Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

April 4, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:11:50

1030 The Prisoner's Conference

RTR, the MEcosystem, and inner anger.

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Okay, so there was something that Greg had talked to or mentioned in the chat window that I thought was worth having a bit more of a chat about, and particularly it was around, and I think it's a very interesting question.
	I mean, there's just a different perception or experience that we have, or we're perceived to have.
	With regards to the originality of the conversation that we have here?
	And I think it's a very good question.
	I have a particular opinion, but that doesn't mean anything other than I have a particular opinion with regards to the originality of what it is that we're doing here.
	But Greg, you were feeling that the originality is not in any one particular thing, but in the way that they're arranged.
	Is that right? Yeah, that was my basic point.
	I don't know if it's valid or not.
	Just listening through it, you know, all the little things you bring up, and I think this is, at least in my opinion, like you said, I don't know if any of it's valid or not.
	I think what makes you an original thinker is your ability to take...
	Bits and pieces of what's kind of already out there and reinterpret them and reassemble them all in ways that nobody's thought of before.
	This, I thought, was one example of that.
	This whole question of ambivalence and how it can be sort of reapplied to all these other topics.
	Okay, sorry, just before we go on, if you're not talking, if you could mute, we're just getting a bit of crackle on the line.
	And for those who haven't heard the Ambivalent series, which is in the Diamond Plus section, it is like pretty super advanced and it's sort of the next big thing that's part of this conversation.
	So we're at least going to take it for a test run in the Diamond Plus to sort of iron out any kinks.
	The basic idea is that our mind is an ecosystem of opposing ideas, and the traditional approach to mental health has been to eliminate conflicts within the mind.
	I don't consider that to be a healthy or reasonable goal.
	It's sort of one of these impossible goals like the Christian goal of achieving perfect sin or the altruistic goal of placing other people's values and preferences almost infinitely higher than your own.
	It's simply a goal that we will always fail at and goals that are set up that we always will fail at.
	Are key tools or aspects of political or hegemonic power structures, right?
	They want to set up a goal that you simply can't achieve, like when a parent says to you, as I mentioned in the Ambivalence podcast, when a parent says to you something like, if you say, well, I thought X, Y, and Z, if they criticize you, and then they say, well, don't think, that's setting up an impossible standard because it's impossible to evaluate and process a rule called don't think without thinking.
	Obviously thinking. So whenever you're set up a rule or an impossible situation, a rule that can't be achieved or a goal that can't be achieved, you're kind of weakened.
	And if we have as a goal this sort of ideal peace of mind where we do not have internal conflicts, I think that's an unreasonable and unhealthy goal.
	And so, I've sort of made the example in part three of our body, right?
	Our body has cells which heal.
	It has cells that attack other cells, right?
	It has bacteria which it encourages to flourish in our intestines for digestion.
	It has bacteria which it attacks.
	So all living creatures and particularly sort of the post-lizard mammals and so on have both ferocity when it comes to pursuing prey and tenderness and nurturing when it comes to taking care of their young.
	So like a lion will attack an antelope with ferocity and then will – a lioness and then will nurture her young with tenderness.
	And so we have all of these oppositional characteristics within our mind which are healthy, I think.
	I think that's just...
	Attempting to eliminate that is sort of like saying, well, if we only ever had one kind of cell in our body, that would be the definition of health.
	And of course, that would not be the definition of health.
	That would be the definition of death.
	And in the same way, if we attempt to eliminate all the contradictory thoughts, ideas, and impulses in our mind, that is the definition actually of death.
	Because it is only when we are dead that we will achieve that, right?
	So... So that is a very, very quick sprint through.
	And when Greg listened to this, and I just thought it was interesting because it's a different experience that I have of these ideas.
	But when Greg was talking about this in the chat room this morning, he said that this stuff is not original in so far as it's an assemblage of other things that are put together in new ways.
	And I guess since I sort of – part of what I was talking about is or was the idea that impossible goals are not a positive thing to have, I just wanted to know what the definition was of original.
	What does it mean to be an original thinker and what is missing in Greg's mind from where we are?
	And the reason that I think this is an important question is I think it's important for us to have some common understanding of what we're doing here.
	But also it would be interesting if I sort of have a backup theory, if that makes any sense, because I think that people will experience this series as a kind of challenge, if that makes sense.
	So anyway, that's sort of the very brief outline.
	Go ahead.
	I just want to make it clear, too, that...
	I'm not at all saying that your ideas aren't original or that you are not an original thinker.
	Because I happen to believe both of those things are true.
	That your ideas are original and you are an original thinker.
	And to go back to Ash's analogy from the chat room, Newton didn't invent new kinds of numbers.
	He just used the numbers that were already there to invent a new kind of math with it.
	So the definition of an original thinker would be somebody who invents a new language, is that right?
	No, absolutely not.
	It would be somebody... Sorry to be annoying, I'm just trying to understand what you mean by original.
	It would be somebody who uses ideas in ways that nobody ever thought of before.
	Which is what you do.
	But not in this ambivalence series, is that right?
	I don't understand how you got that impression.
	Oh, just because you said that none of the individual things are new, but they're put together in a new way, if that makes sense?
	Right. Well, I mean, the observation about the oppositional characteristics of animal behavior and the concept of holding oppositional thoughts in one's mind at one time, that's not an original idea.
	I mean, that's...
	At least Orwell, if not also Rand, both use the same kind of idea themselves in their own storytelling and philosophies.
	Would you say that their use of the idea was original?
	Hmm.
	Without much without much background in in literature I'd credit Orwell with the idea itself, but I would say...
	We have... Which idea?
	The idea that we have opposing thoughts within our mind?
	That... That it's possible to do that to hold opposing thoughts in the mind simultaneously.
	And I think...
	I don't think Rand's use of it was original in that sense because she just borrowed it from Orwell and railed against it as well, whereas what you're doing is kind of turning that on its head and saying, oh, okay, well, is that really such a bad thing?
	Okay, so sorry, and I just want to make sure I understand.
	So what you're saying is that before Orwell, nobody knew that you could have opposing thoughts at the same time, and he identified that, and that's original?
	Is that right? Well, I mean, as far as I know, like I said, I don't...
	I've never seen the idea before that, or in any other...
	So you wouldn't place, just for example, the Plato-Socratic dialogues as Plato recognizing that there are two opposing thoughts, or that he held two opposing thoughts at the same time?
	And that was arguing or working them out?
	Because, I mean, these weren't recordings.
	These were Plato sort of sitting down and writing.
	Well, not in the conscious sense of the concept of double think.
	But clearly, I mean...
	The notion that there could be opposing ideas, opposing thoughts, was always there.
	Right, I mean, Hamlet would be an example of that, right?
	Right, exactly.
	But again, in the way that Orwell fashioned it, which was that not just that they were an either-or kind of Two different considerations on a scale, but actually somehow combined into a single entity, a contradictory entity, right?
