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Aug. 18, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:20:02
846 Encompassing the Future - A listener conversation
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Time Text
Good morning! Hello?
Hey. Hey, can you hear me?
I can hear you. Can you hear me?
Oh, now I can. Excellent.
Sorry, I was trying to do things telepathically.
Do you have that tinfoil helmet on?
Because we talked about that last time, that that may be interfering.
Oh, the tinfoil.
That's what's missing. Absolutely.
So... Eurotopic.
Yes, my topic.
Yeah. You know, it's funny, after we chatted a little bit about it on Sunday, and we decided to set up another time to talk about it, I was like, Excellent.
I'll take Monday, I'll sit down, I'll write out some notes of what I've been thinking over the last couple of weeks and I'll be all set for it.
I sat down yesterday and I just blanked out, just totally blanked out.
I didn't know. I really have no idea what I want to say except that I'm confused!
In a nutshell, I guess the problem is that, like I was saying on Sunday, this This business of sitting around and waiting makes me kind of nervous.
Like I should be doing something about it.
I mean, I'm not sure what.
I've been talking to some people, and I always get the same thing, which is...
Everybody wants you to do what they want you to do, right?
Oh, you're good at this.
You should do that, right?
Or, oh, you have this skill, so you should do that.
So you feel like, yeah, that's kind of a neat idea, but I don't know if I want to, right?
Right, right. And if I... If I just hook on to one of those ideas, am I just inhabiting what somebody else's impression of me is?
Of all the four or five or six different things rattling around inside my head, which one of those things is the thing that I need to do and how do I know?
Right, right. So I guess figuring out a way to identify those markers is kind of what I've been trying to work on.
Right, okay. Is there more that you wanted to say?
I do have a very sort of rough framework that might help.
I mean, might. But I certainly don't want to interrupt what it is that you're saying.
No, that's a thousand-foot level of what I've been thinking, I guess.
Except, just to add a little bit of background though, I guess.
When I got the job that When I originally got the job that I just quit four months ago, I had had this one plan in mind way back then that...
I was going to save up all this money and go back to school and get a job.
Get a degree in English and get a job either writing or editing or something like that.
And then on this end of that tunnel, you know, especially after the last 18 months to two years, there's the...
There's this sudden, uh, well, wait a minute.
Are you sure about that?
You know, like, um...
Like, that idea has just become one more of the collection of I don't knows.
Right? Right.
Right. And is the doubt of that particular plan or approach because you are concerned about going back to school, or is it something else?
Well, that's part of it.
I mean, for God's sakes, I'm 40 years old, you know.
Who goes back to school at 40, right?
Well, lots of people. I mean, that's one thing that I was sort of vaguely thinking of, and more than vaguely actually, which was that I would get my degree in psychology and join Christina, because obviously I enjoy that kind of stuff, join her in her clinic and so on.
And since I'm already mostly supervised by her in my personal life, it wouldn't make much difference.
But I went and looked into it, and I would have to take...
years of school.
Holy crap.
Yeah, because I sort of took some psych courses, but I'd have to sort of get my undergrad and then my master's level, and then it would take probably about five years for me to become certified after that.
I mean, so you're talking about a decade, right?
50, I'll finally, you know.
And that's what kept me out of the PhD world, right?
When I was sort of 28 or so, when I was facing that fork in the road between going into business and going to do a PhD, I sort of looked at the PhD.
PhD was a seven-year program, then it would take a couple of years to get a tenure-track position, assuming that I could surmount the minority hiring practices and all.
And the fact that people didn't like my beliefs and all that kind of stuff.
Assuming all of that could be surmounted, I would finally get a steady paycheck about the age that I am now, right?
Sort of 40 or so.
And that was just like, no, thanks.
That just wasn't going to work for me.
I just couldn't take it yeah that's a pretty steep barrier Yeah, yeah. And I mean, look, for me as well, right, there's a friend of mine who is actually a professor said, there's one thing to get a PhD in economics, whereas if you can't get a job, you can at least get a job doing, like being an analyst, you've got math skills, you've got, you get a PhD in history, if you can't get a job, you know, it's like, you know, do you want fries with that becomes your sort of fallback position, right?
Right, right, that's true.
Right. And I was not at all sure, based on my experiences with professors as a grad student at the master's level, that I was going to...
I mean, everybody sort of recognized that I was pretty smart, but they sort of viewed that as something kind of annoying rather than a benefit to be praised, right?
So, like, I wish he was not as radical and also not smart, right?
Because then it would be easier to sort of reject his conclusions, right?
So, I mean, that question of education is a pretty significant one, and it is certainly true in one's 40s.
Or at least when you're 40 that there is a kind of change, right?
I was just talking about this with Christina last night.
A lot of the friends that we have seem to be going through a bit of a down phase in their lives, whereas Christina and I aren't.
And I think we were talking about this last night, that there's a kind of arc in life, right?
So when you're younger, the goals that you have are all defined for you, right?
You've got to pass your tests, you've got to go to school, you've got to do your homework, you've got to do your chores.
All of the tasks that you have are kind of defined for you.
And then, when you sort of get into, and this is throughout your teens, of course, and for a lot of people who do post-secondary education, that's their 20s, right?
So, you sort of mature, you graduate, and all of your stuff's been set up for you.
And then you start a job, and because you don't know what you're doing in your job, all of your stuff gets set up for you, and all the things that you've got to achieve, right?
Here's your deadlines, and here's your resources, and so on.
You have to figure out how to achieve it.
It's not like you're just, you know, brain dead, but It's not the case that you really get to define your goals for yourself, right?
And so I find that that sort of takes people through their sort of late 20s, early 30s.
And, you know, maybe they get married in this time period and then there's, you know, all this other stuff that you have to learn how to be married and so on, right?
But that's sort of a decision that flows out of a decision that you've made to get married.
So a lot of times people can sort of cook along pretty much into their sort of mid-30s Without having set, really, A goal for themselves, right?
A life goal for themselves.
You're sort of just processing, right?
You're just processing what comes along on the conveyor belt, right?
Like if you ever see that old I Love Lucy show where they've got the chocolates on the conveyor belt.
People try and manage their life according to those kinds of principles.
And then what happens is you settle into something, whatever that something is, right?
So a lot of my friends have sort of reached where they are in their careers and they now know their jobs very well and they've spent a couple of years knowing their jobs very well.
And their marriages are stable, and the moment you achieve that, you don't say, hey, you've got to do something new, right?
I mean, at least most people don't.
And so what's happened is they've spent a couple of years enjoying that sort of phase, right?
But the problem is that now what's happening is they're kind of stuck.
Right? They don't know what to do next because it's almost like for the first time in their lives, and this is around the age of 40 or early 40s for these people, for the first time in their lives, they actually have to generate a goal for themselves.
There's no have to.
There's no one handing them stuff.
There's no one feeding them stuff.
Right. I've felt that tug, too, before.
I just wish somebody would tell me what I have to do now.
Right. Absolutely.
And that's how we're trained.
And undoing the habits of a couple of decades is not the easiest thing in the world.
