Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

But here's one.

We seem to recognize different levels of quality in fiction.

You know, you'll go home when you're tired and watch a movie you know to be trivial, light, shallow, and foolish.

Just entertaining, right?

It doesn't move you.

It doesn't require any effort on your part.

You're probably even embarrassed to watch it.

But, you know, maybe you worked hard that day, and that's pretty much what's left of you.

You know, you can lay on the couch and watch Barbie.

And... I could only make it halfway through Barbie, by the way.

But then, you know, you'll see a movie, for example, that moves you to your depths, that'll evoke tears, that'll sometimes even change your life.

You'll read a book like that, a book of fiction.

And so we have this instinct and this unerring sense and this knowledge that there are levels of depth in fiction, right?

There's levels of quality in fiction.

And what that seems to indicate is, at least, even if fiction is the opposite of fact, some fiction is much more real, right?

than others.

And so, I'm a great admirer of Dostoevsky, for example, and I loved clinical psychology.

I loved being a clinical psychologist because I found that if I listened intently to my clients, they all turned into characters from a Dostoevsky novel.

Because people are so interesting.

If you get people to tell you the truth, they're so interesting that you want to run away screaming.