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Sept. 13, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:19:10
863 Son Versus Nihilists - A Listener Conversation
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Time Text
Hello. Hi. How's it going?
Oh, not too bad. I just got home from work.
Excellent. Can you hear any echo or anything?
I do have my desk mic on.
Mic on. Mic on.
Mic on. No, that was me. Actually, there's no echo.
Just playing around. So, do you mind if we start by, I can sort of read the thing off that you had sent me through the PM system?
Yep. Okay.
Because I have been accused, shockingly enough, of not providing enough context for some of these listener conversations.
As if the random grab bag of questions wasn't enough.
It's shocking, I know. But here's where we have some nice structure.
So, you say, some things I'd like to get to the bottom of.
Why my parents choose to insult me.
And more importantly, how it makes me feel.
Well, quite right. Why I broke down crying and basically gave in near the end of the conversation.
How I can improve my relationship with my parents or find out if the relationship is even really worth it.
How to approach my parents so the conversations are more productive.
Why I feel angry and depressed after I talk to my parents about anything real.
You say, I want to talk to my parents about many things, but sometimes I just don't know what to ask or how to approach the problem.
Also, I'm asking myself, are the battles I'm fighting really worth the pain I'm putting myself through?
So you're going to go to therapy, which is great.
I mean, good for you. I think that that's fantastic.
So why don't you tell me a little bit about the conversations that you have been having with your parents?
And sorry, by your parents, do you mean your stepdad and your mom or your bio dad or what?
Whenever I really refer to my parents, I really am usually referring to my mom and my stepdad.
My dad was around, but he was usually, because my parents got divorced when I was around six, so I saw my dad kind of on the weekends pretty much ever since.
But I will say I talk to my real dad much more than I talk to my parents these days.
So a lot of the conversations that I've been having really haven't been much in the last two years, to be honest.
Not that often. We've sort of grown apart in certain ways.
I think your brother mentioned that your parents broke up mostly because you were a really bad kid around the age of six or five or six.
Is that right? Just kidding.
Go on. All you!
It's all you! No.
I guess the thing is that on Sunday was when this conversation happened and I sort of just kind of decided to take a few swings at a few things and it didn't turn out as well as I hoped for.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but when did you decide that you were going to take these swings?
When we started talking about, I mean, like I was saying in my first board post, was that I sort of started out with more external things, you know, taxes, government, things like that.
And then I kind of started to dig a little bit deeper in, and that's when the insults started to happen.
So... Sorry, but had you thought beforehand about this conversation, or was it sort of a spontaneous go for it?
It was pretty spontaneous.
It may not have been the best timing, but I guess something told me to go for it.
But you had been mulling over this kind of conversation.
Sorry, is the volume okay for my audience?
Yeah, perfect. You'd been mulling about this conversation, whether to have this conversation, I would imagine, since the last time you and I talked, which was probably, what, six or eight weeks ago.
Yeah, definitely.
Actually, I would say even prior to that, pretty much ever since I've been listening to the podcasts on defooing and things like that.
Because, I mean, I think something a lot of people don't realize is that I think you're not telling them absolutely leave your family like a cult or something like that, but find out if your relationship with your family is a good one.
And if it's not, then maybe you shouldn't have it in your life.
Right. I mean, just for clarification, this is the brain virus that a lot of people misinterpret, right?
I mean, people say to me, I have a good relationship with my family, right?
And of course, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to have.
I have a great relationship with my family, my family being my wife.
So when somebody says to me, I have a great relationship with my family, And then they say, but I'd never talk to them about anything real, and they bullied me, and this and that, right?
Then all I'm saying is, look, you have a discordance between your theory and your practice, right?
So your theory is, I have a great relationship with my family.
The practice is that you don't talk about anything real, and you tiptoe around, and you kind of obey, and you kowtow, or you get into big fights, or whatever, right?
I'm just saying put your theory to the test.
If you think you have a great relationship with someone, then surely, I mean, it doesn't take a philosopher to say that if you have a great relationship with someone, you should be able to talk to them honestly about what's on your mind and be respected and loved for who you are.
That's not brain surgery.
So I just say put that to the test.
I'm not telling people to leave their families.
I'm saying if you think you have a great relationship with your family, then actually try to have a great relationship with your family.
Don't leave it in limbo, right?
Because that limbo is where people's lives get sucked into nothing.
Well, it seems like with most people with their family, and I kind of realized this about my parents, and even talking to them, they kind of even admitted this directly, is it's kind of like, let's just forget about all the bad things and just have a good time.
Let's go out to dinner. I don't know, talk about...
Something, you know, external and nothing.
Let's not talk about anything real.
Let's not talk about our feelings or anything like that.
Let's just smile and have a drink or something.
And let's not talk about history and let's not talk, right?
So it's like a family is in this sense defined as having value through history, but it's a history you can never talk about, which is kind of weird, right?
Absolutely. I've been trying to get my head wrapped around it, many of these different issues.
Sorry, let me just say one more thing before I plunge in, just as a general sort of comment.
It's so funny to me that in this exploitive and often destructive, though occasionally quite beautiful, but in this exploitive and often destructive cult of the family, which bestrides the world like a colossus and tyrannizes helpless children and billions of people the world over, this cult of the family, right?
That people look at this tyranny over children throughout the entire world, and then they look at a little guy with a microphone in Canada, right?
And they say, ha!
You know, I found the real cult here is the guy in Canada who says, you know, if you love somebody, speak your mind to them.
That's the cult, right? I mean, just as amazing to me that people can bypass the mountain and start stomping on the ant.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And actually, there is even a time when I was talking to them that my stepdad basically stopped me in my tracks and he's basically like, who's your sources?
Who are you getting all this stuff from?
Did he really? Oh my god, that's fantastic.
I mean, sorry. That was literally what he said.
Literally. Who's your mole?
Give him up. Absolutely.
And I'm like, well, I have multiple sources, but we're talking logically and about morality here.
It's not like I'm just quoting statistics or something like that.
You know what I mean?
Oh, that's great.
That's great.
Okay, so sorry.
Okay, one more thing, which is just, people often have these conversations spontaneously, As I mentioned to you and your brother in that call-in show, it's usually good to prepare a little bit.
because otherwise you raise the risk what happens is if you don't prepare i mean this is the ultimate exam as far as the family goes right which is going in and speaking your mind and being very perceptive and clear about what's happening and not being tripped up by all of the standard manipulative tricks that a lot of family members and parents in particular have but so what happened the danger of not being prepared is you you come out with an unsatisfying conclusion but it's muddy Like, was I the cause of it?
Were they the cause of it? Is it some combination?
So then you just have to go do it again.
But they're already alarmed and armed, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I think you can see that kind of reflected in our short board conversation.
It's just like, was my approach wrong?
Did I not ask the right things?
Did I, I mean, was my arguments just garbled and bad?
Right, right. Whereas with more preparation, again, this is just for next time, right?
But with more preparation that you can bypass some of that.
You also might want to listen to our conversation last night.
With a guy, 862, which has some similarities to what it is you're describing that may help if you want to listen to that.
But anyway, nonetheless, I promise to be quiet now and go on with your conversation with your parents.