And the problem is, of course, that...
And again, this is not in particular with reference to you, unless it sort of fits, but...
I mean, most of my friends have not taken the root of great wisdom, right?
I mean, that's a rare thing.
I'm happy to find a couple of thousand people on the planet willing to talk about that.
But my friends have not taken the root of great wisdom.
And so what has happened for them is that...
They don't have necessarily the naturally...
I mean, none of my friends are sort of entitled dominant jerks, right?
I mean, because there can only be one of us in this relationship.
At the moment, they step out of line, right?
But they're not. I mean, most of the people I've ever met who are very successful in their fields are successful because they're narcissistic and entitled and so on, right?
And they're successful because they just, you know, they're just dominant, right?
And so what's happening is...
They haven't taken the path of real wisdom and self-knowledge, which is a very hard path.
And so in their careers now, they've sort of gone as far to sort of team leader or senior programmer or maybe sort of middle management.
They've gone as far as they can get without bumping into the ceiling of narcissism, right?
And this was sort of my experience in business, right?
That you sort of can cook along pretty well, but you will always end up bumping up into the ceiling, which is narcissistic and entitled people that you can't negotiate with.
Or at least I couldn't and certainly Christina couldn't in her way.
Then you have to start playing their game and that just feels so filthy.
Right, it does. And that doesn't lead you to happiness at all.
And you can't beat entitled people unless you're even more entitled.
Right. You can't just...
I mean, you can't...
At least I could never do it, right?
And I've not known anybody who can.
You can't just...
I mean, entitlement comes out of a pretty brutalized and unconscious and very primitive personality structure, right?
That kind of entitlement and narcissism is...
You can't just sort of fake that, right?
You can't just say, you know, I'm going to sort of take this personality structure that is formed in the first two years of life.
Now that I'm 40, I'm going to reproduce it and fight them.
You just, you can't, right?
Any more than you and I can argue with a native Cantonese speaker, right, who spent their whole life.
We don't know. You can go back and learn it, but by the time you learn it, the debate's going over.
Right, it's just noises yelling back and forth, right?
Right, right. So there is this – and this is sort of in looking – I've spent some time over the last couple of weeks sort of trying to figure out the shape of my life.
And again, I don't sort of make this about me, but I think there's some useful commonalities that once you have – once you take the path of wisdom, your time in regular interaction with sort of, quote, average people – It's limited, right? There's a countdown.
Like the calendar, its days are numbered.
And that is a great challenge, right?
Because we've got to eat.
We've got to participate with people in order to survive.
Part of the economy, you've got to have a roof over your head and so on.
But when you go through this process of trying to figure out what it is that you want to do, you also have to figure out to some degree what is it that the world is going to allow me to do.
Yeah, that's true.
And so you can't go back into the little box of just conforming with other people, right?
Because you can't unlearn what you've learned.
But at the same time, you do have to interact with people to some degree in order to get what it is that you want to participate in the economic world.
And that's sort of the space that I'm kind of stuck in now as well.
I... I just can't bring myself to go back to working under some jackass middle manager, and yet at the same time, I look forward at all the other possibilities and they all seem kind of, I don't know, just foreign.
Foreign and like a hell of a steep hill, right?
Yeah. I mean, I could conceivably go back to school for five years, spend another five years to be certified in order to become a registered psychological associate like Christina, but...
Right, right. Like, all I'm doing here is just fantasizing, really.
Because if I'm not ready to put that kind of effort in, then that's all it really is, right?
I mean, you just kind of...
Inhabiting those things as fantasies.
Right, right, right. And of course, I've certainly found that willpower is highly overrated in life.
I mean, I know this sounds like willpower, but willpower is highly overrated insofar as I've willed a whole bunch of things in my life that turned out to be pretty bad for me, right?
You kind of want to be organically lined up with your goal, right?
And I remember a friend of mine's wife has taken...
I mean, she's done all these courses in HR.
Literally, she spent 10 years doing night school and so on, right?
Because she wanted to sort of advance her career.
But, you know, as I was saying to Christina last night, if she'd spent like one-tenth of the time and money on therapy rather than on, you know, education, she would actually have been much further ahead because now she's got all this education.
But some of her emotional habits are not conducive to rising in the sort of corporate world.
And some ones that are like pretty basic.
So it is kind of hard to figure out what it is that allows you to survive, but also to at least...
Sorry, to flourish personally, but also to survive in an economic sense within the world, right?
So if I can just sort of run you through a couple of questions, maybe that can help clarify things.
So forget about...
The form of what it is that you'll be doing in the future.
But what kind of life do you want for yourself?
In other words, what are your highest priorities?
Now, clearly, based on our conversations over the past year and a half, a high priority for you is studying the truth, right?
Studying philosophy. And not in order to learn to levitate or protect the unicorn with your mind, but because it gives you pleasure, right?
It gives you a deep pleasure In your own life, regardless of the effects that it has on your external circumstances.
Definitely. I would definitely agree with that.
That's a core.
Whatever you do has to support that goal of self-knowledge and understanding and communicating with people.
You're not doing it in an ivory tower.
You stay in the book.
You have to stay in the conversation for philosophy to To bring you real joy.
And so that participative conversation, anything that would eliminate your ability to do that, right?
Say, I'm going to go live on a desert island.
Well, there's no internet, right?
So there are things, whatever you're going to do has to be in alignment with that goal, right?
Yes, yes. I would definitely agree with that.
Now, I think that it's fairly safe to say that that's not going to pay.
Yeah, that's probably true.
And I don't say that because I doubt your ability to sort of communicate and so on, but I've got them all.
I've got all the philosophers, so there's nobody left to donate.
But, I mean, one of the reasons that it works for me is that, you know, from the age of 15, I've been studying, I've done public speaking, and I have all these novels which I can give to people, right?
So I have a sort of backlog of sort of, quote, value.
That I can sort of heap on this conversation and so on.
Which is not the same. You could absolutely start a podcast or start something which...
But I think that would be a challenge.
And I only say that because I sort of got through it and know what a challenge it is.
You're just trying to keep the field clear.
Absolutely. But the difference as well, of course, is that if you wanted to take that approach, which I would be completely happy to do whatever I could to help you on that, if you wanted to take that approach, then you sort of have to recognize that it's a year until you make any money, and then it's a trickle, and you've got to work really hard to raise it.
Well, and there's also another problem, too, which is, and I've kind of been down this road lately, Tentatively a couple times myself over the last three or four years.
And that is, I mean, you really have to have something to say that's uniquely valuable, right?
That people are going to be attracted to it apart from all the other 500 podcasters out there trying to do the same thing.
So in your case, you have that hook in combination with all the necessary skill sets.
So it works for you.
You mean the singing? Oh yeah, it's fantastic.
Actually, I think it's despite the singing.
The singing is just an indulgence that people are like, okay, fine, give him a bar or two, let's get to the philosophy.
No, and I think that's true, which is not to say that you won't have things to say, right?
I mean, again, this is just I started when I was 15, and of course, this is not to compare you and say you only started a year and a half ago or anything like that, because I know that you've been interested in ideas and art and philosophy for a long, long time.
