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Jan. 2, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
42:57
581 Tornado Dreams
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Time Text
Good afternoon everybody, it's Steph.
It's about quarter past one on December the...
second? Second!
There it is, 2006.
And I hope you're doing most excellently.
It's time to do my little lunch and stroll and dream analysis.
So let's have a look at the dream question as I skulk around.
In the parking lots and back streets where I work, get a little philosophy in during the daytime, get a little walk-in, clear my mind from data analysis, which is driving me mad, let me tell you.
So, let's go back a little bit of a ways to a couple of months ago when a gentleman posted a drink on the board, finally getting around to the backlog, getting it done.
He says, a couple nights ago, at a really weird and short time, Dream.
I was in what appeared to be a small greenhouse, maybe 15 feet wide and 60 feet long, small compared to the professional greenhouse where I worked in high school.
I remember that all of the plants in this house were a very healthy green color.
I was sitting in one corner of the house on a wall farthest from the door, either watching TV or doing something on a computer I can't recall.
I then looked outside and saw three tornadoes off in the distance.
I remember it felt a bit windy in the greenhouse, even though there were no openings for the wind to blow through.
My only thought was that I had to get to our house to tell my mother and my wife that a tornado was coming because I knew that the house they were in did not have any windows facing the direction of the tornadoes.
I'm not sure where my dad was, but I don't recall any thoughts of having to warn him.
I raced outside straight for the house.
The house was about a quarter mile away from the greenhouse where I was.
I was running along an asphalt road similar to the one where I grew up.
Suddenly, I was picked up off the ground.
I looked around and saw that a tornado was forming only yards from where I was.
I thought, oh no, this is it.
And I began to rise up into the sky.
I remember passing power lines and trying to grab them so that I would stop being carried away, but I could not reach them.
Then I woke up in my bed.
I wasn't out of the dream.
As I could see myself laying on the bed, it seems as though I was having the tornado dream within another dream.
I just remember myself waking up and saying, thank God it was just a dream, and then I woke up for real.
I can't remember ever having a dream in which I so clearly thought that I was going to die about myself.
I currently live in the Chicago suburbs with my wife.
I'm originally from downstate Illinois, where my parents still live.
I don't have any tension in my family, and they are always glad when I get the chance to come and visit.
I own a business with some friends and we're starting to do pretty well.
We've had some rough times in the past few months, but a recent influx of funds has enabled us to push forward much faster and the stress all around us has been reduced a lot.
There isn't anything negative going on in my marriage either.
Since having this dream, I've gone online and found that tornado dreams are not that uncommon, but I really can't find a meaning to this particular dream.
So I wrote to him, Oh, I guess his name's on the board.
Doesn't really matter. Hey, Eric. How is your exploration of philosophy going down with family, friends, business partners?
To which he doth reply, or doth reply at, Most of my friends are pretty open-minded about philosophy.
Many are either similar to myself or open enough to seriously consider my points of view.
My wife was, like me at one point, pretty liberal-minded, but has recently adopted many of my libertarian views on government.
My parents are traditional conservatives focusing on smaller government and individual rights, although they tend to vote Republican.
I think they still think that the party represents what it did many years ago, and they just can't accept that they have changed the Republican Party.
Overall, though, I haven't had many conflicts with anyone that I associate with regarding personal or political philosophy.
Somebody wrote, you're busy on the computer or watching TV. Something is occupying your time and somehow it's related to the greenhouse, the business you started.
He said, perhaps that means I'm spending too much time on sites like this one during work.
I've actually been thinking about this recently.
I've experienced a server crash recently and working 37 hours straight getting everything back up.
I've realized that my internet browsing is a result of not having work to do rather than being lazy at work.
When we have a new project or bug to work on, I go days without wasting time on so much as a smoke break.
I pointed out that I used to work at a greenhouse when I was in high school.
I'm not sure if the greenhouse in my dream represents that one or not, as it was the worst job I've ever had, aside from the fact that my friends all worked there as well and we managed to make a good time effort out of it.
Could the tornado represent some outside force that will damage our business?
Or could it represent an upcoming series of events that will get us off the ground?
I had a tornado dream many months ago that was a bit different.
In that dream, my friends and I are all in a car driving around my hometown and the countryside surrounding it.
