Month: March 2021

Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Assume that the Person You’re Listening to Might Know Something You Don’t

Kyle

Note: This is a repost of a blog series that I started in January 2018. Because this was prior to the blog being syndicated on PeakD, and it was some of my most-viewed content on the old blog. I’m going to be editing these slightly, but I’m also going to be adding my own thoughts as I re-read what I wrote. You can find the original post here.

For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link).

One of the things that Peterson notes of many of his patients is that they are profoundly lonely; this, of course, is not necessarily surprising: people who pursue a clinical psychologist tend to do so only after exhausting all other options (which is a shame, and not universal across cultures and personality types, but I’m going to avoid going too far into my opinion on the importance of having someone trustworthy for counsel).

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 5: Do not do what you hate. (Part 2)

Kyle

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I just finished the first half of the chapter dedicated to the fifth rule, and this is the second part to follow it.

As I mentioned previously, this is a shorter chapter, but I think there’s a lot to discuss so I broke it down in two parts. Right now part of the section that this overview covers is the excerpt over on the Beyond Order Amazon store page, and I’m willing to bet that they chose it as an exemplar because it’s a very interesting and powerful piece.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Tell the Truth– Or, At Least, Don’t Lie (Part 2)

Kyle

Note: This is a repost of a blog series that I started in January 2018. Because this was prior to the blog being syndicated on PeakD, and it was some of my most-viewed content on the old blog. I’m going to be editing these slightly, but I’m also going to be adding my own thoughts as I re-read what I wrote. You can find the original post here.

For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link). This overview focuses on his chapter about avoiding lies. Check out the first part if you missed it.

The chapter has focused on the reasons to avoid lying, and Peterson makes a bold but intriguing claim that’s worth exploring on its own.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 5: Do not do what you hate. (Part 1)

Kyle

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I just finished the chapter dedicated to the fourth rule.

Even though this is a much shorter chapter, I’m continuing my practice of splitting each chapter into halves for the sake of analysis. This should be fine, because there’s a lot to think about in this chapter.

In fact, this chapter has something of an intimate connection to me because I think that this, above all, is one of Peterson’s teachings that I latched on to from previous exposure to his lectures and it’s interesting to see him expand on it.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Tell the Truth– Or, At Least, Don’t Lie (Part 1)

Kyle

Note: This is a repost of a blog series that I started in January 2018. Because this was prior to the blog being syndicated on PeakD, and it was some of my most-viewed content on the old blog. I’m going to be editing these slightly, but I’m also going to be adding my own thoughts as I re-read what I wrote. You can find the original post here.

For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link). Peterson’s approach to truth-telling at first seemed to echo Kant, but as I read deeper I learned it was more nuanced (and perhaps more far-reaching than even Kant’s categorical imperative).

Early in this chapter, Peterson includes an anecdote from his time in a clinical preparation program. When a resident at a mental health facility asked where his cohort of students was going and if they could come with, Peterson had to come up with a response.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 4: Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. (Part 2)

Kyle

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I just finished the first half of the chapter dedicated to the fourth rule, and this is the second part to follow it.

I felt somewhat disconnected as I went through the second half of this chapter. I don’t know if it’s Peterson’s fault or the fact that I had too much on my plate last week and I’ve been writing these sections a few days after I read, so almost a whole week had passed between reading the first half of this chapter and the second.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Pursue What is Meaningful, Not What is Expedient

Kyle

Note: This is a repost of a blog series that I started in January 2018. Because this was prior to the blog being syndicated on PeakD, and it was some of my most-viewed content on the old blog. I’m going to be editing these slightly, but I’m also going to be adding my own thoughts as I re-read what I wrote. You can find the original post here.

For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link). This chapter, covering Peterson’s seventh rule, builds heavily on previous chapters and helps combine a lot of the previous ideas together.

As I’ve said a couple times before, this isn’t a review. I’m just using this post as a way to reflect on what I’ve read and commit it to memory (though readers are more than welcome to use it to pique their interest in the book or compare it to their own findings). A full review should be coming once I finish the book.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 4: Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. (Part 1)

Kyle

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I just finished the second half of the chapter dedicated to the third rule, and now I’ve gotten into the fourth rule.

As usual, Peterson builds elegantly on previous concepts and ideas when he moves into the next section, but I found this chapter to be much more in a different vein than the others. The mythological analogies are familiar if you’ve read Maps of Meaning, but he moves into Abraham and Horus as his focal points for this chapter.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World

Kyle

Note: This is a repost of a blog series that I started in January 2018. Because this was prior to the blog being syndicated on PeakD, and it was some of my most-viewed content on the old blog. I’m going to be editing these slightly, but I’m also going to be adding my own thoughts as I re-read what I wrote. You can find the original post here.

For those of us just joining me, I’ve been reading Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Amazon Affiliate link).

Peterson subtitles this chapter “A Religious Problem” and takes it in directions that you wouldn’t expect. It’s particularly interesting (if interesting is the right word) to me because yesterday when I arrived home I heard of a shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and staff at a school dead.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 3: Do not hide unwanted things in the fog. (Part 2)

Kyle

I’ve been breaking down the chapters of Beyond Order by doing a deep dive on each half of the chapter, but I’m going to start off today by rehashing some stuff from yesterday that I couldn’t quite get around to in the time I had.

Near the end of the first part of this reflection (read here), I was talking about the role of self-deception and how that process works, and how one can achieve essentially infinite self-deception by achieving a feedback loop of conscious and unconscious actions that contribute to life in unreality.

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