Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

And so that's why husbands and wives don't listen to each other.

By the way, they tell each other platitudinous half-truths so that none of them are terrified enough to leave the house in a fit of horror.

And they miss the best of the other person as a consequence of that cowardice.

You know, I mean, if you're bored of your spouse, all that means is they're not letting you know who they are.

Because if they did, you'd be interested enough to stay awake at night worrying.

So here's a theory about fiction.

We have to see the world through a hierarchy of valuation.

And a description of a hierarchy of valuation is a story.

You're looking at the world through the eyes of someone else, trying to adopt their frame of reference, trying to understand their position, their aim, their conclusions, their emotions, their motivations.

Now imagine there's sets of stories.

And some are more compelling than others.

And then imagine you aggregate all the compelling stories, and you make super compelling stories out of that aggregation.

And those are the deepest possible stories, and the most real possible representations.

That's what mythology is.

It's a form of truth that surpasses the merely literal.

Now, you might say, well, that's a preposterous claim.

Nothing's more real than concrete reality.

Really?

How about numbers?

How about numbers?