Deep Dives

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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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Do Not Let Your Children Do Anything That Makes You Dislike Them

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).

Rule 5 is the first rule of Jordan Peterson’s that is going to force you to look outside yourself. Where the first four rules all deal with self-improvement and self-concept, the fifth rule is no less centered on reflection and analysis, but requires a different approach.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 3: Do not hide unwanted things in the fog. (Part 1)

Kyle

Continuing my series on Beyond Order, I’m going over the first half of the chapter containing the third rule. You can read the previous part here. I’ve been breaking down the chapters into halves so that I can give a deep overview of my thoughts on each and not become overwhelmed by length while doing so, but this is a shorter chapter.

I think it’s also part of Peterson’s theories of the mind that he’s never explained this way before, though I’ve heard similar theories from other people and it’s loosely tied to his idea that you should give problems names. There’s a distinct twist on that idea in this chapter, though.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday

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).

Rule 4 of Jordan Peterson’s book involves comparing yourself against yourself rather than against other pressures. This is not something that is uncommon; it’s been found in a lot of self-help advice, but Peterson’s approach either came across clearer or otherwise had a different approach than the other ways I’ve heard it said. I’ve also been listening to Stephen R. Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People on Audible (Amazon affiliate links), and it said something very similar in one of its chapters, so that’s an indication that it could be on me; then again, Covey claims to be more “old-school” than most (in that he rejects some of the trends of the 20th century, a trend Peterson shares).

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 2: Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that. (Part 2)

Kyle

Continuing my series on Beyond Order, I’m going over the second half of the chapter containing the second rule. You can read the previous part here. I didn’t do a great job at actually breaking the chapter down equally, so I actually just have like a third of the chapter in this deep dive, but it was a part of the text that I highlighted pretty heavily as I went through because it was interesting.

This part of Beyond Order draws heavily on Peterson’s Maps of Meaning (both Amazon affiliate links), though it also treads new grounds. I’m not sure how much of this stems from Peterson’s recent experiences and how much of it comes from a different analytical lens toward his source material, but I enjoyed this chapter more than any other part of Peterson’s writing except perhaps portions of Maps of Meaning.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Make Friends With People Who Want the Best For You

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).

After reading this chapter, it should be of little surprise why Peterson is appealing to the burned out youth of the Millennial generation. After all, growing up in a small town with little future other than a vague promise of “leaving”, and watching many of his friends with even less possibilities will naturally resonate with the disaffected.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order Rule 2: Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that. (Part 1)

Kyle

Yesterday I did an exploration of the first chapter of Beyond Order, Jordan Peterson’s follow-up book to 12 Rules for Life. You can read it here. I’ve made the executive decision that in the future I’m probably going to split each of these into two parts, because I have a lot of other things that I need to be focusing on simultaneously and part of the point of this series is to take a deep dive into the book. Also, WordPress was slowing down as I was wrapping up yesterday, which turned the writing process a tad painful.

I’m reading the Kindle version (Amazon affiliate link), and I’ve been enjoying the experience. I’m not sure what exactly it is, but it seems like the layout and formatting of Beyond Order was done to a much higher standard than most other Kindle books in a way that I can’t quite explain. It’s slick on my tablet.

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Revisiting 12 Rules for Life: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping

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). The second chapter focuses on self-care, and provides some interesting insights and information, plus a lot of actionable advice.

The second chapter of Peterson’s work is engaging. I certainly enjoyed it more than the first, though I also am a fan of archetypes, and the Judeo-Christian imagery in the chapter resonated well with me (I know from looking at Amazon reviews that this is not universally the case).

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