"12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson

I read this book after watching many hours of JBP's videos and reading the blog on his web site. A couple of weeks ago I saw the video from his daughter Mikhaila that he is going through a chemical detox in Russia, and I wish him all the best. He has some great things to say, and should definitely be allowed to speak, although I don't really agree with everything he puts forward. I am especially peeved by the frequent and extensive recourses to Biblical stories. Not because they are not important, after all, many of us spent hours upon hours during our teenage years going to Bible School, but because those same things could have been said through a different reference, and there have been many of those in the past 2,000 years. Although the Bible contains plenty of common sense wisdom, there are also plenty of cringe inducing passages, especially in the Old Testament, like the one where it is OK to rape a girl as long as you pay 50 shekels of silver to her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). No, it doesn't make it better that the passage tells the rapist to marry the girl. Who wants to marry their rapist??? Passages like that one make those of us who were born and raised in Christianity look for answers to life's questions outside the Bible. 

 
I thought the book started very strongly. I really enjoyed the allegory with the lobsters. I read some criticisms as to why he chose lobsters, and JBP actually answered that in the book - he was looking for a species that is as low as possible on the evolutionary scale while having serotonin as a regulatory mechanism, similar to humans. Some people just don't pay attention to what they read, if they read at all. There was this lady who wrote a review of this book for the "National Post" and it was blindingly obvious that she only read the first couple of chapters and then just the titles of the following ones. Yes, the book is 450 pages, but if you're going to write a review for a national newspaper, you better suck it up and read all of it! She didn't understand the points of the later chapters because JBP intentionally uses playful titles that are only tangentially related to the content of the chapter, in order to punish careless readers.

I liked the next few chapters as well. Pretty strong points and references from JBP's life and clinical practice. The middle of the book disappointed me though, with all the Bible stories and long winded explanations, most of which are not explained in his trademark straightforward language and go in circles for too long. The book picks up again towards the end, and I especially liked the last "Coda" chapter where he talks about how he got the idea to write this book and about the "Illuminated Pen" and the conversations with God that he was having. I am sure Catholic Priests would not approve of the JBP's version of the Biblical God, but maybe it is a good sign that he pisses off people on both sides of the spectrum. 

I am going to leave the criticism there, and the below chapter-based content is my attempt to summarize what I got out of each of the chapters.

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Physical posture is important for emotional well being. Maybe you cannot control your emotions but you can control your physical body. Do it. 

2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
It is easy to give way to the nihilism of your internal critical voice. Don't. Think of yourself as of a someone who you like and would like to help. 

3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
Often friendships happen just because you are at the same time at the same place. Don't choose your friends by proximity and convenience, but choose those who actually want you to succeed. There won't be many.

4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
Comparison disease is a recipe for misery. You don't know how other people got where they are, so don't compare. The only person you know everything about is you, so only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. 

5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
For young parents: don't allow your children everything. Don't think they are allowed to do whatever in the name of some creativity or similar bullshit. Discipline them when they disobey.

6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
Often "changing the world" is an excuse not to deal with your own problems. Deal with your own problems first. Run as fast as you can from people and groups (cults) who claim they want to "change the world".

7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Basically don't do what is easy and immediately available. Delay your pleasure. Delay your fulfillment until it is bigger and more meaningful.

8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
This is probably the most difficult one. Often we don't know what the truth is because we lie to ourselves so much and so constantly. At least try to tell the truth. Not your truth. THE truth.

9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
This is difficult because we're always engaged in an unending monologue in our heads. It is very difficult to actually listen as opposed to just waiting for your turn to speak.

10. Be precise in your speech
Don't ramble. Don't just chatter like a broken machine. Stop. Be silent. Think. Formulate a proper, truthful response. Then speak.

11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
Let your children take risks. Don't overprotect them. Let them make mistakes no matter how painful it is for you.

12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
Your life is NEVER going to be all fine. Don't wait for that moment. Take things as they happen, good and bad. Set aside time to deal with the bad, but don't brood and spend every waking moment on them. Enjoy the little moments you can even when surrounded by horrible circumstances.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I've had this book as a required reading in High School and never read it.  I always hated reading "required" readings. Then I saw it mentioned through many other books, not the least in Dan Simmons' works (sci fi, of all things!) and still didn't read it. Does that mean that I have some kind of resistance towards Russian writers, like many in the west (even without admitting it)?  Maybe, but maybe I was just lazy, and I was to busy reading the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, and wanting to be a Witcher, as a liberation from the chains of western industrialized society and the expectations thereof.

Finally, Dr. Peterson's constant reference to the works of Solzhenitsyn made me reach for the kindle version of Ivan Denisovich, since the multi-volume, thousands-of-pages, "Gulag Archipelago" seemed too intimidating to start, with family and work obligations and all that jazz.  It is a short book, but powerful.  It reads very easy in English translation, and I guess, the same is true for the Russian original.  It is a shocking book.  Ivan Denisovich Shukov is in a 'special camp' in Kazakhstan, working outside, with the other prisoners, 14 hour days in -40C temperatures, and they are only allowed to have a thin coat as a protection, bad boots, and no heating from a stove.

It all happens in one day, from waking up in the dark before dawn, to coming back to the barracks, long after dark.  The details are striking.  The thin stew that is the highlight of the day because everybody is trying to get more.  The way the prisoners wrap themselves in rags and pieces of discarded cloth just to protect from the instant frostbite, even though they never get to be really warm.  The random beatings, the "cells" where the rule breakers are sent, and which mean almost certain death from cold and starvation.  The real horror of the communist gulags is revealed without making any accusations, any argumentation, just plain describing the objective reality of the daily life in these degenerate products of the sick human minds.

The pleasure with which Shukov eats his food is described in such heart-wrenching detail, one instantly feels for the guy, whose only pleasure and hope in life consists of the bite of an occasional piece of dry sausage or sucking the juice from a fish bone.  It makes one think how ungrateful we are today just for the fact that our stomachs (for most of us) are always full.  Of course, Shukov is Solzhenistyn, who spent 10 years in a "special" gulag, after which he was exiled from the Soviet Union and wasn't admitted back until the SU fell apart.

This book is a definite verdict on the horrors of a communist society, however Solzhenitsyn was not treated all that well in exile in the West, especially the US.  The yanks expected that he will be eternally grateful and praise the US society to high heavens, but Solzhenitsyn was a man who speaks his mind without regard to any power that be, and his critique of western society and way of living was just as stinging.  He is famous for his address at a Harvard Commencement, criticizing the West for its materialistic ways and slavery to money.  It was not well received, and he was never invited back.