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Dec. 18, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:05:11
943 Armies and Propaganda (A listener conversation)

Finding the roots of a current conflict in personal history...

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Time Text
Hello? Hi.
Can you hear me? I sure can.
Can you hear me? Yes.
All right. Okay. So, sorry that Ricky can't make it.
But why don't you sort of tell me what your experience of the conflict that you guys had was?
Well, from my perspective, I think we kind of started off Sure, sure.
And what was it?
Perhaps you can just sort of, because I'm not going to read out the chat that you sent me, but perhaps you could give me, or whoever may end up listening to this if that's alright with you, a discussion or sort of the general discussion that occurred between you and Ricky.
Okay. Well, he had mentioned that he was...
Deleting all his websites and that he shaved his head and was doing these kind of things that seemed odd to me, all these behaviors that once seemed kind of weird to me.
So I was kind of asking him why he was doing that and if it was connected.
And then I ended up concluding that Maybe there was something else, you know, deeper issue going on for him there because his answer seemed to be a little evasive to me and not really an explanation of why he was doing what he was doing.
And then we got into this debate of whether or not having bad habits means that there's some larger personal issue and that's kind of when it sort of got off course.
Right. I mean, you guys definitely drifted fairly far from what was ostensibly the original topic, right?
So the original topic was, Ricky, you're making some significant changes in your life, which seem, given that they are, like he says, oh, I don't like taking care of my hair.
Tell me about it. But he's talking about that sort of stuff and that he doesn't like to respond to Facebook messages and so on.
So he's deleted his account, he's shaved his head.
And for you, that indicates a break, if I understand it rightly, and just correct me as I go along, that indicates a break with prior behavior.
And the question is, can you have a break with a prior behavior that is not implicitly a criticism of that prior behavior?
Right. Yes.
And his opinion was a little bit along the lines of, no, not particularly, I just felt like a change kind of thing?
Yeah. And that was not your opinion, right?
Right. And so you were trying to, I mean, your questions were fairly blunt, which is not the end of the world, but your questions were fairly blunt.
But I could sort of sense you're increasing frustration because of your perception of his evasiveness, right?
Yes. And his evasiveness, as you pointed out at one point in the chat, that he was framing the conversation, right?
So you would ask him a direct question and he would respond with a philosophical abstract?
Yeah. Yeah. So you guys were kind of engaged in a sort of abstract thumb wars, if that makes any sense.
You know, when you've got to, you know, if you've ever played that game, you sort of grab each other and you try and trap each other's thumb under each other.
Yeah, that's definitely what it felt like.
Sure, sure. I understand that.
I understand that. So, obviously, that's not fun, right?
And the chat window is a very interesting place, and I'm very glad that we have it.
It's not the cheapest thing in the world, but I'm very glad that we have it because it does give people a chance to take these ideas that we talk about here out for a spin, right, and sort of see what works and see what doesn't.
And, of course, it is a place where the stakes are relatively high because if you end up in some, Horrible blow-up with someone, then it becomes a less inviting place to be, and it's generally quite a fun place to be, right?
Right. Oh, this didn't take place in the chat room.
Oh, this was just an MSN thing?
Yes. Got it, got it.
Okay. Now, what was your motivation, do you know or do you think, in pursuing this topic with him?
Well, I think, I mean, I would say right now I was a little bit worried about it because I thought it had to do with something else and, you know, I was just kind of worried about him and, you know, why he was doing all this.
Okay, and were you sure That your worry about him was in fact about him.
Were you certain of that?
And this is a bit of a leading question because it's hard to be certain about our own motivations.
Yeah. But did you genuinely feel that his best interests were the uppermost in your mind?
I would think so, but I'm not sure, I guess, now that you ask.
Okay, because it's been my experience, and this is just my experience, it doesn't mean it's right or anything, but it's been my experience that when you approach someone with genuine benevolence, i.e.
without any kind of unconscious agenda or without trying to manage your own anxiety, none of which I'm saying you're doing.
But it's been my experience that when you approach somebody with, I don't know, some pure out-of-body benevolence kind of thing, where their best interest is what you genuinely have in your heart, that's irresistible.
Like that is something that it's like walking through a wall, right?
Because people are very defensive about certain things.
And the more right you are to be concerned, the more defensive they'll tend to get, right?
That's what's so frustrating about trying to help people.
Because somebody, like if you point out somebody's problematic behavior, and they're like, oh yeah, I see that, that makes sense, thanks very much, then it's not really that big a problem, right?
But it's the people who have defenses that are hard to penetrate that we want to help the most, right?
And that's what's so frustrating.
Right.
Right.
So it's been my experience that if there's no agenda and if you simply are there to try and understand somebody else, but not to push your opinion onto them, and particularly in a manner that may be unconscious, it's kind of irresistible.
And of course, since you have, I truly believe, a benevolent and laudable desire to want to help people, it would be great if you had these irresistible Jedi tricks to actually get what you want, which is to really help people, right?
Right, absolutely. Okay, so let's see if we can't sharpen your shiv a little bit, your defense shiv a little bit, and see if you can't find a way to get through to this.
Okay, so Ricky says, MySpace and Shave in the Head and so on, and what is your feeling in response to that?
Just kind of... Confusion, I guess, or bewilderment.
At first, I don't know, maybe it was...
Yeah, at first I wasn't really, like, afraid about it when he first mentioned it.
But you were concerned, right?
Yes, I was concerned.
And what was your...
Let's trot out the disaster scenario, right?
Because in every bit of concern that we have...
There is a disaster scenario, right?
