and tears,

or enticed to employ the trapdoor of divorce so that you will not have

to face what must be faced. But your failure will haunt you while you

are enraged, weeping, or in the process of separating, as it will in the next relationship you stumble into, with all your unsolved problems

intact and your negotiating skills not improved a whit.

You can keep the possibility of escape in the back of your mind. You

can avoid the commitment of permanence. But then you cannot

achieve the transformation, which might well demand everything you

can possibly muster. The difficulty, however, that is implicit in the

negotiation carries with it a tremendous promise, which is part of a

radically successful life: You could have a marriage that works. You could make it work. That is an achievement—a tangible, challenging,

exceptional, and unlikely achievement. There are not many genuine

achievements of that magnitude in life; a number as small as four is a

reasonable estimate. Maybe, if you strive for it, you have established a solid marriage. That is achievement one. Because of that, you have founded a solid and reliable, honest and playful home into which you

could dare bring children. Then you can have kids, and with a solid

marriage that can work out for you. That is achievement two. Then you have brought upon yourself more of the responsibility that will

demand the best from you. Then you will have new relationships of the

highest quality, if you are fortunate and careful. Then you will have

grandchildren so that you are surrounded by new life when yours

begins to slip away. In our culture, we live as if we are going to die at

thirty. But we do not. We live a very long time, but it is also all over in a flash, and it should be that you have accomplished what human

beings accomplish when they live a full life, and marriage and children and grandchildren and all the trouble and heartbreak that

accompanies all of that is far more than half of life. Miss it at your

great peril.

You meet people, usually young, unwise but laden with the

unearned cynicism that substitutes for wisdom in youth, and they say,

categorically—even pridefully—“I do not want children.” Plenty of

nineteen-year-olds say that, and that is acceptable, in some sense,

because they are nineteen, and they have time, and what do they know

at nineteen, anyway? And some twenty-seven-year-olds say that, but

not so many, particularly if they are female and the least bit honest

with themselves. And some forty-five-year-olds say the same thing, in

the past tense, and some of them, perhaps, are telling the truth; but

most are celebrating closing the barn door after the cattle have bolted.

No one will speak the truth about this. To note outright that we lie to young women, in particular, about what they are most likely to want in

life is taboo in our culture, with its incomprehensibly strange

insistence that the primary satisfaction in the typical person’s life is to be found in career (a rarity in itself, as most people have jobs, not

careers). But it is an uncommon woman, in my clinical and general

professional experience, regardless of brilliance or talent, training,

discipline, parental desire, youthful delusion, or cultural brainwashing who would not perform whatever sacrifice necessary to bring a child

into the world by the time she is twenty-nine, or thirty-five, or worse, forty.

Here is a pathway to misery I would strongly recommend avoiding,

aimed primarily at the women who read this book (although wise

boyfriends and husbands should take equal note). Decide that you

want children when you are twenty-nine or thirty, and then be unable

to have them: I would not recommend that. You will not recover. We

are too fragile to play around with what life might offer us. Everyone

thinks, when they are young and do not know any better, “Well,

pregnancy can be taken for granted.” That is only true if you absolutely do not want and should not have a child, and you have sex in the

backseat of a car when you are fifteen. Then, for sure, you will find

yourself in trouble. But a successful pregnancy is not a foregone conclusion, not by any stretch of the imagination. You can push trying

for children to the older end of that spectrum—and many people are

encouraged or encourage themselves to do exactly that—but up to 30

percent of couples experience trouble becoming pregnant.6

You encounter something similar—that is, the incaution about what

life will and will not offer—when people whose marriages have

stagnated begin to develop the delusion that a romantic affair will

address their unmet needs. When I had clients considering such a

move—or perhaps involved in an affair, currently—I tried to bring

them back down to earth. “Let us think it through, all the way. Not just for this week, or this month. You are fifty. You have this twenty-four-year-old, and she is willing to break up your marriage. What is she

thinking? Who must she be? What does she know?” “Well, I am really

attracted to her.” “Yes, but she has a personality disorder. Seriously, because what the hell is she doing with you, and why is she willing to

break up this marriage?” “Well, she does not care if I stay married.”

“Oh, I see. So, she does not want to have an actual relationship with

someone, with any degree of long-term permanency. Somehow that is

going to work out well for you, is it? Just think about that. It is going to be a little rough on your wife. A lot of lies are going to go along with that. You have children—how are they going to respond when all this

comes out, as it most certainly will? And what do you think about the

ten years in court that are now beckoning, that are going to cost you a third of a million dollars and put you in a custody battle that will

occupy all your time and attention?”

I have seen people who were in custody battles who would seriously

have preferred cancer. It is no joke to have your arm caught in the

dangerous machinery of the courts. You spend much of the time truly

wishing you were dead. So that is your “affair,” for God’s sake. It is

even more delusional than that, because, of course, if you are married

to someone, you often see them at their worst, because you have to

share the genuine difficulties of life with them. You save the easy parts for your adulterous partner: no responsibility, just expensive

restaurants, exciting nights of rule breaking, careful preparation for

romance, and the general absence of reality that accompanies the

privilege of making one person pay for the real troubles of existence

while the other benefits unrealistically from their absence. You do not have a life with someone when you have an affair with them. You have

an endless array of desserts (at least in the beginning), and all you

have to do is scoop the whipped cream off the top of each of them and

devour it. That is it. You see each other under the best possible

conditions, with nothing but sex in your minds and nothing else

interfering with your lives. As soon as it transforms from that into a

relationship that has any permanency, a huge part of the affair

immediately turns right back into whatever it was that was bothering

you about your marriage. An affair is not helpful, and people end up

horribly hurt. Particularly children—and it is to them you owe primary

allegiance.

I am not trying to be unreasonably categorical about marriage and

family. You cannot expect every social institution to work out for

everyone. Sometimes, you have married someone who is a

psychopathic brute, a congenital and incorrigible liar, a criminal, an

alcoholic, a sadist (and maybe all five at once). Then you must escape.

But that is not a trapdoor. That is a catastrophe, like a hurricane, and you should move out of its path. You might be tempted to conclude:

“Well, how about we live together, instead of getting married? We will

try each other out. It is the sensible thing to do.” But what exactly does it mean, when you invite someone to live with you, instead of

committing yourself to each other? And let us be appropriately harsh

and realistic about our appraisal, instead of pretending we are taking a used car for a test jaunt. Here is what it means: “You will do, for now, and I presume you feel the same way about me. Otherwise we would

just get married. But in the name of a common sense that neither of us

possesses we are going to reserve the right to swap each other out for a better option at any point.” And if you do not think that is what living together means—as a fully articulated ethical statement—see if you can

formulate something more plausible.

You might think, “Look, Doc, that is pretty cynical.” So why not we

consider the stats, instead of the opinion of arguably but not truly old-fashioned me? The breakup rate among people who are not married

but are living together—so, married in everything but the formal sense

—is substantially higher than the divorce rate among married couples.7

And even if you do get married and make an honest person, so to

speak, of the individual with whom you cohabited, you are still much more rather than less likely to get divorced than you would be had you

never lived together initially. 8 So the idea of trying each other out?

Sounds enticing, but does not work.

It is of course possible that people who are more likely to get

divorced, for reasons of temperament, are also more likely to live

together, before or without marriage, rather or in addition to the

possibility that living together just does not work. It is no simple

matter to disentangle the two causal factors. But it does not matter,

practically. Cohabitation without the promise of permanent

commitment, socially announced, ceremonially established, seriously

considered, does not produce more robust marriages. And there is

nothing good about that—particularly for children, who do much

worse in single parent (generally male-absent) families.9 Period. So, I just do not see it as a justifiable social alternative. And I say that as someone who lived with my wife before I married her. I am not

innocent in this regard. But that does not mean I was right. And there

is something else, and it is far from trivial. You just do not have that many chances in life to have an intimate relationship work out

properly. Maybe it takes you two or three years to meet the potential

Mr. or Ms. Right, and another two or three to determine if they are in

fact who you think they are. That is five years. You get old a lot faster than you think you will, no matter how old you are now, and most of

what you could do with your family—with marriage, children, and so

forth—is from twentysomething to about thirty-five. How many good

five-year chances do you therefore have? Three? Four, if you are

fortunate?

This means that your options decrease as you wait, rather than

increase. If you are a widower, or a widow, and you must hit the dating scene when you are forty or fifty, so be it. You have been struck by

tragedy, and that is life. But I have watched friends do it, and it is not a fate I would casually wish on anyone I loved. Let us continue to be

reasonable about this: All sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds have much in

common. They are unformed. They are malleable. That is not an

insult. It is just a fact. It is also why they can go off to college and make a lifelong friend (no cynicism whatsoever intended) from a roommate

within a single semester. By the time you are in your midforties,

however—if you have lived at all—you have become somewhat of a singular and unique person. I have known people I met at that time of

my life for a decade or more whom I still seem to consider new

acquaintances. That is a pure function of the complexity of increasing

age. And that is mere friendship, not love—not a joint life and perhaps even the bringing together of two disparate families.

And so you have your marriage and your children, and that is

working out well because you are stubborn and sufficiently terrified of the hell that awaits anyone who fails to negotiate for peace and make

the sacrifices necessary to establish it. You are undoubtedly more

prepared now for your career—or more likely, your job. That is the

third of the four achievements you might manage, with good fortune and an undaunted spirit, in the brief flash of your existence. You have learned how to establish productive harmony in the close confines of

your most intimate and private relationships, and some of that

wisdom spills over into your workplace. You are a mentor for younger

people, a helpful peer and reliable subordinate, and instead of the

hash you could so easily make of the place you inhabit, you improve it.

And if everyone did that the world would be a much less tragic and

unhappy place. Maybe it would even be a self-evidently good place.

And perhaps you learn how to make good use of your time away from

family and work—your leisure—and you make that meaningful and

productive. And that is the fourth of the four achievements—and one, like the others, that can grow. Perhaps you get better and better at

such things so that you can work on solving more and more difficult

problems, and become a credit, in your own way, to the spirit of

humanity itself. And that is life.

Back to marriage. How do you plan and diligently maintain the

romance in your relationship? Well, you have to decide: “Do you want

some romance in your life or not?” If you really think about it, without resentment—without the joy of depriving your partner, now alienated,

of the pleasure that might come with such an attempt—the answer is

generally yes. Sexual romance: the adventure, pleasure, intimacy, and

excitement people fantasize about experiencing, when they are feeling

in need of a touch of the divine. You want that. The joys of life are rare and precious, and you do not want to forsake them without due cause.

How are you going to accomplish that? With luck, it will happen

between you and someone you like; with better luck, and sufficient commitment, it will happen between you and someone you love. Little

about this is easy. If you set up a household with someone, you are

going to have to do an awful lot of negotiation to keep both “like” and

“love” alive.

THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY

Here are some practical considerations. They may seem far from the

topic of romance. The discussion is necessary, however, because we

transcended—or lost—our traditional roles, and have not formulated

replacements for them. Before that—perhaps before the invention of

the birth control pill, which was a biological revolution—men did male

things, whatever they were, and women did female things, whatever

they were. Traditional roles are far more helpful than modern people,

who vastly overestimate their tolerance for freedom and choice, tend

to realize. In a less rapidly mutable society, everyone has some sense

of their respective duties. That does not eliminate the tension (nothing eliminates the tension), but at least there is a template. If there is no template for what either of you should be doing when you live together

with someone, then you are required to argue about it—or negotiate

about it, if you are good at that, which you are probably not. Few

people are.

If you are going to set up a household in peace with someone you

love and hopefully like, and wish to continue loving and liking, you are going to have to determine in some manner who is going to do what.

That is the replacement for roles. Who makes the bed? When should it

be made? At what level of perfection does the bed have to be made to

be mutually acceptable? And if this is not handled well, the

conversation becomes counterproductive rapidly: “I made the bed.”

“Well, you did not do a very good job.” “Nothing’s ever good enough

for you. If you do not think I did a good enough job making the bed,

maybe I will just stop, and you can make it yourself!” “Well, maybe

you should raise your standards a bit, and maybe not just about the

bed!” It is going to take days to sort that out—if it ever does get sorted out—and that is just the bed. That is just the first ten minutes of the

morning. So maybe it remains unmade or made badly and bitterly for the next sixty years (there is that time span again), and there are many more domestic issues to address than just the bed. But if that is not

sorted out, then it is a problem every morning of every day and every

day of every week and month and year and everyone is angry at least

under the surface as soon as they awaken or every time they enter the

bedroom and other things begin to fall out of order. There is nothing

good about that.

Whose career is going to take priority? When and why? How will

the children be educated and disciplined, and by whom? Who does the

cleaning? Who sets the table? Takes out the garbage? Cleans up the

bathroom? How are the bank accounts set up and managed? Who

shops for groceries? Clothes? Furniture? Who pays for what? Who

adopts responsibility for the taxes? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Two hundred things, perhaps, to run a household properly—as complex a

problem as running a business, with the additional difficulty of trying to manage it with a family member, much of it repeated daily. Your life is, after all, mostly composed of what is repeated routinely. You either negotiate responsibility for every single one of these duties or you play push and pull forever, while you battle it out nonverbally, with

stubbornness, silence, and half-hearted attempts at “cooperation.”

That is not going to do your romantic situation any good. It is of vital necessity, in consequence, to place the domestic part of the household

economy on firm ground.

It is an incredibly difficult set of problems to solve, because it means you must consciously sort the hierarchy of responsibilities between the partners in the household. You are required to negotiate every damned

and apparently trivial detail (but the apparent triviality is a delusion): Who prepares the meals? When do they prepare the meals? What is

that worth in terms of trade-off for other tasks? How do you thank

someone for conducting themselves properly in the kitchen? Who

loads the dishwasher? Who does the dishes? How fast do the dishes

have to be cleared off the table after you eat? Which dishes are going

to be used? What are we going to eat? What role are the kids going to

play? Do we sit down together? Do we have regular mealtimes? Each

of these questions can become a bloody war. One person thinks one

thing, and the other person thinks another thing, and who knows

who’s right? So, you have to have a struggle with it, and you have to come to a consensus. Doing so is difficult. Maybe it means hundreds of

fights. It certainly means dozens. But they are fights with a purpose,

and that purpose is to fight it out until a solution arises, so that fights about that issue are no longer necessary. That makes peace the goal,

and it cannot be established except through negotiation, and that

requires a commitment strong enough to withstand serious and deep

conflict.

The next thing you have to do—I know this from both my clinical

and marital experience (thirty years of each)—is actually talk to your

partner for about ninety minutes a week, purely about practical and

personal matters. “What is happening to you at work?” “What is going

on, as far as you are concerned, with the kids?” “What needs to be

done around the house?” “Is there anything bothering you that we can

address?” “What do we have to do that is necessary to keep the wolf

from the door next week?” Just pure, practical communication: partly

because you have a story, your partner has a story, and you have a

joint story. To know your story, you must tell it, and, for your partner to know it, he or she must hear it. It is necessary for that

communication to happen on an ongoing basis. It does not have to be

ninety minutes all at once. Maybe it can be fifteen minutes a day. But

you keep those lines of pragmatic communication open, so you know

where the other person is, and vice versa. If you dip below ninety

minutes a week, you generate a backlog, and your mutual story begins

to unwind. At some point, that backlog is so large that you do not

know who you are yourself, and you certainly do not know who your

partner is, and you become mutually alienated. Your relationship loses

its coherence. That is a bad situation.

When I am helping someone straighten out their marriage, let us

say, we do very mundane things. I am not interested in vacations,

special occasions, or anything that happens that is out of the ordinary.

It is not that those things are unimportant, but they are not vital in the same sense that daily routines are vital. It is the latter that must be set right. I want to know what interrelationships constitute the bulk of

your typical day. You wake up together, perhaps; you eat together. You

do such things every day. Maybe waking up, preparing for the day, and

eating make up five hours a day. That is a third of your waking time

and, therefore, a third of your life. It is thirty-five hours every seven days—a whole workweek; an entire career. Get it right. Ask yourself

and each other: How do we want these times to be structured? How

can we make the morning awakening pleasant? Can we attend to each

other politely and with interest and perhaps without electronic

distractions while we eat? Could we make our meals delicious and the

atmosphere welcoming? Consider coming home in the evening. Let us

say that routine takes ten minutes. So that is another hour plus per

week; fifty hours a year—one and a half workweeks. You spend one

and a half workweeks a year being greeted as you come in the door. It

is a sizable fraction of your existence. Does somebody meet you at the

door and indicate a certain degree of happiness to see you, or are you

ignored because everyone is using their smartphones, or met with a

litany of complaints? How would you like to organize that, so you do

not dread the moment you arrive at home? There are things you do

together that are mundane things; those things you do every day. But

they are your whole life. You get those things right and you have

established yourself much more effectively than you might realize. If

you can successfully fight the war that establishes harmony in the

domestic economy, you have both won a major victory. And then you

can concentrate on what might happen during a romantic vacation to a

boutique hotel, or your parents’ cottage, or an all-inclusive resort, or an adventure holiday—or just during that twice-weekly date we

discussed earlier that you are both so reluctant to attempt.

Start by getting these things straight, and see what happens. Then

you will have peaceful mealtimes, for example, and you will not die of

frustration or high blood pressure. You will have to fight for such an

accomplishment. What matters, however, is not whether you fight

(because you have to fight), but whether you make peace as a

consequence. To make peace is to manage a negotiated solution. And

you want and need to come to a negotiated solution about every

responsibility and opportunity you share as a couple—and about every

obstacle you encounter. At least then you will have someone to talk

things through with when your life gets complex, as it inevitably will.

And you have the advantage of two heads, even though they will not

see eye to eye. What all this means is that the problems of knowing

what you want and discussing it with your partner must be solved before the romance in your relationship can be maintained.

Other people keep you sane. That is partly why it is a good idea to

get married. Why? Well, you are half insane, and so is your spouse

(well, maybe not half—but plenty). Hopefully, however, it is not

generally the same half. Now and then you meet couples who have the

same weakness, and they compound that failing in each other. Maybe

they are both too fond of wine, for example, and they drift together

toward alcoholism. What you might want, to avoid such a fate, is that

one person in the couple is fond of alcohol, but not both. This will

cause a certain amount of short-term conflict, in situations where

drinking is occurring or likely to occur, but the long-term

consequences (avoiding either of you becoming an alcoholic) are likely

to be beneficial. The one who does not drink will have a drink or two

on a social occasion, just to avoid being too rigid and horrible, and the one who likes to drink will get what is hopefully a salutary reprimand

if he or she does not exercise proper control.

It is a fortunate happenstance, generally speaking, that your

idiosyncrasies are likely to be somewhat randomly distributed, and

that if you unite with someone else you are likely to find some strength where you are weak and vice versa. When you unite the two of you to

recreate that original being—that is the symbolic idea—then you have a

chance of producing one reasonable, sane being. That is good for you

both, even better for your children (who now have a fighting chance of

adapting to what constitutes generally sane behavior), and it is good

for friendship and the broader world, too.

A lot of that movement toward functional unity is a consequence of

dialogue and communication. If you are old enough, you know that

people are badly broken. When you are young and not very

experienced, you are likely to make two assumptions, in a rather

unquestioning and implicit manner, that are simply not true. The first

is that there is someone out there who is perfect. You are likely even to encounter this hypothetically perfect person, whom you view through

your delusion, and to fall desperately and foolishly in love with them

(foolishly because you are in love with your projection of perfection,

rather than the person—which is very confusing to the target of your

affection). The second assumption is that there is someone out there

who is perfect for you. From these assumptions, you are making at least three errors, which is quite an accomplishment, given you have

made only two assumptions.

To begin with, there is not anyone out there who is perfect. There

are just people out there who are damaged—quite severely, although

not always irreparably, and with a fair bit of individual idiosyncrasy.

Apart from that, if there was someone out there who was perfect, they

would take one look at you and run away screaming. Unless you are

deceiving someone, why would you end up with anyone better than

you? You should be truly terrified if you have been accepted as a date.

A sensible person would think of their new potential romantic partner:

“Oh, my God! You are either blind, desperate, or as damaged as me!”

That is a horrifying idea—signing up with someone who is as at least as much trouble as you. It is by no means as bad as being alone with

yourself, but it is still out of the frying pan and into the fire—and at least the fire might transform you. Thus, you get married, if you have

any courage—if you have any long-term vision and ability to vow and

adopt responsibility; if you have any maturity—and you start to

transform the two of you into one reasonable person. And it is even the case that participating in such a dubious process makes the two of you

into one reasonable person with the possibility of some growth. So,

you talk. About everything. No matter how painful. And you make

peace. And you thank providence if you manage it, because strife is the default condition.

FINALLY: ROMANCE

There was not much point in this chapter in talking about romance

immediately—at least not about its maintenance. Romance is play, and

play does not take place easily when problems of any sort arise. Play

requires peace, and peace requires negotiation. And you are lucky even

then if you get to play.

The issue of marital romance—intimacy and sex—is a complex one,

with a dragon lurking under every question. For example: What do

you owe each other sexually if you are entangled in a marriage? The

answer is not “no sex.” That is not the answer, because part of the

contractual arrangement is to organize your romantic life in a mutually satisfactory manner. It is an implicit precondition for the

stability of the marriage. It is probably not sex fifteen times a day, and it is probably not sex begrudgingly once a year. It is somewhere

between extremes, and that is where you must begin to negotiate.

My observation has been that the typical adult couple—when they

have a job, children, and the domestic economy we just discussed, and

all that worry and responsibility and concern—might manage once or

twice a week, or even three times a week (not likely), for a reasonable romantic interlude. That frequency, if handled well, seems to work out

acceptably for both partners. I have observed that twice is better than once, but once is much better than zero. Zero is bad. If you go to zero, then one of you is tyrannizing the other, and the other is submitting. If you go to zero, then one of you is going to have an affair—physical,

emotional, fantastical, or some combination of the three. I do not say

that lightly. Something has to give, and there has to be a no there, somewhere, when the romance disappears and the frequency of sexual

intimacy hits rock bottom; there has to be a strong indication that

“that is not good enough.” I am not recommending the affair, but that

is what you are setting yourself up for if your sex life vanishes. Maybe you want to take that pathway and facilitate the affair because you

want to play the martyr: “My wife left me to have an affair, and poor

me.” And why did she do such a thing? “Well, perhaps our sex life was

not all it could have been” (and this is an answer that may require a

fair bit of digging). “What exactly do you mean by ‘was not all it could have been’?” “Well, we had not made love for two years, and she went

and had an affair.”

That is not a shock. You should begin by assuming that your partner

is a relatively normal human being, and that there is a certain amount

of sexual satisfaction that is a reasonable requirement—let us say twice a week, or once a week, under conditions of intense busyness. In the

early days of marriage it might be no problem to express romantic

interest in your partner, but there is so much that must be done to live.

Dating is a pain, even if you are single. I am perfectly aware that there is adventure there, too, but a lot of that occurs in movies, and not on internet dating sites, in text exchanges, coffee shops, restaurants, and bars, where the first awkward encounters occur. You really have to

work at it, and you will, if you are single, because you are lonesome, starved for attention, and desperate for physical intimacy. (Single

people have far less sex, on average, than married people, although I

suppose that a small percentage are making out like bandits. But I

cannot see that even those successful in that manner are doing

themselves any favors.)

So, as a single person, you will work at dating, because you are

lonesome and deprived, but it is no simple matter. You must make

space in your life for it. You have to plan. You must use your

imagination, spend money, find an acceptable dating partner, and, as

they say, kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince (or to find a princess, as well). People are often relieved when they get married, because they do not have to make all that so often counterproductive effort anymore.

But that does not at all mean that you are now off the hook; that you

can just lay back in your worn white underwear and socks and assume

that all the hypothetical pleasures of Hugh Hefner are going to

automatically manifest themselves in your household. There is still

plenty of effort required, unless you want the romance to vanish. You

have to talk about it. You have to have the difficult and embarrassing

conversation: “What is it going be, dear? Tuesday and Thursday?

Wednesday and Friday? Monday and Saturday?” You think, “Oh, God.

That is so cut and dried. That is so mundane and planned. That is so

scheduled, predictable, bourgeois, antiromantic, and robotic. It is

demeaning and constricting, and it just turns sex into a duty. Where is the fun? Where is the spontaneity, the light jazz, cocktails, and

excitement of sudden unexpected attraction? Where is the tuxedo and

the little black dress?” That is what you expect? Even unconsciously, in your foolish fantasies? How often did you manage that when you were

dating? Ever? And (remember, we are adults talking here) you want

two jobs (two careers, two incomes), two kids, a reasonable standard

of living—and spontaneity? And you are not about to “settle” for

anything less?

Good luck with that. It is not going to happen—not in my clinical

(and personal) experience—not without a lot of effort. What will

happen is that the absolute necessities of life will inexorably start to take priority over the desirable necessities. Maybe there is a list of ten things you will do in a day, and sex is number eleven. It is not that you

do not think sex is important, but you do not ever get past number five on the list of ten. You must make space and time, and, as far as I can

tell, you have to do it consciously. You might think, “What would it be like to spend some time with this person I was once romantically

attracted to?” You have to think that through. Maybe you only have

time to watch half an hour of a TV show before you hop into bed.

Maybe you have an hour and a half, or an hour, because life is too

hectic. It would not be too bad an idea to have a shower. A little

lipstick—that could be good. Some perfume. Some clothing that is

attractive and erotic. Buy some lingerie for your wife, if you are a man, and wear it, with some courage, if you are a woman. Maybe you, if you

are a man, can find something to wear that is reasonably sexy in a

men’s shop or a place that sells erotic clothing that is not too extreme and does not scream of poor taste and produce intense and

counterproductive self-consciousness. And a compliment or two when

all that courage is manifested is not such a bad idea. Maybe each time

it happens for a year. You are trying to build some confidence. Try

some nice soft lighting—maybe some candles (and someone has to buy

the candles, and should be encouraged to do so; and the cynicism

should be kept to an absolute minimum, if you do not want to banish

what is fragile out of existence altogether). Here is a rule: do not ever punish your partner for doing something you want them to continue

doing. Particularly if it took some real courage—some real going above

and beyond the call of duty—to manage.

How about trying to set up the whole situation in the romantic

manner that you might imagine, if you were imagining having an

affair, because that is the sort of thing that people imagine when they imagine an affair (if they have any imagination). Try having an affair

with your wife or husband. Maybe the latter can set up the bedroom

while the former is preparing in the bathroom. We already mentioned

candles. How about some music? How about making sure that the

room is clean and—God willing—aesthetically attractive? That might

be a start. And maybe, the two you of will not get old and fat,

unhealthy and hypochondriacal as fast as possible just to spite each

other, which many couples certainly do. And then, maybe, you could

both have what you need, and maybe even what you want. But you

would have to admit your desires, and you would have to negotiate

with your partner. What do you like? What does she like? And are you going to let each other know? Are you going to risk practicing badly?

