Latest Blog Post

12 Rules For Life – Jordan B Peterson

I stopped writing about books ages ago, I used to write 12 for 12 books, albums and movies and then I thought that people didn’t like it and so I stopped.

Then I remembered why I wrote the blog in the first place and so I’m starting again.

I love to read and I love to listen and in fact, at the present time, I get most of my books through audio book walking to and from work, walking with the dog and in the car.

At the moment I’m reading ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker and I’ll get to that a little bit later, it’s extraordinary.

I am also reading ‘Silence’ and ‘All that man is’ and ‘Mistakes were made’ so clearly, I have too many things on the go at the moment but I like to jump.

Back to Jordan B Peterson though, who is an interesting and fascinating character.

I would never like a book written by someone like him because, as I’ve explained in these pages before, I am an atheist. I was brought up a Catholic and in my 20’s, following a significant mortality crisis, had a chat with God and we decided to go our separate ways.

Please don’t mistake that for being someone who has no respect for anybody else’s beliefs, I am more than happy for you to believe what you want as long as you’re happy for me to believe what I want.

Jordan B Peterson is not an atheist, he is the opposite of an atheist.

For that reason, some years ago I wouldn’t even have picked the book up, being someone who was converted by Richard Dawkins, but I was drawn to it myself without others influence and began it just a little while ago.

Don’t pick this book up unless you understand the fact that it is an intellectual essay and takes some concentration to get through the concepts within it.

It uses much reference to passages from the bible, but also some extraordinary experience of Peterson and the thoughts of someone with one of the biggest brains in the world today.

I had a discussion with one of my friends about it who had stopped it part way through saying that they felt he was a fascist.

I couldn’t disagree more about that. When I had a conversation with my pal Dominic O’Hooley about it we both agreed that his philosophy was meritocracy. I would be a meritocracist.

It’s pretty simple in its concept this book and is pretty simple in its chapter headings, but not simple in its explanations. There’s a lot to learn and a lot of good points to be taken from it, not least of these is the rule for life which encourages you not to ‘tell the truth or at least not lie’.

Stand up straight with your shoulders back is a brilliant explanation of looking after yourself first and proper selfishness and the chapter on getting your own house in order before you criticise other peoples is also wonderfully done.

It perhaps gets a little bit overrun at the end with ‘the pen of light’ where he is given a pen with a light in it and that allows him to write the most profound questions at the end of the book, but by that time I was hooked on something which just reminded me of some of the things I should be doing to look after myself and the people around me.

It did help remind me of what was important when things were getting a little bit sticky and difficult.

This book is broken down clearly into 12 individual sections, each of which is a simply titled chapter which then explains his thinking and his arguments related to each of the points in this.

Some of it you might agree with and some of it you might disagree with, but if your head is strong enough and curious enough then get it. You should get it on audio book because he reads it himself and it’s a great way to experience it.

Blog Post Number: 1815