We saw many tornadoes off in the distance while we were driving, and there was never a real sense of danger or urgency.
I do remember that the grass and everything outside, except the trees in the distance, was either a brown or a grayish color.
Very interesting. Very interesting.
Okay, so let's have a go at the theme.
So he's in a small greenhouse.
Small compared to the professional one that he worked in high school.
Sorry about the wind.
All of the plants in the house were a very healthy green colour.
Alright, well, let's start having a look at this.
So he dreams a couple of months ago about being...
Actually, let's go first person, shall we?
You... Oh, first person, second person.
You dream a couple of months ago about seeing tornadoes off in the distance.
And the grass is greyish and brownish.
In other words, not healthy. Whereas in the greenhouse everything is sort of a lush green.
And you're in a greenhouse And you can see the world around you, obviously.
And it's associated with great difficulties in your life, in your past.
I mean, the worst job you ever had, right?
If you just worked 37 hours putting a server back up, that sort of puts into perspective what the worst job you ever had might mean, which is pretty darn bad indeed.
But... A greenhouse is...
A place of great fertility and that's represented by the lush green plants that are in the greenhouse.
It's a place of very great fertility and very great visibility, but it is also cut off from the outside elements.
So it's a place, a little bit of stasis, a little bit of stagnation.
And what happens in the dream is you You look up, and you see, sorry, let me just check.
I think it's one tornado.
I have my gloves on.
It's winter. Let me just open up this paper again.
You have, sitting on one corner, either watching TV or doing something on the computer, so sorry, see three tornadoes off in the distance.
I remember it felt a bit windy in the greenhouse, even though there were no openings for the wind to blow through.
Right, right, okay.
So... I don't know the three tornadoes.
I couldn't really tell what that might mean.
He sees many tornadoes, except everything outside, except the trees in the distance, near the tornadoes, were lush and green.
So, I can't sort of tell the why, but the greenhouse, obviously, logically, should not be windy, right?
That wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense to have wind in the greenhouse.
The whole point of the greenhouse is to isolate the ecosystem from the ecosystem at large or outside.
So... So there's a great deal of fertility, healthy green, in this greenhouse, and you're doing something on a computer, reading the board, the Free Domain radio board or other boards, listening to podcasts, something to do with technology, and...
The degree of leverage that this technology is giving philosophers like myself is unprecedented in history.
For philosophers to be able to talk directly to people without the general power structures that abide in the world cutting off the conversation has never occurred before in history.
You could say that to some degree it occurred with Socrates in the past, but Well, just by the by, I mean, we'll do a bit more of a lengthy discussion on this, but I can touch on it very briefly.
If you have a job, you can't be a Socrates.
You can't go to coffee shops and declaim philosophy.
You have to be a full-time philosopher to do that kind of stuff, until podcasting of the internet came along.
And even Socrates himself was drafted into the army.
And spent a good deal of time fighting and killing for the state.
Which is, of course, one reason why he had a great deal of difficulty saying no to the state murderer that ended his life.
He had already murdered on behalf of the state.
It was tough for him to say, well, that's evil, right?
So, to be able to do something full-time, you have to have some sort of source of income.
If the source of income isn't you working but you've inherited something, then you really are dependent upon somebody else and then you're afraid of their disapproval.
Unless your parents die at the age of 10 and you inherit everything.
But then what are the odds of a philosopher going through that situation?
So, if you have a father and you are a philosopher and you stand to inherit, then you are going to have to please your father or he's going to cut you off.
There's just so many ways in which integrity can be corrupted.
It's one of the reasons why I've always hesitated About making freedom and radio my sole source of income.
Because that is, well, it's somewhat of a dip.
But that's not the end of the world.
The issue is that it is going to make me dependent upon certain things.
And that's something that I simply can't abide.
I can't countenance that as yet.
So we're still working on it, figure it out.
So, there is something that you're doing in terms of technology That is giving you a greenhouse with wind, so there is some similarity,
I'm sort of just working it out as I go along, some similarity between the air movement in the greenhouse and the tornado far away, but it allows you to see something that is coming that is going to just tear your life apart, your existing life.
And it is due to your concern for others that you leave the greenhouse.
Though, of course, staying in the greenhouse when a tornado is coming, I've got to imagine, is even more risky than being outside.
