tijaco

There is something about fictional stories and art that is magical. I was listening to Jordan Peterson podcast last weekend and he spoke about fictional stories being not only true, but more than true. This is a concept that has been on my mind all week in some form or another.

First, I will explain my take on what Jordan Peterson is saying here. Fictional stories are made up in that the characters don’t exist in the real world and the things that the characters do might not be possible in the real world. Take something like Harry Potter – wizards and witches clearly don’t exist, nor can people fly on broomsticks. Jordan Peterson notes that the fact we just accept these things is kind of bizarre, even for a story. But we do accept them, and it’s not because of the bizarre nature of the characters and their actions, but instead because of the truth of their actions and how they can demonstrate some lesson or moral in real life. In that sense, these fictional stories, while fictional and often bizarre, represent something even truer than life itself. These messages that are held within these stories are a distilling of the essence of life, of some very potent message, such that we can communicate it to each other. Peterson also talked about the hierarchies of value that each of us hold. For some reason, as a society, we value these stories because they are so true.

The concept of hierarchies of value is something that really stuck with me. It seems that everyone has hierarchies of value and they are all different. But it does seem that for most people, what is valuable is that they themselves are happy, safe, secure. There are some very rare people whose value structures are based around the wellbeing of others, but it seems to be an exception rather than a rule. For this reason, it is relatively easy to explain most people’s behaviour – they are simply doing what is in their own perceived self-interest. This idea applies in all walks of life from the bankers who justify their horrible practices because they can provide for their family to the climate change protestor who wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for the social pressures that pushed them. Those two people, for the great difference between their actions and how they have impacted others, are essentially the same. They were only doing what benefited them at the time. Had their upbringing and environment been different, they may well have acted differently. But does this idea rob people of their agency? If I begin to make arguments that the banker is the same as the climate protestor, is that dismissing the fact that both the banker and the protestor have free will in each of the moments that led them to that point? Maybe. But if what was motivating them at their core was self-interest rather than being concentrated on something greater than themselves, they rob themselves of agency.

So, what is the alternative? To be concentrated on something greater than yourself, or to at least be conscious of your motives. There is a large part for consciousness to play here. Someone can be conscious that they act in self-interested ways. In the same vein, someone can be unconscious that they are acting with a focus on something higher than themselves. As with many of these conversations, I always find it far more useful and far less dangerous to be conscious of what you are doing rather than unconscious. I feel that if you are conscious that you are self-interested, you at least have the ability to change that in the moment and work towards shifting your value structure. If you are unconscious that you are acting for something greater, that is similarly dangerous to someone unconscious of being self-interested. So long as you are unconscious to the world, you are not in control. Instead, you are like a log floating down a river without an awareness of the direction or the destination. This is a great way to live for periods of your life – it is freeing to let go of control. But there is always a time where the direction and the destination need to be at least sketchily defined.

This comes back to goal setting and visualising a better future, whether it is only for you or for the greater community. If you at least have an idea of where you want to go, you can have some agency in which direction you are travelling in. Most of the time, your idea of the ideal destination will change many times throughout the journey. But if you are at least trying to outline the destination at the outset, you can have a direction in which to go rather than being unconscious to the world and letting it take you wherever it does.

But as with everything, there is also advantages to letting the world take you and relaxing your ideals. There is merit to staying in the moment rather than getting your ‘narrating self’, or your ego, involved.

As with many of these pieces, I end up contradicting myself wildly by the end and finding holes in my own narratives. But that is part of life. There are all of these contradictory ideas, one of which will be important at one moment and the other which will be important in another. There seems to be a skill to being able to hold these seemingly contrary ideas in your mind and finding the value in each of them.

This got a really long way from what Jordan Peterson was talking about in that podcast. Whoops.