So if I'm staring at a piece of cheesecake, I have a disaster scenario called I'm going to get fat My wife won't love me anymore.
I'll die of a heart attack, and I won't look good in a bathing suit.
Or whatever, right? I mean, there's always some...
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, at least I hope it's not, because it does happen.
But there is a disaster scenario that we have.
So in your mind, when Ricky starts talking about this kind of stuff, what is the scenario that is the worst case scenario for what he's doing?
Now that I think about it, it seemed that, because he had mentioned before that there was this person that he just kind of, you know, got, like, his depression took over and he stopped talking to this person out of nowhere, and I thought, like, maybe...
Sorry, I just wondered, there were too many hises there.
So, Ricky had a friend whose depression took over and Ricky stopped talking to this person?
No, no, he had a depression.
Ricky had a depression. And he stopped talking to this woman, yes.
Right, I see, okay.
And so I thought maybe if he's going through some sort of emotional thing that he's not wanting to talk about, it's going to just escalate and he's going to do something to hurt himself.
First, he'll stop talking to me, he'll stop talking to everybody, and then he'll end up hurting himself somehow.
Right. I mean, the extreme case being, and I'm not saying that this was imminent in your mind, but you throw himself off a bridge or something like that, right?
Right, yeah. Okay, so you feel alarm, which of course is perfectly understandable given the thoughts.
You feel alarm that these may be the early warning signs of some self-destructive binge.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And that's alarming, right?
Yes. Now, did you feel this relatively early on?
Like when he said he was doing this, did you feel this alarm beforehand?
Like sort of when he started saying it?
Yeah, I did. Okay.
Okay, so here's jujitsu move number one.
Now... The real-time relationship idea, and I'm sorry to be so annoying about this, but this is what I'm working on.
This is the book I'm working on, so I'm afraid this is all the advice I'm going to be able to give at the moment, but I think it'll be helpful.
Yeah, sure. What would be the most, if you were aware of this in the moment, right, that you felt anxiety that this may be the sort of the little snowflake rolling down the hill that's going to turn into the massive avalanche that buries the city called Ricky or something, what would be the most honest thing you could say in response to him saying, delete my MySpace and shave my head or whatever?
Well, probably that this kind of really worries me.
Well, what do you mean?
And I agree with that, right?
So you would say to him, I feel scared, right?
Yeah. I feel scared.
Now, at that point, do you know whether his behavior is what is scaring you or whether your fear is a combination of his behavior plus something else?
No, I really don't. Right, so what's the most honest way that you could frame your experience of his communication?
By saying that I'm not sure if it's anything you're doing, but I feel scared when you tell me that.
Right. And that is the kind of – I mean, in looking through the chat that you sent me, I didn't see that.
And now, of course, why would I, right?
I mean, I'm trying to sort of invent this new thing called radical honesty or the real-time relationship.
So there's no reason why I would see it.
In fact, if I did see it, it would be hugely disappointing to me.
But just kidding. But that would be a way of saying, Ricky, when you say this, I experience fear and concern.
Now, I have no idea whether the fear and concern that I'm feeling is anything realistic to do with you, but this is what I'm honestly feeling.
Because there could be six million different reasons why you would feel fear about what Ricky is saying, right?
Right. For instance, it could be someone in your past acted in a self-destructive manner.
It could be that you yourself have gone through this.
It could be that someone in your family has gone through this.
It could also be that Ricky himself is not conscious of his own fear and anxiety and thus is telling you things and you're feeling his feelings.
Can you explain that a little bit more?
Yeah, sorry, that was completely baffling.
I'm baffling. I'm even baffling myself, so there's no way that you're going to make any sense of that.
So what I mean is that I don't know if you've ever had anybody in your life who is a daredevil or who has a kind of terrifying bravado.
Yeah. So guys who will, like, jump in a car drunk and drive somewhere.
I'm not saying, but someone who does things that are just...
And then what they'll do...
Right.
completely bombed, went to this guy's house and, you know, we rutted like a pair of rabbit squirrels all night long or something like that.
And they don't say this with any sense of concern or fear for themselves.
Right.
There are also people who, you know, they just engage in unhealthy activities, right, Whether it's like, you know, I ate half a pie or, you know, whatever it is, right?
And they'll say this with no sense of concern, no sense of anxiety for themselves, right?
And when we're in the presence of somebody who is engaging in risky behavior, but who is not feeling any of that risk, what is the most likely thing that's going to occur for us?
That we're going to feel that.
Right. So we're going to feel anxiety on their behalf.
In other words, we're going to be feeling the anxiety that they don't feel, right?
This is why personal relationships, it's so important to have people with integrity and honesty in your life because otherwise you spend your whole life like locked in a rolling barrel with feral cats basically trying to manage everyone's emotions around you.
Because what generally happens is that somebody will say, I did this dangerous thing, ha, ha, ha, whatever, right?
And they won't feel anything about it, so you end up feeling all of the anxiety, and then you say, that seems really scary or dangerous or whatever, and what do they then say?
That it's not, or they just contradict you.
They poo-poo you, right? Yeah.
Sorry to use an elderly phrase.
What they will do is they will say, I did this terrifying and dangerous thing, and they will have no emotion about it, no sense of caution.
And then you will say, that's scary and dangerous, and they will say, bah, nonsense, right?
Right. So they're using you to manage their own feelings.
As in they want you to say that so that they can just argue with you about it?
No, not argue. Just reject it.
So if I'm engaging in dangerous behavior and I can't feel...
