I’ve been following the work of Jordan Peterson for a few years now. For me, Jordan Peterson has a few core messages:
- “Make your bed.” — take individual responsibility.
- “Who the hell wants to be King of the Lost Boys?” — stop being a manchild.
- “Life is suffering.” — so find a heavy load and bear it.
He often takes on the role of the stern father, wields his intellect and “what the clinical data shows” as weapons against the “radical left,” and has developed a commercial empire that includes a NY Times best-selling self-help book, merchandise, and a 130+ stop speaking tour. I attended his talk at the packed Balboa Theater here in San Diego a few months ago, which ended up being a two-plus hour stream of consciousness lecture about his next book and his writing process, sprinkled with some content from his various academic lectures.
He treats his writing process as a way to explore questions, ideas, and creative thinking, and this, in fact, is partially what has inspired me to write here on Medium.
Peterson is a clinical psychologist focused on abnormal, social, and personality psychology. He is a deep student of Jung, Nietzche, Solzhenitsyn, the 20th century World Wars, as well as a psychological and archetypal analysis of Christianity in the Bible which is available on…
