A Hells Angels Story on How to Deal with Unpredictable People – Jordan B Peterson

 I've dealt with lots of strange people in my life I'm a clinical psychologist and that isn't to say that everyone that I've dealt with was strange because that's not the case but I have encountered some very strange people and you know the way to deal with strange people is to you never lie to a strange person that's the thing especially if they're paranoid you never lie to someone who's paranoid it will come back to bite you and if you're in an extreme situation with someone who's very unpredictable the only thing you have that works is the truth that works I'll tell you a little story this is in my book so I had this landlord in Montreal he lived next door to me and he was an exhales angels biker he'd spent a lot of time in prison and his wife had borderline personality disorder and she committed suicide when I lived there and here's a rough guy and he was at québécois he spoke uol which I could hardly understand and he didn't really know what to make of me and I didn't really know what to make of him but we got along you know I was very careful talking to him as you might imagine but but I was it was very anyway we went over my wife and I went over there and we had the spaghetti dinner one night and we sort of communicated and I bought a poster from him because he made these wooden posters that had neon on them and that's how he made a living he'd kind of trained himself to be a bit of an electronics guy and so he made these things and he was trying to quit drinking and we talked about that he was a lot older than me he was like 20 years older than me I was about 25 at this point and we got along pretty well but every now and then he'd go out and get and drink and he could really drink you know like he was one of these guys who could drink like 60 beer and you think well no one can drink that much and you're wrong I studied alcohol for like ten years some of my subjects fathers drank 40 ounces of vodka a day and had been doing it for 20 years so you can drink a lot and he could drink a lot and what would happen he was trying to not drink but he'd go out and go on a binge and then he'd be gone for like three days and he'd drink up all his money and then we'd hear him out in the backyard howling at the moon with this little little ugly dog he had you know and he'd howling the dog would and he'd howl and the dog would howl and and it was rather unsettling and made my wife nervous and and but worse you know now and then he'd come to the door like 3:00 in the morning eh and he'd knock on the door and needs to be standing there and I don't know how much experience you've had with rough guys who are alcoholic and who were drunk but it's they can be upright and unconscious at the same time and so that was the state that he was in you know he'd be just swaying and he'd asked me if I would like to buy his toaster or his microwave because he needed some money to keep drinking and you know I didn't really want to buy his toaster or his microwave but when the exhales angel Jew all speaking 60 beer drunk okay but qua biker shows up at your door at 3:00 in the morning and offers you to sell offers to sell you his microwave huh the easiest thing is to say I really need a microwave so so you know I bought the microwave and the toaster and some other things but then but then my wife talked to me and she like my landlord you know even though she was afraid of him she liked him and and she said you can't buy any more any more appliances because it's not good for him and I thought huh that's an interesting problem you know so what the hell am I gonna do about this because no I don't want to buy your microwave just doesn't seem to be the right answer at 3:00 in the morning so so one time he took me out on his 750 Honda and he put me on the back of it he wanted to show me his lair I guess his hangouts and I got his wife's helmet on but it didn't fit it just sit on the top of my head and he said I go to the bike it he said if the cops chase us were not stopping another way we went and we went to these like these bars downtown on sound Leroy they were very rough places he got into like four fights that night because he was a rough guy you know and these kind of punk guys would come up to him and sort of challenge him and act stupidly around him and he was very skeptical and if you were acting stupidly around him for any length of time he just had you because he felt that that's what you deserved and perhaps he was right you know so so I had first-hand opportunity to observe him so anyways he sure enough about a week or two after we had this conversation he showed up at the door gnarrk gnarrk gnarrk you know opened the door and they standing there you know with his eyes kind of half closed and he was swaying and he had I don't remember what the appliance was this time but he wanted to sell it to me and I said I thought all I can buy this I'm not gonna buy this because I know you're trying to quit drinking and if I give you this money then you're gonna go and drink it up and it's not going to be good for you and what else did I tell him I think I told him as well that this whole thing of him coming to my house at like 2:00 in the morning was scaring my wife who he liked and that it had to stop and believe me man I was thinking about what I was saying because he was watching me like a rough guy watches you and a rough guy watches you like this he thinks if you say one thing that indicates contempt you're gonna bloody well pay for it and so I was finding my words like you know I was crossing a swamp and trying to look for the for the rocks underneath the surface and I said what I had to save Harry very carefully and he looked at me for about 15 seconds and that's a long time to be looked at at 3:00 in the morning and he left and he never came back to sell me anything again and we got along fine but that's a good illustration of this issue with regards to truth and success in the strange land because I was in the strange land when I was talking to my neighbor my landlord Dan and I managed to say what was true carefully enough so despite the fact that he was a very violent person and that he was a very intoxicated person and that he had every reason to be suspicious of me and we couldn't communicate very well and I didn't do what he wanted that he took it and he left and there was no problem and life went on just fine after that and so we don't want to underestimate the utility of establishing this bounded relationship with the ideal and attempting to live with some nobility in truth while aiming at the highest ideal there's nothing about that that's anything but strengthening and positive and it's exactly what you need to set against the catastrophe and uncertainty of life you