	Well, yeah, he said that holding that 2 plus 2 is 4 and 2 plus 2 is 5, and 2 plus 2 equals whatever the party says it does, simultaneously is necessary for political power and entirely destructive to the human mind, right?
	Right, right. I mean, in terms of the negative aspects of contradictory thinking, I mean, that's been around since the pre-Socratics, right?
	Certainly since Aristotle, right?
	That if you hold opposing ideas, one or both of them have to go.
	Right. Right.
	So that idea was around.
	So the original aspect that Orwell talked about was that it was necessary for political power to get people to hold contradictory ideas.
	Right. Yeah.
	Okay. Okay. That's interesting.
	I mean, I don't know the history of that idea either.
	I just sort of wanted to sort of get an understanding.
	So he would be original there because he said that there's an aspect of controlling people, which is if you can get them to believe or claim to believe opposing things, then that would serve political power. then that would serve political power.
	And that was more of an observation than an invention, right, because he came about that idea.
	I mean, I've read his biography, so whether this is true or not, right, but he came about this idea through his analysis of communism in particular, but fascism also to some degree as well, where...
	You know, freedom was enslavement to the state and so on.
	That's what was sort of proselytized in the communist indoctrination, which he was very much a part of in the 30s.
	Right, wars, peace, and all of that business.
	Right, right.
	So he identified something bad that he had experienced, but he conceptualized it out of the experience or the actions of those who had inflicted this on others, right?
	Right, right. That makes sense.
	Okay, so, and I just, because it's more of an identification than an invention, if I understand where this sort of heads.
	Oh, I see what you're, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
	Right.
	So the originality is sort of synth...
	Man, I was in trouble with that word.
	Whenever I say that word, I seem to have four shots in my brain.
	Synthesizing your existing experience or the existing patterns, which of course is physics too, right?
	I mean, Newton didn't invent gravity.
	He just synthesized it from an apple that fell on his head and he was not the only person who had ever had an apple fall on his head, right?
	Right.
	He's not the first person to think about why it is that objects are attracted to the surface of the earth.
	Right. Right.
	Of course. Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely. So when you take sort of what is there and you synthesize it, you assemble, in a sense, them in a new way.
	In the same way that the words that anyone uses in a poem are all there in the language beforehand.
	Very few people will invent a word if they're not into Dadaism.
	But so they're all there beforehand, but you assemble them in a new way.
	Is that sort of what you mean? Yeah, exactly.
	And in the process, kind of come to new insights about concepts that have kind of been around.
	Okay, so I'm still not sure that I understand what the definition of an original thinker would be then.
	I mean, if I miss my guess, and this is not to put me in the same category as Orwell, of course, but if I don't miss my guess, then Orwell assembled ambivalence in a particular way, and I assembled then Orwell assembled ambivalence in a particular way, and I assembled ambivalence in a different We both sort of ended up with new insights with regards to the phenomenon.
	That's kind of what I meant by what I was saying in the chat room.
	Well, sure, I understand that, but what is an original thinker then?
	Right? Because you have a standard called original thought, which I didn't meet and Orwell doesn't meet and so on, right?
	I'm just – and this is for you more than it is for me, right?
	Sorry, go ahead. Wait, I don't under – I don't under – Well, if Orwell and I were doing the same sort of thing with regards to assembling the concepts of ambivalence and creating new insights from them, then...
	How is that not original thinking?
	But you said that what I was doing with ambivalence was not original, right?
	No, I didn't say that.
	You said that...
	I said that...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I said that taking the various...
	The ideas and the various bits and pieces that have been around for a while and putting them together in ways that nobody thought of before.
	That's what I'm saying.
	And that's what I said in the chat room, too.
	I said, taken separately, all of these separate things aren't Hello?
	Hello?
	Yes? Uh, yeah.
	isn't is it different i i'm sorry hold on and k_i_ And I'm just trying to understand the ceiling, right?
	Because if you have a ceiling which says, this is originality, and then there's stuff that falls short of that, right?
	Then I just want to know what the gap is and who's closed it, right?
	Because if you're saying that the tallest man is 30 feet tall, then everyone's shorter in a sense, but that's an unrealistic standard.
	Like if you say something is not original, then it would seem to me – and I'm perfectly fine.
	I mean, maybe it's not.
	It's not about me or about Orwell, right?
	But if something is not original, then it's because there's a reasonable or attainable standard of originality that's not being met.
	Does that make sense? Well— Let me see.
	If I take...
	Okay, so if I take, like, a hundred plastic water bottles and rope them all together into a raft for my swimming pool, right, or some other strange object that nobody's ever seen before...
	That's an original thing, even though all the water bottles, somebody else thought of water bottles, and somebody else manufactured the water bottles, and somebody else figured out how to manufacture them, and somebody else figured out the chemistry for the plastics.
	And somebody else built a raft out of something else, right?
	Right, right.
	Right. Somebody else, obviously, has built rafts out of wood and fiberglass and steel and various other things.
	But if I take a hundred water bottles and stitch them all together into a raft, that's kind of an original thing because nobody's ever done that before.
	Just using that as a hypothetical example, obviously, it's been done before.
	But do you see my point?
	Do I see your point? No. No, I certainly see the raft in my mind's eye, but I'm not sure what the point is.
	And that's why I figured I'd just withdraw the comment, because I can't make it clearly enough.
	I guess I'm just not sure what I'm saying.
	Well, no, and the reason I want to stay curious about this is I think it's very interesting.
	I really genuinely do.
	I think it's very interesting, the question about originality, just in general.
	I mean, I think it's very original.
	Obviously, I think that I'm an original thinker myself, right?
	Because otherwise I wouldn't be doing this, right?
	If I was just sort of repackaging other people's stuff, and I'm not saying that you're saying I'm doing that, but if I was just repackaging other people's stuff...
	That would not have been compelling enough for me to take this mad leap into the generosity of strangers, so to speak.
	And so I think that I'm an original thinker.
	That doesn't mean that I've invented my own language or logic or writing or anything like that.
	But I think it's very interesting.
	And I think that this is not going to be uncommon for people, just in my sort of way of thinking.
	I think that it's interesting that one of the first things that you said about the ambivalence stuff...
	was negative, right?
	Why was it negative?
	Oh, well, because if it's not original, I mean, obviously people...
	Obviously, I would rather be an original thinker than...
	I'd rather be more original than less original, right?
	I suppose so, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, sorry, what do you mean you suppose so?
	Well, because you're making it as though it's a problem of...
	Degrees. Where the more bits and pieces that are not original in whatever it is the final product is, the less original the final product is.
	But isn't that sort of the...
	What's that fallacy called?
	Where, you know, because bricks are small, brick walls are small, right?
	Right, right.
	Okay, let me ask it another way.
	Do you think that the ambivalent series was generally original and creative?
	Certainly, yes, because...
	This is the first time I've ever heard anyone suggest convincingly that conflict could be a healthy thing.
	Internal conflict, that is.
	Everybody preaches the opposite.
	So yeah, this is a common idea in economics, right?