My own fear or caution, which every human being who's not totally psychotic has, then one very effective management strategy for my own emotions is to stimulate those emotions in you and then reject those emotions in you because I'm rejecting them in myself already.
Right? Right.
So, another common tactic that people do in this area is, I was just chatting with somebody in the chat window about this, is that if a woman, say, feels trapped and frustrated in her environment, then what she will sometimes do, and this has happened in the chat window, she'll say to other and this has happened in the chat window, she'll say to other people, I have this terrible situation that I'm stuck I'm stuck living with my mom or whatever, right?
And then other people will say, well, you could do this, or you could do that, or you could do the other.
And then she'll say, no, I can't do this because of this, and I can't do that because of the other, and I can't do the other because of that, right?
And what that does is that provokes frustration in other people.
Right. Right. Right?
And then she'll say, well, this isn't about you.
Or, you know, it's a trap, right?
I mean, I think you said, I don't have to go into too much detail.
I think you kind of understand this mechanic, right?
Yeah. So that's just another way of saying, and sorry, a long way of saying that if Ricky is, I have no idea, but if he is starting down a path towards some sort of self-destructive behavior, Then he may be expressing it to you in order to provoke,
and unconsciously, not because he's a bad guy, he's a great guy, but he may be expressing alarming signals to you, alarming you thereby, and then rejecting your alarm, right?
Right. Because the purpose of helping someone who can't feel something is not for you to feel it, right?
Uh-huh. But for that person to feel it, right?
Yes. So there's a technique in therapy, which is pretty commonly known in therapeutic circles, right?
Which is, you know, the traditional thing of the therapist does not freak out, right?
When the person tells you something, right?
The therapist is supposed to say, you know, that's interesting, I understand, tell me more, and so on.
And they are not supposed to say, oh my god, that's so terrible, and here's all your solutions, and this and that and the other, right?
Yeah. They're supposed to be openly curious and nonjudgmental in the moment, right?
I mean, not saying that if somebody says I stabbed my dog with a fork or something, but they're nonjudgmental in the moment.
And the reason that therapists tend to be somewhat inscrutable...
It's that we are so habituated to, if we have a feeling that we can't handle, to make somebody else feel it and then reject them.
This is the blurs, the human soup.
We don't know where we end and where other people begin.
It's a lack of boundaries. But we provoke feelings in other people and then we reject those feelings.
And so the way to solve that is to not be provoked.
It's not easy, right?
Because people will work very hard.
And if you then don't get provoked, then what will happen is they will escalate, right?
And then they will accuse you of being uncaring.
And I'm not saying any of this happened with Ricky, right?
But when you take the step past the first veil, this is the next veil you sort of get to, right?
So you're saying, like, if he tells you something that's kind of alarming behavior, then don't be alarmed at it?
No, no, you can't control your feelings, right?
Right. But what do you mean when you say don't be provoked?
Well, what it means is, it's not your feeling to process.
Uh-huh. Right?
Right. That's also not very clear, sorry.
There's a feeling, we'll call it Spanish.
No, I'm kidding. What I mean by don't be provoked is...
To not own that feeling, right?
So you felt anxious about what Ricky was saying, right?
Mm-hmm. Now, do you think, and this is going to be a tough question, and maybe there's no clear answer, but give it your best swing.
When Ricky said what he said, and you felt scared and anxious, do you think that your goal in communicating with Ricky...
was to understand him or to reassure yourself?
I just, I can't really say.
Um... Consciously, I felt like I was trying to understand him, but...
I could have been trying to reassure myself.
I don't know. I don't know how you would figure that out.
Well, the way that you can figure it out is...
If you keep doing what isn't working, then you're not trying to help someone else.
Right. Okay. Wow.
Wait, that was too succinct.
Let me confuse it a little.
Go back and repeat it in some sort of dialect.
But do you see what I'm saying?
Like, if I say that I'm a doctor, and all I want to do is resuscitate someone, and I do that by blowing into their belly button...
And clearly they're not getting resuscitated and everyone's saying to me, blow in their ear and give them CPR. And I keep blowing in their belly button.
My goal is clearly not to resuscitate the person, right?
Right. No, I totally understand now.
Well, then you talk for a bit and tell me sort of what that gives you.
Well, it's just like because the conversation kept being frustrated and kept being frustrating and I didn't at all change what I was doing and it just seemed...
Like, it's turned from my concern about Ricky into this whole debating thing where there's, you know, some one-upmanship going on.
So probably, yeah, it's definitely trying to reassure myself about things.
Right. And I can, if you've got another few minutes, I can give you the mechanics of what was likely going on.
I mean, this is just my theory, right?
But the mechanics of what was going on for you, if you like.
Sure. Okay.
So... If Ricky scares you, right?
And this is all primitive stuff, right?
So, you know, just to see if it fits.
If Ricky scares you, then Ricky has, quote, created a negative emotion in you, right?
And so now it's Ricky's responsibility, since he scared you, to make that negative emotion go away.
Right? Yeah.
So now you need to get him to admit that there's something amiss in what he's doing so that you can feel better.
Right. Right?
Yeah. So he owes you feeling better because he scared you, right?
Yeah. So he needs to unscare you by taking ownership for possibly dangerous behavior, right?
Yeah. Yes.
So, what happens if somebody owes you $1,000 and they've owed it to you for a while and you didn't want to really lend it to them in the first place but they promised they would pay it back and you keep phoning them and they keep not answering their phone and then you go by their house and they pretend not to be home though you can see shadows moving upstairs and so on.
What happens? Well, you get angry.
You get progressively more frustrated, right?
Yeah. Because they owe you the thousand dollars.