Are you going to learn some new tricks, even if you feel like a fool

when you first try?

None of this is easy. People will do things with or to each other that

they will not talk about with each other, which is not helpful if they are married. It could be, maybe, if you were in a trading mood and

approaching this with goodwill, that you could decide what you need

and want, and arrange exactly the right trade. You might ask yourself,

“Look, how do I have to set this up so I am likely to continue being

romantically interested in my wife or my husband for the next twenty

years, so that I do not wander off and do something stupid, like so

many people do? What is my minimal precondition for erotic

satisfaction?” You might try to convince yourself that it is not

necessary; that you can put up with what you have, even if it is

nothing. But you cannot. Not if you have any self-respect or sense.

There is something that you are going to want and need. It is possible

that, if you communicate openly what that something is, and at the

same time leave yourself open to the same communication coming

from your partner, that you both could get not only what you want

from each other, but even more than you expect.

Arrange some dates, and then practice making those dates and

going on them until you are expert at it. Negotiate, and practice that, too. Allow yourself to become aware of what you want and need, and

have the decency to let your partner in on the secret. After all, who else are you going to tell? Devote yourself to the higher ideal upon which

an honest and courageous relationship is necessarily dependent, and

do that with the seriousness that will keep your soul intact. Maintain

your marital vows, so that you are desperate enough to negotiate

honestly. Do not let your partner brush you off with protestations of

ignorance or refusal to communicate. Do not be naive, and do not

expect the beauty of love to maintain itself without all-out effort on

your part. Distribute the requirements of your household in a manner

you both find acceptable, and do not tyrannize or subject yourself to

slavery. Decide what you need to keep yourself satisfied both in bed

and out of it. And maybe—just maybe—you will maintain the love of

your life and you will have a friend and confidant, and this cold rock

we live on at the far end of the cosmos will be a little warmer and more comforting than it would otherwise be. And you are going to need that,

because rough times are always on their way, and you better have

something to set against them or despair will visit and will not depart.

Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your

relationship.

RULE XI

DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BECOME

RESENTFUL, DECEITFUL, OR ARROGANT

THE STORY IS THE THING

You have your reasons for being resentful, deceitful, and arrogant. You face, or will face, terrible, chaotic forces, and you will sometimes be outmatched. Anxiety, doubt, shame, pain, and illness, the agony of

conscience, the soul-shattering pit of grief, dashed dreams and

disappointment, the reality of betrayal, subjection to the tyranny of

social being, and the ignominy of aging unto death—how could you not

degenerate, and rage, and sin, and come to hate even hope itself? I

want you to know how you might resist that decline, that degeneration

into evil. To do so—to understand your own personality and its

temptation by darkness—you need to know what you are up against.

You need to understand your motivations for evil—and the triad of

resentment, deceit, and arrogance is as good a decomposition of what

constitutes evil as I have been able to formulate.

Is it possible to understand the world in a manner that provides

protection against the temptation to traverse that lowest of roads? It is an axiom of human wisdom that clearer formulation and deeper

comprehension of a problem is salutary. We will begin just that

attempt with a conceptual shift—one that is difficult and perplexing for the committed materialists we moderns are. First, a question: What is the world made of? To answer this, we will need to consider reality—

the world—as it is fully experienced by someone alive and awake, with

all the richness of subjective being left intact—dreams, sensory

experiences, feelings, drives, and fantasies. This is the world that

manifests itself to—or, better, that you meet head-on with—your unique individual consciousness.

Consider the act of awakening in the morning. If you were asked

what you perceive, at that moment, you might well mention the same

concrete objects that anyone else might see, if they woke up in bed

beside you. You might describe all that you have gathered around you

in your bedroom—the desk, the chairs, the clothes (messy or neatly

arrayed, depending on your temperament and preference and,

perhaps, your condition last night). You are likely to answer in this

very objective, realistic manner, claiming, essentially, to see the

furniture of the stage. There is, of course, some truth to your answer, although you may pay less attention to the familiar things around you

than you think. Why waste time and energy perceiving what you can

simply remember?

However, the furniture and other contents of your bedroom are not

truly what you perceive when you first wake up. You are already

familiar with the place where you sleep, and what it contains. There is no reason to continue to effortfully and consciously apprehend what

you already understand. Instead, you are liable to perceive your

surroundings psychologically. You begin to consider how you are going to conduct yourself on the stage you will inevitably occupy, and

what is going to happen in consequence. What you see upon waking is

an array of possibilities, many of them concerning the day at hand,

and others associated with the weeks, months, and years to come.

What you are truly concerned with upon waking is the answer to a

question: “What shall I make of the possibilities that I see in play in front of me, complex, worrisome, exciting, dull, restricted, unlimited, fortunate, or catastrophic as they may be?”

Out there in the potential is everything you could have. It is the

realm of unrealized possibility, and no one knows its full extent. There appears to be no limit, in principle, to what can be made from what

has not yet manifested itself. Everything that might yet be makes its

home there. You could well consider what remains to be encountered

as an eternal treasure house—a horn of plenty (which are in fact two of its representations). But that is only half the story (and there is the rub). If the potential you confront manifests improperly (because of a

mistake on your part; because of the sheer arbitrariness of the world),

then you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Out there, in the unknown—in the future, which is what you truly contend with, when

your consciousness reawakens—awaits everything good, but also

everything terrible, painful, hellish, and deadly. Whatever potential might be, therefore, it does not follow the simple rules of material

logic. Objects that play by the rules of the game we consider real (when we assume that what is real is also logical) can only be one thing at a time, and certainly not themselves and their opposite, simultaneously.

Potential, however, is not like that. It is not categorizable in that

manner. It is tragedy, comedy, good and evil, and everything in

between at the same time. It is also not tangible, in the sense that the things we consider must be tangible. It does not even exist—except as

what could be exists. Perhaps it is best considered as the structure of reality, before reality manifests itself concretely in the present, where reality appears to most self-evidently exist. But creatures such as us do not contend with the present. It may therefore be that it is not the

present that is most real—at least as far as our consciousness is

concerned. We have to fight to “be here now,” the advice of the sages.

Left to our own devices, we turn our minds instead to investigating the future: What could be? Attempting to answer that question—that is life. That is the true encounter with reality. What is? That is the dead past, already accomplished. What could be? That is the emergence of new being, new adventure, brought about by the conjunction of living

consciousness with the great expanse of paradoxical possibility.

And if it is possibility that is most real, rather than actuality (as

evidenced by the fact that it is possibility we are destined to contend with), then it is the investigation into possibility that is the most

important of all investigations. But how do we investigate something

that is not here, or there, or anywhere? How do we examine what has

not yet manifested itself; explore what only could be but is not yet?

And how can we possibly communicate with each other intelligibly

about that attempt, trade information about the most effective

conceptualizations, approaches, and strategies? The answer to that, as

far as I can tell, is by communicating through stories about what is

and, equally, what could be. And what that implies is that if possibility is the ultimate element of reality with which we contend, then it is

stories that hold the wisdom that we most need to know.

We naturally think of our lives as stories, and communicate about our experience in that same manner. We tell people automatically

where we are (to set the stage) and where we are going, so that we can

create the present out of the possibility that springs forth as we

journey toward our destination. No one finds such an account out of

the ordinary. But we are doing more than portraying our lives, and

those of others, as a sequence of events. It is something deeper than

that. When you depict a person’s actions in the world, you describe

how they perceive, evaluate, think, and act—and, when you do so, a

story unfolds (and the better you are at such descriptions, the more

storylike your accounts are). Furthermore, we experience the world as

populated by figures that represent exactly what we must contend

with. The unknown, unexpected, and novel—the world of possibility—

is represented in dramatic form, as is the world that we expect and

strive to bring into being, and ourselves, as actors faced with the

unknown and the predictable alike. We use the story to represent all of this.

Could it be that we communicate in stories (and everyone else

understands them) because what everyone is doing in the world is

fundamentally a story? Could that mean that the world of experience

is, in truth, indistinguishable from a story—that it cannot be

represented in a manner more accurate than that of the story? We are,

in principle, adapted to the world—adapted to its realities. Thus, if we naturally construe the world as a story, then perhaps the world is most accurately, or at least most practically, construed as a story (and

accurate and practical are not so easy to distinguish). You might argue, contrarily, that the scientific view of the world is more accurate, in some sense, and that the scientific view is not fundamentally a

story. But, as far as I can tell, it is still nested inside a story: one that goes something like “careful and unbiased pursuit of the truth will

make the world a better place for all people, reducing suffering,

extending life, and producing wealth.” Why practice science

otherwise? Why would anyone take on the difficulties and rigors of

scientific training without that motivation? There are more effective

ways of making money, for example, if you have the intelligence and

discipline to become a genuine researcher. And in terms of intrinsic

motivation, the love of science is not precisely disinterested learning.

The great experimenters and scientific writers I have known are passionate about their pursuit. Something emotional drives them.

They hope that their learning (disinterested though it may be, as at

present it has no specific aim except that of learning) will have some

genuinely positive outcome: making the world a better place. That

provides the entire pursuit with a narrative element, the motive that

accompanies any good plot, and the transformation of character that

makes up the best of stories.

We conceptualize what we experience as a story. That story is,

roughly speaking, the description of the place we are at right now, as

well as the place that we are going to, the strategies and adventures

that we implement and experience along the way, and our downfalls

and reconstitutions during that journey. You perceive and act inside a

structure like that all the time, because you are always somewhere,

going somewhere else, and you are always evaluating where you are

and what is going on in relation to your goal. Part of this thinking in stories is our tendency to see the world as a selection of characters,

each of which represents either where we are or are going, the

unexpected occurrences we may encounter, or ourselves as actors. We

see animated intent everywhere1—and we certainly present the world that way to our children. That is why Thomas the Tank Engine has a

face and a smile, and the sun has a face and a smile. That is why—even

among adults—there is a man in the moon, and deities scattered

across the stars. Everything is animated. That is a reflection of our

proclivity to treat things as if they are personalities with intent,

regardless of what they are, regardless of whether they are animate or

inanimate. That is why it is okay with you that your car has a face (on the front, where faces belong), which it most certainly does.

We act (perceive, think, react) that way because each member of the

human species does almost everything he or she does in the presence,

for better or worse, of other people. And that has been the case

forever. Virtually everything we encountered in the long biological rise to our current form was social. If we were not interacting with people, then it was with animals. Maybe we were hunting them, or herding

them, or playing with them, once they had been domesticated—or

maybe they were hunting us, and we had to understand them to escape

them or defend ourselves. All that tribal, intertribal, and cross-species

interaction molded our brains, shaped our fundamental categories, rendering them social, not objective—not like the categories of science.

It is not as if we are born with an instinct for the periodic table of the elements. No. We only managed to get that straight a few hundred

years ago, and it took a lot of conscious time and effort to formulate.

Furthermore, even though it was other people who did the terribly

hard work necessary to establish that remarkable chemical category

system, it is difficult to learn. It is not that interesting, intrinsically (at least for most people), because there is no story associated with it. It is an accurate and useful representation of the objective reality of what

is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, but it is a struggle to master

perception of that abstracted sort.

Conversely, if someone is telling you a story, it attracts your

attention immediately. It can be a complicated and cognitively difficult story—something requiring hours of concentration. It might even be

the story of how the periodic table of the elements was discovered, and the triumphs and difficulties that accompanied the process. It does not matter. If it is well told, it is gripping, and likely to be remembered. If you want to teach a child something and get them to attend, tell them

a story. They will repeatedly ask you to do that. They do not grab your pant leg and beg, “Dad, one more line from the periodic table of the

elements before bed!” But they are highly motivated to hear a story—

sometimes even the same one every night. That is an indication of the

depth and importance of stories. You might think the story is simple,

but your child, listening intently, is processing the multiple levels of meaning represented in any decent tale—meanings of which you are

very unlikely to be aware, if the story you are telling is traditional and deep.

We are all human. That means there is something about our

experience that is the same. Otherwise, we would not all be human.

We would not even be able to communicate. To communicate,

paradoxically, there must be things about you and others that can go

without saying. Imagine telling someone, “I got really angry this

morning.” If there is any indication you want the conversation to

continue and they are agreeable, they might ask you why; but they are

not likely to ask you, “What do you mean, ‘angry’?” They do not ask the latter question because they already know, from their own experience,

what “angry” means. It can be assumed, rather than explained. In fact, the only reason you can talk about anything at all is because there are some things you do not ever have to talk about. You can just take them

for granted. We know, worldwide, for example, that there are basic

sets of emotions shared by all humans—and by many animals.2

Everyone understands a growling mother bear standing in front of her

cubs, teeth bared for all to see. It is those things that you do not have to talk about that most precisely make us human, that constitute the

essence, mutable though it remains through the actions of society and

environment.

So, on to the story—to the story of the story, in fact. We will begin

by meeting the characters whose existence universally structures our

understanding of the potential of the world. And, with luck, as you

meet them, you will begin to understand their relationship to

resentment, arrogance, and deceit well enough so that understanding

will offer you some protection.

THE ETERNAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN DRAMA

THE DRAGON OF CHAOS

When my son, Julian, was about four years old, he watched the movie

Pinocchio obsessively—particularly the sequence that portrays the whale, Monstro, transforming into a fire-breathing dragon. He must

have seen it fifty times. And it was not obvious that he enjoyed it. He was clearly afraid of the climactic scene. I could see it on his face. He had good reason for his fear. The characters he had come to identify

with had laid it all on the line. There was a strong motif of danger and sacrifice. Nonetheless, it was the scene that fascinated him the most.

What in the world was he doing, watching the film repeatedly?

Particularly if the emotion it produced was fear? Why would a child

voluntarily subject himself to that? Julian was using all the faculties of his newly forming mind, rational and unconscious alike, to process the

relationships in such a tale. Pinocchio and tales like it are dense, layered, and complex in ways that seize the imagination of children

and will not let go. That is not accidental. Kids are small and young

and, in some ways, they do not know anything, because they have very

little personal experience. But they are also very ancient creatures, in another manner, and by no means stupid or inattentive. The fact that

they are gripped by fairy tales and stories like Pinocchio is an indication of just how much depth children perceive in those stories,

even if you, as an adult observer, do not notice it anymore.

That whale is the Dragon of Chaos. This is the symbolic

representation of potential, of possibility, for better and for worse.

Representations of this figure appear everywhere, and children see

them, even if they have no idea what those figures mean. In the Disney

classic Sleeping Beauty, for example, the Evil Queen, Maleficent, entraps Prince Phillip. She chains him in her castle dungeon and tells

him a charming fairy tale of sorts. She delights in describing to him the ruined and ancient man he will be, six or seven decades in the future,

when she deigns to release him from his cell. She portrays him as

nothing but the parody of a hero, and has a fine time doing so, locking the door to his prison cell on her departure, climbing the stairs back to her palace, laughing evilly all the while. She is the classic devouring Oedipal mother, preventing her son from manifesting his destiny by

refusing to allow him to leave home.

The prince escapes from the dungeon, with the help of the positive

feminine: three helpful fairies, who are clearly the mythical

counterparts to Maleficent. The Evil Queen sees him mount his horse

and make his dangerous way through her army, across her crumbling,

quickly closing drawbridges, and down the road leading outside the

would-be death trap of her castle. With ever-increasing dismay, she

leaps from turret to turret, until she makes her way to the uppermost

place. There she stands, enraged, calling up the fires of hell

themselves, and transforms herself into a gigantic, fire-breathing

dragon. Everyone viewing the movie accepts that as a given: “Of

course the Evil Queen turns into a dragon. There is no problem with

that.” Why, exactly, is that universally acceptable? On the face of it, the transformation makes no sense at all. One moment, she is standing, a

perfectly understandable although exceedingly irritated Evil Queen.

Next, she spins around a few times and—poof!—she is a gigantic fire-

breathing reptile. Perhaps you are all thinking as you read this, “Why

are you making an issue of this? Even my four-year-old understands

that!” I do not have a problem with an Evil Queen turning into a

dragon. It is so self-evident that it can happen even in the middle of a popular movie and be accepted at face value—so self-evident that it is

very difficult to draw people’s attention to the idea that something very strange has happened.

However, if Queen Elizabeth II suddenly turned into a giant fire-

breathing lizard in the midst of one of her endless galas, a certain

amount of consternation would be both appropriate and expected.

People—even monarchs of a great kingdom—do not just transform

into dangerous reptiles and attack their guests (well, not at most

parties). But if it happens within the context of a story, then we accept it. That does not explain the mystery, however. Not just any old

transformation can happen within a story. It would not have made any

sense if Maleficent had donned a sparkly pink outfit and begun to cast

roses on the pathway Prince Phillip galloped down to escape his

confinement. That was not in Maleficent’s nature, nor in the set of

narrative expectations that every audience implicitly brings to every

movie (and is unlikely to appreciate having disrupted, unless done

with exceptional finesse and higher-order purpose). But it is no

problem for her to become a dragon. Why? It is partly because nature

can and constantly does revert from her dangerous but still

understandable guise into total chaos. This happens, for example,

when the campfire we just built to cook our hot dogs and sit around

singing campfire songs catches a sudden gust of hot, dry air and the

long-parched forest hypothetically sheltering our tents ignites into a

raging inferno. Dangers we can handle can suddenly turn themselves

into dangers we cannot handle. That is why it is no surprise to anyone

when the Evil Queen becomes the Dragon of Chaos.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a prehistoric protohuman

being. You are camped for the night, and that site is defined territory—

safety and predictability, for the time. Your friends are there, your

tribal kin. You have your spears. You have your fire. It is safe—or at

least what passes for safe under such conditions. But if you carelessly wander a mere two hundred feet away from the campfire, then

something horrible with teeth and scales eats you. That is what is out

there in the terrible unknown. That idea is deeply embedded inside of

us. We know that human beings are innately afraid of reptilian

predators, for example—and that there is good reason for that. It is not

merely that we are prepared to learn fear of them (which we certainly are): the fear itself is innate. 3 For all intents and purposes, there is an image that exists inside of us of the terrible hunter that lurks in the night. That is why children become afraid of the dark once they are old enough to move around by themselves. 4 “There is a monster in the dark, Dad!” they insist, at nighttime. And Dad assures his son or

daughter that there is no such thing as a monster. Well, the adult is

wrong, and the child is exactly right. There might not be a monster in

that particular section of the dark, right now, but that is of small

comfort when you are three feet high and tasty, and there could be—

will be—a monster there in the future. That is why it might be of more

use to let your child know directly and through your own actions that

there is always something sinister and dangerous in the dark, and that

it is the job of the well-prepared individual to confront it and take the treasure it archetypally guards. It is something that an adult and child can act out with great results.

About a year and a half before his encounter with Pinocchio, I took

Julian to the Boston Science Museum. There was a Tyrannosaurus rex

skeleton there. It was impressively large, as far as I was concerned. But it was even larger, from his perspective. He would not get closer than

100 feet. At 150 feet, his curiosity drove him forward. But things came to a stop when we got closer. That was a neurological phenomenon,

too. His curiosity drove him forward, toward the monster, so he could

collect some useful information—until the fear froze him. I could see

exactly where that boundary lay. Maybe it defined how far away he

would need to be to remain safe if that thing suddenly whipped its

head around to grab him.

There is an idea embedded deep within the human psyche that

potential can be a place of maximal horror, home to an infinite

predator—or an infinite variety of predators. Practically speaking, it is true, as human beings have been prey animals since the beginning of

time, although we made it very difficult for the predators once we

effectively armed and banded together. (Personally, I am happy about

that. I have camped where the grizzly bears were plentiful. It is nice

that they are on the planet and all that, but I prefer my grizzlies shy, not too hungry, and far enough away to be picturesque.) But there are

spiritual and psychological forces operating in a predatory manner

that can destroy you, as well—and they can present an even greater danger. The malevolence in the heart of people that makes them

criminal falls into that category, as does the evil that drives the

totalitarian war of revenge, rapine, greed, or sheer love of blood and

destruction. And that malevolence also exists in your heart, and that is the greatest dragon of all—just as mastering that malevolence

constitutes the greatest and unlikeliest of individual achievements.

You are built, neurologically, to interpret the world in this dramatic

manner, at a very deep level. An ancient part of your brain known as

the hypothalamus5—a small region, sitting atop the spinal cord—

regulates many of the fundamental responses that find their

expression in the conceptualization of danger and potential. One of its two modules is responsible for self-preservation (hunger, thirst, and,

most important for our purposes, defensive aggression in the face of

threat) as well as reproduction (sexual arousal and basic sexual

behavior). The second is responsible for exploration.* Half of the hypothalamus drives our use of what has been explored previously to

quell and satisfy the basic demands of life, including our capability to protect ourselves in the case of attack. The other half is always asking, What is out there? What could it be used for? How might it be

dangerous? What are its habits? So, what is the story? Eat, drink, and

be merry, until the provisions run out—but watch out, always, for the

monsters. Then venture out into the dangerous but promising

unknown world and discover what is there. Why? Well, you already

know a lot of things you need to know, although you do not know

nearly enough. You understand that, because life is not as good as it

could be, and because you are going to die. Obviously, under such

conditions, you should learn more. So, you are driven to explore. The

fundamental representation of reality, as an eternal treasure house

guarded by an eternal predator, is therefore a perfect representation of the way you are wired to react to the world at the most fundamental

depths of your Being.

NATURE: CREATION AND DESTRUCTION

We all have an image of nature. It might be an image akin to a beautiful landscape—nature as benevolent and renewing. It is an

image of that kind that grounds the sentimental environmentalist view

of the world. Being from Northern Alberta, I do not share exactly the

same view of nature, since up in my hometown of Fairview nature was

constantly conspiring either to freeze its inhabitants to death for six months of the year, and to devour them with insects for at least two

more. So that is the less romantic part of nature, which is red in tooth and claw. That is the part of nature that is associated with injury,

disease, death, insanity, and everything else that can and will befall

you, as a biological creature, on the negative end of the continuum.

There is the potential of the future that has not yet been

transformed into reality (represented, as we have seen, by the Dragon

of Chaos). But then there is the nature you encounter directly in your

life, and which cannot be considered absolutely unknown. There is the

benevolence of nature: the fact that you are here, alive—and

sometimes happy; the fact that there is delicious food to eat, and

attractive, interesting people to interact with, and no shortage of

fascinating things to see and do. There are amazing vistas of

landscape. There is the beauty and immortality and immensity of the

ocean. There is all the bountiful, wondrous element of natural Being.

But there is also the absolute horror that goes along with that:

destruction, disease, suffering, and death. Those two elements of

experience exist side by side. It is even the case that the former could not exist without the latter: even within your own body, healthy as it

may be, a very delicate balance between the death of every cell that has outlasted its utility and the new life that springs forward to replace it is a prerequisite for your continued existence.

Both these elements of existence manifest themselves in our

imagination in personified form. One is the Evil Queen, the Goddess of

Destruction and Death; the other is her positive counterpart, the Fairy Godmother, the benevolent monarch, the young and loving mother

watching with infinite care over her helpless charge. To live properly, you need to be acquainted with both these figures. If you are a child,

abused by your mother, familiar only with the Evil Queen, then you

are damaged by the absence of love, stunted by lack of attention, and

arbitrarily subject to fear and pain and aggression. That is no way to

live, and it is very difficult to grow up functional and capable and void of distrust, hate, and the desire, say, for revenge. You need to find

someone to act the part of the Benevolent Queen: a friend, a family

member, a fictional character—or a part of your own psyche,

motivated by knowing that your mistreatment is wrong, swearing to

take any opportunity that comes your way to escape your misfortunate

circumstances, leave them behind, and balance your life appropriately.

Maybe the first step in this direction is to posit, despite your

mistreatment, that you are in fact worthy of care; and the second step

is to give it, where you can, despite receiving tragically little yourself.

If you understand the polarity of nature, its terror and benevolence,

you recognize two fundamental elements of experience, permanent,

eternal, and unavoidable, and you can begin to understand, for

example, the profound pull toward sacrifice. It is a religious trope that sacrifices keep the gods happy, and coming to understand just who the

unhappy gods are, so to speak, and just how terrible they are when

they are unhappy is a genuine step toward wisdom—a genuine and

humbling step. Modern people have a hard time understanding what

sacrifice means, because they think, for example, of a burnt offering on an altar, which is an archaic way of acting out the idea. But we have no problem at all when we conceptualize sacrifice psychologically,

because we all know you must forgo gratification in the present to keep the wolf from the door in the future. So, you offer something to the

negative goddess, so that the positive one shows up. You train long,

difficult hours to be a nurse or a physician or a social worker. That

sacrificial attitude is in fact the great discovery of the future, conjoined with the ability to negotiate and bargain and cope with that future—

abandon impulsive gratification; let go of something you need and

want; obtain something valuable in the long run in consequence (and

keep the horror at bay). You forgo the partying and the easy hours.

You immerse yourself, instead, in the difficulties of life. You do that so that fewer of those difficulties will manifest themselves—for yourself, employed gainfully as you will become, and for all the others you will

help as the strength you developed through proper sacrifice makes

itself manifest. We are always bargaining in that manner. We act out

the belief that we can strike a bargain with the structure of reality.

Strangely enough, we often can. If you are sensible, you do that all the

time. You prepare for the worst. You prepare for the arrival of the Evil Queen. You do what you have to do, knowing about her existence, and

you keep her at bay—in proportion to your wisdom and in accordance

with your luck. And if you succeed, Benevolent Nature smiles upon

you—until she does not. But at least you have some control over the

situation. You are not a sitting duck, or a babe in the woods, or a rube at the amusement park—or at least no more so than you have to be.

Nature is chaos, too, because it is always wreaking havoc with

culture, its existential opposite—and the next subject of our

investigation. After all, as Robert Burns has it, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft a-gley.” And it is often nature in positive

and negative guise that does precisely that. It is no easy matter to

balance the fragility of life and the necessity for procreation (and all the uncertainty of pregnancy and birth and child-rearing) with the

desire for certainty, predictability, and order. And this is to say

nothing of death (and even cancer is, after all, just another form of

life). But all that is not to say, ever, that chaos is of less value than order. There is nothing but sterility without unpredictability, even

though a bit less unpredictability often seems eminently desirable.

This nature/chaos combination is often seen in pop culture

representations. As we mentioned, in the Disney movie Sleeping

Beauty, for example, there is an Evil Queen—just as there is in The Little Mermaid (Ursula), Snow White (Grimhilde), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Cruella de Vil), Cinderella (Lady Tremaine), Tangled (Mother Gothel), and Alice in Wonderland (the Queen of Hearts). She represents the harsh element of the natural world. The

example of Sleeping Beauty is, once again, particularly germane.