	That competition, which is conflict between buyers or sellers for the dollars of buyers, that conflict and competition, the creative destruction of capitalism is essential for a healthy economy, right?
	Yeah, and again, it's in an external sense, though, as opposed to an internal sense, right?
	Sure. Biology is totally founded on this, right?
	Because there's no such thing as biology without evolution, and there's no such evolution without competition for scarce resources and conflict over them, right?
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	Right. Exactly.
	Right, and this is, to me, this is, I mean, and I apologize if this is annoying to everyone, but I have a feeling that there's something important here, which, you know, maybe there is, maybe there isn't.
	But if it is an original and creative thesis, right, then to me, it's interesting that the first thing that you talked about was that...
	That it fell short of originality, if that makes sense.
	And again, it's not a criticism.
	I'm not sensitive or delicate about it.
	I'm very happy with the thesis. But just for yourself, right?
	To me, it's interesting that you would phrase it in such a way as that it would fall short of originality in some manner.
	All right. I'll go with that for now.
	What do you think the source of that would have been?
	Well... In general, I find that people criticize, or people start off with a criticism, and look, I mean, I'm not saying that this was a criticism, and I'm not, you know, do you know what I mean?
	Like, I'm not saying, if you're saying, well, it fell short of originality, that to me is not a criticism, so I understand that.
	But if people start off by framing or diminishing an idea in some manner, it almost always is because they feel that the idea has diminished them in some way.
	And I think this is not going to be an uncommon response to this ambivalent series myself.
	Because the ambivalent series fundamentally is saying that the ego should surrender its power, right?
	That the ego is smaller.
	The ego is just what we think of as a conscious ego.
	It's just one person at a round table, right?
	That we are an ecosystem of competing but complementary characteristics, right?
	So in a sense...
	What it does is it diminishes the role of the ego and says that the ego, as Freud did, is not master in its own house, so to speak, but is, perhaps you could say, a primary negotiator, right? Because in the world of psychology as I see it, the ego plays the role in the personality as the DRO plays in society, right?
	That's an interesting point.
	It's a mediator, right?
	It listens and there are rules, it has logic and it has evidence which all people have to conform to, all the aspects of the self, like the angry self, the frustrated self, the loving self.
	All of those aspects are emotional capacities that we have.
	The conscious ego is that which invites people to the table, negotiates, and it is the mediator, right?
	And in the same way, The DROs do that in society, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand.
	So, and this is a sort of...
	It's a quibble, but I think it's an important one, or I could be completely wrong, maybe it's not important at all.
	But the issue is that when I talk to getting rid of the government...
	People feel an immediate need to diminish that idea, right?
	Oh, it's crazy, it's impractical, it'll never happen, you're a dreamer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And I'm not saying you did that to that degree, but that's their reaction, right?
	Sure, yeah, I would agree that there are going to be people that are going to do that, yes.
	Well, that's most people, right?
	Yes, I would also agree that most people will react that way, yes.
	Yeah, I mean, because the people who we get sort of coming in and chatting tend to be those who are more positively or highly negatively drawn to oppose the idea or whatever, right?
	So, in the realm of ambivalence, and if the goal of psychological health is to eliminate conflicts, that creates a very strong role for the conscious ego, right? Absolutely, because you need, obviously, a dispute resolution center for that.
	With final authority, right?
	Right. Which is the state of the self, so to speak, right?
	The state of mind, right?
	Right, right, exactly.
	And if, however, self-mediation and an acceptance of ambivalence is the goal of mental health, Then the conscious ego has less of a role to play.
	Less power, so to speak.
	Well, I'm not quite clear on how that follows because even though Even though you're removing the role of arbiter from consciousness, you still have the role of mediator there.
	There has to be something that...
	Sure. I'm not saying that it eliminates the role of consciousness.
	That can only be achieved by death, right?
	I'm not saying it eliminates it any more than getting rid of the government eliminates the need for mediation.
	But it doesn't eliminate the role of consciousness, ego consciousness, but it reduces its role, right, from final arbiter to, in a sense, primary mediator.
	I would say not so much reduces it, but just changes its character.
	It changes it in kind, not in degree...
	I would say, and this is my experience with it, I would certainly say that, and other people chime in because we've had a bunch of people trying to work with this ecosystem idea, but when you accept that you can't just will away that which makes you uncomfortable, but you should sort of open your heart and accept it even if it feels weird or even if it makes you feel crazy.
	Does it not feel that there's a slight diminishment in the authority of what we experience as our conscious personality?
	That we just can't make those decisions, and we just can't say, well, getting angry is bad, so I shouldn't do it, or feeling guilty is bad, so I should just repress it?
	That the authority, in a sense, or the power of the conscious ego is diminished when we take the Mika system approach?
	That's certainly true. The absolute authority is certainly, in that sense, is eliminated, but the...
	How can I put this?
	But it's that conscious ego that evaluates evidence and applies reason.
	So he still is a...
	He's the guy that's...
	Allowing these contradictory aspects of self to negotiate with each other, even though he's no longer in a role where he just arbitrarily decides who gets to win, right?
	And this is very interesting because we're kind of going in circles here, right?
	Because what I'm saying is that the role is diminished and you say, but there's still a role, right?
	Which is not a contradiction to what I'm saying.
	Okay. Alright, alright.
	Right, so that's sort of like saying, well, there should be no government, and you're saying, well, okay, so that means there's no arbitration of disputes, right?
	And it's like, no, right?
	I mean, it just means that the people who used to work for the government now work for voluntary agencies that have to respect the customers rather than just order them around, right?
	No, I'm just, um...
	I'm just trying to understand the... how... how...
	Well, okay, let's take your example, right?
	Because you have a very aggressive aspect of yourself that's quite abusive towards what you know of as your conscious self, right?
	Okay. Well, sorry, is that true or not?
	You're referring to the...
	The self-conversations I've posted, you mean?
	Yes. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	We're on the same page.
	Right, okay. Now, when you didn't experience the aggression of this character, right, you certainly felt a little bit more self-control, a little bit more in charge, right?
	Yeah, yeah. You feel kind of helpless when you face this virulence, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. So, that I think has been your experience, and I think that's a universal experience of people who are going through this acceptance of ambivalence in the ecosystem work, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with that.
	And you know from your dip into my crazy talk book that that is the general experience I had as well, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that.
	And of course, a lot of this, when you really think about the ego as we understand it, the ego to surrender to other things, because of course the first thing that philosophy asks you to do is to surrender to reason and evidence, right? Right, right, right, right.
	So, we had this guy in the chat room last night who talked about how he was religious, how God did not exactly speak to him but wrote to him in his mind's eye and had knowledge that...
	That he felt he could not possess and told him about his life and so on.
	And while this, of course, sounds completely deluded, saying this is a very common experience when you talk to religious people.
	And I personally haven't talked to a religious person in years about religion.
	And now, I mean, that sort of reminds me of why.
	Because they just say, well, this is true and there's no external evidence.