And they're not paying, right?
Right. So he owes you peace of mind because he scared you.
So he owes you a restoration to your former state of mind, right?
Right. Right?
Like if I thump you in the arm...
You know, like something like that, right?
Like I owe you at least feeling better, right?
If I crack your leg, I at least have got to buy you a wheelchair, right?
Yeah, that makes sense.
So he owes you something, but he's just damn well not paying up, and he's being totally evasive, right?
Right.
Which means, to take the financial analogy again, not only are you out a thousand bucks, but now in addition to being out a thousand bucks, you also have all the stress of trying to collect it and being evaded and being dodged and being treated like an idiot.
So it's a huge negative, right?
Right. Now here's what happens when you owe somebody money, right?
Right. I don't know if you've heard the podcast and family and money, but at some point you have to say, look, I'm not getting the thousand bucks back, but what I can recover, what I can get back is my peace of mind by giving up the thousand bucks, right? Just say, look, that was a lesson that was learned.
I'm not going to further disturb my peace of mind by trying to collect money from somebody who obviously doesn't want to pay.
And I'm just going to walk away, right?
Now, that's not what happened for you in this conversation, right?
Do you mean like, did I try to end it at any point?
No, what I meant was, did you say, look, clearly I'm not getting what I want, not to Ricky, but to yourself.
I'm not getting what I want in this conversation.
I'm getting increasingly frustrated.
I don't know what else to do right now, so I'm going to stop doing this.
No, I didn't. Right.
And so what that means is that you felt entitled to peace of mind that Ricky had disturbed by telling you what he was telling you.
He wasn't giving you what he owed you, which was a restoration to your former peace of mind state.
And therefore, you had to get him to admit that his behavior was problematic in some way so that you could achieve your peace of mind, right?
Right. So, in other words...
You were not in it for him, but for you.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
Now, when you're in it for you, people smell it from a thousand miles away.
And look, I'm not saying that you don't have the best and purest motives.
I'm sure you do, right?
You're a great person.
You genuinely, consciously, totally, and completely wanted to help him.
I'm just talking about the undercurrents here, right?
But when you're in it for you, people will torture you.
People will frustrate you, right?
Because you're kind of using them.
And again, I'm not saying that this is a bad conscious motive, right?
But if you're using him and you need him just to say something to make you feel better, then he's not going to respond positively to that, right?
Right. Any more than you like to be used, right?
Right. And that's really sort of what the whole real-time relationship idea is designed to avoid.
Because manipulation only occurs when we're oblique with the other person.
So if you have a need and you state it openly, you're not manipulating someone, right?
Right. So if you say, you know...
You know what I felt when you just said that to me, Ricky?
I felt like this whole domino effect of bad things happened in my mind.
And I sort of saw you throwing yourself off a bridge, like all this crazy stuff, right?
What you're saying. I do want to talk about what you're saying.
And I hate to interrupt what you're saying with what I'm feeling.
But... And I'm writing it down here.
Get back to what Ricky is feeling.
But I can't give you my full attention while I'm distracted by these disaster scenarios.
Right? And I don't know why they're occurring.
And it's not because I genuinely think you're about to throw yourself off a bridge or anything.
But this was my experience.
And how were you feeling when you were telling me this?
Right? Yeah.
But how do you sort of be more aware of that, of what you're feeling in the moment?
Because I just, I think that's kind of what I have trouble with a lot.
That's available as a magic pill for a donation of $500 or more.
But for you, $490.
You bet. That's the magic question, right?
And the only way that I know how to do it Is to slow down the interaction.
All dysfunctional interactions are hasty.
Didn't you feel kind of driven and kind of a little bit desperate during this MSN chat?
Oh, yeah. Didn't you feel like, oh, I've got to get him to get it.
He's not going to get it. This is so frustrating.
I've got to type back faster, right?
Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Right. So...
What people are really saying is, I have trouble driving through a city street when I'm going 200 miles an hour.
So what's the answer?
Slow down. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
So when you get that desire Very strong desire to act in great haste to get something from someone, right?
Because you were trying to get something from him.
Admit this. Understand this.
This will be better. This is important for you.
You need to get this. This will be healthy for you, right?
Right. And you were trying to maneuver him into getting it, right?
To corner him with logic, so to speak.
Yes. And I'm not saying you were wrong.
I mean, I don't know, right?
Because not on the call. That's, you know, people don't usually respond well to being boxed in.
I mean, you don't, right?
Right. And what happens is when people feel that you're hunting them with logic, they will tend to do what?
To lash out. No, not particularly.
Not at first, right? Right, they'll just be defensive at first.
Which comes across in what way?
As them arguing back logic with you?
Well, they'll tend to be evasive.
Right, okay. Yes.
Right, so if I'm a kid, right, and my mom comes, if I played hooky from a class, purely theoretical example, but if I was a kid and I played hooky and my mom came in and said, were you at school today?
What would my response be?
Well, no.
Or, yeah, you would say, yes, I was.
No, I wouldn't, because I don't know if she knows or not, right?
I'm sorry, wait. What was it again?
You mean the scenario? Yeah, I... Yeah, so my mom comes home and says, not angry or whatever, sorry, I came across a little false...
But if I'm...
If my...
If I've played hooky for a class this afternoon or whatever, and my mom comes in and says...
You know, were you at school today?
The whole day? I'm not going to say, no, I played hooky.
Right. Because I don't know if she knows or not, right?
She could just be asking idly.
She could just be, oh, I thought it was a half day or something, right?
I thought it was a professional development day.
Like I could then blow my – I could then out myself when I didn't need to, right?
