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Oct. 21, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:31:26

888 Sunday Call In Show Oct 21 2007

The UPB Book is out! :) Using the real-time relationship idea, and losing self-consciousness!

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	Thank you everybody so much for coming by.
	This is the Freedomain Radio Sunday Call-In Show on October the 21st, 2007.
	And first and foremost, my friends, the book...
	Universally preferable behavior.
	A rational proof of secular ethics.
	224 pages of philosophical nutrition for your brain.
	It will re-knit your bones.
	It will make your children straight and tall.
	And it will regrow your hair.
	Oh, wait. Let's not go with that one.
	Anyway, it is a book that you absolutely have to, have to, have to, have to, must have to get your hands on.
	And you can order it from freedomainradio.com.
	You can... Download the audiobook for $17, just under.
	You can download the PDF for $13 and change.
	And if you can't afford it, I will send you a free copy.
	You can pay me whenever, if you buy it and do not like it.
	I will give you your money back.
	So there is no excuse whatsoever for you not to get a hold of this book and to invest a couple of hours in reading it.
	I think that it is great, and I think that it is essential.
	I think that it is a leap forward that is not insignificant.
	And of course... If I have managed to pull off a secular proof of ethics without gods and without governments, then by God and by the state, it's history-making, frankly.
	I mean, not from a standpoint of self-aggrandizement, it just is.
	So why not be in at the beginning?
	of universally preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics.
	It's a full table of contents.
	We've got nice tables in the text to make things clear.
	I think a good, fluid writing style and a nice full index for you to help find stuff.
	It's like a real book.
	So I hope that you will grab the print copy.
	I hope that you will grab the audiobook.
	I hope that you will grab the PDF, print them out, and rub yourself up against them.
	So that's the first order of business.
	The second is thank you so much to our good friend Charlie, who has taken on the task of rescuing the Free Domain Radio site from the Puzzle Police Blue period, which was my attempts at web design.
	So he's done a great job of clarifying and simplifying the interface.
	You might want to come and check it out, freedomandradio.com.
	It's a brand spanking new interface with some spanking.
	So I hope that you will come by and have a look at that.
	And that's the second order of business.
	The book, On Truth, The Turin, Evolution, is still available.
	A bit of a shorter one.
	It's also available now as PDF and download for $12.95 and $15.95.
	Very, very cheap. So if you've missed the podcasts, and I have too, then this is a way for you to get some non-tangential, sort of relatively coherent Steph speak, which may not be what you're into, but give it a try.
	It's fascinating. Christina didn't think I could do it.
	So thank you for those of you who've ordered, and it's something that you can so easily get a hold of that there's really no excuse for not reading it, and it is well worth your while to read.
	So Other order of business, sorry for those who don't follow the shenanigans on the board, but I guess about six months ago, when I quit my career to work on this full-time, we had a flare-up, and with the release of On Truth, it began, and with the release of UPB, which is a shockingly powerful book, if I do say so myself.
	Human beings have been searching for a rational proof for ethics.
	for about 10,000 years but fortunately it will not be 10,001 so this is something that has been sought by mankind for many years I think that we have taken a good stab at it and I think we have brought down the beast that you can let me know and I'd be happy to improve it if there are errors of course and I'm sure that they may be based on you know the fact that some people have proofread it and missed it no I'm kidding it's all mine but I think that the book is destabilizing for some people it certainly has been destabilizing for me And so I hope that you will get a chance to read it.
	What it's caused, I would sort of say, is some problems with people who were, you know...
	I sort of fail to understand the drama of all this, but that could just be me.
	So there have been people who've been on the boards, and I found them to be difficult and destructive and obstructive and toxic in one way or another, and distracting and screwing up the conversation, retarding the progress.
	That's sort of my perspective and my opinion of what was going on, and I think that was good reason.
	And so I... I hand out an invitation, right?
	I sort of say to people, please don't come and post on this board anymore because you're not contributing to the conversation and it's sort of my job to make sure the conversation moves forward.
	That's sort of what I'm committed to and so I'm not going to let anything stand in that way except death and even then I may be able to make a deal with someone to come back as the first internet philosopher zombie, but that's all to come.
	People who've left, I mean, of course, people leave of their own accord.
	It's a completely voluntary situation.
	And the board is not Free Domain Radio.
	The board is not Free Domain Radio.
	Free Domain Radio is the books and the podcasts and the back and forth that goes on sometimes in emails.
	The board is not free-domain radio.
	It's not even a core part of free-domain radio.
	It's a nice bit of lemon in the icing on the cake.
	So the people who think that that's, you know, if they messed that up and they've done something about the conversation fundamentally sort of missed the point.
	But people who leave get mad, right?
	They get mad and they don't call me up and talk to me about it, right?
	So when I say, look, there are problems and so on, and then people can call me up and it's not like I'm hard to get a hold of.
	I sit in front of the computer 48 hours a day doing philosophy lately because it's been the book plus FDR, regular FDR. But they don't call me up.
	They just kind of get mad.
	They go off and they sort of start spreading negative things and have negativity and so on.
	And so some board has, I can't even remember the name of it, some board has gone up with a bunch of people who are no longer part of this conversation here.
	And they, I guess, are disliking me and what it is that I do and they're having problems and they feel that I'm a cult leader, the worst cult leader in the history of the planet, but I am a cult leader and I am intolerant and I am censorious and all this kind of stuff.
	So I will tell you what I think is really going on and then we can drop it and move on to more pleasant topics.
	This is a microcosm of the challenges that we face in bringing the truth to the world, so it's worth spending a little bit of time on it.
	So, when two people end up in a conflict which is not resolvable within the framework of the relationship, then there's one of two possibilities.
	The first possibility is that one person is acting badly, and the other person is acting well.
	The other possibility is that both people are acting badly.
	Now, The people who I've banned from the board have acted in a way subsequent to the banning that completely justifies what it is that I did.
	Because if you and I were to go out on a date, Greg, then we would sort of evaluate each other.
	And if at some point we didn't decide that we were attracted to each other, then we just wouldn't go out anymore.
	And the mature response to somebody who doesn't want to go out with you is like, well, yeah, it stings a little bit, blah, blah, blah.
	But you sort of say, okay, well, not to my taste.
	Didn't work out. And move on, right?
	What you don't do is put up a website and start trashing the person who didn't want to go out with you and calling them a slut and calling them crazy.
	That's just a really sick response to a non-preference for a relationship.
	Everybody's free to leave the board.
	People, I'm sure, come by and drop their...
	I don't send emails to the people who haven't logged in in 60 days saying, where the hell are you?
	Are you supposed to be part of this community?
	Act like it. Of course not.
	People can leave and I can ask them to leave.
	It's a free and voluntary society, and there are no unchosen positive obligations.
	So when a relationship deteriorates to the point where there's a break, where one person says, like, I don't want to spend time with you anymore.
	I don't want you to come to my house.
	I don't want you to come to my parties or whatever.
	The person who's being rejected Has to either say, we're both acting badly, or they have to say, I'm acting badly, and the other person, Steph, is acting well, or, I'm sorry, and that's it, right?
	Or they say, Steph is acting badly, and I'm acting well.
	That's sort of the only three possibilities.
	We're both acting badly, we'll call him Bob is acting badly, or Steph is acting badly.
	Now, the people who I've banned have never said, never called me up and said, gee, you know, let's talk about it, or I didn't realize it went so bad, I didn't realize I was being so negative, or so difficult, or whatever, right?
	And I would have those conversations, and I've offered those conversations to people before.
	I don't offer them now, but I did offer them to many people at the time of these sorts of problems.
	Here's what happens, is that basically Bob, Bob the banee, goes off and is embittered and does not say, I acted badly and Steph acted well.
	They don't say, we both acted badly.
	Or if they do, then it's just a way of sort of dragging me down, too.
	They say, I acted really well, and Steph acted really badly.
	Steph's a hypocrite. You know, he says, oh, we've got such an open society, and then he makes up these arbitrary rules and bans people.
	They get all mad, mad, mad, mad at this kind of situation.
	Now, the problem with that approach, like if you leave a relationship or if somebody dumps you, let's say, and you go sailing off into the sunset and you never have any particular contact with that person again, then you can basically, until the day you die, maintain an illusion that you acted well and the other person acted badly.
	Unfortunately, though, if there's a board running and there are podcasts and there are books, then people have a glimpse into my state of mind and where I am as a human being.
	Now, if I am a bad guy, right?
	Because we have this equation, right?
	Rationality equals virtue equals happiness.
	Rationality equals virtue equals happiness.
	And it's as old as Socrates.
	This is nothing that's new or occulty.
	It's the old equation.
	I think we're just taking it 12 steps further, so to speak.
	So, if you say, well, Steph is a bad guy, then what you're saying is, Steph is irrational or hypocritical or whatever, right?
	In which case, Steph is immoral or corrupt in some manner.
	In which case, Steph, by definition, must be unhappy, right?
	So, if you get dumped, then if you say, I acted well, the other person acted badly, then the way that you confirm that Diagnosis is you say, is the person who dumped me happy or unhappy?
	Now, if they're happy, you have a problem.
	Because if you're dumped by a happy person, and reason equals virtue equals happiness, then you've been dumped by a rational person, which makes you an irrational person, and thus not a particularly good guy.
	So that's the mythology that is set up.
	Steph is corrupt. Steph must be unhappy.
	Steph must, you know, pride goeth before a fall.
	It's all gone to his head.
	He's gone crazy, the success, and blah, blah, blah.
	So the problem is that what happens is...
	Oh, did we...
	Oh, someone called.
	So what happens then is that When I released On Truth, and particularly when I released UPB, which was this week, which was simultaneous to this particular flare-up, and I knew ahead of time that this book was going to cause problems, the book is a sheer act of joy for me.
	The book is something, of course, that I am staggeringly proud of, unbelievably happy about.
	It's been 25 years, quarter century in the making, and it's certainly the hardest thing that...
	That I've ever done. So it is a very large achievement.
	I'm just beyond thrilled about it all.
	And I recorded a video and some audio that expressed that joy.
	And look, to be perfectly frank with everyone here, I have to step up to try and match the size of this book, if this makes any sense.
	The book is huge, and although I can be a passionate guy, the passion that I can bring to bear on the conversation is something that the book demands more of than I am normally.
	You know, in my British tight-ass way, willing to or comfortable with giving.
	So I have to stretch myself.
	It's like you have to give birth to the book and then stretch yourself, to use a rather slippery metaphor.
	And so when I did the reading for the video and for the audio of the On Truth, I was very passionate and I was hugely happy and radiant.
	I mean, I'm overjoyed.
	Nothing can touch me this week.
	It doesn't matter that people get mad at me.
	I'm beyond thrilled with the achievement.
	So if you say, well, Steph's irrational and corrupt and therefore he must be unhappy and I'm a good guy and he's a bad guy, and then you see somebody who's achieved something wonderful and is radiantly happy about it, that threatens Your mythology that Steph is a bad guy and you are a good guy,
	right? Because if reason equals virtue equals happiness and somebody has achieved a great act of rationality and is wildly happy, then you can't maintain the fiction that Steph is irrational and weird and culty or whatever, right?
	It's not possible to maintain that fiction.
	So what do you do? The first thing that you're going to want to do if you get lost or if this defense mechanism of putting stuff down is threatened is you're going to want to get other people to reinforce your mythology.
	People don't go to church on their own.
	The people who have false, corrupt beliefs, they have to cling to each other.
	In the way that scientists and rational philosophers don't.
	They have to cling, they have to get together and they have to reinforce each other like social alcoholics.
	They have to get together. And so when I became sort of, I revealed this great rationality, this great happiness of my achievements of the last few months of work.
	Then there was a sort of detonation in the mythology of Steph is a bad guy and we're good guys, the bad people or whatever.
	And so what they have to do is they have to get together and pump each other's mythology up in the same way that Christians will cling closer and closer together as science closes in.
	And they have to get more and more hostile because the mythology is being threatened.
	So they have to all get together and pump each other up and get mad and get bitter and get hostile and get negative and so on.
	And their theory is only rescued if I'm unhappy, right?
	Their theory that I'm corrupt and bad and they're good, right?
	So they have to be happy and I have to be unhappy.
	So, of course, the more happy I am, the more irritated they get, the more angry they get, the more that they feel that I'm faking it even more and I'm, you know, this kind of stuff.
	So they then have to Try and bring that happiness down.
	Take it away. And they do that by trying to grab people from the board, which they used my message system surreptitiously to bring people over to this other forum and cranked them up full of anger and they sent them back with hostile and negative statements and so on.
	And I could give a flying fuck.
	Like, seriously, even on the worst week, it wouldn't bother me that much, but on this week for sure, it doesn't matter.
	I feel sad, particularly when they manipulate and use people who are young and very vulnerable to sort of act out this mythology and this anger.
	I think that's very sad.
	In fact, I think that's completely horrible.
	But that's the story in my view, and of course there's some proof in terms of the timing and so on.
	And of course this happened six months ago when I went full-time, which is when I sort of kicked up the dedication to philosophy thing quite a bit, quite a notch.
	So I think that's sort of an explanation as to sort of why it happened at this point and at this moment and why this particular group of people who've been banned, they sort of gathered together and they intensified their dislike because their mythology that Steph is corrupt, irrational, therefore corrupt, therefore unhappy, took a body blow when I'm clearly so overjoyed and it produced something that is so rational.
	And I think quite glorious.
	So it's one of the reasons why achievement is tough, right?
	Is that it brings a lot of people who aren't so happy about achievement out of the woodwork.
	And that's par for the course, right?
	And fundamentally, it doesn't really matter.
	It doesn't matter at all. The board is not core, and the board can always go to invitation only if too many annoying people hang out there.
	I mean, that doesn't matter.
	And I don't want people who are involved in the board To fall down into this trap called, you know, this is not a time for celebration because we're mad at you, right?
