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Jordan Peterson on Elon Musk: "My mind is a storm… I don’t think most people would want to be me"
"There was a recent interview with Elon Musk where he said something... 'My mind is a storm. I don't think most people would want to be me. They may think they would want to be me... but they don't. They don't know. They don't understand.'"
Peterson explains:
"One of the downsides to high-level genius is what you might describe as hypermania."
On verbal fluency and creativity:
"Here's a simple test. Write down as many four-letter words as you can in three minutes that begin with 'T.' Or write down as many words as you can in three minutes that begin with 'S.' There's quite a powerful correlation between the sheer number of words you produce and your lifetime creative achievement... especially in the artistic and verbal domains."
He distinguishes:
"That's different than vocabulary. Vocabulary is how many words you understand. Fluency is how many words you can produce in a given amount of time."
The variance is staggering:
"People vary to a degree you can hardly imagine. Some people... if you get them to do the four-letter test in three minutes... they'll write down 12 words. Some will write down 150. The ones writing down 150... their minds are going at a hypomanic rate. They're just thinking five times as fast. Without any remission whatsoever."
On when it goes too far:
"When that gets completely out of control, you have someone who's manic. There's nothing fun about manic. That's where the word 'maniac' comes from. Someone who's manic has a thousand different plans... each of which are one sentence long... that they're hyper-enthusiastic about. They'll spend every cent of their money pursuing them. And things just go immediately to hell."
He applies it:
"That's the outer limit of pathology on the creative front. Someone like Musk who's clearly a genius... that's what he's contending with in his internal landscape. I'm not saying he's manic because I see no signs of that. But someone that creative is on that edge."
On minds that move too fast:
"Take someone like Ben Shapiro. It's very interesting to talk to Ben... Russell Brand is the same way. Shapiro speaks more rapidly than anyone I ever met. But if you're with him, you see very clearly that he's probably thinking five times that fast. And that's a lot."
Peterson shares his own experience:
"When I was writing Maps of Meaning... my first book... I had a very difficult time shutting off my mind. I was obsessed with that book. I was writing about 3 hours a day. Then I was thinking about the material for like 12 hours. And the thoughts came way faster than thinking. They probably came about as fast as I can read... about 1,200 words a minute. It was just nonstop thought for 16 hours a day."
How he coped:
"That's part of the reason I started lifting weights. If I was lifting heavy... thinking at 1,200 words a minute while I've got 100 pounds on my back... it was enough to shut it down. It was also one of the reasons I drank. That was another thing that would shut it off."
On the price of genius:
"The price that people pay to be the person they admire is such an interesting frame. 'My mind is a storm. I don't think most people would want to be me.' The price you would have to pay in order to be me is not one you would want to pay."
The interviewer pushes back: but you're one of the richest men on the planet, you get to release bulletproof cars and put rockets in space...
Peterson:
"Yeah, but what about all the baggage? He also appears to me to be hyper-conscientious. Musk isn't just a creative genius... he's also an extremely conscientious engineer. Really conscientious engineers have very interesting minds. When they understand something... they understand how to build it out of atoms. They understand it at every single level."
On the rare combination:
"Musk appears to me to be someone who's this rare combination of hyper-creative but also hyper-conscientious. And I know he works all the time."
The interviewer asks: does that hypertrophied executive function help wrangle some of the diffuse creative energy?
Peterson:
"Yes. Definitely. Eric Weinstein is a good example... Eric is unbelievably creative but he's not particularly conscientious. I think he found an occupation where that works extremely well... he worked with Peter Thiel for quite a long time as his idea man."
He contrasts:
"Musk is hyper-creative and as far as I can tell hyper-conscientious. The conscientiousness does focus it. Lots of creative people aren't conscientious. There's no correlation between creativity and conscientiousness."
The math:
"If you're the most creative person in a thousand... and you're the most conscientious person in a thousand... you're one person in a million. Musk is probably more like one person in 100 million. Maybe more. Maybe a billion."
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