Remember what happens at the movie’s opening. The king and queen

have waited long, and are now desperate to have a baby. The blessing

arrives; the baby is born and they call her Aurora, the dawn. They are

all thrilled, and so is the whole kingdom—properly so, because new life has arrived. They plan a great christening party. It is a fine idea, but they fail to invite Maleficent, the Evil Queen, to the celebrations. And it is not ignorance that prevents them. They know of her existence, and they are well acquainted with her power. It is willful blindness, and it is a bad move. They desire to shield their new and precious daughter

from the negative element of the world, instead of determining how to

provide her with the strength and wisdom to prevail, despite the reality of the negative. All this does is keep Aurora naive and

vulnerable. Maleficent shows up anyway, as she most certainly will,

and there is a message in that: invite the Evil Queen to your child’s life.

If you fail to do so, your children will grow up weak and in need of

protection, and the Evil Queen is going to make herself known no

matter what steps you take to stop her. At the christening, in fact, not only does she arrive, well behaved but uninvited, but she offers a

present (in the form of a curse): the death of Aurora at the age of

sixteen, brought about by the prick of the spindle of a spinning wheel.

And all that because she was not invited to celebrate the young

princess’s christening. Only because a compassionate and powerful

guest intercedes—one of the three aforementioned fairies,

representative of the positive feminine—is the curse transmuted from

death into profound unconsciousness, a state barely less fatal.

That is what happens to those beauties, so to speak, who remain far

too unawakened when they hit sixteen: They do not want to be

conscious, because they have not developed the courage and ability to

face the negative element of the natural world. Instead of being

encouraged, they have been sheltered. And if you shelter young

people, you destroy them. You did not invite the Evil Queen, even for

short visits. What are your children going to do when she shows up in

full force, if they are entirely unprepared? They are not going to want to live. They are going to long for unconsciousness. And it gets worse.

If you overprotect your kids, you become the very thing from which

you are trying to shelter them. Depriving them of their young lives’

necessary adventures, you weaken their characters. You become the

Destroying Agent itself—the very witch that devours their autonomous

consciousness.

I had a client many years ago who was a real-life version of Sleeping

Beauty. She was tall, blonde haired, razor thin (as the saying goes),

and profoundly unhappy. She was enrolled in a local junior college,

attempting to upgrade so that she could attend university. She came to

see me because she did not want to live. She also did not want to die,

really—at least not actively. Instead, she attempted to keep herself

unconscious with the use of Valium and its variants, including sleeping pills, which she procured in sufficient quantities from her (several)

physicians, who were no doubt overworked enough not to keep track of exactly what she was doing. She managed to keep herself asleep

fifteen or sixteen hours a day. She was smart and literate, and showed

me a philosophy essay she had written on the pointlessness not only of

her life but life in general. She was unable to tolerate the

responsibility, by all appearances, but also could not deal with the

cruelty she saw everywhere around her. She was a vegan, for example,

and that was directly associated with her acute physical terror of life.

She was unable even to enter the aisles of a supermarket where meat

was displayed. Where others saw the cuts they were going to prepare

for their family, she saw rows of dead body parts. That vision only

served to confirm her belief that life was, in essence, unbearable.

Her biological mother had died in childbirth, and she was raised by

her father and her stepmother. The latter was a holy terror. I met her

only once, in my office, during what would have ordinarily been a

clinical session with her stepdaughter. She spent the entire hour

actively tearing strips off me: first for being of little use as a clinician, and second for “no doubt” blaming everything that was wrong with my

client on her (step)mothering. I do not think I got more than a dozen

words in edgewise. It was a remarkable performance, brought on, I

believe, by my insistence that the phone calls she made two or three

times a day to my client while the latter was away at school—some of

which I heard in recordings—had to be reduced by a factor of ten, and

certainly needed to be more pleasant. I am not saying and did not

believe then that all this was the stepmother’s fault. I am sure she had her reasons to be frustrated. Her stepdaughter was not fully engaged

in life, by any means, and was an expensive four underperforming

years into what should have been a two-year certificate. But it was

clear that thrice-daily phone calls consisting mostly of anger and

insults were not adding to my client’s desire to be alive. I suggested

that weekly phone calls should become the norm, and encouraged her

to hang up if the conversation took a wicked turn. She started to put

that into practice, and I presumed all that contributed to her

stepmother’s demand to meet and confront me.

Sleeping Beauty described her childhood as idyllic. She said that she

lived the life of a fairy-tale princess; an only child, the darling of both parents. But that all changed when she hit adolescence. Her

stepmother’s attitude changed from trust to deep distrust, and they began the fights that continually characterized their relationship from then on (she was in her early thirties when I met her). The problem of

sex had reared its ugly head. The stepmother responded by acting as if

her innocent child had been replaced by a corrupt impostor; the

stepdaughter responded by dating a series of ne’er-do-wells whom at

one level she probably thought she deserved (having lost the perfect

innocence of the child princess) and at another constituted the perfect punishment for her mother.

Together, we designed an exposure-training program to help her

overcome her fear of life. We first undertook to visit a nearby butcher shop. The shop owner and I had become friendly acquaintances over

the years. After I explained my client’s situation to him (with her

permission), I asked if I could bring her into his store, show her the

meat counter, and then—when she was ready—bring her to the back to

watch as his team cut up the carcasses that were delivered through the

alleyway loading dock. He quickly agreed. Our initial goal was merely

to get to the store together. I assured her that we could pause at any

time, or stop altogether, and that under no conditions would I trick,

entice, or even cajole her into pushing her beyond what she could

tolerate. During the first session, she managed to enter the store and

place her hand on the display case. She did it shaking and in visible

tears (also no easy thing to manage in public), but she did it. By the

fourth session, she was able to watch the butchers use their knives and saws on the large and still animal-like carcasses they were slicing into the standard cuts they sold. There was no doubt that this was good for

her. She was less inclined, for example, to medicate herself into

unconsciousness and more likely to attend classes. She became

tougher, harder, harsher—adjectives that are not always meant as

compliments but are sometimes the precise antidote to too much

sentimentality, which is dangerously infantilizing. We also made

arrangements for her to spend a weekend at a local farm where a few

common barnyard animals were kept (pigs, horses, chickens, goats). I

asked the farmer, who had also been a client of mine, to allow her to

accompany him while he attended to his livestock. A city girl to the

core, my client knew nothing whatsoever about animals, and tended,

in consequence, to romanticize them, in exactly the fairy-tale manner

appropriate to the conditions of her childhood. Her two-day sojourn in the country and her decision to observe the animals carefully helped

her develop a much less romanticized perception of the true nature of

the animals we raise and dine upon. They are sentient beings, in part,

and we have a responsibility not to inflict any more suffering upon

them than necessary, but they are not human beings, and they are

certainly not children. This needs to be understood at an embodied

level. Excess sentimentality is an illness, a developmental failure, and a curse to children and others who need our care (but not too much of

it).

Sleeping Beauty was a remarkable dreamer. I have had clients who

would commonly remember two or three dreams a night, though not

always in great detail. She not only remembered many dreams, but

remembered them fully, and she also often became lucid—conscious of

dreaming—while she slept. She was the only person I ever met who

could ask her dream characters what they meant—symbolically

speaking—or what message they had for her, and they would tell her

outright. One day she came to me with one of her many dreams: She

had journeyed alone deep into the depths of an old-growth forest and

met a dwarf dressed like a harlequin in the darkness and gloom. The

dwarf offered to answer a question, if my client had one to ask. She

asked the strange figure what she would have to do to finish her

college certificate, a task that had taken her the four aforementioned

years and plenty of negotiation with the requisite university

authorities for permission to continue. The answer she received? “You

will have to learn to work in a slaughterhouse.”

Now, as far as I am concerned, dreams are statements from nature.

It is not so much that we create them. They manifest themselves to us.

I have never seen a dream present something I believed to be untrue. I

also do not believe—contra Freud—that dreams attempt to disguise

what they mean. They are, instead, an earlier part of the process by

which fully developed thoughts come to be born, as they certainly do

not just appear magically out of nowhere. We must confront the

unknown, as such—the great Dragon of Chaos or the Terrible Queen—

and we do not know how to do it, to begin with. The dream serves as

the first cognitive step—in the wake of basic emotional, motivational,

and bodily reactions such as fear or curiosity or freezing—in

transforming that unknown into actionable and even articulable knowledge. The dream is the birthplace of the thought, and often of

the thought that does not come easily to the conscious mind. It is not

hiding anything; it is just not very good at being clear (although that certainly does not mean that it cannot be profound).

In any case, this dream was not difficult to interpret, particularly

because its main character, the dwarf, simply spoke his mind. So, I

listened carefully to my client’s account (remember, this was after the butcher shop and the farm) and asked her what we might do about

that. I had no idea how I might arrange a visit to an actual

slaughterhouse. I did not even know if they existed in the city we

inhabited, and if they did, I could not imagine they would appreciate

visitors, regardless of motivation. She was convinced, however, that

she had been told the truth, and that something of the sort had to be

done. So we discussed the consequences of her toughening up, and the

fact that she had successfully put her hypercritical stepmother on the

back burner, and left it at that for the remainder of the session,

although she was tasked (as was I) with determining something that

might serve as a reasonable substitute for a slaughterhouse.

A week later, she returned for her scheduled session. She

announced the last thing, perhaps, that I could have possibly imagined

from her—or anyone else, for that matter: “I think I need to see an

embalming.” I did not know what to say. I did not want to see an

embalming, personally—not at all. I had seen body sections in science

museums, and there was something about them that refused to leave

my memory. I had also gone to see one of the displays of plasticized,

sculptured bodies that were so popular about a decade ago, and I was

horrified by it. I became a psychologist, not a surgeon—or, for that

matter, a coroner—for a reason. However, this was not about me. It

was about my client, Sleeping Beauty, and her desire to awaken, and

there was no way I was going to let my wishes or lack thereof interfere with whatever wisdom the dwarf who inhabited the deep forest of her

unconscious mind was about to impart. I told her I would see what I

could do. It all turned out to be much simpler to arrange than I

expected. I simply picked up the phone and called a local mortician’s

office. To my great surprise, he immediately agreed. I suppose he had

seen his fair share of people grieving and frightened, and was

accustomed to dealing with them calmly and wisely. So that was that. I was stuck with the visit, and my client wanted to go through with it.

Two weeks later, we went to the funeral home. My client had asked

me if a friend could attend with her, and I said yes. The mortician

offered the three of us a tour first. He showed us the chapel and the

display room for the caskets. We asked him how he managed his job,

given its endless concentration on death and suffering and grief. He

said that it was his heartfelt responsibility to make his clients’ most terrible of times the least painful they could be, and that he took heart from that. That made sense to both of us, and helped us understand

how he could continue with his work, day in and out. After the tour, we went to the embalming room. It was a small space, perhaps a hundred

feet square. The naked body of an aged man was lying motionless,

gray, and mottled on a stainless-steel table. Because there was not

space in the small room, and to provide us both with some distance,

my client, her friend, and I took our places in the hallway immediately outside the door and observed the proceedings, which were entirely

unimpeded by our trivial separation from the mortician’s operations.

He drained the blood and other liquids from the body. They ran

undramatically but in some sense all the more horribly for that,

because of their mundane mode of disposal, I suppose. It seemed like

something that precious and vital deserved better. He made his

surgical alterations, and sewed together the eyelids, and made up the

face, and injected the embalming fluid. I watched. And I watched my

client. To begin with, she looked down the hallway, avoiding the scene

unfolding in front of her. But as the minutes ticked by, she started to glance at the proceedings, and by the time a quarter of an hour had

passed, she was spending far more time observing than looking away. I

could see, however, that she had taken her friend’s hand, and was

gripping it tightly.

She was seeing firsthand that something she had believed would

terrify her (and reasonably so) was not in fact doing so. She could

manage the experience. She did not panic, become ill, run away, or

even cry. She asked the mortician if she could put a hand on the body.

He offered her a rubber glove, which she pulled on. She walked

directly into the operating station, in a quiet and meditative state, and placed her gloved hand on the ribs of the body, and she kept it there,

as if it was a comfort both to her and the poor departed soul. The procedure terminated soon after that, and we left quietly together,

after offering the mortician our genuine and heartfelt thanks.

The three of us expressed our shared astonishment that we had

managed such a visit. My client had learned something vitally

important about her tolerance for the terrors of life. Equally

importantly, she had a reference point for her fears: from that point

onward (and I am by no means claiming complete success in her

treatment) she had something truly awe inspiring—something truly

serious and horrifying and graphic and real—to compare with the

other, almost inevitably lesser, horrors of life. Were the mundane

miseries of existence as challenging as the experience she had put

herself through voluntarily? Was the butcher shop more frightening

than human death, in all its reality, at such close proximity? Had she

not demonstrated to herself that she could encounter the worst that

Terrible Nature could throw at her and face it courageously? And that

was to her a paradoxical and ineradicable source of comfort.

As with the Sleeping Beauty of fairy tales, my client’s family had

failed to invite the Evil Queen, the terrible aspect of nature, into their child’s life. This left her completely unprepared for life’s essential

harshness—the complications of sexuality and the requirement for

everything that lives to devour other lives (and to be eventually

subjected to the same fate). The Evil Queen made her reappearance at

puberty—in the form of my client’s stepmother, whose character

apparently turned 180 degrees—as well as in her own personal

inability to deal with the responsibilities of maturity and stark

obligations of biological survival. Like Sleeping Beauty, as well—as

that tale is multistoried and deep in the way of ancient fairy tales,

which can be thousands of years old—she needed to be awakened by

the forces of exploration, courage, and fortitude (often represented by the redeeming prince, but which she found within herself).

CULTURE: SECURITY AND TYRANNY

If the Dragon of Chaos and the paired Benevolent and Evil Queen are

representatives of potential and of the unknown, the Wise King and

the Authoritarian Tyrant are representatives of the structures, social and psychological, that enable us to overlay structure on that

potential. We interpret the present through the lens of culture. We

plan for the future by attempting to bring into being what we have

been taught and what we have determined, personally, to value. All of

that seems good, but a too-rigid approach to understanding what is

currently in front of us and what we should pursue can blind us to the

value of novelty, creativity, and change. When the structures that

guide us are merely secure, rather than inflexible, we leaven our desire for routine and predictability with the curiosity that makes us

attracted to and appreciative of what remains outside our conceptual

schemes. When those same structures degenerate into stasis, we run

from and deny the existence of what we do not yet understand and

what we have not yet encountered, and this means that we make

ourselves unable to change when change is required. Understanding

that both possibilities exist is of crucial importance to establish the balance that is required in life.

We could use a poetic metaphor to represent the elements of

experience that we have so far discussed (this is in fact how the world I am describing is usually considered). Imagine the realm of the Dragon

of Chaos as the night sky, stretching infinitely above you on a clear

night, representing what will remain forever outside your domain of

understanding. Maybe you are standing on a beach, looking up, lost in

contemplation and imagination. Then you turn your attention to the

ocean—as grand in its way as the starry cosmos, but tangible and

manifest and knowable, comparatively speaking. That is nature. It is

not mere potential. It is there, in its unknowability, instead of removed from comprehension entirely. It is not yet tamed, however; not

brought into the domain of order. And it is beautiful in its mystery.

The moon reflects on its surface; the waves crash eternally and lull you to sleep; you can swim in its welcoming waters. But that beauty has a

price. You better keep an eye out for sharks. And poisonous jellyfish.

And the riptide that can pull you or your children under. And the

storms that could destroy your warm and welcoming beach house.

Imagine, further, that the beach on which you stand is the shore of

an island. The island is culture. People live there—perhaps in harmony

and peace, under a benevolent ruler; perhaps in a war-torn hell of

oppression, hunger, and privation. And that is culture: Wise King or Authoritarian Tyrant. It is of vital necessity to become acquainted with both characters, just as in the case of Evil Queen and Benevolent

Goddess, to ensure the appropriate balance in attitude required to

adapt properly to the vicissitudes of life. Too much emphasis on the

Wise King blinds those who hold that attitude to the injustice and

unnecessary suffering that is a consequence of the inevitable flaws in

our all-too-human social structures. Too much insistence on the

Authoritarian Tyrant means lack of appreciation for the often fragile

structures that bind us together and protect us from the chaos that

would otherwise certainly reign.

The ideological systems we are prone to adopting—the systems that

so polarize us, politically and personally, can be profitably understood in light of the present conceptualization. They are cultural narratives usefully considered as parasites upon a more fundamental religious,

mythological, or dramatic substructure—ancient, evolved, and deeply

biological in its nature. Ideologies take on the structure of a story that is essentially religious, but they do so incompletely, including certain elements of experience or eternal characters while ignoring others.

The power remains in the representation, nonetheless, because what is

included retains its fundamentally mythological/biological nature—its

instinctual meaning—but the missing elements mean that what

remains, however powerful in its expression, is biased in a way that

restricts its utility. That bias is desirable subjectively, as it simplifies what would otherwise be too complex to understand, but dangerous

because of its one-sidedness. If the map you are using is missing part

of the world, you are going to be utterly unprepared when that absent

element makes itself manifest. How is it possible for us to retain the

advantages of simplification, without falling prey to the accompanying

blindness? The answer is to be found in the constant dialogue between

genuinely different types of people.

Much of what people believe politically—ideologically, let us say—is

based on their inborn temperament. If their emotions or motivations

tend to tilt one way (and much of that is a consequence of biology),

then they tend to adopt, say, a conservative or liberal tendency. It is not a matter of opinion. Imagine, instead, that animals have a niche—a

place or space that suits them. Their biology is matched to that place.

Lions are not found in the open ocean, and killer whales do not roam the African veldt. The animal and its environment are of a piece.

Human beings are similar, at least in the realm of abstraction. We

are nonetheless capable of making ourselves at home almost

everywhere, geographically, because we change the geography, as

necessary, as well as modify our own behavior. But we have perceptual

or cognitive niches. Liberals, for example, are positively enthralled by new ideas. The advantages to being attracted by new ideas are obvious.

Sometimes problems require new solutions, and it is people who take

pleasure in novel conceptions who find them. Such people also tend

not to be particularly orderly.6 Perhaps this is because if you are gripped and driven by new ideas, and are also inclined to test or

implement them, you need to be able to tolerate the intermediary

chaos produced between the time the old idea disintegrates and the

new idea takes control. If you are a conservative, you have the opposite advantage and problem. You are wary of new ideas, and not

particularly attracted to them, and that is in part because you are less sensitive to their possibilities and more concerned about their

unpredicted consequences. Just because a new idea fixes one problem,

after all, does not mean that it will fail to generate another, or several others. If you are conservative, you like things to be where they are

supposed to be, when they are supposed to be there. You are in the

place you want to be when people act conventionally, responsibly, and

predictably.

Conservatives are necessary for maintaining things the way they are

when everything is working and change might be dangerous. Liberals,

by contrast, are necessary for changing things when they are no longer

working. It is no easy task, however, to determine when something

needs to be preserved or when it needs to be transformed. That is why

we have politics, if we are fortunate, and the dialogue that

accompanies it, instead of war, tyranny, or submission. It is necessary for us to argue vociferously and passionately about the relative value of stability versus change, so that we can determine when each is

appropriate and in what doses.

It is of great interest to note that difference in fundamental political belief appears to determine which of the twinned Great Fathers are

considered of fundamental reality. The liberal tends strongly to see the

world as the Authoritarian Tyrant suppressing the Benevolent Goddess—as the arbitrary strictures of dead culture corrupting and

oppressing citizen and foreigner alike, or as the military-industrial

structure of modern society threatening Gaia, the living planet, with

pollution, mass extinction, or climate change. Such a viewpoint is

obviously useful when culture has become truly tyrannical—and that is

by no means uncommon. The conservative tends, conversely, to see

the world as Wise King—security of place, order, and predictability—

bringing to heel, taming and disciplining the Evil Queen—nature as

disorder and chaos. That is obviously necessary as well. No matter

how beautiful the natural world, we should remember that it is always

conspiring to starve, sicken, and kill us, and that if we lacked the

protective shield constituted by Culture as Security we would be

devoured by wild animals, frozen by blizzards, prostrated by the heat

of the desert, and starved by the fact that food does not simply

manifest itself for our delectation. So there are two different ideologies

—both of which are “correct,” but each of which tell only half the

story. *

To develop a properly balanced view of the world of experience, it is

necessary to accept the reality of both elements of culture. Those with a conservative bent, drawn temperamentally to regard the status quo

as protective, must to come to understand that mere order is

insufficient. Because the future and the present differ from the past,

what worked before will not necessarily work now, and it is necessary

to understand that the line between the stability bequeathed to us by

our ancestors and the tyranny that can so easily become shifts and

moves with the transformations of existence. Equally, however, the

more liberal types, prone to see the Authoritarian Tyrant everywhere,

must work to develop gratitude for the social and psychological

structures of interpretation that continually shield us from the terrors of nature and the absolute unknown. It is difficult for any of us to see what we are blinded to by the nature of our personalities. It is for this reason that we must continually listen to people who differ from us,

and who, because of that difference, have the ability to see and to react appropriately to what we cannot detect.

THE INDIVIDUAL: HERO AND ADVERSARY

If the night sky is chaos, the ocean nature, and the island culture, then the individual—hero and adversary—is one brother locked in combat

with his twin in the middle of the isle. Chaos, treasure and dragon,

have their negative and positive element, as do Nature—Evil Queen

and Benevolent Mother—and Culture—Authoritarian Tyrant and Wise

King. No less the individual. The positive element is the heroic aspect: the person who can sacrifice properly to nature and strike a bargain

with fate such that benevolence reigns; the person who is awake, alert, attentive, communicative, and bears responsibility, so that the

tyrannical part of the state remains at bay; and the person who is

aware of his or her own faults and proclivity for malevolence and

deceit, so that proper orientation is maintained. The negative element

is everything despicable and contemptible—particularly evident in

yourself, if you have any sense, but also manifested to some degree by

other people and (more clearly) in stories. Those are the hostile

brothers, a very old mythological idea: the hero and the adversary. The archetypal representations of those two forces, those two personified

figures, are Cain and Abel. That is one level of representation. Christ and Satan are a pair representing an even more fundamental duality.

Cain and Abel, after all, are human (the first humans, born in the

human manner, as Adam and Eve were created directly by God).

Christ and Satan are elements of personified (deified?) eternity itself.

So, there exists a hero and an adversary; a wise king and a tyrant; a

positive and negative maternal figure; and chaos itself. That is the

structure of the world in six characters (with the strange seventh of

chaos in some sense the ultimate birthplace of all the others). It is

necessary to understand that all seven exist, and that they are all

existential permanents—elements of experience with which every soul,

rich, poor, blessed, cursed, talented, dull, male, and female must

inevitably contend. That is life— they are life. Partial knowledge of the cast, conscious or unconscious, leaves you undefended; leaves you

naive, unprepared, and likely to become possessed by deceit,

resentment, and arrogance. If you do not know that the treasure is

guarded by a dragon, or that nature, beautiful nature, can turn its

teeth on you in an instant, or that the peaceful society you take for

granted is threatened constantly by authoritarianism and tyranny, or that you contain within yourself the adversary who might wish that all

those negative transformations occur, then you are, first, a needy

acolyte for an ideology that will provide you with a partial and

insufficient representation of reality; and, second, someone blind in a manner dangerous to themselves and others alike. If you are wise,

your political philosophy encompasses a representation of all seven,

even if you could not articulate it in those terms. We should always

have enough sense to keep in mind, for example, that a great predator

lurks beneath the thin ice of our constructed realities. I remember a

vision I once had about my then very young daughter, portraying

exactly that reality. In the winter, in Northern Alberta—where, as I

said, I grew up—there were years where the snow stayed at bay for

weeks after the lakes themselves had frozen, smooth, perfectly clear,

rock hard, barren, and not without beauty and mystery. (A stone

skipped across their expanse would chime and echo melodically as it

skidded across the slippery surface.) I imagined my daughter Mikhaila

—a toddler dressed only in a diaper—sitting at some distance from me,

directly on the ice. Underneath her, I could see a huge fish, a whale

shark (although carnivorous, in this incarnation)—hanging motionless

below her, waiting, upright in the water underneath the ice, mouth

gaping. That is life, and death, and the pure chaos that destroys our

hard-won certainties, but it is also the prophet-swallowing whale who

grants wisdom and rebirth, if it does not kill.

And what is the proper attitude of the hero, let us say, with respect

to the remaining six characters (assuming we have dealt sufficiently

with chaos with that last anecdote)? Obviously, we must endeavor to

preserve Nature, upon whose benevolence we are finally dependent for

everything that life requires. But it is also perfectly worthwhile for us to note and take seriously the fact that the same Nature is doing her

best to kill us, and that we have every reason to erect the structures we do, despite their often unfortunate environmental costs.* Something similar applies to culture. We all have reason to be grateful, in the

main, for the wisdom and the structure that our forebears bequeathed

to us, to their great cost. That does not mean that those benefits are

distributed equally, because they are not and never will be, no more

than the benefits of Nature are distributed equally. That gratitude also

does not justify any willfully blind optimism with regard to the nature of society. As individuals—struggling, let us say, against the

adversarial tendency and the Authoritarian Tyrant simultaneously—

we need to be awake to the fact that our functional hierarchical

structures can become unproductive, tyrannical, and blind in the blink

of an eye. We have a responsibility to ensure that they do not become

radically unfair and corrupt and begin to distribute their rewards on

the basis of power or unmeritocratic privilege instead of competence.

We must attend to them constantly and adjust them carefully so they

remain sufficiently stable and appropriately dynamic. That is a

fundamental part of our roles and responsibilities as persons aiming

courageously at the good. We manage that partly in democratic

systems by throwing out the people in charge on a regular basis, and

replacing them with their ideological opposites. That capability and

opportunity constitutes one of the fundamental achievements of a

democratic society. In the absence of the ability to regularly choose

only the wise and good as leaders (and good luck finding them), it is

worthwhile to elect a pack blind to half of reality in one cycle and

another blind to the other half the next. Then at least most of society’s concerns are attended to in some reasonable measure over the course

of something approximating a decade.

I think that somewhat pessimistic but also eminently realistic

strategy is in keeping with the vision of the people who founded the

American system (and the actions and attitudes of the English and

other early democrats and parliamentarians whose gradually evolving

systems laid the groundwork for the explicit claims those founders

made). They were not utopian in their essential viewpoint. They

believed that the people who were inevitably to be their successors

were going to be just as flawed as they were, and just as flawed as

people before them. What do you do about that, when you are not

blinded by ideology, and you see the world and all its dramatic

characters clearly? Well, you do not hope for the infinite perfectibility of humanity and aim your system at some unattainable utopia. You try

to design a system that sinners such as you cannot damage too badly—

too permanently—even when they are half blind and resentful. To the

degree that I am conservative in orientation, I believe in the wisdom of that vision. I believe that is a more appropriate way of looking at

things. Let us not get too grandiose. We can design systems that allow us a modicum of peace, security, and freedom and, perhaps, the

possibility of incremental improvement. That is a miracle in and of

itself. We should have the wisdom to doubt that we will produce some

positive transformation of individual, society, and nature

simultaneously, particularly if those improvements are to be brought

about in consequence of our own intrinsic, personal goodwill, which is

often in too short supply (despite our protestations to the contrary).

