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Jan. 12, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:40
956 The Next Thing: Part 3 - Freeing Others

How to start springing others from prison.

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Time Text
Good morning, everybody.
It's Steph. Hope you're doing well. It is the 12th of January 2008, 11.45 in the morning, and I'm hard at work in the study.
I have some beach noises on in the background, just to relax myself.
Why? I'm not taking your donations and going to the beach.
I don't want you to feel that way.
Surely we've moved past that.
Oh, sun. I mean, it's glary in here.
So, Christina has decided to join us for this podcast.
Hi, everybody. She's just relaxed on the microphone as ever.
Anyway, I wanted to start in on this third part of the conversation about freeing other people and perhaps go into a little bit more detail.
Oh, who's kidding, who?
An excruciatingly large amount of detail about this topic.
And I'm going to start putting out a few metaphors to work and the update...
Just for your curiosity or interest, we actually had 90 gigabytes of downloads yesterday.
January 11, 2008.
Christina and I's fifth wedding anniversary.
We were both in tears, but for entirely opposite reasons.
We went out for dinner.
It was really nice. And huge downloads.
Well, I'm spending a lot of money on advertising at the moment.
So again, if you'd like to donate, chip in and help that out.
Spread the conversation. I would hugely appreciate that.
And it would mean that I get to keep two kidneys, which is always nice.
Because I... I don't know.
What do you do with your kidneys? Kidneys.
What do they do? They purify the blood, right?
Right. Because I take in a lot of toxins.
So, let us move on with the conversation.
I wanted to talk a little bit about this question of freeing other people and ways to approach it and ways to do it that aren't quite as abstract.
And for those in the future who are taking out all the nonsense, you can pretty much start here.
So... I'm going to put forward a scenario and hopefully it will help explain at least what I mean by this approach of freeing other people, which is, I think, the next thing that we should get our little selves up to.
So imagine that you are a coach, a running coach, let's say.
And you take on all of these athletes and you are a great coach.
You take people to the Olympics.
You take people to Olympic gold.
So you're working with the top tier of athletes.
And these athletes have been working since they were kids, hours a day, every day, to achieve their goal of getting to the gold.
Right. And, naturally, of course, you say, when you start out working with these people, let's make them weightlifters, just so I'm in a vaguely recognizable territory, at least for myself.
So, you say to them when you start out, look, you can't be taking steroids, right?
I mean, that's pretty much a basic when it comes to us working together.
Like, I'll be your coach and I'll get you to the Olympics, and if you work hard enough and have the talent, then you'll get to the gold.
But... You can't be taking the steroids.
And then what happens is you find that one of your weightlifters, one of the weightlifters you're training, called NaturallyBob, tests positive for steroids.
Now, I'd like you to consider under what circumstances or conditions You would agree to continue to be Bob's coach after you said, no steroids, and he tested positive for steroids.
And this is sort of a very, very important thing to consider.
Under what circumstances, what would have to happen in order for you to continue to want to be Bob's coach?
Of course, many things could happen.
He could apologize. He could beg for forgiveness.
He could agree to daily drug testing.
He could be in tears, throw himself on your carpet, throw himself on your mercy.
He could get aggressive.
He could claim he was framed.
Any number of things could happen.
But the basic fact of the matter is that he's taken steroids when, of course, everybody knows that you should not take steroids unless you're in baseball.
So, I'm going to submit...
That there's absolutely nothing that Bob can do that would logically make you want to be his coach again.
And this is what has to do with setting yourself free and setting other people free as well.
That's a very interesting looking plane, isn't it?
Yeah. So...
Let's say that he tests positive for steroids and he comes in to your office and you're looking at the report from Steroid Tester's Inc.
and he bursts into tears.
I'm so sorry. I was feeling so pressured.
I'm so upset. I wanted to win and I just didn't know what to do and this and that and the other, right?
And he begs you, please take me back and I promise I'll never do it again and this and that and the other.
