As a 22 year old you are wise beyond your years. This is a very insightful description of the Sisyphean journey to push beyond the limits of our banal understanding, which is a boulder to move for higher thinking.
Another tip I love and was taught growing up was to read books or articles out loud. It makes such a difference if you do it even one news article out loud every morning, to the way I speak without saying “umm” and “like”.
i used to be much more articulate... in my teens, 20s, early 30s. then the real complexities of life unfolded that only tears, a heaving heart, and heavy-laden silence could ever express. immense grief, loss, even joy have no means of verbal articulation, only what the body can physically express--never words. at 15 i thought adults were so stupid, they couldn't "debate" properly with me and come out on top (or so i thought then). but i was a fool. today i have my own teenaged kids, and sometimes i get so frustrated with their arguments that all i can do is shake my head, bite my tongue, laugh it off, and give them a hug; they think my silence means they've won -- they are so much like i was! they're too young to understand, because some things must be *experienced* for one to KNOW. so i tell them in story form... after the trojan war, the gods, who were meddling with and puppeteering humans, were aghast at their own hand at such devastation that they were compelled to silence. the gods saw the absurdity of their quarrels with one another, which spilled onto the world. they stepped back. let the humans be humans, they decided. let them love and hate, create and destroy, be both light and dark. let them be. and so this is why, after decades of seriousness and dangerously articulating "life-changing" ideas, wise grandmas and grandpas just give hugs and let you be as you are, with soft smiles and no argument.
It’s strange. I have not encountered much of Petersen (as a deliberate choice to avoid someone who is so deeply controversial and polarising), but in the one video I did watch (some Jubilee or Jubilee-style video about atheism I think) I was surprised by how poor this man is at articulating ideas or his thoughts even compared to “untrained” or “uncoached” people; I expected at very least that he would sound intelligent or interesting or persuasive, yet I came away with the opposite perception.
Perhaps he has experienced cognitive decline or has worsened after becoming so entrenched in politics? I'm open to the he used to be better at it, but on the other hand I'm not currently sure he has ever been anything more than “be verbose, use big words, talk fast”. Frankly, not a person to emulate.
(Which makes me go 😬, because there's a greater risk of becoming dangerously inarticulate in that case)
Perhaps your sample size is too small to draw such a conclusion about his articulation skills. The Jubilee video was clearly set up to make JP look bad, both sides were given different instructions. He was visibly irritated in that video, and I agree with you there. I mean, who wouldn’t be, with cocky teenagers these days? Only one young woman in the group seemed able to hold an actual conversation.
One thing I must admit is that he simply doesn’t budge when it comes to how he speaks; he sticks to his characteristic style. In his podcast series, where he has had many guests, I’ve never felt that he used his vocabulary as a way to dominate the conversation.
I’d recommend 'Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief' from his playlist. It’s an evergreen YouTube series, and you won’t regret watching it.
The sample size is small, but I think it is bizarre to blame/use the word ‘cocky’ towards the teenagers. They were young people who did admirably under terrible conditions; for me, taking into account their position in life, at least some of those teens did brilliantly in comparison to the supposed academic. The fact that several spoke much more coherently than him is an absolute credit to their articulation skills and intelligence.
And I don't base my opinion on him purely on that video. I base it on the fact he is a “culture war” provocateur and that his professional standing was destroyed because of it. Licensing in health and health-allied fields is a very serious business; very rarely is the threat or the action of being “struck off” or losing a licence to practice floated as an option. Even in very serious cases, the maximum punishment is usually suspension for a period of time.
To lose one's licence, one has to essentially break the code of conduct for the profession. That means deliberately endangering your own health, your patients’ health or the health and wellbeing of the public.
(I won't discuss the culture war itself. It's been played out to death and back. Even if I did agree with Peterson about 1 or 2 things, the way he has gone about it is almost inconceivably irresponsible and unprofessional)
I don’t want to turn this into a full-blown debate, but I do want to clarify a few points that I think have been framed a bit unfairly.