Well, I'm trying to figure out where I should start exactly.
You know, I think a big issue I have, and I don't know if a lot of people have this, is just like, it's kind of figuring out like, well, what questions can I ask them to really, you know, to kind of get things started that, you know, won't just, you know, result in me, you know, breaking down emotionally.
Or losing sleep for the rest of the night because I can't believe some of the things my parents said.
Well, first of all, what's wrong with breaking down emotionally?
Absolutely nothing.
That's something that I actually am proud of myself for and I've been that way for a long time, especially with my stepdad, where I actually really feel sorry for my stepdad in one way, in the sense that he has no ability to express sadness or express many other things, unless he's drunk. Right, that's not good.
That's the only time I've seen him cry is actually when he's drunk, which is very sad.
But me, I always felt, even before I heard some of your podcasts on being a macho man type thing, even before then, I felt that way, where I'm just like, it's really sad that guys aren't allowed to cry.
And that's, you know, it's self-destructive.
I've always felt that way.
Yeah, to me, masculinity is, and I'm sure this is true of femininity too well, but I can only speak to masculinity.
It's a very passionate stage.
It's a very passionate identity.
And that means anger, that means fear, that means sorrow, that means tears, that means grief.
I'm a bit of a sort of Italian guy that way, you know, that to me, there's a very passionate Sort of aspect to masculinity.
And it's hard for me to look at guys who are afraid of little emotions, right?
Afraid of things like fear or anger or vulnerability and say that that's manly.
That just seems to me like when I see guys afraid of their own emotions, I always get the image of a girl jumping up, like a 12-year-old girl jumping up on a kitchen chair because she thought she saw a mouse.
Like, oh, I felt vulnerable.
Oh, I felt this. Well, that's just kind of Calidly to me, but...
Absolutely....same page about that, but go on.
Oh, no question.
Definitely, definitely afraid of those emotions.
And if it helps at all, I mean, to kind of understand where my stepdad comes from, I mean, he's had a very abusive childhood.
But he hasn't been taught to deal with it in any kind of constructive way, and that's kind of my theory behind why he resorts to insults and bullying as opposed to really trying to be curious about my point of view.
I'm sorry, I'm just a little lost.
You said that he hasn't been taught how to deal with these kinds of things.
Well, I guess I'm sort of basing that on his mom kind of being insane.
Well, but help me, you know the whole universally preferable behavior thing, right?
Sure, yes. So I mean, if his behavior is causal according to his history, right, then so is yours.
Absolutely. Well, yeah.
Well, I'm not going to make some determinist argument where it's like, oh, that's just his upbringing.
He had no choice, you know, that kind of, forgive him in that kind of lame way.
Well, you say that nobody has taught him, right?
But you were trying to teach him when you were talking to him, in a way, right?
Not necessarily... Yeah, and I have in the past, actually.
Right, so what does he do with these lessons?
It shoves them back down my throat, basically.
Absolutely. I knew that, right?
I'm going to be, as you know, very annoying in terms of precision, right?
By all means. I may be annoying in other ways, too, but annoying in terms of precision.
This is not a man who has simply never been taught.
This is a man who tears up teachers and tears up instructors and tears up books and sets fire to schools.
To put an extreme slant on it, but this is different from a guy who was never taught anything, right?
I think you might need to expand on that a little bit.
I guess maybe it's the extreme part of it or something like that, but I sort of understand.
Well, you said that when you try to teach him, he shoves those lessons down your throat.
Yeah. Right, okay.
So, if I live in a remote village in India and somebody says to me, you know, what is the capital of Guatemala?
Then I can legitimately say, I don't know.
Because I've never been taught, right?
Sure. But when I say, I am an expert in geography, And then I keep spewing all this stuff, and somebody comes along with a book, an atlas, and says, you know, Atlantis is not the capital of Guatemala the way that you say it is.
And I attack him, and I throw him in the river, and I tear up his book.
That's different from the guy who just was never taught something, right?
Yes. That makes more sense now.
And the reason that I said that the expert on geography is your dad claims to know what's what, right?
Yeah, or know what's right and wrong.
Right, so he's an expert on morality and on truth and on wisdom and on what's what, right?
Or so he claims, of course.
Well, sure, but then when you come along and you say, well, I have some questions, or I think I may have some proof that is the opposite of what you say, then he just attacks you, right?
Yeah. So that's a whole lot different from what you said originally, which was, he just was never taught these things.
I can see that now.
Definitely in the sense that, I mean, if it were the case that he just didn't know, then he would have said, well, I've never heard that before, can you tell me more about that?
Yeah, I mean, if somebody plays me a piece of music I'd never heard before, I'd say, oh...
Who's that, right? Whatever, right?
I mean, this happened at the Free Domain weekend, right?
Some guy was playing music, and it was like, wow, that's a great song.
Who's the band, right? Because I'm like 40, so the bands I like are all like dead or something, right?
So it's good to get new music.
So when you hear something that you don't know, right?
Or if somebody sums...
Come storming on, as they regularly do, into the board or in my inbox or whatever, and says, you're totally wrong, there's no objective morality.
I'm always like, okay, well, here's my premises, right?
Here's a very short 2,000-word article laying out my moral approach, so tell me where I've made a mistake.
I'm more than happy to be corrected, because I sure as heck would not want to make a mistake on this stuff, right?
Yeah, and actually I even brought that up with them where basically I was kind of borrowing some of your words as well, but it's sort of like what I was telling them is like, well, if I'm an error, I would like you to correct me because error is a prison.
I want you to free me. Please give me the information you have that brings you to your conclusion.
And that's what I told them.
Can I just pause for a moment?
I'm actually standing here and I don't do this very often.
I'm standing here and I'm saluting your balls.
Are they on a flag or something?
Is that what's going on? That is serious cojones, man.
That is really brave, right?
To put yourself out there, in a sense, and to be vulnerable and to say, please don't attack me, but correct me if I'm in error.
That's brave. I mean, I was just saying to Cristina just before this conversation that I'm just incredibly honored to even be a tangential part of the courage that's going on as the result or as part of this conversation.
So, full military salute to your testicles.
I wouldn't have had the courage or have...
I'm not exactly sure if it's the knowledge, but I wouldn't have had the inclination to do it if I wouldn't have found FDR and been set on that path that says, well, that's a good point.
I should ask that question.
That's something I should need to know.
That's important for my happiness.
Well, it's something you would have processed in your gut because you would have felt the injustice of the conversation.
Oh yeah, subconsciously, I would have known it.
But it's that clarity of being able to drill the pipe down and connect the highest and most abstract concepts with our deepest and most passionate emotions.
I'm sort of trying to be that drill guy, right?
Sure. Between the sky and the center of the earth.
But no, I mean, that's an amazing thing to say to your parents.
And what was their response? Well, that was basically the first response I got from my mom was the whole subjective thing where it's all like, well, I think the things in life that are valuable are all subjective.
I can't really completely quote her, but I basically, there was another incident very similar where...
I believe I was talking about, I mean, I was just talking about violence and I was saying that the initiation of violence is wrong.