Well, I would submit that to let Bob be positive Your trainee, to let him come back into the fold of your training camp would be to submit to a kind of enslavement for both parties,
right? And what I mean by that is you said no steroids, he took the steroids, he didn't confess, he was caught, and then he comes to you and says, I want to come back, I want to come back.
Well, what's going to happen if you let him come back Is that you are now going to have to monitor him.
You're never going to be quite at ease with him.
You're never going to feel like you can perfectly trust him.
Because he already made this decision to go and take the steroids when you said no steroids.
When it was clear that no steroids was the way to go, was the only way to go.
So you're going to have to test him regularly when he has spikes in performance, when he's able to lift 10% more weights or 5% more weights over the course of a week.
You're going to be worried about steroid use and so on.
And that is a kind of enslavement.
That is a kind of enslavement for you.
The other thing that's important to remember is that when you look at the fact that he took steroids and you look back over the past, say, five years that you were training him, all of that time is now significantly jeopardized.
All that time that you've invested in him to have him be an excellent weightlifter, to go to the Olympics and so on, is pretty much toast.
I mean, maybe he just tested slightly positive and maybe he could find some way back into a competition.
Maybe the Olympics are still two years away, and he can become readmitted or something in some manner, but you could have been teaching someone who didn't take steroids, and so the opportunity costs are enormous.
Going forward, there is a chance, of course, and not insignificant chance, that he's going to take steroids again, or take something again, blood boosting or something like that.
And... That is relative to someone else who has not had a history of doing these things, right?
So again, it's the opportunity costs in the future.
Time is limited. Resource is limited.
Everything in life is limited because of death.
So in the future, if you take Bob back, then you're not coaching somebody else who's never had a history of breaking promises, taking steroids, and so on.
So I would say that there are no circumstances under which it would make sense to reasonably let Bob back in.
And I would also submit that one of the main reasons that Bob is doing this is to enslave you, to recreate a kind of enslavement.
So when people betray you, like if you're in a relationship and somebody sleeps around on you, sleeping around with you is actually good, but sleeping around on you Then what they're doing is they're betraying you and then they want to come back into your life.
That is actually a reinfliction of a negative experience.
So if your girlfriend sleeps around on you and then wants to come back...
Then she's saying, I want to come back and be in your life again, which means that you now have to constantly worry every time she works late, every time there's a phone call where someone hangs up or a guy says hello and then, oh, sorry, and clicks.
You're going to be paranoid for quite some time.
And so when you go through a betrayal of trust with somebody, and this can occur in the romantic realm, in the intellectual debating world, it can go on the board, any sort of number of places...
When you go through an experience like this with somebody, if they want back into your life, if they want back into your environment, then clearly what they're doing is they're saying, I want to reinflict continued negative stimuli on you For my own self-gratification.
If your weightlifter takes the steroids and then comes back in and begs you to be his coach, he's actually continuing the same behavior that caused him to take the steroids in the first place.
In other words, he's putting his own short-term gains at the expense of everybody else's long-term happiness and satisfaction, peace of mind, trust, and so on.
When you betray somebody's trust, it's because you want something in the moment and you don't care about the results.
Or if you do care about the results, unconsciously you want them to be negative and horrible for other people.
So if your girlfriend sleeps around on you and then begs you to take her back, She's actually doing exactly the same action that propelled her into sleeping around on you in the first place.
In other words, she's putting her own short-term gratification.
I don't want to feel guilty.
I want to at least have the appearance of forgiveness from you.
I don't want to be alone.
And maybe this new guy that I'm sleeping with, it didn't work out.
So I want you to take me back and all this.
She's putting her own short-term needs or anxiety avoidance ahead of your long-term peace of mind and satisfaction.
So there's no circumstances...
Under which it would make sense, or be logical, or be rational, or be reasonable, be productive, be positive, be any of those things, to take your girlfriend back, she sleeps around with you, to take this guy back who takes the steroids and gets caught and so on.
So this is very, very important around this question of setting other people free and being free yourself.
You have to guide your own freedom ferociously because everybody on the planet will try and rope you into negative, frustrating, repetitive, destructive stimuli and enslave you.