But the interesting thing is that you see a tornado in the distance, which gets you out of the greenhouse.
And, again, just to double-check the facts again, You see a tornado in the distance and then...
Right, there's a tornado forming only yards from where you are when you're running home to warn your wife and your mother.
And that's very interesting.
It's very, very interesting. You're in the greenhouse so you can see a lot further because of your involvement with technology which I would say is the ideas that you're imbibing through a variety of sources that are unprecedented in history you're able to see further there's a contrast between the greenhouse that you're in and your parents' house or the house where your mother and your wife are which not only has obviously walls instead of pure glass windows but also does not have a window facing the tornado and I would imagine that the reason that you would go and talk to them I don't know much about tornadoes or protecting from them but I'm guessing that it would be something like this that you would want to go and protect them by saying go to the basement or batten everything down or move away from the windows or something like that so you're in this greenhouse where there's a little bit of wind you look up and it's very lush and you look up and you see this tornado and you see or you feel that it's moving towards the house which is about a quarter mile away where your mother and your wife are and I would assume then that when you see the tornadoes in the distance you see them moving in some direction that is It's four,
and it's specific to women in your life, specific to your mother and specific to your father.
So, that's important.
Sorry, specific to your mother, specific to your wife.
So, that's important, and I don't know anything about your family history, so I can't really speak to that with any great level of detail, but it's certainly something to look into.
So, there is a Just one sec here.
Let's make everyone a good boy. It's always amazing to me just how many people are strolling around with Detroit fights of privacy.
So... you are...
compelled by concern for your wife and your mother and there's a certain aspect of childhood here as you talk about you're running down an asphalt road similar to the one where you grew up.
And... I think the important thing to understand is that you fail utterly in your task of trying to warn your parents, sorry, your mother and your wife.
You fail in this task completely.
And that's important.
The dream doesn't have you struggling and succeeding.
The dream has you failing completely.
Now, I can guarantee you that you are avoiding topics with your friends and your family and your wife I don't mean this in any pejorative or negative way but as far as living with the truth I've said about a bajillion times and I stand by this and will to my dying day that there is great danger in the realm of philosophy if You're not willing to go the whole way.
There's great danger in the realm of philosophy if you're not willing to go the whole way.
And that's why I say, don't step down this road unless you're willing to go where it takes you.
Because our capacity to integrate information, the mind is like a vice or a bear trap that fastens on new information and begins the process of integrating and as it moves forward it cares nothing for your relationships it cares nothing for your history it cares nothing for your family philosophy and integrity hit your life like a train on a duck and you get smeared and try to hang on as it carries you along particularly philosophy the kind of philosophy which I would say is the true philosophy that we talk about here which is bringing abstract principles to life within your own relationships and starting with your relationships and not starting with the state and not starting with God and not starting with abstractions but starting with your relationships first and foremost and always and I think that this dream is talking about that I think that dream is talking about that You are in a greenhouse which is a self-contained hived off ecosystem and I would imagine that that is your pursuit of and love of philosophy within your own mind.
I think that you view these high voltage live wires of philosophy as something like a hobby or an interest or a I wouldn't say quite playground, but it's something like that. And I think that your unconscious is saying that a collision is going to come.
A collision is going to come.
And I wish I never had to say these kinds of things.
I really do. And I would love for there to be a world where this was not something that had to be said.
But I fully understand that you feel there are no tensions in your family.
But I'm telling you that's not the case.
And I don't need to know anything about your family other than what you have told me to understand the degree of avoidance that is going on in your family.
Avoidance of very key and very core issues.
And again, I mean, I know that you're comfortable in your family situation.
I'm not Trying to make you uncomfortable.
I'm just working with logic and the dream material.
And of course, if none of this fits, toss it out like yesterday's fish and chips.
But logically, of course, if your family vote Republican, if your parents vote Republican, you say that your wife and your friends have accepted many of your liberal positions with respect to the government.
You say, with respect to the government.
And that's not the key.
That's not the basics. That's not even the important stuff.
The truth about politics and political conversations, philosophical conversations, is that your parents...
I hate to say it.
I really do. But it's just the fact of the matter.
And your unconscious is more aware of it, I think, than you are.
That your parents...
are voting to have you thrown in jail if you disobey them.
