This is the Peter pan story roughly speaking as Peter pan is this Magical boy "pan" means… Pan is the god of everything, roughly speaking… right? And so it's not an accident that he has the name Pan and he's the boy that won't grow up, and he's magical Well, that's because children are magical, they can be anything. They're nothing but potential and Peter Pan doesn't want to give that up Why? Well he's got some adults around them, but the main adult is Captain Hook Well who the hell wants to grow up to be Captain Hook? …first of all you've got a hook! second you're a tyrant and third, you're chased by the Dragon of Chaos with the clock in its stomach right the crocodile. It's already got a piece of you well, that's what happens when you get older, time has already got a piece of you and eventually it's got a taste for you and and eventually it's going to eat you and so a hook is so traumatized by that that he can't help but be a tyrant And then Peter Pan looks at traumatized Hook and says well no, I'm not sacrificing my childhood for that. So that's fine. Except he ends up King of the Lost Boys In Neverland, and Neverland doesn't exist and who the hell wants to be King of the Lost Boys And he also sacrifices the possibility to have a real relationship with a woman, because that's Wendy right and she's kind of conservative middle-class London dwelling girl. She wants to grow up and have kids and have a life she accepts her mortality she accepts her maturity Peter Pan has to content himself with Tinkerbell She doesn't even exist. She's like she's like the fairy of porn She doesn't exist She's a substitute for the real thing But the dichotomy that you are talking about is very tricky because there's a sacrificial element in maturation right you have to sacrifice the pluri-potentiality of childhood for the actuality of a frame and The question is well, why would you do that? Well one reason is it happens to you whether you do it or not you can either choose your damn limitation or you can let it take you unaware when you're 30 or Even worse when you're 40 and then that is not a happy day you see I see people like this And I think it's more and more common in our culture because people can put off maturity without suffering an immediate penalty But all that happens is the penalty accrues and then when it finally hits it just wallops you because when you're 25 you could be an idiot it's no problem even when you're Out in the job search, it's like well, you don't have any experience, and you're kind of clueless. Yeah, yeah, you're young You know it's no problem We can that's what young people are like, but they're full of potential, okay well now you're the same person at 30 It's like people aren't so thrilled about you at that point It's like what the hell have you been doing for the last ten years well? I'm just as clueless as I was when I was 22 yeah, but you're not 22 You're an old infant Right and that's an ugly thing an old infant so The rea.. part of the reason you choose your damn sacrifice Because the sacrifice is inevitable but at least you get to choose it and then there's something that's even more complex than that in some sense is that The problem with being a child is that all you are is potential and its really low resolution you could be anything But you're not anything So then you go and you adopt an apprenticeship Roughly speaking And then you become at least you become something and when you're something that makes the world open up to you again You know when you are like a really good plumber Then you end up being far more than a plumber right you end up being a good employer not not that plumbers are not… I'm not putting plumbers down… it's like more power to plumbers, they've saved more lives than doctors, so Hygiene right, so You know if you're a really good plumber well Then you have some employees you run a business you make you train some other people you enlarge their lives You're kind of a pillar of the community you you have your family. It's you can once you pass through that narrow training period which narrows you and Constricts you and develops you at the same time then you can come out the other end with a bunch of new Possibility at hand and Jung talked about that he thought that the proper Part of the proper path of development in the last half of life was to rediscover the child that you left behind as you were apprenticing and so then you get to be something and Regain that potential at the same time very very smart well. He was very very smart so that's very wise very wise thing to know so Yep, sacrifice We'll talk more about that, too you get to pick your damn sacrifice. That's all you don't get to not make one Your sacrificial whether you want to be or not That's a good thing to know as well, so even though it's rather you know it's rough thing to figure out but... other questions? -I have knownthat thing you just said about noticing it more and more in people late into their twenties.
-Okay. Yeah -What do you think about that where do you think that comes in terms of culture we live in...
-I think universities facilitate it. Because you can go to university to not be something instead of going to university to be something and that's it's Pleasure Island and the price you pay for it especially in the U.S. is debt and You're enticed into it because the administrators can pick your pocket So they rob your future self while allowing you to pretend that you have an identity Right very nasty and you can't declare bankruptcy with your student loans in the U.S. It's indentured servitude and It is precisely Pleasure Island it's exactly that and so tuition fees have shot way out of control and part of the reason that universities don't make more demands on their students and Let them get away with all the things they let them get away with is because they're basically Why the hell would you chase them out? There are a hundred thousand dollars or more So they can do whatever they want as long as you get to sell them to the salt mines right So and you know it's not the only reason because the other thing that's happened is that the rate of technological transformation is so fast now and the rate of turnover of things is that it's it is genuinely harder for people who are say eighteen to twenty… when I was a kid roughly speaking the kind of rough patch for For life is probably fourteen to seventeen something like that now It's I think it's eighteen to twenty five something like that and I think the reason for that is is that all the jobs that the bloody hippies complained about being doomed to in the 1960s have now disappeared their problem was oh my God I'm going to go have to work for a corporation and get a salary for the rest of my life You know and then I'll just end up in it with a pension and that'll be my whole life. It's like well, it seems like a lot better deal than an endless round of part-time Starbucks jobs So you know some of it is that it's it's just it's it's there's a space now in our culture that that is lacking for people to make that transformation from from adolescence into adulthood and so it's just It's it's the cost of that is forestalled. It's not a good thing It's not a good thing
Im 38 and I would like to say much of this boils down to Western society programming. Nofap IS very valuable and maybe necessary for maturing. But do not be hard on yourself for maybe Being genuine even childish. If youve done/do your best and live with your heart then thats always enough.
There might be other obstacles that have held You back in life. Be grateful for all that You have, make it a ritual to aporeciate 5 things every evening, meditate, live in the moment.
.. And then set your goals, your talents and work on them in the LONG run.. Dont Let this talk stress You out. I know 50 year olds that are "infants", and id rather spend time with them any time of the Day more than with a "society" - completed plumber. They are the best, i love their free ways of living. I dont look down on these 50 year olds at all.
This stress is not necessarily healthy for everyone. Youve done your best in life, now just set genuine long term goals and follow them. Live on. And with The path.
Meditate, be in nature and listen first and foremost to your spirit.
Peace
I just watched this video an hour ago! Jordan Peterson is the fucking man!
fuck me, I'm a higher education peter pan... god damn it.
Wow. Spot on. Especially hard hitting for someone on the wrong side of 40 who is still fighting PMO. It's devastating to see people ten years younger than me retiring from pro sports and here I am, still working to get my shit together.
Life is, very, very short!
Can I get a tdlr on what the video is about?
Great video
I hate life so much
Fuck this hits hard, 31y and struggling my way through med school, finishing in a couple of years if all goes well. Gotta live life in the fast lane, get shit done and make no teenage mistakes!
“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” - Frank Zappa, he said this somewhere around late 70s to 80s.