And the way they do that is they will...
Create confusion, fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Create confusion, they'll fud you, or they will blame you morally, and so on.
I did a podcast recently in the Goal Plus section about a gentleman who was accusing me of exploiting the Ron Paul supporters.
That just is a kind of enslavement.
If people can get you to buy moral arguments that are negative towards you, then they have completely enslaved you from that standpoint.
But when people act in such a way that you need to begin to monitor them, right?
You've got to monitor the steroid use of your weightlifter.
You've got to monitor the activities of your girlfriend because she was unfaithful.
You've got to monitor people.
I mean, that's why I get rid of people on the board, right?
I mean, who are negative or difficult and don't respond positively.
Because I don't want to be turned into the person who has to monitor the activities of people on the board, right?
I don't want to have to check up on their posts.
I don't want to have to see whether they're being rude.
I don't want to have to see whether they're being passive-aggressive.
I don't want to have to see whether they're being provocative.
I don't want to have to see if they're changing their story and baffling.
I just don't want to be that guy who has to run around checking up on people.
And the moment that I start to feel that I need to do that, obviously the great thing about being 41 is you can trust your instincts, But the moment that I start to feel that my own freedom is being impinged by the actions or being reduced or diminished by the actions of other people, that I'm going to need to start to feel that I have to monitor them or check up on them, then I just get them out of my life.
Right? So that this is around setting people free.
This is around making sure that the people in your life enhance your freedom and that you enhance their freedom.
That you enhance their freedom.
This is very important.
I mean, this is part of the whole RTR feedback mechanism, right?
Where you ask people, sort of, what is your objective experience of interacting with me?
And if people say, well, I feel frustrated, I feel belittled, I feel whatever, whatever, right?
Then you need to set them free of you, right?
you need to set them free of you.
And this is a very sort of foundational, fundamental aspect...
If people are not enjoying interacting with you, then stop interacting with them.
It's sort of a basic market thing, right?
The beast you feed is the beast that grows, right?
And if the beast you feed, so to speak, is sort of happiness and positive and gentle and enjoyable and constructive interactions, then if that's where you spend your time and attention, that's what will grow.
Whereas if you spend your time and attention on negative or frustrating or difficult or unpleasant interactions, then that's the beast that will grow.
So setting other people free is monitoring yourself to see whether you feel...
That you are elevated and set aloft on wings of thought and if you laugh and if you enjoy those interactions and so on, then that's where you need to spend to invest your time and energies because that is being free yourself, helping to set other people free.
If other people are having negative interactions with you, then you need to, I would suggest, not interact with them and just get them out of your life.
That's around setting people free.
I think actually if you feel an increased bit of wind it's because the seagulls are actually carrying me to Cuba.
I think they're actually heading to. There's quite a few of them around.
So, of course, the question may arise, how is it that ditching the people who are difficult or negative or destructive in your life, how is it that that sets them free?
Well, it's not about them, right?
Because they can't be free.
If that's the way that they interact, that's the way they interact, right?
If they just, you know, like set up these things and then change their story and argue in a destructive manner and insulting and passive-aggressive, then they're not free.
And you can't free them because they don't even want to be free, right?
They don't want to be free.
It's like saying that you're going to set somebody free from being a prison guard when they've studied their whole life and love coming to work and enjoy the power that they have and feel really great and love their uniform and wear it on their off days and strut around town.
You can't then say to somebody you should quit the prison because it's unjust.
They obviously want it.
That's what they're doing. That's what they're pursuing.
So you can't free those people because it's not about those people.
It's not about those people.
One of the reasons that the board is such a pleasant and positive place, I think, for people to be is that I do get rid of the people who are negative and destructive.
So setting people free is obviously getting them out of their life, getting them out of your life if they're difficult and destructive.
And what that does is it sets the other people who remain in your life free.
And it's as simple as like if you own an apartment building and there's one person who's, you know, dealing drugs and running prostitution rings and cranking his music all night and having wild parties and so on, then other people are not free to sort of relax and enjoy their environment.