But, sort of, I went through the therapy, like, I guess, eight or nine years ago, and defood, like, eight years ago, and so I've had some time to, you know, to sort of synthesize what it is that I want to talk about, not to mention the sort of decades that went on before then.
So, it's not to say that you won't have the ability to have unique things to say, but I think, at least in my experience, and this is not to say that this is true for everyone, but in my experience, this is a slow simmer that gives you the rich broth, right?
So, it certainly is possible.
The other thing, of course, is that you can choose to have a very cheap lifestyle if you want, right?
So, if you wanted to do something similar to what I'm doing, and we'll just use that as a base...
Which you could be anything else, but some way of trying to turn wisdom into cash, you could simply set up your life to be as minimally expensive as possible so that you would be able to achieve that, if that makes sense, or to achieve that in a more likely sustainable manner.
Right. And in actuality, I've been...
I mean, I'm already...
Sort of there. I mean, there were some years where, you know, I had to have the big TV and I had to have the big couch and, you know, like everybody else, right?
But, like the last five, six years or so, I'd gotten to the point where I was just giving all that junk away because, I mean, it really was just junk.
Right, so you got like a wooden bowl, a toothbrush, and a spoon, right?
Save enough for a fork, right?
Well, I'm flirting.
I have two bowls. So you can make that choice, right?
So that you can start to write articles and there are places on the web.
And I'm not sort of – this is just possibilities, right?
and we're just sort of trying to flesh out where it is that you could go based on your desires and based upon that core desire that you want to continue to explore the life of the mind and to be a philosopher.
So there are places on the web that you can take writing assignments and you can just grind away at that and start writing for people.
You could podcast.
You could do a whole bunch of things.
I wish I could hire you, but there's no hiring at the moment where we are.
I don't get to get more cash.
I would be paying myself.
Fire bills, desire to...
It's sort of a fight off Bill's desire to revamp the website and so on.
So there's a possibility that you could take that approach.
If that is the core value that you wish to sustain, then you could certainly give that a good shot.
There's no way to tell how far it is that you're going to go until you actually just really give it a shot.
You should have some instinctual belief in your capacity to do those kinds of things.
I mean, I very clearly remember the first time that I went off book on Free Domain Radio.
I started off by reading these articles, right?
And the first time that I just started, at the end of one of the articles, just started sort of improvising.
I was kind of like holding my breath saying, hey, I wonder if this is going to work, right?
But I sort of had some belief that it would and so on.
So that's a possibility that would allow you to sort of stay the closest to your core values.
Now, what about things like breeding, wife, kids, nappies, that kind of stuff?
Is that something that would be part of the values that you would look at as something that might be core in your life?
Well, you know, it's kind of interesting that you bring that up because...
I've kind of come full circle on that question.
I don't really see that as something I really want.
I don't really see that as something I really want.
Right, so that would sort of be like going back to school for you, right?
It's like, well, yeah, I could put all that time and energy into it, but it's just not something that's a particularly high priority for me, right?
Well, in a different sense, though.
I mean, with school, at the end, you...
Get something that you can use as leverage to get something else.
With family though, that pretty much consumes everything.
Well, that may or may not be the case in some ways.
I mean, it certainly could be argued that my investment in my relationship with Christina has paid off hugely in terms of financial stability while I take this particular path.
And I guess more accurately, you could say that my decision to support Christina in the starting up of her venture has paid off.
Right. But let me put it this way.
If you thought for a minute that what you were doing was going to jeopardize her practice, you wouldn't do it, would you?
Well, that's a tough question.
That's a tough question. I don't know whether or not what it is that I am doing may or would jeopardize.
Maybe somebody listens to the Ask a Therapist and sues her.
I mean, whatever, right? Or if you thought it would jeopardize your relationship with her, you wouldn't do it.
Well, but I think that's a false dichotomy.
And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to sort of dodge the question, but Freedom Aid Radio has been enormously beneficial to our relationship.
So I can't, like, what it is that I'm doing is very good for us, and Christina would be the first person to agree with that, right?
So I don't think that what I'm doing could...
I mean, look, if it turned like if Christina's patient rostered right up and her clinic didn't get any referrals and we were going to lose the house if I didn't get a job, then I would go back and get a job, right, to sort of make the money until we sort of got back on track, which would result in a diminishing of this, of what it is that I'm doing here.
I certainly wouldn't be writing the books and all the other stuff that I've been able to do since going full-time.
But I don't view this as really, other than sort of base gotta eat stuff, I don't view this as a conflict with my relationship with Christine at all, but rather an enhancement.
Okay, I mean, but even in terms of it, it's got to be putting a certain amount of pressure on the both of you to, in order for you to be able to do that though, right?
I mean, you're making a lot less than you were working, right?
Well, that's true, of course, but we also get to have lunches together, right?
And we get to sort of see each other throughout the day.
So in between patients, I'll sort of ask her how her day's going and so on, if I can take a break from what it is that I'm doing.
So sure, there's less money, but we get to spend more time with each other.
She also feels less concerned about me driving sort of 120 kilometers a day and so on.
So I mean, overall, it's a net positive to our relationship.
Do you think that would also be the case if you were to throw kids in the mix?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely no question.
Me being home would be a much greater positive if we had kids, right?
If we have kids. Because we're just sort of searching for office space and expanding her practice.
And so...
If I'm home and can work on Free Domain Radio, then if she has to go and do something, like if we take some time off, which we could do, right?
because once she gets more therapists under her wing, then what happens is we both are sort of building sustainable income that we don't necessarily have to be working continually to provide.
It's the problem with hourly labor.
If you're not working, you're not eating, whereas the value that I've built up over the past couple of years radio provides an income even if I take a day or two off or whatever, right?
And the same thing is true with the practice that she's building, right?
To get more therapists so that she can, you know, prey on their hourly rates and so on.
So if we have kids, it's hugely beneficial that we're both not salaried employees but are rather building a source of income that doesn't require us to be continually working.
That is, I mean, if we could both be home for a good deal of the time when the kids are young, that would be a completely ideal situation.
And you don't see the time and financial commitment that that entails as putting pressure on what you're doing with Freedomain.
You mean, sorry, can you just rephrase that?
I'm not sure I understood. You don't believe that the time and financial commitment necessary to raise kids would put any pressure on what you're doing with Freedom Aid?
Sure, I would be able to do less at Freedom Aid Radio if we have kids in the house.
No question of that, for sure.
But... I don't see that.
I mean, that's true with whatever you do, right?
I mean, or at least that would be...
I could certainly choose, right?
I could choose to hire a nanny to come in and watch the kids in a soundproof basement, right?
And do exactly the same as I'm doing now with Freedom Aid Radio, right?
Which is sort of 8 to 10 hours a day of work.
But hiring a nanny is going to put more financial pressure on you then.
Well, sure. But you could argue that continuing to work on free domain radio would generate – I mean there is a correlation between the amount that I work and the money that I receive, right?
I mean it's a little bit like pushing string but not completely, right?
