Lighting the World from the Inside Out

This year’s Light the World campaign is underway, started by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but intended for everyone during this Christmas season. It’s about service—or whatever else brings light and goodness, in mostly small ways, to those around us. Last year there were daily ideas, something like doing a good deed each day. It’s a different way of giving than the hectic Christmas shopping way.

This year the calendar for Light the World has a weekly focus. Week one, going on right now, is about the world, globally. Week two is about your community. Week three is about your family. Then week four is about your personal faith.

calendar available here

I like how the direction draws closer and closer to home as we celebrate Christmas. I think this will help me feel the meaning of Christmas—and the way Jesus gave, personally, with loving kindness.

Looking at the order, from global to local to personal, I’m reminded that one of the 12 Rules for Life that Jordan Peterson talks about goes the other direction. It’s “Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” While the direction is opposite, I don’t think we’re really in disagreement. Both of these are about making little improvements where we see a need around us.

The Light the World campaign is about service, about doing good. Dr. Peterson’s approach is actually about where to start your criticism, and advises starting with yourself and cleaning up what you can close by first. He begins this chapter with some of life’s awful things, pointing out that there are two ways to respond: vengeance or transformation. He covers Tolstoy, Nietzsche, and Solzhenitsyn, before getting to this advice:

Clean Up Your Life                                                                               

Consider your circumstances. Start small. Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you? Are you working hard on your career, or even your job, or are you letting bitterness and resentment hold you back and drag you down? Have you made peace with your brother? Are you treating your spouse and your children with dignity and respect? Do you have habits that are destroying your health and well-being? Are you truly shouldering your responsibilities? Have you said what you need to say to your friends and family members? Are there things that you could do, that you know you could do, that would make things around you better?

Have you cleaned up your life?

If the answer is no, here’s something to try: Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong. Start stopping today….

Stop acting in that particular, despicable manner. Stop saying those things that make you weak and ashamed. Say only those things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honour….

Don’t blame capitalism, the radical left, or the iniquity of your enemies. Don’t reorganize the state until you have ordered your own experience. Have some humility. If you cannot bring peace to your house, how dare you try to rule a city? Let your own soul guide you. Watch what happens over the days and weeks. When you are at work you will begin to say what you really think. You will start to tell your wife, or your husband, or your children, or your parents, what you really want and need. When you know that you have left something undone, you will act to correct the omission. Your head will start to clear up, as you stop filling it with lies. Your experience will improve, as you stop distorting it with inauthentic actions. You will then begin to discover new, more subtle things that you are doing wrong. Stop doing those, too. After some months and years of diligent effort, your life will become simpler and less complicated. Your judgment will improve….

Perhaps you will become an ever-more-powerful force for peace and whatever is good.

Perhaps you will then see that if all people did this, in their own lives, the world might stop being an evil place. After that, with continued effort, perhaps it could even stop being a tragic place. Who knows what existence might be like if we all decided to strive for the best? Who knows what eternal heavens might be established by our spirits, purified by truth, aiming skyward, right here on the fallen Earth?

Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.

It’s another way of going about it, but I think the message is pretty similar: look around you—and within you—and find some small thing to improve. That’s how you make things actually better.

There’s an old phrase: “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.”[i] Those are the words of a wannabe world changer who can’t even handle close interpersonal relationships. Changing the world doesn’t work on a wholesale level. It’s not even done readymade. It has to be individually tailored. One person at a time, starting with self.

In the Light the World campaign, even the suggested global ideas are personal small acts you can do, like learning something or listening to someone. I think that’s the right way.

As with lighting one candle from another, once you have yours burning brightly, then you can help light others—and magically there’s no loss in your light. There’s just more total light.

If we can think about that and try it out for this month, while we’re celebrating the birth of the actual Light of the World, maybe it will become a habit. And then we can become “an ever-more powerful force for peace and whatever is good.”

There’s a short video for each week this month. Below is the one for this first week. I love the juxtaposition of the small acts of service we do, and the acts of service our Savior did as our example.

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[i] I saw this attributed to Albert Einstein, but I’m uncertain about the accuracy. A variation, using “mankind” in place of “humanity,” is said by Linus in a Peanuts cartoon by Charles Schulz.

How to Have a Good Life

There are certain facts of life that are true: Life is hard. Bad things happen, even to good people. And how we face what happens to us matters, if we’re going to have a good life.

But it is possible to have a good life. So the question is, how?

That’s a big question. It’s probably one of those simple but difficult things. But I thought we’d do a little exploring of that big question today.

