I thought this was a good place to start. Yes, I’m the young white male every media outlet accuses Jordan Peterson of attracting. But this book truly opened my eyes. It made me peer into the dark corners of my own mind, my life and the direction in which my life is heading. When you’re a 31-year-old man who hasn’t had a serious relationship in over 7 years, grossly overweight and not living up to your potential, there’s a reason you avoid mirrors. If I could sum up my adult life simply, I would say it has just been a back and forth of both planning and talking myself out of my suicide. A real contribution to society.
I once had a relationship with a woman I thought I would call my wife. I went from being the ideal boyfriend in a relationship people admired to finding myself an utter failure of a human being in a non-existent relationship, being hated by my friends. “How the fuck did I get here?” is a question I would go on to ask myself through therapy for 7 years. Until I read 12 rules for life. I learned that nothing is more real than pain. And actions DO HAVE CONSEQUENCES. And I started to see how my actions tilted the world closer to hell and how lies ate away at my soul. I’ve been re-reading the book over and over and constantly working on sorting myself out. A year into this and I’m shocked at how little progress I’ve made in ways yet how much progress I’ve made in other ways. I still haven’t managed to clean my room. Well, to keep it clean.
One of the big things I’ve learned about myself is how deeply I internalized my guilt. I felt guilty for everything. For the broken home I grew up in. For failed relationships and friendships growing up. In fact I think I actively looked for things to blame myself for. What’s a pity party without company? So I was more than happy to subscribe to the idea that I am a product of oppression to natives. I was inheriting unearned privilege because of my skin colour and I was just a tainted person. Sure, I’d never admit it to anyone’s face but I lived my life constantly contemplating how to justify my existence. Trying to make up the best apology for my ethnicity and gender that I could. Opting out of post secondary education so to leave the opportunities for others who deserved it more. I got into a trade. And it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. But I tried to compensate for this guilt with a know-it-all attitude and wokeness that made me feel I was simply depressed because I was smarter than everyone else who was happier with their lives.
But being a know-it-all really just means you’re a dumbass and the toxic guilt I carried with me made me into a weak man. And it’s not the strong men that people need to watch out for, it’s the weak ones. As pointed out in Rule 6, Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. It’s the weak men who are able to lie to their lovers face without flinching. The weak men who hold tight to petty things like they’re trying to strangle life itself. Weak men like me who feel entitled to things they don’t deserve. But weak in the way that they don’t have enough self respect to walk away from destructive situations. Weak men make bad deals. Weak men do bad things.
Jordan Peterson opened my eyes to see that our perception of masculinity is all wrong. The hierarchies in society is not a product of capitalism. Capitalism is only a couple hundred years old. Hierarchies have been around since before trees. He outlines this argument in Rule 1, stand up straight with your shoulders back. We have no problem discussing empowering women or building strong women but there is such a reluctance to embrace similar terminology for men. As if we’re trying to apologize for the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. But what is it to empower a man? What is masculine strength? Raw power only leads to tyranny. The patriarchy that we’re all apparently guilty of. But true power is competence. Commitment and leadership, the ability to bear responsibility.
Peterson talks about this a lot. The quest for happiness has been a red hearing all along. “Happiness” is nothing more than a forced smile. Sure, you can fake it till you make it but then you find out you’ve got terminal cancer and six months to live. Good luck with your smile. Meaning and purpose. These are things that truly offset suffering. And if you’re lucky, happiness will be a byproduct of it. But you only achieve it through bearing as much responsibility as possible. Real men make commitments. Do right by yourself, do right by your family and do right by your community. That’s the way we tilt the world away from hell. And I’ve been doing my best to be a better person, be a better brother and son, and be a better citizen and friend.
Since 2016 when I started sorting myself out I’ve also been observing society since Trump got elected. I was as shocked as everyone else that he got in. I honestly believed he had disqualified himself with the comments he’d made. I became fixated on this phenomena. And I vowed to myself the day he was sworn in that I would be more active in calling out injustice wherever I saw it. I had subscribed to this idea that there are far more bigots and racists than I had realized. This could be the only explanation for Trump. But what shocked me even more was when I’d find myself calling out those of us on the left far more than those on the right.
Before Trump, I was a CBC, National Post, Macleans, TVO, CTV, Global, BBC, NPR, CNN man. I would rather look at news and documentaries than anything else. But I started to notice something odd. I heard it described as Trump derangement syndrome. Where whatever Trump said or did people felt the need to opposite it with as much if not more fervor than Trump. Regardless how biased or inaccurate the reporting, the news media which once happily used Trump for ratings now acted as though this man was the antichrist. But what happened as a side effect to this new narrative based activism reporting was that now the media had tunnel vision. They would only report on stories and people who did not run contrary to their narrative. resulting in them ignoring certain stories and causing distrust among people. Further polarizing the already polarized.