Yeah. So you could say that hiring a nanny but continuing to work on free domain radio would be a net positive or at least a net neutral.
But of course, to me, the reason that I would have kids is to raise them.
I mean, it's shocking, I know, but...
Yeah, there would be financial pressures in order to – like if I were to sort of raise the kids, I'd work less on free domain radio.
There'd be less income that would come out of it.
But that's fine.
We make those choices all the time.
I mean when you choose to sleep, you are making a financial decision that cuts back on your income, right?
It just tends to be a very good one because going mental is not good for your career, right?
Yeah. So making those, I mean, of course, and we've done some preparation, like we've tried to pay down as much of the house as possible.
My car is paid off.
So and Christina's car is paid off.
So we've tried to make those decisions to keep the cash flow requirements lower.
And we've deferred sort of the landscaping of the house, which you'll see when you come by.
We're known as the jungle dwelling.
So we try to make those decisions to minimize that.
If we do have kids, there'll be financial pressures for sure, but some of those will be alleviated.
We'll homeschool so they won't need more than one change of clothing, all those kinds of things.
The school uniform will be a potato sack.
Those kinds of things we can make decisions for.
So it's just really a matter of planning, but for sure, I would never do what my brother did, which is...
To have a sort of high-powered career while raising two kids, spend time having to travel, that just to me would be complete agony.
I just would find that to be beyond horrible.
You know, there's this thing where I remember, I've mentioned this in a podcast for a I was reading an article years ago that had a strong influence on my thinking in this area where this woman was saying that she was an executive when her kids were young.
She was retiring. Her kids were grown and she was retiring.
She's going through... She'd been at the same place for like 20 or 30 years.
She's going through a filing cabinet and tossing stuff out.
You know, she came across some Christmas newsletter that she wrote early on and she remembers staying at Christmas Eve to write this newsletter and, you know, now it's 20 years later.
Her kids still remember the time she didn't come home for Christmas Eve, but of course nobody remembers the newsletter and she throws it in the garbage.
That kind of stuff is really horrifying to me, the idea that some piece of software or some project that's going to be lost to the sands of time...
It's going to take priority over spending time with my kids, and even to some degree with my wife, right?
I mean, it's much more fun doing that.
Right, and that's kind of what I'm saying, is that once you make that commitment, that personal commitment, I mean, why would you make that commitment if you didn't intend to follow through on it?
You mean the kids thing?
Yeah, so if your job is more important than your kids, then why are you having kids?
For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Why would you bother me? If the kids are more important than the job then why don't you quit and get another job?
One that doesn't put as much stress on your family.
I knew people like that All over the place where I was working.
It's funny, too, because this place liked to call itself a very family-friendly company, right?
Except that it was pretty much all show.
They didn't even have...
Like a lot of new companies, they have daycare centers.
Outings for families and that sort of thing.
This place didn't have any of that, but still tried to pass themselves off as family friendly.
But anyways, there is also this implicit sort of necessity that you would work 110 to 120% of your hours.
Right. And get paid for 100%, right?
Right. And if you didn't, you wouldn't get raises, you wouldn't get promotions, you wouldn't get asked on projects and that sort of thing.
Sure. That always...
That irked me. That always irked me.
Well, and I certainly know that for myself, like I've risen to sort of the CTO level, but then you're still subjected to the CEO and often to the CFO. And you're also still subjected to the vagaries of a board or investors or the stock market or wherever it is, right? So no matter where you are in business...
I mean, maybe Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates, but no matter where you are in business, well, even he ended up being subjected to the Department of Justice, right?
No matter where you are in business, you are going to be under the thumb of somebody who's likely to be not very mentally healthy, right?
And certainly not wise, and certainly, right, because there seems to be a pretty good set of antibodies near the top of our society that keeps wise people at a good distance, right?
And totally focused on how much dollar value they can extract from you, right?
Right, which unfortunately in the modern world often means intimidation and exploitation while, you know, spouting off mealy-mouthed stuff about work-life balance and work-family balance.
So for me, to return to the world of business, again, outside of necessity, right, would be...
To be unhappier, right?
And of course, the reason that I suggested to, did more, sort of insisted that Christina leave the public hospital was that it was a very corrupt environment and she was very unhappy with that environment, right?
And that unhappiness would then spill over into our marriage and we'd spend time managing that, right?
So I was just saying, well, look, I mean, let's give up your tidy, secure income and pension from the public sector hospital and throw you to the vagaries of private practice and starting your own clinic and so on.
And so we have less money, but I'm not sure.
I mean, as long as you've got enough to eat and live, right?
Then, you know, if my income's gone down by like 75%, but what was I buying with the extra money that is more important to me than the happiness of my life and my marriage and so on, right?
I mean... I don't get to take all that stuff with me, right?
And so I don't get to take my happiness with me either, but all the time that I spend unhappy in the present doesn't get added to my life later on, right?
It's just unhappy.
The length of my life is fixed, and it's just a net negative to be unhappy.
I mean, I like stuff in some way.
I'm a techno geek and all that kind of stuff, but the choice between stuff and happiness is not a particularly challenging one for me.
Yeah, and that's kind of the choice that I made about four or five years ago.
You know, the stuff doesn't really matter.
And status doesn't matter either, right?
And that's the other thing with business too, is that I just can't stand the status jockeying.
I just can't stand the status jockeying.
And that's something, I mean, that's all just such false self neuroses and such unstable personalities and virulent and violent personalities that are in that.
In that kind of situation.
What really used to upset me was the fact that no matter what I did, it was always perceived as such.
As status jockeying? Yeah, sure.
Amusingly enough, the operations group that I was with started their own newsletter.
It was pretty crappy.
Being interested in writing, I kind of Hooked into it and for two or three issues I was like just pounding on it.
Trying to make it better and getting people to contribute and writing these huge long articles myself.
And when I'm all done, right, nobody looks at it and says, wow, that's really cool.
They're all thinking What's his angle?
Where's he hoping to take this?
It's not about that.
It's about... Making it...
Aiming for quality.
Making it better. That's the challenge, right?
That's the challenge. And this is where, I mean, a lot of my friends seem to be at the top arc of a, or even starting to head down the other slope.
It's like, what does excellence mean when your career is stalled?
When you can't get better at what you're already really good at, at least not a whole lot better, right?
Right. And so, what is it that you're going to do in terms of excellence, which, you know, like it or not, we just need steeper hills to peddle all the time in order to maintain our happiness.
I don't know why that is, and maybe I mulled it over, but it does seem to be a pretty near universal constant that we do need to apply ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in some pretty fundamental manner in order to maintain our happiness.
Treading water is actually sinking, right?
I mean, we have to be swimming somewhere.
In order to be happy, we have to have a purpose and that purpose has to be something that we can scale and progress in terms of competence and expertise, which is why wisdom and philosophy is that you're never done.
And the rewards are great, right?
And of course, the other thing too when it comes to philosophy is that what it did for me...
In a professional sense was it took the wind out of my sails of idealization, right?