RESENTMENT

Why do you and others fall prey to resentment—that terrible hybrid

emotional state, an admixture of anger and self-pity, tinged, to various degrees, with narcissism and the desire for revenge? Once you

understand the world as a dramatic forum, and you have identified the

major players, the reasons become clear. You are resentful because of

the absolute unknown and its terrors, because nature conspires

against you, because you are a victim of the tyrannical element of

culture, and because of the malevolence of yourself and other

individuals. That is reason enough. It does not make your resentment

appropriate, but it certainly makes the emotion understandable. None

of these existential problems are trivial. In fact, they are serious

enough to make the real question not “Why are you resentful?” but

“Why is not everyone resentful about everything all the time?” We are

the focus of unbelievably powerful and often malevolent transpersonal

forces. There is a terrible reptilian predator, metaphorically speaking, pursuing you all the time, just like the crocodile with the ticktock of time emanating from the clock he swallowed chasing the tyrannical

coward Captain Hook. And there is nature herself. She is hell-bent on

doing you in, in a million horrible ways. Then there is the tyrannical

element of the social structure, which has molded you—taught you, so

to speak—and made you into the quasi-civilized, semi-useful creature

that you are, but crushed a tremendous amount of life force out of you

at the same time, pounding you like the proverbial square peg into the

round hole. There were many things you could have been. Maybe some

of them were more than you have become. But you were lessened and reduced by the demand for social existence.

And you are stuck with yourself, too, and that is no picnic. You

procrastinate, you are lazy, you lie, and you do vicious things to

yourself and others. It is no wonder you feel like a victim, given what is arrayed against you: chaos, the brute force of nature, the tyranny of

culture, and the malevolence of your own nature. It is no wonder you

might feel resentful. And it is certainly the case that these forces are arrayed against some of you in a manner that seems far more serious,

unjust, arbitrary, continuous, and unpredictable than it seems for

others. How could you fail to feel victimized and resentful under those conditions? Life contains no shortage of fundamental brutality.

There is a problem with this logic, however, inexorable though it

may seem. The first is that not everyone does in fact construe him or

herself as a victim and fall prey, in consequence, to resentment—and

that includes a large proportion of people who have had a very hard

time in their lives. In fact, I think it is reasonable to posit that it is often the people who have had too easy a time—who have been

pampered and elevated falsely in their self-esteem—who adopt the role

of victim and the mien of resentment. You can encounter people,

contrarily, who have been hurt virtually beyond all hope of repair who

are not resentful and who would never deign to present themselves as

victims. They are not that common, but they are not so very rare

either. Thus, resentment does not appear to be an inevitable

consequence of suffering itself. Other factors are at play, in addition to the undeniable tragedy of life.

Maybe you—or just as tragically, someone close to you—contracts a

serious illness. It is typical in such circumstances to ask the question (of whom? God?) “Why did this have to happen to me?” Well, what do

you mean? Would you wish it instead upon a friend, neighbor, or even

a random stranger? You certainly might be tempted to spread your

misery, but such a response does not seem either reasonable or a

choice that a good person, thinking clearly, would ever make, and it

certainly would not make the situation more just. To be fair, the

question “Why me?” constitutes, in part, a psychologically appropriate

response. It is often the case that if something bad happens to you, you should ask yourself if there is something that you have done in the

past that has increased the probability of the terrible event—as we have discussed at length—because it is possible that you have

something to learn that would decrease the chances of its recurrence.

But often that is not at all what we are doing. The question “Why did

this have to happen to me?” frequently contains a reproachful element,

based on a sense of injustice: “There are all these bad people in the

world, and they seem to be getting away unpunished for this

misbehavior,” or “There are all these people in the world who are

enjoying good health, and it seems singularly unfair for them to be in

that fortunate position when I am not.” That means that “Why me?” is

in this manner generally contaminated with a sense of victimization,

signifying injustice. This false misapprehension that the terrible

experience that has befallen you somehow singularly characterizes you

—is aimed, particularly, at you—is part of what turns exposure to

tragedy into the very resentment we are discussing.

The fact that unfortunate things are happening or are going to

happen to you is built into the structure of reality itself. There is no doubt that awful things happen, but there is an element of true

randomness about them. You might think, “That is trivial

compensation, and of little help.” But some appreciation for the

random element can be helpful, by distancing the personal element,

and that can help you erect some barriers to developing that intense

egotistical resentment. Furthermore, it can be of great utility to realize that each of the negatives that characterize human existence are

balanced, in principle, by their positive counterpart.

Here is something I have learned in my years as a clinical

psychologist. I constantly saw people who were hurt by life. They had

their reasons for feeling resentful, and those reasons were often far

from trivial. I would propose: “Let us take your problems apart, even

though many of them are real. We will try to figure out which ones are

your fault, because some of them are going to be. Some of them,

alternatively, are just the catastrophe of life. We will delineate that very carefully. Then we will start having you practice overcoming

whatever it is that you are bringing to the situation that is making it worse. We will start to make some strategic plans about how you

might confront the parts of your life that are truly just tragic, and we

will get you to do that in a truthful, open, and courageous manner.

Then we will watch what happens.”

People got better. Not always. Some of my clients even died. We

would be halfway through their clinical issues, and they would be

carried off by a sudden cancer or killed in a traffic accident. There is no certain path, even with the noblest of actions. The arbitrariness of the world is always at the ready, preparing to manifest itself. There is no reason or excuse to be stupidly naive or optimistic. But most people did get better. Encouragement prepared them to confront their

problems head-on, and that voluntary confrontation dispelled some of

their fear. This was not because things around them became less

dangerous, but because the people facing the danger became braver. It

is unbelievable how strong and courageous people can become. It is

miraculous what sort of load people can bear when they take it on

voluntarily. I know we cannot have an infinite capacity for that, but I also believe that it is in some sense unlimited. I think the more

voluntary confrontation is practiced, the more can be borne. I do not

know what the upper limit is for that.*

People not only become encouraged, so they can stave off the horror

and resentment from a psychological perspective, but they also

become more able. Not only are they contending with the existential

burden of life more effectively from a spiritual perspective, say, but

they start to be better people in the world. They start to constrain the malevolence and resentment in their own hearts that makes the horror

of the world even more dismal than it must be. They become more

honest. They make better friends. They make more productive and

meaningful career choices. They start aiming higher. Thus, they can

cope better, psychologically, but they also reduce the volume of what

they and the others around them must cope with. Then they suffer less

unnecessarily, and so do their families. Then, maybe, the same thing

starts to happen with their communities. And then there is the other

half of the story: the treasure that the dragon hoards, the benevolent

element of nature, the security and shelter provided by society and

culture, and the strength of the individual. Those are your weapons in

times of trouble. And they are just as real, and perhaps of sufficient

power, that their full use will provide you with the means to cope when your life falls apart. The issue is: can you organize the structure of

reality so that you find the treasure, the positive aspect of nature smiles upon you, you are ruled by the wise king, and you play the role

of hero? The hope is that you can conduct yourself in such a manner

that it tilts things in that direction. That it is all we have—and it is much better than nothing. If you confront the suffering and

malevolence, and if you do that truthfully and courageously, you are

stronger, your family is stronger, and the world is a better place. The alternative is resentment, and that makes everything worse.

DECEIT AND ARROGANCE

There appear to be two broad forms of deceit: sins of commission, the

things you do knowing full well they are wrong; and sins of omission,

which are things you merely let slide—you know you should look at,

do, or say something, but you do not. Maybe your business partner is a

little bit crooked with the books, and you decide that you are just not going to audit them; or you turn a blind eye to your own misbehavior;

or you fail to investigate the misdeeds of a child, adolescent, or your partner in your household. Instead, you just let it go.

What motivates these kinds of deceit? We lie, outright—the sin of

commission—knowing full well that we are doing so, to make things

easier for us, in theory, regardless of the effect upon other people. We try to tip the world in our own personal favor. We try to gain an edge.

We endeavor to avoid a just punishment that is coming our way—often

by passing it to others. We commit the sin of omission, alternatively

(and perhaps more subtly), in the belief that what we are avoiding will just go away, which it seldom does. We sacrifice the future to the

present, frequently suffering the slings and arrows of outraged

conscience for doing so, but continuing, rigidly and stubbornly, in any case.

So, what do people use to justify bending and twisting the structure

of reality, at the cost of others or even their future selves, to benefit themselves now? It is a motivation clearly embedded in resentment.

Lies are justified by the belief lurking at the bottom of the resentful soul that the terrors of the world have been aimed specifically at the

sufferer attempting to justify his lying. But we need to bring arrogance

into the conversation, along with resentment, to truly understand why we practice to deceive. It is not obvious that these states of mind can exist in the absence of each other, anyway. They are coconspirators, so to speak.

COMMISSIONS

The first conspiracy between deceit and arrogance might be regarded

as a denial or rejection of the relationship between divinity, truth, and goodness. In the early chapters of Genesis, God creates habitable

chaos out of order with the Word, with the Logos: courage, love, and

truth. Courage, we might say, is the willingness of God to confront the nothingness that preceded Being, which is perhaps of the same form

we manage when we rise up from poverty and nothingness to thrive,

or rebuild our lives when they have been reduced to chaos by disaster

and catastrophe. Love is the ultimate aim—the desire to create the very best that can be created. It provides the same kind of superstructure

for Being, perhaps, as the desire for a peaceful and harmonious home

provides when such desire allows the truth to be spoken. The Word

God uses to confront the nothingness we spoke of is the Truth, and

that truth creates. But it does not just create: it appears to create the Good—the very best that love would demand. It is not for nothing that

God is so insistent that what has been created is Good. Arrogance and

deceit unite to oppose the idea that courageous truth aimed at love

creates the Good, and replace it with the idea that any whim, large or

small, has the right and opportunity to reveal itself for purposes that are instead narrow and self-serving.

The second form of arrogance that enables deceit has something to

do with the assumption of the power of divinity itself. Someone who

lies, through action, inaction, words, or silence, has made a choice

about what element of becoming (what element of still-unformed but

potential chaos) is or is not going to manifest itself. This means that the deceitful individual has taken it upon him or herself to alter the

very structure of reality. And for what? For a wish based on the idea

that whatever egotistical falsehood conjured up by the act of deceit will be better than the reality that would have transpired had the truth

been enacted or spoken. The liar acts out the belief that the false world he brings into being, however temporarily, will serve at least his own

interests better than the alternative. That is the arrogance of someone who believes that he can alter the structure of reality through pretense, and that he can get away with it. It is not clear how either of these

beliefs could be sustained, if they are thought through carefully (which implies, of course, that they are generally not). First, the transgressor himself is going to know that he is not to be trusted in word or action, and then, to the degree that genuine self-regard relies on such truth,

the deceitful words and acts are inevitably going to undermine the

personality of the liar. At minimum, he will not be living in the real

world, or in the same world as other people, and so he will be weaker

than he would have been had he learned what was true instead of

having substituted for it what is false. Second, for the liar to genuinely believe that he is “going to get away with it,” carries with it the belief that he is smarter than everyone else—that is, the everyone who will

not notice (and perhaps that belief comes to encompass God, the

Creator, whether explicitly or implicitly). Perhaps he will get away

with one, two, or ten lies, of increasing severity, as he is emboldened by success. Each time he succeeds, however, his arrogance will

increase, as success is rewarding and will inspire efforts to duplicate and even increase that reward. This cannot help but motivate larger

and riskier lies, each associated with a longer fall from the heights of pride. The strategy seems unworkable—a positive feedback loop

designed to drag those who entrap themselves within it lower and

lower, faster and faster.

The third form of arrogance that underlies deceit has to do with the

belief that the deceitful act (which, as we already discussed, has bent or warped the structure of reality) will stand on its own powerfully,

without being revealed and destroyed as reality itself straightens and

reforms, as it inevitably will. That is the arrogance behind the liar’s belief that the lie has somehow permanently altered the form of the

world, so that now life in the world can be conducted as if that lie is somehow real. But reality is very complicated and almost everything, it seems, touches on everything else. It is very difficult, for example, to make the consequences of an adulterous affair stop spreading. People

are seen. Tongues start to wag. More lies are generated and must be

validated to account for the time spent on the affair. Scents linger.

Affection within the relationship starts to be replaced by hatred or

contempt (particularly if the betrayed person is a genuinely good

person, providing no excuse for the sinful actions taken against him or her).

The fourth form of arrogance that justifies deceit has to do with a

warped sense of justice, often brought about by resentment. People

employ deception in this fourth set of circumstances because they are

resentful and angry about their victimized positions in the hell and

tragedy of the world. This response is entirely understandable,

although no less dangerous because of that. The logic is simple and

even compelling, particularly in the case of people who have been truly hurt: “I can do what I want because I have been unfairly treated.” This reasoning can be seen as simple justice, although it is seldom the case that the people who are now being lied to or deceived are the same

individuals who produced the unfair treatment used to justify the

falsehood. The arrogance is in believing that the unfair treatment was

specifically personal, existentially speaking, rather than being an

expected part of existence itself, given its unknown natural, social, and individual dangers. If you have been the victim of what appears to be

some malevolent cosmic joke, then why should not you do whatever is

in your power to set things a little bit right for yourself? All that line of reasoning does, however, is make life worse. If your justification for

misbehaving was that life was bad, then the rationale for continuing to misbehave cannot reasonably be that you should embark on a pattern

of action that does nothing but make it more so.

OMISSIONS

There are a variety of reasons why you stand idly by when something

you know to be terrible and wrong is occurring, and do nothing

(including what you know you should have done) to interfere. The first

of these is nihilism. It might not be immediately obvious what nihilism and pride have to do with each other (and even less what both have to

do with sins of omission). But the nihilistic attitude is one of certainty: everything is meaningless, or even negative. It is a judgment, a

conclusion—and it is a sin of pride, in my estimation. I think we are properly bounded in humility by a reasonable sense of our own

ignorance not to take the terrible risk of damning the structure of

existence itself.

Another motive for a sin of omission? The claim that it is justifiable

to take the easy path. This means living life so that true responsibility for anything important never falls on your shoulders. And you might

think that is perfectly acceptable: “Why should I expend extra effort

and risk when someone else is lining up for it; pushing actively for it; or just not sophisticated enough to slip away from it when it seeks

them out?” But everyone should take their turn—both at receiving the

benefits of social interaction and of bearing the responsibility for

ensuring that such interaction remains possible. Children who do not

learn that at three do not make any friends, and there are good reasons for that. They do not know how to play a game that can sustain itself

across time, which is exactly what a friendship is (as well as the

attitude that makes for good superiors, peers, and subordinates in a

business organization).

Critically consider, as well, the assumption that it is somehow

acceptable or even wise to slip by without paying your bills in full. This is another variant of the judgment of existence. “It does not matter if I take the easy path” begins with “It does not matter,” and that is Being, judged and damned, with a twist. The second part of the statement, “if

I take the easy path,” is a self-imposed curse. If you take your turn at the difficult tasks, people learn to trust you, you learn to trust yourself, and you get better at doing difficult things. All of that is good. If you leave all that undone, you will find yourself in the same position as the child whose parents insisted upon doing everything for him or her:

bereft of the capacity to thrive in the face of the difficulties/challenges of life. “It does not matter if I take the easy path,” is true only if there is no personality element of the speaker that could be called out by a true adventure. And those who avoid their destiny by standing back when

asked to step forward also deprive everyone else of the advantages that may have come their way had the person who took the easy way

instead determined to be all they could be.

The final form of sins of omission is associated with lack of faith in

yourself—perhaps in humanity in general—because of the

fundamental nature of human vulnerability. There is a scene in the book of Genesis in which the scales fall from the eyes of Adam and

Eve, and they realize they are vulnerable and naked—both part and

parcel of self-consciousness. At the same time, they develop the

knowledge of good and evil. These two developments coincide because

it is not possible to hurt other people with true effectiveness until you know how you can be hurt yourself. And you do not know that you can

be hurt until you are, more or less, fully self-conscious; until you know that you can suffer excruciating pain; until you know that you can be

killed; until you realize the limits of your being. And as soon as you

know all that, you have knowledge of your own nakedness, and you

can apply knowledge of that vulnerability with malevolent intent to

other people. And then you understand and are capable of Good and

Evil.

When called upon later to account for his behavior—for eating of

the forbidden fruit—Adam blames the woman for the development of

his painful self-knowledge, and God for making her, saying as he does,

“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree,

and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12). The first man’s refusal to take

responsibility for his actions is associated with resentment (for his

acquisition of painful knowledge), deceit (as he knows he made a free

choice, regardless of his wife’s behavior), and arrogance (he dares to

blame God and the woman the divinity created). Adam takes the easy

way out—just as you might, when you say to yourself, “I do not need to

have this fight with my wife. I do not have to stand up to my tyrannical boss. I do not have to live by what I believe to be true. I can get away with avoiding my responsibilities.” Some of that is inertia and

cowardice, but some of it is also motivated by a deep sense of disbelief in your own personal ability. Like Adam, you know you are naked. You

are intimately aware of your flaws and vulnerabilities, and the faith in yourself dissolves. This is understandable, but neither helpful nor, in the final analysis, excusable.

THE EXISTENTIAL DANGER OF ARROGANCE AND DECEIT

As Proverbs 9:10 has it: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The connection between deception and the deepest of

orienting instincts can be profitably comprehended in light of that. If you understand that deception corrupts and distorts the function of

the most fundamental instinct that guides you through the difficulties

of life, that prospect should scare you enough so that you remain

careful in what you say and do. A truthful person can rely on his or her innate sense of meaning and truth as a reliable guide to the choices

that must be made through life’s days, weeks, and years. But there is a rule that applies—the same rule that computer programmers well

know: “garbage in, garbage out.” If you deceive (particularly yourself), if you lie, then you begin to warp the mechanisms guiding the instinct

that orients you. That instinct is an unconscious guide, so it works

underneath your cognitive apparatus, especially once it has become

habitual. If you rewire the unconscious mechanisms that maintain you

with assumptions derived from something you know to be unreal, then

your meaningful instinct will take you places you should not go, in

proportion to its corruption. There is little more terrifying than the

possibility that you could come to a crisis point in your life when you need every faculty you possess, at that moment, to make the decision

properly, only to find you have pathologized yourself with deceit and

can no longer rely on your own judgment. Good luck to you, because

nothing but luck will then serve to save you.

There is a sin somewhat mysteriously defined by Christ as

unforgivable: “Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not

be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come”

(Matthew 12:32). St. Paul, one of Christianity’s founders, shed some

light on this statement, when he associated that Third Person of the

Trinity with conscience: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my

conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 9:1).

Conscience is no less than the sharing of moral knowledge with the

self. Deceit necessitates voluntary refusal to abide by the dictate of

conscience, and risks pathologizing that very vital function. There is

no walking away from that corruption unscathed. This is true even in a

neurological sense. Drugs of addiction are generally characterized by

their effects upon the neurotransmitter dopamine, increasing its

effects in some manner. Dopamine essentially produces the pleasure

associated with hope or possibility. Furthermore, your brain is wired so that if you do something that feels good (and therefore produces a

dopamine kick) then the parts of you that played a role in the action

under question become stronger, more dominant, more able to inhibit

the function of other parts of your being. Continued use of an addictive drug therefore feeds the growth of what can be accurately

conceptualized as a living monster in the user’s psyche—and the

attention and intention of that monster is single-mindedly devoted to

the drug’s effect. It wants one thing, and it comes armed with an entire philosophy about why that one thing must be considered of primary

import.

Imagine you are recovering, fragilely, from addiction. Something

goes wrong in your life. Resentment emerges. You think, “Oh, to hell

with it!” as the initial event leading to reuse of the drug, and the

experience of the subsequent dopamine hit. In consequence, the little

circuits that formulate the thought “to hell with it” grow more

powerful than the parts of the addict’s psyche that might be motivating refusal to use the drug. “To hell with it” is a multifaceted philosophy. It means “This is worth sacrificing anything for.” It means “Who cares

about my life. It is not worth anything, anyway.” It means “I do not

care if I have to lie to those who love me—my parents, my wife and

children—because what difference does it make, anyway? What I want

is the drug.” There is no easy coming back from that.

When you habitually engage in deceit, you build a structure much

like the one that perpetuates addiction, especially if you get away with it, however briefly. The success of the lie is rewarding—and if the risks were high, and you are not caught out, that successful reward might

well be intense. This reinforces the development of the neural

mechanism in your brain comprising the structure of the entire system

of deception. With continued success, at least in the short term, this

mechanism begins to work with increasing automaticity—and comes

to act, in its arrogant manner, knowing that it can get away with it.

That is more obvious for sins of commission; but it is equally and more dangerously and subtly true for what you could know but refuse to—

sins of omission. That is the arrogance of believing that what you know is sufficient (regardless of the evidence that accumulates around you,

in the form of suffering, which is all too easily and archetypally, let us

say, blamed on the structure of reality and the apparent insufficiency of God).

THE PLACE YOU SHOULD BE

It is in our individual capacity to confront the potential of the future and to transform it into the actuality of the present. The way we

determine what it is that the world transforms into is a consequence of our ethical, conscious choices. We wake up in the morning and

confront the day, with all its possibilities and terrors. We chart a

course, making decisions for better or worse. We understand full well

that we can do evil and bring terrible things into Being. But we also

know that we can do good, if not great, things. We have the best

chance of doing the latter if we act properly, as a consequence of being truthful, responsible, grateful, and humble.

The right attitude to the horror of existence—the alternative to

resentment, deceit, and arrogance—is the assumption that there is

enough of you, society, and the world to justify existence. That is faith in yourself, your fellow man, and the structure of existence itself: the belief that there is enough to you to contend with existence and

transform your life into the best it could be. Perhaps you could live in a manner whose nobility, grandeur, and intrinsic meaning would be of

sufficient import that you could tolerate the negative elements of

existence without becoming so bitter as to transform everything

around you into something resembling hell.

Of course, we are oppressed by the fundamental uncertainty of

Being. Of course, nature does us in, in unjust and painful ways. Of

course, our societies tend toward tyranny, and our individual psyches

toward evil. But that does not mean we cannot be good, that our

societies cannot be just, and that the natural world cannot array itself in our favor. What if we could constrain our malevolence a bit more,

serve and transform our institutions more responsibly, and be less

resentful? God only knows what the ultimate limit to that might be.

How much better could things become if we all avoided the temptation

to actively or passively warp the structure of existence; if we replaced anger with the vicissitudes of Being with gratitude and truth? And if

we all did that, with diligent and continual purpose, would we not have the best chance of keeping at bay those elements of self, state, and

nature that manifest themselves so destructively and cruelly, and that

motivate our turning against the world?

Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.

RULE XII

BE GRATEFUL IN SPITE OF YOUR SUFFERING

DOWN CAN DEFINE UP

I have been searching for decades for certainty. It has not been solely a matter of thinking, in the creative sense, but of thinking and then

attempting to undermine and destroy those thoughts, followed by

careful consideration and conservation of those that survive. It is

identification of a path forward through a swampy passage, searching

for stones to stand on safely below the murky surface. However, even

though I regard the inevitability of suffering and its exaggeration by

malevolence as unshakable existential truths, I believe even more

deeply that people have the ability to transcend their suffering,

psychologically and practically, and to constrain their own

malevolence, as well as the evils that characterize the social and the

natural worlds.

Human beings have the capacity to courageously confront their

suffering—to transcend it psychologically, as well as to ameliorate it

practically. This is the most fundamental twin axiom of

psychotherapy, regardless of school of thought, as well as key to the

mystery of human success and progress across history itself. If you

confront the limitations of life courageously, that provides you with a certain psychological purpose that serves as an antidote to the

suffering. The fact of your voluntary focus on the abyss, so to speak,

indicates to yourself at the deepest of levels that you are capable of

taking on without avoidance the difficulties of existence and the

responsibility attendant upon that. That mere act of courage is deeply

reassuring at the most fundamental levels of psychological being. It

indicates your capability and competence to those deep, ancient, and somewhat independent biological and psychological alarm systems

that register the danger of the world.

But the utility of such confrontation is by no means merely

psychological, as important as that is. It is the appropriate pragmatic approach as well: If you act nobly—a word that is very rarely used now, unfortunately—in the face of suffering, you can work practically and

effectively to ameliorate and rectify your own and other people’s

misery, as such. You can make the material world—the real world—

better (or at least stop it from getting worse). The same goes for

malevolence: you can constrain that within yourself. When you are

about to say something, your conscience might (often does) inform

you, noting, “That is not true.” It might present itself as an actual voice (internal, of course) or a feeling of shame, guilt, weakness, or other

inner disunity—the physiological consequence of the duality of psyche

you are manifesting. You then have the opportunity to cease uttering

those words. If you cannot tell the truth, you can at least not

consciously lie. 1 That is part of the constraint of malevolence. That is something within our grasp. Beginning to cease knowingly lying is a

major step in the right direction.

We can constrain our suffering, and we can face it psychologically.

That makes us courageous. Then we can ameliorate it practically,

because that is what we do when we care for ourselves and other

people. There seems to be almost no limit to that. You can genuinely

and competently come to care for yourself and your family. You can

then extend that out into the broader community. Some people

become unbelievably good at that. People who work in palliative care

constitute a prime example. They work continually, caring for people

who are suffering and dying, and they lose some of those people every

day. But they manage to get out of bed every morning, go to work, and

face all that pain, tragedy, and death. They make a difference under

virtually impossible circumstances. It is for such reasons and because

of such examples—watching people confront the existential

catastrophe of life forthrightly and effectively—that I am more

optimistic than pessimistic, and that I believe that optimism is,

fundamentally, more reliable than pessimism. To come to such a

conclusion, and then to find it unshakable, is a good example of how

and why it may be necessary to encounter the darkness before you can see the light. It is easy to be optimistic and naive. It is easy for

optimism to be undermined and demolished, however, if it is naive,

and for cynicism to arise in its place. But the act of peering into the darkness as deeply as possible reveals a light that appears

unquenchable, and that is a profound surprise, as well as a great relief.

The same holds true for the issue of gratitude. I do not believe you

can be appropriately grateful or thankful for what good you have and

for what evil has not befallen you until you have some profound and

even terrifying sense of the weight of existence. You cannot properly

appreciate what you have unless you have some sense not only of how

terrible things could be, but of how terrible it is likely for things to be, given how easy it is for things to be so. This is something that is very much worth knowing. Otherwise you might find yourself tempted to

ask, “Why would I ever look into the darkness?” But we seem

positively drawn to look. We are fascinated by evil. We watch dramatic

representations of serial killers, psychopaths, and the kings of

organized crime, gang members, rapists, contract killers, and spies.

