Chef leaned towards me,looked me in the eyes and said “Dylan…you’re going to learn two things from me. What to do, and what not to do.”

The bar was loud and the night was humid, penetrating in its ability to create friction between people that stood apart. The advice wasn’t meant as a deep philosophical truth, but as a note to pay more attention. Over the following weeks that advice stuck out to me, as it popped up here and there as situations arose in my day-to-day that I would be wise to learn from.

Now one could take this from a clear face value perspective,and even if so, it’s still good advice. Chef said “what to do and what not to do.” So if I watch him make a certain dish and he overcooks it, I can induce proper cooking times, or better methods of being aware of time when cooking. Or if I watch him berate a coworker for not doing something correctly, I can make note of how that situation was handled from an outsider’s perspective, maybe how the worker took the reprimand, and how I would proceed if I were in that situation.

Again…what to do and what not to do.

I extrapolated the core principle in this advice, and started using it everywhere else.

Dr. Jordan Peterson had a bit of advice that when I was a very depressed alcoholic that hated my own life, was very beneficial. It went along the lines of imagining what your own heaven and hell would look like. By taking one’s best qualities and aspirations and writing out or imagining out what that would look like, one builds a goal to work towards.

Now do that with the negative side. Imagine if you were to succumb to all of your negative qualities. All the late-night drinking, the bad food gorging, and the overall debauchery. Imagine what your life looks like after five or ten years of letting your worst habits dominate your life.

Now you have “a heaven to work towards and a hell to avoid”. And now you’re also a few steps from realizing what you ought to do and what you ought not do.

There’s a bit of backwards planning here certainly. How does one make a goal that’s years from existence and then how does one actualize it? There’s also a need for inductive principles in order to get from behavior in what you see around you, to the goals you strive to accomplish.

You can start to see how the advice of a master chef and a prolific psychologist came to blend into my new strategy. With my own heaven and hell in mind, I also observed people around me for notes as to what to do and what not to do.

What I started to do was observe people in my environment. Not just their actions, but their reactions. How would they handle themselves in a tough spot?. Was I witnessing a man-child? Someone that at the slightest inconvenience threw up their hands and or blamed the universe itself for inconveniencing them was most likely not someone who’s actions I’d like to emulate.

At the time, I was fresh into recovery from alcohol, and brand-new on the road to getting more healthy in the gym. I had yet to start devouring philosophy or reading again, let alone writing. However from a young age I had the ability to take core essentials from concepts and apply them to either completely different facets of life, or just extract their essence and see where in life they were able to apply in general.

One of the first inferences I was able to make was from observing my direct environment at the time, that of a high-intensity kitchen.

Kitchen’s offer a very interesting and often diverse look into the world. With people from all walks of life, every nation and religion, and every level of intelligence, it served as a great case study for the advice I’d been given.

One thing many people don’t know, I’ve come to find out recently, is the very high level of previous or current convicts working in the food industry. With forgiving background checks, a lot of entry level wages and the ability to be behind the scenes, the industry offers many a second chance at regular life. This also means the chance for a great amount of melding to occur as young and ambitious cooks with Marco Pierre White dreams, interact with people fresh from the penitentiary and just trying to survive.

From these interactions I was able to see how some people’s thought processes and actions went hand in hand, leading them repeatedly down the path of police warrants, probation violations and untimely arrest. I was also able to see how one chef’s obsession with his craft and his adherence to rigid standards enabled him to accelerate over his peers when he lacked the traditional Culinary Institute of America background.

From working in kitchens to working in meat rooms, to just having conversations with strangers, that advice has stuck with me. It wasn’t until I read Ayn Rand’s essay titled “Philosophical Detection”, that I was finally able to string everything together into a more concise view and ability that helped me not only judge others, but more importantly to introspect and judge myself on my own views and opinions.

The essay lays out a way of looking at what people say and analyzing their statements through the lens of philosophy, particularly the fields of Metaphysics and Epistemology, which Rand holds as the starting points of philosophical thinking, as do I.

In summary, metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality. So what kind of world do we live in, is it natural or is there a supernatural element to it. Metaphysics also deals with things such as cause, identity etc. To quote Rand from her essay “Philosophy: Who Needs It” in relation to metaphysics and its importance “Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real—or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer—or are they created by the observer?”

Epistemology, proceeding Metaphysics, is the science or field of philosophy dealing with knowledge. How do humans find and validate knowledge? Are humans capable of actually knowing things? A quote once again from Rand’s essay “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, “Since man is not omniscient or infallible, you have to discover what you can claim as knowledge and how to prove the validity of your conclusions. Does man acquire knowledge by a process of reason—or by sudden revelation from a supernatural power? Is the reason a faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses—or is it fed by innate ideas, implanted in man’s mind before he was born? Is reason competent to perceive reality—or does man possess some other cognitive faculty which is superior to reason? Can man achieve certainty—or is he doomed to perpetual doubt? The extent of your self-confidence—and of your success—will be different, according to which set of answers you accept.”

Hopefully now you can see how important one’s own views on metaphysics and epistemology are, whether held implicitly(which is usual) or explicitly.

For instance when a coworker is complaining because every time they are off it rains, and it seems like every time they have to work the weather is nice, is holding the metaphysical view that the world is not only created at whim, but specifically set against him. This also rolls into Rand’s idea of the Benevolent Universe Premise, but I will have an article on that and its effects on one’s psycho-epistemology later.

As Rand states in”Philosophical Detection”, there are many common sayings these days that come from philosophers that most are unaware of. A simple phrase, which I detest,”don’t be so sure- no one can be certain of anything” by Bertrand Russell, implies that knowledge is completely impossible as a human being. Now one could say that it’s just a saying, it doesn’t really affect people that much. On that point I would strongly disagree as the perception that we as human beings cannot discover knowledge or truth, spits in the face of science as a whole, in addition to our progress as a species.

Now what do the previous several paragraphs have to do with my chef’s advice? 

Everything.

If a man holds that the universe was created by an omniscient and omnipotent god, and that human beings are cursed from the beginning due to original sin, why would they take morality or science seriously?

Or if a woman believes that her emotions, astrological signs, and intuitions are the most consistent and applicable ways of finding truth and knowledge, why would she take facts and logic seriously?

It is true that one can observe others and themselves, in order to see what to do and what not to do. My position is that philosophy helps us understand our starting points, to see why maybe our actions or thoughts end up in the wrong places.

As Rand would say “ Check your premises”. Since I started my intellectual journey I’ve had to check and recheck my premises constantly.

So look at your own thoughts and actions, and see where they come from. Witness others in your daily movements and do the same. Wonder what they hold for views on the world, and our ability to understand it. 

Reading the essays I referenced will help tremendously, but I believe that even just starting to ask these questions is a massive step in the right direction.