	Or we think that it's a cult or we think it's a bad thing.
	And look, for anyone who's listening to this, if you want to come by and call this a cult, we are going to have problems, you and I. We are going to have problems.
	This is a very challenging conversation to keep moving forward.
	It is an essential and I think the most powerful conversation in the world to keep moving forward.
	And people who come over and start sowing dissent and it's a cult and so on.
	A cult is a very specific entities with very specific characteristics and we conform to none of them.
	So if you're going to come over and call this a cult, I am going to react to you.
	I mean, unless you've found some magical proof, in which case let me know and I'll try to make it less culty.
	But if you come over and just say, well, you know, it just seems kind of culty, then you might as well just be calling my wife a whore because you're taking something that I treasure and producing a sick little ad hominem attack on it without reason, without basis, without honor. And I will not give you the resources to do that.
	You can spread your shit elsewhere, but don't come here and call it a cult unless you can make a damn good case.
	And then talk to me like a man.
	Don't leave snippy little bitchy emails surreptitiously using my message system to other people.
	You know, I helped a lot of these people.
	I talked to them one-on-one, provided a lot of time and energy to try and help them work through some issues.
	And if they have problems with me, they should have the balls to call me up.
	And not do this petty, bitchy, grade six little crap of whisper campaigns and negativity.
	Anyway, that's particularly, that's all I really had to say about that unpleasant interlude during, I mean, but relative to what's been achieved this week in this conversation, I mean, we've had a real culmination, I think, and I do thank everybody Who has positively contributed to this.
	I mean, I would not be able to do it.
	I would not be able to do it without your intelligence, without your participation, without your financial generosity, without all of the beautiful things that come my way from this amazing listenership.
	And I could not have done that.
	This is a collective achievement.
	And I think that we should all be amazingly proud.
	And forget the bored issues.
	Forget the negative people out there.
	Forget the gutter snipes.
	Forget the whiners. Forget the complainers.
	Forget them. Forget them.
	A hundred years from now, they'll remember this book.
	They won't remember, oh, there were some snippy emails that went back and forth.
	Forget that stuff. Throw it aside.
	That's got to be for us like sunspots on the sun are to the naked eye.
	It doesn't matter at all relative to what we as a community have achieved in the production of Irrational Proof of Secular Ethics.
	It's amazing.
	It's incredible. And everybody who's put good thoughts in, everybody, particularly those people who have donated, and I just...
	I can't thank you enough for that gift to be able to do this, for the gift of having an audience, for the gift of having the resources to be able to work on this full-time.
	I hope that I have done you proud in terms of what I've produced with your help, but I just...
	I just thank you so much for this opportunity.
	I think that we can be enormously proud of the gift that we've given a hurting world and I just wanted to be very open about my gratitude for that amazing and wonderful opportunity and trust that you give your time, money and energy to some nutty guy in Canada in the hopes that he can pull off something great and I think that we have and I think that we should all be enormously proud of that.
	Alright, so that's it for my emoting.
	If you have questions or comments or issues, please let me know.
	Hey Steph, how are you and Christina doing with that other mess?
	Steph put it while hiding like a bunch of Anne Franks up against the wall.
	We're doing okay. We're doing okay.
	When did they come by?
	Monday night? They came by Sunday, they came by Monday, last week they came back on Monday and Sunday evening they came by and they were Pounding.
	And my mother was, what was she doing?
	She was just saying nasty things and completely self-centered.
	It's all about her, not about us.
	So, yeah, so we've been sort of lying low for most of the week.
	I don't think they're going to come back.
	I think they got it when we didn't answer the door.
	But that's not going to happen.
	So they're licking their wounds and we'll see what happens from here.
	But I don't think they're coming back anytime soon.
	That was it for Christina's response.
	Did you have anything else to ask or say?
	Sorry, I got caught in Greg's post on the chat window.
	Well, as far as the next work goes, I'm a slave to my bosses out there, so my thoughts, Christina and I were talking about this, that I like the pendulum of swinging between the personal and the philosophical, right? So we did the Untruth, which was around personal application of philosophy.
	We've done the UPB book, which is about a universal definition of ethics.
	And I think that the great challenge in terms of our happiness is in this real-time relationship, the honesty, the openness that occurs within it.
	And so I was sort of mulling it over as a book, audio book, but also like a multimedia thing where Christina and I would role play conflicts that couples have and ways to avoid it with alcohol.
	And that would be a way of approaching that so that it would be a little bit more entertaining than just sort of reading a book.
	And we would also get, like, talk to couples who are actually having issues and then, you know, those transcripts and interventions and ways of approaching it differently would be a way of helping people to improve the quality of their personal relationships, which of course is a really core part of the happiness that we have in our lives.
	So that was sort of my idea of what to work on next, and you guys can let me know what you think.
	Oh, they like the idea? Okay.
	Alright, excellent. Yeah, no, well, Christina actually used to act.
	And according to our sex therapist, there's still some acting going.
	But she's a good actress.
	So we actually have started, although we have abandoned the project for a little while, started having Christina read public lives.
	And she did a fantastic job.
	We just have to do a little bit of rewriting on it to sort of finish it up as an audiobook.
	But no, she's obviously very playful, great sense of humor, but is also quite an excellent actress.
	I mean, at the wedding, she didn't look at all like she wanted to run.
	Like, not even a bit. Even in the photo.
	Actually, sometimes you can get that frightened deer thing when she looks at a future of living with an unemployed philosopher.
	But for the most part, she managed to look pretty confident throughout the whole process.
	So, kudos.
	Kudos on Oscars. Really all about.
	There is no snow shoveling.
	It is 26 degrees today.
	Celsius. Kelvin. And it's beautiful.
	We went for a walk today.
	I was just talking to Christine about this way of understanding board conflicts.
	And it's beautiful.
	I mean, literally, it was hot and baking up here.
	82 degrees. It's astounding.
	It's great, because we were thinking of moving south, but it looks like south is moving north, so it looks like we could be just fine.
	Global warming is true. Yeah, you know, I don't know.
	Could be true, could not be true.
	It doesn't matter to me, because, you know, as we all know, the solution has got nothing to do with the state.
	But if it is, you know, sorry for those people bursting into flames at the equator, but it sure is getting a whole lot nicer up here.
	Alright, so the call-in show, my friends, the call-in show, the call-in show is for you to speak.
	And if you have questions for myself or for the bride of Thinkenstein, then feel free to ask away.
	Hey, Steph, this is James.
	Yo. How you doing?
	I'm good, how are you? Oh, actually, I think I'm doing alright.
	I kind of wanted to talk to you a little bit about the...
	The exchange we had on the board.
	I didn't really follow up with you in PMs or anything.
	I'm just wondering...
	I kind of had a strange emotional reaction after.
	I was kind of also wondering...
	It was strange for me, and I was wondering what it was for you.
	When I was talking about...
	I said it looks good, and you said I had to throw the author a bone.
	I'm sorry that I wasn't more explicit about that.
	You know, I mean, when you work for 25 years...
	Yeah, I got that sense.
	...and somebody says, you know, yeah, it's good.
	Like, oh, come on, a little more, you know, throw Papa a bone.
	You know, that's what I... I just wanted a little bit more information, and by that I don't mean sort of wild praise.
	I mean wild and happy praise with dancing...
	No, I mean, just more, you know, if there's ways that it can be improved or, you know, anything like that.
	But just, you know, I felt a little bit like, and this is just, you just deal with a neurotic author for the moment, right?
	So just when you put yourself through that, right?
	So imagine that I've been dieting for, you know, three years and I put myself into a, you know, a lovely little sundress and I've shaved and, you know, I've got full makeup on and full hair and I come in for a date with you and you're like, Yeah, I look good. Yeah, okay.
	Sorry to really screw you up with a disturbing metaphor like that, but that's...
	I do appreciate the shaving.
	Sorry? I said I do appreciate the shaving.
	I bet you would, right?
	It's not really romantic in a date to lean forward and light a match off your date's chin, right?
	No, not quite. Yeah, I think that makes a lot more sense now.
	The post I had right after that was...
	I was getting, like, images of what I had done with my father, like, trying to talk to him.
	Like, I spent a lot of time, you know, obviously not 25 years, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out, and then, you know, I give to him, and he's just like, eh, you know?
	So that's kind of what I was sensing, but I just wanted to sort of talk that, you know, just put that out there.
	And is that kind of what it was for you when, kind of like, eh, on my side?
	Well, it was...
	I don't think that I'm wrong.
	I hope that I don't think that I'm wrong about the magnitude of what we've achieved, right?
	Sure. And so I thought that...
	I mean, either you didn't think it was that great and you're like, yeah, it's good, you know, don't ask me anymore because, frankly, you look like a pig or something, right?
	Your ass does look fat in those pants or whatever, right?
	So either you didn't think it was that great, or you thought it was great, but you just didn't feel like writing any kind of lengthy post.
	Do you know what I mean? Like, so it was sort of just hard for me to sort of understand that, like, either you didn't think it was great, in which case you should help me out of the illusion that it is great, if you're right.
	Because I don't think something's great to say, oh, Kent wrote exactly the same book two centuries ago.
	It's a completely derivative place to talk.
	You know, like, then you can help me out of that illusion, right?
	But if you don't think that it's, if you think that it is great, then I would say, given that I've seen you have some pretty lengthy posts, that it seemed odd that you would just have a two-word review.
	It's good. You know what I mean?
	If that makes sense. That seemed kind of stingy, if that makes sense.
	I don't know what it would have cost you to be enthusiastic.
	And when I say enthusiastic, again, I'm not just talking about blind praise.
	I love this bit, but this bit was really confusing.
	You know, something like that.
	But it just seemed kind of like you distanced yourself from the book or from me.
	It would have cost you something to be enthusiastic, and I'm not sure what that was.
	Huh. I think I'd really have to think about that one.
	I mean, I did say that there was another aspect to it, of course.
	When you're talking about the shocking implications of UPB, right?
	And I was kind of like, I read it and I was like, well, that doesn't really shock me too much.
	But then I've sort of been doing this...
	Thinking these things and going through.
	And that was kind of like, oh, well, I wasn't really shocked.
	Granted, it's not written to me.
	It's written for a much wider philosophy.
	And I guess that was sort of my reaction.
	I was kind of like, oh, that's very nice.
	But I feel like I'm sounding like a jerk now.
	Do you mean in this part or in the thread?
	I understand what you're saying, right?
	I mean, I do understand what you're saying, but you didn't know the proof, right?
	I mean, obviously you'd heard some UPB stuff, but you hadn't gone through the proof, right?
	Right, right. So isn't the fact that it's provable kind of shocking?
	I mean, forget about the conclusions, right?
	But the fact that we can finally, as a species, be certain about ethics without gods or governments, isn't that...
	And I've got to tell you, I mean, the whole null zone thing, the middle truce, the solar system and the government, I thought this all went together really well, and that's new stuff.
	You know what? I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	No, go ahead. Yes, you know what?
	That was definitely...
	I definitely appreciated that.
	That was actually...
	I don't know why.
	It just sort of went out of my mind.
	That was actually... I really appreciated that, and that was brilliant, I should say.
	So, there you go. That was definitely brilliant.
	And there was a part of you, it sounds like, right, there was a part of you, and Greg and I had a conversation about it.
	It sounds a little bit like it sounded in there, just in that post.
	Like, it's like, I was expecting more.
	Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, you may have pulled off the intellectual coup that mankind is looking for throughout history.
	You may have finally proven ethics without gods and governments.
	But I thought there'd be more.
	And that is the question.
	The question is always in life around happiness.
	How long does it take for us to become critical?
	Can you rephrase that?
	So, let's say that you get a blind date, right?
	You get a blind date, right? And, you know, in walks Claudia Schiffer or whoever you're, sorry, somebody younger, whoever is your, you know, Kate Martin, right?
	Whoever is your ideal, like, you know, like, oh my god, this woman is, like, gorgeous, and then it turns out she's really into free domain radio, and she loves philosophy, and she's rich, and she's, you know, whatever, right?
	And her family is great, and so on, right?
	Like, at what point do you go, yeah, you know, but she has a mole behind her ear and it's got a little hair coming out of it?
	Okay. Do you know what I mean?
	How long can you stand being enthusiastic before you become critical?
	Okay. Okay.
	I think I'm getting that.
	She is everything that I wanted a woman, but she's got a slightly, slightly nasal voice, and that's a problem for me.
	Do you know what I mean? Because there's always imperfection in life, right?
	My sort of emphasis is always throw yourself at this sort of wall of life until you fly through, right?
	And mad enthusiasm, sometimes deranged enthusiasm, is sort of my starting point.
	That's my resting position.
	And I think that if I pulled it off, if I pulled off this proof of ethics, And you were one of the first people on the planet in history to read it?
	Like, isn't that pretty cool?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And actually, that's sort of how it worked out, isn't it?
	Well, yeah, it is, right?
	And look, even if I haven't done it, I've sure as hell moved the conversation forward, right?
	If it's not a hole in one, it's a hole in two, for sure.
	And I may have done it in a way that is not convincing to enough people, I need to work on it again.
	All of that's certainly possible.
	But if we did pull it off, like if I did this book, I mean, you were like the fifth person.
	I mean, isn't that amazing?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	I can definitely, I actually feel it, yes.
	Right, right. And so my question is, what does it cost you to feel that?
	Well, I haven't figured out my early rate.
	No, actually, it doesn't cost me a second.
	Oh! Oh, stand back.
	Give him the mic. I'll be here till Friday, folks, please.
	Tip your waiters. Sorry, go on.
	No, you're right.
	It doesn't cost me anything to be enthusiastic about something that's magnitude.
	Well, but it does. It must cost you something.
	It must be something that makes you feel anxiety or something.
	It is an emotion that must frighten you.
