Order: Masculine(?). It occurs when things are going as expected. You’re not breaking out in any way but nothing is going really wrong. People behave as expected, without much change. Life is stable but not very eventful. Order is the Wise King but also the Tyrant. Order is organization but also depression.
Chaos: Feminine(?). This is the unexpected. It happens when things don’t go to plan. “Chaos is what emerges more catastrophically when you suddenly find yourself without employment, or are betrayed by a lover.” — Nathaniel Eliason notes (referenced throughout the notes).
Walking the border: it’s tricky to walk the border of order and chaos. I guess it would come in the form of taking calculated risks instead of only sticking to calculated successes or being reckless. Or, by planning on things not going to plan. That keeps them in your domain of capabilities without trying to lock everything down.
The zone of proximal development is the border of order and chaos.
I guess all of these rules aren’t exactly to be taken at face value. Like yes, standing straight with your shoulders back is supposed to increase your levels of serotonin and portray to the world (and yourself) that you are responsible, and are able and willing to take on the responsibilities of life.
The purpose of this section is to outline Peterson’s philosophy on life, I guess. He talks a lot about hierarchies; particularly, when people say we live in hierarchies but shouldn’t. He claims that they’re an unavoidable fact of life and human nature, and that any organized society must have hierarchies. Whether implicit or explicit (implicit as in market-defined, for example, and explicit as in elected or dictatorship etc).
The low serotonin individuals live on the bottom of the hierarchy. Or maybe that should be inverted: the people on the bottom of consequential hierarchies have low serotonin, and they display that in their everyday embodiments of Being.
“High serotonin characterizes the victor.” — Eliason’s notes.
Key concept: social connection for longevity
Those on the top of their hierarchy, if they’re secluded individuals, can be taken down by multiple ‘lesser’ individuals. This is very common and very easy. Not really sure how well this applies to the modern world but I guess it still does because it’s easy and common to plot the demise of those individuals more powerful than you. This is what regulatory industries do too, and I guess social cancel culture.
This is why it is important to maintain strong and true connections with those above and below you on hierarchies. It’s not only good for you and them personally, but for you hierarchically, because your self-portrayal (an honest one) as a ‘benevolent’ possessor of power makes normal people far less likely to despise you and plot against you secretly.
The dominant male, with his upright and confident posture, not only gets the prime real estate and easiest access to the best hunting grounds. He also gets all the girls. It is exponentially more worthwhile to be successful, if you are a lobster, and male.
The brain’s hierarchy monitoring system
Our brains have a system for tracking our positions in various hierarchies. At least, the ones that are consequential. This is most definitely an oversimplification and possibly a tangentially correct explanation with the same outputs, if that makes sense. Nonetheless, it explains why we experience emotional changes when our positions in hierarchies changes. For example, we feel more depressed when we drop in hierarchies and feel ‘on top of the world’ when we rise higher or to the top of a hierarchy. That’s serotonin and is monitored by this part of our brains.
This is why, when we are defeated, we act very much like lobsters who have lost a fight.
Regularity