Right. So I'm neither going to confirm nor deny, right?
Right. What I'm going to do is I'm going to say, why do you ask?
Or I'm going to say, oh man, geography was really interesting today and then we did this great poem in English and I'm going to go on this long ramble, right?
Or I'm going to say, I spent 24 hours in the school of life.
I mean, take some silly examples, right?
But I'm going to fog it.
I'm going to fog the situation.
And I'm going to be impossible to pin down until I can ascertain the other person's motives.
So my mother is going to try and get me to confess without accusing me.
Because if she accuses me, then I can play the moral righteousness card.
How dare you accuse me of blah, blah, blah, right?
On what evidence? What have I ever done to make you so suspicious?
Blah, blah, blah. So she can't accuse me directly.
But at the same time, I can't deny explicitly.
So we get into this dance, right?
Where we're each trying to get the other person to reveal something.
That would be detrimental to that person's immediate self-interest in terms of anxiety management, right?
Yeah. And we're not being honest with each other, my mom and I, in this sort of scenario.
Because if she were being honest, she would come in and say...
You know, I have a vague suspicion, call me crazy, I'm not saying it's true, I have a vague suspicion that you didn't spend the whole day at school today, right?
Right. And, you know, just, it's okay if you didn't.
I just sort of need to understand, right?
Because if you're having a problem at school, we need to talk about it, right?
I don't want you to have as a solution avoidance, right?
Because it's not going to serve you well in life.
And who cares about one math class in grade 11?
But, you know, we've got to sort of figure this sort of stuff out, right?
I don't want to accuse you of something that's unjust, but at the same time, I'd be kind of remiss in my duties as a parent to not bring it up my sort of feelings or concern, right?
And that would be the most likely thing to get an honest answer, right?
Right. But if I'm trying to catch the person with logic, right?
Yeah. Then they're going to be evasive, right?
Yeah. And I, I mean, I experienced this all the time, or at least I used to, right, before I got more into the psychological stuff, because I'd know how to prove that the government was forced.
I'd know how to prove morality.
But as soon as I'd get close, people would go off on a tangent, right?
They'd say, oh, why are you asking?
Or they'd say, yes, but what about the Roman Empire?
Or, you know, some damn thing would, would cut off, because they would start to feel cornered and controlled by relentless march of logic.
And so they just, it would be like grabbing a piece of soap really hard, right?
They just, they just squirt right out, right?
Right. Yes. I've experienced that a lot.
Right. And that was because my goal was to make them understand, right?
Uh-huh. And that doesn't work, right?
Right. What they need to do is to want to understand.
Mm-hmm. So if I go in trying to win and trying to corner people and trying to get people and trying to whatever, whatever, right?
Then clearly it's not about their best interest.
Because for their best interest, I should not want to prove them wrong, but to make them excited about being right.
Right. Okay.
That's what it is to be really there for somebody, right?
Mm-hmm. But in order to do that, I generally, what we have to do is we have to clear the decks of whatever baggage we're bringing to the table, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So now here's the part where you get to talk some more, and I'm sorry for being such a ramblefest, but...
No, no, this is great.
But tell me, so who is this like in your experience?
Have you ever known somebody who's gone into a self-destructive spiral?
Yes, I have.
One of my friends that I...
That's just what comes to mind at first.
Okay, and did this end badly?
No, it actually ended up ending well, but at first there was a long period of time where we didn't speak and didn't hear from her.
And I imagine that the process as a whole was not pleasant, right?
Right. It was terrifying.
Right. Okay. Now, going a little bit further back...
Was there anybody in your immediate family who was evasive or hard to read or who said things that provoked alarm in you in general?
Yeah, my brother.
Yeah.
Go on. It's not so much what he would say all the time, but...
Yeah, I would just get updates on his behavior or something that he was not going to school and he was spending all this time online and all of his time online and then he started drinking a lot and there was always these updates about his behavior without much conversation about what was really going on for him.
It was all like He's doing these terrible things for himself and I'm scared about it, but it's just kind of, you know, let's all be frustrated about this behavior in him and not really talk about it with him.
Right, so your brother was creating enormous amounts of frustration and fear and helplessness in other people, right?
Yeah. And do you know why he was doing that?
So he couldn't feel it himself.
I mean, yeah, there was no indication that he was feeling any of this fear himself.
It's revenge. Revenge?
How do you mean? Well...
What I mean...
And look, this is just my theory, right?
I mean, I'm not going to claim to have any clue about your brother's motives.
This is just my theory. So, you know, again, all the million and one caveats, take it for what it's worth.
But this is sort of what I think.
That your brother... Was, as a child, incredibly frustrated and felt helpless, which was never acknowledged.
Right. So then, when he grows up, it's like, fuck you people, I'm going to tell you something about helplessness and fear now.
Right. Does that ring a bell or make any sense?
Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
Well, I always like it when that happens.
I always feel like I'm stepping off a cliff a bit.
So that's always good.
So tell me a little bit more about your brother's childhood and how that might fit.
Well, it always seems that he...
I mean, in more circumstances, he was the, quote, bad child.
I was the, quote, good child.
You were the good child?
God, he must have been terrible.
Sorry, just kidding. Go on. I'm just kidding.
Go on. I'm sorry. Yeah, he was always yelled at and lectured at and was accused of lying a lot and just...
I've just never really tried to make a serious effort to understand how his childhood was for him.
This is kind of maybe the first time I'm doing that.
Sorry to interrupt you, but there's something that when you hear this again, you'll be astonished that you haven't said anything about.