	It must. Because enthusiasm is great fun, right?
	And what happened when you were a kid, and all kids are wildly enthusiastic, right?
	You give a two-year-old candy and it's like they're having a full-body orgasm, right?
	So what is it that is anxiety-provoking about enthusiasm for you, right?
	What follows enthusiasm in your history?
	Oh, Lord. What follows enthusiasm?
	Well, you posted about it, right?
	Yes, wasn't that...
	The Teenage Depression podcast.
	Yes, exactly.
	Yeah, the 661.
	Yeah, you got really angry because you remembered the crushing, right?
	The rejection. Yes.
	So when you're around people who are sadistic, enthusiasm is a tool that they use to hurt you, right?
	Right, yes.
	So enthusiasm is a prelude to pain, right?
	Pretty much...
	I'd say it's pretty much hitting it on the head there.
	Right, so if I say that, listen, James, if you could show your appreciation for this book by taking this fork and jamming it into a socket, would that be okay with you?
	You'd be like, you know, can I just say it's okay?
	I don't want to put the fork in the socket, right?
	Right, right. Now, I can't remember anything specific, but, you know, the reaction of Now it's just like, you know, just definitely remembering the pain, you know, remembering the crushing and everything.
	Yeah, and it's true.
	There certainly is enthusiasm in the world, right?
	I mean, there are people who are very enthusiastic, but they all tend to be really pretty, right?
	You can get away with a lot when you're really pretty, right?
	But if you're enthusiastic and not a pretty person, then other people want to roll their eyes.
	I mean, I remember when I was, I don't know, like 11 years old, I was at a summer camp.
	And I grabbed a broomstick, two broomsticks, and I said, I threw it to another kid and said, you know, let's play lightsabers, you know, let's have a sword fight, you know, because I thought that was fun.
	I just watched Star Wars or something.
	And this kid, literally, he's like 11 or 12 years old, and he like literally curled his lip at me and he said, he said, aren't you a little old to be playing that?
	But that's what people do, right?
	That's what people do. When they see enthusiasm, they want to kill it, right?
	They're like some horrible little kid with a helpless puppy, right?
	They just want a crash kill, you know, hurt, maim, right?
	So enthusiasm is like marinate in the lion's den for people.
	Yeah, actually I remember now at one specific event, from kid to kid even, I was 12 years old, 6th grade, or 11 maybe, or just before I was turning 12 because I was trying to set up a birthday party, and I was thinking, oh, I'm going to invite all these people, and I was inviting some of the girls that I liked and all that stuff, and someone saw my invite list and they said to me, She'd never go to a party of yours.
	I'm like, oh man.
	Yeah, if you could just sit that elephant on my chest a little more heavily, that would be excellent.
	Yeah. Yeah, so I'm definitely identifying with what you're pointing out.
	And you know what?
	The enthusiasm feels good.
	And there's no pain, no consequent pain associated with being enthusiastic about this book that you've written.
	And we don't like to feel, when we're enthusiastic and people are unresponsive or cynical or negative, that hurts.
	But because you're an adult now, that's good.
	That's good because if you're enthusiastic and people roll their eyes, then get them the fuck out of your life.
	Because you have that choice now.
	You didn't as a kid, right? Obviously.
	But you have that choice now, and that's why...
	Don't self-inhibit your personality because you're afraid of criticism.
	Be exuberantly open and wildly happy about who you are, and then just keep the critics away from you.
	I mean, unless they're useful critics, right?
	Maybe the abusers, right? The negatives.
	You are gloriously yourself.
	And then if people want to crush you, it's like, get the fuck out of here.
	Get lost. Sure.
	You failed the test, so to speak.
	Right, right. Well then, thank you very much for helping me clarify what went on there.
	Well, I'm glad, and I think you're definitely going to get some sort of award for allowing me to milk the most material out of two words.
	I think that's not easy, right?
	Not bad. It's a very small amount of material.
	I basically have milked this cow into dust, and I thank you for that opportunity.
	Oh, sure. No problem.
	All right. Well, thanks. Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
	You know, the 661 was something else that was obviously related, and I think that was the other thing.
	Maybe there's some dreams, but I want to step off right now and allow other people in.
	Maybe we'll come back to another time.
	Okay, well thanks. Keep it on the back burner.
	If this exploration doesn't get you where you need to be, then just let us know.
	And I appreciate that, because it's been a while since we've had some dead air, so now we can have some.
	Hey, no problem. Always glad to contribute.
	Hey, Steph. Hey. It's Rod.
	Hey, you mind if I... Explore a little bit of this false self-hijacking that I just had this week?
	Yes, yes, I think that would be fine.
	I guess I've already put inflammatory stuff out there, but if we could try and keep it not too inflammatory, I mean, that would be great.
	No, I'll leave out a lot of the details and stuff, but I want to focus on the feelings that I had during all of this and see if I can connect it with things that we've talked about before.
	Okay, that sounds great. So, yeah, during this recent onslaught of Steph as a sucky cult leader stuff, there was a private message sent to me by one of these guys that got me kind of heated up, and I deliberately baited him in a private message conversation.
	And while I was...
	Kind of gearing up for this conversation, I had this voice in my head that was just saying, don't do it.
	There's nothing you can gain from this at all.
	But I still went ahead and did it.
	And the feeling that I had while I was typing in these nasty things, and I've written a...
	They post about this on the board.
	I'll post the link to it now for the guys in the chat room so they can check it out.
	While I was writing this stuff, the feeling that I was...
	Oh, someone already got it for me.
	Thanks, David. The feeling that I was trying to achieve, I think, was not only that I wanted him to feel bad, but I wanted him to know that I knew that he felt bad.
	Right. And there was, in the aftermath of this, when I finally got a hold of myself again and I apologized to him for it, because what I was doing is I was manipulating him, trying to make, trying to get an emotion going in myself, I was manipulating him.
	And so it reminded me of It was that thing with the past employer that hadn't been paying me.
	You helped me to understand how I was not really focused on seeing if I could get my money.
	I was focused on how could I punish this guy.
	And if I couldn't punish him, I was afraid to even try because I didn't want to give it a shot and then fail at it.
	And I think I was associating success there with punishment of this bad guy.
	And so I kind of got that same familiar feeling in this interaction, which was I was trying to manipulate this guy in order to make him feel awful so that I could somehow feel...
	Justified or vindicated or something.
	I don't know what it was, but does that make any sense?
	Yeah, I mean, it's a little abstract, but let me just sort of see if I can understand it.
	So you were accused of something, and then you accused back, if I remember rightly, and you wanted to, if I understand, you wanted to get this person, right?
	You wanted to get them.
	Yeah, well, it was the...
	There was, in this one thread, I had posted a question to this guy in response to one of his posts, and then one of our good buddies on Freedom Aid Radio helped me out by PMing me a link to this other board showing that this guy was just here to stir up trouble.
	And once I saw that, I deleted that post to him.
	And so then his response to that was to ask me, did you delete that post or what was that Steph's doing?
	And then I said, I deleted it, and I just didn't want to...
	Well, I just said, a fellow board member pointed out your post on that other forum, and I realized that I'd made a mistake in responding to you.
	So then, while...
	While I was posting that response to him, after I posted that response to him, he deleted reference to me in the thread or something like that.
	So then after that I said, I see you edited your censorship accusation to remove my name from the post.
	Nice save. And that nice save was a very sarcastic, you know, I want to bite him here.
	Right. And then after that, he just smiled in response.
	And I said, this is where I really just went off the tracks.
	And I said, feeling embarrassed yet?
	I would be. And that's the thing, is I would be really embarrassed about something like this because I feel just horrific humiliation when I do something that kind of, you know, put my foot in my mouth type thing.
	There's something that is really just...
	It just demolishes me when that happens.
	If I make mistakes on something that I've said, it's like, I don't know, there's something just awful about that, like my world's gonna end type thing.
	So I wanted him to feel that same kind of embarrassment, that same kind of shame, in having put out that accusation without it being true.
	So, yeah, and if I understand it rightly, there's a standard which is that you are hypocritically changing your posts to cover your ass, right?
	Right, right. And this person that you're debating with hypocritically changes his posts to cover his ass, right?
	So his accusation against you is unjust, and then he does exactly what he's accusing you of, right?
	Yeah. I mean, that was your perception, right?
	I mean, I don't know the details, but that was your perception of the interaction, and that's what made you mad, right?
	Well, I don't know. I was more or less mad that you was just coming in here and crapping all over the boards, because, I mean, it's something that I place a lot of value on.
	I mean, I've put a lot of myself into this community and into this conversation.
	I just don't want someone like that coming in and trashing it.
	But... He shouldn't have that much power over me.
	If he comes in here and acts like a complete asshat, that's pretty easy to see that it's just his dysfunction.
	It's not something I should worry so much about.
	Let's go back to the moment that you first got the request from this person.
	Did you delete this post or was that Steph?
	Yeah. And then my response is that I deleted it and that I did it because I had made a mistake in responding to it.
	I didn't want to continue it.
	What was your emotion when you saw that post?
	That wasn't so bad.
	It was after he had deleted my name in that question post but left the rest of it there.
	I knew that he was...
	He was going after something far more devious than just the question, you know?
	It was... But did you recognize who this person was?
	Oh, yeah, it's...
	No, we don't have to say.
	We don't have to say. No, I'm not going to say it.
	It's just someone that's been around, and he was one of those guys that was, you know, a bit snippy a lot.
	Well, so, but this is, right, because the moment that we need to figure out what was happening for you...
	It's the moment when you saw this person, we'll call him Bob, this person had sent you this post, and you knew his history, right, on the board.
	Or whatever, right? So, there was some emotion that caused you to engage.
	Yeah, it was right between the...
	You responded to that first post, right?
	Yeah, my response, I think, to the first post was not so bad.
	My response was that I deleted it.
	I'm sorry to be annoying, but I've got to keep backing you up to this part.
	The moments that you responded to that, you lost.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Right? Because the moment that you try to have a rational debate with an irrational person...
	Everything after that is toast, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if it takes you three hours to sink, it's hitting the iceberg that's the problem, right?
	Yep, you're right.
	So when you got that, you felt obligated to respond to it, right?
	Yeah, because, right, and this is the thing, is when I saw the, uh, did you delete that post with the question to me, or was that Steph's doing?
	That right there wasn't a question.
	That was a veiled accusation of you being this, you know, nutjob dictator guy.
	And something about that took me off.
	And so, and you knew this person's history and so on, right?
	And that it'd been banned, and he shouldn't even be on the board, right?
	So... What was it that made you want to respond?
	Like, what was the feeling? Like, if so, what would you have felt if you just didn't respond?
	Well, actually, at this time, I don't think that I knew that he had been banned.
	All I knew was that someone had helped me out by showing me a link to the other board where this guy was posting, and I was like, ah, okay, I see what's going on now.
	Okay, so you definitely had some concerns about this.
	Yeah. So what was the feeling that you got when you first saw this admittedly somewhat provocative message?
	What was the feeling that you got and why did you respond?
	What was the feeling that what would not responding have made you feel?
	If I hadn't responded, I would have felt that I was letting A falsehood stand.
	I was letting it sit there without challenge.
	And so what?
	Yeah. That usually ticks me off a great deal.
	I mean, I've always been One, to almost full-heartedly speak truth to power or tilt at windmills or whatever you want to call it.
	I mean, even going back into high school and stuff when we would have just an irrationally abusive teacher or something like that, I would actually stand up to them and risk detention or whatever just to get them to shut up, something like that.
	And it's always, it seems like I'm...
	But I sort of need to, again, just sort of back up, because you went to a thought there, which was an unjust, falsehood is going to stand, or whatever.
	Yeah. What's the feeling?
	So you see this post, and what do you feel in your gut, or what do you feel when you first saw that this...
	I mean, were you happy that this person had contacted you?
	No, it's anger.
	When I see people making false...
	And the thing is, is it's...
	I don't so much get riled up about people saying something that's false if they're just confused and not understanding what the truth is.
	It's when there's arrogance and error that just boils my blood.
	Anyone who is Who is just being pompous and arrogant at the same time that they're being incorrect.
	It just drives me nuts.
	It's like, you know, the Bill O'Reilly's of the world and stuff like that just make a lot of fight, you know?
	And what's the...
	So you feel angry at these people, right?
	Right. And then what would you feel if you didn't respond?
	I would feel... I don't know, this is a tough one.
	So the anger is the initial feeling, and if I don't respond, I feel, I don't know, impotent or something like that?
	Powerless? Yeah, those aren't feelings.
	Sorry to be annoying. Yeah, you're right.
	And that's a question mark at the end.
	Let's see. Well, just imagine it, right?
	You look at this post on your screen and, I don't know, you delete it or you just, you don't respond.
	You just close your browser and you walk away from the computer.
	What do you feel? There's like mental noise in my head.
	It's like there's a nagging something that won't, just won't let me go.
	Just a moment, I'm just looking up the feeling called mental noise, just a sec.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll find it nowhere.
	Well, what kind of a feeling can go along with feeling, it's like a restless...
	Yeah, okay.
	That's closer than we're out.
	Yeah, dang it.
	No, and it's definitely warmer.
	You're tense. It makes you tense.
	You want to act out.
	There's an emotional impulse, like a physical impulse that's associated with each one of our intense emotions.
	So you see this post, you feel angry about it, and you want to release the anger.
	But by withholding that, by not acting on that anger, you still have all that nervous energy inside.
	And you feel, like you said, you feel impotent, but you also feel anxious now because you're not allowing yourself, or you feel like you can't let that anger go.
	Yeah. Oh, you know what?
	Guess what? This just triggered childhood memories.
	Okay, so my brother used to torment me just relentlessly until I would lose my temper.
	And then when I would lose my temper, he would tease me for losing my temper.
	Right, absolutely. So you were damned if you didn't, damned if you didn't.