First, there’s no need to favour emotional outbursts or “aha moment” theatrics simply because they were teenagers. I was a teenager not that long ago myself. Whether anyone “did brilliantly” depends entirely on context, and in this case, that context was almost inexistent. As I mentioned before, the show’s entire setup was skewed from the start. I wouldn’t subject anyone, even people I disagree with, to the kind of framing Jubilee uses. Credit where it’s due (again) the young woman, who was actually younger than many of the other participants, was the only one who genuinely tried to challenge Peterson with facts and reason rather than emotion or personal barbs. She called out many of his personal standpoints he refuses to clarify.
Provocateur? Yeah probably. But the idea that his professional standing was “destroyed” because of his own irresponsibility, that requires a look at the full context. The disciplinary process surrounding him isn’t some neutral administrative measure, it has been, malevolent and concerning in terms of professional autonomy and freedom of expression. If anything, it raises questions about how easily institutional power can be weaponized. It also helps not to conflate a person’s profession with their identity. He is a human being first and a practitioner second. Reducing him solely to the latter makes it too easy to justify disproportionate consequences.
Speaking of success, I think we can agree that one meaningful measure is the real-world impact someone has. When a person is regularly approached by young people, often those who felt lost, directionless, or unheard, and they express genuine gratitude for having their lives changed, that says something remarkable about their influence, regardless of whether one agrees with all of their positions.
I don't favour emotional outbursts; I think that Peterson was the most emotional person in the video 😅 He was childish in a way that was inexplicable for someone who once used to be respected before his disgrace, no matter what the issues with setup were.
Other men and women who faced that poor setup handled it with grace. So in contrast, he seems to have lost some measure of rationality in recent times. Again, obsessively pursuing culture wars will do that to a person; you lose the ability to see the grey spaces and only do black and white.
His professional reputation is nonexistent, and it is nonexistent for good reason. Again, I have no desire to pursue a conversation along these lines, but noone in a healthcare/health allied field can act the way he has and expect to still practice. If I were on a fitness to practice committee, or whatever similar thing exists in Canada for such matters, I would have supported the decision to remove or suspend his licence.
He is not someone worth engaging with at any level at all any more; I can't speak for historical context pre-entry into culture wars. There are people who can speak about sensitive or disputed issues without frothing at the mouth. Especially frothing at the mouth when faced with a calm teenager's remark 😅
I’m noticing the close-mindedness coming from this thread. It might be off-putting to Craig’s readers, so I will stop entertaining this futile endeavor to reason with you. Have a wonderful day.
Interesting. I haven’t watched much of him in recent years. I don’t have an interest in politics at all, and that Jubilee video was an awkward watch for sure. But I would recommend watching the first episode of his Bible Lecture series on YouTube, it might offer a new perspective!
Aye, to be fair the Jubilee videos are just "rage bait" in a lot of cases. Even in that particular video, the format is poor and doesn't allow for a proper conversation. Something you go away from and don't gain anything from.
That being said… if I wanted to learn something about the Bible again or even just about articulation, I would personally look for both a reputable source of information as well someone that had a reputation as a fantastic educator/speaker. Unfortunately, Peterson fails on both fronts. Even in his own field of study, he is considered disgraced.
I appreciate your article is full of useful information that is unrelated to him though! I feel almost bad to pick up on such a minor section. The importance of expression and becoming comfortable with uncertainty, curiosity driven self-learning, finding and expressing our own voice and having the discipline to rely on more than just motivation alone are all nicely explained.
Time for me to return to my obsession on that note. I'm reading a comic version of Orwell's 1984 in Turkish and my brain is slowly turning to mush…
As someone who used to be quite articulate and fairly confident and has lost that over a few years, this came right on time for me. Thank you for writing this!!