And basically what my stepdad said is, you are naive.
You've never experienced any of this violence, so how can you say anything about this?
And then my mom followed up with that by saying, oh yeah, well you live here in white suburbia or white America, you're so privileged, how can you even say any of this stuff?
And essentially, what my response was was basically like, well, I understand I'm young and I may not have all the knowledge that you may have accumulated in your life, but calling me naive does not invalidate my argument.
You're just insulting me.
And I said that literally.
Well, sure, and that's perfectly true.
That's perfectly true. And his response to that was, you are naive.
And that's, you know, putting the emphasis on the R, like, you know, of course, that brings more understanding to that three words, you know.
Right, right, of course. I mean, so if you say, please don't insult me, but help correct me, what they feel is that if they redouble their insults, they're actually correcting you.
Yeah, exactly. I think, and that's the lesson they're trying to teach me, which, of course, is crap.
Right. Now, if I remember rightly, your mother has both a fairly volatile temper and a pretty acerbic tongue, right?
Well, I guess the best way I can put it is that she is very narcissistic in the sense that, I mean, I'm afraid.
I mean, during this entire time I was talking to my stepdad most of the time, my mom got in a few words here and there, but my stepdad and me were the ones that are mostly going at it.
But, I mean, essentially, I mean, talking to my mom about something she disagrees with is almost not an option to her.
Why is that? Well, it's not that it's not an option.
It's just that, essentially, be prepared for a lot of backlash and a lot of emotional manipulation and a lot of...
I mean, essentially, her philosophy is the same as my stepdad.
It's basically insult them and attack them in order to win.
And even prior to this, I was trying to explain how discussions should turn into more of a win-win, basically saying, well, if you've got more information or you've got...
You know, if you got a good point, then let's share it and let's, you know, share each other's knowledge as opposed to a win-lose type transaction, which is essentially what the entire thing was, except my mom was trying to tell me, oh, well you're just trying to win the argument.
I'm sorry to be jumping around a little bit, and I'm certainly happy to hear the report of the conversation, but I think it's better if you describe it in your own way.
And I just pause, I do the freeze frame and say, hey, you see how the jackal of untruth is coming in for your heart at this point?
But I'm a little confused insofar as you say that, or your mother says, everything is relative, right?
Now the statement, you are naive, is clearly not a relative statement, right?
Sure, yeah.
So, did your mother correct your stepfather when he made an absolutist statement?
Oh no. Absolutely not.
Well, but isn't that a little odd, right?
So she says everything is relative, and yet at the same time, I'm guessing you were the only one who was attacked for either making absolute statements or asking questions, but I don't imagine that your mother, the arch-fiend relativist, so to speak, corrected your stepfather even once during the time that he was making his absolute statements.
No, that would never happen.
It never has happened. I've never had a time when my stepdad basically goes apeshit.
I mean, he didn't yell this time, surprisingly, but my mom has never stepped in and said, you know, sorry, do you use names?
My stepdad. Oh, okay.
I'll edit that out.
Go on. Yep. She's never stepped in and said, no, you're kind of being incorrect here.
This isn't right.
You aren't treating my son in a very respectful fashion.
That's never happened.
Ever. I've never thought of one time.
The values that she holds that everything is relative, why does she say that if she acts in the complete opposite manner?
I would say to protect herself.
I mean, she's a narcissist.
Well sure, and to feed you to the wolves, right?
So she's actually telling you the truth.
Everything is relative to her desires.
That's what narcissists really are, right?
Yeah, I think that definitely describes her.
Right, right. Okay, so you were saying it started with the political, taxation and so on, and you were talking about the initiation of the use of force.
And I guarantee you, of course, that when you started this, the whole air in the room sort of got tense, right?
The moment that you start this process.
You don't have to wait to get to the personal, right?
Yeah, no. It was already getting really, yeah, most definitely.
Yeah. I don't know how to exactly describe that sensation.
I've actually, you know, really honestly never really fully experienced that because I haven't really felt like, you know, anywhere outside the last two years where I've really had any real tools to really stand up to them.
I haven't really had anything to really go by.
And the reason I say it's in the last two years is because really in the last two years is when I feel my real education has started because I started to get into critical thinking, skepticism, and stuff like that.
And that's really the last two years.
My mind has kind of opened a lot, which is something I felt I've been kind of robbed of.
Well, for sure. So I'm going to just rewind for a second.
You said to stand up to them.
Yeah. Right.
So tell me a little bit more about what you mean about that.
Well, essentially, not accepting insults as an argument.
Not accepting, you know, just my stepdad yelling at me, or my mom staying silent, or attacking my dad, or attacking me, or whoever it might be who's convenient to attack.
Not accepting that and pointing it out to him.
Because, like I said, me and my parents have lost touch.
This is the first time that I really feel that I could stand with confidence and say, well, you're just calling me naive.
That means nothing. That's why I really feel this conversation was kind of weird because it's kind of my first time that I've really stood up to them in any real fashion.
Right, right, right. And of course, I mean, you don't get into Mike Tyson, so you don't get into a fight with a gunslinger until you know how to shoot a weapon, right?
I mean, to take the metaphor, we all have to be prepared.
But when you say, stand up to them, that's sort of a personal you against them, right?
Yeah. And I just wonder if there's not another way that we could phrase that, and again, this is not like magic words create reality, but But I think that there's another way of looking at it that you want to be able to carry this strength and these principles to future interactions, right?
Because this question dealing with the past is not fundamentally about the past, of course, because the past cannot be altered, but it is about the future and taking the principles from these interactions into the future so that you can live a happier life, more connected to people and have real love in your life rather than this manipulative crap.
So when you say that you stand up against them, that's something that could be, you know, like a mafia kid who shoots his dad.
I'm finally standing up against him or acting against him, which is not what you were doing, right?
Well, no, I wouldn't say exactly.
I'm not sure how else to put it.
I can see how there's...
You were not just saying to them, you're wrong, right?
Yeah. I wasn't just trying to bully them.
Right. Or just sort of yelling back, or, you know, this is why you say that the conversation didn't end up as a scream fest, and the reason is, well, the two reasons are, one, that you were bringing principles, and the second is that you'd never brought principles in before, as far as I understand it, so you startled them, right?
Yeah. But you really were, I think, it's fair to say, you were not standing up to them, you were standing up for the truth.
Absolutely. And that's what I was trying to actually, prior to when the conversation started to get a bit more heated, I was just trying to generally talk about how discussions should be sharing knowledge, like I said, but it's supposed to be the pursuit of truth and not, you know, just a pissing battle.
Right. It's not one-upmanship because when, you know, if you know the cure to an illness and I know the cure to a different illness, it's not like we lose out by sharing our knowledge, right?
We both end up with cures, which is good.
Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so what happened in the process that led up to you becoming more overtly or openly emotional?
Well, it was after both my parents started to gang up on me a bit.
I remember... I'm going to pause you for just a second.
You said started to gang up on me, and then you said a bit.
What happened in the space between those two thoughts?
What do you mean? What happened prior to when they...
No, just in what you were saying just now, you said, my parents started to gang up on me, and then you paused for a moment, and then you said, a bit.