	And, of course, I asked him for his God to tell me what number I had just written down, and his God refused to do that, right?
	So you always eliminate proof.
	It's always a subjective experience and so on.
	And when we say, no, sorry, the burden of proof is upon you who is making the metaphysical claim for the existence of a deity.
	And if all you have is I see some writing occasionally in my mind's eye that gives me a certain feeling, that is not enough for proof, right?
	Right, right.
	So he would not surrender his ego to reason and evidence, right?
	Amen.
	That's correct. And he wanted God, and so he just had God, right?
	It made him feel special.
	It made him feel protected.
	It made him feel like he had a destiny.
	It made him have a relationship with something powerful.
	It helped him because he was in the military, and he said that he particularly needed a God in the military.
	But this fulfilled a need or a desire for him, and so he would not surrender his consciousness to any external standard, right?
	Yeah, that's exactly right.
	So that's an example of a dictatorial ego, right?
	Oh, very much so.
	I mean, he lives in a theocracy in his head, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	I sort of confirmed that after you left the channel last night, too.
	Right, right. So we find it particularly frustrating to deal with people whose, in a sense, angry or defensive or desiring will is reality, right?
	Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	And it's the same thing with my country right or wrong, this adherence to the flag and the founding fathers and so on.
	Because when you bring up evidence to the contrary...
	Well, things don't go so well, right?
	That's certainly the case.
	And this guy, who we were talking with last night, he said, I have come to conclusions based on evidence, right?
	Yes, yes, he did.
	So he made a knowledge claim that he said, look, my knowledge is not derived from my desires.
	My knowledge is derived from the evidence, right?
	Right. So he knew the value of evidence.
	He knew the value of empiricism.
	He knew the value of logic, right?
	Right. And he was expecting you to accept that as almost just out of sheer intimidation because he knew that you valued evidence.
	Right.
	And if somebody says, I believe in God like I like jazz, like I just believe in God because it's a word that I like to use and it's a merely personal preference, if they're not making any metaphysical truth statements, then we don't have any particular problems with them.
	They're not saying that God exists.
	They just say that they have a preference, which they happen to call God, right?
	Right.
	Right. Right. Whoops.
	Say that again? Sorry, what I mean is, if someone says, I'm hungry, they don't say that I am enslaved to the god of hunger, right?
	Who exists. Right.
	Somebody says, I like ice cream, they don't say, well, I bow to the will of the god of ice cream who exists externally to me in an objective way, right?
	Right. Right. Just as, that's my preference.
	Right. Right.
	But this guy was saying, I have come to the conclusion that God exists based on evidence, right?
	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
	And, of course, when we examine him, he has no evidence, right?
	That's correct. So it's like somebody saying, I have...
	Sorry, I'm going to add someone back. So it's like me saying...
	I believe in the god of hunger.
	I believe that the god of hunger exists because I have evidence for the god of hunger existing externally to me.
	And then you say, well, what's the evidence?
	And the evidence is I'm hungry, right?
	Then all of that is is evidence of an internal state, not any external reality, right?
	Right. Well, even if we were to accept, just for conversation's sake, even if we were to accept his assertion that his internal mental experience, whatever it was, was evidence, he admitted himself that whatever it was did not declare itself as God.
	It just gave him information.
	Sure. Well, and if internal experience is sufficient proof for existence or non-existence, then his internal experience of God, or what he calls God, is entirely trumped by our internal non-experience of God, right? Well, certainly, right.
	Because his convictions don't exist.
	One of them has to be true, which means that there has to be some external evidence, right?
	Right. So...
	That's just an example, and this is true of religious people and statists and people who are into the cult of the family.
	This is an example of an angry dictatorial will, right?
	So we also see this with people who become defensive with regards to their parents, right?
	So they say, I have a great relationship with my parents.
	We yell at each other every time we get together.
	Right, right.
	That is an example of...
	Someone who is angrily asserting something to the opposition of all available evidence, right?
	Right, or that other example we saw on the board, a person was saying, my brothers and I all love each other very much, but we beat each other bloody all the time.
	What does that mean?
	Right, right. Right, right.
	So this is sort of...
	I'm of course putting you nowhere on this planet, but this is an extreme example of an angry and dictatorial will that asserts violently, internally, based on preferences, right?
	And refuses to bow to any evidence, right?
	Yes. Right, the two examples that we brought up here, yes, absolutely.
	And of course, this is a highly disorienting and frustrating state of mind, right?
	Because you're stuck, not you, but these people are stuck in a contradiction, right?
	They're asserting that something is objectively true, but they are rejecting all evidence that could be used to prove it, right?
	While simultaneously asserting that they have evidence.
	Right, right. So this is a highly frustrating and destabilizing and disorienting state of mind, which is why it always unfolds this way, which is that people will say, I love my brothers, we beat each other up.
	So they will provide an assertion and evidence to the exact contrary, and then they will deny any connection, which makes other people, what?
	Yes, disoriented and frustrated, which is their original state of mind, right?
	Right. So projecting a state of mind onto other people.
	Right. So to take all of this as complete nonsense, right?
	To take all of this as just a ridiculously overblown example, I'd sort of like to put out the possibility that...
	When you listen to me, and you tell me more about this, but I'll just put out the theory and you can let me know if it has any validity.
	You don't like to give up control, right?
	What do you mean by that?
	Well, your encounter with your Miko system left you kind of alarmed, disoriented, and frightened, right?
	And frustrated. That's true.
	I've tried it three or four times now, and every time it always ends sort of that way.
	It's disorienting and frustrating and a little frightening.
	Well, you end it, though, right?
	Well, yeah. Right, so you reassert control over what you consider to be an unstable and hostile aspect of yourself, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	You're like, I'm going to hang up because you're not stopping yelling at me, right?
	Right, that's exactly right.
	So, when you experience the ecosystem or the ambivalence that you have about yourself, right?
	Because there's part of you that thinks that you're a great guy, and there's a part of you that thinks that you're a complete piece of crap, right?
	Well, that...
	I mean, empirically, right?
	Just based on what...
	Yeah. Just going by what I've written, yeah.
	Right, and I don't doubt that your positive experience of yourself is genuine.
	It also would appear that your negative experience of or perception of yourself is also genuine, right?
	I mean, that's pretty ferocious, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. And then you assert ego control over that interaction, right?
	Well, sure.
	Sure I do. Right.
	So you don't like the idea that ego control should be diminished because it's all that's holding the werewolf from tearing out your neck, so to speak, right?
	Yeah, that's a very good point. You can invite the vampires in.
	Haven't you seen the Buffy movie?
	Right? That's a good point.
	That's an extremely good point.
	So then when you hear a series saying, release your conscious control, diminish the authority of your consciousness, of your conscious ego, what is your experience deep down?
	Oh, I see where you're getting at.
	Yeah, that makes total sense.
	Fuck no! You crazy, right?
	Yeah. I'm putting down this weapon, I mean...
	Yeah, leave the doors of my house unlocked at night?
	What are you, out of your mind?