We voluntarily frighten and disgust ourselves with thrillers and horror films—and it is more than prurient curiosity. It is the development of

some understanding of the essentially moral structure of human

existence, of our suspension between the poles of good and evil. The

development of that understanding is necessary; it places a down

below us and an up above us, and orients us in perception, motivation, and action. It protects us, as well. If you fail to understand evil, then you have laid yourself bare to it. You are susceptible to its effects, or to its will. If you ever encounter someone who is malevolent, they have

control over you in precise proportion to the extent that you are

unwilling or unable to understand them. Thus, you look in dark places

to protect yourself, in case the darkness ever appears, as well as to find the light. There is real utility in that.

THE MEPHISTOPHELIAN SPIRIT

The great German writer Goethe, who is to Germanic culture what

Shakespeare is to English, wrote a famous play, Faust, the story of a

man who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge. 2 Mephistopheles is the devil in Goethe’s play—the adversary. The adversary is a mythical

figure; the spirit who eternally works against our positive intent (or, perhaps, against positive intent generally). You can understand that

psychologically, as well as metaphysically or religiously. We all see

within ourselves the emergence of good intentions and the repeated

instructions to ourselves to act accordingly, yet we note distressingly often that we leave undone what we know we should do, and do

instead what we know we should not. There is something in all of us

that works in counterposition to our voluntarily expressed desires.

There are in fact many such somethings—a chorus of demons, so to

speak—working at cross-purposes even to each other; many dark and

unarticulated motivations and systems of belief, all manifesting

themselves as partial personalities (but with all the essential features of personality, despite their partial nature).

To realize this is uncanny. That realization is the great contribution

of the psychoanalysts, who insisted above all, perhaps, that we were

inhabited by spirits that were beyond not only our control but even our conscious knowledge. And that realization brings up great and

paralyzing questions: If you are not in control of yourself, who or what is? If you are not, a challenge has been posed to the very idea of the

centrality, unity, and even reality of the “you” whose existence seems

so immediately certain. And what is that who or what that is not you up to? And toward what end is it acting? We all hope we are the sorts

of creatures who can tell ourselves what to do, and who will then do

exactly that, in accordance with our will. You are you, after all, and you should—virtually by definition—be in control of yourself. But things

often do not work that way, and the reason or reasons they do not are

deeply mysterious.

Sometimes, of course, it is simply much easier just not to do the

things we should. Good actions can be and often are difficult to

undertake, and there is danger—exhaustion not the least of it—in

difficulty. Inertia is also a powerful reason for stasis and can provide a certain immediate safety. But there is more to the problem. It is not

just that you are lazy: it is also that you are bad—and declared so by

your own judgment. That is a very unpleasant realization, but there is

no hope of becoming good without it. You will upbraid yourself (or

your conscience will do so) for your shortcomings. You will treat yourself as if you were or are at least in part an immoral agent. That is all deeply unpleasant too, and you might well be motivated to avoid

your own judgment. But no simple rationalizations will allow for your

escape.

You will see, if you are willing to look, the adversarial force at work within you, working to undermine your best intentions. The exact

nature of that force is grounds for endless speculation—philosophical,

literary, psychological, and above all, religious or theological. The

Christian conception of the great figure of evil—Mephistopheles,

Satan, Lucifer, the devil himself—is, for example, a profound

imaginative personification of that spirit. But the adversary is not

merely something that exists in the imagination—certainly not only in

the individual imagination. It is also something that manifests itself

through something that is still aptly described as “possession” in the

motivation for malevolent actions, as well as in the acts themselves.

Everyone who has thought or said something akin to “I do not

understand what came over me” after acting in a particularly unseemly

manner notes the existence of such possession, even if they cannot or

do not articulate that noting. In consequence, we may ask ourselves, in utter dismay, “Why would such a spirit exist? Why would it be part of

each of us?”

The answer appears to be partly associated with the powerful sense

that each of us shares of our own intrinsic mortal limitations, our

subjugation to the suffering inflicted upon us by ourselves, society,

and nature. That embitters and produces a certain self-contempt or

disgust, inspired by our own weaknesses and inadequacies (and I am

not speaking here yet of immorality, merely of our intrinsic and

terrible fragility), and also by the apparent unfairness,

unpredictability, and arbitrariness of our failings. Given all these

disappointing realizations, there is no reason to assume that you are

going to be satisfied or happy with yourself, or with Being itself. Such dissatisfaction—such unhappiness—can easily come to reinforce and

magnify itself in a vicious circle. With each step you take against

yourself or others as a consequence of your unhappiness and

resentment, there is more to be ashamed of, and more reason for self-

directed antagonism. It is not for nothing that approximately one

person in five engages in some form of serious physical self-harm in their lifetime.3 And this does not include the most serious act—suicide itself (or the more common tendency toward suicidal ideation). If you

are unhappy with yourself, why would you work in your best interest?

Maybe something vengeful would emerge from you, instead; maybe

something capable of justifying itself while it metes out hypothetically deserved suffering, designed to interfere with your movement forward.

If you conceptually aggregate and unite into a single personality all

that opposes you in you, all that opposes your friendships, and all that opposes your wife or husband, the adversary emerges. That is precisely

Mephistopheles in Goethe’s play—the devil himself. That is the spirit

who works against—and that is exactly how he describes himself: “I am the spirit that denies.” 4 Why? Because everything in the world is so limited and imperfect—and causes itself so much trouble and terror

because of that—that its annihilation is not only justified but ethically demanded. So goes, at least, the rationalization.

This is no mere lifeless abstraction. People struggle in a deadly

fashion with such ideas. Women wrestle with them when they consider

having a baby, inquiring of themselves: “Should I really bring an infant into a world like this? Is that an ethical decision?” The followers of the philosophical school of antinatalism, of whom the South African

philosopher David Benatar is perhaps the leading advocate, 5 would decisively answer no to both of those questions. I debated his views

with him a few years back.6 It was not as if I failed to understand his position. There is no doubt that the world is steeped in suffering. A few years later, I debated another philosopher, Slavoj Žižek—known much

more widely for his Marxist predilections than his religious

convictions. He said something during our discussion that might be

theologically debatable, but that I found of great interest. In the

Christian tradition, even God Himself, in the form of Christ, despairs

of the meaning of life and the goodness of His Father in the agony of

His Crucifixion. At the peak of his suffering, just before death, He

utters the words “Eli Eli lama sabachthani”7—“My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This appears to strongly

imply, in its narrative way, that the burden of life can become so great that even God Himself can lose faith when confronted with the

unbearable reality of injustice, betrayal, suffering, and death.

It is hard to imagine a story more sympathetic to mere mortals. If God Himself experiences doubts in the midst of His self-imposed

agony, how could we mere humans not fall prey to the same failing?

And it is possible that it was compassion that was driving the

antinatalist Benatar’s position. I saw no evidence that Benatar was

malevolent in any obvious manner. He appeared to truly believe—in a

manner I found reminiscent of Goethe’s Mephistopheles—that the

combination of consciousness, vulnerability, and mortality is so dire

that there is simply no moral excuse for its continuance. Now, it is

entirely possible that Mephistopheles’s opinion is not to be trusted.

Since he is Satan himself, there is no reason to assume that the

argument he puts forward to justify his adversarial stance toward

Being is valid, or even that he himself truly believes it. And perhaps

the same was true of Benatar, who was and is no doubt prey to the

frailties that characterize each of us (and that certainly includes me, despite the stance I took in opposition to him). But I believed then and still firmly believe now that the consequences of his self-negating

position are simply too dire. It leads directly to an antilife or even an anti-Being nihilism so profound that its manifestation could not help

but exaggerate and amplify the destructive consequences of existence

that are already the focus of the hypothetically compassionate

antinatalists themselves (and I am not being sarcastic or cynical about the existence of that compassion, misplaced though I believe it to be).

Benatar’s hypothesis was that life is so rife with suffering that it is, actually, a sin—for all intents and purposes—to bring any new

conscious beings into existence, and that the most appropriate ethical

action for human beings to take would be to simply stop doing so: to

render ourselves voluntarily extinct. Such a viewpoint is more

widespread, in my opinion, than you might think, although perhaps

rarely held for long. Whenever you are cut off at the knees by one of

life’s many catastrophes, whenever a dream collapses, or someone

close to you is hurt in some fundamental way—especially a child or

another loved one—then you can easily find yourself thinking,

“Perhaps it would be better if the whole mess was just brought to a

halt.”

That is certainly what people think when they contemplate suicide.

Such thoughts are generated in their most extreme variant by the

serial killers, by high school shooters, by all generally homicidal and genocidal actors. They are acting out the adversarial attitude as fully as they might. They are truly possessed, in a manner that exceeds the

merely metaphorical. They have decided not only that life is

unbearable and the malevolence of existence is inexcusable, but that

everything should be punished for the mere sin of its Being. If we want to have any hope of dealing with the existence of evil, and working

toward its minimization, we must understand these sorts of impulses.

It is in no small part the consciousness of suffering and malevolence

that embitters people. And it is toward this embitterment that I believe the antinatalist position would, if widely adopted, inevitably drift.

First, it might be the mere refusal to reproduce. But I cannot believe

that it would be long until that impulse to cease production of new life was transformed into a similar impulse to destroy life that currently

exists, in consequence of the “compassionate” judgment that some

lives are so terrible that it is merciful to bring them to an end. That philosophy emerged relatively early in the Nazi era, for example, when

individuals judged unbearably damaged by life were euthanized for

purposes deemed “morally merciful.” The question this line of

thinking leads to is where does such “mercy” stop? How sick, old,

intellectually impaired, crippled, unhappy, unproductive, or politically inappropriate do you have to be before dispensing with you is a moral

imperative? And why would you believe, once the eradication or even

merely the limitation of life became your guiding star, that you would

not continue down that road to its hellish end?

I found the Columbine High School killers’ writings particularly

instructive in that regard. They are scrawled out, and are careless,

incoherent, and narcissistic, but there is definitely a philosophy at the base of them: that things deserve to suffer for the crime of their

existence. The consequence of that belief is the creative elaboration

and extension of that suffering. One of the killers wrote that he

considered himself the judge of all that exists—a judge that found

Being, particularly of the human form, wanting—and that it would be

better if the entire human race was eradicated. That defined the scope

of his horrific vision. He and his partner shot their classmates in their local high school, but that was only a tiny fraction of what they were

planning. They had incendiary devices laid out across the community,

and had fantasized together about trying to take out the entire city.

Such plans are just a step on the way to the ultimate genocidal vision.

You do not have those sorts of visions unless you are deeply

possessed by something very much resembling the adversarial spirit.

That is Mephistopheles, whose essential viewpoint might be

paraphrased as follows: “Life is so terrible, because of its limitations and malevolence, that it would be better if it did not exist at all.” That is the central doctrine of the spirit that works at counterpurposes to

you. It is an arguable case and not surprising that it should emerge,

and it seems terribly credible at moments of crisis, even though I

believe it is deeply wrong. I think the reason that it is wrong, in part, is because, when it is realized, all it does is exacerbate an already

admittedly bad situation. If you set about making things worse, they

are likely, in fact, to get worse. I cannot see how this constitutes an improvement, if your original objection was motivated by the essential

terror of our existential situation itself. It does not seem to be a

pathway that a conscious creature, with a bit of gratitude, might walk

down. There is an incoherency to it that is logically untenable, and that therefore seems to make the argument fundamentally specious, and

cannot help but make the listener think, “There are things going on

here behind the scenes that are both unspoken and unspeakable,

despite the surface logic.”

The failings in the adversary’s logic do not mean that constructing

an unshakable viewpoint to counter it is a simple matter. In the most

straightforward sense, identifying that vision of objection and

vengefulness is useful, in the way that negative space in a painting is useful: it defines the positive, by contrast. Good can be conceptualized

—however vaguely in its initial formulation—as the opposite of

whatever constitutes evil, which is usually more readily identifiable in the world than goodness. I have been trying to find touchstones on

that pathway of opposition to evil, so that people can identify what

that good might be. Some of these are very practical, if difficult. I have been suggesting to my viewers and listeners,8 for example—

particularly those currently burdened by the mortal illness of a parent

—that it is useful to consciously take on the task of being the most

reliable person in the aftermath of the death, during the grief-stricken preparations for the funeral and the funeral itself, and for the care of

family members during and after the catastrophe. There is a call to your potential in doing that. There is a call to the strength of Being

itself—the Being that could manifest itself in you. The human race has

been dealing with loss and death forever. We are the descendants of

those who could manage it. That capability is within us, grim as the

task might seem.

If you truly love someone, it can seem a deep form of betrayal to

stay integrated and healthy, in essence, in their absence or sadly

waning presence. What does that ability indicate, after all, about the

true depths of your love? If you can witness their demise and survive

the loss, does that not imply that the bond was shallow and temporary,

and even replaceable? If you were truly bonded, should not it destroy

you (as it sometimes does)? But we cannot wish that every inevitable

loss leads to the destruction of everyone affected, because we would

then all be doomed, far more immediately than we currently are. And

it certainly is not the case that the last wish of the dying is or should be the interminable suffering of those they love. My impression has been,

instead, that people tend to feel guilty on their deathbeds (because of their immediate uselessness and the burden that causes, but even

more because of their apprehension about the grief and trouble they

will cause those left behind). Thus, their most fervent wish, I believe, is that those whom they love will be able to move forward and live

happily, after a reasonable time of mourning.

To collapse in the aftermath of a tragic loss is therefore more

accurately a betrayal of the person who has died, instead of a tribute, as it multiplies the effect of that mortal catastrophe. It takes a dying person of narcissistic selfishness to wish endless grief on their loved ones. Strength in the face of death is better for the person who is dying and for those who remain living alike. There are family members who

are suffering because of their loss who need taking care of, and who

may be too old and infirm and otherwise troubled to cope with the

situation properly. And so someone strong has to step in and exercise

the terrible authority that makes even of death something to face and

overcome. To understand clearly that you are morally obliged under

such circumstances to manifest strength in the face of adversity is to

indicate to yourself—and, perhaps, to other people—that there is

something in you of sufficient grandeur and power to face the worst

forthrightly and to yet prevail. That is certainly what people need to encounter at a funeral. There is little to say, explicitly, in the face of death. Everyone is rendered speechless when they encounter the

infinite expanse of emptiness surrounding our too-brief existence. But

uprightness and courage in such a situation is truly heartening and

sustaining.

I have suggested that strength at the funeral of someone dear and

close is a worthy goal more than once during a lecture (where people

might encounter it live, or on YouTube or a podcast). In consequence,

a not insignificant number of people have indicated to me that they

took heart in desperate times as a consequence. They set reliability

and strength in a crisis as a conscious goal and were able to manage

exactly that, so that the devastated people around them had someone

to lean on and see as an example in the face of genuine trouble. That,

at the very least, made a bad situation much less dreadful than it

might have been. And that is something. If you can observe someone

rising above the catastrophe, loss, bitterness, and despair, then you see evidence that such a response to catastrophe is possible. In

consequence, you might mimic that, even under dire circumstances.

Courage and nobility in the face of tragedy is the reverse of the

destructive, nihilistic cynicism apparently justified under just such

circumstances.

Again, I understand the negative attitude. I have had thousands

hours of clinical experience. I have been deeply involved in some very

difficult situations, along with those I was listening to and strategizing with, as well as within the confines of my private life. People have

arduous lives. You think your life is hard (and it probably is, at least at times), then you meet someone and your life is so much better than

theirs that, no matter what your hardships are, you cannot even

conceive of how they might continue to exist in their current misery.

And you find out, not infrequently, that those same unfortunate

people know someone else whose life is so hard that they feel the same

way about them. And even they are often left feeling guilty that they

believe what they have is a hard lot, because they know just how much

worse it could be.

It is not as if the suffering and betrayal, the catastrophes, are of

insufficient gravity to make bitterness a real option. But there is just

no good whatsoever in that option, and plenty of evident harm. So, what constitutes the alternative? I began to seriously contemplate the

topic of this rule just before Thanksgiving, in 2018, when I was touring the United States. That holiday has become, arguably, the biggest

shared celebration in America (and is also a major event in Canada,

approximately a month earlier). The only competitor, particularly

since Easter has largely faded away, is Christmas, which is also in

some sense a holiday of thanksgiving, concentrating as it does on the

arrival of the eternal Redeemer in the midst of the darkness and cold

of winter, and so reflects the endless birth and rebirth of hope itself.

The giving of thanks is an alternative to bitterness—perhaps the

alternative. My observation of American holidays—I lived in the States

for seven years, and I have spent time there on countless other

occasions—is that the prominence of Thanksgiving among holidays

seems to be a good thing, practically and symbolically. The fact that

the primary feast of celebration characterizing a country would be one

of explicitly “giving thanks” appears, in principle, as a positive

commentary on the fundamental ethic of the state. It means that the

individual is striving to have his or her heart in the right place, and that the group is supporting and encouraging that endeavor. Why is

that, given the trouble that constitutes life? It is because you can be courageous. You can be alert, awake, attentive. You can see how

demanding life is and can be, and you can see it clearly. Despite this, you can remain grateful, because that is the intrepid attitude toward

life and its difficulties. You are grateful not because you are naive, but because you have decided to put a hand forward to encourage the best

in yourself, and the state, and the world. You are grateful, in the same manner, not because suffering is absent, but because it is valiant to

remember what you have and what you may still be offered—and

because the proper thankful attitude toward that existence and

possibility positions you better than any other attitude toward the

vicissitudes of existence.

To be grateful for your family is to remember to treat them better.

They could cease to exist at any moment. To be grateful for your

friends is to awaken yourself to the necessity of treating them

properly, given the comparative unlikelihood of friendship itself. To be grateful to your society is to remind yourself that you are the

beneficiary of tremendous effort on the part of those who predeceased us, and left this amazing framework of social structure, ritual, culture, art, technology, power, water, and sanitation so that our lives could be better than theirs.

The temptation to become embittered is great and real. It requires a

genuine moral effort not to take that path, assuming that you are not—

or are no longer—naive. The gratitude associated with that state of

Being is predicated on ignorance and inexperience. That is not virtue.

Thus, if you are attentive and awake, and you can see the structure of

the world, bitterness and resentment beckon as a viable response.

Then you might well ask yourself, “Well, why not walk down that dark

path?” It seems to me that the answer to that, to state it again, is

courage: the courage to decide “No, that is not for me, despite the

reasons I may have for being tempted in that direction,” and to decide, instead, “Despite the burden of my awake mortality, I am going to

work for the good of the world.”

COURAGE—BUT SUPERORDINATE, LOVE

That decision seems to me to be courage subsumed to love. If it is

resentment and bitterness and the consequent hatred that emerges

from that tempting us toward the torment and destruction of

everything that lives and suffers, then perhaps it is active love that

aims at its betterment. And that seems to me to be the fundamental

decision of life, and that it is correct to identify it, at least in a vital part, as an act of voluntary will. The reasons for acrimony, anger,

resentment, and malevolence are strong and plentiful. Thus, it must be

a leap of faith—a decision about a mode of being not so clearly justified by the evidence, particularly in hard times—that Being should be

strengthened and supported by your aims and your acts. That is

something done in some deep sense despite “Eli Eli lama

sabachthani”—something that says “despite it all, no matter what it is, onward and upward”—and that is precisely the impossible moral

undertaking that is demanded from each of us for the world to

function properly (even for it to avoid degeneration into hell).

It is within the frame of that impossible undertaking—that decision to love—that courage manifests itself, enabling each person who

adopts the courageous pathway to do the difficult things that are

necessary to act for the good in even the worst of times. If you

determine to manifest the two virtues of love and courage—

simultaneously, consciously—you decide that you are going to work to

make things better and not worse, even for yourself, even though you

know that because of all your errors and omissions you are already

three-quarters lost.

You are going to work to make things better for yourself, as if you

are someone you are responsible for helping. You are going to do the

same thing for your family and the broader community. You are going

to strive toward the harmony that could manifest itself at all those

levels, despite the fact that you can see the flawed and damaged

substructure of things, and have had your vision damaged in

consequence. That is the proper and courageous pathway forward.

Maybe that is the definition of gratitude, of thankfulness, and I cannot see how that is separate from courage and love.

You might well ask, “Do people actually perceive and act in this

manner?”—even—“Can they?” One of the most compelling pieces of

evidence I have come across is the fact of grief over the loss of

someone close. Even if you are ambivalent about life itself—and maybe

even if you are ambivalent, to some degree, about the person that you

lost, because that can certainly be the case—your likely response to a

death is grief. That response is not exactly conscious. Grief is a strange experience. It seizes you unexpectedly. You feel shock and confusion.

You are not at all sure how to respond. What is it that you are

supposed to do? But if it is conscious grieving—the voluntary acting

out of the supposedly appropriate response—it is not real; not in the

manner that genuine grief grips you of its own accord. And if you do

not feel yourself seized, unwittingly, in the latter sense, you might

think, “I am not feeling the way I am supposed to feel. I am not crying.

I am not overwhelmed by sorrow. I am going far too normally about

my day-to-day business” (something particularly likely to occur if you

receive the news of a death from a distant locale). But then, as you

engage in something trivial, as if things are normal, the grief will strike you like a rogue wave. That happens repeatedly, God only knows for

how long. It is something that arises from the depths, and it takes you irresistibly in its grasp.

Grief must be a reflection of love. It is perhaps the ultimate proof of love. Grief is an uncontrollable manifestation of your belief that the

lost person’s existence, limited and flawed as it might have been, was

worthwhile, despite the limitations and flaws even of life itself.

Otherwise, why would you feel the loss? Otherwise, why would you

feel, involuntarily, sorrowful and bereft (and that from a source self-

deception cannot reach)? You grieve because something that you

valued is no longer in existence. Thus, in the core of your Being, you

have decided that the person’s life was valuable, despite whatever

trouble they caused you—and themselves. In my experience, that

happens even when people die who were quite monstrous. It is a rare

person whose life has gone so catastrophically wrong that their death

brings no sorrow.

There is a deep part of us that makes the decision, when we grieve

for someone we have lost, that their existence was worthwhile, despite

it all. Maybe that is a reflection of an even more fundamental decision: Being itself is worth having, despite it all. Gratitude is therefore the process of consciously and courageously attempting thankfulness in

the face of the catastrophe of life. Maybe that is what we are trying to do when we meet with our families during a holiday, wedding, or

funeral. Those are often contentious and difficult affairs. We face a

paradoxical, demanding tension. We bring people that we know and

love close to us; we are pleased at their existence and their proximity, but also wish they could be more. We are inevitably disappointed in

each other, and in ourselves, as well.

In any familial gathering, there is tension between the warmth you

feel and the bonding of memory and shared experience, and the

sorrow inevitably accompanying that. You see some relatives who are

in a counterproductive stasis, or wandering down a path that is not

good for them. You see others aging, losing their vitality and health

(and that sight interferes with and disrupts your memories of their

more powerful and youthful selves: a dual loss, then, of present and

past). That is all painful to perceive. But the fundamental conclusion, despite all of that, is that “It is good that we are all together and able to share a meal, and to see and talk to each other, and to note that we are

all here and facing this celebration or difficulty together.” And everyone hopes that “perhaps if we pull together, we can manage this

properly.” And so you make the same fundamental decision, when you

join communally with your people, that you make when you grieve:

“Despite everything, it is good that we are together, and that we have

one another.” That is something truly positive.

The same is true of your relationship with your children. My grief at

life in recent decades was exaggerated in the case of my daughter,

because she was very ill for many years as a child, adolescent, and

young adult. A child is a being of tremendous potential, capable of

developing an admirable, productive, and ever-increasing autonomy

and ability. But there is also something truly fragile about their three-or four- or five- (or even fifteen- or twenty-five-) year-old forms

(because that fragility never truly disappears from a parent’s

perception, once it has been experienced deeply, as it certainly will be with the experience of caring for young children). All that is part of the joy of having them, but also part of the pain. The pain is the absolute certainty that the fragility will be exploited. And yet I thought that

whatever steps I might take to eradicate that fragility in my children

would also destroy that for which I was thankful. I remember thinking

this quite distinctly with my son when he was three, because he was

supercute and fun. But he was three, so he was little. He would

collapse, bang his head on tables, fall down the stairs, and get into

little scraps with other kids. Maybe he would be playing in the

supermarket parking lot and, distracted, run off briefly. This is not a wise move in a place ruled by cars. There is an undeniable

vulnerability around children that wakes you up and makes you very

conscious of the desire to protect them, but also of the desire to foster their autonomy and push them out in the world, because that is how

you strengthen them. It is also a vulnerability that can make you angry at life because of its fragility, and lead you to curse the fate that joins the two together.

When I think about my parents, the same thing comes to mind.

They are getting old. As people get older, in some sense, you see them

crystallize into the people that they are. My father and my mother both have a decided character. They were who they were in their fifties, and now they are perhaps even more so. They have their limitations and

their advantages (and it is even the case that the latter are often integrally necessary to the former). They are in their eighties now and are very particularized. Sometimes it is frustrating to deal with people and their particularities. You think, “Would not it be better if they

could be some other way?” I am not saying I think that about my

parents more than people generally think that about each other. It is

by no means a criticism of them. In addition, there is no doubt that

they (and others—many others) feel the same way about me. But it is

necessary to understand that, just as in the case of children, all those particularities, fragilities, and limitations are part and parcel of what it is that you come to love.

So, you might love people despite their limitations, but you also love

them because of their limitations. That is something very much worth understanding. Doing so may help you see how gratitude remains

possible. Despite the fact that the world is a very dark place, and that each of us has our black elements of soul, we see in each other a

unique blend of actuality and possibility that is a kind of miracle: one that can manifest itself, truly, in the world, in the relationships we

have that are grounded in trust and love. That is something for which

you can be courageously thankful. That is something in which you can

discover part of the antidote to the abyss and the darkness.

Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

Coda

As I indicated in the overture, much of this book was written during

long months spent in hospitals—first, visiting or staying with my

daughter, Mikhaila, then doing the same over a longer period with my

wife, Tammy, and finally—when it became necessary—during my

repeated admissions. I do not think it appropriate to write about those personal trials in any more detail than I already have in the Overture—

partly because the common circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic

have rendered everyone’s life tragic in an unimaginable manner, so

that it seems superfluous, in some sense, to provide a detailed account of familial or individual suffering on top of that, and partly because the current book is not about my daughter’s troubles, or my wife’s, or

mine, directed as it is to topics of general psychological import. What I truly find necessary to relate, however, is our appreciation to all those many people who supported us during this trying time. So, some

additional discussion of our various maladies appears unavoidable at

this point.

On the public front, we received an outpouring of good wishes from

thousands of people who had become familiar with my work. Some of

this was delivered in person, when people met Tammy or me in public;

some was sent by email and social media; and some of it came in

YouTube comments on my videos. This was exceptionally heartening.