	Exactly. And then when I would go to my parents for To call in a referee and say, let's knock this crap off.
	Their response was, he only does it to get a rise out of you, so just ignore him.
	And so when I would try that strategy, he would just be far more patient than me, and he would just keep going and going and going until I finally blew my top again.
	And usually, by ignoring him, the fuse just got longer and longer and longer, which meant that the eventual explosion would be that much worse.
	I mean, I would have moments of rage where the world would go red and I would want to murder the guy.
	Right, right. And you were in a situation then as a child, I mean, you didn't have a lot of options.
	I mean, as we've talked about before with childhood, you know, you couldn't escape your brother.
	You had to live with your brother. Right.
	Right? And so this is, you know, as an adult, you have choices.
	If you don't engage with this guy on the board, you're not going to be caught in that impossible situation that you were caught in when you were a kid.
	Right, right. Yeah, because there was definitely no escape as a kid.
	I mean, I shared a bedroom with my brother, and we lived six miles out in the country and stuff like that, so it's not like I could run over to a friend's house and play and stuff.
	We were really kind of stuck on an island, so to speak.
	Right, and you had no support from your parents, of course.
	Yeah, it was just a complete negation of what I was feeling, basically.
	They're saying, you know, he's the one who's pestering you, and they're saying to you, oh, don't indulge, rather than talking to him and saying, what are you doing?
	Yeah, they were almost turning it into my fault, as if I was bringing it on myself by responding to him.
	But, I mean, there'd be no response if there was never an attack in the first place.
	Right. So if you just stop responding, he will stop attacking.
	But, you know, this is childhood.
	Now, in adulthood, you have choices that you didn't have when you were a child.
	Yeah. So you don't have to respond to this guy's post.
	Right. And what's interesting about this interaction that I have with this guy is that when he started the conversation, I responded to him, and then it looked as if I could have just let it go, but I was the one that came back in and baited him to get back into it.
	And that's interesting to me.
	Like, I was the one that actually went fishing for this interaction.
	And that's the thing that really kind of made me feel awful at the end.
	And I mean, it was a justified awful feeling.
	Go ahead.
	Well, I was just going to say, I think that that's really important.
	I think that you were, you know, I mean, what we don't acknowledge, we recreate so that we can actually feel the feelings and maybe grow from them until we can grow from them.
	Yeah. I mean, this may have been a really important interaction for you in terms of where you go psychologically and emotionally in the next level.
	No, I definitely...
	I mean, as soon as this was underway, I mean, even in the middle of it happening, I had a sense of this being very important.
	There was something... It was that same feeling of just kind of...
	It's sort of like when going through some of these processes, it felt like archaeology in a way that I'm just brushing away layers and layers of dirt that's been deposited over time on these well-worn neural pathways, you could say.
	And as I'm uncovering these things, there's a very difficult to explain but increasingly familiar feeling of I'm getting to something.
	I'm uncovering something important.
	I actually felt that same feeling in the middle of this false self hijacking.
	I was watching the false self unfold and speak through my fingers on the keyboard.
	As I was doing it, I was like, this is really disgusting.
	And it was kind of to be acting and to also be the third party observing ego at the same time was really important, I think.
	Right. I mean, in the interaction with people who are dysfunctional in this way, right?
	This guy's just looking for evidence that Steph's a bad guy, whatever.
	I mean, that's sort of sad, right?
	I mean, if I'm such a bad guy, then go away, right?
	I mean, I'm not imposing myself on anyone, right?
	But someone is going to end up feeling enraged and helpless in that interaction, right?
	That you've got to get, right?
	One of you is going to end up carrying this anvil.
	Yeah. And the way to say it is like, hey, it's not going to be me.
	Yeah. Not going to be me.
	And yeah, at the end of this conversation...
	If this guy puts forward a provocative statement and you don't feel good in responding to it, you're not happy that this guy contacted you, you're not pleased with the content of the post...
	Then he's saying, I'm carrying this anvil called rage and helplessness, and I'm throwing it at you, and you just take one step to the side, and it lands on him.
	Right. You just don't respond.
	You can send me a message saying, this guy is sending me unpleasant emails, and I'll deal with it technologically and so on, right?
	But you just don't engage, right?
	You have that power now.
	And the best vengeance, if vengeance is at all in the repertoire, is you just don't respond.
	And yes, the person is trying to escalate.
	They're going to say, oh, now you don't respond to me.
	Now you're defending him. He just keeps responding.
	It's the broken record called silence.
	And that's where it got to at the end.
	He was beginning to ramp it up into a new level of trying to scare out of me who it was that had ratted him out and all that stuff like that.
	And now, this time, instead of there being two sides of me, the one that just wanted to totally get in there and have a dogfight with him, and the other one was saying, just back off and get away.
	Now, instead of the dogfighter winning, the back-off guy won, and I just said, My final response to him was, I'm ashamed of my behavior in this conversation.
	Your posts angered me and I deliberately baited you.
	I'm very sorry. And that was it.
	And when I wrote that, it was done.
	It was gone, completely out of my mind.
	The thing that stuck with me, of course, is the, wow, what just happened?
	I want to forensically go through this and find out what I can learn from it.
	But the emotion of needing to engage with this guy and fight him to the death was gone.
	Right, right, right, right.
	And so, you know, in that sense, it was a valuable interaction, right?
	Absolutely. And the support can be useful in this way, right?
	Right, right. Even with, like, the trolls have their place in the ecosystem, so to speak, right?
	Sure, sure.
	You know, you want to get, you know, you get a little smallpox vaccine and you're immune to smallpox?
	Mm-hmm. So, with this, and this is one of the reasons why the board is important, right?
	So, A, we don't feel isolating, exchange ideas, and so on, but also, you know, there are bad people in the world, and we know that, because the world is in bad shape in many ways, and you can get inoculated against these temptations, right?
	Right. Yeah, I agree.
	Right, because anyone who basically starts off the conversation with saying, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
	Right. And that's pretty much what this was, I think.
	Yeah, like, are you the censorious bastard or is Steph?
	Right? And it's like, you know, if there's no door number three, I'm not going to any of these doors, right?
	Yeah. Now, it's interesting how the question, the false dichotomy question, elicits the same...
	Catch-22, I'm screwed here, I've got a fight that I felt when I was a kid.
	Right, and for you, of course, there was, it's the double or nothing anxiety, right?
	So, if somebody says to you, you know, if you fight me today, I'll only punch you once.
	But if you run away from me today, I'm going to punch you twice tomorrow.
	And then three times the day, like if you get that kind of escalation, right?
	This is what governments do in terms of penalties and, you know, for back taxes and so on, right?
	So you have this...
	If I go and take my licks now, like I just get this over with, then I can put it behind me.
	But if I don't, and this was the case with your brother, right?
	If I do take my parents' bullshit advice and rise above it, right?
	Like you're supposed to do that when you're five years old, right?
	If... If I take that advice, then what I get, like if I just have this out with him now, and we have some pissy little fight, then it's over, right?
	And then I get a couple of days apiece or whatever, right?
	But if I don't respond, then I get this increased anxiety of knowing that the blow-up is going to be worse down the road, right?
	And so from a sort of cost-benefit standpoint, it makes good sense to just get it over with, right?
	Yeah, it's like those little miniature earthquakes that keep the big earthquake from happening.
	They just kind of let off a little bit of tension a little bit at a time.
	Right, and the houses stay standing, right?
	As opposed to, you know, we'll wait for the 8.5 to scale or whatever, right?
	Right. So for you, the anxiety of not engaging is the feeling that you're setting yourself up for something far worse down the road.
	Right, yeah. Yeah, that feels, yeah, that's, that accurately describes it, I think.
	And so the way that you break that pattern is you say those magic three words, right, particularly on the board, I'm among friends.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Right, because you were a kid, nobody was standing up for you.
	In fact, your parents were throwing you to this crazy brother of yours, right?
	This sadist. Right.
	Yeah, you got to the point where I was begging them to build me a new room down in the basement or something like that, because I just couldn't stand to be around the guy.
	Oh, I have no doubt. I have no doubt.
	I mean, I had a similar kind of brother, and it's awful.
	Right, so... We have this thought that we sort of floated around, which is we're going to try and watch each other's backs, right?
	Right. And you decided to do this alone, right?
	Yeah, and it's interesting because it started out as, you know, one of the other members here helped me out.
	They showed me, this guy's just out for trouble, just leave him alone.
	And at first I went after it.
	I said, okay, cool.
	Thanks for the heads up.
	And then, something after that, I was still like, nah, I can do this.
	Come on, let's go. It felt good to get the help.
	But I still, you know, that same old well-worn path took over for a little while, but no, on the other side of it was a very, very valuable lesson, and this conversation right now is a very important part of that lesson, I think.
	Yeah, I mean, this conversation that we have, I mean, is important that we have it with each other too, right?
	So if you're feeling this temptation to engage with this guy, you can just send somebody else a PM or give me a call or, you know, whatever, right?
	And talk to somebody about it beforehand, saying, you know, the chill hand of the false self is trying to propel me forward and blah, blah, blah, right?
	And you have, I mean, you're among friends now in a way that you weren't when you were a child, right?
	So you don't have to face this stuff alone, right?
	Yeah. And speaking of which...
	Sorry, there's a reason this guy sent you this in a personal message, right?
	A private message. Right, right.
	Yeah, he was cutting me from the herd and taking me on one-on-one in an attempt to get me to go.
	Speaking of which, I mean, I mentioned this on the board, but I want to reiterate it again.
	I want to apologize not only to this guy, but to everyone on the board, because I did contribute, I think, a bit to the hostility that was going on there, because I jumped into this fracas and decided to escalate it a bit.
	I think one of the things that really...
	What helped me to disengage here was that I started to get this feeling, like you said, I'm among friends, and I started to get that instinctive feeling that I'm messing up something that I value by engaging in this, and what I value is the camaraderie that we feel on the sport, the open, positive attitudes that we share, and I got the sense that I was starting to poison that myself in engaging in this kind of stuff.
	And so that, given that there was something now for me to value, that helped me to disengage from the thing that I probably would have normally just gone hog wild on this guy and just kept in this.
	No, I mean, I think that's quite right.
	And I mean, I think that your instinct is entirely valid.
	Insofar, I mean, you're not poisoning anything, right?
	I mean, but if...
	If people engage with the trolls, then the trolls will keep coming back.
	That's the nature of the beast.
	That's why Christine and I are hiding in her bedroom when her parents come.
	Because if we go down and talk to them, we will just have undone three years of not talking to them.
	And then what happens is it starts all over again.
	Because they say, oh, well, we just have to bug them for three years.
	So then we've immediately extended our sentence by at least three years.
	Right. Okay, I think I'm spent.
	Alright, next! Thanks again.
	Great post and well talked out.
	Thanks again. Do we have new people on the chat today who maybe don't know that when there's a silence they can say something?
	Perhaps we should have mentioned that.
	Well, I'm happy if Greg wants to chime in.
	I was just wondering if there were any of the new callers who wanted to chat about anything.
	So no, there were some folks that were curious about the exchange that you and I had over the UPB book back when I was editing it, I guess.
	The exchange? Yeah, I'm trying to remember.
	Oh, is it the one where I deleted the posts that you and I had interacted with where we weren't exactly at her shiniest?
	Well, I'm not sure if that's what they're referring to or the anxiety that I was kind of harboring while editing it.
	Anyway, the point being, the whole Business with how the real-time relationship, if it had been applied properly in either of those cases, how different the outcome might have been.
	That's starting from a pretty vague place.
	Maybe what we could do is talk about the more specific stuff that we had with regards to when I made the video and your reaction to it.
	Okay, yeah, we can do that one.
	That's fine. Okay, so for those who didn't see the post, and the posts are now gone, I'll just mention it briefly, and Greg, you can let me know what you think.
	So, the people who've read the UPB book have had, it sparked something for them, right?
	So, we were just talking to James earlier, who, it sparked a challenge that he had with regards to enthusiasm.
	And Greg and I had some of this As well, and just about everybody who's read the book has had some sort of significant issue come up for them, and I think that that's entirely understandable, and I certainly did when I was writing the book.
	I was having panic attacks in a very mild kind of way, and I couldn't seem to get a breath.
	And I was just like, oh man, I felt like I just wasn't processing oxygen very well.
	And not normally, because I was just talking so much, that's understandable.
	So it was a hellacious book to write, and most of the people who have read it have gone through some significant trauma of a kind that usually has to do with some core issue with regards to childhood, which of course, again, is not something that is wildly surprising.
	So, what happened was, Greg had some questions about the definition of murder, Quincy wrote.
	And saying, well, it was slightly different in this place than it was in this place, and so on.
	And I responded to that in a very mature way by taking out all the definitions.
	Well, I did take out some definitions, but I sort of thought about it, and I was getting, as I've talked about before, very irritated, not at Greg, but at this whole question of nitpicking about definitions.
	And so I sort of thought, okay, well, either I put in dictionary definitions of murder, which is pointless because people can look that up on the internet, right?
	Or in their books.
	Or... I make up my own definitions.
	Now, of course, if I put up standard textbook definitions of murder, then it's like, well, what's the point?
	People can look that up themselves.
	And if I make up my own definitions of murder, then, of course, everyone's going to say, well, why are you deviating from the textbook definition of murder?
	This is tautological. You're just making up things to prove your case, and blah, blah, blah.
	So what I did was, and I did expand on some of the definitions that Greg had had some problems with and other people, but I took out some of the definitions where I did use them in slightly different contexts for pretty particular reasons, but I wanted to keep the books snappy and readable and so on.
	And so what happened was when I made the book, I inserted something, not in particular in response to any of Greg's objections, but just I inserted something at the beginning of the book where I said something like, you know, I have too much respect for your intelligence to define words like reality and integrity and so on, because we have enough work to do without having to reinvent the wheel, right?