Some years ago we had a discussion with a thinker, one of a few mentors we’ve known, who was talking about the younger work force these days. He said something surprising that stuck with me. Those game players, the somewhat geeky ones who play games—what they really want, our friend told us, was to be the hero. To do something meaningful. If they couldn’t find that in real life, at least they could live it in the pretend world of a game. And that made them rather impatient with work in the real world that didn’t seem heroic enough.

I was reminded of this, doing what has become a common evening pastime: listening to Jordan Peterson interviews. There are hundreds of hours’ worth, so I’m just scratching the surface, but I think I’ve watched/listened to enough to qualify as a student of his, informally. Anyway, he talks about mythology, and stories, quite often. In one interview, posted a couple of weeks ago, he and host Richard Fidler on ABC Radio (in Australia) were talking about stories and their purpose: 

Dr. Jordan Peterson
screen shot from the interview

Stories map out how to live. And the question then becomes, well, what’s the story that maps out the proper way to live. And that story would have to contain a description of the environment, right? Just like a map has to map out the territory. The story would have to contain a description of the environment. And then it would have to contain a description of your role in the environment.

And so, the mythological landscape is something like this: It’s good and evil at the level of the individual. That’s the hero and the adversary. Everyone has to contend with that. The darkness and goodness in yourself, and in other individuals. Everyone contends with that. So it’s a universal truth.

And then, how is that individual encompassed within society? And society is the wise king and the tyrant. And it’s always the wise king and the tyrant. It’s both. Now, some societies are almost all tyrant, and some societies tilt quite nicely towards wise king. But, even if you grow up in a relatively benevolent society like ours, you’re still crushed by the mob into a certain conformity. And there’s a lot of pain and wastage that goes along with that. Now there’s benefits.

And then the last element of the mythological landscape is the terror and creative potential of nature. Well, that’s the mythological landscape. And a meaningful story guides you through that.

And he adds a minute later,

Well, if you get in a car without a map, you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. What good is that? All there is then is confusion and pain. So, yeah, the story is life. The story is, well, it’s the story of Rule 1[i]: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Stand up and confront the catastrophe of existence. Voluntarily. Move forward. Under your load. Discover new things. Share them with the people around you. Life is a call to adventure. And everything’s at stake. That’s the thing. It’s an all in game. So you might as well play it that way.

OK, so, stories are going to help. We want to have meaning in our life: logos. Victor Frankl faced the horrors of the concentration camp by finding meaning. Logotherapy, he called it. He wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, that if you have meaning, a higher purpose for your life, then you’re more likely to survive, and be able to move on afterward.

There’s something about recognizing the dialectic of good and evil, realizing your potential to go either way, and then make the conscious choice to choose the good. That’s even necessary, Dr. Peterson says, when you face malevolence (evil). This is his approach to PTSD:

If you’re a naïve person, and you encounter [malevolence] in someone else, or in yourself, it will produce post-traumatic stress disorder. Because post-traumatic stress disorder occurs when people are touched by evil. That’s not how it’s normally described clinically, because academics—I would say people in general—don’t really like to grapple with that sort of reality. But if you talk to military personnel who have post-traumatic stress disorder, and you start talking to them about a dialectic between good and evil, they’re instantly on board for that. They need a dialectic of good and evil to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bad stuff does happen. Some people experience worse things than others. But there are things we can choose to do to improve the chances of living a good life.

In another Jordan Peterson interview, this one published this past Saturday, with Roaming Millennial, Peterson says the key is simply the truth: 

Dr. Jordan Peterson
screen shot from the interview

You have to speak the truth, and listen to the people that are criticizing you so that you can improve the manner in which you’re formulating your arguments.

That’s the way to live. And, look, here’s why: As the religious sages have insisted throughout the ages, life is suffering. There’s no way around it. Because human beings are limited and vulnerable, and the universe is a very large place. You’re destined to suffer.

And so, then, you might say, well, what defenses do you have against that? And one is the armor of ideology, and rightness. But the other is the shield of truth. You know, just like in Sleeping Beauty, when the prince goes off to have combat with the dragon. And truth elevates your life. And enriches it.

He suggests an exercise to find out whether you’re speaking the truth:

This is, I think, one of the most useful psychological exercises that anyone could ever do. So, start with the assumption that many of the things you say and think aren’t yours, and that you don’t believe them. They’re just things that you’ve picked up for one reason or another as you’ve walked through life, and you’ve brandished them like markers of your status. But they’re not really you. Because, what’s really you is hard to figure out. So you have to start from that assumption.