	Well, especially in the I Am Legend zombie world, right?
	Right! So what you're saying is, cut myself in the arm, rub myself all over with barbecue sauce and bits of bloody fish, and then jump into the shark tank when they're hungry.
	Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	Right, so I would say that when you come to the chat room, and this may be a complete and total idiot leap, and I'm fully conscious of that, right?
	right?
	But this is just sort of what I'm thinking, right?
	That you feel diminished by the talk about ambivalence and somewhat threatened by it, right?
	Or you feel threatened, right?
	Because if I'm saying drop your weapons when you're being attacked, that's kind of a jerk, right?
	I'd be kind of a jerk to do that, right?
	Well... I mean, just logically, if you were in a situation where you had a gun and somebody was running at you and I said, put the gun down and take the stabbing, right?
	I mean, that would be not a positive thing for you, right?
	I mean, in the real world.
	Just to back up just a second.
	I mean, all the stuff you've said up to that point, I'm with you.
	I've had a lot of trouble with the whole Miko system thing, and there is this sort of struggle between the conscious me and whoever this angry guy is.
	I'm not sure I understand the connection between that and what I was trying to say about the ambivalent series this morning.
	And... And just to sort of add to that, as I've been listening to it, I haven't felt anxious or upset or irritated at all by it.
	Right. And if you had, I would suspect that your response to it in the chat room would have been different, in my experience.
	Well, again, as far as the theory goes, so I'm not saying that this is proven or anything, but sorry, go ahead.
	Right, I'm just trying to connect what my emotional experience of the podcast series should have been if I were to have decided somehow, subconsciously, that you were threatening me, right?
	Well, no, no, no, it's not that I was threatening you, right?
	Because I'm not the one who's attacking you, right?
	I'm just saying, put down your arms in the face of attack, right?
	Right, right, right. But what I experienced when you came into the chat room and said, you know, this is not original except in so far as how it's assembled or whatever.
	What I experienced...
	a form of leveling, and that doesn't mean anything true.
	This is what I experienced, right?
	It's a form of leveling, which is someone coming in and saying, I am bigger than this idea.
	I can put this idea in its historical context.
	I can judge the originality or lack of originality of this idea, which is coming in kind of like being much bigger than the idea, right?
	It's diminishing the idea relative to your idea.
	Again, this is just my experience.
	This is just what I experienced.
	There's nothing true about it, right?
	Sure, sure.
	Now, if you feel the need to level ambivalence, to level up with regards to ambivalence, it must mean that ambivalence has leveled you down to some degree.
	Okay.
	Can you...
	Explain that? Well, sure.
	Sure.
	I mean, if you feel the need to diminish the idea of ambivalence, it's because you feel that ambivalence has diminished you in some manner.
	All right.
	So the question is, how?
	Well, and my sort of the way what I was starting with, if the concept of ambivalence does reduce ambivalence, The power of the ego, the authority of the ego, which it does clearly, and if you still feel the need for that authority of the ego with regards to your own self-hostility, then you will feel kind of put down or diminished or threatened by ambivalence, right?
	Right, but wouldn't that evoke a lot of anxiety or irritation or something?
	Well, only if it was conscious, right?
	If it's not conscious, what it's going to do is it's going to provoke irritation in others, right?
	I mean, that's how we know what's not conscious in ourselves, right?
	It's what we initiate that results in an emotional effect from other people, right?
	Okay, alright.
	So, I mean, to take a ridiculous example from last night, and nothing to do with what you're doing, except in the very, very most abstractive ways, but this guy, when we were talking about religion, this guy didn't talk about his feelings, didn't talk about his offense, didn't talk about his upset.
	What he said was, huh, wow, for atheists, you guys sure talk a lot about religion, right?
	Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
	It was annoying because basically the implied statement there is you guys have a strong relationship with God.
	You're just negative and resentful about it, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
	So he wanted for us to feel hypocritical and false and lacking self-knowledge, right?
	Mm-hmm. And those characteristics completely inaccurately described him, right?
	Yes, yes, they did.
	But he was not conscious of that, so he provoked it in others, right?
	Or at least tried to.
	Well, no. Well, it certainly worked on me.
	It doesn't mean that I acted it out, but I sure as hell was annoyed by the guy, right?
	Yeah, yeah, that's true.
	Right, because he just changed his story all the time, right?
	Yeah, yeah, that was...
	That was pretty apparent.
	He kept sliding from one thing to another.
	Right, right. So that which he has not experienced...
	Because if he experienced his own frustration with regards to believing all of this made-up nonsense, then he wouldn't provoke it in us.
	He would say, I find my relationship with God to be extraordinarily frustrating and problematic, right?
	And we would respond not with irritation but with sympathy, right?
	Right. But because he couldn't experience or doesn't experience because he labels it as sinful or whatever, because he won't experience his own frustration in believing these crazy-ass fairy tales, whenever he interacts with people at this level, he must create his own frustration in other people, right? Sure, sure, sure.
	So my first response...
	My first response, which is not to say an accurate response or anything like that, is that when someone brings something emotional to the table that doesn't seem to be generated as part of the conversation, I assume, and if it's a strong feeling, and if it's not contained in the content of what they're saying or the form of what they're saying, I assume that I'm feeling what they can't or won't.
	Right, and in context of this discussion, that seems pretty likely.
	Go on.
	Well, as you pointed out, all of the things set aside for the moment...
	The surface discussion set aside for the moment.
	The fact is that I do have this problem with my conscious ego and my angry self, right? Right, which ambivalence is going to provoke at some level, right?
	Right, right. So all of that is certainly true based on the evidence.
	All right. Absolutely.
	Now, there are other people in the call who've worked on the ecosystem stuff, and I just wanted to, because I'd be happy to take on this angry side of you, but if other people wanted to chime in or talk about any of their experience or whether this fits with anything that other people have experienced...
	Well, one of the things that I notice, hi guys, by the way, is that with almost everybody that I've talked to, there seems to be like an angry guy in getting in the way of us getting to the other people.
	I had an experience like that today, that there are other people that I know that are there, that I see there, that I can talk to them sometimes, but this, my angry guy, who isn't really angry, He doesn't really abuse, but he seems to be, while he's there, and he's there most of the time, no one else.
	It's like the thing that you said in the podcast, it's like the DEA agent going into a drug neighborhood and saying, y'all can come out now, it's okay.
	But they're not going to come out while he's there.
	Yes, and I think, sorry to interrupt, but I think that for a lot of people, I think you're quite right in saying this, for a lot of people, this is where the conversation has stalled, right?
	Is it this ecosystem thing with regards to anger?
	Yeah, I think that's absolutely true.
	Because what I've noticed is that there does seem to be not a strong increase, although there's some, But there doesn't seem to be a strong increase in the chat window and on the boards and so on in what I would consider to be exemplary kindness or something like that.
	And a lack of kindness, obviously, is always associated with the presence of anger, particularly unconscious anger, right?
	Sure. Absolutely.