With the impact Jordan Peterson was having on my life I naturally wanted to see everything he was involved in to learn more about the man. I looked up old videos with him on TVO where they discussed his recent controversial BillC16 protest. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Claims that there is no such thing as biological sex. Accusations that Peterson’s stance on BillC16 was violence towards his students and that he ought to be regarded as a bigot. Ideas that the Steve Paikin I’d admired and respected for so long didn’t even bother attempting to challenge. I initially shrugged it off as deviant behaviour by extreme leftists which wasn’t representative of the broader leftist orientation. But as time went on I saw more and more of this type of ideology.
My come-to-Jesus moment was when I saw Premier Kathleen Wynne stand up in front of the media and warn the public that everyone needed to get out and vote because otherwise it would be people who looked like her, old and white, who would be casting their votes. And this is something obviously we should all be so afraid of. This is the same woman who declared to black lives matters that there IS in fact systematic racism and oppression. Yet no one among the media were asking what role the Liberal government played in that system as they had been governing the entire province for the past near 15 years. If this “systematic racism” wasn’t created by the governing liberals then who did create it? Or was it an easy lie to rally a special interest group to further radical legislation? Easy to pass legislation under the guise of compassion if people genuinely believe that there is hate and bigotry everywhere. I wonder if the same hate and bigotry was present when Ontario voted a lesbian woman in as the Premier 4 years earlier. That’s how she got away with BillC16 and Bill89. I’ll address these bills in more depth in later posts.
I discovered Petersons youtube channel which featured his biblical series and all his classroom lectures. For months, this is all I listened to. It was broadening my mind and exposing my preconceived notions at a rate that made me feel like I had lived an entire lifetime and was now reborn. And then by following Peterson he would go on to lead me in the direction of other great people. The Joe Rogan podcast. The Rubin Report with Dave Rubin. Mark Steyn, Gad Saad, Sam Harris, (a post-rehab) Glen Beck, Stefan Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jonathan Pageau, Paul VanderKlay, Lindsay Shepherd, Steven Crowder and more. And through these people I discovered other people like Karen Straughan, Lauren Chen, Lauren Southern, Sargon of Akkad, Rebel Wisdom, Owen Benjamin, Blaire White, Contra Points, Tommy Robinson, Alfsvoid, Yaron Brook, Bettina Arndt, Po the Person, Debra Soh, Bret and Eric Weinstein, Cassie Jaye, John Anderson, Faith Goldy, Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt, Theryn Meyer, Amy Chua, and more.
I went from subscribing to less than a dozen channels on youtube to now following over three hundred. I quickly realized that there were points of view that I had never considered before. And if a liberal and conservative or an atheist and a theologian could sit down and have a healthy dialogue than who was I to be above any argument or perspective? Maybe I believed the whole “basket of deplorables” thing because there was a whole reality I wasn’t paying attention to. Till this day, a year later, I’m still catching up on videos and books. I may be overwhelming myself and making it too difficult to function on single tasks but I do feel I will reach a point where I have a stronger grip on reality. I’ve found it helpful to also buy a series of books that are an introduction to philosophy, politics, psychology and economics. These have also helped me wrap my mind around the content of those I’m following.
These Days I really only watch the mainstream media to get local news and to study the latest in the narrative that they are espousing. Most coverage is used as protest of the oppressive, patriarchal machine that is capitalism and the western world. And how any product of that system is systematic racism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia and sexism. I hope that I will soon be able to feature some of my findings here. But frankly things are happening at such a quick rate that it’s hard enough to keep up let alone go back and cover past transgressions.
If you know anything about Jordan Peterson then all you need to do is read anything any mainstream media has written about him or watch any mainstream interviews to see exactly the narrative based activism I’m talking about because you won’t find more dishonest reporting than the claims thrown against him. It appears that in an effort to fight against Trump’s populist, divisive claims of fake news, they’ve doubled down on an ideology that has made the fake news a self fulfilling prophecy. Where reporting on feelings take precedence over reporting on facts. If that doesn’t factor into public discourse then I don’t know what does. MSNBC literally claimed that Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be choked.
These “feminists” couldn’t demonstrate more clearly that they’re not for all women, just women who think the right way. All other women can be killed and discarded, they couldn’t care less. The ideology has become more important than the humanity. There couldn’t be a greater example of this double standard than that of Mrs. Sanders. She’s the first press secretary who requires special security protection because of the threats made against her by the very “progressives” who claim to advocate for women. Maybe it’s her ability to keep her shit together while everyone literally screams at her or maybe it’s her ability to stare Jim Acosta of CNN in the eye as she dismantles his goofy fucken virtue signalling but there’s something about Sarah Sanders that I just find sexy as fuck. I can’t help it. She’s all woman and then some. People only hate her because she’s so good at her job. Let’s face facts, she’s got the job of being Donald Trump’s PR. That job RUINED Sean Spicer. How Sean Spicer doesn’t pull a Robyn Williams, I’ll never understand. Sarah Sanders has lasted like 282 Scaramuccis. She’s probably the strongest woman alive. Love her or hate her. I’ll love her.