Well, I suppose, yeah, they did gang up on me.
And I'm just curious as to why in that moment, if you can figure it out, you felt the need to minimize that, right?
Because I don't know how you can gang up on someone a little bit.
That's like screaming at someone a little bit, right?
The only explanation I can give is that perhaps I'm still trying to apologize for my parents.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to sort of make you totally self-conscious.
It's just that it's important to understand that you have that habit, which is not your habit, right?
Absolutely. It's their habit.
Well, I'm willing to accept that, and I know that that's not the only thing that I've said, and you can already see it in some of my board responses about how I sort of talk.
I know you were asking me, well, why is your primary criticism that your approach was wrong?
I mean, I could see how I'm sort of missing the point.
Right. It's the internal dictators that we need to overthrow, right?
That's why I keep talking that we'll get rid of the state when we are free as individuals, right?
That personal liberty will undo the state.
I know that sounds like weird alchemy, but I can certainly see that it works.
So these are not your thoughts.
Your thoughts are... That they ganged up on you and that their thoughts are, hey, hey, you know, just a little bit, maybe, right?
So it's the inhabitation of these justifications, self-justifications that your parents have that you need to evict because it's not.
It's like an infection. It's not your personality.
It's not your experience, right?
Sure. I only have control over myself.
I don't have control over them.
Right, but you do have control over the invasion of their thoughts in your mind, right?
Their justification. But anyway, I'm so sorry, so go on.
Sorry, I forgot where we were at.
They were ganging up on you? Yeah, they were ganging up on me.
Well, this is actually, there's some pretty volatile things that they were saying that really, I mean...
I consider myself a pretty empathetic person, and when I hear certain people say certain things that are really, really bad, they get to me emotionally.
Essentially, one of the things that we were talking about that led to me Starting to break down is like we were talking about money and happiness and literally my stepdad was trying to make the argument that he can buy happiness.
Literally out there in the open like oh I can buy plenty of happiness which is a direct quote.
Which is one thing that I'm just like well if that's what you base your relationships on what the hell is our relationship based on?
And that was going through my head as soon as he was saying some of those things, which is pretty obvious from some of our past conversations we had with my brother, as far as the money part.
And it kind of led to that, and I remember shortly after, my stepdad was getting so angry and basically telling me, you don't have an argument, you have no argument.
And he goes up to the whiteboard and says, well, let's write down your argument.
And I said, well, let's start with a principle.
And I said, the initiation of force against an innocent individual is wrong.
And he basically said, oh, well, this is all going to be semantics.
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God! That's literally what he said.
Oh, no, that's just killer.
Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, well, I mean, in a sense, I mean, it's always after the discussion when you think, God, if I would have just said, well, first, what's defined force?
He's all like, oh, what's force?
What's that defined as?
That kind of thing. And I'm just...
I mean, it was kind of a combination of a few things that just made me think, I mean...
I think subconsciously, I'm just like, wow, this is just bad.
This is sad and wrong.
I mean, this is not the first time I've broken down crying in front of my stepdad, and he looks at me blankly like he doesn't understand, like I'm just a little kid whining.
Yeah, and listen, I'm going to be just even more annoying just for a moment and suggest that we use the term getting real rather than breaking down, because breaking down has negative connotations.
But that is your real experience, is that it is agonizing to be in the presence of this incredibly destructive nihilist, right?
I would agree with that.
You are empathizing with yourself when you are crying and also you are empathizing with his true self which is in extraordinary pain fundamentally.
It takes an extraordinary amount of agony fundamentally and I'm not saying this so you have sympathy for him but so you understand your own emotions.
It takes an extraordinary amount of pain and humiliation to end up Using ideas to humiliate other people.
And believing that you can buy happiness.
That takes such an incredibly empty self to say, fundamentally he's not saying I can buy happiness.
He's saying I must buy escape from pain.
I must buy escape from anxiety.
I have so little self-trust.
That I must buy through alcohol, through my wife, through my house, through my cars, through my generosity.
I must buy respite from anxiety.
Yeah, and in fact, you know, and I'd agree with all that.
But, you know, also to kind of add on to that, one thing that was even also a little crazy that my stepdad said, is after I was talking about violence, he was asking me, oh, what's the source of all this passion against violence?
And personally, I was like, what language are you speaking?
I mean, how can you say something like that?
And essentially, What he said is like, is there a lack of significance in your life that you feel you have to confront certain issues like this?
Do you feel like you have to take on the world of violence because of some significance you lack in your life?
That's literally what he said.
And my mind turned inside out after hearing that.
Right, right. So what he continually tries to do is, and I'm sure you're aware of this pattern, but we might as well just drag it up from its hellish depths, right?
What he continually tries to do is to portray thought as dysfunction.
Yeah, and I'd say that's also an explanation for why all he has is conclusions and he doesn't have thought.
Right, which is to say prejudice is not conclusions, right?
Yes. Exclusion can't be arrived at without a thought.
Only a prejudice can be.
Yes. Right.
But given his premises, the reason that he has such instant access to all of this, and this is the amazing thing about these kinds of nihilists, right, is that it's true for him that thought is dysfunction because he's so screwed up that clear thinking condemns him, right?
Right. Yeah.
When I'm talking about the government, you know subconsciously that I'm talking about him.
I'm talking about his bad actions.
If you want another example, a really, really bad example, a good example of his lack of being able to come to terms with things that he's done wrong.
For example, when he was younger, when he was my age actually, 21, he wrote some bad checks and stole a bunch of money from some organizations.
And essentially what I was saying is that, like, well, the only way you're ever going to be happy about that, which he claims to be happy, you know, I'm okay and past that.
I said, the only way you can, you must have come to terms with what you did.
You must have said, well, you know, stealing is wrong and I shouldn't do it again.
And I said that literally to him and he said, no, it was just like Walmart and these other places.
Who cares about that? I paid back the money because the court forced me to.
And, wow, it's just amazing, I think.
But it's also not amazing, in a way, right?
Yeah, true.
People can't conceivably process at a conscious level.
It causes him far too much terror and anxiety for him to process at a conscious level that he can't just make up rules, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Because he's all about the angry will, which is what nihilism really is.
It's the angry will. Fuck values, right?
Yeah. Anybody who believes in values is some dewy-eyed idealist who's going to get fucking rolled over by the tank of reality, right?
Exactly. And that's why, essentially, when I brought up violence, he's like, that's the way the world is, which is not very uncommon, I don't think.
But it's true for him, right?
That's the way he is. That's the way he comes to terms with it.
Narcissists always use themselves as the planet, as the universe, as reality.
And they say, well, I'm violent, therefore, because a narcissist has no distinction between himself and the world.
So, if I'm violent, the world is violent.
There can never be any discrepancy between my state and the world.
I hate idealism, because obviously it makes me feel bad, because it shows the ruin of who I've become.
I hate idealism, Idealism, therefore, idealism is hateful.
Objectively. Like it's hateful, it's pathetic, right?
I'm angry, therefore the world is angry.
I steal, therefore stealing is okay, right?
Whatever they want to do becomes the good, which means that there is no such thing as good.