	Because obviously you could footnote every word, right?
	Logic, first coined by Aristotle, right?
	I mean, you could sort of do that.
	So I wanted to keep the conversation fairly non-technical, and I always hate people who invent new words, like, say, phraseology.
	Anyway, so what happened was, Greg, well, you can sort of take it, what your feelings were when you saw that, and it was a pretty impassioned speech that they gave with regards to the video of the intro to the book.
	Right, and just to preface what I'm about to say, I'll do apologies to you for this because it was totally unjust, but essentially I had heard that part of the introduction in the video and took it as a personal assault.
	Well, I shouldn't have ended the sentence with the word, Greg, you nitpicky bastard.
	And the thing is, at the time, I didn't I wasn't conscious of the fact that I'd done that, that I had presumed that from what was in the introduction.
	And so I ran off to the board and threw a post out about how I didn't like some definition, not the murder one, but some other one, and why there had to be a glossary and blah blah blah blah blah.
	Right. Right.
	And then your reaction to that...
	Was to stab back, right?
	Which, I mean, was totally justified, in this case, basically to, you know, why do you keep nitpicking this thing?
	Leave me alone! That sort of thing, right?
	Sorry, I just grabbed up the post, and I'll just read the bit that I think was the core contention, right?
	So... So, Greg wrote, just a quick note on one change.
	Sorry, let me just rephrase that.
	Just... No, I'm just kidding.
	Just a quick note on one change I noticed in the introduction read in the video.
	Greg says, I hopped on definitions not because I thought people needed to be tutored on fundamental concepts, rather it was because you have a number of unique definitions of your own and some unique ways of looking at more standard definitions, which is not meant to imply invalid or irrational.
	But I thought it would be good to make sure that there was a common understanding between you and your reader.
	And he said, one thing I found myself doing on a regular basis as I read through this was having to constantly guess at the meaning of certain terms you used through the context of the surrounding text.
	One of the problems with that is that I was extremely muddled and confused in certain areas where the content did not make the definitions clear or where different contexts seemed to me to imply alternative definitions.
	And he said, one such case was about three quarters of the way through the book, where it seemed very much to me like you were treating self-defense and retaliation as equals.
	That may not have been the case, or indeed it may have been.
	I don't know, because I don't have anything to refer to as a standard for how, quote, you define these ideas.
	Right, so I got mad.
	And I was not honest and said, what the hell are you doing?
	I'm mad. I get mad at this, right?
	So, Greg, you felt that I was sort of saying, eh, definitions are for anal nitpicking bastards, right?
	And you're like, oh yeah?
	Well, your book is confusing, right?
	Yeah. That's essentially what happened.
	So then for me, and this was sort of back to what we were talking about with James earlier, it's like, oh, so you had a chance to edit this book, and now you're telling me that you have to constantly guess at definitions and you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, and this is news to me, and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But of course we had a very civilized debate about how you should stab someone, whether they're running towards you or running away from you, because we are philosophers and don't talk honestly sometimes.
	We were discussing the type of knife, the angle, the blade, you know, the light where the shadow fell and all that kind of stuff.
	But basically what happened was, you know, Greg, you said, well, you can stab a guy who's running towards you and you can't stab a guy who's running away from you.
	And I got really irritated with that.
	And I was like... He said, what do you think?
	It's like, I don't care, I said, because I've never been in a knife fight.
	And I don't think you have either, unless you've got some wild past I've never heard about.
	So, I've never been in a knife fight.
	You've never been in a knife fight.
	And for me, what I was mad about was, you know, I felt like we've launched this glorious ship, right?
	And some monk-like characters down there are saying, oh, it's all ruined because there's a smudge on a porthole, right?
	You know, so for me, it was like...
	God, let's look at the big picture of what we've achieved and so on.
	I was also mad because this was the first public commentary on the book, right?
	So I was concerned that people were going to look at this commentary of Greg's and say, oh, okay, so Greg's obviously a very smart fellow.
	He's been in this conversation for a hell of a long time, and he's one of Steph's biggest fans, and he has no idea what the hell Steph is talking about in this book.
	So what chance do I have to understand it, right?
	Right, that's a fair concern, and it's something that, I mean...
	It must have been a subconscious motivation of my own, although I don't...
	In the process of going through that whole thing, it never occurred to me consciously that that was...
	Although, putting it out on the board, obviously, I mean...
	You know, there it is, right?
	I mean, it obviously had to be...
	An embedded subconscious motivation for that.
	I mean, otherwise I would have emailed you, right?
	Well, or you would have called me up.
	And again, see, I'm not hard to get a hold of, right?
	I mean, it's not like I'm at work, right?
	So you would have said, you know, I didn't understand this.
	I got sort of mad about what you said on the video that you're not going to define certain words, right?
	Like reality. I don't think murder was in there, right?
	Right, so in the moment, if I was paying attention to my own emotional reactions to what you were saying, I would have recognized that and said, well, wait a minute here.
	Right. Did you just cheat out of my legitimate concerns by just saying, fuck it, I'm not going to define anything, right?
	Fine! So for you, you interpreted, I think, what I did as passive-aggressive, right?
	And also self-righteous, right?
	Because if I say, I have too much respect for your intelligence, right?
	Then I'm saying it's nitpicky and down-putting to focus on definitions, which is one thing that you were doing.
	And to improve the quality of the book, it was very important, right?
	So the way that I phrased that was almost like a put-down, if that makes sense, if that's the way that you were looking at it.
	Yeah, yeah, and that's exactly the way that I did experience it emotionally when I saw it the first time.
	And Of course, I'm yelling at you through YouTube as well, right?
	It's the shriekiest introduction to a philosophy book, I think, since the Sermon on the Mount.
	So for you, it was like, you were mad at me.
	And, of course, when you were a kid, you couldn't.
	This is the slave morality that we were all...
	Raised with, right? That we would just become passive-aggressive because we weren't allowed to be openly aggressive, right?
	So if you order the slave in a bullying way, the slave will just do it slowly and badly, right?
	Right. It's like, oh, the water dripped out, boss.
	You just become annoying in a way that doesn't get you punishment but interferes with the other person's happiness, if that makes sense.
	Right. And so that's exactly what I did, is I ran to the first place that I knew it would annoy you the most, right?
	Right. And we caught on to it pretty quickly, right?
	And I think that we had a good conversation to sort of work it out.
	But that's...
	And so the real-time relationship thing has to...
	And the reason, because you brought up the real-time relationship and you were saying, well, Steph, it feels to me like you're giving up on philosophy, right?
	And again, going through the list of feelings...
	Giving up on philosophy, I don't think, is a core feeling, right?
	So, that was sort of like, Steph, my real-time relationship response to this is I feel that you're a hypocritical jerk, right?
	You know what I mean? To put it in an extreme kind of way, right?
	But that's not a feeling, right?
	That's an interpretation. Yeah, that's a story, right?
	If you say that you don't care about whether you're stabbing a guy, then you've given up on philosophy, right?
	Which is, again, not a ringing endorsement for, I think, a high-quality book on philosophy.
	After this book, I'm done.
	I'm never going to do philosophy again.
	Right? So I'm done.
	I'm spent. That's it. You know?
	So we didn't go through the real-time relationship there.
	What we did was we talked to each other and we said, well, let's go back to the beginning.
	Right? Because you can't start the real-time relationship in the middle.
	But you can't. Because you have to go back to the...
	That's why with Rod, I said what happened with the first post, not what happened halfway through the interaction.
	What happened with Rod at the ball rolling, right?
	Because once the ball's in motion, you think, wow, we're dodging this big ball here, aren't we?
	Yep, we sure are, right? But you have to sort of figure out what got it started.
	And that's the important thing about the real-time relationship.
	When you do end up in a tangle like this, where you're both frustrated and irritated...
	That you talk and say, okay, well we know, and in this, in the board, it's great because, you know, you don't tape record everything, if you're not obsessive like me, but the board is great because you've got posts, right?
	So Greg and I could go back, and you know, it's important to do this if you get into these kinds of conflicts with somebody that you believe is reasonable and so on, right?
	So obviously that would be the case with Greg, not for me, but But if you get into this kind of mess, it's easy to see what started it, right?
	So you say, well, let's go back and let's look at the post chain, right?
	And I say, well, this post bothered me, right?
	And then you say, okay, well, something must have happened before this post that made Greg post this post about the book is confusing and this and that, right?
	And so we then talked about it and he'd watched the video and so we kind of got into that, right?
	So that's the great thing about the board is you've got footprints so you can go back and say, when did we get off the path?
	But I think also what really made it possible to unravel what was going on there was the fact that neither you nor I are actually afraid to talk to each other in person, right? Because it wouldn't have been possible to do this if I wouldn't respond to your IMs or you wouldn't respond to my phone calls, right?
	Well sure, but that's a trust relationship that you build over time, right?
	And also, we weren't being abusive.
	We were irritated with each other, and we were putting it through a refined cheese grater of intellectual abstraction, but we were able to say, I was irritated honestly, right?
	I feel this, and so on, right?
	But of course, if we'd been abusive, and of course we didn't know each other, then you wouldn't have the call with me, and I wouldn't have the call with you.
	I offered it earlier to other people in this conversation.
	I don't really particularly offer it now, because I'm getting a sense of the patterns and what occurs.
	So I think that aspect of things is key as well.
	That's why it's important to not be abusive with people, even though it can be tempting at times when you get really mad.
	But it completely kills the possibility of a reasonable salvage when you drive off into the ditch briefly.
	Right. And that's one of the reasons why I've been...
	Well, I've been saying that it seems to me for this stuff to work right, you can't expect to be able to do it in a vacuum.
	There has to be a...
	You have to have people around you who can support the effort.
	Honesty, right? But first of all, you can't do it in a vacuum because there's no, like, sound doesn't carry in space.
	But aside from that, you also, you do have to have people who are willing to be honest, right?
	So if you and I, like, if you called me up and said, Steph, it seems like you're irritated.
	And I just said, I'm not irritated.
	Well, boom, right?
	The whole thing falls over, right?
	That's why I always say honesty is the first virtue.
	Honesty is the necessary but not sufficient requirement for all the other virtues, right?
	So Greg said, I said, well, this post irritated me.
	What were you feeling when you wrote it?
	And if Greg said, I was feeling a shining benevolence of pure love, right?
	Because, of course, that is Greg's default position.
	That's his starting state.
	But then, you know, we couldn't have gone any further, right?
	If somebody just lies to you, right?
	Right? If they just don't tell you the truth about what their experience is, then there is no real-time relationship because there is no relationship, right?
	Right. It's just a bunch of lies passing back and forth.
	Well, it's jockeying. It's positioning, right?
	So, as we've talked about with these people...
	Like, I have a sort of slight theory or thesis that the books plus the ramping up of mad enthusiasm that I have about the UPB book...
	Has sparked people's upset, right?
	Now, what they could do, right, these people who are upset and putting down this conversation, they could come in and say, oh yeah, well I never even saw that video.
	So your theory is not true, right?
	And if they're lying, then we'll never know.
	You can't prove whether somebody saw the video or not, right?
	But you just can't have a relationship with people who won't tell you the truth.
	And that's back to Rod and so on, right?
	That if he gets engaged with people like this, they're just not going to tell them the truth.
	Because if someone says, oh yeah, did you delete your post or was it that bastard Steph, right?
	And if you say, well, tell me what you were feeling.
	Well, I feel that this is a censorious place and it's culty.
	You know, it's like, that's not a feeling, and that's not honest.
	Right, that's an interpretation. Then people are using mythology to justify their feelings, which is a mirror reflecting a mirror into infinity, and there's nothing there.
	Right. So, in essence then, the mutuality of the effort is what helps to change the habits.
	You mean mutual honesty?
	Right, exactly. And that's the difference, really, between what's going on here and, say, what Rand would call social metaphysics, right?
	Where just because we agree with each other, we believe it's true.
	Right, right. Like, if I'm angry at someone, then I can either say, well, my anger is my business.
	And I can also look for evidence, right?
	So if I'm, I mean, I think everybody who learns about Rand's life goes through, for me, it was just a period of desolation, right?
	Because you hear her story about herself, right?
	And I am all of these virtues and more, and I can levitate and travel through time and blah, blah, blah, right?
	And then you find out about her life, and it's kind of a freak show later on, right?
	You've got kangaroo courts.
	You've got affairs. It's just a mess, from my perspective.
	I don't think it's completely subjective.
	It just seems like a mess. And that's shocking, right?
	So you then have this desolate, at least I had, and I remember desolation was the word that I used with friends at the time.
	I could feel desolate. I read this book and this person who was this heroic, this heroine of rationality and virtue and integrity and shining purity and just had this kind of crazy, messy relationships with people.
	And then you say, okay, so I have this disappointment.
	I feel upset. So then you can say, well, these are just lies spread by her enemies.
	You just make up a story that can make you wish the feelings away.
	So, you have to look for evidence when it comes to your upsets with people.
	So, as I say, if I ban somebody, usually, and I never use this, I mean, it's tempting, but I don't, right?
	I know a lot about people that I don't talk about, right?
	Because I get this sort of, I am the spider hub of information about people, right?
	And so, I look at the people who I'm having a lot of trouble with, right?
	And I say, well...
	What are the markers for success in their life?
	And it doesn't mean that that's a perfect gauge of everything, right?
	But somebody who's got a really happy marriage is someone to listen to about marriage, right?
	Especially if they know why they have a happy marriage, right?
	And somebody who has miserable relationships, you know, you're just another one of the miserable relationships that they have in common with all their other relationships, right?
	So you look for the evidence with people, and then you try disagreeing with them, and you try standing up for what, and you just see what happens, right?
	And then you sort of know. But you definitely do both require that willingness to cast aside the convenience of mythology when it comes to understanding your feelings.
	Right. And sticking to the facts present in the moment, including your own emotional state.
