A Few Thoughts on "12 Rules For Life".

I can't recall exactly when I became aware of Dr. Jordan Peterson, though I'm reasonably sure it was via one of his Youtube videos. I was immediately impressed with his anti-Leftist views and his stance against the "politically correct" culture and identity politics that is taking over Western society.

I would later come to appreciate his Biblical lectures and his talks on ethics, psychology and personal responsibility. His thoughts on Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and evolution were a big draw as well. From his Youtube lectures, I went on to listen to his podcasts, available on his website and on Spotify.

I had been wanting to read his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos for a long time, but due to problems with my Amazon account, I was only recently able to download a copy.

I'm fast approaching 70, but I'm still a work in progress. I've learned quite a bit from his "12 rules" and if I had a time machine, I would take a copy of this remarkable book back to an earlier me. I'd be much better off today (provided, of course that I could convince the earlier me to read it).

Like myself, Dr. Peterson has a love for the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and he references three of Dostoevsky's novels in this book - Crime and Punishment ,The Brothers Karamazov and Notes from Underground . In addition to Dostoevsky, Dr. Peterson mentions a number of novels to help explain his ideas - Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang, Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago . I've read the above mentioned novels by Dostoevsky, although the three could do for a re-read in 2022. I read Lord of the Flies as a teenager and it's due for a re-read as well. It's going into the queue, as are the books by Chang, Hurwitz and Solzhenitsyn.