{"id":29546,"date":"2022-11-15T20:15:38","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T04:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29546"},"modified":"2022-11-15T20:15:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T04:15:38","slug":"left-with-a-curiosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/left-with-a-curiosity\/","title":{"rendered":"Left with a Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jordon B. Peterson was a late bloomer. After completing his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University, he researched and taught at Harvard. Yet, he returned to his homeland of Canada in 1998 and joined the faculty at the University of Toronto. One year later, he wrote a very dense book that could not be easily summarized or categorized into one scholarly discipline. While it did not garner much attention early on, years passed until 2016, when Peterson became an overnight sensation after a series of lectures and videos went viral. Two years later, he wrote 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos<\/em> and went from being virtually unknown to \u201cone of the most influential and polarizing intellectuals in the English-speaking world.\u201d[1]<\/a> At 55 years of age, Peterson had arrived at a place of growing popularity and influence.<\/p>\n

Upon inspection of various book reviews, Blinkist did a fine job capturing the book’s key points. They are:<\/p>\n

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  1. Humans explore their environment out of a fear of the unknown.<\/li>\n
  2. Stories help us navigate the world as a place of meaning.<\/li>\n
  3. All myths follow the same basic structure.<\/li>\n
  4. Myths provide a model for how societies should work and how individuals should behave.<\/li>\n
  5. Growing up means learning how to identify with the group and the hero.<\/li>\n
  6. Anomalies threaten the stability of our psyche and society \u2013 and force us to adapt.<\/li>\n
  7. Our limitations are the precondition for a meaningful existence.<\/li>\n
  8. Evil means rejecting creative exploration, and we\u2019re all capable of it.<\/li>\n
  9. In order to reach our full potential, we must chart our own path.[2]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Pulling further insight from a video called Summary of Maps of Meaning, <\/em>I enjoyed learning about the book’s emphasis on stories and the power of the narrative. Peterson states that everyone loves myths for various reasons and that stories abound and help us understand the world around us. We see stories in the movies we watch, the books we read, and even the narratives we tell ourselves. In consideration of the person of Jesus, one of the most dynamic aspects of His teaching was not the lectures He gave but the parables (i.e., stories) He told. Even in the oral tradition, stories have survived generations because of how they engage the human heart, teaching us about our identity, purpose, morality, and whether or not we believe in God.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Considering other texts we have read in this program, I see many connecting themes, such as the:<\/p>\n