One of my plans for non-physics life for year 2021 is to study more about Existentialism. See the last paragraph of my new-year-plan post this year. For those who never heard about the word Existentialism, it is a philosophy discussing how to live a meaningful life. The ideas from existentialism have an impact on theory of psychology. Actually, it is my reading of a psychology novel called When Nietzsche Wept in March (maybe?) this year that revivified my interest and passion about Existentialism and made me think deeply about meaning of life.
Encounter with Dr. Jordan Peterson's videos
My constant click and search about the topic related to Existentialism on YouTube and Bilibili (a popular video-sharing web in China) make videos of a guy called Jordan Peterson appearing a lot in my front page (thanks to the modern AI recommendation system). I clicked one or two of them, but they didn’t catch my attention immediately because his way of talking about things seem so strong and forceful to me that sometimes it sounds very aggressive. But, I got to know a lecture video series called Personality and its Transformation. The course looks very interesting to me because it seems to use Existentialism as a tool to understand psychology and personality. Again, I didn’t start watching them because this series of lecture of are very long (see the YouTube playlist here).
Hit a transition point that lets me start watching Dr. Peterson's video lecture
Two things unexpectedly happened in the second semester of the second year of my Master course (April to September this year) and they made me very confusing and at a loss. The first thing sounds mundane. I could no longer live in a cozy dormitory provide by the university and have to move out to a private apartment alone. The second thing was that I had a romance encounter that made me think about love and intimate relationship. I hadn’t thought a lot about them before, so I felt very panic and had no idea what to do. I need some clues to help me sort out the emotional problems for me. I think Dr. Peterson’s lecture about personality and its transformation might provide some clues. And it was indeed so. I started watching the video lectures on 5 September and finished on 12 November.
Know yourself
As a student aimed at becoming a theoretical physicist, I usually try to focus on the outside world in a neutral and unbiased way (What is?). However, from time to time, I have to understand more about myself and what I should do (What should? See Hume’s problem) when facing problems arising in life (like the above transition point making me at a loss). Dr. Peterson’s course introduce a set of theoretical framework to help understand one’s personality. The framework includes
- mythological stories from Bible,
- Jean Piaget’s theory of formation of moral rules from playing,
- Carl Jung’s and Freud’s concept of subconscious, ego, id, and superego,
- Carl Roger’s emphasizing on genuine talk in forming a therapeutic relationship,
- Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn’s analysis of the dark side, or the devil aspect of human nature.
These topics only constitute the first half of the course. For those with a scientific mind, these topics may sound too philosophical. Do not complain! The most amazing feature about this Dr. Perteron’s course is that in the second part, he introduces biological background of some theoretical frameworks introduced in the first part. You will hear research from brain science and experimental psychology.
Carl Jung's three conjunctions for someone to be well constituted psychologically
All the topics mentioned above are very deep and meaningful. As an example, just see one of Carl Jung’s brilliant discussion about what makes a person healthy psychologically. It involves three conjunctions,
- The first is the unification of rational thinking (masculine element) and your emotion (feminine element).
To understand the importance of the first conjunction, just recall the last time you know perfectly you should do something, but you just won’t do it in a prompt manner. The mismatch of your thinking and emotion is precisely the cause of procrastination. Do you want to know what to do with it? You can find inspirations in Peterson’s lectures.
- The second is the unification of your mind/emotion integration with your body.
This is related to the idea in Existentialism that action is more real than pure thinking. Personally, I find this conjunction very natural. However, I see mismatch of these two concepts in at least two of my good friends because they are so nervous about acting out some new ideas. I am very curious why it happens and how to deal with it.
- The third one is very tough. It is related to ideas from Buddhism, Zen, and Existentialism. You erase the distinction between yourself and the world!
It takes me a long time to appreciate this extremely deep idea. I believe it lies in the center of Zen’s maxim based on my current understand of Huineng’s Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Crudely speaking, it is based on an understanding that yourself is not just the thing enclosed in your body, but should be understood collectively with the rest of the world.
I use this as an example to show how deep Dr. Peterson’s lecture is. And if anything above interests you a little, you will love Peterson’s lecture!!!!
Very Interesting stuff, I was wandering about on your site and was curious about kind of software you used to make it?
See wordpress.org
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