	So I've seen people come in who are Ron Paul supporters or who are atheists or who are minarchists or who are skeptical and people are basically just jumping on them like a bunch of piranhas, right?
	Right, exactly. And that means that there's not a negotiation with the angry side, but rather it just takes over, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I know whenever I see him in my mind, I just want to get out the knife.
	There's no...
	I always strike first because I'm so afraid.
	Right, this is the Mr.
	Justice, right? No, no.
	He's... Not.
	Him. I have these daydreams where I... It's actually weird.
	I personify people within my head as actually people that I know.
	And this guy, he's not justice because he's something else.
	But he always comes in in the guise of my ex-fiance.
	And we never in real life actually talked to each other.
	We kind of went at it, and I'm going to make an obscure reference, like Byzantine theologians tearing each other down, not raised voices, just a knife behind the door.
	And that's what this guy is.
	Oh, so he's like a disassembler?
	Yeah. Right, right.
	Right, and I do get the feeling, of course, that, and this was one of my greatest challenges in this whole process, was this question or this issue of anger.
	I mean, obviously, there's a lot to be angry about in the world, and I've had a sharp increase in anger.
	There are a number of people who are communicating with me in one form or another who seem to be experiencing a certain kind of despair at this particular juncture and are asking sort of, well, how is it that you can stay positive and so on, and these are people who've done a lot of great work, but it seems to be kind of getting...
	Stalled around here, which is probably why in the great unconscious conversation that is going on in this place, why the positive value of ambivalence came out of me at the moment, I guess, right?
	Was there anyone else who's experienced anything similar or would like to mention something about this?
	Okay, well, Charlotte, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a crack at Greg's dude, I'd like to take a crack at Greg's dude, because we already took a crack at least at one of your dudes before.
	Absolutely. Alright.
	So, Mr. G. Yeah.
	So, how accessible is this aspect of yourself?
	What do you mean accessible?
	Well, conversationally accessible.
	Um... I could try.
	Okay. So, and we don't have to pretend that this is another character.
	I mean, whatever works, right?
	Because I know that you do have a bit of a CNN-scrolling, cynical ticker tape going on, on your worldview, right?
	Well, what do you mean by that?
	Well, what I mean is that when you see things, you have a reaction.
	It's not necessarily a bad thing.
	I'm just sort of pointing out what I've seen.
	That you have a reaction that tends towards extreme skepticism.
	Right? So when you see political interaction, your immediate thought is all kabuki theater.
	It's all just made-up nonsense and so on.
	And I'm not saying any of that's inaccurate, right?
	Okay. Okay.
	But when you see an interaction, there is, or let's just say that you have a cynical interpretation of things, right?
	At times. Not everything and not all things, but whatever, right?
	Yes, that's true.
	Okay, so if you could give the cynicism voice, right?
	Because I think it's very scathing, and I think that that scathing aspect of you is actually very helpful.
	I think it's very useful, and I think it's what allows you to cut through a whole load of nonsense.
	But I'm not sure that it's a part of your conscious experience of the world, in a sense.
	I think it's, you know, because we've talked about the challenges that you have coming in and bringing something positive, right?
	Yes. Which, of course, creates a feedback loop which only increases the cynicism, right?
	Because if when you come in and it's like, oh, this terrible thing happened or this awful thing happened or whatever, then, of course, people don't particularly want to partake of that too, too much.
	And so then your cynicism can be exacerbated.
	People only pretend to care about others.
	They don't really care about me.
	You know, that kind of stuff, right? Sure, that makes some sense, yeah.
	Okay, so what is the, if we look at Mr.
	Sinek, what is his speech about the world?
	What is the ticket tape that's going on for him?
	Speech about the world.
	Yeah, what is the world really from this perspective?
	What are people really?
	And don't... I mean, I don't think you're going to offend anyone here because nothing we don't know about your perspective anyway, but I mean, if you could just sort of take the gloves off and say what this aspect of you...
	What is the real story about people in the world and so on? - People in the world.
	Well, people in the world...
	Um...
	Alright, let me start by asking more, right?
	Because the longer the pause is, the more you're consciously trying to control the conversation, which isn't going to work.
	So let me just try asking some more pointed questions.
	Do you think that the majority of people are honest or dishonest with themselves and with others?
	Well, I would have to say dishonest.
	Alright. Do you think that the majority of people are hypocritical with regards to their values or live according to their values?
	I would say mostly hypocritical.
	And do you think that when people are confronted with the gap between their values and their actions, they are appreciative or aggressive?
	Usually aggressive. Right.
	And do you think that after being aggressive with someone, do they then say, oh geez, I shouldn't have been aggressive if this person was just being curious and trying to help?
	Or do they justify it by claiming that the other person had some sort of nefarious motive?
	They justify.
	Why do the majority of people get married?
	I don't know.
	Cynic knows. Why do the majority...
	Mr. Cynic, why do the majority of people get married?
	Because they're supposed to.
	By who? By their...
	By whom?
	By... Well, by the rules they've been conditioned to follow.
	Alright. Why do the majority of people have children, Mr.
	Stracynic.
	Because...
	Because...
	Now, sorry, these pauses, are they occurring because you simply have no idea what to say?
	Mostly, yeah. But that's not true, right?
	I'm kind of groping for something to say.
	Yeah, but this is not true, right?
	You don't need to grope for something to say.
	Because I know your thoughts about marriage, the majority of marriages, and love affairs, right?
	Yeah, they're crap. Yeah, they're crap, right?
	So just don't censor, right?
	Just get the ideas out.
	Get the thoughts out, right? This is all stuff that you believe.
	You've had a lifetime to think about it.
	You feel cynical about it, and nobody's...
	I mean, I'm not going to say that you're wrong.
	So why do the majority of people get together in relationships?
	Okay, we'll have to wait until we find a question that doesn't elicit a pause, because I know that your answer is because they're needy and desperate and pathetic and conformist, because I know that your answer is because they're needy and And then they rephrase all of that as some sort of wonderful love, right?
	Well, yeah, exactly.
	So why are you telling me that, right?
	Why are you censoring this Mr.
	Cynic? Because he's got all of this on the tip of his tongue, right?
	Well, I actually didn't have that in mind.
	I just... The words weren't there until you said them.
	Okay, well we can try priming the pump a little bit.
	Why do people love their country, or claim to?
	Because they don't know any better.
	So they don't know any better whatsoever.
	So they're like children who don't know that the Earth orbits the Sun.
	They have no responsibility for it whatsoever because they just lack knowledge.
	Well, they're like children reading back the Pledge of Allegiance to make their teacher happy.
	Well, that's not true.
	And this Mr.
	Sinek knows very well as well.
	Because if people left their country as a lesson that their teachers told them, Then, if they made a mistake, or if it turned out they believed the wrong thing, they would simply correct themselves, right?
	No, not as a lesson that their teachers taught them, but out of a desire to please their teachers.
	Well, sure, but if a child reads...
	If the teacher told them to read a list of horrible things about themselves, they would read it, because it would make the teacher happy.