My sister, Bonnie, gathered and printed out particularly thoughtful

messages to Tammy from around the world, and posted them in bright

colors on the walls of the hospital room where they could be easily

seen. The messages later addressed to me helped bolster my oft-

wavering conviction that I could and should prevail in the face of the

difficulties I was experiencing, and that the book you are reading or

listening to would maintain its relevance, even in the face of the

terrible pandemic that currently envelops the world. We were also the

beneficiaries of medical care, much of it extreme, but most often provided with optimism, care, and competence. Tammy’s dual cancer

surgeries were courageously performed by Dr. Nathan Perlis of the

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and when the complications arising

thereof became too extreme, was treated by Dr. Maxim Itkin, director

of Philadelphia’s Penn Center for Lymphatic Disorders.

More privately, Tammy and I were individually and jointly the

grateful beneficiaries of constant support from family and friends, who interrupted their lives to spend days, weeks, or months of time with us while we were undergoing our trials. I can only hope, in the face of

serious doubts about the matter, that I would have chosen to be as

generous with my time and attention as they were if the tables were

turned. It is particularly necessary to thank my family members—my

daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, and her husband, Andrey Korikov; my

son, Julian Peterson, and daughter-in-law, Jillian Vardy; my brother-

in law and sister Jim and Bonnie Keller; my brother and sister-in-law

Joel and Kathleen Peterson; my parents, Beverley and Walter

Peterson; my brother- and sister-in-law Dale and Maureen Roberts,

and their daughter, Tasha; my sister-in-law Della Roberts and her

husband, Daniel Grant; as well as our friends Wayne Meretsky,

Myriam Mongrain, Queenie Yu, Morgan and Ava Abbott, Wodek

Szemberg and Estera Bekier, Wil Cunningham and Shona Tritt, Jim

Balsillie and Neve Peric, Dr. Norman and Karen Doidge, Gregg and Dr.

Delinah Hurwitz (the former of whom also profoundly helped me edit

and improve 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos), Dr. Cory and Nadine Torgerson, Sonia and Marshall Tully, Dr. Robert O. and

Sandra Pihl, Dr. Daniel Higgins and Dr. Alice Lee, Dr. Mehmet and

Lisa Oz, and Dr. Stephen and Dr. Nicole Blackwood, all of whom went

above and beyond the call of duty in the attention they paid to Tammy

and me over the last two years. There are, finally, three men of God

who were of service, particularly to Tammy: Fathers Eric Nicolai, Fred

Dolan, and Walter Hannam.

My family made arrangements to have me treated in Moscow for

the consequence of a paradoxical reaction and then a dependence on

the hypothetically safe but truly dangerous benzodiazepine antianxiety

medication. This was arranged with exceptional efficiency, despite the

time of year (the Christmas and New Year holidays in 2019–20), by

Kirill Sergeevich Mikhailov, the consul general of the Russian Federation in Toronto, and the consular staff who provided an urgent

visa in a matter of days. Many people, including Kelly and Joe Craft,

Anish Dwivedi, Jamil Javani, Zach Lahn, Chris Halverson,

Metropolitan Jonah, and the V. Rev. Victor Potapov and Dimitir

Ivanov, helped expedite what was a very complex, multidimensional

process. While in Russia, my safety was ensured by Alexander Usov,

and my sense of isolation diminished by daily visits by Mikhaila and

her husband, Andrey, who truly cannot be thanked enough. The

Russian medical teams included IMC Addiction by Roman Yuzapolski,

who agreed to supervise my case despite being advised by assorted

experts that it was too dangerous to do so, and his staff members,

Herman Stepnov, administrative directors, and Alexandr, therapist,

who translated for me constantly for a two-week period, without even

a change of clothes. The team of the Russian Academy of Medical

Sciences took me in with undiagnosed double pneumonia and in a

state of catatonia and delirium, and restored my ability to ambulate.

Dr. Marina Petrova, the deputy director, and Dr. Michael, the head

doctor of what was known as the Reanimatology Ward, were of

particular and notable aid. Uliana Efros, nanny to my granddaughter,

Elizabeth Scarlett, always had our backs and traveled with Mikhaila,

Andrey, and me for eight months from Russia to Florida and Serbia,

caring for Scarlett, including spending a month in quarantine. Thanks

as well to Uli’s daughter Liza Romanova, who helped take care of

Scarlett in Russia, so that my daughter and son-in-law could visit me

in the hospital. Finally, on the Russian end, I would like to thank

Mikhail Avdeev, who helped us extensively with provision of

medication and translation of medical information—both on very

short notice.

Later, in June 2020, I sought admission at the IM Clinic for

Internal Medicine in Belgrade, an institution dedicated to

benzodiazepine withdrawal, and fell directly under the competent and

caring treatment provided by Dr. Igor Bolbukh and his staff. Dr.

Bolbukh had flown to Russia previously to consult there while I was in

a state of delirium, provided months of pro bono medical guidance,

moved me to a more stable condition when I arrived in Serbia, and

managed my care thereafter. The IM Clinic was founded by Dr. Nikolai

Vorobiev, and his staff were very patient, without resentment—a difficult feat to manage in these days of COVID and the inevitable

accompanying and sudden quarantines.

There are also those who profoundly deserve credit, recognition,

and gratitude on the professional front. Thank you to my agents,

Mollie Glick of Creative Artists Agency, as well as Sally Harding of

CookeMcDermid (Canada) and her colleagues Suzanne Brandreth and

Hana El Niwairi of Cooke Agency International Canada. Thank you to

the editors and publishers of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: Penguin Random House Canada senior editor Craig Pyette, who

played a diligent and instrumental role in quality control and

enhancement; former CEO Brad Martin; current CEO Kristin

Cochrane; publisher of the Knopf Random House Canada Publishing

Group Anne Collins; vice president, associate publisher, and director

of marketing strategy Scott Sellers; Penguin Random House UK editor

Laura Stickney and her colleague Penelope Vogler, and CEO Tom

Weldon; and Penguin Random House International CEO Markus

Dohle. Thanks to the editors and publishers of the current book, a

group that includes the immediately aforementioned individuals, as

well as additional Penguin Random House US personnel, including

publisher of the Portfolio and Sentinel imprints Adrian Zackheim and

editor Helen Healey. Finally, thank you to Professor Bruce Pardy and

lawyer Jared Brown for their active support of my ideas during a time

when doing so could be truly hazardous to one’s professional

reputation and security.

The worldwide tour of 160 cities that Tammy and I undertook

during the incubation period of this book as well as its preliminary

formulation was organized with exceptional efficiency and good nature

by Creative Artists Agency representatives Justin Edbrooke (assisted

by Daniel Smith) and Ari Levin (assisted by Colette Silver), as well as Live Nation’s Andrew Levitt. The Australian and New Zealand tour

benefited from the attention of Australian producer TEG Dainty’s Brad

Drummond, tour manager Simon Christian, and security man Scott

Nicholson. Gunnlaugur Jónsson and his crew were exceptionally

hospitable to Tammy and me (as well as to my mother and aunt, who

accompanied us for the days we were in Iceland). John O’Connell

served as primary tour manager, and was extremely professional, great

at problem solving, and consistently upbeat and supportive over the months of travel and organization.

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report traveled with us, introduced my

lectures, and emceed the question-and-answer periods that followed,

adding a necessary bit of levity to what might otherwise have been a

too-serious endeavor. Rob Greenwald of Rogers & Cowan helped

ensure appropriate media coverage. Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Douglas

Murray, Gad Saad, and Steven Crowder extended their friendship and

shared their extensive media presence. Zachary Lahn was there many

times as needed, and Jeff Sandefer opened up his extensive connection

network. Bill Vardy, Dennis Thigpen, Duncan Maisels, and Melanie

Paquette served as drivers for the tour leg in North America when we

used motor homes. Tammy and I would also like to thank designer

Shelley Kirsch and the crew at SJOC Construction for completing the

renovation of our house during these trying times with minimal

supervision on our part. So much has happened in the last three years

I am sure that I have missed key people, and for that I sincerely

apologize.

Thanks is due, finally, to all of you who have read or listened to my

books— Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, as well as the two 12 Rules volumes—and/or tuned in to my YouTube videos and

podcasts. I have been profoundly struck, as have the people close to

me, by the exceptional loyalty and care you have demonstrated over

the last half decade. May all of you reading or listening to this book

wend your way successfully through these difficult times. I hope you

are surrounded by people you love and who love you in turn. I hope

that you can rise to the challenge presented by our current

circumstances, and that we all might have the good fortune to

eventually turn our attention to rebuilding the world after the deluge.

Notes

OVERTURE

1. This is the philosopher David Hume’s famous “scandal of induction.” For further reading, see D. Humes and P. Millican, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (New York: Oxford University Press, 1748/2008).

2. J. B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2018).

RULE I: DO NOT CARELESSLY DENIGRATE SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS OR CREATIVE

ACHIEVEMENT

1. S. Hughes and T. Celikel, “Prominent Inhibitory Projections Guide Sensorimotor Communication: An Invertebrate Perspective,” BioEssays 41 (2019): 190088.

2. L. W. Swanson “Cerebral Hemisphere Regulation of Motivated Behavior.” Brain Research 886 (2000): 113–64.

3. F. B. M. de Waal and M. Suchak, “Prosocial Primates: Selfish and Unselfish Motivations,”

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Science 365 (2010): 2711–22.

4. J. B. Peterson and J. Flanders, “Play and the Regulation of Aggression,” in Developmental Origins of Aggression, eds. R. E. Tremblay, W. H. Hartup, and J. Archer (New York: Guilford Press, 2005), 133–57.

5. J. Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1962).

6. F. de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).

7. K. S. Sakyi et al., “Childhood Friendships and Psychological Difficulties in Young Adulthood: An 18-Year Follow-Up Study,” European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 24

(2012): 815–26.

8. Y. M. Almquist, “Childhood Friendships and Adult Health: Findings from the Aberdeen Children of the 1950s Cohort Study,” European Journal of Public Health 22 (2012): 378–

83.

9. All of the adult data here is derived from M. Reblin and B. N. Uchino, “Social and Emotional Support and Its Implications for Health,” Current Opinions in Psychiatry 21 (2009): 201–

2.

10. R. Burns, “To a Louse: On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church,” The Collected Poems of Robert Burns (Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1786/1988), 138.

11. J. B. Hirsh et al., “Compassionate Liberals and Polite Conservatives: Associations of Agreeableness with Political Ideology and Moral Values,” Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin 36 (2010): 655–64.

12. J. F. Fenlon, “Bible Encyclopedias, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Codex Bezae,”

StudyLight.org, www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/tce/c/codex-bezae.html. See also The Catholic Encyclopedia, “Codex Bezae” (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913).

RULE II: IMAGINE WHO YOU COULD BE, AND THEN AIM SINGLE-MINDEDLY AT THAT

1. We have recently discovered, for example, that new experiences turn on new genes, which code for new proteins, which build new structures of mind and body. Novel demands therefore appear to activate biological switches, allowing thoughts and actions once latent to make themselves manifest. For a review, see D. J. Sweatt, “The Emerging Field of Neuroepigenetics,” Neuron 80 (2013): 624–32.

2. From the traditional spiritual “Go Down Moses,” ca. 1850.

3. C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, vol. 12 of Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 323.

4. This set of ideas, as well as the Mesopotamian creation myth, are discussed in detail in my first book, J. B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York: Routledge, 1999).

5. Tablet 7:112, 7:115; A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: Chicago University Press/Phoenix Books, 1965), 58.

6. I. H. Pidoplichko, Upper Palaeolithic Dwellings of Mammoth Bones in the Ukraine: Kiev-Kirillovskii, Gontsy, Dobranichevka, Mezin and Mezhirich, trans. P. Allsworth-Jones (Oxford, UK: J. and E. Hedges, 1998).

7. J. R. R. Tolkien, H. Carpenter, and C. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), letter 25.

8. See Peterson, Maps of Meaning, for an extended discussion of this symbolic world and the reasons for the various equivalencies.

9. I covered this in much more detail in J. B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2018), Rule 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

10. Some of the neuropsychology of this ancient predator-detection system, whose disinhibition produces fight or flight, fear or panic, is detailed in Peterson, Maps of Meaning.

RULE III: DO NOT HIDE UNWANTED THINGS IN THE FOG

1. J. Habermas, Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification, in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, ed. J. Habermas, trans. C. Lenhardt and S. W. Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990).

2. It is of some interest to note that these are all variant meanings or the tohu wa bohu, the chaos out of which God made order, according to the initial verses of the book of Genesis.

Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman and M. Simon, eds., The Midrash Rabbah: Genesis, vol. 1

(London: Soncino Press, 1983), 15.

RULE IV: NOTICE THAT OPPORTUNITY LURKS WHERE RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN

ABDICATED

1. Those who work forty-five hours a week instead of forty (that’s an increase of 13 percent in time) make, on average, 44 percent more money. W. Farrell, Why Men Earn More (New York: AMACOM Books, 2005), xviii.

2. J. Feldman, J. Miyamoto, and E. B. Loftus, “Are Actions Regretted More Than Inactions?,”

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 78 (1999): 232–55.

3. It is for this reason, among others, that the figure of Satan, the Christian representation of evil itself, is in fact a later development of the personality of Set. J. B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York: Routledge, 1999).

4. J. B. Hirsh, D. Morisano, and J. B. Peterson, “Delay Discounting: Interactions Between Personality and Cognitive Ability,” Journal of Research in Personality 42 (2018): 1646–

50.

5. J. Gray, The Neuropsychology of Anxiety: An Enquiry into the Functions of the Septal-hippocampal System (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

6. N. M. White, “Reward or Reinforcement: What’s the Difference?,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 13 (1989): 181–86.

RULE V: DO NOT DO WHAT YOU HATE

1. W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright, eds., Hamlet: Prince of Denmark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 1.3.78, 17.

2. For a critical review, see H. Pashler et al., “Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence,”

Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9 (2008): 105–99.

3. M. Papadatou-Pastou, M. Gritzali, and A. Barrable, “The Learning Styles Educational Neuromyth: Lack of Agreement Between Teachers’ Judgments, Self-Assessment, and Students’ Intelligence,” article 105, Frontiers in Education 3 (2018).

4. V. Tejwani, “Observations: Public Speaking Anxiety in Graduate Medical Education—A Matter of interpersonal and Communication Skills?,” Journal of Graduate Medical Education 8 (2016): 111.

RULE VI: ABANDON IDEOLOGY

1. F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. W. Kaufmann, section 125 (New York: Vintage Books, 1880/1974), 181.

2. F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1880/2011).

3. F. Dostoevsky, The Devils ( The Possessed), trans. D. Magarshack (New York: Penguin Classics, 1872/1954).

4. F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values, trans. A. M.

Ludovici, vol. 14 of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. Oscar Levy (London: T. N. Foulis, 1914), 102–3.

5. See J. Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

6. A very interesting variant of this “Pareto principle” was identified by D. J. de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), who indicated that half the work was done—or half the value accrued—by the square root of the number of people involved.

7. T. A. Hirschel and M. R. Rank, “The Life Course Dynamics of Affluence,” PLoS One 10, no. 1

(2015): e0116370, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0116370. eCollection 2015.

8. F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. W. Kaufman and R. J. Hollingdale, and Ecce Homo, trans. W. Kaufman, ed. W. Kaufman (New York: Vintage, 1989), 36–39.

9. In the USSR, for example, deadly action was taken against those whose parents or grandparents were deemed “class enemies” because of their relative economic prosperity.

See A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, abridged ed. (New York: Vintage, 1973/2018).

10. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, season 3, episode 2, “How to Play the Flute,” October 26, 1972, BBC.

RULE VII: WORK AS HARD AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN ON AT LEAST ONE THING AND SEE

WHAT HAPPENS

1. B. E. Leonard, “The Concept of Depression as a Dysfunction of the Immune System,”

Current Immunology Reviews 6 (2010): 205–12; B. E. Cohen, D. Edmonson, and I. M.

Kronish, “State of the Art Review: Depression, Stress, Anxiety and the Cardiovascular System,” American Journal of Hypertension 28 (2015): 1295–1302; P. Karling et al.,

“Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Hypersuppression Is Associated with Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Major Depression,” Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility 22 (April 2016): 292–303.

2. Failure to inhibit aggression properly from an early age appears to characterize about 15

percent of children. S. M. Côté et al., “The Development of Physical Aggression from Toddlerhood to Pre-Adolescence: A Nation Wide Longitudinal Study of Canadian Children,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 34 (2006): 71–85.

RULE VIII: TRY TO MAKE ONE ROOM IN YOUR HOME AS BEAUTIFUL AS POSSIBLE

1. N. F. Stang, “Kant’s Transcendental Idealism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

(Winter 2018), ed. E. N. Zalta, plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/kant-

transcendental-idealism.

2. E. Comoli et al., “Segregated Anatomical Input to Sub-Regions of the Rodent Superior Colliculus Associated with Approach and Defense,” Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 6 (2012): 9, doi.org/10.3389/fnana.2012.00009.

3. D. C. Fowles, “Motivation Effects on Heart Rate and Electrodermal Activity: Implications for Research on Personality and Psychopathology,” Journal of Research in Personality 17

(1983): 48–71. Fowles actually argued that the heart beats to reward, but also that the safety that beckons in escape from a looming predator was just such a reward.

4. E. Goldberg, and K. Podell, “Lateralization in the Frontal Lobes,” in Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Frontal Lobe, vol. 66 of Advances in Neurology, eds. H. H.

Jasper, S. Riggio, and P. S. Goldman-Rakic (Newark, Del.: Raven Press/University of Delaware, 1995), 85–96.

5. R. Sapolsky, Personal communication with the author, September 11, 2019. I’ve told this story to a few audiences, erroneously substituting zebras for wildebeest. Such are the vagaries of memory. But wildebeest is the correct animal.

RULE IX: IF OLD MEMORIES STILL UPSET YOU, WRITE THEM DOWN CAREFULLY AND

COMPLETELY

1. J. B. Peterson and M. Djikic, “You Can Neither Remember nor Forget What You Do Not Understand,” Religion and Public Life 33 (2017): 85–118.

2. P. L. Brooks and J. H. Peever, “Identification of the Transmitter and Receptor Mechanisms Responsible for REM Sleep Paralysis,” Journal of Neuroscience 32 (2012): 9785–95.

3. J. E. Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (New York: Scribner, 2007).

4. R. E. McNally and S. A. Clancy, “Sleep Paralysis, Sexual Abuse and Space Alien Abduction,”

Transcultural Psychiatry 42 (2005): 113–22.

5. D. J. Hufford, The Terror that Comes in the Night: An Experience-centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989).

6. C. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998).

7. I. Chang, The Rape of Nanking (New York: Basic Books, 1990).

8. H. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (New York: Basic Books, 1981).

9. H. Spiegel and D. Spiegel, Trance and Treatment (New York: Basic Books, 1978).

10. J. B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York: Routledge, 1999).

11. M. Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, trans. W. Trask, vols. 1–3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).

12. See Strong’s Hebrew concordance for the King James Version—a tool that lists all the occurrences of a given word (twenty in nineteen verses in the case of tohuw).

13. H. Zimmern, The Ancient East, vol. 3 of The Babylonian and Hebrew Genesis, trans. J.

Hutchison (London: David Nutt, 1901).

14. E. Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. R. Manheim (New York: Pantheon Books, 1955); E. Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press/Bollingen, 1969).

15. D. E. Jones, An Instinct for Dragons (New York: Psychology Press, 2002).

16. See, for example, Psalm 74, Psalm 104:24–26, and Isaiah 27:1.

RULE X: PLAN AND WORK DILIGENTLY TO MAINTAIN THE ROMANCE IN YOUR

RELATIONSHIP

1. J. Gottman, What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1994).

2. C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, vol. 14 of Collected Works of C. G. Jung, trans. G.

Adler and R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), 407, doi:10.2307/j.ctt5hhr0d.

3. M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951).

4. C. G. Jung, “The Philosophical Tree” in Alchemical Studies, vol. 13 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, trans. G. Adler and R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954/1967), 251–349.

5. C. G. Jung, “Gnosticism as Dealing with the Feminine,” in The Gnostic Jung: Including Seven Sermons to the Dead, ed. S. A. Hoeller (New York: Quest Books, 1982), 114–18.

6. Defined as inability to conceive within one year of trying: W. Himmel et al., “Voluntary Childlessness and Being Childfree,” British Journal of General Practice 47 (1997): 111–18.

7. Statistics Canada, “Common-Law Couples Are More Likely to Break Up,” Canada Year Book 2011, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11-402-X.

8. Excepting, perhaps, in the first year. M. J. Rosenfeld and K. Roesler, “Cohabitation Experience and Cohabitation’s Association with Marital Dissolution,” Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (2018): 42–58.

9. US Census Bureau, 2017. Data represent children living without a biological, step, or adoptive father. Also see E. Leah, D. Jackson, and L. O’Brien, “Father Absence and Adolescent Development: A Review of the Literature,” Journal of Child Health Care 10

(2006): 283–95.

RULE XI: DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BECOME RESENTFUL, DECEITFUL, OR

ARROGANT

1. J. L. Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2004).

2. P. Ekman, Emotions Revealed, 2nd ed. (New York: Holt Paperback, 2007).

3. A. Öhman and S. Mineka, “The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a Prototypical Stimulus for an Evolved Module of Fear,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 12 (2003): 5–9.

4. J. Gray and N. McNaughton, The Neuropsychology of Anxiety: An Enquiry into the Function of the Septo-Hippocampal System (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

5. L. W. Swanson, “Cerebral Hemisphere Regulation of Motivated Behavior,” Brain Research 886 (2000): 113–64.

6. All these ideas find their empirical demonstration in J. B. Hirsh et al., “Compassionate Liberals and Polite Conservatives: Associations of Agreeableness with Political Ideology and Moral Values,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36 (December 2010): 655–

64.

RULE XII: BE GRATEFUL IN SPITE OF YOUR SUFFERING

1. This was covered in detail in Rule 8: Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie, in J. B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2018).

2. I discussed this play previously, both in J. B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York: Routledge, 1999), 319–20, and Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, 148.

3. J. J. Muehlenkamp et al., “International Prevalence of Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Deliberate Self-harm,” Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health 6 (2012): 10–18.

4. J. W. Von Goethe, Faust, trans. George Madison Priest (1806).

5. D. Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

6. Jordan B. Peterson and David Benatar, The Renegade Report, January 9, 2018,

podtail.com/en/podcast/the-renegade-report/jordan-b-peterson-david-benatar.