And the only thing which threatens that kind of personality is saying, okay, so you have a principle called you, but you can't have it both ways.
You can't say that you are a principle, because you, in terms of just defining things as good for you, that's just bigotry, right?
But if you claim that it's a principle, then you have to supply proof, and that's where these people get messed up.
Yeah. And I think, I mean, really, the nihilists, really, it's their tactic to kind of basically come to terms with what they did basically in the wrong way by saying, well, it can't be wrong because I say it's not wrong.
I say it's not wrong, so I can feel okay about it.
Right, but they lie, right?
The nihilism, by definition, is using values to attack values, right?
So if you say, well, I'm against violence, and he says, well, I'm violent, Yeah.
But that's the truth, right?
It would sound like a non sequitur, of course, though, right?
But if you say you're against violence and he says, hey, the world is violence and anybody who thinks otherwise is a pussy, right?
Then he's using a principle like, I have accurately identified the objective fact that the world is violent.
Right? And that's why they use empiricism to destroy empiricism.
They use values to destroy values.
It's like a doctor using trust to poison a patient.
It's really, really bad.
I would agree.
And I think actually some of those things I knew subconsciously at least, and I think that's sort of what led to me, not breaking down, but basically saying, this is hard to take.
I can't take this. There's a lot of...
Sorry?
What couldn't you take? Well, I suppose that I couldn't...
It's hard for me. It would be really hard for me to basically hear somebody say, well, it's okay to kill people.
It's okay to steal. You know, all these things are good.
I suppose it's hard for me to take that.
I mean, even though I know it, but in the sense, it's hard for me to take that emotionally.
Why is that hard for you to take emotionally?
I mean, you know that there are people like this in the world, right?
Absolutely. This is not a shock to you like they've discovered a 15th planet in your pants, right?
I mean, this is not a shock to you that way.
So what is it that's hard to take about it?
Well, I'm trying to figure that out.
Well, what's the feeling that comes up when someone says to you, you know, you're a dipshit naive guy, you just, you know, let's hear your goddamn theory, right?
And then, oh, that's just semantics, right?
When you just get twisted and screwed around, frankly, by this, like, what is the feeling that arises in you when that is occurring?
The feeling I definitely got was, it's basically, it's depression.
It's like, how can someone say something like this?
Despair. Yeah, it is despair, absolutely.
Despair, because why? Why, why?
What's the despair?
What is the thought that generates the despair?
I'm not exactly sure how to put it, to be honest.
What's the thought that...
I'm trying to wrap my head around the question.
Sorry if I'm sounding stupid.
No, no problem. Everybody goes through this, as did I, right?
It's just that I did it in the privacy of the therapist's office, so it's okay.
We're all not allowed to know this stuff, so that's fine.
In fact, if we didn't get to the point where you didn't have an answer, it would sort of be a pointless conversation, so this is good.
When does a surgeon feel despair?
When his patient dies.
Right. See, you know the answer.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense, actually.
Just because the idea is that if I'm trying to point out the truth and say this is the cure, and then basically I find out that after he says all this stuff, well, he died.
You know, he's gone.
You know, dead inside, essentially.
I mean, yeah. It's empathy as well.
It's just basically like, wow, I really feel sorry for you.
Okay, that's halfway there, but I'm going to take you the whole way there.
Sure. That's one metaphor, which is, when does a surgeon feel despair?
Let's say that a policeman is on the trail of a serial killer.
When does the policeman feel the most despair?
When the criminal gets away.
No. Sorry, maybe I didn't catch that.
No, that's close, obviously.
But why would he feel despair if the criminal does get away, why would he feel despair?
there's something else that the criminal has to do to really make the cop feel despair?
I'm not sure, to be honest.
Sure, okay. Well, he's on the trail of a serial killer, our mystery cop, right?
Yeah. So what is he really trying to stop the guy from doing?
Uh, doing something wrong.
Well, like what?
Or doing that, or against the law.
Well, yeah, but he's not a speeder, he's after a serial killer, right?
Yeah. So what is he really desperately afraid that the guy's gonna do again?
Kill somebody else.
Right. So when does the cop feel the most despair, assuming that he hasn't caught the guy?
When he's killed somebody else.
Exactly. Exactly. See, this is the two sides of despair.
And you got the first side and you had trouble with the second side.
And I knew that you had trouble with the second side because you said you felt sorry for him.
Sure. The problem with your stepdad is not that he's dead, but that he's a killer.
Yeah, in an emotional sense, definitely.
Absolutely. I'm not talking about a murderer, like a physical murderer.
But I'm talking about a emotional experience, right?
Yeah, definitely. That he was attempting to murder your optimism.
And I know this sounds very strong, but it's not.
Nihilism is cancerous.
Nihilism is poisonous.
It is incredibly dangerous to be around.
Yeah, and I think...
That does definitely sum up what happened.
It would have been much more honest if he had said to your mom, hold him down while I slowly punch him in the gut over and over for two fucking hours.
Yeah. This was the best of assault upon your very personality and things which you value which are good and true.
Yeah. Basically, to bring it to my mom, my mom essentially is laying back and letting him do these things to me.
No. She invited him into your life.
She's not laying back.
This is not like she just didn't wake up when the cougar started attacking you.
She brought the cougar into the house.
This is the man she chose, right?
Yes. She's not lying back.
She's not passive. She's the one who invited this guy into your life and left you alone with him.
Yes. I suppose that's tougher to swallow than my explanation.
Which is? Essentially that she's just letting this happen instead of inviting it to happen.
Yeah, she's making it happen, right?
If I see somebody who is three feet tall beating up a child and I do nothing to stop it, that's pretty bad, right?
It's not like I'm in any danger, right?
I mean, I can handle somebody who's three feet tall.
Maybe not three and a half feet, but three feet for sure.
But your stepfather was invited Into your life.
Right? And we won't go over this too much.
Listen to the podcast 862 from yesterday.
I go over this in a little more detail.
But no, no.
Your mother is the prime cause of this guy being in your life.
Your mother is the one who brought him into your house, who gave him custody over you, who gave him power and control over you at the age of six.
He would not be in your life if it wasn't for your mother.
She is the sole primary only cause of him being in your life.
Yes, and that's completely true.
And I know that it seems obvious and everything like that, but I suppose, like I said, maybe I'm apologizing for my parents.
It's just I guess I've been trained to kind of look at it in this other way.
Well, you've been trained to look at it their way.
Yeah. Which is, you're a bad kid, and if you're not a bad kid and you break through that, then we're helpless.
And if we're not helpless, then you're a bad kid again.
Yeah. If we do bad things, it's because you're a bad kid.
And then if you say, hey, wait a minute, I'm not a bad kid, then they say, oh, we're helpless, everything's relative, it doesn't matter, you're naive.
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess what I'm trying to...
I think it's pretty well established that there's big problems with my relationship with my parents.
I suppose The part I'm kind of struggling with is like, well, how do I proceed forward?
I mean, because personally, right after the conversation, I mean, I couldn't sleep that night and I had to, I really felt a strong urge to bang out a post at least on the Gold Plus forums to at least, you know, get someone's opinion on what happened.