Ultimately I decided to start this blog to better formulate my thoughts and arguments and practice in communicating concepts and ideas to help me sharpen my blade for battle. Things are getting too crazy and we all need to have that point where we stand and say “no”. If we don’t stand for anything then we fall for everything. 4 years ago I was shocked when Ontario voted in favour of a Liberal majority government after all of the insane scandals that have taken place over the past decade. But the epiphany I had was with all my complaining, what did I do as an individual to facilitate the change I wanted? So this year I got involved and signed up as a volunteer for the conservative candidate in my local riding. I decided conservative because everything I had been seeing lead me to believe free speech was the most important issue of our current time and the conservatives were the only ones who even cared about it.
Aside from that, there was no way I was voting for the corrupt Liberals who were literally borrowing from our future to buy votes today. And the candidate in my riding for the NDP was literally a self proclaimed Marxist. Somehow people who wave a communist flag are treated differently than those who wave a Nazi flag. I don’t get it. But there is something seductive about Marxism that makes smart people succumb to bad ideas. And I see more and more of marxism creeping into our society. It brilliantly allies itself with groups who take the stance that in order to oppose their Marxism you must also oppose them as people. And that’s where we get these claims of ideas and words as violence against people’s humanity.
So I volunteered for the conservative candidate who is now our MPP, the honourable Natalia Kusendova. This woman worked her ass off and was an inspiration to me. While the media reported on us being a backwards party of old white men, I was supporting a millennial polish nurse who wanted to bring fresh ideas to a fresh new government to advocate for our healthcare system. But they weren’t interested in her story. After we won the election I found myself attending a general meeting for our riding and both putting myself forward to join our riding’s board as a delegate. Luckily I had made enough friends in my volunteering that I received enough votes to elect me in.
This put me in a position to attend the conservative party conventions and participate in discussions, debates and vote directly on policy and constitution amendments and resolutions. It was an amazing experience and a breath of fresh air to speak to like minded people. As a result, I ended up participating in directly voting on resolutions to repeal bill89 and billc16. I could actually see in a measurable way how my actions lead me exactly to where I wanted to be, when I wanted to be there. It was like witnessing the fruits of my labour. As small a part as I played, here I was, voting on the very issues that motivated me to get involved in the first place. It was the first moment I legitimately felt proud to be a conservative. But the whole event eye opening into just how diverse the conservative party is. Both in ethnicity and in ideas and perspectives. I don’t know where this will all take me but I am doing my part in facilitating the change I believe will make Ontario better for our future generations. Because I’ve learned that if you don’t stand up and participate then you automatically consent to those who would do you harm.
I’d like to use this blog to help me process my development as I learn more about society and the history from where we come from. But I also hope to use this platform to share the valuable content I’ve been exposed to so others can also have their status quo challenged and reassess their values. But also to use this platform to rebut the ongoing narrative that is the mainstream media’s doctrine. And I do so in hopes that when the Trump era is over, whether it be in 2020 or 2024, what replaces him won’t be worse than him. Let’s all agree to figure out whatever lesson it is to learn and actually learn it. Otherwise history will be doomed to repeat itself.
I really do believe that I, my lonely little self, has the ability to influence this. Because of social media the networks among us are far more powerful than any other time in history. If I only manage to reach 1 person then there is the potential that they will reach 1 person. And so on. Having exponential impact. And in a time where Doug Ford beat Christine Elliot by 200 hundred votes for the leadership, there is always the potential for change if one is willing to facilitate it. We need to find a way to welcome people back to a more balanced centre. So I’ll do my part in working to find that path.
I will be attempting to draw lines to define precisely what it looks like to go too far on both the left and the right. I will work to debunk this modern day neo-Marxism and reveal it for the self devouring snake it is. And call it out wherever it appears. Because I truly believe we are heading toward a reduction of two tribes. The Right Tribe, where society may be broken but is inherently good and worth fixing. Or the Left Tribe, where society is broken because it is inherently bad and must be burnt down and all must be purged. I think we’re already too far committed to these tribes to dismantle them, aka I fear the centre may truly be dead. So if I can make a convincing enough case to side with the Right tribe then maybe we’ll find the key we need to heal society and bring an era of peace for our children like never before. That’s worth fighting for.
And I know I wouldn’t be where I am without Jordan Peterson. Thank you Jordan. For everything you’ve done for me and continue to do. I promise before I post again I will clean my room.
“If you fulfill your obligations everyday you don’t need to worry about the future.”
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Rule #8 