7. Jesus, on the Cross, quoting the opening words of Psalm 22.

8. I mention this briefly in the Coda to 12 Rules for Life.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Index

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

ability as related to authority, 25

Abraham (biblical), 117–18, 137

abyss, 123, 258, 375

achievements in life, four, 283, 288–89

Adam and Eve, 79n, 334, 348–49

addictions, 351–52

adolescents, 190, 322–23, 328

the adversary

about, 358–59, 361

and genocidal vision, 364

within individuals, 334, 335, 360

logical failings of, 365

aesthetic experience, 91–94. See also beauty

affairs, extramarital, 284–86, 296, 297

agency, personal, 255–56, 342

aggression

of children, 190

human capacity for, 240–41, 252

vulnerability to, 317

aging and old age, 23, 374

aims/aiming

beauty’s influence on, 226

and confrontation of problems, 342

consequences associated with lack of, 117, 184

in democratic systems, 337

at the highest good, 128, 133, 194

and hitting targets, 103, 115

in intimate/domestic relationships, 270, 282

love as ultimate, 344

and mapping your path, 86

and positive emotions, 129

and sense of meaning, 135

strengthening Being with, 370

at trivial goals, 129–30

value accrued by missing, 103–4

at a worthy target, 86–87

alchemists and alchemy, 58–59n, 59–60, 274n

alien abductions, 239

ambition, 26

American system of democracy, 337

anima/animus, 4

animals, 126, 323–24

antinatalism, 361, 362–64

anxiety, 183, 250n

apprenticeship, 192–93, 197

Apsu (Mesopotamian god), 68, 69–70, 74, 258

arguments/fights, domestic, 91–94, 98–100, 291–92, 294

arrogance, 28, 343–47, 349, 352–53

art and artists

abstract art, 224–25

art collection of author, 218–20

buying art, 203

civilizing influence of, 215

cubism, 225

distribution of, 211

and frames bordering paintings, 211

as high risk endeavor, 224

impressionists, 225

influence of, on individuals, 202–3

and museums, 211

non-decorative function of, 225

and politics, 216

and propaganda, 220

role of, 217–18

surrealism, 225

transformation of unknown to knowledge, 214, 216

transformation of urban environments, 214–15

vanguard position occupied by, 215–16

vision/perception of, 208, 209, 210, 225–26

and wisdom of civilization, 202–3

asking, power of, 261

assumptions, 263

attainment, transformation as consequence of, 128–29

attention, 7, 121, 190

audiences at author’s lectures, 157–60

“Auguries of Innocence” (Blake), 208–9

Authoritarian Tyrant persona, 328–29, 332, 333, 334, 336

authority, 19–20, 25–28

Avengers movie franchise, 76

avoidance, 232, 254, 262, 281, 282

beauty

and author’s home, 218–20

and author’s university office, 220–23

central importance of, 226

and the divine, 203–4

establishing a relationship with, 202–4

failure to be present for, 206

and frames bordering paintings, 211

opening oneself up to, 212

See also art and artists

beginner mindset, 18–20, 33, 154, 192

Being

ability to bring evil into, 352

and accepting limitations, 113

adversarial attitudes toward, 362–63, 364

and artists’ visions, 209

and avoiding becoming embittered, 369

bringing the future into, 254

call to strength of, 366

dissatisfaction with, 360

and ethics of our behaviors/choices, 130, 254–55

ground of, as subject and object, 107

love for, 260

and Mephistopheles, 362

and nature, 317

and necessity of the difficult, 113

role of beauty in, 202, 204

strengthening with aims and acts, 370

and superstructure provided by love, 344

uncertainty of, 353

value of, 372

Benatar, David, 361, 362–63

Benevolent Queen/Mother personification, 317, 318, 332, 334

benzodiazepine, xvii–xx, xxi

Beowulf, 75

betrayal of self, 131, 132, 136, 150, 154, 229

bitterness, 368, 369

Blake, William

“Auguries of Innocence,” 208–9

“A Memorable Fancy,” 209–10

“Proverbs of Hell,” 204

boys, ambition of, 26–27

Buddha/Buddhism, 61n, 114, 117, 191

Burns, Robert, 25, 319

Cain and Abel, 334

Captain Hook, 115–16

careers, 284, 288. See also employment and workplace

certainty, search for, 355

change, failure to embrace, 262

chaos

about, xxiv–xxv

Dragon of Chaos, 82, 311–16, 317, 325, 328, 329

heroic confrontation of, 74

and hyperreal meta-world, 84–85

in nature (Evil Queen personification), 313, 317, 319–20, 321, 328, 332, 334

and new ideas, 331

and order, xxiv, xxv, 84–85, 262, 319

and perils of carelessly destroying culture, 70

in pop culture, 319–20

round, 61–64, 66–67 107

serpents as symbolic of, 79n

and six characters comprising the world/life, 334–35

and Tiamat, 69, 70

character, development of, 193

children

abused, 230

as achievements in life, 283

aggression management in, 190

custody battles over, 285

discipline in, 188–92

fear of the dark, 314

focus on the present, 206

friendships of, 23

innate fear of monsters, 314–15

mimicry ability of, 282

parents’ relationship with, 373–74

play of, 14–17, 22–23

poets’ visions of childhood, 207–9, 210, 226–27

and preparing for family life, 192

and process of integration, 189, 191–92

and sharing/reciprocation, 22–23

sheltered/overprotected, 320–21

and stories, 309–10, 311–12

vulnerability of, 373–74

women who don’t want to have, 283–84

chimpanzees, 13, 53

choices, ethics of, 254–55, 256

Christianity

civilizing influence of, 191

and creation story, 257–59

and cross’s symbolism, 75

and overcoming evil, 86

and Ten Commandments, 56–57, 193–96

and tension with tradition illustrated in Gospels, 44–47

See also Jesus Christ

Christmas, 273, 368

cities, artists’ transformations of, 214–15

class, 172

cleaning and beautifying one’s home, 92, 201–2, 218–20

Codex Bezae, 45–46, 45–46n

cohabitation, 286–87

colleagues, 24

Columbine High School shootings, 364

commission, sins of, 97, 343, 344–47, 352

commitment

benefits of, 184–88

consequences associated with lack of, 186–88

to marriage, 276–77, 286, 292

sacrifices made for, 184, 186, 188

transformative power of, 192–93, 197–98

communication

cognitive function of, 3

of desires, wants, and needs, 101–3

of feelings, 104–5

in hierarchical structures, 8, 21

imperative of, 3

in marriage, 270, 292, 301

between peers, 21

with those different from ourselves, 331

communism, 163, 167

compartmentalization, 241, 242, 243–44, 247

competence, 26, 27

competitiveness, 190

conforming to social norms, 29–30

confrontation

avoiding, 91–94

of challenges/difficulties, 341–42, 352

of suffering, 355–56

Confucianism, 191

conscience

alerted by wrongdoing, 131–32

challenges associated with heeding call of, 137

and Holy Ghost, 351

and standing against corruption and tyranny, 148–49

and subjectivity of meaning of life, 166

torments of, 255

consciousness, 181, 304

conservatism and conservatives

and achieving balanced view of world, 333

balancing creative transformation with, 30, 34–36, 37, 47–48

and big government, 333n

caution toward change, 31

and danger of corruption, 36

faith placed in, 168

and maintaining status quo, 332

and new ideas, 331–32

temperamental predispositions to, 30, 331

wisdom of, 337–38

and Wise King perspective of world, 332

containers and their contents, 59, 60–61, 64, 66

corruption, 36, 107, 147–49, 351

courage

act of, as reassuring, 356

in confronting suffering, 355–56

and creation story, 344

exercised in marriage, 271–72, 296, 299–300

faith in humanity based in, 104

of gratitude, 369–70

of heroes and leaders, 76

lacked by overprotected children, 321

and love, 370–71

and Peter Pan, 116

potential for, 341–42

trust as form of, 104, 271

and truthful speech, 259–60

COVID-19 pandemic, xiii–xiv, xx, 377

creation story, biblical, 257–59

creative transformation and revitalization

balancing conservatism with, 30, 34–36, 37, 47–48

danger lurking in, 31, 36

discipline as precursor to, 35

essential role played by, 47

in Gospel accounts, 45–46

and necessity of social constraints, 35–36

and respect for social institutions, 29

and social engagement, 38–41

temperamental predispositions to, 30

See also liberalism and liberals

creativity, 190, 224

crowds, addressing, 160

cubism, 225

culture

art’s central function in, 203

gratitude for, 336

and ideological systems, 330–33

pathology in, 141–49

perils of carelessly destroying, 70

Wise King and Authoritarian Tyrant personas, 328–30

curiosity, xxv, 316n

cynicism, 186, 188, 271

daily routines in marriage, 289–94, 301

damaged people, 295–96

danger, responding to, 60–61

darkness

fear of, 314

relationships as antidote to, 375

understanding of, 357–58

dating

challenges of, 297–98

date nights in marriages, 264–69, 301

by widows/widowers, 287–88

death

and destructive potential of nature, 317

exercising strength in face of, 365–67

and grief, 371–72

overcoming evil through, 85–86

and regeneration of personality, 83

deception, 95–98, 104, 272, 343–50

defense mechanisms, 96

democratic systems, 337

depression, 183–84

Derrida, Jacques, 173

desires, 101–3, 261, 270

destiny, disenchantment as indicator of, 136

diamonds, creation of, 181–82

difficulties in life

avoidance of, 232, 262, 281, 282

developing causal theories for understanding, 263

gratitude in the face of, 372

importance of recollecting and understanding, 229–34

voluntarily confronting sources of, 121–22

difficult tasks, 113

discipline

in children, 188–92

organizing function of, 190

as precursor to creative revitalization and transformation, 35

disease, 317

Disney heroes and stories, 18, 43, 76, 82, 133, 311–12, 319–20

diversity, 143

divinity, 203–4, 345

dogma, 192, 193, 197

dolphins, 53

dopamine, 351

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 162–63, 165

The Possessed, 162–63

dragons and monsters

in the abyss, 123, 258

as the ancient predator, 258

basilisk in Harry Potter book series, 77, 78–79, 80–81, 82

children’s innate fear of, 314–15

confronting conquerable, 112

Dragon of Chaos, 82, 311–16, 317, 325, 328, 329

and hero archetype, 118

Leviathan, 258

in modern films and books, 75–76, 79, 82

in Pinocchio, 311

as representation of chaos and death, 75

slain by St. George, 74–75

in Sleeping Beauty, 312–13

and snake-chasing ancestors, 76

symbolism of, in woodcut, 59, 65–67

threat posed by, 82

Tiamat (Mesopotamian goddess), 69, 258

treasure guarded by, 66, 80, 112, 314, 316, 335, 342

dramas on stage, 84

dreaming, 215, 324–25

drives, 12–13

drugs of addiction, 351–52

easy path, taking, 347–48, 349

economic inequality, 169, 172

education, 184–85, 187–88

ego, 4

Egyptians, ancient, 72–73, 118–23

elderly population, 23, 374

Eliade, Mircea, 71

embalming, witnessing, 326–28

emotions, 15, 104–5, 309–10

employment and workplace

and achievements in life, 288

assuming additional responsibility in, 111–14

and changing jobs, 151–53

expectations for finding satisfaction in, 284

pathological culture in, 141–44, 146

positioning for lateral moves in, 151

and responsibility to not do things you hate, 150–51

risks associated with not choosing, 187

stupid things required in, 144–45

termination from, 151

encouragement, dearth of, 159

enlightenment, 262

Enuma Elish narrative from Mesopotamia, 67–74

environmental concerns/environmentalism, 32, 33–34, 168, 316, 332, 336, 336n

epilepsy, hysterical, 242–43

equality among peers, 21–25

errors, admitting to, 86

ethic

in games and play, 15–16

natural, 10

of our choices, 254–55, 256

euthanization, “merciful,” 364

evangelical Protestants, 37n

Eve and the serpent, 79n

evil

and acceptance of life’s suffering, 75

and conceptualization of Good, 365

constraint of, by life of virtue, 82

knowledge of, in Garden of Eden, 349

motivations for, 303

overcoming, through death/rebirth, 85–86

as personified in Christianity, 360

snakes’ symbolism of, 81

understanding of, 357–58, 363

Evil Queen persona, 312–13, 317–18, 319–21, 328, 332, 334

evolution, 13

Exodus, book of, 56–57, 195

Exodus from Egypt, 54, 56

exploration, 315–16, 315–16n

failures

as lack of single-mindedness, 187

as prerequisite of success, 103–4

and self-contempt, 360–61

faith

in humanity, 104

in oneself, 348–49, 353

families and family life

as achievement in life, 283

and custody battles over children, 285

and familial gatherings, 372–73

gratitude for, 369

value of, 194

See also marriage

Faust (Goethe), 358, 361

fear

of employment termination, 151

as innate, 314–15

of life, 321–28

paralysis/freezing in place from, 77–78, 81, 83

voluntarily confronting sources of, 60–61, 78–79n, 121

and willful ignorance, 100–101

feminism, 168

fights/arguments, domestic, 91–94, 98–100, 291–92, 294

“flip chart” controversy, 141–44, 146

fool, persona of, 18, 154

Foucault, Michel, 173

Freud, Sigmund, 4–5, 95, 164, 171, 243, 244

friendships

of children, 23

critical importance of, 23

in early vs. later life, 288

lack of loyalty exercised in, 187

reciprocation practiced in, 22–25

role of responsibility in, 348

fundamentalists, religious, 173

funerals, exercising strength at, 367

future

bringing into Being, 254

preparing for, 124–27, 131

sacrificing the present for, 206

worrying about, 253

writing about, 250–51n

games, 14–17, 63, 189, 191

Garden of Eden, 79n, 81, 82, 348–49

The Gay Science (Nietzsche), 162

gender roles, traditional, 289–90

Genesis story, 79n, 81, 82, 257–59, 260, 273, 344, 348–49

genocidal actors, 363, 364

ghosts, souls haunted by, 182

Global Language Monitor, 142

goals

changing course with, 86–87

collective determination of, 14–15

establishing a transcendent, 133–34

ethic of behavior in relationships, 130–31

and hamartia (missing the mark), 114–15

and meaning, 133, 134–38

and personal potential, 51–54

in play, 14–15

positive emotions in pursuit of, 129

trivial, 129–30

and value of subjugation to rules, 195

God

and creation story, 257–59

following call of, 137

Mesopotamians’ expectations of, 72

Nietzsche on death of, 161–62

and the Word, 258–59, 344

gold, 62, 62n, 64–65n Golden Rule, 64

the Good, 344

grandchildren, 283

gratitude

about, 17

as alternative to bitterness, 368

beauty’s ability to promote, 204

courage of, 369–70

in the face of life’s catastrophes, 372

for family, 369

and knowledge of darkness, 357–58

and relationships, 374–75

for social institutions, 34

and Thanksgiving holidays, 368–69

Greeks, ancient, 70n

grief, 371–72

hamartia (missing the mark), 114–15

happiness, 127–29, 137

Harry Potter book series

basilisk in, 77, 78–79, 80–81, 82

dark side of Potter in, 80

and Quidditch, 62, 62–63n, 63, 64

rule breaking illustrated in, 41–42, 80, 85

Voldemort in, 18, 80–81, 82

helplessness, 183

heroes

and beginner mindset, 18–19

and confrontation of problems, 343

dark side of, 80–81

emergence of virtuous, 67–76

and following/breaking rules, 41–42, 43, 47

and hyperreal meta-world, 84–85

individuals’ heroic aspects, 334, 335

Marduk’s heroism, 71–74

and responsibility, 118

St. George’s heroism, 74–75

St. Michael’s heroism, 75

St. Patrick’s heroism, 75

in stories, 38

and understanding of seven characters of the world/life, 336

vision and courage in, 76

hierarchical structures

addressing suffering, 25

and beginner mindset, 18–20, 33

class, 172

communication challenges in, 21

function of, 11

in human development, 13

and humility’s role in success, 19–20

negotiation for positions in, 13

in restaurant industry, 19–20

social institutions as, 11

unjust power exercised in, 30

high school shooters, 363, 364

Hinduism, 114, 191

Hitler, Adolf, 167

The Hobbit (Tolkien), 75, 76, 80

Holy Ghost, 350–51

home

aesthetic experience of, 91–94

beautifying one’s, 218–20

cleaning up one’s, 92, 201–2

homicidal actors, 363

hope, distrust in, 100

Horus, 72–73, 120–23

Hufford, David, 239–40

humility

about, 17

as catalyst for personal growth, 19–20

and communication of feelings, 105

and discontent expressed by ideologues, 33

and facing the errors of one’s past, 232

of heroes and leaders, 19

hypothalamus, 315–16, 316n

hysterical epilepsy, 242–43

id, 4

Ideal (comprised of Truth, Courage, and Love), 260

ideals, absence of, 103

identity politics, 149

ideology and ideologues

and assuming personal responsibility, 176–77

and blanket statements about victims and perpetrators, 175

communism, 163, 167

death of, 177–78

and democratic system, 337

and Dostoevsky, 162–63, 165

and generation of ism systems, 168–72

and identification of enemies, 175–76

ideologues’ claim to rationality, 173

and Nietzsche, 162, 163–65, 167–68

overcoming evil of, 86

and ressentiment, 174–75

self-righteous hatred generated by, 176

systems of, 330

temperamental predispositions to, 30, 331–32

and understanding of seven characters of the world/life, 335

and univariate causes ascribed to complex problems, 174

willingness to transform as guard against, 86

and Wise King/Authoritarian Tyrant personas, 332

idiosyncrasies balanced in marriage, 294–95

“I don’t know” phrase, 279–80

ignorance, willful, 100–101

imagination, 53–54

imitation, 53, 83–84

impersonators, 53n

impressionists, 225

inclusivity, 143

indecision, 183, 186

individuality, development of, 189

individuals, heroic and adversarial aspects in, 334, 335

infants, 14

injustice, sense of, 330, 340

instincts, 350

interests, 65, 66

Irises (Van Gogh), 210

Iron Man, 76

irritations, addressing, 90–91

ism systems, generation of, 168–72

Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, 54, 56

Jesus Christ

on asking/seeking, 260–61

on becoming like children, 226

despair during Crucifixion, 362

exchange with scribe about Commandments, 195–96

as ideal balance of masculine/feminine elements, 274

law transcended by, 85

meager circumstances of birth, 19

and phoenix symbolism, 82

relationship with tradition, 44–47, 197

as representation of mastery of dogma, 197

and Satan (duality), 334

star announcing birth of, 133

on unforgivable sin, 350–51

Jewish people, suffering of, 117

Job, book of, 258

John, Gospel of, 193

Jung, Carl, 4–5, 18, 40, 164

justice, sense of, 346–47

justifications, 343–44

Kant, Immanuel, 208

knowledge, unknown as source of, 212–14

Korikov, Andrey, xv, xix, xxi

Korikova, Elizabeth Scarlett Peterson, 6–7, 22, 40–41, 42–43

language

collective determination of, 8, 10–11

creative power of, 258–59

and linguistic fads, 149

and pathological culture, 141–44, 146

pointing as precursor to, 7

and social institutions, 8

transformative potential of, 73

and truthful speech, 259–60

learning

arrogance as barrier to, 28

humility required for, 17

from the past, 229, 340

as remembering, 52–53

learning styles theory, 146

leisure time, 288–89

Leviathan, 258

liberalism and liberals

and achieving balanced view of world, 333

anti-human attitudes of, 33–34

and Authoritarian Tyrant perspective of world, 332, 333

balancing conservatism with, 30, 34–36, 37, 47–48

and changing the status quo, 332

danger lurking in, 31

and environmentalism, 32, 33–34, 168, 316, 332, 336, 336n and functioning vs. non-functioning institutions, 30–31

and government’s role, 333n

moral superiority assumed by, 32–33

and new ideas, 331–32

self-serving criticism of the status quo, 32–34

temperamental predispositions to, 30, 331

unethical radicals among, 31

See also creative transformation and revitalization

light and illumination, 273, 275

limitations

accepting and transcending, 113

loving others because of their, 374

literature, 84

loneliness, 1–4, 23n, 187

The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), 76

love

and courage, 370–71

grief as a reflection of, 372

as ultimate aim, 344

Luke, Gospel of, 44–47, 64, 261

Maleficent, 312–13

malevolence

compartmentalization of, 243–49

confrontation of, 343

consciousness of, as embittering, 363

in oneself, 315, 356

uncomprehended, 249–53

vulnerability to, 358

Marduk, 71, 72, 73, 74, 85

Mark, Gospel of, 193, 195–96

marriage

achievement of, 283

and affairs, 284–86, 297

avoidance in, 91–94, 281, 282

challenges in, 277

commitment to, 276–77, 286, 292

communication in, 270, 292, 301

courage exercised in, 271–72, 296, 299–300

daily routines in, 289–94, 301

and date nights, 264–69, 301

effort required in, 268

ending, 282, 286, 287

and failure to communicate desires, 270

fighting/arguing in, 91–94, 98–100, 291–92, 294

idiosyncrasies balanced in, 294–95

living together prior to, 286–87

making peace in, 278, 282, 288, 292, 294, 296

negotiation in, 270, 277–82, 289–94, 301

repetitive experiences in, 94

and sexual intimacy, 269–70, 296–301

subordination in, 274–75

and Ten Commandments, 194

and treatment of one’s partner, 127

trust exercised in, 271–72, 280

vows of, 276–77, 282, 301

and widows/widowers, 287–88

Marx, Karl, 172–73

Marxism, 173

master, transformation of beginner to, 192–93

materia prima, 59–60

Matthew, Gospel of, 46, 197, 203, 226, 261n, 274, 350, 362

meaning

and goals, 133, 134–38

life-orienting function of, xxvi

and music, 135–36

as reliable guide, 350

and responsibility, xxvi, 114–18, 131, 134–38, 161

as subjective, 166

suffering without, 117

“A Memorable Fancy” (Blake), 209–10

memories

accuracy of, 97–98, 236

compartmentalization of, 242, 243–44, 247

developing causal theories for understanding, 263

of events, 105–8

inability to forget poorly understood, 229–34

of malevolence, 236–42, 243–49

protective function of uncomfortable, 229–30

reframing, 235–36

of sexual abuse, 234–36

and therapeutic writing exercises, 250–51n, 250–52

vital information in negative, 262–63

men

ambition of, 26–27

and demonization of masculinity, 175–76

mental health

and committing to a path, 185

and conforming to social norms, 29

and diagnoses made in busy city clinics, 238–39n

Freudian and Jungian theories on, 4–5, 95–98

role of community in, 5–6

and rules of social games, 28

social feedback loop in, 5–6

and status differences, 28–29

and writing exercises, 32n, 250–51n, 250–52

Mephistopheles, 358–59, 360, 361, 362, 364–65

Mercurius, 67

Mercury, 63–64, 64–65n

Mesopotamian Enuma Elish, 67–74

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, 216–17

millennials, 23n

mimicry, 83–84

mistakes and misbehavior

and failure to embrace change, 262

importance of recollecting and understanding, 229–34

justifications created for, 255

and torments of conscience, 255

monotheism, 71

monsters. See dragons and monsters

morality, 191

Moses (biblical), 19, 54, 56–57

mothers, girls’ imitation of, 83

motivations

hidden, 107

and motivational systems (drives), 12–13, 15

of poorly integrated people, 183

unexamined, 108

murderers, 363

museums, 211

music, meaning produced by, 135–36

nakedness of Adam and Eve, 349

nature

Benevolent Queen/Mother personification, 317, 318, 319

destructive aspects of, 316–17, 332–33, 335, 336

disorder/chaos in (Evil Queen personification), 313, 317, 319–20, 321, 328, 332, 334

dreams as statements from, 324–25

and environmentalism, 168, 316, 332, 336, 336n

and fear of life, 321–28

polarity of, 317–18

reversion to chaos, 313

Nazi Germany, 167–68, 241–42, 364

negotiation in marriage, 270, 277–82, 289–94, 301

nervous system, 12–13

new experiences, exposure to, 52–53, 65

new ideas, 331–32

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 161–62, 163–65, 167–68

The Gay Science, 162

The Will to Power, 162

nihilism, 162, 164, 186, 347, 362

Numbers, book of, 282

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” (Wordsworth), 207–8, 210, 226–27

omission, sins of, 97, 107, 347–49, 352

opportunity

assuming additional responsibility as, 112

cultivation of, for subordinates, 28

searching for, 108

unwillingness to pursue, 51

where responsibility has been abdicated, 121, 131, 138, 160, 191

See also responsibility

optimism, 357

order

and chaos, xxiv, xxv, 84–85, 262, 319

and conservative outlook, 332, 333

and hyperreal meta-world, 84–85

and liberals, 331

pathology in, 141–49

perils of carelessly destroying, 74

Ordinary Men (Browning), 241–42

Osiris, 118–23

outrage as indicator of destiny, 136

palliative care workers, 357

pandemic of 2020, xiii–xiv, xx, 377

Panksepp, Jaak, 16n

paranoia, 176

parents, aging, 374

Pareto distribution, 172

“patriarchal tyranny” claims, 26–27

Paul (biblical), 350–51

peers and equality, 21–25

Pennebaker, James W., 250n

performative contradiction, 96

perpetrators, evil, 175

persecution, 176

Perseus, 75–76

personal growth, role of humility in, 19–20

personality

death and regeneration of, 83, 86, 132

ideal, 29–30, 37, 67

incorporation of darker aspects of, 242

masculine and feminine aspects of, 66–67

of poorly integrated people, 182–84

Rebis symbol for fully developed, 66–67

and value of subjugation to rules, 196

personification, 68–69, 308

pessimism, 357

Peter Pan, 115–16

Peterson, Jordan

art collection of, 218–20

audiences at lectures of, 157–60

depression tendency of, xviii

health issues in 2020, xv–xvi, xvii–xxii, xxiii

home of, 201–2, 218–20

university office of, 220–23

Peterson, Julian, 205–6, 311, 314–15, 373–74

Peterson, Mikhaila, xv, xvi, xviii, xix, xxi, 22, 205–6, 335, 373, 377

Peterson, Tammy

and family walks, 205

health crisis of, xvi–xviii, xix, xxi–xxii, 23–24, 342n phoenix, 82–83

Piaget, Jean, 14, 15

Pinocchio (Disney), 18, 76, 133, 311

plausible deniability, 97

play

of children, 14–17

of rats, 16–17n

rules of fair play, 15–17, 16–17n, 63–64

pleasure, lack of, 183

Pocahontas (Disney), 43

pointing and pointers, 6–8

political correctness, 141–44, 146

polytheism, 71

The Possessed (Dostoevsky), 162–63

possession, 360, 363, 364

postmodernism, 168

potential and possibility

and Dragon of Chaos, 311

failure to achieve, 339

Jesus’ guidance on, 260–61

nature of, 305–6

and new experiences, 52–53

of predators, 315

sense of, 51

as ultimate question of man, 123

unwillingness to pursue, 51

poverty and the poor, 169, 172

power

ambition misidentified as desire for, 26

and authority, 25–28

corruption of, 30

demonized by ideologues, 173, 174, 175

hunger for, 26

and providing opportunities to others, 28

unjust exercise of, 30

predators, 314–15, 316. See also dragons and monsters

pregnancies, 284, 319

present, focusing on, 204–6

pride, 20, 347

problem solving, 9–11, 114

propaganda, art’s ability to shine through, 220

Proverbs, book of, 350

“Proverbs of Hell” (Blake), 204

pseudoscientific theories, speaking out against, 146, 149

psychotherapy, 355–56

purpose, 103, 185

quitting, consequences of, 187, 188

Quora, xxv

The Rape of Nanking (Chang), 242

rationality, ideologues’ claim to, 173

rats, 16–17n

reality, 68–69, 306

Rebis, 66–67

reciprocation, 21–25

relationships

and arguments, 98–100

communication of desires, wants, and needs in, 101–3

ethic of behavior in, 130–31

and gratitude, 374–75

inability to commit to, 187

lack of loyalty exercised in, 187

and particularities of people, 374

termination of, 237

See also friendships; marriage

religion

and emergence of monotheism, 71

and fundamentalists, 173

myth and ritual transformed into, 84

and religious experiences, 166

religious narratives, 37n

and sacrifice trope, 318

remembering, learning as, 52–53

repetitive experiences, 90–91, 94

repression, 95, 96, 97, 189–90, 229

reproduction, 276, 315, 319, 362–64

resentment, 161, 338–44, 346–47, 349, 351

responsibility

abdicated, 131, 136, 138, 160

and accepting challenges, 122

Adam’s refusal of, 349

as antidote to suffering, 134

assigned to humanity by God, 259, 259n

assuming additional, 111–14

and considering the future, 124–27

and ethics of our choices, 254–55

and friendships, 348

and happiness, 127–29

inculcation of, as purpose of society, 161

and meaning, xxvi, 114–18, 131, 134–38, 161

to not do things you hate, 150–51

resonance of idea, 160–61

and sins of omission, 347–48

to stand against corruption and tyranny, 147–49

and taking the easy path, 347–48

ressentiment, 174–75

restaurant industry, 19–20

risk taking, 18, 224

Roberts, Beth, 89–90

Roberts, Dell, 89–90

round chaos, 61–64, 66–67, 107

Rowling, J. K., 18, 41–42, 62–64, 77–83. See also Harry Potter book series rules

breaking, 41–42, 43, 46, 47, 81, 85

of children’s games, 189

of Christianity, 191

communicated through stories, 55–57

and conforming to social norms, 29

and creative transformation, 29, 36, 47

of fair play, 15–17, 16–17n, 63–64

following, 28, 41, 42, 43–44, 46, 47

Gospel narratives discussing, 44–47

and Harry Potter book series, 41–42, 80, 85

heroes’ negotiation of, 41–42, 43, 47

meta-rules, 42

respect for, 43–44, 85

Ten Commandments, 56–57, 193–96

unity that transcends, 195

value of subjugation to, 195–96

sacrifice, 116–17, 186, 318–19

St. George’s heroism, 74–75, 79

St. Michael’s heroism, 75

St. Patrick’s heroism, 75

sanity. See mental health

Sapolsky, Robert, 223

Sauron, 76

schizophrenia diagnoses, 237, 238–39, 238–39n science, 307–8

self, Jungian concept of, 4

Self-Authoring Suite, 32n, 250, 250–51n self-care, moral obligation of, 124–27

self-consciousness, 349

self-contempt, 360–61

self-deception, 95–98, 262, 350

self-harm, 361

self-preservation, 315

self-respect, 134

sensorimotor cells, 12

sentimentality, excessive, 323–24

serial killers, 363

sexual abuse, 234–36

sexuality

of adolescents, 322–23, 328

and sexual intimacy in married life, 269–70, 296–301

shadow, 4, 281

shame, 360–61

sharing, 22

Simba (Disney), 18

sin, 350–51. See also commission, sins of; omission, sins of

slavery, 278, 281

Sleeping Beauty (Disney), 82, 311–12, 319, 320

sleep paralysis, 239–40

snakes

basilisk in Harry Potter book series, 77, 78–79, 80–81, 82

feminine-serpent relationship, 79–80n

in Garden of Eden, 79n

St. Patrick’s banishment of, 75

as symbolic of human evil, 81

See also dragons and monsters

social contract, 6

social institutions

balancing creative transformation with, 47–48

and conforming to social norms, 29–30

distinguishing between functioning and non-functioning, 30–31

gratitude for, 34, 47

as hierarchical structures, 11

and language, 8

problem solving function of, 9–11

self-serving criticism of, 32–34

thoughtless denigration of, 10

socialism, 163, 168

social problems, 169–70, 176–77

Socrates, 52

somatization, 243

“Song of Myself” (Whitman), 211–12

Soviet Union, 163, 167, 219, 220

spirit, 197

status, differences in, 28–29

stories

behavioral norms shared through, 55–58

and children, 309–10, 311–12

communication through, 41, 306–10

as distillations of observed behavior, 55, 57, 84

and emergence of religion, 84

generalizability of, 257

memorable, 309

and personalities, 37–38

reframing, 235–36

unforgettable, 52, 54, 55–58

value of, 37n

wisdom derived from, 257

strength

drawing on, xxii–xxiii

potential for, 341

while facing death, 365–67

subordination in marriage, 274–75

success

demonization of, 174–75

and prerequisite failures, 103–4

suffering

ability and authority required to address, 25

acceptance of life’s, 75

acting nobly in the face of, 356

ameliorating, 356–57

and antinatalism, 361, 362–64

of Christ during Crucifixion, 362

confrontation of, 343, 355–56

consciousness of, as embittering, 363

and destructive potential of nature, 317

and family health crises, xv–xxii

inevitability of, 355

of poorly integrated people, 183

and resentment, 339

as truism in religious thinking, 114

without meaning, 117

worthy goals as antidote to, 134

suicide, 363

superego, 4

surrealism, 225

systems deemed unjust, 174–75

Taoist cosmogony, 70n

Tarot and the Fool, 18, 154

tears, emotions underlying, 281

temperaments, inborn, 30, 331

Ten Commandments given to Moses, 56–57, 193–96

The Terror That Comes in the Night (Hufford), 239–40

Thanksgiving holidays, 368–69

Tiamat (Mesopotamian goddess), 67–68, 69–70, 73, 107, 258

“to hell with it” philosophy, 351–52

Tolkien, J. R. R.