A great curation of big ideas. I've found the creation of "walkie-talkie" style YT videos a way to grow my articulation. At first I would spend hours editing out all my "ums" and "uhs" but then the output looked choppy and fake. But the sheer awareness of the errors and hiccups caused me to reduce them over time. Now I just let it go in one take.
I’ve always loved speaking. I want to be articulate. I used to think that to know more would help. But I’m learning here that reciting ideas doesn’t make you articulate, I have to think for myself. Thanks for this. This will be a piece I come back to, to see if I’ve progressed in my journey. Like Sisyphus, I want to enjoy carrying that boulder, because the journey is the destination.
I love ideas about the human nature , from philosophy, psychology , politics etc
The problem is that I find it difficult to articulate myself in a way that is comprehensive to others
I guess as he said , we are obsessed with certainty in our words and also perfection but that’s not the point because your thoughts should be only yours to share . Therefore they are unique to your perspective of things
So he advised us to always keep improving as how Sisyphus used to do with the boulder , read in our interests , write about them , learn to explain your ideas to a 3year old . Do not be scared to ask questions since it will push you discover and broaden your perspective around things .
Remember you are not learning for the sake of knowing but of discovering!!! Thank you for the article 🤍
As a 22 year old you are wise beyond your years. This is a very insightful description of the Sisyphean journey to push beyond the limits of our banal understanding, which is a boulder to move for higher thinking.
All the Best to you on your journey, Craig!
Thank you for reading! I've been dying to talk about Sisyphus in a newsletter for a while now haha
Another tip I love and was taught growing up was to read books or articles out loud. It makes such a difference if you do it even one news article out loud every morning, to the way I speak without saying “umm” and “like”.
I like this!
Fantastic idea! Appreciate sharing this stuff👍
i used to be much more articulate... in my teens, 20s, early 30s. then the real complexities of life unfolded that only tears, a heaving heart, and heavy-laden silence could ever express. immense grief, loss, even joy have no means of verbal articulation, only what the body can physically express--never words. at 15 i thought adults were so stupid, they couldn't "debate" properly with me and come out on top (or so i thought then). but i was a fool. today i have my own teenaged kids, and sometimes i get so frustrated with their arguments that all i can do is shake my head, bite my tongue, laugh it off, and give them a hug; they think my silence means they've won -- they are so much like i was! they're too young to understand, because some things must be *experienced* for one to KNOW. so i tell them in story form... after the trojan war, the gods, who were meddling with and puppeteering humans, were aghast at their own hand at such devastation that they were compelled to silence. the gods saw the absurdity of their quarrels with one another, which spilled onto the world. they stepped back. let the humans be humans, they decided. let them love and hate, create and destroy, be both light and dark. let them be. and so this is why, after decades of seriousness and dangerously articulating "life-changing" ideas, wise grandmas and grandpas just give hugs and let you be as you are, with soft smiles and no argument.
What a response. Thank you for sharing this!
Ha! My husband describes me as, "Wrong. But never uncertain."
Enjoyed the article. Good luck to you.
Haha I love this!
Thank you for sharing this Frances!!
It’s strange. I have not encountered much of Petersen (as a deliberate choice to avoid someone who is so deeply controversial and polarising), but in the one video I did watch (some Jubilee or Jubilee-style video about atheism I think) I was surprised by how poor this man is at articulating ideas or his thoughts even compared to “untrained” or “uncoached” people; I expected at very least that he would sound intelligent or interesting or persuasive, yet I came away with the opposite perception.
Perhaps he has experienced cognitive decline or has worsened after becoming so entrenched in politics? I'm open to the he used to be better at it, but on the other hand I'm not currently sure he has ever been anything more than “be verbose, use big words, talk fast”. Frankly, not a person to emulate.
(Which makes me go 😬, because there's a greater risk of becoming dangerously inarticulate in that case)
Perhaps your sample size is too small to draw such a conclusion about his articulation skills. The Jubilee video was clearly set up to make JP look bad, both sides were given different instructions. He was visibly irritated in that video, and I agree with you there. I mean, who wouldn’t be, with cocky teenagers these days? Only one young woman in the group seemed able to hold an actual conversation.