	Right. I mean, we dislike the religious people who make up God as the answer for everything, right?
	Why did so-and-so's kid get cancer?
	Well, God works in mysterious ways, right?
	God has called this child back to his bosom and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Where did life come from?
	Well, intelligently designed.
	And where does the universe come from?
	The mind of God.
	Like, we hate people who just make up mythologies to answer, quote, answer questions, because it blocks them from knowledge and it destroys the progress of the species.
	The same thing happens to individuals, right?
	So if somebody's really mad at me or if I'm really mad at somebody, then I sort of sit down and say, well, what is going on for me?
	What's the evidence? What triggered it?
	What's happening? What resulted?
	What thoughts resulted in this emotional state?
	Or I can just say, well, I'm mad at them because they're an asshole.
	And then go no further.
	And that calling someone an asshole is the big barrier, right?
	The ass is the big barrier, right?
	It's a big barrier because I can't go any further than that because I already have an answer.
	Right, right. That's the mythology you erect around your distaste.
	And it's one of these weird traps, right?
	Because if I believe that someone's an asshole and I treat them like they're an asshole, guess what, right?
	99 times out of 100, they'll oblige.
	Right, right.
	But sometimes it's warranted.
	Of course it is. Of course it is.
	But then you don't interact with the person.
	Right, right, right, exactly.
	Right. That's the funny thing about people who, you know, FDR is so culty!
	And then they're like, what do you mean I'm banned?
	What do you mean I can't get the podcasts?
	It's like, what are you talking about?
	You don't get to call Scientology a cult and then keep your membership card, right?
	I mean, especially if Scientology isn't a cult, I think it is.
	But, I mean, you don't get to say, this is an evil, evil place.
	My key doesn't work.
	Because I want it back in.
	That's insane. People should never even notice that they're banned.
	Because I say, please leave.
	I'm not enjoying this.
	It's not productive. And then they should go and not come back.
	Because if they come back, then clearly...
	It's not a cult. Or they like that it's a cult, right?
	So it doesn't make any sense.
	What they do is they make up this story and they say, well, I have to come back to illuminate all the lost souls that are still held under the sway of that evil dictator staff, right?
	Because my mission is to free people from illusion and I'm going to start with this philosophy forum dedicated to rationality and evidence because that's the place of all the places in the world.
	Not A mosque, not a Jewish school, not a Christian school, not a government school, but this innocuous philosophy forum.
	That's where I'm going to dedicate all my resources to freeing people from illusion.
	But that's just crazy, right?
	That's like the Christians saying, well, we have to regulate other people's sexuality because God will send a pillar of fire down to kill us all.
	But getting back to this notion of watching each other's backs, the idea there, in this case, is that nobody's perfect.
	We're not always...
	Christine is perfect.
	Okay, honey, you can let go.
	But we sometimes screw up and don't, and aren't careful and aren't careful enough to notice our own emotional states in the moment, right?
	So it's nice to know that there are people around who can act as that objective third eye for you when you don't have it yourself.
	And without that, there's, I mean, you diminish your chances of succeeding in all of this, right?
	Well, yeah, the option is then either failure or paralysis, right?
	Because if it's like, well, I don't know when I'm going to get swallowed up by the false self or the unconscious and do things that are negative or problematic, I have no idea when I'm going to do that, so I'm not going to move.
	I'm not going to post. I'm not going to do anything.
	The paralysis isn't going to work and isn't going to help.
	And conversely, just sort of acting blindly on every conceivable defensive impulse that comes your way is dooming you to failure, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, this is, as I said, we get to reality through each other, right?
	Through our combined wisdom, right?
	Which has got all of the objectivity that we don't have ourselves, right?
	Objectivity, the truth is a collective endeavor.
	You just have to have rational standards, that's all.
	Right. And that's the difference between what we're doing and an environment of social metaphysics is that we have a standard that we're all trying to look at.
	And when one individual might be varying from the standard, somebody else can step in and say, hey, there's a gap here.
	Have a look, right?
	Right, right. And if people are honest, then if I'd said to you, I wasn't mad, or you'd said to me, I wasn't mad, right?
	If people are honest, then you can just have a productive discussion about it, right?
	And it doesn't usually take very long if you're honest to figure out what's going on.
	Right. That differs from a social metaphysic where there is no standard other than the most strenuous voice in the room.
	Everybody is attuned to that guy's opinion and nobody else's.
	Right, right. And there is a reinforcing and escalation of enraging mythology or negative mythology or paranoid mythology or destructive mythology.
	And that's the people who get together and just spark up each other's prejudices.
	It's like... Oh yeah, and you know what else?
	And they all just go skyrocketing in terms of this craziness.
	And that, of course, is the religious context, it's the military context, it's the status context.
	And it occurs in groups that are dysfunctional.
	I mean, it's very destructive, right?
	I mean, these are just people who desperately need a story as to why they're so mad that has nothing to do with any problems they have.
	Right. Right, that's exactly right.
	And so I just want to say that I'm glad to know that there are people out there watching my back, even if that does make me a part of the inner circle.
	Right, you want people to watch your back without lasers, right?
	That's the key thing.
	You don't want somebody watching your back through a scope, right?
	Got them in my sights! Right.
	I think that's about all I have to say on the subject.
	All right. Well, thank you very much, and again, thank you for that conversation, which was great.
	And, you know, it really is liberating.
	It really is liberating, and this is part of what goes on in the therapeutic process.
	It really is liberating.
	Like, I was able to say to Greg, I'm mad at you, right?
	And we were able to have a discussion about it.
	Because I say, I'm mad at you, Greg, and that doesn't mean you're a bad person, and that doesn't mean that I'm right.
	I'm telling you a fact, like I'm left-handed.
	If I'm left-handed, it doesn't mean you're a bad person.
	If I'm mad at you, it doesn't mean that you're a bad person.
	It doesn't mean that I now get to abuse you, and you're in my sights.
	It just means I'm mad at you, like it's a fact, like I'm hungry.
	Right? Although I did, I mean, when it was clear to me what I'd done, I felt really horrible about it.
	Well, sure, but you weren't, I wasn't sitting there saying, oh yeah, and, you know, this other thing, you put the wrong socks on the wrong feet this morning too, and, you know, another thing is that you named your horse wrong.
	You know, whatever, right? So, um...
	Oh, right. I don't mean to imply that you were just saying that to make me feel horrible.
	I mean, the point being that I needed the horror in order to be able to change the behavior.
	Right. And then when you said that the proximate cause was this video, then I could say, well, tell me more about that, right?
	And he's like, well, I was mad about the video.
	But we can both be upset with each other.
	And that does not destroy the intimacy.
	Because people are so used to anger being rage, which is destructive and annihilating towards another human being.
	But two people being angry at each other can be perfectly close.
	In fact, if you are angry and you're lying about it or evading it, you're not close.
	Anger is not the opposite of intimacy.
	Lying is the opposite of intimacy.
	So whatever is honest...
	And the real honesty around anger and every emotion is to say, this is what I feel, not, you make me feel this because you're a bad person.
	That is not a true statement.
	And it's not true empirically.
	It's not just true psychologically or empirically.
	Nobody has that ability, unless they've got electrodes in your brain, to make you feel stuff.
	I mean, when you're an adult, right?
	So it's just an empirical truth, right?
	Like, I can't say to Christina, if I kept myself shaving, you moved my arms wrong, right?
	I mean, this empirically would not make any sense.
	So I can't say to Christina, you make me feel this.
	I can say, I feel this, and let's talk about it, right?
	And that's the level.
	I mean, it's a really simple but incredibly powerful level.
	of honesty. And people will try and throw you off that.
	Because they will try and say that your emotions are entirely self-generated.
	So when Greg said, well, that video made me mad, I could have said, well, that's ridiculous.
	You're just being paranoid. It had nothing to do with you.
	But I don't know that.
	So we need to sort of explore and understand that.
	Because when you are honest about your emotions with people, if they feel threatened, Because of their own histories.
	They will immediately try to make you feel like, oh, you're just playing the victim, or you're being paranoid, or you're just, oh my god, I didn't know you were so sensitive.
	Oh my god, you know, whatever.
	Cause you to question your own...
	Right, they'll say, yes, one of us is entirely responsible for how you feel, and it's you.
	It can't be our interaction.
	It can't be both of us, right?
	Because this is black and white thinking, and it's primitive.
	Right? And it's splitting.
	It's black and white. Right?
	So somebody has to be completely to blame for how you feel.
	And it sure as hell isn't going to be me.
	So damn it, it's you. You're paranoid.
	You're weird. You're oversensitive.
	You just make these things up. You play the victim.
	Right? Somebody has to take this big molten hot potato that's going to leave a third degree burn and you're damn well not going to give it to me.
	So that's what happens when you say, I feel X. People then interpret to that, it's a pre-lead to an attack, and they launch a pre-emptive attack by getting you to feel that it's all your fault.
	They can't say, oh, well, maybe I did something, maybe I didn't, but tell me more.
	Let's try and figure this out.
	Because that's an honest and mature response to the interaction.
	But people who are immature will feel that, well, you're going to dump it all on me and then you're going to attack me.
	So, fuck that.
	I'm going to just shoot your tires out before you even get started.
	Right, right. And that's kind of how this whole interaction started out, too.
	Right? My response to the video, right?
	I mean, it could have gone a very different way, right?
	Well, sure, you know, and you could have said, look, you cheap bastard, you didn't even pay me for this, and I had to buy ten copies of your book, and then you shit on me in public about something that is a legitimate concern?
	You know, like, you absolutely could have gone that way, right?
	But the more that we come across aggressively, the more we provoke other people's defense, which is to diffuse our aggression by saying that it's entirely a self-generated emotion that has nothing to do with them, which, again, is a rejection of intimacy and of human contact.
	Right, right. That's exactly right.
	Because intimacy is, I mean, this is going to sound kind of weird, right?
	But intimacy is, with Christina and I, we have a feeling, right?
	Because if I get mad at Christina, it's not that Christina just out of the blue did something, right?
	I did something she did. We have cooperated to create this feeling, unconsciously or consciously, right?
	Because that's intimacy, right?
	We are both responsible for this relationship.
	We both put in 150%.
	We both take 150% ownership.
	So we have a feeling, right?
	So if we're contributing equally to the finances and it turns out that we can't cover our bills, we have a problem.
	I don't get to sit there and say, well, you're just not contributing enough money because we're both contributing the same amount of money, right?
	So if we can't afford our lifestyle, we have a problem.
	It's our problem. And it's the same thing with emotions when you're close and honest.
	That we have a situation here, right?
	And we can be honest and we can talk about what we're feeling, but it's not something that either one of us has to carry while the other person sort of sneers at them.
	Yep, that's exactly right.
	Alright, well, was there anyone else who had any questions or comments or issues or problems or anything else to speak of, my friends?
	Well, I don't want to go into any...
	I know it's already 5 o'clock or 4 or 6 o'clock where you are, I guess.
	Why yes? My ex has just left the building and I felt...
	This is Bob. Yes, this is Bob.
	Got it. Bob Newhart.
	Right. She left and I was feeling the high anxiety while she was in the room because I could feel the eye rolls.
	Sorry, I don't want to get into any details, but we'll call her Sue.
	Sue is not a big fan of Free Domain Radio, mostly because of my accent, if I remember rightly.
	But there's not a lot of positive feelings between Sue and Free Domain Radio.
	So she knew that you were listening to the Sunday show.
	Right. So, yeah, she was...
	When you said there are bad people out there, she sort of...
	I don't know what you call that.
	Oh, you didn't have headphones on?
	She raised her hand saying, me.
	You didn't have headphones on?
	I don't have any headphones.
	I need to actually go buy some that work with the computer.
	It's four dollars.
	Seriously, I mean...
	Well, I have something here on the desk, but they're not long enough to reach the back of the computer, so...
	Wait, is this X-Wing?
	Somebody... It is?
	Oh, when Steph's talking.
	Oh. Oh.
	Go ahead. I'll go quiet.
	Anyways. Well, it doesn't do that when I'm talking to you otherwise.
	That's strange. I'll do the mute thing over and over.
	She left and I felt relief, but I still feel anxious.
	That same anxiety that I always feel when I'm alone.
	I'm trying to figure out where in the world that's coming from.
	Well, how much time did you spend alone when you were a child?
	Well, my whole childhood was alone.
	Well, if I remember rightly though, you did have a fair amount of pre-scripted activities such as church and school and other things, right?
	Yeah, but I never felt like I wasn't alone.
	I mean, I always felt alone Oh, sorry.
	I mean, I was talking a little more prosaically, a little less existentially, right?
	So, in terms of physical proximity to other people, did you spend a lot of time without anybody else in the house?
	No, not a lot of time, no.
	Okay. So, for you, you have...
	And this is off the cuff, right?
	So, just let me know if this fits or not, but...
	Your antennae, because, I mean, I know that you come from an abusive past, that you were abused physically as well as emotionally and verbally.
	So your radar is other-directed, right?
	So your consciousness is scanning always for threat, right?
	It could be that.
	I don't know. I don't know.
	Well, when you were a kid, you were surrounded by a bunch of predators and you weren't allowed to spend much time alone or have unstructured time.
	And so your consciousness is constantly directed towards other people.
	And that doesn't mean necessarily that that's always bad, right?
	I mean, there can be a kind of sensitivity that's involved in that that can be good.
	But it means that your consciousness is always looking and scanning around you.
	And in the absence of external stimuli in that way, it can be hard, if that's how we're raised, to feel that we have an identity in the absence.
	Right? In the absence of other people being around us, if that makes sense.
	That makes a lot more sense.
	Yeah, that's starting to make a lot of sense.
	Because I would always sit around the...
	When they would leave, I would...
	When my parents would leave, or...
	The whole family was gone.
	I would feel a great sense of relief, but still anxious, just like I do now.