What's that? I mean, you weren't actually raised by wolves, were you?
No. So, who is it that you're not talking about?
my parents.
Right.
Because I've asked you a couple of times, and look, this is nothing wrong with what you're saying, right?
It's just, it's important to see what you don't see, habitually, right?
Uh-huh. Right. Is that, you're basically saying, my brother, for some reason, just paced around in a 10 foot by 10 foot thing, as a kid, without mentioning that it was a cell, and there were prison guards.
Right. Right, so you're describing both your behavior, and when I asked about your immediate family, you first of all went to a friend, sorry, when I asked about those around you, you went to a friend, right?
And then you went to a brother, but I guarantee you that it's your parents.
Right? Your brother didn't just sort of pop out the womb saying, I can't wait to be incredibly frustrated to feel powerless and helpless.
Right. And so that I can live my whole life acting out this vengeance against those who frustrated me by frustrating them in return until people listen to how frustrated I was, right?
So your parents must have been enormously frustrating to him.
Yeah. In other words, they must have blamed him for what they provoked.
Right, absolutely, yeah.
So tell me a little about that.
It's kind of hard to...
How do you mean, like, tell you a little bit about how he was...
About your parents' behavior, right?
Because if I'm the bastard husband, right, and I yell at my wife every single time after she speaks up in company, right, and then what I do is I deride her for being overly shy, then clearly I am attacking her for behavior that I have inculcated and created in her, right? Right. That's amazingly frustrating.
And this must have been what occurred with your brother and your parents.
So in what ways is your parents' behavior or your parents' parenting frustrating and hypocritical?
I'm kind of at a loss for words because I can tell you what my experience was, but I haven't really thought about what his experience must have been like of their parenting.
Well, and I would be more than happy to hear about your experience, but let's just pause here for a second if you don't mind.
The fact that it has never occurred to you to empathize with your brother is not because you're not a caring person.
I know that you're a very caring person, right?
But what it means is that there is a family law that says you don't empathize with your brother.
And that law does not come from your brother.
Thank you.
How do you imagine that that would come about?
Well, it comes about through the modeling of behavior, right?
And what that tells me is everything I need to know about the degree to which your parents empathized with your brother.
So if they model no empathy to your brother, and in fact if they would criticize you for empathizing with your brother, then you're just going to grow up with a habit called, I don't even think about my brother's experiences because it's dangerous, because it gets attacked, because it's negative, because my parents don't, and there must be a damn good reason.
And I don't want to end up like him, right?
Yeah. I can kind of sort of think like, The structure of my family when I was a kid is kind of like what my dad says goes, and you can't argue with that.
You can't reach out to somebody else and try to see their side of it if my dad has made the judgment on it.
Right. So your dad was all about having control, which means when you want control, you can't empathize with people, right?
Because empathy is about curiosity and admission of a lack of knowledge.
Uh-huh. Right, so your dad was kind of brutal, right, that way?
Right. Kind of close-minded, kind of, this is just the way it is, damn it, and don't you dare, you know, whatever, right?
So he's got to be right, which makes everybody who questions him wrong, who will then be attacked, and so on, right?
Yeah, and there was this idea of, like, if my mom were to disagree with his decision about us, or if my brother and I were to maybe...
Talk about something that, you know, we didn't feel it was fair, like it was like breaking the family unity and it was like bad and a conspiracy against him or something like that.
Sure, so he's an asshole dictator, I think is the technical phrase.
Yeah. Now, how do you think that your brother experienced that, given that male-to-male domination tends to be stronger or more brutal than male-to-female domination, at least when it comes to brothers and sisters?
Sorry, go ahead. Well, it must have been really terrible and, like, he must have been scared and frustrated a lot of the time.
Right, and now, who is feeling scared and frustrated between your parents and your brother?
Yeah, my parents. Right, so this is what I mean by revenge, right?
It's like, sure, you can treat me like this when you have the power.
But as soon as I get the power, I'm gonna make you feel it, too.
Until it gets acknowledged.
That's just... I mean, I just never...
It's weird that that can happen to me.
I just don't...
Have you listened to...
Sorry to interrupt. Have you listened to many of the other listener conversations?
Like a couple? Have you ever hit that point where you're kind of yelling at the person, it's this!
And they're like, I don't know, I don't know, right?
And I'm saying, well, this is what we're trained not to know, right?
Well, this is your moment.
This is what you're trained not to know.
You are not allowed to have empathy for your brother because he's just disobedient.
He's a bad kid. You don't have empathy with a bad kid.
It's like trying to empathize with a cougar or a shark, right?
So you're simply not allowed to have empathy for him because if you have empathy for your brother...
Who looks bad?
My dad. Your parents, right?
You weren't raised by one wolf.
Okay, my parents.
You were raised by two, right? Yes.
Because your mother gave this dictator children, and she let him torture, control, and bully you both, and she did not defend you, right?
Yeah. So every dictatorship has both an army and a propaganda ministry, right?
Every dictatorship has an army and a propaganda ministry, right?
And in your dictatorship, clearly your dad was the army and clearly your mother was the propaganda ministry, right?
Yeah.
So what was your mother's propaganda about how your dad's behavior is justified?
Well, I can't really remember.
Bet you can. Sorry to be annoying again, but without a doubt you can, right?
It's probably just a little emotionally overwhelming.
Well, let me ask you a couple of questions and we'll see if we can get somewhere.
And please, if you wanted to, I think this is helpful, but I want to make sure this conversation is helpful for you as well.
Is it going in a way that's productive for you?
Yeah, it is. In a horrible kind of way, which I understand, right?