One thing I must admit is that he simply doesn’t budge when it comes to how he speaks; he sticks to his characteristic style. In his podcast series, where he has had many guests, I’ve never felt that he used his vocabulary as a way to dominate the conversation.
I’d recommend 'Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief' from his playlist. It’s an evergreen YouTube series, and you won’t regret watching it.
I agree with your point on the sample size. His lectures are something else, especially his Bible lecture series.
His Bible series is great. But tread lightly as he's a young Christian. He is a great synthesizer though and his network is very vast and diverse.
The sample size is small, but I think it is bizarre to blame/use the word ‘cocky’ towards the teenagers. They were young people who did admirably under terrible conditions; for me, taking into account their position in life, at least some of those teens did brilliantly in comparison to the supposed academic. The fact that several spoke much more coherently than him is an absolute credit to their articulation skills and intelligence.
And I don't base my opinion on him purely on that video. I base it on the fact he is a “culture war” provocateur and that his professional standing was destroyed because of it. Licensing in health and health-allied fields is a very serious business; very rarely is the threat or the action of being “struck off” or losing a licence to practice floated as an option. Even in very serious cases, the maximum punishment is usually suspension for a period of time.
To lose one's licence, one has to essentially break the code of conduct for the profession. That means deliberately endangering your own health, your patients’ health or the health and wellbeing of the public.
(I won't discuss the culture war itself. It's been played out to death and back. Even if I did agree with Peterson about 1 or 2 things, the way he has gone about it is almost inconceivably irresponsible and unprofessional)
I don’t want to turn this into a full-blown debate, but I do want to clarify a few points that I think have been framed a bit unfairly.
First, there’s no need to favour emotional outbursts or “aha moment” theatrics simply because they were teenagers. I was a teenager not that long ago myself. Whether anyone “did brilliantly” depends entirely on context, and in this case, that context was almost inexistent. As I mentioned before, the show’s entire setup was skewed from the start. I wouldn’t subject anyone, even people I disagree with, to the kind of framing Jubilee uses. Credit where it’s due (again) the young woman, who was actually younger than many of the other participants, was the only one who genuinely tried to challenge Peterson with facts and reason rather than emotion or personal barbs. She called out many of his personal standpoints he refuses to clarify.
Provocateur? Yeah probably. But the idea that his professional standing was “destroyed” because of his own irresponsibility, that requires a look at the full context. The disciplinary process surrounding him isn’t some neutral administrative measure, it has been, malevolent and concerning in terms of professional autonomy and freedom of expression. If anything, it raises questions about how easily institutional power can be weaponized. It also helps not to conflate a person’s profession with their identity. He is a human being first and a practitioner second. Reducing him solely to the latter makes it too easy to justify disproportionate consequences.
Speaking of success, I think we can agree that one meaningful measure is the real-world impact someone has. When a person is regularly approached by young people, often those who felt lost, directionless, or unheard, and they express genuine gratitude for having their lives changed, that says something remarkable about their influence, regardless of whether one agrees with all of their positions.
I don't favour emotional outbursts; I think that Peterson was the most emotional person in the video 😅 He was childish in a way that was inexplicable for someone who once used to be respected before his disgrace, no matter what the issues with setup were.
Other men and women who faced that poor setup handled it with grace. So in contrast, he seems to have lost some measure of rationality in recent times. Again, obsessively pursuing culture wars will do that to a person; you lose the ability to see the grey spaces and only do black and white.
His professional reputation is nonexistent, and it is nonexistent for good reason. Again, I have no desire to pursue a conversation along these lines, but noone in a healthcare/health allied field can act the way he has and expect to still practice. If I were on a fitness to practice committee, or whatever similar thing exists in Canada for such matters, I would have supported the decision to remove or suspend his licence.