	And just like a relief, like, oh, finally I can be alone, but then I just felt anxious the whole time.
	And when you were alone, so if your parents would go out, would they leave you with particular instructions, or would you have unstructured, they'd say, do what you feel like, and we'll be back in two hours?
	Well, it was kind of Do what I feel like.
	It wasn't structured at all.
	It was like, do what I feel like.
	It's like, well, I can get away with as much as I can while they're gone.
	So they didn't leave you with lists of chores and stuff to get done?
	Not always, no.
	No, not always. Okay, and how did you experience that solitude when you were a child, when your parents would go out?
	As an opportunity to...
	Do whatever I wanted to do, I guess.
	But you didn't feel the anxiety that you feel now as an adult when you're on your own, right?
	Oh yes, I did.
	Because I was always worried about them coming back.
	Okay, I got it.
	So they would come back or they would catch you and I still feel this, right?
	I still feel this to this day sometimes.
	If I'm really deep in concentration and I'm doing something, if Christina comes home unexpectedly, I feel nervous.
	Just for a moment, right?
	And that's simply because whatever I was doing, When I was a kid, and I'm not trying to sort of layer my experience on you.
	Whatever I was doing when I was a kid was scorned.
	It was not good.
	It was bad. If I was sitting there reading, it was like, it's such a beautiful day.
	Why aren't you outside? If I was watching TV, it's like, oh, you're always watching TV. Why don't you do something else?
	If I was building a model plane, it'd be like, oh, you're just war-obsessed.
	Whatever I did, Was criticized.
	Right, because I would sit...
	I mean, back then, well, computers weren't all that big of a deal, but I would get a chance to play around on the one computer we had, which wasn't much to do on there, or it was Nintendo, or Atari, or something like that, or I'd be watching cartoons, or just sitting around doing something that they didn't like.
	Anything. It didn't matter what it was.
	Whatever it was, it wasn't right.
	Right. So for you to be alone is, in a sense, more scary, because at least when other people are around, you know what you have to do.
	You have to scan, and you have to please, and you have to avoid problems, right?
	But when you're alone, the danger is that you're going to get...
	You're going to forget your danger, right?
	And you're going to get involved in whatever it is that you're doing, and you're going to let your guard down, right?
	And that causes a great deal of anxiety, and I bet you dollars to donuts that you would do an enormous amount in your life to avoid letting your guard down, right?
	Because every time you let your guard down, wham!
	Right? Something really terrible would happen in your household when you were growing up, right?
	Exactly, because... I always wondered why, you know, when I'm, like, sitting there, back when I was, you know, single before, I did have a roommate, but he would come in and out, and I still have one, I don't know where he is right now, but he appears randomly and disappears again, so there's not much interaction.
	Sorry, do other people see this roommate?
	My ex never really saw him very often, no.
	Oh, but she did see him.
	Yes, he's there.
	Okay, good. I just wanted to check the invisible friend theory, but please, go on.
	No, the several hundred dollars he leaves laying on my keyboard every now and then is not unreal.
	Excellent. But, yeah, when I'm sitting there watching TV and I'm alone, I get this Just this really anxious feeling like I'm wasting time.
	I'm wasting time or I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing.
	I should be doing something else. I don't know what it is.
	You said a little while back that after you got divorced that you spent two years playing EverQuest, right?
	Right, and I would feel the same way.
	Like, oh my god, I have this existential dread that my precious life is dripping away in video games and I have nothing to show for it and this and that and the other, right?
	Right. Right, and life is about happiness, right?
	And of course we don't want to end up homeless because we're playing video games, but I certainly play for half an hour a day sometimes, right?
	And maybe an hour if I'm really having a great game.
	And it's good for the brain.
	It's good for the hand-eye coordination.
	It's fun. And it's not to the exclusion of things that I could get done as well.
	It's a form of relaxation for me.
	And so, I mean, obviously there's nothing objectively wrong.
	It's not like you're saying, well, you know, I have this hobby called skinning cats and somehow people get upset, right?
	I mean, this is not a negative or bad thing.
	It's just something that you enjoy and life is about happiness and it's not coming at anybody else's expense or whatever.
	So... But the issue is that if you feel anxious because you're alone, it's because you are used or you've been trained to not have any regard for your own interests,
	but only to manage other people, to keep them pacified, to keep them mollified, and that When people come into your life who are hypercritical, and when you're a kid, your parents come in and just, whatever you're doing is bad or wrong or stupid or immature or silly or whatever, right? Whatever you do is bad or wrong.
	Then what happens is that you internalize that, and then you feel guilty when anyone comes home, right?
	No matter what you're doing. Maybe I should be wallpapering.
	Maybe I should be learning Tai Chi.
	Maybe I should be kickboxing. Maybe I should be refinishing the furniture.
	I should be antiquing. Whatever it is that you are doing in a relaxed state is going to be attacked, right?
	Right. Right.
	And I would always get this...
	When I was single between...
	When I'm always between girlfriend legs...
	I would feel like I need to get out of the house and go somewhere, and I never know where I'm going.
	It's usually, I go to a restaurant or something where I can eat, but eating is just like something to do that isn't sitting at home.
	And there's never anything that I know of that I want to do other than sit at home.
	Or if I don't go out, then, you know, I don't meet anybody that's worth meeting, that's cool, or, you know, just And if I go hang with my friends, it's just kind of this empty group of people that I don't entirely enjoy hanging around, but they're just people to hang around.
	And I never meet anybody.
	Right. And so, you know, as we've talked about individually and sort of as a group, There's no external solution to the problem of anxiety or insecurity or any of these sorts of things.
	Going out isn't going to solve the problem of not feeling comfortable in your own skin.
	And the only thing to do is, I mean, obviously therapy is good and all that, and there's nothing I need to say about that, but when we feel anxiety approaching, we need to grit our teeth and embrace it.
	So if you're home and you're feeling anxious, you need to not go out.
	And you need to say, anxiety, ride me, you bitch.
	Right? Come on in!
	I'm gonna lay out the table, and we're gonna sit here and have a conversation.
	Right? Run me over.
	Run me over. Put me in the back of the Buick and drive me over to Tony Soprano's house.
	Whatever it is you're gonna do to me, Mr.
	Anxiety, do it.
	Right, there's that.
	Would writing about it do anything?
	I think that writing about it could do something, but I think that you have a tendency to intellectualize your emotions, as we all do, right?
	All of us, like, propeller-head philosopher guys, right?
	So I think that there are certain, I mean, meditation can be useful, but unfortunately meditation is around trying to bypass or sort of, quote, rise above your feelings, which is not possible.
	But I would try, if I were you, to simply, you know, put on some, some sort of, I don't know, the pan flute, Zemfurgaio, some quiet music that's not got vocals in it, right?
	So it's not distracting from a language standpoint.
	And try... You know when you're trying to start a fire and you're sort of blowing on it?
	And you don't want to blow too hard to get the embers because if you blow too hard, you're going to scatter the fire.
	But you don't want to blow too softly.
	So what you do is you start a little breath and you sort of...
	You know, you blow harder to get the fire to go up.
	And that's a metaphor that's always been helpful for me in terms of...
	When I feel anxious or negative or hostile, I want to embrace that feeling because that feeling is a part of me and it's here to help.
	But I don't want to exaggerate it either, but I want to sort of let it inhabit me.
	I want to, like, sit it down for dinner and, you know, listen to what it's got to say.
	Because if I don't listen, it's just going to keep pounding, so to speak, on the door.
	So you let those feelings come into you and you try, not artificially, but you try to maximize those feelings.
	What can I think of that's going to make me more anxious?
	What can I think of?
	What disaster scenarios can I think of?
	And this is not to freak yourself out or anything, but it is to say, I'm not going to fight this anxiety with distraction.
	Because, as you know, it doesn't work, right?
	Oh, no, it doesn't.
	Right, it just makes it chronic.
	Right? So, the knocks on the doors, assuming it's not Christina's parents, the knocks on the doors, we just have to answer.
	I mean, we can leave the house by the back door and we can go, but when we come back, that knocking is still going on, right?
	Because that knocking is simply the truth of your experience.
	And the truth of your experience is that you had the shit skid out of you as a child for very many years.
	And you were humiliated and controlled and attacked.
	And that is the truth of your experience.
	And of course you're going to feel anxious.
	It's perfectly healthy to feel anxious when you've gone through that kind of experience and, you know, for the next two-thirds of your life, you need to take a different road than trying to manage that, right?
	Because if you manage that by saying, well, I feel anxious about being alone or I feel like I'm doing the wrong thing, then what I need to do is go and be with someone because that person then can't criticize me because it's like, well, you can't criticize me for being at the movies because we were both at the movies, if that makes sense.
	Right, right. Nate, I just wanted to add that when you have that kind of feeling of anxiety, this is key, it's just a feeling, and the feeling can't hurt you.
	I mean, the feeling might be intense at times, but it's just a feeling and it can't hurt you, and this is true of all our emotions.
	And one of the things that you might want to try and do is just to recognize that this is a feeling, to be more objective about the feeling, How anxious am I on a scale of 1 to 10?
	I've had this feeling before.
	These are the physiological symptoms that go with it.
	These are the thoughts that I'm having that are associated with this.
	But it's just a feeling, and I'm in no danger whatsoever.
	And to just, you know, be very calm with yourself in terms of your self-talk, it's just a feeling.
	I feel nervous. I feel edgy.
	My heart's racing a little bit, but I'm not in any physical danger.
	I'm not in any... Any sort of present danger or existential danger is just a feeling.
	It's just a feeling based on whatever it is that I'm telling myself in this moment.
	If I can figure out what I'm saying to myself in this moment, then I can challenge that.
	But there's no danger as if there would be danger to you if there was a black bear standing in front of you.
	Right, and nobody's going to, well, whenever she moves out, I guess nobody's going to be coming home to...
	To berate you, or to criticize you, or to be sarcastic, or to try and manipulate you in any way.
	Right, right, that makes a lot of sense.
	So it's just a feeling, and if you can just sort of look at it objectively, like rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, how anxious am I? And that way you can also take a look at, over time, is the anxiety going up, is the anxiety going down, and how is that related to whatever it is that you're doing in the moment in terms of what you're saying to yourself about the anxiety?
	Like if I'm watching TV, and typically, you know, I have like five shows that I watch that I like.
	Some of them I don't like as much as others.
	This is the new season.
	I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to drop.
	But just sitting there watching these shows, I don't feel the anxiety then.
	It's usually when I'm watching some show that it's just there to pass the time or something, or so I can eat and have something going on, or something like that.
	I don't really...
	I guess, I don't know.
	I guess, yeah, you're right, it's just a constant scanning for somebody to come home and tell me what I'm doing wrong.
	Right, and I mean, the logical reaction to that is that, you know, aside from your roommate, once she's gone, nobody else has a key, nobody else can enter, nobody can come into, this is your personal space.
	You're perfectly safe there.
	Right. And you just need to continue to tell yourself that.
	Look at the facts of reality.
	So, um...
	Alright, I'll try all those tips with the pan flute music and the...
	Does it have to be pan flute?
	No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I'll try that.
	Like, I shouldn't distract myself, though, with, like...
	Another television show or a game or something like that.
	Well no, the whole point is to break out of the rules.
	There is no ideal way to spend your time.
	I mean, assuming you're not currently stabbing a kitten, right, and I don't hear anything, there's no ideal way to spend your time.
	If you feel like watching a TV show, if that's going to make you happy, then watch a TV show.
	If you feel anxious while you're watching that TV show, you need to figure out if it's because you're afraid someone's going to jump in, and reasonably, based on your history, you're afraid that somebody's going to jump in, And say, what the hell are you doing watching this trash?
	Do something productive, for God's sakes, right?
	If that's the feeling, then you need to TiVo the TV program and sit and examine that feeling and say, no, I just feel like watching a TV program, so that's what I'm going to do.
	There's no ideal, perfect map about how it is we're supposed to spend every moment of every day.
	It's not like, well, I'm going to learn Japanese, and then I'm going to learn how to do the Karachi, and then I'm going to, you know, whatever, right?
	Learn Katakali sword fighting, and...
	There is no ideal, perfect, wonderful, magical, if I do this I will feel content and fulfilled way to spend our time.
	And if you feel, like you're watching TV, you feel anxious because you're afraid someone's going to come in and criticize you, then you say, well, no one's going to come in and criticize me.
	This is my goddamn life.
	If I want to watch a TV show, damn it, I'm an adult, I'm over 21, I'm going to watch the goddamn TV show.
	But if you're feeling anxious because you feel that you're distracting yourself with a TV show that you're not really enjoying, then turn it off and feel the anxiety.
	I see. Alright.
	Yeah, I guess that says everything.
	I don't know if I can add any more to that.
	And no chemicals, even the naturally occurring ones.
	Yes. No, no, I'm actually...
	How many weeks has it been?
	After 14 years of, like, you know, of that, it's been four weeks.
	Wow. I'm moved by that.
	That is an amazing and incredible thing.
	I think that you should just be wildly and enormously and enthusiastically proud of yourself, especially given the challenging situation that you're going through interpersonally.
	I am moved. I am an emotional person and I am emotioned by this thing.
	I got goosebumps and I just think you should be unbelievably proud of that decision because that is one of the chains off the lock, right?
	Right. It's very different.
	I'm not used to that.
	And in fact, my only experience without it is like, there's a lot of good things about it because I don't feel like I'm disoriented or something, just something else to feel anxious about.
	Then I just feel even more anxious and just sort of You know, it didn't do anything for me.
	Right, but I mean, we get into these habits, right, of this is what I do, right, and it becomes hard to disentangle that, right?
	We have personalities that glom onto habits and make those habits our personalities, which is how we sort of sink into cliché, but I just think it's, I mean, I just, I'm blown away.
	I think you should just be incredibly proud of yourself.