Yeah. Okay, so did your mother understand that your father was dictatorial?
Yeah, it seems that she would have.
It seems that she would have.
That sounds like an anthropologist who can't quite read Etruscan.
There are indications in the pottery shards that dictatorial natures may have been evident to the matriarchs of the village.
Yeah, she was.
She was. Sorry, go ahead.
Because she would argue with him sometimes.
I mean, he would always end up being the one that was right, but she knew he was dictatorial because, you know, otherwise she wouldn't have argued with him.
Well, no, you can argue with somebody and not believe that they're dictatorial, right?
I mean, I argue with people.
I mean, I argue with my wife.
I don't win, but I do argue because it's cute for her to watch me do that.
Well, I mean, argue with his sort of dictatorial decisions.
That's more what I meant.
And can you think of an example?
Not right now.
I just, I don't know why this is so hard.
Well, do you know why it's so hard?
No, I don't. You're a very intelligent woman, right?
Yeah. Yeah. There is evidence in the pottery shards that she is a very intelligent woman.
You're very articulate, right?
I mean, I've read the conversation chat that you had with Ricky.
So you're intelligent and you're articulate and you are not unaware of your own self and motivation.
And you're making it through this conversation, which is highly complex and to some degree confrontational.
So without a doubt, you're a very intelligent woman, right?
I would say brilliant. Okay.
So why is this so hard to think about?
Probably just because...
Could be because there's things I don't want to really admit or remember.
Oh, that's so close.
Oh, see, I told you you were brilliant.
That's so close. That's so close.
That's thrilling. So you said there are things that I don't want to know about, right?
Yeah. That is so not true.
But it is so true for someone else.
There are things that my parents don't want me to remember.
Exactly. Okay.
Yeah. How do you know?
I mean, I just...
I don't doubt that you're probably right.
It's just, how do you know all this?
Do you mean all of it?
Yeah, I mean... What's the magic pill I told you about earlier?
500 bucks for you, 490?
No, the reason... Look, the reason that I know this is that the truth is beneficial, right?
To good people, right?
Yeah. Like, real money is good to people who are not counterfeiters, right?
And so whenever you put a counterfeit detection mechanism on the premises...
Who's the only person who's going to be harmed by that?
The counterfeiters.
Exactly, right? So when the store owner says, ooh, I don't want that counterfeit detection device because I don't want to know if there's counterfeit money, I know that that's not the case, right?
But what they've been told by the counterfeiters is, you can't have a counterfeit detection machine.
You can't. It would be highly insulting to us.
They'd play the self-righteousness card.
They'd attack you. How dare you?
We've done everything for you.
We are the best parents on the planet.
Any problems have arised out of your misunderstanding.
Your brother is just a bad seed.
We did everything we could.
You would just get the wall-to-wall propaganda blare-a-thon if you just put the counterfeit detector out there and put your parents' dollars in front of it, right?
Yeah, that is what I fear would happen.
Oh, it's what you know would happen.
I don't know if I know it.
Oh, yes you do. You do, because look, you've known your parents for quite a large number of years, right?
You lived under the same roof with them, you were subjected.
Like, slaves know the slave master.
Intimately, inside and out.
Because you've got to scan the whole time for impending danger, right?
You've got to read them like tea leaves, like a book, like constellations.
Yeah. So there's nothing that you don't know about your parents.
There's just stuff that you're not allowed to know about your parents.
Right. Or just weren't in the past, right?
So how do I get past that?
Do you remember when you said to Ricky that he was framing the conversation?
Yeah. Is that what I'm doing?
Just a little bit right there.
Okay. I'm sorry.
No, don't worry about it. It's natural, right?
Because what you want to do is you want to jump into action now, right?
Uh-huh. Yeah, that's not a good idea.
I understand it. I really do.
But it's not a good idea.
And I'm not analogizing this even remotely to do with you, but it's like if an alcoholic is suddenly told that he's an alcoholic, then the first thing he's going to want to do is he's going to want to jump up and say, right, that's it, I'm throwing all my bottles out.
But that's not helpful because you've still got to get to the root cause, right?
You don't want to deal with the symptoms, right?
So don't worry about what you have to do because I kind of dropped a nuclear bomb on your...
Family structure or life or whatever, right?
Uh-huh. And so just let your eyes adjust for a little bit, right?
Right. So just mull it over.
Are you still in contact with your brother at all?
Yeah, I mean, we live in the same house.
We don't really talk to each other, but yeah.
Well, here's a good topic.
You might want to play him this podcast or whatever it's going to be, depending on what your preferences are.
And you might want to say, you know, like, I just, I don't think I ever got what your childhood was like for you.
But I gotta guess, it was monstrously and almost evilly frustrating.
Yeah. And you must have felt so unbelievably helpless and enraged.
And it's not because we're controlled that we feel helpless and enraged.
Yeah. Right? I can lie still in a dentist chair.
I don't feel helpless and enraged.
It's not because we're controlled that we feel helpless and enraged.
The reason that we feel helpless and enraged is because...
Our parents use morality to justify evil actions.
Yeah. I don't know if you've read on truth, but that's sort of the whole thesis there.
Yeah, I have. Okay, so I might want to pass that to your brother too.
But your dad is dictatorial not just because he tells you what to do, right?
Any jerk in the world can tell you what to do, right?
But it's because he demands your obedience as a moral requirement, right?
Yeah. And if you don't give him your obedience, you provoke a feeling of anxiety and helplessness in him, and so he attacks you, right?
In other words, you owe him alleviation of his anxiety, right?