They're not free to sort of go out into the hallways and chat with each other because they're afraid of the silly, druggie types, you know, the negative things that are occurring.
They're not even free to get a good night's sleep because the music's pounding all night.
So in terms of setting people free, you evict this person from your building, and that sets the other people free because they're not frightened.
Because fear is the opposite of freedom, irrational fear, or rather fear of irrational people.
So keeping the bad people out of your life, out of the environment that you socialize or circulate in, It's foundational to obviously being free yourself and not having to monitor and control and check your own reactions and so on.
There is this thing where it's like, oh, you just have to not let it bother you.
If somebody is being difficult, your mom's being difficult or is always difficult, people say, well, you should not let it bother you.
But that's very easy.
If I don't want to let a difficult person bother me, Then I just get them out of my life.
I get him or her out of my life, right?
People say, well, you shouldn't let your mother get to you.
It's like, well, that's great. Then I'll stop seeing her.
No, no, no, no. You have to still keep seeing her.
You just have to keep seeing her but not let her get to you.
And it's like, but that doesn't make any sense.
Like, if loud music really bothers me, then the solution is not to go to a thrumping, pumping disco and attempt to not let the loud music bother me.
The solution is simply not to go to the disco, right?
To say, oh, I don't really like the loud music, so I'm just not going to go to a disco or rock concert or...
You know, wherever it is that the loud music is occurring.
That's what your ears are telling you, right?
We're sensitive, we don't like the loud music, or your mind doesn't know whatever.
So then you just don't go to where it's loud, right?
If you say to your friend who wants you to go to the disco, I don't like loud music.
Noises, they upset me and they make me tense.
I don't sleep for days. And he says, well, the solution is to come to the disco but not let the loud music bother you.
Then clearly it's about his needs and it's got nothing to do with yours, right?
Furthermore, if he actually says that it's moral to go to the disco and not let the loud music bother you, then...
It's completely manipulative.
But this is what happens with family, right?
So your sibling will say, oh, you should go and see mom.
Just don't let it bother you, right?
Rise above it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But that's just all about his needs.
It's nothing to do with your needs, right?
It's just all about him guilting you into...
So if you do go, then obviously you're enslaved, and your brother is then enslaved too, right?
Your brother is enslaved then too.
And so if we go back to sort of the drug-dealing metaphor, and this is just...
Drugs are not evil, but let's just use this metaphor as a whole.
Generally, I find drugs negative, though not immoral.
So, how do you set a drug dealer free from selling drugs?
Let's say you want the drug dealer to stop selling drugs and to turn to something more productive or whatever.
Then, the best way to do that is to...
I mean, in terms of what you can actually control, it's just to not...
Buy drugs from the drug dealer, right?
I mean, you can't buy drugs from the drug dealer and suggest that all your friends buy drugs from the drug dealer and then say that the drug dealer is bad for selling drugs because you're supporting that habit by buying his drugs, his habit of selling drugs, right?
You're supporting, you're providing resources and so on.
So the only way to, I think, reasonably or logically take the stand against the selling of drugs is not to buy the drugs.
Now, if other people are around, you can tell them that buying the drugs is bad and you should not buy the drugs from...
This guy, so that whatever, right?
Now, of course, if they listen to you, that's fantastic.
Then the drug dealer goes elsewhere or stops selling drugs, becomes a productive member of society or whatever.
But that's all you can do, right?
And it's the same sort of thing with family.
Just sort of take the family metaphor.
If you buy the drugs from your family members, in other words, if you invest time, energy, and resources into them, While disliking them, then you're buying the drugs and complaining about the drug dealer.
It's not setting anybody free, right?
It's not setting anybody free.
The best chance that you have for getting the drug dealer to not sell the drugs is not to buy them from him.
Just don't be around him.
So then there are two groups of people who are around him.
The bad people who want the drugs and the good people who don't want to have anything to do with him.