But essentially what I'm trying to figure out is, what should I do in the future?
Because part of me wants to say, I don't think I want to come out and stay with you guys until we work on a relationship.
Maybe that's the right thing to do, I'm not sure.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about how you feel that you can work on this relationship.
Well, I'm not totally sure if I can work on this relationship, to be honest.
Well, you are sure, right?
Because if we're not sure about our families, we're never sure of anything, because you've known these people for 20 plus years, right?
Yeah. Right, so if you don't know the nature of your relationship, and I'm not talking consciously, I'm talking deep down.
If you don't know the nature of your relationship with your parents, that's like saying, well, I've been married for 20 years to this woman, but I don't know if I like her or not.
Sure. So give me the pluses.
Give me why it would be conceivable to even want to work on the relationship, right?
Let alone go to see them.
Alright. Well, I've thought about this a little bit, at least.
The pluses, some of them are bad, I would say, in some ways, at least.
I mean, the pluses are I get to go out to San Francisco, which is really nice, in this nice apartment, and stay with them, and Do a lot of stuff that I normally can't do at home.
So how do you need to call up your stepdad and apologize, right?
What's that? You need to call your stepdad up and apologize then, right?
For what exactly, you mean?
Well, when he said that money can't buy happiness, you felt that was incorrect, right?
Yes. But your argument, as far as I understand it, is that they'll put you up in San Francisco, is that right?
No, and I'm not trying to make this, that's why I said this is probably a bad, this is kind of a bad reason and something that I need to get out of my mind as well.
They would pay for it to some degree?
Yes. And that would make you happy?
No. No, it would, because you said it was a plus.
And I'm not trying to corner you or be a jerk.
I'm just genuinely trying to understand.
Because you sounded very passionate, and I, of course, agree with you, that a certain amount of money is required, right?
Well, sure. The only reason I brought that up is because I have thought about this in the sense that I'm like, am I going to San Francisco because I like my parents, or am I going there because I like to hang out on their patio?
And I like to go around San Francisco.
Maybe it's because I like San Francisco and they give me a way to do that, essentially.
And that might be bad and wrong.
Sorry, they pay for it, right?
Yes. They pay for it.
For the most part. Well, sure, but they make it financially possible, right?
Yes. Okay, got it.
So, all you have to do is apologize and say, you know what, I am naive.
I am an idealist, and I'm tongue-in-cheek here, but that would be the price.
If you want to live with integrity, according to your values, right?
Nobody says you have to, right?
You can just throw all this aside and do whatever you want, right?
But if you go and you say, you know what, it would make me really happy.
I love San Francisco, and I understand it.
I love San Francisco, too.
But if you say, you know, I love going to San Francisco, that would be excellent.
So, obviously, money can buy happiness.
So I'm just going to call up my stepdad and apologize to him for insinuating that it didn't.
Yeah, are you saying that's what I should do?
Well, if you want to live with integrity, if you said to your stepdad or implied or had a look on your face that implied that it was bad to say, and you said it was the worst thing that he said, right?
Well, one of them. In that moment, right?
I mean, to live with integrity, you then have to apologize and say, I was wrong.
Right?
Yeah.
Now, if – and that's only one point – that's 0.1% of the price that you would pay for going to San Francisco and having your parents pay.
The other would be lack of self-respect.
It would end up being depressing.
You'd end up fighting every day.
You'd get really angry. You'd hate yourself for what you did.
It would affect your relationships.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that would happen.
Sure, and I'll admit that I am being hypocritical in that sense.
And that's fine. As soon as you say I'm being hypocritical, hey, you're not being hypocritical, right?
But it's just because you see the pluses, but you don't see the minuses as clearly.
You did see the minuses when your stepdad said it.
Sure. Money, your happiness, right?
Yeah. But then when it comes to what you want, and of course I genuinely and truly Don't believe that you want to go.
I genuinely and truly believe that they want you to go.
Out there, you mean?
Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's also part of the reason I go out is, and like many people see their parents, is that there's an unsaid obligation, an unwritten obligation.
Well, sure, and you can listen to last night's podcast about that.
But, okay, so let's just say for the moment that the being bribed to go to San Francisco is not on the table at the moment as a net positive.
We can certainly revisit it, or you can on your own time, but let's just say for the moment that's not a net positive.
So what else is up on the table as far as why you'd want to do it?
Um... Well, I'm trying to think.
I mean, well, there's certain things I like about hanging around my parents in certain ways.
I mean, in the sense that...
I gotta admit, this is somewhat hard.
I guess maybe I've been so invested in the negatives that I haven't thought enough about the positives.
Well, you have thought about the positives, right?
Because otherwise you wouldn't even be thinking of doing it, right?
Sure. If somebody says to me, put your hand in a blender, I'd say, no thanks.
You know, because I'm not tempted to it.
If I'm sitting there going, hmm, I wonder if I should put my hand in the blender or not, then part of me must think that there's a benefit, right?
Yeah. And I would say that the benefits...
I guess it's sort of like when you see your parents, it's kind of like a visit to the past, sort of, like, how you doing, you know, what you've been up to, that kind of thing, kind of, I guess.
But it's not, I mean, sorry to interrupt, it's not a visit to the past because you're not allowed to talk about the past in a real way, right?
Yes. So it's like you go to this museum where the doors are all locked and look at all the old things, but you can't because the doors are all locked.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just I'm invested in the idea of going to the museum.
Instead of going inside.
Right, like it's your parents' museum where all your unhappy faces have been carved out of the pictures and replaced with Howdy Doody pictures, right?
Yeah. I would love to give you more positives, but I'd say I do have some fun with them.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily because of the material side, but Maybe because I've sort of subverted what I really thought truthfully in order to have fun.
No, I mean, I can certainly believe that.
I mean, my brother and I had fun together, and we'd go sort of skiing and stuff.
I mean, as long as you stay away from anything that's real and true, you can have fun with bad people, right?
Yeah, exactly.
You can be holding with mafia guys, and I'm sure they're very funny, right?
Sure, and I... Really, actually, even after that conversation, I can see that that's kind of what my parents' strategy is, is sort of just to say, well, forget about all that.
Think about you're having fun and all these positives, and nothing should bring you down.
And if you are down, then you're a bad kid.
You're ungrateful. Right, right, right, right.
Yeah, so there's fun with threat, right?
Yes. Right.
Smile, or you're going to get it.
Yeah. I would say that's accurate because if I were to say that, if I were to confront them and say that I am unhappy, I mean like I tried to do the other night with limited success, I don't think it would be a necessarily very positive interaction.
Now you know I'm going to freeze frame on the word limited there, right?
Sure. Okay, so you had limited success in your conversation, as you've described it to me, and on the board, so what were the successful aspects of that conversation?
Learning about myself.
That's the big positive, because I needed to have a conversation like this, and I think that's what I thought inside, is that I needed this.
I needed to know the truth.
They were, right? Yeah, I needed to know the truth.
And what is the truth?
That they're narcissistic bullies.
Oh, right. Well, I mean, that's part of it.
And also that their idea of morality is kind of, maybe not kind of, but pretty incorrect and pretty heinous and wrong.