Yeah. Now, to a tinier, tinier degree, that is what you were doing with Ricky, right?
Right. So the template that you have is, if someone provokes anxiety in me, they better reduce that anxiety in me.
Yeah. But that's not other people's job, right?
Right. Your anxiety is your anxiety, and you can speak honestly about it, and you can ask for help with it, but it's nobody's job to manage your feelings, right?
I mean, you can make it their job, but all you end up doing is trying to control each other while dodging control, which is what you and Ricky were doing, right?
Right. Trying to get something from each other without giving up any leverage, right?
Yeah. You're both trying to pick each other's pockets.
You're running around in a circle, right?
Mm-hmm. And so when Ricky expressed what he expressed, a whole lot of prior knowledge and a whole lot of prior habits that developed out of the very loins of your family, so to speak, came up in you, right? Right.
Right. Which is a little more clear now than it was while you were in the conversation with Ricky, right?
Yes. And that's what the real-time relationship can help you uncover.
Because if you say, man, I'm so sorry to interrupt you because I know what you're saying is important, but I just had this overwhelming or this feeling of, and I don't know where it's from, then he can ask you and you can go down this path, right?
Which sets both of you free.
As opposed to what you were doing, which was both trying to grapple each other down and playing thumb wars, right?
Right. Which is a strangely inescapable and compelling thing to do, right?
Like there's a must, and I must, I must, you know, get control of this conversation.
I must get him to admit X, Y, and Z while he's saying, I must not be controlled by this conversation.
I must distract her with, you know, so you're both at cross purposes and you're both getting frustrated and neither of you get what you want and you feel kind of empty and beaten up afterwards, right?
Right.
Right.
Hello?
Oh. I know, it's shocking when I don't speak for a few seconds, so I'm sorry about that.
I should always have a klaxon or an air horn or something, you know?
Steph will now take a pause. Do not be alarmed.
Do not be alarmed. He needs to breathe.
Okay. But that's for your thoughts, or how are you feeling, or what do you think about this conversation?
Oh, I think it's been really, really helpful.
I'm just kind of wondering, in your experience, what is people's reaction when you respond to them like you just described, instead of how I responded to Ricky?
You were on the chat earlier when I was talking to our Australian friend?
Yes. Well, there, I genuinely did try to have her best interests at heart.
Yes. And what was your experience of that conversation?
She seemed, you know, much more open than I usually see her in conversations, yeah.
And what did she do, which nobody has seen before?
Um... Kind of...
I guess, agreed, like, analyzed her own behavior and agreed to that maybe she needs to change things.
And she apologized, right?
Right, yeah, yes.
Now, there's a reason you didn't remember that part, right?
And that means that, of course, in your family, just as in dictatorships, just as in the White House, nobody ever apologizes, right?
Right. Except you, right?
Yes, yes. Right, so that's why you didn't remember the most significant action, which was tangible and practical, which is she apologized and offered to buy everybody cake.
Right, okay. So it does work in practice, right?
It really does work in practice.
You just gotta not go in with an agenda.
And I'm not for a moment saying that you consciously went in with any kind of agenda.
I know that you had truly beautiful intentions, right?
And it's my hope to be able to give you the gift of achieving those beautiful intentions with people and not being frustrated when you try to help someone.
Right. Yeah, that would be great.
I mean... Because I just noticed that you're able to talk to people in a way that nobody else is able to, you know, among the members of the board.
Sure, I mean, and that's another positive thing with this chat, is that I'm sort of trying to model a way of talking to people that is, like, my whole being in this conversation is not, I'm not striving to be right, I'm not striving to prove you wrong, I'm simply trying to ignite a kind of light within you, And that's like if I'm getting one step closer to that, I'm satisfied.
If I'm getting one step away from that, I turn around, right?
Right. And so it's really having a focus on igniting knowledge, igniting light in the dark spots of our soul.
That's what we really have to be focused on.
And my goal is always to try and make people feel not corrected or diminished, but more powerful at the end of the conversation, right?
Right. So if I'd gone in to this woman and said, you better apologize or I'm banning you, right?
Well, she might have apologized, but she wouldn't have understood anything and she wouldn't be empowered, right?
Right. But generosity and apologies and intimacy and help all flow from feelings of power, not power over other people, right?
So it's my goal to, I mean, obviously you can feel a bit disoriented and so on, but it's my goal to Right.
and for you to have, because you didn't feel power in your conversation with Ricky, right?
No.
You didn't feel like this is great.
You know, I feel like I've got real traction here, like I'm really making progress.
You felt helpless and frustrated, right?
Yes.
Right.
And so it's my goal to do everything that I can to give you the options or the choices or the tools so that you can feel empowered and alive and curious and effective, most particularly, in your communications with people.
Right. But that means that you have to confront the things that you're avoiding in yourself, right?
Right. Yeah.
Or rather, which you were punished.
I shouldn't say, it's not a choice.
Like, you just wake up one day and say, hey, I'm going to avoid this, that, and the other.
It's just, this is what you were punished for asking or even thinking about, right?
Yeah. Well, this gives me a lot to kind of think about.
Good, good. And so this was worth it for you?
This was satisfying? Oh yeah, absolutely.
Good. I really appreciate this.
No, listen, no problem. I don't like it when my listeners respond to it.
Okay, well listen, I won't keep pestering you for feedback then.
I will put this together and send you a copy.
Have a listen. Personally, myself, I think this would be massively valuable to other people, but it's your choice.
Have a listen. If you want anything edited or whatever, just let me know and just give me some feedback when you're done listening.
Okay, no problem. Thanks so much.
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