That's a real choice. But if the good people swarm around him too and say that they think he's a great guy and so on and buy his drugs, then obviously he has no chance to make a choice.
We have to give clear choices to other people.
And that of course is the result of acting with personal integrity.
It's not like you have to do anything, right?
but if you spend time and invest resources into people who've been abusive or destructive in your life, especially your parents, then you're just not providing clear choices to people.
You're just not providing clear choices to people.
And that's very important in terms of setting them free, is to give them the options through your own example of clean living, healthy living, happy living, productive living, positive living, and strong living, right, so that you get the people who are bad out of your life.
That gives alternatives to other people who are sort of looking, right?
Then they don't just see this big melee, right, of just everybody fighting everyone, but they see people who are not engaging, who are not investing time and resources into people who are destructive, who are rejecting that entire life.
Then there's a door number three.
Or I guess a door number two, other than engage and be enslaved, there's a door number two, which you've gone through and left open.
At least that gives them the option, an alternative, a choice, a possibility, which is foundational to setting them free.
If people have never heard that you can defoo from a bad family, then...
That's not a choice that exists, right?
But the choice that I made, which I've communicated clearly and openly, and the choice that Christina made, which she's allowed me kindly to communicate clearly and openly, has provided choices or options for other people, right?
So, by us not engaging with a bad family, we've created choices and possibilities for other people and helped set them free from the assumptive absolutes, right?
The absolutes that you assume.
That, well, you have to spend time with your family in the same way that you have to respect the existence of gravity, right?
I mean, it just, it is, there's no alternative, no possibility.
So by creating those alternatives and possibilities in your own mind, by living them openly and publicly and with integrity, you create choices for other people.
And some of those people will then say, oh, you know, you're a bad person.
I go back to my family.
That's fine.
But the people who remain are all free.
And then when somebody else comes in and starts saying, oh, you guys are just bad.
It's culty.
You should have the cult of the family, not the, quote, cult of philosophy.
then you just get rid of those people.
And yeah, it's a clear choice for them, though.
I mean, who cares, right? Who cares about the people who just come thundering in like, you know, the ultimate bitches of the all-time universe?
Just get rid of those, and who cares, right?
The important thing is to keep your own apartment building of your community free and relaxed and not feel like people are going to sort of come in and strike out negatively and cause problems and be destructive so that when you keep those people out, other people can be free to communicate with each other.
And that's how you sort of keep freedom alive for other people.
So this aspect of setting other people free is setting those around you free by guiding your own freedom.
And then when you feel yourself sliding into the need to monitor other people or when somebody phones, the call display lights up and you feel negative or anxious or, you know, somebody posts on the board, you feel negative or anxious, you just, you don't engage.
Just don't, just follow your instincts.
If you don't want to engage, then don't engage.
That's how you keep your freedom.
And that's how you keep the freedom of those around you.
And that's why on the board, we watch each other's backs, right?
So if somebody's getting involved in a negative or difficult confrontation, then that's what you do, right?
So, let's talk about the last aspect of this, and this is going particularly back to parents, and this is, you know, a shout-out in a pasty, white, middle-aged guy way to the people, particularly the women who are in this conversation, who are going through this process at the moment of radically examining their relationship with their parents and trying to figure out, basically going through a defu process because the relationships are negative and difficult and painful and so on.
This is a way of adjusting the metaphor that we talked about earlier with the coach and the Olympic gold weightlifters so that you can have, I think, a clearer or less sentimental understanding of this relationship with your parents and hopefully will help you achieve some peace and possibly some closure with the aspect of defooing or with the defooing that you're contemplating or undergoing.
So let's flip it around, and instead of viewing it from the perspective of the coach, let's view it from the perspective of the prospective weightlifter.
So you've wanted to...
No, if we're talking about a female metaphor, let's go with something a little more cliched, and you're going to be a gymnast.
So, you have been wanting to be a gymnast since you were five years old.
And you've been studying this all.
And you've been getting up at 4.30 in the morning to go and practice for three hours before school.
And you've punished yourself with difficult and unpleasant diets.