By voting, and I know that they don't think this, and I know that they don't know this, but nonetheless your unconscious does, and it is a simple fact, that people who vote, even people who vote for libertarianism, or vote for the Libertarian Party, are saying to you, you must do what I say, or what my group says, or we're going to shoot you.
And I know that it's such a common belief that it's so wrapped up in sanctimonious virtue of minarchism or classical liberalism or old-style republicanism.
I know that it's very hard to see, consciously.
I know that it's very hard to see and I know that it's very hard to talk about.
But... I'm also guessing, though you can certainly correct me if I'm incorrect, as always, I'm certainly guessing that your parents have something to do with religion.
And the way in which that shows up is in the femininity of the danger that you are trying to save people from, or the women that you're trying to save from.
Women are more associated with early childhood experiences of religion than men.
So it could be a combination of minarchism or small government republicanism compared with religion.
But if your parents are religious as well as republican, and it seems to me very likely that they would be, then you have a number of difficult issues to deal with with your parents.
It's not something that's pleasant to talk about, but this is why I say when you start going down this road, you have to be very aware.
You don't have to be.
It's good to be aware of where it's going to take you.
I guarantee that it's going to take you to some pretty agonizing places where formerly comfortable relationships will be laid bare in feral intensity.
So I think that you are in an enclosed environment and I would say that the greenhouse is philosophy for you.
And in the greenhouse you get a sense of wind which means that the greenhouse is associated with the tornadoes.
The great air movement and the dreams of the tornadoes and the minor air movement is within your within your greenhouse and within your greenhouse within the realm of philosophy that you're gaining access to electronically through your work you are beginning to understand some principles of the root of truth and virtue in human interaction and that's a very painful and agonizing thing to begin to experience when it becomes conscious just how far apart your relationships are from honor and decency and virtue and kindness and compassion compassionate people don't vote to have you thrown in rape rooms if you disagree with their group and this is what your parents are doing however kindly and nice they may appear on the surface this is fundamentally what they're doing and it's a horrible conversation to have to have with people it really is and that's why I say be careful when you go down this you think it's going to be a series of steps that you can take at will but I tell you It turns into a...
They all flatten and it turns into a chute.
An icy chute.
A luge without the luge.
So in this dream...
You feel...
That you see that a storm is coming.
And your wife and your mother...
Cannot see the storm coming.
Because you're alone in the greenhouse.
It's not about your work.
You're alone in the greenhouse and it's very fertile and there is wind in the greenhouse as there is wind in the tornadoes.
And your first thought, which I sort of completely understand, is for the safety of your wife and your mother.
Who are in a house and cannot see the storm approaching, the tornado.
You can see it because you're philosophical.
You're becoming philosophical. You're beginning to live by principles, virtue, deep virtue.
So you can see the tornadoes coming.
Now, the interesting thing is that the tornadoes don't appear in your greenhouse, right?
Because they just appear when you're running down the gravel or the asphalt.
The tornadoes do not appear in the greenhouse.
They don't appear ten feet away from the greenhouse.
So, it is your desire to leave the realm of philosophy and to go and warn the women in your life of this approaching danger.
And when you do leave that, You can no longer see the tornadoes.
When you're in the greenhouse, you can see the tornadoes and you become alarmed.
You become alarmed and you leave philosophy, you leave ideals, you leave abstract values and virtues, and what happens?
it's almost as if leaving the values and virtues which let you see far-off dangerous generates or creates the tornado that takes you away.
Generates and creates the tornado that takes you away.
You think that the danger...
And again, I'm going out on a limb, let me know if it works or not.
You think that the danger that is approaching is not you.
And you think that the danger that is approaching It's something that you need to save others from.
But it's very clear in the dream that the danger that is in your relationships or that is between you and your wife and your mother, the danger is you.
The danger is that you can see the tornadoes from your greenhouse of philosophy.
You want to warn them about an approaching danger.
That danger is you, and the danger strikes you, not them.
The danger strikes you, not them.
The danger lifts you off the ground, spirals you away, and you attempt to grab communication wires, which of course may have something to do with podcasting or the border of the internet as well, but you cannot do it and you spiral off into nothing.
And it could well be that your unconscious framed this whole sequence or story as a dream within a dream, because within your life, philosophy is a dream within a dream.
