Name: We Can Always Do Better: Jordan Peterson | TPW Clips
Uploaded: 2018-07-08T02:15:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'We Can Always Do Better: Jordan Peterson | TPW Clips' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-07-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'We Can Always Do Better: Jordan Peterson | TPW Clips' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-07-08. Transcript available.

You have a gift, and I don't know if it's a learned one, or if you feel like it's
just
something from, you know, a higher power, that you're a conduit for this, that
you don't sound
too much, you sound like a know-it-some, but you don't sound like a know-it-all.
I always include myself in the audience that I'm speaking to.
It's like, it isn't that you need improvement.
It's that we need improvement.
Yeah, and I'm in there, man.
I'm in a group of people who could use some radical improvement.
And you believe that, though?
Definitely.
Absolutely.
Look, I mean, yeah.
So do I.
Like, sometimes I'm just talking just because I'm open somewhere in all of it,
I'll help
myself, you know, or that when someone calls that, you know, like, it's crazy
how many
callers call in with thoughts and feelings and stuff like that, and it shows me
something
that I never knew.
And you might get that probably in questions that people ask you.
Well, look, I mean, I'm not as tough as I could be.
I'm not as smart as I could be.
I'm not as musically gifted as I could be.
Like, I haven't read as much as I could read.
I don't know enough about history.
Like, there's endless numbers of things that I could be doing better.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I'd like to do them better, but they're endless.
So I'm trying to keep my eyes open and figure out, okay, what can I do better?
And the world would be a better place if I was a better person.
So I'm going to try to be a better person.
And so I'm trying to figure that out because it's important.
And I'm in the conversation, man.
Yeah.
So, and I think that people that are engaging to talk to, often in these long
form discussions,
it's the same thing.
Is they're in the audience of people who need to be improved.
Yeah.
So at least when the dialogue is going well, you know, and so when I hear like
the last
caller and he comes up with a question like that, it's like, yeah, that's a
real question,
man, that's like something to grapple with.
So I like that.
I like that, man.
Yeah.
Hey, Theo, this is Tyler.
I live in Tennessee.
I had a question for Jordan Peterson.
Jordan, when you look back on your life when you're older, what do you think
your most important
contribution will be?
And I don't mean just things that you have done, but things you may plan on
doing.
Um, and I, I really appreciate you doing this all on and having me on.
So thanks guys.
And thank you, Jordan.
Bye.
Well, I think establishing this link between responsibility and meaning is a
good thing.
And I've outlined that a fair bit in the first book I wrote, which was Maps of
Meaning.
The audio version of that is available now, by the way.
And it's a, it's a very hard book, but I think the audio version is comprehensible.
Um, so, so if you like 12 rules for life, you, and you want to dig deeper, that's
a good
place to dig.
And the test I took last night will help as well.
Oh yeah, yeah.
That's another thing we didn't, that we didn't talk about.
I have this test online called understandmyself.com, which I would recommend it.
It'll give you a description of your personality according to a big five model,
extroversion,
neuroticism, which is sensitivity to negative emotion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
and openness.
And then it breaks each of those down into two sub traits.
And so I would say it's really useful for you to do that, find out where your
strengths
and weaknesses are, what your character is.
But it's also really useful to have the people around you do it because you'll,
you'll find
out there are things about them you don't know.
Things you, like, like one of the things with my father, could never understand
my father
because in some ways, because it was hard to get him to be, um, kind of, what
would
you say, enthusiastic about, about, uh, about adventures, something like that.
He wasn't an enthusiastic person.
Right, he wasn't outgoing?
Well, he was, he was in a sense, well, he did the test anyways, and extroversion
splits
into assertiveness and enthusiasm.
He's really low in enthusiasm, but he's high in assertiveness.
Right, he's assertive.
Oh, I see, he's assertive, he can put himself forward, he's forthrighted in his
speech.
He's a hard worker, he likes to hunt.
But he's not, he's not a giggly, enthusiastic person, it's just not in his
temperament.
I thought, oh, that's interesting.
So that was really useful.
Do you feel like you turned into that same way or no?
No, I'm enthusiastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you are enthusiastic.
Yeah, yeah, I'm quite enthusiastic.
And I was watching some-
More like my mother in that regard, I would say.
So-
Do you find, is it neat to be like your mother a little bit?
Oh, my mother's a really good person.
Like she was, she, she, the thing I really liked about my mother, one thing is
that, um,
I could always make her laugh.
So we shared that, you know, and so she thought I had a good sense of humor and
I used it a lot
around her.
And so that was really good.
But she, she was also a hundred percent behind me.
Oh, wow.
Which is great.
And she was, my mother's a nice person.
You know, she's an agreeable person.
She, she's a caring person, but she's got a spine, man.
And she didn't maul and quad her kids.
Oh yeah.
She's also a very hard worker.
So she had that right.
Like she, she would take care of us and she was on our side, but she, she threw
us out
in the world and she didn't interfere.