	Okay, why are they so desperate to please the teacher?
	Because they're...
	Okay, why were you so desperate to please the teacher?
	Forget theorizing, let's just talk about you.
	Maybe that's the routine. I didn't really please any teachers.
	Sorry? I said I didn't really please any teachers.
	But did you want to?
	Not that I can recall, quite frankly.
	Okay, so other people want to please teachers, but you don't.
	What is the difference? Is it that you're smarter?
	No. I certainly didn't think so.
	What do you think now?
	Well, not smarter, but maybe more aware.
	Okay.
	So maybe more aware?
	And was this awareness, was it something that you earned, or was it just part of your nature?
	I don't know, it just seemed like...
	Part of my nature, I guess.
	Okay, so then you would have no reason to have a negative opinion of other people, right?
	Because if your awareness was just part of your nature, then there would be no reason to be upset with other people for lacking that aspect, right?
	Right, but if you're a...
	And I'm not suggesting this of myself, but say you're a human being and you've lived with human beings for X number of years and you know what human beings are capable of and you end up stuck on an island where there's only creatures of something less than human stature or status or capability, you're going to resent them because you wish you could be with people like yourself, beings like yourself.
	No, you wouldn't resent them.
	You would feel sad. I mean, logically, right?
	Logically, you wouldn't resent them.
	Why not? Because it's not their fault.
	You wouldn't resent them. It's not their fault, right?
	You'd resent the situation maybe, but you wouldn't get angry at the people who simply weren't up to your scratch.
	I mean we hear of mothers with young children who get incredibly frustrated at the fact that they don't have adult conversations with their children during the day.
	Right. That's a perfect example.
	But that's retarded, right?
	I mean, that's retarded because everybody knows that children cannot have adult conversations, so getting frustrated at it is completely ridiculous, right?
	It's not something that anybody would be proud of, right?
	It may occur, but you fight against it, right?
	That's a good question.
	That's a good point. Right, that's a good point.
	Because I'll tell you this, I'll tell you this for sure, that your unjust aggression against yourself is in fact unjust aggression against others.
	Well, then why...
	This is the ambivalence, right?
	The ambivalence is that you hate people for being stupid and conformist and for not listening to reason, right?
	Well, I don't see any reason why I should give him a voice.
	Because if he's abusive and unjust and all of that, then he doesn't deserve a voice.
	Well, but what if it's your fault that he's that way?
	How so? Well, if you won't deal with your own ambivalence towards people, then you're going to both hate and fear them.
	Fear others, right? I'm confused again.
	Well, I'll just talk about my own experience.
	Maybe it will resonate.
	So, I both love and hate people.
	As an abstract...
	I don't think really particular individuals, though that does occasionally happen.
	But in general, I both love and hate people.
	Obviously, I love people because I do what I do.
	And I love the potential.
	I love what is great about humanity.
	I love the depth. I love the possibility.
	And I hate the destruction that is wreaked upon human souls, particularly when they're young.
	Now, at the same time, I hate the hypocrisy of everyone.
	I have a standard which says that if you know enough to oppose it, you know enough to accept it.
	Right, so if people are perfectly cordial until you speak the truth and then they get aggressive, they can't claim to be ignorant of the truth, right?
	Right, because they've identified it enough to get angry at it.
	Right, so I hate what's been done to them to make them that way, Which means that I have affection for their original selves, but I also hate what they do in the moment when they start lying and manipulating, right?
	This poor bastard in the chat window last night, raised in a Christian family, indoctrinated, broken, brutalized in the military, propagandized, given a gun.
	We have, I think, any reasonable human being is going to have ambivalence towards someone like that, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	You poor bastard, you lying bastard, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	I mean, isn't that reasonable?
	Yeah, that's fair enough, yeah.
	That's exactly right.
	Yeah, so if you're not willing to recognize the ambivalence, right, the sympathy we have for the victim and the hostility we have towards the victimizer, And these are almost always the same person, right? If we're not willing to accept that basic truth, we're all about truth, reason, and evidence, right?
	And if we reject that as unpleasant or difficult, then we are actively repressing the dislike side of our ambivalence, right?
	So your effect is, your argument is, I should not give Mr.
	Sinek a voice because he is abusive, right?
	Well, and unjust as well.
	Sure, sure, I understand. He has no reason to be the way he is.
	Well, that's a conclusion though, right?
	I mean, if I lock a kid in a cellar...
	And every now and then I throw in a wolf for him to attack him and maybe he'll take it down and eat the wolf and whatever.
	I just treat this child just unbelievably, right?
	And then I say later on, well, I can't let this child out because he'll attack me, right?
	Alright, you lost me on the metaphor.
	Well, why will the child attack me?
	Because I have locked him up and treated him badly, right?
	Okay. I can't use the fact that the child will attack me as a reasonable or just excuse to lock the child up because the child will only attack me because I locked him up first.
	Well, I would have only locked him up first if he was abusive and unjust.
	How do you know?
	Is it unjust to be angry towards the hypocrisy in the world?
	So now you're saying he's not abusive and unjust.
	I'm not saying that.
	I asked you a question. Is it unjust to be angry at the hypocrisy in the world?
	I would say no.
	I would agree. Right?
	Okay. So, is it unjust to aggress against somebody who is justly being Anger.
	Right? So a situation which would be analogous would be if my kid has his lunch money stolen by a bully and is crying or is angry at the bully and then I smack him around saying, stop your whining.
	Obviously my action would be unjust, right?
	Correct. Because he had good reason to be angry or upset.
	Correct. Right.
	So, if, when you were a child, you had good reason to be angry or upset, then it may have been fully practical in the moment, but it would have been highly unjust to castigate yourself for your anger,
	right? It may have been practical, and I'm sure it was, to repress your anger, because if you'd gotten angry, you would have been punished more, right?
	That's, that's, yeah, that's certainly true.
	That it...
	Although, I mean, I can remember times when the anger wasn't repressed.
	Oh, I know, I know, for sure.
	And then those prime times probably did not end up too well for you, right?
	No, they didn't.
	Right, so your anger became a danger to you.
	although it was just at the time, right?
	Well, and some of these situations are a little bit hazy because my memory of my childhood isn't all that great.
	So, I mean, when I say it was just, I'm sort of making an assumption that it might have, or could have, or probably was, but I don't know.
	Well, but earlier you said that you locked up this Mr.
	cynic because he was unjust and abusive, right?
	But now you say you can't remember, right?
	Well, I say he is locked up because of that.
	Right, so obviously he was...
	And we both agree that he's...
	Sorry, you don't arrest someone and then invent a crime, right?
	You arrest someone because they've committed a crime.
	So he was originally unjust and abusive, and that's why earlier, that's why you said you locked him up, right?
	Right, right. We both agree he's unjust and abusive.
	No, no, but now you say you don't remember, right?
	No, I say I don't remember about my childhood experiences all that well.
	Well, why did you lock him up? How old were you?