Your philosophy is a dream within a dream.
Because you know the truth, or at least you're certainly conscious enough or aware enough of the truth, To post the value of a dream and to listen to these podcasts and to look at this kind of philosophy.
And yet you are unconscious enough of the truth that you feel that there are no conflicts in your life.
Not true, my friend.
It's not true. It's not true.
The world is in such a mess that there is nobody who can have their eyes open who does not see The kind of horror in their personal relationships that has to be worked on.
You can't close your eyes again.
This is the sentence that is handed down by those of us who pursue the truth.
Handed down upon us by reality, by integrity.
Rushing to save people from a danger that they cannot see, that you can see, is your unconscious's way We're trying to get you to understand that you are seeing the truth and you are seeing virtue and you are seeing understanding and you are seeing integrity.
And it brings danger.
It brings danger to those who are close to you or who you think are close to you.
Now, if you can have conversations with people who are close to you when you become a philosopher and in those conversations you can say, Do we renounce the use of violence against each other?
Do we renounce the use of violence against each other?
That's really all that comes down to in the fundamentals.
Do you and I renounce the use of violence relative to each other, for each other, against each other, to each other?
Do we put down our swords relative to each other?
Do we embrace as brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers And drop the gun.
No matter how buried in our flesh, no matter how buried in our histories, no matter how buried in our memories, no matter how buried in normalcy.
Do we see the coffins beneath the flags?
Do we see the gun beneath the rhetoric?
And are we willing to lay this gun down relative to each other?
But then you have to stop voting and you have to commit your life to exposing violence and reducing violence.
There's no other possibility. You can't have a relationship.
Fundamentally with people who are willing to use violence against you, or willing to vote for violence against you, or willing to sanction violence against you.
You can't have a relationship with those people.
You can only have a relationship with people who renounce the use of force against you.
Blah, blah, self-defense, accept, accept.
And that's the tornado, that's the knowledge.
That to the degree with which people approve of the church and the state, that is to the degree that they are willing to use violence against you.
You can't have a relationship with people.
Can you imagine going out for dinner and a movie with some male friend or some female friend and that person has a gun against your ribs the whole time and you're laughing and you're chatting and you're joking and you're pretending that the core of your interaction is not violence would that not be a fundamentally irrational kind of madness to ignore that basic reality that there's a gun in the room ha ha let's go out for dinner ha ha my friends my wife my husband my children my father my mother let us go and watch a film and let us go for dinner and let us chat about the weather and let us not see the gun in the room that everyone is grappling at and everyone is pointing through the addiction to state and through the addiction to gods and that's the tornado my friend that's the tornado What's going on in your greenhouse,
the stirring of wind, is an echo of the terrifying changes that are going to occur.
Or your break with philosophy and your rejection of all that is good and virtuous, which just means that you go back to being an empty shell.
Conformity. and actually now your eyes are opened you can't be neutral about philosophy now you're going to have to reject philosophy and disdain the truth and you're going to have to attack the truth if you want to close your eyes once you take up this vision once you open your eyes you can't then be neutral you can't just close your eyes you have to damn eyesight because you can still see you can't ever unsee you can't unlearn two plus two is four But you can damn math.
And that's unfortunately the choice that you face.
And it's not a choice that I create.
It's not a choice that you create.
It's a choice that is inflicted on us by the history, mostly of cowardly philosophers, who haven't made this clear to people.
So, I would say that the dream is that If you continue to study philosophy in isolation from your relationships, and if you think that you can run and save people from this doom that your study is bringing upon you and your relationships, your pseudo-relationships, then I think that you're mistaken.
You can't run to people and save them from the truth that you're bringing to them.
that will cause self-destruction.
So if this is the case, if this analysis has some accuracy, and I feel that it does, but of course you are the final arbiter of all this, then my suggestion to you, then my suggestion to you, and I would not be surprised if you've had more of these dreams, or if you've cut yourself off from philosophy,
but if you hear this, and you wish to avoid the whirlwind, if you wish to avoid the tornado, if you wish to avoid Either having to sit in your greenhouse and watch your house get mushed or if you wish to avoid having to flee your greenhouse to save people and end up getting destroyed yourself not a win-win situation exactly,
right? Then I think that you need to begin to take the steps that we all have to take those of us who fall for this goddess philosophy you have to take the steps that we all have to take which is that With the near infinite delicacy of a cosmic surgeon,
you need to begin the process of bringing people along in your life that you love, that you care about.
