Episode 17 Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life

In our second Jordan Peterson episode, we look more closely at his bestselling new book, 12 Rules for Life. Our epigraph is from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding.” We go rule by rule, looking at the main thrust of each and the repeated themes that emerge.

Peterson’s book is far from a standard self-help book. It ranges from practical advice on breaking negative cycles to a ringing call for heroism in the face of nihilistic despair. It’s how to make the world a little more like Heaven and a little less like Hell.

Show notes:

As always, read it for yourself. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Our epigraph from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” (part of The Four Quartets):

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always–
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.