Okay, so they're narcissistic bullies, they're corrupt, they were violent to you when you were younger, they're emotionally destructive to you in the present.
When you're real, I don't mean when you sort of smile and do the family thing, but when you're real and talk about what's actually important to you, then it's incredibly destructive.
As you say, you were crying, you couldn't sleep, it's incredibly destructive, right?
So when you're real to them, when you attempt intimacy with your parents, it's incredibly destructive, right?
Yes. It's agonizing.
I mean, it's absolutely agonizing to go through that kind of stuff.
Absolutely, and I think that's a big reason why I did start to cry.
So what relationship are you thinking of working on?
Like, if you say they're narcissistic bullies, then you can't have a relationship with a narcissist.
And I think that's what I'm coming to terms with, is that I am being hypocritical and maybe that the relationship was never there in the first place because we can't talk about anything real.
No, I mean, to me it sounds as incongruous, and I understand why you're saying it, but it sounds as incongruous as if you're saying, well, my dad is totally penniless, but I'm hanging around for the inheritance.
Can you explain that a little bit more?
Well, if you're hanging around your dad because you think you're going to inherit any money, when there is no money, then your reasons for proximity is entirely illusory, right?
Yes. And if you're hanging around your parents because you want to have a relationship with them, but they don't have the capacity to have a relationship, then your reasons for hanging around are equally illusory.
Yes, I'd agree.
So, it's not particularly correct To say, I'm thinking of working on my relationship with them.
Or working on our relationship or whatever.
I can see that.
I guess the concern is that essentially I wouldn't know how to break that to my parents.
That doesn't matter.
I don't mean to minimize your concern about that, but that doesn't matter.
What you want to say is, do I go east or west?
Not, how do I get there?
If you say, I don't want to jump into the ocean, I want to go east into town because I'm on a cliff edge, right?
I don't want to jump into the ocean.
I want to go east into town, right?
Well, but then you don't say, well, how far is it to town?
Because the option is definitely not there to jump in the ocean, right?
Because you're going to die or whatever, right?
Break your neck. So if you say, there is no relationship with my parents.
I'm not saying you should. This is just a conversation.
You can mull it over, do what you like, but...
If your assessment is correct, and I think there's pretty damn good reason.
You can talk this over with your therapist, right?
But if your assessment of your parents is correct, then there is no possibility of a relationship.
There's nothing to work on.
You're like a surgeon who digs up a patient four days dead and says, I'm going to try something else.
Yeah. All right.
Yeah, I guess the only thing I'm trying to figure out, I mean, like, I know you say, well, go east into town.
I guess I'm trying to figure out how that's going to apply to what I figure out, what I actually do.
Well, the first thing to do is to take the freedom that you never, ever have to have a night like that again.
You never, ever, ever, ever have to have a night like that again.
There is no obligation, there is no rule, there is no contract that says that in this lifetime or in the 10 next lifetimes, if the Buddhists are right, you have to have a night like that ever, ever again.
Now isn't that just a little bit of a relief?
And I think that part of it, you know, and I've also thought about, you know, because every single time after you have a conversation like this, you're thinking in your mind, you know, oh, I could have said this, I should have said that.
And part of me really wants to tell my stepdad and my mom that, you know, the option is on the table that, you know, I don't come back to San Francisco to see them, you know, that option's also there, which I think that They're also not really aware of that.
So wait, wait, wait. So you're saying that if you threaten, it's like saying if I threaten to break up with my girlfriend, she'll fall in love with me?
And, well, I can see how it can be interpreted that way.
If I'm interpreting it incorrectly, you're saying that if you threaten these people who abuse you, that you're going to leave them, that this is going to improve the relationship?
Um, well...
I can see the problem in that.
So what's the problem with that approach?
How well do threats work with you?
Not well. How well do you think they're going to work with your parents?
Equally as well. Well, worse.
They can't handle humiliation.
You have a stronger capacity because you're a stronger human being.
You've worked at it, right? You have the capacity to handle rejection.
Your parents don't have the capacity to handle rejection.
So I guarantee you it's going to be the ugliest freaking scene in your entire life and you will spend the rest of your life carrying that memory around and it will scar you.
Yeah. I can see that's definitely the wrong approach.
And maybe I thought that up in my head because of, you know, anger.
They want you to engage with them.
They want you to fight with them.
They want you in their life for their own narcissistic needs, no matter what, they'll do it any which way they conceivably can to get you to keep engaging with them, even if that means 365 nights of fighting a year and 366 on leap years.
I can see that.
They want me to play their game.
They want me to have pissing battles instead of real conversations.
Absolutely. So I can see what's in it for them.
If you go to San Francisco, if you hang around, if you stick around, I can see what's in it for them.
I count for the life of me to see what's in it for you.
Except for one thing.
Besides what I said?
Yes. I can see that.
I'm just trying to swallow the pill, I guess.
What is the one thing that is in it for you if you continue to hang out with them that's not about money and it's not about being right and it's not about fixing the relationship and it's not even fundamentally about them?
What is the one thing that you gain from going back?
Well, first, the only reason I'd go back is to see my brother.
But as far as seeing them, I guess, you know, to be honest with you, I guess I sort of have this idea that if I say the right things, if I do the right thing, you know, if I just formulated my argument right, if I just approached them in the right way, that, you know, maybe that there could be a relationship or that something could come out of it, you know.
Well, I mean... Maybe that's illusory.
You're completely wrong, but there's no point in me telling you that, right?
I mean, if you believe that, then you need to figure that out.
Sure. And I was trying to say it kind of in the context of that, basically like, well, I guess that's kind of what I've been thinking, is that if I say the right things, then everything will work out.
Right. Look, that is a terrible premise to have, right?
Not just for your parents, right?
But for your future relationships, right?
Sure. If you have an abusive girlfriend, and you think that there's something you can do to make her non-abusive, you're going to get stuck with nothing but abusive girlfriends.
Yeah, absolutely. And it just continues the cycle instead of breaking it.
Right, right. So the price that you're going to pay for believing that you can reform people...
You don't have relationships with people when you're an adult.
I mean, you don't have relationships with people when you were kids because they're not voluntary in that sense.
I mean, unless you're born into one of these mythical great families.
But you don't have relationships with people as an adult on the premise that they will change fundamentally.
Yeah. You don't choose someone and then say, I'm gonna make her into the complete opposite, right?
That's cruel, right?
And futile, and creates nothing but resentment on both sides, right?
And it's beating my head against the wall.
Well sure, and my concern is that you're going to get addicted to beating your head against a wall, because it's easier than facing the alternative.
And how horrible though it is, what happened the other night, there's an alternative that's even harder, which is the gateway to getting out of this mess.
Yeah, I guess I'm not 100% sure how I would approach that.
Well, I'm going to just, because we've been talking for a while, and I don't want to, you know, against us both, but I'll be blunt, and again, listen to last night's conversation, it's very similar.
I mean, not the whole thing, but this particular part I'm going to tell you now.
The reason that you want to go and see your parents is because you will feel anxiety and fear if you don't.
Yes. No question.
Now, you don't like it when they use you to manage their own emotions, right?
