Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

by Jordan B. Peterson

Rule II

IMAGINE WHO YOU COULD BE, AND THEN AIM SINGLE-MINDEDLY AT THAT

Who Are You—and Who Could You Be?

You are not only something that is. You are something that is becoming—and

The stories we can neither ignore nor forget are unforgettable for this reason (among others): They speak to something we know, but do not know that we know.

There is much that we could do—much that our bodies and minds are capable of doing—that remains dormant, right down to the genetic level.

we can imagine and then act out something that has simply not been seen before, something that is truly original. And we can code and represent all that ability—adaptive action and its transformation—in the stories we tell about those we admire, as well as those we hate. And that is how we determine who we are, and who we could perhaps become.

Stories become unforgettable when they communicate sophisticated modes of being—complex problems and equally complex solutions—that we perceive, consciously, in pieces, but cannot fully articulate.

The Emergence of the Unforgettable

The stories are already distillations of observed behavior

Once the story is established, we can analyze it, looking for deeper patterns and regularities. If that analysis is successful, we can generalize across anecdotes with the formulation of rules, and then we can learn, consciously, to follow those rules.

Every society is already characterized by patterned behavior; otherwise it would be pure conflict and no “society” at all. But the mere fact that social order reigns to some degree does not mean that a given society has come to explicitly understand its own behavior, its own moral code.

An unforgettable story captures the essence of humanity and distills, communicates, and clarifies it, bringing what we are and what we should be into focus.

Such a story presents us in the most compelling manner with the ultimate adventure, the divine romance, and the eternal battle between good and evil. All this helps us clarify our understanding of moral and immoral attitude and action, personal and social. This can be seen everywhere, and always.

Materia Prima: Who You Could Be (I)

The alchemists regarded the materia prima as the fundamental substance from which everything else—matter and spirit included, equally—emerged, or was derived.

What is relevant is the content. And that means that each piece of mail is a container of content—of potential or information, positive, neutral, or negative.

A winged sphere, inscribed with a square, a triangle, and the numerals 3 and 4 occupies the bottom third of the image in question.* This singular entity or object was known by the alchemists as the “round chaos.”

It is a container—the initial container of the primordial element—the container of what the world, and the psyche, consists of before it becomes differentiated.

the Snitch, which is identical in appearance to the round chaos that sits at the bottom of the alchemist’s image.

In Rule I, we discussed the idea that the true winner of any game is the person who plays fair. This is because playing fair, despite the particularities of any given game, is a higher-order accomplishment than mere victory.

is an indication of true personality development, predicated as it is on concern for true reciprocity.

Thus, the ethical player, like the Seeker, indomitably pursues what is most valuable in the midst of complex, competing obligations.

Among the alchemists, the round chaos was associated with the winged god Mercury,

Imagine that there are very complex processes going on in your mind unconsciously, highlighting events of potential worth and distinguishing them from everything else constantly unfolding around you. Imagine that those processes that distinguish value are alive, which is certainly the case, and that they are complex and integrated enough to be conceptualized as a personality. That is Mercury.

Each of us, when fortunate, is compelled forward by something that grips our attention—love

something that calls to us for reasons we can neither control nor understand

they are part of the unconscious processes devoted to integrating and furthering the development of our spirits,

You do not choose what interests you. It chooses you.

Think of pursuing someone you love: catch them or not, you change in the process.

It is all part of the potential of the world, calling you into Being, changing you forever—for better or worse—in consequence of your pursuit.

The dragon, in turn, perched on top of the round chaos, represents the danger and possibility of the information within.

Atop the dragon stands a figure known as a Rebis, a single body with two heads, one male, one female. The Rebis is a symbol of the fully developed personality

Polytheism into Monotheism, and the Emergence of the Virtuous Hero: Who You Could Be (II)

That which we experience is better compared to a novel or a movie, which concentrates on the communication and sharing of subjective as well as objective states, than is reality as objective world, which we might liken to a scientific description of physical reality. It is the actual, particular, and unique demise of someone you love, for example, compared to the listing of that death in the hospital records.

we directly and naturally perceive reality as personified, and then must work very diligently to strip that personification away, so that we can detect “objective reality.”

the careless demolition of tradition is the invitation to the (re)emergence of chaos. When ignorance destroys culture, monsters will emerge.

the question of God, had to be answered over centuries, over millennia. The answer emerged first in story form.

evil (symbolized with the famous Egyptian image of the single eye). Representing that reality—pay attention, above all, even to what is monstrous and malevolent, and speak wisely and truthfully—could be the single most important accomplishment of our species.

the hero is the embodied principle of action and perception that must rule over all the primordial psychological elements of lust, rage, hunger, thirst, terror, and joy.

It is this that happens when each small child learns to regulate and unite his emotions and motivations into a coherent personality, and then goes out to challenge the unknown world.

By accepting life’s suffering, therefore, evil may be overcome. The alternative is hell, at least in its psychological form: rage, resentment, and the desire for revenge and destruction.

All these heroes act out what was perhaps the greatest discovery ever made by man’s primordial ancestors: if you have the vision and the courage (and a good stout stick, when necessary), you can chase away the worst of snakes.

What constitutes the worst of all snakes and the stoutest of all sticks, however, might be regarded as the central religious questions of humanity.

As humanity became more sophisticated in its capacity to abstract, we increasingly appreciated the fact that predatory monsters can come in many guises,

Hero, Dragon, Death, and Rebirth: Who You Could Be

the ancient alchemical dictum, in sterquilinis invenitur: in filth it will be found.* What does this mean? That which you most need to find will be found where you least wish to look.

But another form, more abstract—more psychological, more spiritual—is human evil: the danger we pose to one another. At some point in our evolutionary and cultural history, we began to understand that human evil could rightly be considered the greatest of all snakes.

evil’s destruction manifests as the life of virtue that constrains malevolence in its most abstracted and comprehensive form.

The threat is real. Even truth, virtue, and courage are not necessarily enough, but they are our best bet.