So once you get that you're wiser than the people you work for, with a great whoosh, the false self wind goes out of your sails in terms of your enthusiasm for what it is that you're doing, right?
And you really can't get rah-rah about that kind of situation anymore, right?
So you go to these Microsoft conferences, and there's like...
I mean, they're literally standing, stomping, and cheering, right?
And you've got that bald guy jumping up and down like a monkey being electrocuted, right?
I mean, you've got to really get into it.
Like, it means something. Like, it's great.
Like, Vista is so important, and Linux.
We hate Linux. And you've got to get into all of that kind of hysterical groupthink.
In order to really, quote, succeed.
And the problem with philosophy is you just get this massive indifferent sigh and you recognize this stuff for what it is, which is people desperate to be accepted and to please those in authority being exploited.
And again, this has nothing to do with the free market.
I love the free market, but this is just about the sort of current state of psychology in the world, which is pretty primitive.
And you just can't get on board with that.
And of course, I believe that you have occasion to be called...
The dark cloud of cynicism in your life.
Because you can't sort of get on board with that kind of stuff.
Yeah. It really does embitter you after a while, too.
Right, and you don't want to be in situations that are going to embitter you, right?
Which is sort of the other stuff that I wanted to talk about with you in terms of your goals, right?
Which is that you really don't want to be – you don't want to end up in a situation other than through necessity, right?
I mean if you need money, you're going to have to take a job, I mean and so on, right?
But that's necessity and you can live with that, right?
But you don't want to try and put yourself in a situation where enthusiasm for the inconsequential is going to be your primary drive because it's not – I mean philosophy has just taken that away from you as it has for me, as it has for other people that you just can't get enthusiastic about inconsequentialities and status and mere money and excess and goods and all that kind of stuff.
It's just part of the process.
You just don't get enthusiastic about that kind of stuff anymore.
Yeah. And see, that's the double bind I'm kind of stuck in.
Not only can I not get enthusiastic about it anymore, I really can't go back there.
No, you can't. And if you tried to, you would simply short-circuit, right?
It's like trying to turn the wheel 180 degrees when you're going 200 down the highway.
I mean, it's pretty spectacular and fairly short what happens, right?
You can't do it, right?
Again, unless... And I kind of knew that, too.
A year ago, I started interviewing for other jobs, and on every interview, I was like, God...
I really don't want to work here either.
And so now I feel kind of trapped in a way because where does the enthusiasm come from for something new?
Well, it has to be in alignment with your core goals of achieving virtue and wisdom, right?
Yeah. You're enthusiastic for listening to the podcast.
You're great at providing feedback and thanks once more on the book.
You love posting on the boards.
You love the conversations that you have with the people that you've met who have been listening to the podcast.
You have entire day-long conversations that create viruses about dreams about fathers and so on.
That kind of stuff, it's like you'd pay to do it, let alone get paid to do it.
Yeah, and that's exactly it.
I mean, this whole thing, this whole conversation is, I mean, this is where I want to be, but obviously it's not an income generator.
So now you're stuck with, okay, well, what could I tolerate for six or eight hours a day in order to be able to do this, right?
Well, and there's things which you, I mean, you can retrain, you can try to generate income through writing articles and so on, and that's all possible, right?
But you can also look at, you know, most people work 50 weeks of the year for the two- or three-week vacation, right, or 49 weeks, and that's their big fun time.
You don't have to do that.
If you keep your living expenses low, you can do intermittent contract work and say, okay, I'm going to work for a couple of months here so that I can take another couple of months to pursue truth, knowledge, and wisdom, right?
I mean, those are all sorts – like the same way that the whale comes up for the air, right?
You sort of go down to the depths and you enjoy swimming in the deep and fluorescent dark and then you come up to sort of grab some more cash oxygen and then you go back down again, right?
I mean, that was sort of my dizzying up and down dive every day, right?
Which is that I would do what I would consider to be these amazing and And kaleidoscopic and wonderful podcasts in the morning and in the afternoon on my drive to work.
And then I'd be like retarded business guy, you know, relative to those podcasts, I'd be retarded business guy during the day.
And it really was disorienting and kind of weird, right, to sort of be in this...
You know, it's like, I guess, being the lead in an opera in the evening and then having to go and be a karaoke host the next day.
It's just weird, right?
I mean, it's a strange situation.
When you have that kind of depth and passion and power and ability, then you have to go and do a presentation at a chemical conference.
It's kind of weird, right?
It just feels like you're living 2.9 lives or something like that.
And it's got to be incredibly draining, too.
Well, it is, right? Because you have to hide, right?
I mean, you have to hide who you are from the people that you're working with, right?
And that's tough, right?
And I got that when I was doing a job interview before I took the one that I only stayed at for six months.
And the guy was like, well, you know, we certainly respect and appreciate your business expertise, but...
What the hell's going on with this anarchist thing?
I googled you and, you know, you freak of nature, what the hell's going on, right?
And he's right to sort of understand that, right?
That this is out there, that I'm going to be talking to clients who then might idly Google my name and find out that I'm a raving atheist anarchist guy who apparently wants to, you know, blow up the Fed.
This is, I mean, this is something that is hard.
You can't live that double life for too long without it Right, and it preys on your own mind too, I'm sure, because you know you're having to lie to these people, right?
Well, you certainly have to hide.
You have to hide, right?
Like in the same way that if you go to a family dinner and you don't like your family...
You can sort of nod and smile and say, yes, the weather has been great and past the salt and so on.
It's not quite the same as lying, but it certainly is a kind of hiding, right?
I mean, it is sort of falling in line with the other prisoners, and you're not saying, I'm a prisoner, but you're acting like one.
And there's a kind of falsehood and an inverse of values there that occurs.
Sin of omission rather than commissioning.
Right, right. But it's kind of this process that I went through even after I left the place I was at before the last place.
And which I still go through, you know, watching movies or whatever, right?
I just say, well, is philosophy real, right?
I mean, is it real or is it a hobby, you know?
Is it like, if I decide to take up bowling, that's not going to affect my career, unless it becomes obsessive, but is philosophy true, right?
I mean, is virtue the only path that happens?
Is corruption dangerous, right?
Because if it is true, like if it's really true and you have to live like it's true, then it's a very different set of decision-making where, of course, for the most of my My life I had this sort of secret mistress called philosophy, but I was sort of wedded to conformity, right?
So, you know, trying to make an honest woman out of philosophy is not the easiest step in the world.
Yeah, for me it was not so much the secret mistress, but more like a nagging bitch.
Yeah, well, I had that experience too.
Occasionally, the secret mistress gets a little impatient and says, what, so you're going to leave this wife of yours or what?
Married to the Mob, right? It's the name of that movie.
I've never seen it, but that's sort of what...
That's sort of what comes to mind, the mob like the group, not the mob like the mafia.
So from that standpoint, I would suggest, of course, and you know this, but keep your living requirements as insanely low as possible, and I would throw myself heart and soul into writing and trying to get my ideas down.
Now, if you don't have any particular ideas, then I would still keep my income low and just keep reading.
It takes a couple of years, at least it was for me, I think we're good to go.