	And I think that it's a massive step forward.
	And I think that you will now be able to not self-medicate your feelings away, to deal with them, to accept them.
	We say look out for each other.
	Our feelings are trying to look out for us too.
	And your feelings of anxiety are there.
	They are there to help you.
	And this is the counterintuitive thing that we have to do.
	We have to go to the dentist when our tooth hurts and it's going to hurt more.
	But we have to do these counterintuitive things, and we have to embrace feelings that, in a sense, we should reject.
	I mean, that's what we have a rational consciousness for, is to make those decisions.
	And I just think, I mean, I'll shut up and just say that for what it's worth, I'm amazingly impressed and awed by that, because I know that that's an enormously challenging thing to do.
	Or not do, I guess, right in that case.
	Yeah, it's...
	I keep thinking, you know, well, it's not always easy to go get, which makes it easier.
	It's not, like, easily accessible or anything like that.
	It's not just...
	It's not like alcohol is, where it's just there.
	But I'm not a big alcohol fan, so...
	That I have an easier time with, because, you know, I may have a beer with a meal, but...
	I don't have much of a...
	It's a strong attachment to that.
	I like the taste and that's about it.
	The other was much harder to let go of.
	Yeah, no, I mean, there's physical addiction, there's psychological addiction, there's emotional addiction, and I mean, I think that, especially given what you're going through, I just think, I mean, I don't think you could have made a better decision as far as that goes, and I just got to tell you that I'm just, I'm awed and wildly impressed by this.
	Yeah, it's funny that she just hasn't noticed at all.
	I don't know why, but she just didn't notice.
	I seriously doubt she would even notice.
	It didn't make any sense. Well, maybe...
	Greg says I know why, so...
	can you tell me why I know why apparently I know why Why? Well, I'm guessing that if I understand what Mr.
	G is saying, if she did notice, wouldn't she have to say something positive?
	Oh. Yeah, that would be bad for her.
	Because we're talking about this mythology that we make up about somebody's just a bad person.
	I feel upset when someone says something, so the solution is for them to never say that again.
	And I feel mad when someone does something, so the solution is not for me to deal with my feelings, but for that person to never do that again.
	And so you get boxed in by these particular things.
	And then when people have portrayed you as a bad person, they don't want to give you praise, right?
	That's painful, and that threatens the whole mythology, right?
	So that would be my guess, and Greg, is that right?
	Is that what you're going to say? Yeah, you can't be seen as getting better.
	Oh, by her. By her, yeah.
	No, that would condemn her.
	Did you hear the stuff at the beginning when I was talking about that if somebody is happier when they're not with us, that is very disconcerting to people, right?
	Right, that really upsets her that I'm getting happier in the sense that I'm going through this chemotherapy but it's killing the cancer off.
	You know, I'm happy that it's killing the cancer off and stuff.
	Because, you know, the other day I was so excited, I think that was Friday, when I emailed you and Greg about, you know, I don't have to, I can approve of what I do because I like it.
	And I don't need people to give me the thumbs up and pat me on the back and say, I don't need people to validate whether or not I'm doing the right thing.
	I get to validate that myself, and you said that you were proud of the work you did on the UPB book, and I thought that's kind of along the lines of what I just kind of figured out.
	I don't have to fish for whether I'm right or wrong with somebody else all the time.
	Right, and of course the problem with that approach to life is that healthy people don't want to have that power over you.
	A healthy person...
	If I come home and I'm feeling crabby about something, and I am in the family officially known as Cranky Pants, in the Cranky Shorts these days, but if I come home and I'm feeling upset about something, If Christina's entire mood crashes and she's like, oh, you know, I'm just the worst wife ever and this marriage isn't going to work.
	That's way too much power for my mood, which I'm generally not.
	I mean, I'm not a very moody person at all.
	But if I'm upset about something, if Christina crashes...
	That's annoying for me. I mean, she doesn't, right?
	But if she did, right, then it would be annoying for me, because it's like, well, why has this suddenly become about you?
	Like, all I have is a feeling, and now you're reacting so strongly that it's like, I can't have this feeling, I'm going to go manage you, right?
	Right, and the same thing would happen with her, because I would go, um...
	Like, if I were to tell her, you know, what's going on right now, well, I'm not going to...
	She keeps telling me that I'm going out on dates with other girls, which I'm not.
	There's nobody. And...
	I'm going to hang out with some friends, you know, just to tell them about the story, but that's about it.
	And, you know, my quote friends, I guess.
	But then if I were to tell her that the problem, the reason I'm not going to date it is because I don't want to fill the gaping hole in my heart with somebody else.
	I want to figure it out and deal with it.
	I'm not going to use somebody to manage those emotions.
	She's going to, she's not going to be concerned about the hole in my heart She's going to be concerned about that I used her...
	Oh, so you just used me to fill the hole in your heart.
	Right, right. So you don't get to have a feeling and have it listened to and talked about because everything gets taken so personally and everything gets so hysterical, right?
	Right, exactly. That's how she would react to everything.
	She was never curious or concerned about what I was going through or what I was trying to deal with.
	She was never curious.
	She... Right, right.
	So if you're honest about what you're thinking or feeling, that's wrong, right?
	So what are you supposed to do? Pretend or fake like you have no feelings or don't have any problems?
	I mean, that's never going to work, right?
	So if you are really dependent upon other people's approval for your self-esteem, Then that's a big, huge warning flag for healthy people to stay away from you, right?
	Which is why the internalization of your own standards, with rational, you know, double checks, right?
	I mean, if I drew a picture of a cat in crayon and said I've solved the problem of ethics, then that would not be...
	A particularly healthy way to do it because, I mean, it should be a dog in graphite.
	So if you surrender that kind of power to other people, you will draw controlling or destructive people into your life.
	And so when you have your own standards, right, self-esteem is the ultimate shield.
	If you have your own standards and say, I have good reason to believe that this is the right thing and this is the good thing and I have good people in my life who are going to watch my back if I go awry, Therefore, I know that I'm doing the right thing.
	I have that as my own standard.
	I'm not dependent then.
	It doesn't mean that I don't like praise or anything, but it's not foundational.
	My existence is not justified by other people's good or bad opinion.
	That way, people can be in my life and have opinions, and I can actually listen to them.
	Right, and I nearly went awry again last night.
	You kind of stepped in and said, hey, you probably shouldn't be doing that.
	And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.
	I'd I need to shut up now.
	Right. Not only that, I was walking in the mall yesterday and I basically just sort of came to this exact same conclusion that you're talking about here, about the improving of yourself.
	I went to the mall mainly because I know I feel really anxious in malls.
	And when I walk around, I was trying to figure out, why am I feeling anxious in here?
	You know, I'm kind of looking around.
	I went to look at the Mac Pros or the 30-inch cinema displays and stuff like that just to check them out and stuff like that.
	But I realized it had something to do with the way I looked.
	I was worried about the way I walked, the way I looked, the way I... The way I had my facial expression, what other people were thinking of me, and I was like, well, wait a minute, what does that have to do with who I am and what I do?
	And every time I give in to somebody who comes to me because of the way I look, I reaffirm something about That's the most valuable thing about me, the way I look, not who I am.
	Or if I portray myself as this or that.
	Right, and fundamentally, I think what you're rounding the corner to see, Nate, is that retaining your own judgment of yourself, in essence, sets those around you free.
	Right? Yeah, I never saw it backwards like that.
	I thought I was setting myself free, but...
	No, because if you need other people to validate your choices or your decisions or your existence, if you need them, then you have to control them.
	Right. Right. Which gives them control over me?
	Well, sure, but you're giving them, right?
	So when we give other people control over us, we then have to start manipulating them.
	So when you internalize your own standards, again, according with rational and empirical evidence and reasoning, but when you internalize your own standards, you set other people free from having to manage you.
	Aha. They must get that unconsciously when they pass me by or when they're sitting near me.
	There must be something that attracts these people to me.
	You must have been in your life around somebody that you feel is totally self-conscious.
	Well, all my exes were self-conscious and insecure.
	And when you're around people who are that self-conscious and insecure, how do you feel?
	Self-conscious and insecure.
	Right. So their self-consciousness and insecurity is infecting.
	And they show this in many ways.
	It's in their body language.
	It's in their glances. It's in their, you know, the laugh that seems kind of forced.
	And it's in their insistence.
	And, right, it's in their unease with themselves.
	Because when we're uneasy with ourselves...
	It's invasive towards other people.
	Because you know when you're around somebody who's really self-conscious that they need you to do something to make them feel better.
	And so when you stop using people that way and you stop trying to get people to make you feel better, you're actually setting them free.
	And if you focus on setting them free and say that my goal is to liberate everyone I meet, even if it's 1%.
	Because if you are not...
	Totally concerned with how other people view you, then they're freer just by being around you.
	And in these tiny, powerful ways, this is how we build a state, the society, brick by brick, is we set people free perpetually and continually every time we interact with them.
	So when I do these videos, right, I do these videos where I'm laughing and giggling, I'm trying, I mean not trying consciously or being manipulative, but I'm trying to show people that this is what freedom can look like, that this is what self-expression can look like.
	Because I'm not looking in the camera saying, love me, approve of me, you know, I want you to think that I'm a good person.
	And because I'm, as I talked about in the public speaking video, I'm trying to introduce something to them, and it's not about me.
	There's a liberty that is fundamentally embedded in my interactions with people that's much more powerful than anything I say.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Yeah. Because a lot of my writing in the past is just sort of...
	Unless it's been edited by my friend who...
	I mean, he's a good editor, but he kind of perfects it into oblivion.
	But we always end up taking out what seems kind of needy, right?
	I need somebody to approve or something.
	I don't know, there's some kind of irrelevancy that gets put in there that has nothing to do with the point or the idea.
	No, and I think that's right.
	I think that's right. And people are very, very sensitive to feeling manipulated.
	And I think that one of the reasons that people also like the podcast is because there is a kind of freedom in the communication that I perform or have in the podcast, right?
	I'm not freaking out about how people are going to receive it.
	Or if I am, I'm honest about it.
	So that takes other people off the hook.
	If you were feeling really self-conscious at a party and you walked up to people and you said, you know, this is ridiculous.
	I'm totally obsessed with whether you think I'm attractive or whether you think I'm a good person or whether you think I'm a bad person or whatever, right?
	I mean, that behavior would stop pretty quickly, right?
	Right, because that would be like being honest.
	Yeah, that would be being honest, right?
	But we always try and grab something like a pickpocket without saying, can you give me something?
	Because if we openly say, I know that I've only met you for 30 seconds, but I really feel that I need you to date me so that I feel good about myself as a human being, right?
	That would sound ludicrous to ourselves, right?
	What would that sound like to them, depending on what kind of...
	Well, it would be lunatic for them as well, right?
	But that's the honest interaction.
	But if you make it conscious and explicit, I'm not saying you should do it.
	I think you mean do it in your head, right?
	But if you make it conscious and explicit, then the foolishness of it, which is only foolish because you're an adult and you're not a kid, you're dependent on your parents.
	It's clear that that becomes a more foolish kind of interaction, right?
	Because obviously you'd say, the reason you wouldn't say that to someone is, clearly, if you've just met someone, and you've been around for 34, 35 years, you've just met them, and now your whole self-esteem is dependent upon their approval, that, you know, if you make that conscious and speak it openly, it's too ludicrous to be supported, right? It only gets supported by hiding it from people.
	But wouldn't making that, like, something open...
	Wouldn't that spark up a whole conversation and kind of take that away?
	Well, no, because when you make it conscious with someone, then you're putting a pretty heavy burden on them, right?
	If you speak it that openly, it's less of a burden than if you're doing it unconsciously.
	And I'm just sort of putting this out as a thought experiment, right?
	That if you're at the mall and you're thinking like, my God, do people think I look good or bad?
	If you think of stopping everyone you meet and saying, do you think I look good?
	Is that okay? Like, I know I don't know you, but do I look good?
	How does my ass look in these pants?
	You know, are my calves too fat? Like, how is that going, right?
	I mean, clearly, that would not be something that would be sustainable, right?
	It would be a silly thing to do, right?
	And so if it's a silly thing to do explicitly, then it's a silly thing to do implicitly, too.
	Right. No, this is all just coming to a major breakthrough, I think.
	I mean, it's taken this long, and I think I've set up traps to keep me from progressing through this, I mean, obviously.
	I've set up my own traps to stop myself.
	I don't know how I did it, I just don't know why.
	I guess I know why, too, because it's kind of sickening.
	I don't want to do it.
	Right, and of course, this is when we change, right?
	It's when we simply can't stand doing it anymore.
	Like, whatever the habits are, when we simply can't take another step forward in life and still continue to do the same things, that's when we change.
	Not when we just want to or think it's a good idea, but when we just can't do it anymore.
	Right. Well, I've wasted, like, another...
	Well, not wasted. Definitely not wasted.
	That's a bad word. Consumed.
	Right. I've assumed a lot of your time here.
	No, you've consumed a lot. And that's fine.
	That's my choice, right? You don't get to tell me whether my time was spent wisely or not.
	That's my choice to make, right?
	You've got to set me free from that.
	All right. Thank you.
	I really do appreciate that.
	Congratulations massively, of course, on the decisions that you've made from a pharmaceutical standpoint.
	Well done. Well done.
	Well done. And thank you, everybody, so much for sticking through as a long show.
	I think it was a very good one, but we'll see when we post it.
	So, thanks again so much, everyone.
	Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.
	Pick up 12 copies of my books and get them to as many people as you can.
	If you want bulk copies, talk to me.
	Lulu only kicks in bulk at 28 copies or more.
	I can get them cheaper as the author, so talk to me and we'll figure out a good way to get them to you at a reasonable price, at a cut rate.
	Thanks again, everybody, so much for listening.
	I will talk to everybody next week, if not sooner.

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