Then start listening to what you say. And feeling what you say as well. And here’s the rule; it’s a very simple thing to try: Pay attention to whether the thing you say makes you feel stronger or weaker. If it makes you feel stronger, then you can keep saying it, but if it makes you feel weaker, then you should stop saying it. Stop saying it right away. And see if you can reformulate your words so that when you restate them, that feeling of integrity and strength reappears. And you can feel it, really, down the middle of your body

And, because, what happens if you’re saying something that is untrue is that you dissociate to some degree. A part of you agrees with it, and a part of you doesn’t. It’s like you’re splitting your psyche.

That’s interesting. I’m thinking about that, and trying to reconcile whether someone insisting, forcefully, and certainly, that what they say is right when I know it’s wrong—are they feeling the strength, or the split? I’m going to have to observe that for a while, and maybe only ever know for myself. But I do know, for me, I understand what the wholeness of truth feels like, and that’s why I seek it.

He’s certainly right that it takes paying attention. And he goes on to offer ways for people to figure out what they want, what a “heavenly” life would look like, as opposed to a “hellish” life they could certainly create; as he puts it, “how horrible your life could be if you let all your bad habits and foolishnesses and deceits get out of hand.” The program is at a website called SelfAuthoring.com. That program is having good effect on people in universities, lowering dropout rates by as much as 40% in a semester. Pretty effective.

I haven’t used his program, but I’ve been doing similar exercises in a couple of books: Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, and Find Your Why, by Simon Sinek, with David Mead and Peter Docker.

The point is, it’s possible to choose the best possible life, in a world where things go wrong and bad stuff happens—if you don’t give up, if you don’t give in to nihilism or cynicism—if you figure out what a good life means for you, as a person you really care about (because you have to care about yourself, and some people haven’t had much practice doing that).

Dr. Peterson is talking about living a life that builds your character:

That’s the problem with being a materialist. You know, you think that you collect all these things around you, and that that’s going to protect you from the suffering that’s intrinsic to life. That isn’t what protects you. It’s your character that protects you. If you have your character intact, you can sleep at night with a good conscience, and you can take on the burdens of the day the next morning. And you can live without recrimination or regret. There’s nothing better than that.

It's almost as if he’s saying, the way to have a good life is to choose good and fight evil, in yourself and all around you. Become the good guy, by choice. Become the hero, by consistent practice and effort.

Yes, it did turn out to be one of those simple but difficult things. But worth it.

It probably doesn’t hurt to add that religion has been leading us to develop character all along. As the Ten Commandments tell us, love God—the source and definition of good. And honor life, family, property ownership, and honesty. And a further step is to love others as you love yourself—which requires starting with loving care for yourself.

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[i] Referring to his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, here.

Speak the Truth and Play Fair

How would it be if we lived in a place, a culture, where people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor? Where people live in peace with other people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear? Where there’s a thriving economy, where poverty is meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future generations to rise?

How would that be? Good? That’s what we call Civilization, here at the Spherical Model. I’ve been describing Civilization and how to get there for a while. And I’m on the lookout for ways of explaining it—or other people who are explaining it too, in their ways.

I’ve been listening to enough Jordan Peterson lectures  lately to feel like I’m actually one of his students. [I wrote about him here and here.] And I’ve been collecting a few things that connect with my purpose here of bringing us northward on the sphere toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

He has a book—12 Rulesfor Life: An Antidote to Chaos—which I think I’ll have to go ahead and read, since it’s reportedly not the same as what is in his various lectures and interviews. But there’s a chapter in the book, Rule 6, which he says is: "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world."

Dr. Jordan Peterson with Patrick Coffin
screen shot from the interview

Dr. Peterson waxes philosophical, often. And it’s hard to distill down for brief reference here. But, in an interview with Patrick Coffin, he starts with the idea that good and evil exist. In reference to PTSD patients, he says:

If you have PTSD, it’s because you’ve been touched by malevolence in one way or another. You need to reorganize your thinking along lines that are fundamentally religious. You need to start seeing the world as a battleground between good and evil—which is what it is, in the most real sense.

So, as a clinical psychologist, he says, in order to heal from a particular disorder, you need a religious viewpoint. I’ve been saying, in order to have a civilized society, you need to have a religious people. No one gets forced, but civilization requires a critical mass of people who live the rules required for civilization. There are answers that have to do with choosing right over wrong.

image from here

There’s another speech, in The Netherlands, where Dr. Peterson is referring in a way to immigration issues, but he spends a lot of time building a framework about two things: fair play and truth. In the fair play section, he talks about a study of rat behavior, where the rats learn that, in order to keep being able to play, you need to play fair—abide by the rules—so that others will want to continue to play with you. Even rats know that.