Again, I was talking about your situation with Christina the other day, and I didn't really get the impression that you wanted to go back and get a Master's of English or whatever, and you wouldn't need that to be a writer anyway, but Shakespeare didn't.
No, I think to a certain extent my original plan for going back to school and getting a degree was kind of a self-esteem issue.
I Couldn't feel smart until I could have a piece of paper in my hand that said I was.
Over the years, I've tried to go back part-time, and I would usually last about a semester, maybe two, and then I was like, oh God, what am I doing?
Right, whereas if you could have a day, like when you were talking with those two guys in Europe, right, about philosophy, I mean, there it's like, regretfully, the sun is going down on this conversation, right?
And you sort of have to be dragged away with wild horses, which is my experience as well.
And, I mean, philosophy refreshes, right?
It encourages it. It's the water to our thirsty lawns, right?
Oh, yeah, it definitely recharges the batteries, that's for sure.
Right, right. I mean, after the conversation on the Sunday show, I had scheduled a chat in the evening with a young musician, and I was like, oh, I'm tired of whatever, right?
But Greg has drained me.
But what happened was I found it very refreshing and enjoyable, right?
So I've been working since like 8 o'clock on my new book this morning, and I was like...
It's a very, very pleasurable break to chat about important things in life, right?
So the books are like a drag relative to the conversation, but I think they're important for getting the word out to the non-technical.
So it's refreshing, and it's a pleasure, and it's a recharging.
And so I would say that, I mean, that's got to be the core of what it is that you're aiming at in your life.
And if you take that as the wind that you have to navigate by, then you won't necessarily sail in a straight line.
Lord knows I didn't. But that will be your sort of guiding light, in a sense.
Right. The scary part is, I guess, the waiting.
I mean, I've got enough in reserve to last a couple of years, if I'm frugal with it, but still.
Well, but tell me about the waiting, because that's the part that I don't quite get as yet.
Sorry, go ahead. Well, like you were saying, you know, just work on reading and writing and wait for it, you know?
The Luke Skywalker Force thing, that makes me uncomfortable.
But, I mean, again, to take the sort of pianist metaphor, if you want to be an improvisational jazz pianist because, I don't know, you hate your audience or something, then if you want to do that and you say, well, I can't wait for the moment when I can just improvise on my jazz piano or while playing jazz, then, you know, in a sense, you sort of feel like you're waiting for that moment.
And of course it's a moment and then it goes away and then it comes back and it becomes more consistent.
And you say to your piano teacher, you know, I'm waiting for this moment to arrive.
And he's like, well, I can't predict when it's going to happen.
But I can certainly predict that the more you practice, the quicker it'll be.
Right.
And in that metaphor is a piano teacher.
We're sure. We're sure. I mean, and I might humbly put at least some of the podcasts forward as those kinds of situations, right?
That you have a methodology that you always knew, right?
We always know that reason and evidence is the way to go because even people who argue for irrational things use reason and evidence, right?
Yeah. So we have that methodology.
You have some examples.
And so you know that sort of reading and, of course, there's a huge library out there of stuff to read and write about.
And you have, you know, again, it's easier for us than any generation previously, right?
Because we have places like Lou Rockwell and Strike the Root and so on that will publish our stuff when no, you know...
And all that slave college labor over at Gutenberg.com.
Right, right, you have all that kind of stuff and so on.
So you may not have a sort of piano teacher looking over your shoulder, but you definitely have, you know, the playbooks and all the theory and so on.
And of course, there is no one who can teach you how to be you, right?
Well, that's true. That's entirely true.
And who exactly is me, right?
Right, right. And that, of course, is like a cloud, right?
It's a continually moving and amorphous thing.
But I think, I mean, this guy I was chatting with on Sunday night, he's still reviewing the podcast, but he was sort of saying, well, how should I deal with X, Y, and Z? And I said, well, I could give you an answer, but it wouldn't mean that much.
What I can do is say that you need to develop a map, right?
And once you've got a map, then you don't have to ask anyone where to go, right?
Right. Well, a map doesn't really tell you where to go either.
It just tells you where you could go.
For sure, for sure, for sure.
And your core desire for wisdom and truth and self-knowledge is your destination, right?
The map of how to get there is going to be a pretty fluid thing, right?
Because, I mean, the metaphor is misplaced to some degree because the Earth doesn't change, you know, in the real world, but it does in the realm of sort of goals and so on.
But that sort of core thing where you can...
Read and write and talk and practice and question and so on and do all of that kind of stuff.
That definitely is the practice without which the jazz improvisation will never occur.
And nobody can tell you who you are, but certainly self-expression and self-knowledge is the only methodology that I've ever heard of or could imagine that will get you there.
Yeah, and being able to do that without feeling like you're loafing Well, sure, sure.
I mean, I've had to pry my way loose of a number of Protestant work ethics in order to be able to do this, because inspiration is not a beast you can command, right?
If you try to, it attacks you, right?
So I've had to become a free market with myself, right?
Because I have to view my creative energies as things which, if you regulate, they die.
Right? So that, you know, at the times where I can work, I can work feverishly and very well.
And the times when nothing is coming to me, then I'll do other things that are a little more procedural.
But you have to become a free market with yourself, right?
I mean, and that's one of the reasons that you end up being very sure that free market principles work, right?
We have to eliminate the statism within ourselves, right?
The command and control soul in order to be fertile.
Yeah. That's a serious problem.
I think with this, as freewheeling as Americans are Made to look on television, I think your value is only as a machine.
However consistent your productive output is, is how you can measure your own personal worth.
Oh, sure. When I was working on Almost, I would literally feel good or bad based on the word count of what I'd written during the day.
And that was just demonic.
That must have been torture.
That book is 900 pages?
That was absolutely the darkest time I've ever had writing anything was that damn book.
It was like being possessed by all the grim and ugly demons of the planet.
It was just hell. To come home and lie down on the couch and weep.
Oh my god, it was grueling.
In the same way as most of To Goa was great fun and startled people in Starbucks by giggling at my own bad jokes.
But that was just hell on wheels.
Yeah. Well...
You've certainly given me plenty to think about.
Well, I hope so. I mean, there is no simple answer.
I mean, you have to sort of meet your fate halfway, so to speak, right?
You have to meet yourself halfway.
I mean, if you just lie around on the couch, you get this Raskolnikov situation, which rarely ends well, right?
But at the same time, if you work out of a sense of panic, duty or obligation or fear, then you're just not going.
You have to sort of meet your, you know, you have to sort of extend your hand and then the squirrel comes, right?
Right. And that is a complicated thing to try and do.
But I would certainly respect your own instincts in this area, right?
I mean, your instincts got you as far as they did, got you to a place where, you know, you're happier and freer than you ever were before, you know, got you to respond to the fateful email from the BCF and come and listen, right?
And that acceptance and readiness and pursuit of that was all instinctual, right?
You had no idea where it was heading.
But I would really trust those instincts and trust that what it is that you're doing is the right thing.
Yeah, I still feel that way to a certain extent.
