Beyond Order

Imagine Who You Could Be, and Then Aim Single-Mindedly at That. Peterson questions how anyone can truly know who they are. People contain depths beyond their own comprehension, and those depths include not only their present identity but also their unrealized potential. Everyone senses that they could be more than they currently are, yet illness, tragedy, and weakness of will often bury that possibility. The central question becomes: who could someone be if they seized every opportunity and made full use of their capacities?

Peterson argues that myths, rituals, and great works of art preserve guidance for this question. Prophets, poets, and artists distilled generations of observation into stories that describe both human actuality and possibility. These narratives endure because they portray truths people already sense but cannot fully express. Retold over centuries, they anchor cultures, shaping moral and spiritual life by showing patterns of existence too profound to ignore.

Socrates believed all learning was remembering. Peterson adapts this idea to suggest that new experiences awaken latent abilities. Human beings carry dormant capacities, built into them by evolution, which surface only when triggered by challenge and opportunity. Learning therefore involves both remembering what lies hidden in potential and acquiring new knowledge from others, from language, and from imagination.

Humans, unlike animals, can imitate, generalize, and create. People watch behaviors, capture their spirit, and re-enact them in new ways. People preserve knowledge in words, passing it down across generations. People also imagine possibilities never before seen and bring them into being. Stories capture all of this by portraying both admirable figures and destructive ones, showing what people can become if they embrace discipline or surrender to corruption. Great stories endure because they operate on multiple levels at once—political, personal, and religious. They supply courage, meaning, and motivation whenever people confront chaos in their own lives.

Such stories guide imitation. Heroes embody virtues needed to confront chaos, and audiences learn to model themselves after those figures. Every person carries the dormant potential of adventurers, leaders, and creators, but stories awaken those possibilities. They dramatize the great adventure of transforming chaos into order, of struggling between good and evil, and of discovering meaning by following the example of those who came before.

Peterson uses an alchemical woodcut to illustrate this process. The image shows a winged sphere, a dragon, and a two-headed figure, male and female. Alchemists called this sphere the materia prima, or primal element, containing all potential. For Peterson, it symbolizes the future—an unopened container of possibilities, like a letter whose contents may bring disaster or joy. Confronting it requires courage, because refusing to open it means living in denial, but opening it means facing what must be faced.

Peterson compares this symbol to the Golden Snitch in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Seekers chase the Snitch while also playing Quidditch, just as ethical people pursue ultimate significance while still engaging in ordinary life. The Snitch stands for higher meaning: fairness, reciprocity, and truth. The Seeker represents the person who refuses to abandon what matters most, even when the surrounding game distracts with competing goals.

The dragon perched on the sphere embodies both danger and promise. What grips someone’s attention most deeply—whether a person, a calling, or a mystery—always carries risk as well as reward. Heroes face the dragon because treasure lies behind it. Out of that confrontation emerges the integrated personality, symbolized by the figure with two heads: reason and order on one side, emotion and renewal on the other. Peterson argues that only those who willingly explore the unknown can unite both aspects of themselves.

Peterson then draws on myth to expand the point. In the Mesopotamian myth Enuma Elish, the young god Marduk rises to confront Tiamat, the chaos-dragon, after the elder gods fail. He triumphs through vision, speech, and courage, creating the world from Tiamat’s remains and establishing order. According to Peterson, this myth reflects a psychological truth: societies survive only when they elevate a unifying principle of highest value—attentiveness, truthful speech, and the courage to face chaos. Stories from St. George to Beowulf to Harry Potter all repeat this pattern: the hero slays the monster and rescues what is most precious.

Peterson says that everyone must enact this hero role individually. Everyone needs a story with a beginning, a goal, and a path forward. Without it, life collapses into boredom, chaos, or despair. To live well, a person must set a worthy target, pursue it, admit mistakes, and adjust course without abandoning the larger aim. The goal will shift as wisdom grows, but progress comes from courage, discipline, and persistence. To imagine who you could be and strive toward it single-mindedly is to live out the archetypal story: to take on the role of the hero who brings order from chaos and transforms both self and world.