So, and, and I could see that that was hard for her.
That's one of your steps in your book, isn't it?
That there has to be a little bit of danger when, when kids play.
Oh, definitely.
What is it?
12th step, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, don't bother children when they're skateboarding.
Yes.
Yeah.
Cause they, that's right.
Cause if you're going to make your kids tough, which they better be, if they're
going to
survive in the world, then you can't interfere when they're doing dangerous
things carefully
and maybe not even that carefully, right?
No, but still, even in that, to, to think about it that specifically, dangerous
things
carefully, um, that's such a place where kids learn.
Oh, that is the only place they learn.
That's where everyone learns everything.
When you're doing dangerous things carefully, man, that's where you learn.
And so you interfere with that, you interfere with the process by which your
children expand
their competence and it takes courage not to interfere with that.
When you see your three-year-old daughter climbing up the monkey bars, our
daughter used
to do that in our backyard, you know, and she was three and the monkey bars
were about
eight feet high.
She liked to go right to the top and climb across them.
It's like, we're watching out the back window thinking, but what do you do?
We go around there.
Be careful.
Yeah.
Right.
Which is the thing.
There's a bit of malevolence in that.
Oh, my daughter's worrying me.
I'll go out there and take care of her, but I'll startle her.
Then she'll fall.
Well, that'll fix her.
She won't do that again.
She won't make me nervous.
It's like, you got to watch those things, man.
Right.
It's not about them.
It's about you.
Yes, that's for sure.
That's what you got to ask yourself.
Am I taking care of my child or am I just afraid to be afraid for them?
Hmm.
Hmm.
That's no, there's no excuse for that.
You talked a minute ago about your mother laughing and it's so funny.
I thought since I got in a, I realized my mother and I never laughed when I was
a kid, you
know, and I realized, I just realized that once I got in an AA, like a lot of
things, I
started to have a lot more emotions and thoughts and feelings and just be able
to look at my
life instead of being so stressed out about my current whatever.
I was able to let this subside and whatever was in front of me so I could see
forward and
backward a little bit and even just see into like moments that I'd have with
family.
But it's just so fascinating when you said that, I was like, oh man, that was
such a
thing that I realized recently.
I never got to laugh with my mother.
Well, that's too bad because you're funny.
Yeah.
So that would have been great.
But I think I realized, and sorry to interrupt you that.
No problem.
I think one of the reasons why I ended up getting into being funny, even
against probably my
own will was all I wanted to do was probably make my mother laugh, you know?
And the fact, so I had to make everybody, I don't know if I was afraid to or if
we, but
we never, I never realized it until probably about a year and a half ago.
I'm like, man, my mother and I have never laughed together.
And I'm like, that's so, um.
Sad.
It's sad.
Yeah, it's sad.
It's too bad.
How come?
You know, I don't know.
I think she was.
You have to tickle her the next time you see her.
She was a hard worker.
You know what?
Yeah.
There are little things I start to, I start to have little plans when I'm
talking to her on the phone.
I'll, I'll make like a goofy voice or something just to see, cause we've never
done that.
Yeah.
You know, to think that my mother's never heard me, uh, be goofy.
Yeah.
Or that I've never heard her step out of, you know, whatever, you know,
laughter zones or
something that we built or something.
It's just.
It might be, it might be interesting to see if you can make an inroad there now
that you've
realized today.
But it's so powerful.
And if there's people out there that have children and they're not having that
experience,
um, it's just such a, it, it, it lets, it lets a kid know that everything is
kind of
okay.
Yeah.
Well, that's, that's a big purpose of humor, man.
Well, you've got to, there's a sticker on the computer over there, funny or die.
It's like, yeah, no kidding.
It's partly why I took Dave Rubin along with me on the tour.
Oh yeah.
Well, a little bit of humor is, it's not a good thing.
It's bloody necessary.
Do you, who makes you laugh?
I mean, obviously, you know, you just mentioned Dave, but who makes you laugh
as a comedian
over time?
Mitch Hedberg.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, man.
King of the one-liners.
Oh dude, he's a Canadian aphrodisiac, isn't he?
Mitch Hedberg.
Yeah.
He's, he's, he's damn funny.
And so I like standup comedians in general.
I liked, uh, who's the guy that just got in trouble in New York?
Um, oh, Louis CK.
Louis CK.
Yeah.
Louis CK.
It's like, oh God, you really going to say that?
Yes.
Yeah.
He's so deviant kind of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like, I like Louis CK a lot.
I think he's really funny.
Canada has a lot of great comedians.
Yes, certainly.
Harlan Williams, Howie Mandel.
Those are two friends of mine and those are funny men.
Oh yeah.
There's lots, Canadians can really produce comedians.
Thank you guys for checking out this clip.
And if you want to see another clip, then you can look at this clip or this
clip, either
one of these.
So did you pick one or are you still just watching me do this?
Cause this is alarming.
Thank you.