He is not someone worth engaging with at any level at all any more; I can't speak for historical context pre-entry into culture wars. There are people who can speak about sensitive or disputed issues without frothing at the mouth. Especially frothing at the mouth when faced with a calm teenager's remark 😅
I’m noticing the close-mindedness coming from this thread. It might be off-putting to Craig’s readers, so I will stop entertaining this futile endeavor to reason with you. Have a wonderful day.
<Insert>RussellBrandGIF
The attempt to use a GIF of a sexual predator tells me all I need to know 😅 None of us should be so open-minded that our brains fall out.
Interesting. I haven’t watched much of him in recent years. I don’t have an interest in politics at all, and that Jubilee video was an awkward watch for sure. But I would recommend watching the first episode of his Bible Lecture series on YouTube, it might offer a new perspective!
Aye, to be fair the Jubilee videos are just "rage bait" in a lot of cases. Even in that particular video, the format is poor and doesn't allow for a proper conversation. Something you go away from and don't gain anything from.
That being said… if I wanted to learn something about the Bible again or even just about articulation, I would personally look for both a reputable source of information as well someone that had a reputation as a fantastic educator/speaker. Unfortunately, Peterson fails on both fronts. Even in his own field of study, he is considered disgraced.
I appreciate your article is full of useful information that is unrelated to him though! I feel almost bad to pick up on such a minor section. The importance of expression and becoming comfortable with uncertainty, curiosity driven self-learning, finding and expressing our own voice and having the discipline to rely on more than just motivation alone are all nicely explained.
Time for me to return to my obsession on that note. I'm reading a comic version of Orwell's 1984 in Turkish and my brain is slowly turning to mush…
I love 1984 I want to reread it again so bad! And thank you for sharing your thoughts :)
SUCH A GOOD READ! Learned a lot🙏🏻
Thank you so much! This was a fun one to think about hehe
Thank you!
As someone who used to be quite articulate and fairly confident and has lost that over a few years, this came right on time for me. Thank you for writing this!!
Thank you for your time and attention! hope you enjoyed it :)
A great curation of big ideas. I've found the creation of "walkie-talkie" style YT videos a way to grow my articulation. At first I would spend hours editing out all my "ums" and "uhs" but then the output looked choppy and fake. But the sheer awareness of the errors and hiccups caused me to reduce them over time. Now I just let it go in one take.
This is pure gold. Ty.
Thank you ❤️
Thank you Craig peace and joy with understanding clearing it's path
This landed because it names the thing most people feel but never articulate:
finding your voice isn’t about certainty — it’s about the courage to speak before you’re ready.
You’re right… the world trains us to consume, not create. To repeat, not reveal.
But the moment you start thinking out loud — even imperfectly — something shifts. You stop performing and start discovering.
Articulation as rebellion is exactly it.
Speaking from uncertainty is choosing authenticity over approval — and that’s the moment your voice stops being decorative and becomes dangerous.
Beautiful piece.
I’ve always loved speaking. I want to be articulate. I used to think that to know more would help. But I’m learning here that reciting ideas doesn’t make you articulate, I have to think for myself. Thanks for this. This will be a piece I come back to, to see if I’ve progressed in my journey. Like Sisyphus, I want to enjoy carrying that boulder, because the journey is the destination.
Good for you!
I love ideas about the human nature , from philosophy, psychology , politics etc
The problem is that I find it difficult to articulate myself in a way that is comprehensive to others
I guess as he said , we are obsessed with certainty in our words and also perfection but that’s not the point because your thoughts should be only yours to share . Therefore they are unique to your perspective of things
So he advised us to always keep improving as how Sisyphus used to do with the boulder , read in our interests , write about them , learn to explain your ideas to a 3year old . Do not be scared to ask questions since it will push you discover and broaden your perspective around things .
Remember you are not learning for the sake of knowing but of discovering!!! Thank you for the article 🤍
I love this!!!