When they bully you because they're feeling afraid.
Yes. So, you don't like it when other people use you to manipulate their own emotional states to avoid anxiety, to whatever, feel strong or whatever.
Yes. Right.
So, it is equally unjust for you to go and see your parents in order to manage your own anxiety about not seeing your parents.
Sure, and I would say that's not exactly the...
It's a little self-dest...
A lot... Very self-destructive.
Sorry, I used the...
Well, and it is destructive to your parents.
Not that I'm saying you would do it to help them, but it's called enabling, right?
When you respond to other people's manipulations of you, it's the ultimate passive-aggressive vengeance because you swell their desire to manipulate, which totally destroys them, right?
If your parents have a hope If they have a hope of being better people, the only hope is that you don't accept anything but the best behavior from them.
And what would that mean exactly, you think?
It means if you don't see them, you do your therapy, you don't see them, and then maybe if they decide to go to therapy in a couple of years, they'll call you up.
And they'll say, we were such titanic jerks, we can't even explain it to you.
We want to pay you back for all your therapy.
We want to give you five new cars, and we want to buy you Maui.
Or whatever it is. I mean, I know the money thing.
Whatever, right? But they will call you up, and they will be changed people.
And you will get it right away.
And you still may choose not to have a relationship with them.
In fact, that would be quite likely.
But that phone call exists only in Middle Earth because it does not exist on this planet.
But you do not enable people...
I mean, this is my order, right?
Whatever it means, right? But it's not healthy and it's not wise and it's not morally right to manipulate other people.
For the sake of your own anxiety.
To go and see your parents because you'll feel anxious if you don't.
Because what that means is that you're saying anybody who can make me feel bad gets my allegiance.
Anybody who can make me feel bad controls me.
And that makes more people in your life bad and makes good people not be in your life.
Yeah. I suppose...
The next thing that would be, would be basically like, I think this would be the same thing you faced, or like anybody would face, would be like the backlash from that, essentially.
Yeah, I mean, it's up to you, of course, right?
You minimum all this over, but...
My suggestion would be, don't think about it in defoeing.
Just think about it like you're taking a break.
And just send them a letter and say, you know, you guys have given me a lot to think about.
I'm going to work on my issues.
I'm going to take a break from this interaction.
And I will get back in touch with you when I feel that I'm ready.
Fair enough. And then there's going to be an elastic band, right?
Like it stretches and it stretches, right?
And that part right before it breaks, we want to run back, right?
But just see. See how you feel, right?
See how you feel not seeing them.
I think you'll be surprised. All right.
I can... Yeah, I still need to contact my health insurance company to get the therapy.
But I will be doing that at least once a week.
Yeah, and I mean, if that's reliant on your relationship with your parents, you can bleed that out.
I mean, I'm not saying...
We have to be free to not be in relationships in order to really be in relationships, right?
So all I'm saying, all I ever say to people is, don't assume that you have to have these people in your life.
That way, if you're there, it's there by choice.
It's got value. Otherwise, it's just slavery, and that's not got value for anyone.
Can I ask a side question?
Why, surely. About the therapy, you know, if I bring up this as a problem to a therapist and I say, well, I'm not really seeing my parents right now, you know, for personal reasons,
I just know that there's, I mean, of course, because our lines of thinking are a little bit in the minority, How can I find a therapist that will facilitate that, essentially, in the sense that they're supportive of getting bad relationships out of my life?
Well, I mean, if you sense disapproval or tend to, you trust your gut, right?
You sit down with this therapist and you tell them what's going on.
You say, I'm contemplating not seeing my parents for a while because it's, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And if they facilitate that and they say, well, that's interesting, tell me more, you know, and that kind of stuff, then that's great, right?
But if they're like, oh, well, I don't consider that to be a viable solution to any personal problems, right?
Then it's like, okay, ka-ching, thank you, here's your check, bye-bye, right?
All righty. You don't want to then...
Because if the therapist has not come to a reasonable accommodation with her own family, positive or negative, then all that's happening is that instead of your parents invoking anxiety for you for not going there, you'll be invoking anxiety in your therapist who will then try and control your behavior unconsciously to reduce her or his own anxiety.
You don't want to be stuck in that situation.
You don't want to pay for that, right?
I suppose that's part of my fear is essentially...
It's essentially that, is that I'm going to get somebody that's just going to reinforce what my parents say.
But that's your gut, right?
Your gut is operating beautifully, right?
Your gut is operating beautifully, and we know that because you burst into tears and couldn't sleep.
So your instincts are operating perfectly.
You just have to trust them.
Yep. Right? The part of you that said that burst into tears and didn't sleep was the part of you that said, never put me back in that fucking situation again.
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever.
That's your true self. The part of the I try and run, that sort of thing.
That says never put me back in here again.
Trust that instinct and you'll be great.
Same thing with the therapist. And of course, you have been trained not to trust your instincts because you had a corrupt family and blah, blah, blah.
Subvert the truth that leads to happiness.
Right. You're used to being there in the service of others.
You're there as a tool that other people use to manage their own anxieties.
That's what you're there for. You're just a slave and blah, blah, blah.
But your instincts have emerged unscathed, which is fantastic, and you should be incredibly proud of that, in my opinion.
Well, I'm grateful for it.
Yeah, for sure. But they're there to help.
We're an ecosystem of self-help.
Our instincts will help us.
We just have to not bury them under sentimentality.
And I look at the evidence as opposed to what I want to be true or the sentimentality.
Or what other people want you to think.
You just look at the facts, right? And one of the most important facts in the evaluation of relationships at the beginning is how does this person make me feel?
Yeah, and that was one thing I brought up with my stepdad, and I was trying to make the point that true feelings are, you know, are much more important than I tried to say, well, a therapist would kind of ask you, well, how you feel, how do you feel, you know, at that time, because that tells you a lot, and my stepdad didn't exactly agree with that, that looking at the way you truly feel is what's going to point you in the right direction.
Right, right, right. For sure, for sure.
Your gut will tell you what you know.
We have this incredible processor that we don't use nearly enough because it's inconvenient for those who want to control us.
Yeah. Well, okay.
I think that definitely gives me a lot to think about.
Well, listen, keep me posted, of course, and I'll edit that little bit out.
I'll compile this and send it to you.
Have a listen. I think that it would be a useful twin to actually last night's convo, but just let me know if there's anything that you want me to edit.
I'll take out that name that we had at 23 minutes, and thanks so much.
I mean, you did fantastically, and I really do appreciate everything that you're doing.
It makes me happy, if that's any help to you.
Well, I figure, I mean, if I can put things out there and be honest about things, and I can have some courage, then, you know, there's a lot of people on the board that I'm sure are just kind of hanging out in the shadows, and they're just kind of waiting for someone, maybe someone like them, to kind of take the step forward and say, well, if he can do it, then, you know, maybe I can.
Absolutely. We are an ever-spreading set of dominoes, falling towards truth in that way.
All righty. All right.
Take care, man. Thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate it. Sure.
And I won't talk to you after you talk to staff therapy because you'll be dealing with your therapist.
So that's why, right?
Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Talk to you soon, man.
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