Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

And what does it mean to love a child?

I mean, even if you don't have much hope for yourself, even if you've given up on yourself, even if you're bitter about the fact that you've wasted your potential, you have a child and you think,

If only, God willing, things could be better for him.

The potential that I see inside him that constitutes the core of my love, that vision of potential, that could make itself manifest in a manner I was never able to manage.

And you pray that that occurs, and it hurts you when you see your child deviate from that path.

And so what does that mean?

It means when you orient yourself by love, you strive to bring about, within the confines of your family, the order that is good, or even very good.

And what that implies too is that the ultimate aim of the spirit that would best make use of potential is the spirit that acts in love.

And that's why there's an insistence in the Judeo-Christian tradition that the ordering spirit at the base of reality itself is precisely the spirit that acts in accordance with the highest dictates of love.

And you ask yourself, well, if you wanted to bring about a world that was good or very good, what else could you possibly be oriented by?

And that love would not only be love for your children and for your wife, but even for yourself.

But for yourself in the deepest possible sense, right?

The love for yourself as someone who carries within them the same flame that your son carries.

And that you need to manifest when you're caring for your son so that he can manifest what's within him.

And then you could ask yourself too, if you were oriented...

God willing, by nothing but that love, what could you make of your life?

Now there is a prayer.

If I was oriented by nothing but the highest love, what could I make of my life?

It's a terrifying question to ask because if you ask and you want to know, everything that interferes with that will burn away from you.

And that might mean that there's precious little left standing.