Like two guys in black suits have thrown me into the back of a cab and I have no idea where I'm going.
Well, I'm just glad to have other people in the back of the cab with me because that was certainly my experience, right?
Because it all started when I just stopped being able to sleep.
And I didn't know what the heck was going on or why, and it was like I just got hijacked by my own true self.
It's like, could you maybe just untie the burlap sack a little bit?
I mean, I can still breathe, but I'd kind of like to know where we're going.
Like, don't you worry, you pretty little head.
We'll pump you out when we get there.
Right. So, yeah, it's not like I had a big plan.
It was just I got hijacked, and it's like, hey, you know, maybe I can grab some other people as this net is being scooped through the ocean.
Yeah. Yeah. That's been pretty much the story of my life for the last six months.
And that's evolution, right?
Evolution is you don't know what's coming next, right?
Right. Right, that's true.
That's true. So, I mean, in the short run, I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing.
Yeah, read, write, think, rest, contemplate.
You have the luxury of a couple of years, and that's not going to be – and you're not going to need – I mean, that's going to work out just fine, right?
I mean, you have a marketable skill, right?
So you're not going to starve to death and so on.
But I would just, you know, when you feel like resting, rest without guilt.
And that's a very hard thing to do, right?
But a lot of philosophy is in the resting.
A lot of philosophy is in the not working, right?
Because our wisdom and truth comes a lot from relaxation.
That's the idea behind meditation and so on.
But the idea of resting, right?
Resting is when, I mean, I'm sort of lying on the couch not thinking of anything.
That's where I get a lot of my best ideas.
And if I don't rest and say, well, I've got to squeeze some ideas out, then the constipation sets in and the metaphor gets really unpleasant.
But resting is very important, right?
To have the self-esteem to not work.
Because, you know, that's where a lot of, at least for me, at least that's where a lot of the fertility comes from.
Right. For all the John Cage jokes, the spaces between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
And of course, the great philosopher Farouk Bulsara came up with a crazy little thing called love while lounging in a bubble bath in Munich.
And that, of course, is my template.
Freddie, I agree, wasn't his real name, just in case you were wondering.
That is his song, then.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
I was, uh...
Well, last days in London, I... So, uh...
Okay, I guess I'll go see it.
And went and saw the, uh...
That, um...
We Will Rock You? Queen musical they have out there.
How'd you like it? Um, it was loud.
Yes, it was. It was okay.
It was a thin plot designed specifically to sprinkle all the greatest hits within it.
It gave Queen fans a great chance to relive the past.
Actually, that's kind of how the plot worked.
Yes, absolutely. Post-apocalyptic Orwellian world full of conformists on one side and orange-haired Mad Max crazy people on the other.
It was like a cheese factory as far as the plot went for sure.
It was interesting to note, though, that they must be changing the script because there were pop culture references in it.
Yeah, they changed the script here for Toronto as well, so they do throw in some local jokes.
But it was pretty good.
But where was I going with that?
Oh yeah, they played that song and I was like, wait a minute.
That's like a tune from the 50s, isn't it?
Yeah, no, he liked his Elvis impersonation, so he worked that in for sure.
So that was his? Yeah, yeah, that was his.
A long way from Bohemian Rhapsody, but definitely quite the flexible songwriter.
Well, sure, sure, it seems like it.
Although, I don't know why it has to be so loud.
Well, that's just rock and roll.
Yeah, it makes your ears ring, but...
Actually makes the voices in your head louder.
Right, right, right.
Anyway. Well, why don't we...
I'm going to... I mean, I recorded this, of course.
Let me... I'm not going to post this in general.
I mean, have a listen to it and see if it's something...
I think it's useful for others.
But have a listen, and I can sort of put it either gold or diamond plus or whatever.
I mean, if you wanted, it's your conversation, so you can put it wherever you want, but I think it might be confusing for some people who haven't sort of had more experience or understanding.
But let me sort of give you...
Wait a minute! He's telling this guy to quit his job and loaf around!
How the hell does he expect me to donate?
Just kidding. And for God's sake, keep your money, right?
I mean, you've donated more than enough.
So, you know, this is the leisure that you need to have with financial security is very important, right?
So that you can relax into yourself, right?
Right. Well, I hear you pleading on the podcast and I get panicky because if free domain goes away, then I'm going to have to do this all by myself.
Well, you don't want to step in to fill other people's gaps, right?
Certainly free domain is not going anywhere.
I'm going to make this work.
I'm going to sell three kidneys.
I'm going to make this work. So don't worry about that.
And don't take as your ownership the fact that donations in the summer, at least it was the case last summer, just tend to be a little bit leaner.
But of course, I've started selling the book, so that's helped a little bit.
But don't take on as your ownership the fact that other people aren't donating.
That's part of relaxing.
Letting other people step up is pretty key.
Oh, sure, sure. I get worried.
I'll just say, except Greg.
So you don't...
Or you can just add it for yourself.
It's up to you. Yeah, I'll staple that to my forehead.
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's a very, very important element for you, right?
Is that, you know, even if Free Domain Radio goes away, you and I will stay in conversation, of course, right?
I mean, we're friends as well as, you know, people who have a philosophical relationship.
The two may be considered the same, so...
Don't worry about that aspect of things.
And if I have to go back to a full-time job, Freedom Aid Radio is still not going to go away.
So, I mean, I don't want to...
I never want that to be a sort of...
That would be a sort of manipulative threat, right?
And what I really want, of course, is...
I mean, the whole point of this voluntary thing...
Sorry, go ahead. Right, I mean, I understood you weren't trying to manipulate people into donating, it's just that, you know, I have no idea how well it's doing, and the more aggressive the please, the more I start to wonder, hmm...
No. I have given myself at least a year where I'm going to assume that – because, I mean, I stayed at this job for six months and was making ridiculous amounts of money at it, so I stored that up with the existing donation money.
That's enough for a year, and donations are not doing too badly.
It's just that I need people to reciprocate, and not just, as I talked about before, not just for me to have money to eat.
It's not even so much that.
It's that if they...
I mean, I want this to be...
I mean, there is a mentor, mentee, mentors, relationship in this with people, and they need to reciprocate so that they understand philosophy.
The donations are an essential part, and that's why they have to stay voluntary.
That's why I decided not to go to a cash-based podcast release.
It has to be voluntary to begin with.
People have to experience the kind of generosity from me that they never experienced from their teachers or family growing up.
But then the re-parenting, in a sense, is also heavily involved with the reciprocation at some point.
So that's another reason why I nag people.
My main purpose is not to make money.
But to help people and pestering them for reciprocity will be good because when they have reciprocity in their relationship with me, then what will happen is my generosity will stimulate their generosity and that will become a standard in their relationships whether they like it or not, which will help them a great deal with difficult people.
The reasoning behind all that was one of the reasons I really started donating heavy myself because...
I mean, all the surface arguments of, you know, well, if you're a capitalist, you would charge, or if you're a communist, you would give it away for free.
You know, that stuff all seems so kind of silly to me.
But... Understanding the subtlety of the donation model and how it's kind of a metaphor for how you should live in total.
Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, if you take value, you should provide value in your relationships, right?
And that is something that people really need to get, right?
And they think, of course, that giving me money would be a net loss for them, right?
And that just means that they still don't really understand what the conversation is really all about.
And that's okay, because, I mean, they can take...
People have been really exploited, right, in their life.
That's why the world is in such a difficult state, right?
It's the exploitation of people, particularly when they're young, right?
It's a very serious issue.
When you learn to meet generosity with generosity, you break that cycle.
If I charged people, then the natural cynicism and skepticism would arise and so on.
People might still pay, but it would be grudging and it wouldn't be doing anything to heal the bad parenting and bad exploitation at the hands of teachers that they experienced in the past.
But when people get that, when you reciprocate generosity with generosity, then you get an ever-escalating increase in pleasure.
That's the lesson that I really want people to get through this voluntary model.
I mean, if Christina gives me 150% and I give her 150% back, we have this constant increase of pleasure.
And realizing that reciprocating generosity with generosity and getting the pleasure And the growth that comes out of that is something that, I mean, a lot of people are sort of slowly getting it, but it's hard for people to really get that, you know, whatever they, I mean, and it sounds ridiculously religious, right?
Whatever thou shalt give to me, thou shalt receive tenfold and blah, blah, blah, right?
I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's true nonetheless.
nonetheless and of course it is true and i don't think it's coincidental that the people who have um given the most back right have have grown the most i mean that's that's uh you could sort of argue the cause and effect and so on but uh you know once people get that uh you know giving money to me is like paying a doctor or paying for education right i mean it's it's an investment that pays off uh many times over uh in terms of happiness i mean they'll get that and that will help them a lot in their life but i can't i can't enforce that right
because then you break the whole paradigm right it's it's more than just reciprocating what you've given It's a kind of self-reciprocation as well.
Right. As soon as you eliminate exploitation from your relationships with others, and without a doubt, people who have hundreds or thousands of posts, who've downloaded dozens or hundreds of podcasts and who've listened to them and got enormous value, people who don't donate, they are exploiting My generosity, right?
And if they understood how much that harmed them in terms of their happiness and their life with others, and if they got what that was going to do to them in terms of their capacity to love and be loved and how they were going to raise their kids, I mean, there'd almost be no price.
They wouldn't be willing to pay to avoid that, but people have to come to that realization voluntarily that if they exploit others, it hurts them, right?
And I kind of...
Right, the suffering you inflict on somebody else.
I mean, in the same way that the reciprocation comes back to you tenfold, the suffering does too.
Oh, absolutely. No question.
No question, but...
And then what happens is it can become a vicious cycle, right?
So they... As you know, philosophy is like a hammer blow to the head when it first comes up in your life.
It is not a tender lever, but, you know, it's like, hey, sip this drink.
It might taste a little better and you'll wake up in Vegas with your panties around your head, but...
It can be a bit disorienting to begin with, but...
And you can see this.
I can see this sort of floating up on relationships that are popping up on the board and so on.
That people are sort of waking up to their exploitation, right?
To either the fact that they're exploiting others, as in the case of some of the sort of players that have popped up lately, or being exploited themselves.
People talking about their girlfriends and parents.
And once they recognize that they are being exploited or that they're exploiting others and they begin to undo that damage, then donations inevitably follow, right?
So, unconsciously, they kind of get it that they don't want to exploit or be exploited.
And the effect of that is donations, and it's, of course, a ridiculously complicated way to get a Big Mac, but it is the only way that makes the conversation worthwhile.
Right, because, I mean, your product is vastly different than a Big Mac.
Right, right, right, right.
But, I mean, I wouldn't go...
If somebody had a free buffet, which was donations only, and I just went and...
I mean, everyone can afford to do something, right?
I mean, everyone can afford to do something and everyone could afford to help in some manner.
It's not always about cash.
I mean, it would be very costly for me, right?
It would be very costly for me to exploit another human being because it would have huge ripple effects on all my relationships.
And of course, I would be then replaying out my parents' exploitation of me and all of that.
You're reaffirming the principle and so on.
And if people knew how much that altered their future happiness, In terms of loving and being loved, they would consider it a small price.
But, you know, that's something that I can't talk too, too much about because then it just sounds, again, their defenses will kick in as, oh, he's manipulating.
It's like, oh, so if I don't donate to you, I'm not happy and blah, blah, blah.
I mean, that's something that I can't talk about in very specific terms.
Right. And it's just, I mean, that's just a defense wall going up anyways, but...
For sure, for sure, for sure.
And then what happens is they then project their exploitation onto me, right?
So then it's either I exploit them or they exploit me.
Mutual benefit is not something that they can process as yet and that does take time.
Right. It's the mindset of...
It's the statist mindset, right?
Either you are the...
You're either the abuser or the victim.
Yeah, the ruler or the rules.
You're the farmer or the livestock. There's nothing...
There's no mutual cooperation, right?
It's not... It's not possible, right?
And that is hard.
And of course, I also do want people, because I don't want them to have to wait 25 years the way that, or 20 years the way it was for me, that philosophy has value.
Again, that's the sort of why I say, you know, you know, like if people who subscribe or whatever, it's like half the price of a cup of coffee a day.
And if philosophy isn't worth that much for you to you, then don't get involved in the conversation because, you know, philosophy values you whether or not you value philosophy.
Right.
So you cannot believe in calories.
But if you eat 10 Big Macs a day, it's still going to have an effect on you.
So I'm always concerned about the people who sort of get into the podcast and say, oh, this is cool.
this is interesting, this is neat, because, you know, they have high-powered guns with no training.
And that can be...
It can blow up for them, for sure.
It can be very risky. So if they sort of don't think that philosophy is worth any sort of cash, really, then they're sort of saying that it's not worth a whole lot.
But what it means is that it then...
It acts upon their life in an unconscious manner, because they haven't placed it conscious priority and learned to manage it, right?
It's a drug. Yeah, it is.
It is. And of course, some people use it to try and achieve superiority over others and so on.
And that, holy, that's definitely a bad idea.
Yeah. At least for those folks that don't understand its real value.
It becomes a kind of a drug.
It's a way of inhabiting a fantasy of yourself that you're...
I mean, sooner or later, it's gonna implode.
Oh, for sure, yeah. No, you can't use this stuff to exploit people.
I mean, it's very powerful.
But, I mean, it just radiates your soul if you try.
Yep. Yep, that's been my experience.
Oh, for sure, mine too. Well, Steph, I, uh...
I feel better in some ways and worse in others.
Excellent. Well, have a listen to it.
I mean, I think what it's given is a possible plan of action for the present, as well as a core goal of pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, which is what you should measure your Right.
And doing both those things, not necessarily at the same time.
Right. Right.
All right, well...
I'll compile this, post a link, and you can let me know what you'd like to do with it.
But do have a listen and let me know what you think.
Sure. All right. Well, thanks, man.
I really do appreciate it. Thanks for making the time.
Oh, thank you. My pleasure, man.
Talk to you soon. Talk to you later.
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