And then he deals with the truth section, which I’ll cover a little more in a minute. But he has this conclusion:

Now, I didn’t know what to say about immigration when I decided to do this talk, but I don’t think it matters, because there are many complex things that can be said about immigration and many of the problems that face us.

But there’s a meta-question, which is not, How do you solve a difficult question? But, How do you solve the set of all possible difficult questions? And the answer to that is quite straightforward: Speak the truth, and play fair. And that works.

And so I’ve been communicating that as diligently as I can for the last three decades, predicated on my observation that we got some things right, that we should do better with it even. And that, if we transformed ourselves, each and every one, into better people, predicated on the observation of that core identity, that we would then become collectively the sort of people who could probably solve any problem that was put to them, no matter what its magnitude.

In civilization, the smallest social unit is the family. You get a good family by being good individuals working together. So you can see it happen on that small level. As I say in the Civilization section of the Spherical Model,

As long as families are allowed to live among themselves (children are under the care of their own parents), it is possible to have a civilized society that is just one family in size. Then, if that family can find additional similarly civilized families to associate with, their society grows. If it could grow to the size of a village or township, all the better.

So you start with yourself, and then your family. And, as more people do that, society is transformed in remarkably positive ways—and become able to solve, eventually, any problem.

In the Patrick Coffin interview, Dr. Peterson says this need to change is actually an optimistic thing. He begins by laying out the story from Genesis of Cain killing his brother Abel. He makes the case, first, for Cain’s line of reasoning:

Being [the way things are in this world] is tragic, being is touched by malevolence. It’s, Why not develop resentment and hatred for it and do everything to extract revenge? Revenge against God, because that’s really what it is— It’s like that in the Cain and Abel story. In fact, it’s exactly like that. And the answer is something like, That’s cowardly. Something like that. And the other answer is, All that does is make everything that you’re hypothetically objecting to worse.

And so, if you take the immoral stance and say, Well, the horror of the world has made me bitter, resentful, murderous, and genocidal; isn’t it no wonder? Well, you can’t logically conclude that you should act in the way that is certain to do nothing but multiply that beyond comprehension.

And so, there’s a call to truth in there, and responsibility, as an antidote to resentment.

He adds, “It’s also an optimistic viewpoint, because, maybe you can change yourself. It is possible. Maybe that will work.”

How do you do it? What is it you actually need to do in order to change yourself, to do the moral thing? He says, “Stop doing things that you know to be wrong. That’s a good start.” He has been challenging people to do a 30-day challenge, to not say anything for a month that you believe to be untrue. Just do it, as an experiment, and see what happens.

And here’s the philosophical underpinning of the experiment:

So there’s this idea; there’s a deep Christian idea—and it’s deeper than Christianity even—but it’s a deep Christian idea. But, the being that is brought into being by truthful speech is good. It’s like the moral of the first few chapters of Genesis, right? If you use the Logos to bring order into being, that’s truthful speech—then the being that emerges is good. It’s like, that’s a hypothesis. Maybe it’s true. Maybe if we told the truth and induct the good, then being would transform itself around us into something increasingly less tragic and certainly less malevolent.

There’s more about that truth telling, going back to The Netherlands speech:

The Logos is the deepest idea of the West. And it means something like: clear, competent, truthful, communicative endeavor.

So there’s an idea in Genesis that that’s the spirit that God used to bring forth order from chaos at the beginning of time. When God employed the Logos to extract order out of chaos, He extracted habitable order and then pronounced that it was good.

And, at the same time, when God made human beings, He pronounced them made in the image of God, which means that human beings have the capacity—that Logos-like capacity—to speak habitable order into being out of chaotic potential.

And the deep idea is that, if you do that truthfully, then what you bring forth is good.

What is it a society needs, in order to become a civilization? Religious people (bringing non-religious people along with them) who honor God,family, life, property, and truth. That’s a condensation of the Ten Commandments. Dr. Peterson simplifies it even further into “speak the truth and play fair.”

Or, we could say, Always do the right thing. Always knowing what the right thing is might be a challenge for most of us mortals. But there is an ultimate Good, and the source is God. Otherwise it’s all opinion. But we know, if we train ourselves to tell the truth—especially to ourselves—and then we act in the best way we know, even when it’s hard, that is going to be good enough to transform society, as he says, “into something increasingly less tragic and certainly less malevolent.”

It’s worth trying.