https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=14jAAiE-U8E
One of the things I learned, really a lot from reading Russian neuropsychology, strangely enough, the Russians had great neuropsychologists, was that the sense of meaning, the sense of engagement that characterizes life when life is progressing in the manner that you would like it to progress, is actually an instinct. It’s not a cognitive phenomenon. It’s not a second order consequence of thought. It’s way deeper than that. It’s an extraordinarily profound instinct. And so that’s really worth thinking about, assuming, you know, as you might, that we’re adapted creatures and that our instincts guide us in the world so that we can survive and so that we can reproduce and so that we can exist over long periods of time. The fact that an instinct of that depth exists and that it’s associated with the sense of vital engagement in being, let’s say, is a good indication, as good an indication as there is, that there’s something truly real about it. And I would say that might even be more important than the knowledge of the role that the serotonin system plays in adjudicating hierarchical position. Because, you know, we tend to think of meaning as something that people create as a secondary consequence through thinking or through philosophy or something like that. And when we think that, it’s easy to criticize it. It’s easy to become cynical about it. It’s easy to lose faith in it. But when you understand that it actually is a much deeper phenomenon than that, and that the cognitive elements, the philosophical elements, are sort of like, well, they’re like the fronds on the top of the pond on a plant system that has unbelievably deep roots that go way down into the water. It’s much, it’s much, there’s something about that that’s much firmer and more solid. And I think that, I think the evidence that meaning is an instinct, a deep, deep instinct, is overwhelming. I don’t think that popular knowledge has caught up with that. I mean, the research is, it’s not new, but it’s been done, I would say, in the main in the last 30 years or so, and mostly by psychobiologists, like people who are really on the hard science end of psychology. And their work is difficult. It’s technically difficult. It involves a lot of neurobiology, neuroanatomy, psychopharmacology. It’s hard work. It’s hard going. But it’s unbelievably useful. I have two books in my reading list, by the way, at jordanbpeterson.com. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, one is by a man named Jak Panksepp, who is an absolute genius. He died a few years ago, unfortunately. I think he deserved a Nobel Prize, and you never know, maybe he’ll still get one. Because he discovered whole circuits, mammalian circuits, that no one knew existed. So, for example, Panksepp outlined a play circuit in mammals. There’s a separate biological play circuit in mammals. It’s a big deal to discover an entire new neurological continent, right? That’s a big discovery. And that wasn’t all he did. It was one of many things he did. So, the book is called Affective Neuroscience, which is a rather intimidating title. It means emotional neuroscience. And you wouldn’t think you’d necessarily pick up a book on neuroscience, you know, for a light read. But it’s actually a very readable book. People who work on emotions in neuroscience tend to be a little bit more romantic for scientists. And they’re a little more interested in story and narrative. So, he tells a whole sequence of stories in Affective Neuroscience, and it’s a very readable book. And it’s a great book. If you’re interested in psychology, I would highly recommend it. And then there’s another book there called The Neuropsychology of Anxiety, which is written by a man named Jeffrey Gray. And that damn thing, that’s hard. That’s like a six-month slog, that book. I mean, he was an absolutely… He had an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and neurobiology and psychopharmacology. And I don’t know how many references are in that book. 2400, something like that. And he read them. You know, he didn’t just cite them. And not only did he read them, he also understood them and integrated them. And so, it’s a tough read. But man, I tell you, there’s really something to that. So, a lot of what I’m going to talk to you about tonight, although not all of it, is derived from those books. And so, I would recommend them if you’d like to go more deeply into these sorts of topics. And so, that’s rule seven. Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Because meaning is an instinct. And meaning is the instinct that guides you in life across the totality of life, right? What’s expedient, that’s what you might want to do right now, in an impulsive sense, right? Because you’re driven forward by, oh, anger or anxiety or frustration or disappointment or despair. Some sort of one-eyed motivational monster that’s got you in its grip, that really isn’t considering everything at once, right? Like considering your life tomorrow or your life next week or your family’s life or maybe even your well-being half an hour from now, you know? Because you lash out in anger and it’s, you know, people do that, it’s understandable. Sometimes it’s even necessary, but it’s not wise, generally. And the instinct for meaning seems to be a consequence of the integration of all of those underlying motivations and emotions with social being. And then the manifestation of something like the proper pathway forward. And so, and you need that because you need to know how to move forward in life because you need to move forward in life. You need to act in life. And the other thing that’s, I suppose, part and parcel of, let’s say, 12 rules for life is the insistence upon action as of primary import. We’re not fundamentally creatures who passively perceive the objective world. That’s not the goal of our perceptual systems. It’s not the goal of our memory. The reason that you have memories isn’t to remember the past. The reason you have memories is so that if something bad happened to you in the past, you can figure out what it was that was bad. And you can figure out why it happened. And then you cannot do it again in the future, right? It’s very practical. And it’s the same on the positive end of the spectrum. If good things happened to you in the past, then conceivably duplicating whatever you did to get those good things to happen could have them happen again in the future. So it’s practical memory. And it’s oriented towards action. And it’s oriented towards, like, the quality of your life, not to the description of the objective world, even though that may be a useful thing to do, at least under some circumstances.