And you've just done the whole hog.
And you've been doing this for like 15 years.
You're like 20. And you're great.
And you're ready to go to the Olympics and so on.
And your coach has been, obviously, has been telling you from the very beginning, no steroids, no illegal substances, and so on.
Performance based on your abilities and your hard work, this is all that is okay.
It's all that is kosher. And then you get a call from your local sports association, and they say, you know, I'm sorry to inform you, my lady, but you have tested positive for steroids.
And you are just aghast because you have never taken steroids.
In fact, you've never even French kissed a baseball player.
There's no possibility that you've had exposure to steroids.
And so how it is you could end up with steroids in your body is just completely baffling, right?
And so you sort of cast about, and you say, well, okay, I drink these Gatorades, I eat this food, and so on.
You take the Gatorades, and the Gatorades are provided to you by your coach.
Your coach brings you Gatorades to replenish your electrolytes or whatever when you first show up, or when you're in the middle of your practices.
So, okay, you take from your coach's vat of Gatorade, you take a Gatorade, you send it in for testing.
Lo and behold, it turns out that...
The Gatorades that your coach has been providing you are laced with steroids.
Laced with steroids!
The coach who has been telling you that you should do it on talent alone, that artificial substances are bad, and so on, right?
People who cheat, and all this kind of stuff.
So he's been putting all of these ideas into your head, and you've of course dutifully stayed away from steroids.
And then it turns out that your coach has been lacing your Gatorade with steroids and hasn't told you.
And you go to your coach and you say, what are you doing?
I've been working for 15 years, hour upon hour, week after week, month after month, year after year, to get to the Olympics.
And now you have just destroyed my chances because I've tested positive for steroid use, which means that I am now banned from the sport for a period of two years.
The Olympics is in a year. I'm not going to make the Olympics.
I can't go. It's all over.
What have you done? You rat bastard.
Right. And your coach comes up with any number of mealy-mouthed things like, oh, it wasn't me.
It must have been somebody else.
You can't prove it. It was for your own good.
I didn't think you were going to make it on your own.
I wanted to give you the opportunity to get to the Olympics.
I wanted to help you fulfill your dreams.
I never said the cheating was wrong.
I'm perfectly okay with the steroids.
Everybody does it.
It's okay.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But does not admit that he did anything wrong by lacing your Gatorade with steroids and destroying the dream that you've had since you were a little, little girl to go to the Olympics and be a gym, to be a gymnast.
You can't even be a gymnast anymore.
So, what is your relationship to this coach who has given you these moral instructions and then countervened them continually without your knowledge in an underhanded way?
What is your relationship to this coach?
Are you ever going to trust him again?
He's not admitting that he's done anything wrong.
Or if there was, you know, mistakes were made because of people's best intentions and so on, right?
Or if the only problem is that you got caught or it was only supposed to be a smaller amount or, you know, it's Gatorade's fault or, you know, whatever, right?
But if he doesn't admit that, I mean, are you going to keep him on as your coach?
Are you going to keep him on?
Is there anything that he could do or say?
Even if he did burst into tears and this, that, and the other.
Oh, you know, I'm sorry.
I was just so ambitious.
I made mistakes and so on.
But it doesn't happen until he's caught, right?
Is there any way that you would keep him on as your coach?
Of course not. Right?
If somebody can do this to you over the course of many years...
And destroy your dreams and so on.
Well, of course you'd never keep him on as your coach.
And this, of course, is a metaphor for the moral instruction of your parents.
That they say integrity and intimacy and virtue and honesty and all these things are what you should do and the way you should act and the way you should be.
And then they themselves turn out to have violated it continually, thus destroying your dreams, right?
Because your dreams are to grow up and to be a happy, productive, moral human being.
But if you've been instructed in a hypocritical or destructive manner, that dream is either not going to come true or it's going to take many, many years of therapy and work to achieve, right?
To achieve self-respect, self-esteem, love.
Maybe you could be a gymnast even after you've tested positive steroids.
