12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

by Jordan B. Peterson

Is this something scary? Something useful? Something that must be fought? Something that can be ignored? How will we determine this—and when? We don’t know. Now we are in a costly and demanding state of readiness.

Her last place of bedrock security was in fact not stable, not certain—not bedrock at all. Her house was built on a foundation of sand. The ice she was skating on was simply too thin. She fell through, into the water below, and is drowning. She has been hit so hard that her anger, terror and grief consume her. Her sense of betrayal widens, until the whole world caves in. Where is she? In the underworld, with all its terrors.

This is perception before the chaos of possibility is re-articulated into the functional realities of order.

There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon, by Jack Kent,

Mom, eyes reluctantly opened by this point, asks somewhat plaintively why it had to get so big. Billy quietly suggests: “maybe it wanted to be noticed.”

Everything untidy is swept under the rug, where the dragon feasts on the crumbs. But no one says anything, as the shared society and negotiated order of the household reveals itself as inadequate, or disintegrates, in the face of the unexpected and threatening. Everybody whistles in the dark, instead. Communication would require admission of terrible emotions: resentment, terror, loneliness, despair, jealousy, frustration, hatred, boredom. Moment by moment, it’s easier to keep the peace. But in the background, in Billy Bixbee’s house, and in all that are like it, the dragon grows.

Then it’s an affair, or a decades-long custody dispute of ruinous economic and psychological proportions.

There’s no ark, because no one built one, even though everyone felt the storm gathering.

Don’t ever underestimate the destructive power of sins of omission.

Maybe the physical intimacy they undoubtedly shared should have been matched, as it often is not, by a corresponding psychological intimacy.

many households, in recent decades, the traditional household division of labour has been demolished,

The escape from tyranny is often followed not by Paradise, but by a sojourn in the desert, aimless, confused and deprived.

there exist only three difficult options: slavery, tyranny or negotiation.

negotiation—that requires forthright admission on the part of both players that the dragon exists. That’s a reality difficult to face, even when it’s still too small to simply devour the knight who dares confront it.

Maybe they could have done that instead of saying, in the agreeable, lazy and cowardly way: “It’s OK. It’s not worth fighting about.”

There is little, in a marriage, that is so little that it is not worth fighting about.

Do you really want the same petty annoyance tormenting you every single day of your marriage, for the decades of its existence?

“Oh, I can put up with it,” you think. And maybe you should. You’re no paragon of genuine tolerance.

maybe the fault is with you, and you should grow up, get yourself together and keep quiet.

Under such circumstances, there is nothing but a fight—a fight with peace as the goal—that will reveal the truth. But you remain silent, and you convince yourself it’s because you are a good, peace-loving, patient person (and nothing could be further from the truth). And the monster under the rug gains a few more pounds.

Perhaps madame desired the death of intimacy, clandestinely, because she was deeply and secretly ambivalent about sex.

Perhaps monsieur was a terrible, selfish lover. Maybe they both were.

Sorting that out is worth a fight, isn’t it? That’s a big par...

Maybe it wasn’t sex. Maybe every conversation between husband and wife had deteriorated into boring routine, as no shared adventure animated the couple.

Living things die, after all, without attention. Life is indistinguishable from effortful maintenance.

In truth, what you need—what you deserve, after all—is someone exactly as imperfect as you.

What can possibly compare to the pleasures of sophisticated and well-practised martyrdom?

What did her husband gain, for his part, when his sex life at home died?

Did he seize the opportunity to get effortlessly fat and lazy because he wasn’t desired, in any case?

Maybe both, wife and husband alike, used the opportunity to mess up their marriage to take revenge upon God (perhaps the one Being who could have sorted through the mess).

Don’t confront the chaos and turn it into order—just wait, anything but naïve and innocent, for the chaos to rise up and engulf you instead.

Why avoid, when avoidance necessarily and inevitably poisons the future? Because the possibility of a monster lurks underneath all disagreements and errors. Maybe the fight you are having (or not having) with your wife or your husband signifies the beginning of the end of your relationship.

Maybe your relationship is ending because you a...

Having the argument necessary to solve a real problem therefore necessitates willingness to confront two forms of miserable and dangerous potential simultaneously: chaos (the potential fragility of the relationship—of all relationships—of life itself) and Hell (the fact that you—and your partner—could each be the person bad enough to ruin everyt...

Why remain vague, when it renders life stag...

Well, if you don’t know who you are, you can hide in doubt. Maybe you’re not a bad, careless, worthless person. Who knows? Not you. Particularly if you refuse to thi...

But not thinking about something you don’t want to know about doesn’t make it go away. You are merely trading specific, particular, pointed knowledge of the likely finite list of your real faults and flaws for a much longer l...

Do you truly think it wise to let the catastrophe grow in the shadows, while you shrink and decrease and become ever more afraid? Isn’t it better to prepare, to sharpen your sword, to peer into the darkness, and then to beard the lion in its den? Maybe you’ll get hurt. Probably you’ll get hurt. Life, after all, is suffering. But maybe the wound won’t be fatal.

If you wait instead until what you are refusing to investigate comes a-knocking at your door, things will certainly not go so well for you. What you least want will inevitably happen—and when you are least prepared. What you least want to encounter will make itself manifest when you are weakest and it is strongest. And you will be defeated.

What if she decided to sort through the mess, even though she has avoided doing so until now, and is all the weaker and more confused for it?

To re-emerge, to escape, to be reborn, she must thoughtfully articulate the reality she comfortably but dangerously left hidden behind a veil of ignorance and the pretence of peace.

It was specific things that fell apart, not everything; identifiable beliefs failed; particular actions were false and inauthentic. What were they? How can they be fixed, now? How can she be better, in the future? She will never return to dry land if she refuses or is unable to figure it all out.

What if she had communicated her unhappiness with the decline of her romantic life, right when it started to decline? Precisely, exactly, when that decline first bothered her? Or, if it didn’t bother her—what if she had instead communicated the fact it didn’t bother her as much as it perhaps should have?

What if she had clearly and carefully confronted the fact of her husband’s contempt for her household efforts? Would she have discovered her resentment of her father and society itself (and the consequent contamination of her relationships)? What if she had fixed all that? How much stronger would she then have become? How much less likely to avoid facing up to difficulties, in consequence? How might she then have served herself, her family, and the world?

What if she had continually and honestly risked conflict in the present, in the service of l...

Maybe she would be different, and her husband, different too. Maybe they would still be married, formally and in spirit. Maybe they would both be much younger, physically and mentally, than they are now. Maybe her house would have been founded more on rock and less on sand.

When things fall apart, and chaos re-emerges, we can give structure to it, and re-establish order, through our speech. If we speak carefully and precisely, we can sort things out, and put them in their proper place, and set a new goal, and navigate to it—often communally, if we negotiate; if we reach consensus.

If we speak carelessly and imprecisely, however, things remain vague. The destination remains unproclaimed. The fog of uncertainty does not lift, and ...

The Construction of Soul and World

The problem itself must be admitted to, as close to the time of its emergence as possible. “I’m unhappy,” is a good start (not “I have a right to be unhappy,” because that is still questionable, at the beginning of the problem-solving process). Perhaps your unhappiness is justified, under the current circumstances. Perhaps any reasonable person would be displeased and miserable to be where you are. Alternatively, perhaps, you are just whiny and immature? Consider both at least equally probable, as terrible as such consideration might appear. Just exactly how immature might you be? There’s a potentially bottomless pit. But at least you might rectify it, if you can admit to it.