The Hobbit, 75, 76, 80

The Lord of the Rings, 76

totalitarianism

fortifying your position against, 149–51

historical outcomes of, 167

and imbalance of chaos and order, xxiv

move toward, in the West, 147

and Nietzsche, 162, 164

willingness to transform as guard against, 86

tradition

and apprenticeship, 192

Jesus’ relationship with, 44–47, 197

and necessity of the new, 224

and perils of carelessly destroying culture, 70

tragedies of life, 339–40, 341, 367

traumas

developing causal theories for understanding, 263

experiencing malevolence, 236–42, 243–49

inability to forget poorly understood, 229–34

refusal to think through past, 229

sexual abuse, 234–36

somatization following, 243

Tree of Life, 273

tribalism, 191

trust

courage to, 104, 271

in marriage, 271–72

people’s testing of, 280

requirements of, 271–72

willingness to extend, 104–5

truth, 259–60, 272, 344, 350

12 Rules for Life (Peterson), xxv, xxvii, 24, 157–60

tyranny, 147–49, 278, 281

Übermensch of Nietzsche, 164–65, 168

univariate causes ascribed to complex problems, 174

unknown

deeply embedded fear of, 314

as predator, 80

serpents as symbolic of, 79n

as source of knowledge, 212–14

voluntarily confronting sources of, 78n

values

attacked by casual rational criticism, 161–62

communicated through stories, 37

and Nietzsche, 161–65

Van Gogh, Vincent, 210

veganism, 321, 323–24

victimization, sense of, 338–40

victims, innocent, 175

violence, human capacity for, 240–41, 252

Voldemort, 18, 80–81, 82

vulnerability, 348–49

wealth and the wealthy, 172, 175

whales, 311, 335

Whitman, Walt, “Song of Myself,” 211–12

widows/widowers, 287–88

wildebeest, 223–24

willful blindness, 94, 97, 106–7, 119, 121, 320

The Will to Power (Nietzsche), 162

wisdom, 350

Wise King persona, 328–29, 334, 342

women

and careers, 284

and creation story, 273

feminine-serpent relationship, 79–80n

power of rejection held by, 80n

and pregnancies, 284, 319

Wahhabism’s views of, 176n

who don’t want children, 283–84

the Word (Logos), 258, 344

Wordsworth, William, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” 207–8, 210, 226–27

workplace. See employment and workplace

writing exercises, therapeutic, 32n, 250–51n, 250–52

Žižek, Slavoj, 361–62

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

About the Author

Dr. Jordan B Peterson is the bestselling author of 12 Rules for Life, which has sold more than five million copies worldwide. After working

for decades as a clinical psychologist and a professor at Harvard and

the University of Toronto, Peterson has become one of the world’s

most influential public intellectuals. His YouTube videos and podcasts

have gathered a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions, and his

global book tour reached more than 250,000 people in major cities

across the globe. With his students and colleagues, he has published

more than one hundred scientific papers, and his 1999 book Maps of

Meaning revolutionized the psychology of religion. He lives in Toronto, Ontario with his family.

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*It is possible, in fact, to remove the entire brain of a female cat—to take a common example from the scientific literature—excepting the hypothalamus and the spinal cord, and the cat can still maintain itself in relative normality, as long as its environment is reasonably constrained.

Furthermore, it becomes hyperexploratory. That’s truly staggering, in my estimation. Think about it: if you surgically remove 95 percent of a cat’s brain, it cannot stop exploring. You would think an essentially brainless cat would just sit there, but that’s not what happens. The curious part of its brain is still there.

*I am aware, of course, that conservatives also have a proclivity to object to big government, which seems to contradict the fundamental point I am making. But, in Western democracies, that’s primarily because the faith that conservatives manifest in culture is predicated more on the eternal verities of the Constitution and the more permanent elements of government (so Culture with a capital “C”) than on the too variable and too unpredictable whims of whomever might be elected presently, conservative or liberal. Likewise, in the same democracies, the liberals tend to look to government for the solution to the problems that concern them, but that’s because they believe more in the dynamism of the current crop of politicians (particularly, but not only, if they are liberal themselves) and less in the eternal verities of the underlying structure.

*There is little doubt that we create a fair bit of “unnatural” mess while we are doing so (another ideological idea, based as it is on the one-sided view of Nature as the victim of our rapine and greed), but it’s not as if we are doing it for trivial reasons. That’s why I have some sympathy for humanity, as well as for the individuals who compose the mass of humanity, and why I cannot find it in my heart to forgive those who say foolish things such as “the planet would be better off if there were no people on it.” That’s the genocidal element of the radical environmentalist ethos, and it’s a consequence of an ideology that sees only the Adversary, the Authoritarian Tyrant, and the Benevolent Mother as the prime actors of being. It’s something horrible to behold, if you think it through with any degree of depth.

*If I didn’t say it before, I can certainly say it now: I was and remain in constant awe as a consequence of the absolute courage and grace that my wife, for example, manifested in the face of her trials in the first six months of 2019, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer (and perhaps cured). Shame, too . . . because I am not at all convinced that I could have done the same.

*I have modified the accounts drawn from my clinical practice enough to ensure the continuing privacy of my clients while endeavoring to maintain the essential narrative truth of what I am relating.

*“Out of many, one.”

*Even rats understand this. Jaak Panksepp, one of the founders of the psychological subfield called affective neuroscience and an extremely creative, courageous, and gifted researcher, spent many years analyzing the role of play in the development and socialization of rats (see J.

Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], particularly the chapter on play, 280–99). Rats like to play. They particularly enjoy rough-and-tumble play, particularly if they are male juvenile rats. They enjoy it so much that they will voluntarily work—pulling a lever repeatedly, say—to gain the opportunity to enter an arena where another juvenile waits to play. When two juvenile strangers meet for the first time in this situation, they size each other up and then establish dominance. If one rat is only 10 percent larger than the other, he can pretty much win every physical contest, every rat wrestling match—but they still wrestle to find out, and the larger rat almost inevitably pins the smaller. If you were inclined to view the establishment of hierarchy as equivalent to dominance by power, that would be game over. The larger, more powerful rat won. End of story. But that is by no means the end of the story, unless the rats meet only once. Rats live in social environments, and they interact with the same individuals over and over. Thus, the game, once started, continues—and the rules have to govern not so much the single game as the repeating one. Once dominance is established, the rats can play—

something they do in a manner very different from genuine fighting (just like play fighting with a pet dog is very different from being attacked by a dog). Now, the larger rat could pin the smaller rat every time. However, that breaks the rules (really, the meta-rules: those that are observable only over the course of repeated games). The purpose of the repeated game is not dominance, but continuing play. This is not to say that the initial dominance is without significance. It matters, not least in the following manner: When the two rats meet a second time, they will both adopt a unique role. The smaller rat is now duty bound to invite his larger friend to play, and the larger rat is duty bound to accept the invitation. The former will jump around playfully, to indicate his intent. The larger rat might hang back and act cool and a bit dismissive (as is now his prerogative); but if he’s a decent sort he will join in the fun, as in his heart of hearts he truly wants to play. However—and this is the critical issue—if the larger rat does not let the smaller rat win the repeated wrestling matches some substantial proportion of the time (Panksepp estimated 30 to 40 percent of the time), the smaller rat will stop exhibiting invitations to play. It is just not any fun for the little guy. Thus, if the larger rat dominates with power (like a bully), as he could, then he will lose at the highest level (the level where the fun continues for the longest possible time), even while he “wins” more frequently at the lower. What does this imply? Most important, that power is simply not a stable basis upon which to construct a hierarchy designed to optimally govern repeated interactions. And this is not just true for rats. Alpha males among at least certain primate groups are far more prosocial than their lesser comrades. Power doesn’t work for them, either (see F. B. M. de Waal and M. Suchak, “Prosocial Primates: Selfish and Unselfish Motivations,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Science 365 [2010]: 2711–22. See also F. de Waal, The Surprising Science of Alpha Males, TEDMED 2017,

bit.ly/primate_ethic).

*This makes the July 30, 2019, poll from YouGov, “Millennials Are the Loneliest Generation”

(bit.ly/2TVVMLn), indicating that 25 percent have no acquaintances and 22 percent no friends, particularly ominous, if true.

*This is part of the Self-Authoring Suite, a set of individual programs designed to help people write about the troubles of their past (Past Authoring), the faults and virtues of their present personality (Present Authoring, in two parts), and their desires and wishes for the future (Future Authoring). I specifically recommended the latter.

*You can see this played out, for example, in the proclivity of American evangelical Protestants to ask, when faced with a novel existential problem, “What would Jesus do?” It is an easy approach to parody, but indicates precisely the values of stories: Once a narrative has been internalized, it can be used as a template to generate new perceptions and behaviors. It might seem naive or presumptuous to imagine what actions the archetypal Savior Himself might undertake in the confines of a normal life, but the fundamental purpose of religious narratives is in fact to motivate imitation.

*All biblical citations are from the King James Version unless otherwise noted.

*A codex is a book composed of sheets of vellum, papyrus, or most commonly, paper. The term is now generally reserved for manuscripts that have been handwritten, as in the case of the Codex Bezae. The Codex Bezae contains Greek and Latin versions of Acts and most of the four Gospels that are unique in what they additionally include, what they omit, and often, the style in which they are written.

*And don’t think the game can’t be played (isn’t played) in the opposite manner. The same applies for femininity, for example, in too many places in the world: in Arabic, for example, the word awrah denotes the body’s intimate parts, which must be clothed. The term’s root awr means something approximating “weakness,” “imperfection,” or “defectiveness.”

“Nakedness” is the most common English translation. Other meanings include “falseness,”

“artificiality,” or “blindness.” According to the dictionary compiled by Mohammad Moin, a well-known Iranian scholar of Persian literature and Iranian studies, awrah means both

“nakedness” or “shame” and “young woman.” In keeping with this network of ideas, the word awrat, derived from awrah, has been used widely in various Arabic-influenced cultures to signify “woman.” It is for such reasons that women are viewed by those who follow the Wahhabi strand of Islam, for example—ultraconservative, austere, and puritanical—as sufficiently responsible for the evil and temptation of the world that their movements must be drastically and severely restricted, even that they are not allowed to show themselves in any important manner in the public sphere.

*The illness that had destroyed Mikhaila’s ankle, necessitating its replacement, as well as her hip, was also immune related, and my wife had some arthritic symptoms that were similar to hers. I am mentioning this to shed some light on why the assumption of an immune response program sprang to mind and made a certain sense.

*I had taken serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Celexa for nearly two decades, greatly benefiting from their administration, before stopping in early 2016, because a dramatic dietary change seemed to render them unnecessary.

*It may be of some interest to note that this book and its predecessor—although each stands on its own—were also designed jointly to represent the balance they both strive to describe. It is for this reason that (in the English-language versions, at least) the first is bound in white and the second in black. They constitute a matched set, like the Taoist yin and yang.

*My YouTube channel can be found at www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos. My podcast and blog can be accessed at jordanbpeterson.com.

*A word of advice for anyone seeking mental health help in a large city clinic, where the psychiatrist seeing you might take fifteen minutes to assess your life and determine the nature of your illness: do not casually mention any odd experiences or beliefs. You may well live to regret it. It takes very little to accrue a diagnosis of schizophrenia in the conditions that prevail in an overloaded mental health system—and once the diagnosis has been established, it is very hard to shake. It is difficult, personally, not to take a medical description seriously. It is harder than you might think to disbelieve a qualified psychiatrist (who should, after all, know what he or she is talking about), particularly if you are experiencing strange symptoms. It is difficult practically, as well, because once such a diagnosis becomes part of your permanent medical record, it is very difficult to have it modified. Anything out of the ordinary about you will, from then on, attract undue attention (even from yourself), and any displays of normality will be downplayed. Now, I say all that knowing full well that some people who have odd beliefs are in fact schizophrenic—but a fair bit of digging is usually in order to establish that diagnosis, and busy psychiatrists in public hospitals seldom have the time for careful excavation.

*The Past Authoring Program at www.selfauthoring.com. Dr. James W. Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin, and a host of colleagues working directly with him and independently, have demonstrated that writing that reduces existential uncertainty (there’s no simpler general way of putting it) reduces anxiety, improves mental health, and boosts immunological function. All of these effects appear associated with a general decrease in complexity-induced stress and the hormones—harmful in excess—consequentially produced.

Pennebaker demonstrated, for example, that students who wrote for three days, consecutively, about the worst events in their lives experienced, first, a decline in mood (no doubt elicited by calling forth such memories) but significant improvement in their lot over the period of the following months. Other researchers showed similar effects when students wrote about their future. Pennebaker initially assumed that it was something akin to emotional expression, or catharsis (following Freud), that produced these positive effects—the opportunity to express anger or regret or sorrow—but found, as the result of a careful semantic analysis, that it was the development of a cognitive and causal understanding of the reason for the events and their significance that was curative. The effects of writing about the future seemed similar, in that the plans thereby generated reduced uncertainty and put forward a simpler and more well-defined structure around what might otherwise have been the intolerably unspecified looming weeks and months ahead. For a review, see J. W. Pennebaker and J. F. Evans, Expressive Writing: Words That Heal (Enumclaw, Wash.: Idyll Arbor Inc., 2014).

*Responsibility, stewardship, service; not from physical strength (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges); the power of governing and controlling; but most important, the same dominion as God has over or for man.

*Perhaps it is for this reason that Christ insists “it is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (In this instance I prefer Matthew 4:7 of the New International Version to the same verse in the King James Version.)

*Consider the professional impersonator. He or she doesn’t necessarily copy the precise behaviors, movement for movement, of those being impersonated, but the spirit—what’s common across all the behaviors of the target celebrity. The same is true when children play at being adults. It’s the spirit they’re after, not the individual behaviors.

*Alchemy—the search for the philosopher’s stone, an artifact that would transform base metals into gold, as well as rewarding its bearer with health and immortality—was practiced for thousands of years by the misfits, mystics, magicians, and prescientific practitioners who took the first fantastical steps toward establishing what eventually became genuine science. As alchemy developed, however, the “stone” eventually became conceptualized as something more akin to a personality than a material object, as the alchemists increasingly realized that the development of the psyche was a more important pursuit than mere gold itself. I wrote about this in J. B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (New York: Routledge, 1999), which contains the relevant references to the work on alchemy conducted by Jung and his students.

*We’re going to approach the picture from the very bottom upward, as if each element were emerging from the lower. Images of this type (and they are a type) often represent a process of psychological or spiritual development or growth, and appear to employ the basic symbolism of a plant or a tree extending itself upward as it matures. Something similar can be observed in Eastern images of the Buddha, emerging from a lotus flower floating on the surface of placid water, with its stalk extending into the murky deep underneath and its roots grounded far, far below even that, into the mud that composes the lowest level of the depths.

*As gold is both rare and unwilling, so to speak, to combine promiscuously with other elements or compounds.

*It is of some real interest to note—particularly in relationship to the discussion of the dangers of creativity presented in Rule I—that the Seekers chase the Snitch both inside and outside the playing field that provides boundaries for all the other players. While outside, they can careen through the wooden foundation of the Quidditch stadium. This would not be a problem, if they weren’t simultaneously being chased by a Bludger, a solid, massive, flying ball capable not only of knocking them off their brooms, but of crashing through and seriously damaging that same structure. If they succeed in catching the Snitch, as we have indicated, they generally attain victory. But they risk damaging the very foundations of the game while doing so—just as creative people do when they pursue their innovative yet disruptive visions.

*It is also of great interest to note, in this regard, that the metal mercury can be used in the mining and purification of gold. Gold dissolves in mercury, and mercury can, therefore, be used to draw out the small amounts of the precious metal typically found in ores. The mercury is then boiled off (it has a low boiling point) so that only the gold remains. The proclivity of mercury for gold has given rise to the symbolic idea that the liquid metal has an “affinity” for what is most precious: that mercury will seek what is noble and pure and incorruptible—like gold itself, speaking symbolically once again—and concentrate it in usable amounts. So, the fundamental idea is that the pursuit of meaning, guided by Mercury, messenger of the gods (the unconscious, as far as modern people are concerned), will enable the Seeker to collect what is, like gold, of the highest value. For the alchemists who created drawings like the one we are analyzing, that highest value came to be the ultimate development of the psyche, or spirit, or personality.

*This is part of the reason science developed so long after religion and ritual—so incredibly recently, and by no means everywhere at once.

*Furthermore, in the mythological world, unlike the objective, logical world, things can be one thing and their opposite at the same time. And this representation in the mythological world is more accurate than the objective, in the experiential manner described previously: Nature, for example, is Creator and Destroyer, just as Culture is Protector and Tyrant. It might be objected: Nature and Culture are not singular things. They can be differentiated, so that their paradoxical components are separated, understood, and dealt with. This is all true: but the paradoxical components are often experienced simultaneously and so unified. This occurs when anyone is betrayed, for example, in a love affair. Beast and man, Medusa and beloved woman are often united experientially in the same hypothetically unitary figure. This can be a terrible discovery when made in real life.

*The same idea is expressed in Taoist cosmogony, when the yin and the yang differentiate themselves into the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. The ancient Greeks believed, similarly, that Earth and Sky (Gaia and Uranus) gave birth to the Titans, elemental deities of great strength and power.

* E pluribus unum.

*Ea makes man from the blood of Kingu, the most terrible of Tiamat’s monsters. A bright graduate student and later colleague of mine once suggested that this was because of all God’s creatures, only man could deceive; only man could voluntarily bring evil and discord into the world.

*It has been known for decades, explicitly (and forever, implicitly) that self-initiated confrontation with what is frightening or unknown is frequently curative. The standard treatment for phobias and anxiety is therefore exposure to what is feared. That treatment is effective—but the exposure must be voluntary. It is as if the anxiety systems of the brain assume that anything that is advanced upon must not be a predator (or, if it is a predator, it is the sort that can be easily kicked to the side and defeated). We now know that even the emotional and bodily response to stress differs completely when that stress is voluntarily faced rather than accidentally encountered. In the latter case, the threatened individual tenses up and readies him or herself defensively (see M. D. Seery, “Challenge or Threat? Cardiovascular Indexes of Resilience and Vulnerability to Potential Stress in Humans,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 35 [2011]: 1603–4). That can become the chronically unhealthy posture of someone turned to stone. In the former case, the individual takes on the role of probable victor, and advances forthrightly. Such actions are indeed what has always saved humanity from the terrors of the night (and the evil lurking in the human heart). Our continual observation of that fact, over millennia, is what allowed us to represent it, abstractly, in our great religious stories, and then to imitate it, within the confines of our particular and unique life.

*This is at least in part because you are very unlikely to have already looked there, even though it would have been useful to do so.

*Something must be further clarified here. I made the case in the Overture, in Rule I, in 12

Rules for Life, and in Maps of Meaning that chaos tends to find its representation in symbolic form as feminine—but here I am talking about chaos, in serpentine guise. I can explain this by elaborating on my explanation about the alchemical picture we discussed earlier—by reading it from the top down, however, this time. The more profound the threat—the deeper the chaos

—the more likely that it will represent itself as mankind’s most ancient enemy, the serpent.

Perhaps it can be thought of like this: the unknown unknowns—those elements of being that are foreign and dangerous beyond imagination, and whose manifestation can kill or destroy psychologically—are those most likely to be represented in serpentine form. Out of this domain, which is in some important sense even more fundamental than sex itself, emerges the primordial feminine and masculine, although it seems that the feminine nonetheless retains a more primary connection with the fundamental unknowable itself. I think this has to do primarily with the absolute mystery of birth: with the relationship between the emergence of new forms from the feminine and the emergence of new forms from the absolutely unknown.

It is perhaps something of this sort that accounts for the primacy of the relationship between the snake in the Garden of Eden and Eve, rather than between the snake and Adam. Perhaps, as well (and I am speculating wildly here, trying to move beyond my ignorance, trying to account for the clear and omnipresent symbolic relationship), it has forever been the case that females attract snakes (as well as other dangerous predators), most particularly when they are taking care of their young, and that the heightened danger they therefore face has burned the danger of the feminine in relationship to the serpentine forever in our imagination. This would imply that the decision to take on a relationship with a female brings with it increased exposure to the terrible unknown (something that seems clearly true in the case of all the threats that are faced by children), as perhaps does the fact of being female itself. Now the female is also a rejecting force (particularly among humans, where the females are very choosy maters [see, for example, Y. Bokek-Cohen, Y. Peres, and S. Kanazawa, “Rational Choice and Evolutionary Psychology as Explanations for Mate Selectivity,” Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology 2 (2008): 42–55]). That holding of the power of ultimate rejection makes Nature in all its cruelty (and, it must be said, wisdom). Perhaps that is also a nontrivial contributor to the feminine-serpent relationship.

*The motto of the British Special Air Service.

*I have obtained direct express permission from my client to communicate all this information in this manner.

*Perhaps not just once, because that makes your reaction too impulsive; perhaps not just twice, because that still may not constitute sufficient evidence to risk undertaking what might be a genuine war; but definitively three times, when a pattern has been clearly established.

*The same idea emerged constantly in the centuries of alchemical literature, which tended overwhelmingly to represent the perfect person (the possessor, in a spiritual or psychological sense, of the philosopher’s stone) as a consequence of the mystical marriage between the feminine and masculine elements of the psyche. We discussed this in some detail in Rule II: Imagine who you could be and aim single-mindedly at that, with regard to the figure of the Rebis.

* P eter Pan, Act III, gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300081h.html.

* P eter Pan, Act V, scene 2 (closing paragraph), gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300081h.html.

*I provided an extensive analysis in my first book, Maps of Meaning, as well as mentioning it in 12 Rules for Life, Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).

*So that’s 1,000 pictures of paintings x 300 days per year x 4 = 1,200,000 paintings. That has to be some sort of record (not that it matters, but it’s comical to consider), mostly because I do not think it would have been possible to see that many paintings before internet technology made massive databases possible.

Document Outline

Also by Jordan B. Peterson

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Table of Illustrations

A Note from the Author in the Time of the Pandemic

Overture

Rule I: Do Not Carelessly Denigrate Social Institutions or Creative Achievement

Loneliness and Confusion

Sanity as a Social Institution

The Point of Pointing

What Should We Point To?

Bottom Up

The Utility of the Fool

The Necessity of Equals

Top Dog

Social Institutions Are Necessary—But Insufficient

The Necessity of Balance

Personality as Hierarchy—And Capacity for Transformation

Rule II: Imagine Who You Could Be, and Then Aim Single-Mindedly at That

Who Are You—And Who Could You Be?

The Emergence of the Unforgettable

Materia Prima: Who You Could Be (I)

Polytheism into Monotheism, and the Emergence of the Virtuous Hero: Who You Could Be (II)

Hero, Dragon, Death, and Rebirth: Who You Could Be (III)

How to Act

Rule III: Do Not Hide Unwanted Things in the Fog

Those Damned Plates

Just Not Worth the Fight

Corruption: Commission and Omission

What Is the Fog?

Events and Memories

Rule IV: Notice That Opportunity Lurks Where Responsibility Has Been Abdicated

Make Yourself Invaluable

Responsibility and Meaning

Rescue Your Father: Osiris and Horus

And Who Might That Be?

Happiness and Responsibility

Pick Up the Extra Weight

Rule V: Do Not Do What You Hate

Pathological Order in Its Day-To-Day Guise

Fortify Your Position

Practicalities

Rule VI: Abandon Ideology

The Wrong Places

Perhaps He Is Only Sleeping

The Fatal Attraction of the False Idol

Ressentiment

Rule VII: Work as Hard as You Possibly Can on at Least One Thing and See What Happens

The Value of Heat and Pressure

The Worst Decision of All

Discipline and Unity

Dogma and Spirit

Rule VIII: Try to Make One Room in Your Home as Beautiful as Possible

Cleaning Your Room Is Not Enough

Memory and Vision

The Land You Know, the Land You Do Not Know, and the Land You Cannot Even Imagine

One Room

Not Decoration

Rule IX: If Old Memories Still Upset You, Write Them Down Carefully and Completely

But Is Yesterday Finished with You?

Do Not Fall Twice into the Same Pit

Possessed by Ghosts

Uncomprehended Malevolence

Potential into Actuality

The Word as Savior

Rule X: Plan and Work Diligently to Maintain the Romance in Your Relationship

The Unbearable Date

Bedrock

Christ in the Candle

Negotiation, Tyranny, or Slavery

The Domestic Economy

Finally: Romance

Rule XI: Do Not Allow Yourself to Become Resentful, Deceitful, or Arrogant

The Story Is the Thing

The Eternal Characters of the Human Drama

Nature: Creation and Destruction

Culture: Security and Tyranny

The Individual: Hero and Adversary

Resentment

Deceit and Arrogance

The Existential Danger of Arrogance and Deceit

The Place You Should Be

Rule XII: Be Grateful in Spite of Your Suffering

Down Can Define Up

The Mephistophelian Spirit

Courage—But Superordinate, Love

Coda

Notes

Index

About the Author