You need to begin the process of bringing people along to where you are.
The further you go ahead, in the short run, the more challenging it becomes.
The further, when you get close to I shouldn't say completing the journey but when you get a good way along the path it becomes easier to go back and gently and positively bring people forward because you can have conversations like that I'm sure that you wouldn't want to force me to do anything if I disagreed with you and it wasn't me using guns or knives on anyone I'm sure that you would like to debate with myself and you can say this to your wife and to your friends because you're already on the path it either blows up or you manage it but you can't stop the ride now without becoming venomous but you say to your family you say to your wife you say to your friends you can even say to them if you're feeling very confident help me help me to avoid thinking this terrible idea that I have that we should renounce violence against each other that we should renounce violence against each other because when I think of politics and I think of voting and I think of gods and devils and heaven and hell I think that we are using violence against each other and I can't see how that can create love in my heart any more than rape can create lovemaking Or abduction can create a spouse.
I can't see how our willingness, even if we don't see it directly, our willingness to approve of, initiate and use violence against each other, even with the abstract nature of the third parties involved, the police, the courts, the priests and so on.
I can't see how we can have love in our relationships if this terrible idea that I have is right this idea that we are using violence against each other and we are sanctioning violence against each other and that that is killing the possibility of love and the historical sentimentality of our attachments and if you can talk me out of this idea I would be very appreciative because right now I sense a kind of unrushing doom that either strikes you or me I can't save you from blindness,
because you can't be saved from blindness.
I can try and get you to see, but then nine times out of ten, 99 times out of 100, 999 times out of 1,000, people will just damn you for opening their eyes, and the relationships that you think are solid, the relationships that you think are dependable, the relationships wherein you feel loved will We've proven to be just an illusion.
An illusion of conformity.
An illusion of emptiness.
And the people that you love, who you believe would go to the ends of the earth to save you from danger, will not drop the guns they have pointed at you.
They just won't. And that is the real heartbreak at the core of philosophy.
But everyone who claims they love you won't drop their guns.
Won't stop voting for the guns.
Won't stop believing in the guns of God.
They won't drop their weapons and they will claim that they love you and try to hug you from behind cannons and rockets and bombs and rapes because if you disobey the laws that your parents vote for you go to the prisons wherein rape and murder beatings are all Inevitable.
And the destruction of your life is inevitable.
And they won't drop that weapon.
And I think that if you feel that this is avoidable in some manner, then I would say that you should stop pursuing philosophy now.
Particularly this philosophy.
You can go back to socialism or Marxism or Minarchism or small-state libertarianism or whatever.
But if you don't want to go down this route, and I can tell you that it is a very difficult route.
What's on the other side is real beauty.
But it is a horribly difficult route.
If you don't want to go down this route, then you need to turn back now as best as you're able.
I think the dream indicates that you can't, but maybe you can try.
Because if you're going to try and work with the principles, that we should not use violence against those we love if you believe that that is a principle that is valid then you can't turn back from this now and if you try to put these two worlds together the world of visibility and clarity the world of the greenhouse and if you step out of the greenhouse and rush to try and save people you can't save them because they're damning you if they're willing to vote for governments and if they're willing to believe in God and if they're willing to accept the authority of parents either your parents themselves or your wife it is a deadly,
deadly difficult path and now the dream has changed, right?
because originally you were dreaming of tornadoes in the distance and riding with friends in cars you see the truth and now You are in a kind of simulacrum or biosphere of the truth, which is how we work out ideas prior to bringing them to bear in our relationships, prior to putting them into practice.
All the surgeons operate on cadavers before life people, so that they can keep those people alive.
And so, in the realm of philosophy, you're in a test bed.
You're in a beta.
And I think that it's pretty Important to understand what needs to come next.
You either turn back if you can, and I say this knowing that if you do, we shall end up as enemies, but I'm just telling you what comes next.
It's either you plunge into a depression and you become a nihilist because you give up on the values that are exposing the moral natures of those around you, or If you go on and get to the real truth, no matter what it costs you in your relationships, I hope that you will.
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