It's going to take many years of work to undo the damage, right?
And so that's sort of where it comes to, right?
Now, I think it would actually be reasonable to sue this coach, right?
Say, well, all this work has come to naught, right?
And you have done the exact opposite of what you counsel to be virtuous, and now you're in a mealy-mouthed way, you're undermining or destroying everything.
The criticisms of you, right, that you've acted in an unjust or immoral manner.
You're refusing to admit any fault.
You're blaming me, adding insult to injury.
I mean, yeah, I think reasonably you could sue somebody who laced your Gatorade with steroids and got you banned from the sport.
But even if you decide not to, and of course you could then, you can, especially if you can get a sibling and there's been verbal or physical abuse, you can sue your parents for child abuse.
But if you decide not to, Are you going to go out and be friends with this coach and let him continue to coach you?
Regardless of whether or not...
Sorry, regardless of his behavior in lacing your Gatorade?
Are you going to keep him on as a coach?
Are you going to pretend that nothing happened?
Well, of course not. At the very least, you would get this person out of your life.
And if you continue on with your dream of being a gymnast, you would have to be much more rigorous in approaching your next coach.
And you'd have to be very upfront about the consequences if you were to do something as insane as lace your Gatorade with steroids and so on.
So that's a way that you can approach it, that your parents were there to instruct you, to coach you on how to be a moral human being.
And they knew how to be a moral human being because they said, don't lie, don't cheat, be honest, be open, be, you know, intimacy, knowing the truth about the other person and so on.
This is all valuable. So they knew how to get you to the Olympics.
They knew and said everything that there was to say about ethics.
Take other people's feelings into consideration.
Be sensitive. Be compassionate.
Be a good person. They told you all of this sort of stuff.
And then they followed none of these rules themselves, right?
So this is the coach saying, don't take steroids.
And then lacing you, drink with steroids.
So this is the situation.
Now, of course, being...
The metaphor has limits and becomes even more dire when you realize that everybody wants to be...
An Olympic gymnast, and everybody gets a coach whether they like it or not, and everybody has to show up to practice whether they like it or not, which of course takes away the element of choice and individuality, a personal choice in the metaphor, because we all have parents and we all want to be good, and our parents will inevitably give us moral instruction, which turns out to be entirely false and self-serving, which they will never admit to when they get older.
So I hope that that helps at least understand to some degree what it means or what it is that I'm talking about when it comes to setting other people free.
You want to create a security zone, a moat of rationality in those around you, for those around you.
I try to do this on the board and with friends that I have and so on, of course, with my wife, to have a feeling of security around her, that you're going to keep the bad people out, that those in your life are going to help you by helping you keep the bad people out of your life.
You're going to have this zone of safety, of rationality, of security.
Where you can interact with each other free from the fear of trollish attack or criticism or negativity and so on.
And you do that first and foremost by monitoring your own feelings, by monitoring your own feelings and your own experience of people.
So that if you're around somebody who makes you feel enthusiastic about what it is that you're doing, who you really enjoy and look forward to interacting with, and who, you know, makes you laugh and makes you think and makes you curious and propels you forward into wisdom and virtue and self-love and all that kind of stuff, then, you know, you hold these people close to your chest and you watch that person's back in the way that they should watch your back to keep you safe, right?
So that you have security and in that security, in that moat, in that key, Of integrity, you all can feel free to play.
So you're not trying to play catch on a highway.
You're playing it in the woods where there's no cars so that you can dive and roll and relax and enjoy your environment.
That's called setting people free.
Keeping the bad people at bay, winding your heart and your soul into the virtuous and positive people around you.
Making sure that you monitor yourself to see whether you feel inhibited or free in your interactions with people.
Speaking honestly with them about the feelings of lack of freedom that you feel.
And then, if they don't respond in a positive way, just getting them out of your life to keep the security and freedom and peace for everyone else who remains around you.
And that's how it is that we can approach setting other people free.
And I look forward to your thoughts about this new topic.
And I look forward to your donations, of course.
Feel free to buy my books.
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