	I mean, it wasn't yesterday, right?
	Well, to be honest, I didn't even really...
	There was no him before three months ago, okay?
	So there was nothing to lock up.
	It was just... What, you weren't cynical or negative more than three months ago?
	No, no, no. Of course I was.
	I just... Okay, so look, and I'm sorry to be annoying, right?
	We've got to cut to the core of this, right?
	Which is that you don't know when you locked him up.
	You don't know what occurred beforehand.
	You can't recall, right?
	And that's just a fact, right?
	Right. You know that there was evidence of this aspect of your personality for as long as you can remember, right?
	Yeah. So, the reality is that when you say, I locked him up because he was abusive, there's no evidence for that, right?
	Well, except after the fact, which is that we can see that he's...
	Well, he's abusive now, let's say.
	Unjust and abusive. Well, let's say that he is, but we don't know that he was locked up because of that, right?
	Okay. Okay.
	Yeah, I agree with that.
	Right. We don't know if his anger is an effect or a cause, right, of being locked up.
	Agreed. But earlier you said, and I'm not trying to catch you, I'm going to point out why I think you said this.
	Earlier you said, with certainty, I locked him up because he was abusive, right?
	No, earlier I said, why should I not leave him locked up?
	No, no, you said you locked him up because he was abusive.
	Okay, alright. I'm starting to lose...
	No, no, no, of course. This is natural, right?
	This is the fog area which we're not supposed to go to, right?
	So, of course, your brain is going to break up in the upper atmosphere here, right?
	Okay, yeah. I'll agree with you there.
	So, this is the core.
	If you're certain that you locked up Your anger because it was unjust and abusive.
	But when we look at the evidence, there is none.
	But beforehand, you were certain.
	This means that it's somebody else's judgment, right?
	At that time.
	At that time.
	Yeah, it doesn't matter when.
	At that time and thereafter, right?
	Well, whenever that was, the locking up the herd.
	Right, right. Okay.
	So it means that you were told that your anger was unjust and abusive, and you swallowed this as a reason, but when we examine it, there's no evidence, right?
	Certainly no conclusive evidence.
	I mean, you didn't go out there and strangle five kittens, right?
	No, that's true.
	So what this means...
	Is that it is true that your anger was unjust and abusive?
	or rather it is true that others experienced your anger as unjust and abusive, but there's no evidence that it actually was, right?
	Well.
	Hmm.
	Hmm.
	No.
	No evidence at all.
	Well, there's certainly no conclusive evidence.
	There's certainly no evidence that would justify your earlier statement of certainty that you locked up your anger because it was unjust, right?
	It's like if I say, well, this guy's in jail because he committed a homicide and I say, well, let me see the file and the file is empty.
	That's not very clear, right?
	Thank you.
	Right. Right. If I say, well, for sure, it's because of X, right?
	Like this guy says, well, I believe in God.
	Well, what's the evidence? Well, there isn't any, right?
	And you say, well, I locked my anger up because it was unjust and abusive.
	We say, okay, well, what's the evidence?
	Well, there isn't any, right?
	Right. Or going back to the first metaphor, the only thing in the file are hazy photographs that show him...
	Who knows what, right?...in the vicinity of where the murder took place or whatever, right?
	Right, right. Okay.
	So, what this means is that if you have a certainty about something that you are not certain of, it's somebody else's certainty, right?
	Right. Because there's no empirical evidence for you to have developed this thought.
	Therefore, if you have this thought, it's because this was inflicted on you by someone else, right?
	I mean, we know this with religion.
	Nobody sees God floating down from the heavens, nobody who's sane, right, and has a direct experience of God that they can validate by saying to God, what are the winning lottery numbers tomorrow, right?
	Right. Right, yeah, that makes sense.
	It would have to be an adopted opinion.
	An inflicted opinion.
	This is all the way back to FDR 70, right?
	The apple, the invisible apple.
	It's an inflicted opinion against reason and evidence, right?
	I mean, God. That makes sense, yeah.
	So it's somebody else's, quote, certainty that there is a God that makes somebody accept that there is a God and makes them afraid of rejecting that idea, right?
	Mm-hmm. And, of course, we know that people teach children about God because they're afraid of their community, and it is convenient for them if their children support their fantasy, right?
	Well, yeah, absolutely.
	Right. So, clearly, your anger was inconvenient for your family, right?
	Yeah, it would have been, certainly.
	Right, because your family is crazy and abusive, right?
	Yep. Right, and when you abuse anybody, they get angry, right?
	I mean, originally, I'm not saying like as an adult or whatever, but the original experience of a child who is abused is anger, right?
	I would think so, yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, that is the case, right?
	And so, your anger was a manifestation of your parents' brutality, right?
	Originally. That would have to be the case.
	Right.
	So, your parents experienced their brutality through the presence of your anger, right?
	I'm not saying consciously, I'm not saying logically, but that's the effect, right?
	Explain to me what you mean by that.
	Well, what it means is that If I'm abusive towards someone, like, sorry, if I want to cause somebody pain and I do something horrible to them with a fork, right, then their discomfort, their pain, their crying out, their crying, their begging for mercy or whatever, is a manifestation of my torture, right?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	Yeah, how do I know I'm torturing?
	Because somebody's screaming, right?
	Not with laughter. Right.
	Right. Does that make sense?
	Yes, absolutely. Okay, so if your parents are abusive, they're going to experience your anger as the effect, right?
	Yes. Okay. Sure.
	Right. So, if they want to pretend to themselves that they're not abusive, what are they going to have to do?
	Since your anger is a symptom of their actual abuse.
	Oh, I see what you're saying.
	If they want to pretend that they're not abusive, they have to avoid any evidence of it.
	And to do that, they would have to convince me to repress the expression of anger.
	Right. Right.
	You are the guy who can out the counterfeiter, right?
	So you have to be locked in a room so the counterfeiting can continue, right?
	Yes. It's like that old plot device, right?
	Like the person who is going to prove that the governor is corrupt has evidence manufactured against him and is thrown in prison, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So clearly, when you have a judgment that your anger was abusive, that is not your judgment.
	Well, my anger at that time, sure.
	Yeah. Sure, that makes perfect sense.
	It was your parents' judgment and your siblings' judgment, right?
	Right, that makes sense.
	Right. Now, if someone is locked up unjustly, And then you take ownership of that prison and you do not review their case files, even though you know that the former governor was incredibly corrupt.
	What does that mean for you, morally?
	Well, it makes me, at best, complicit.
	Right. Now the authority for these prisoners falls into your hands and you don't even review the case files, right?
	Right. You just keep them locked up and call them abusive, right?
	Call them criminals. Yep.
	So, who is the unjust one in this situation?
	The criminal or the imprisoner or you?
	Well, it would definitely be me.
	And that's what I mean when I say that you're...
	Sorry, this is why the guy is so angry at you.
	Right.
	so how does laughter on the wire could you Could you like mute your mic or hang up?
	Sorry, go on. I think James was unmuted.
	I'm not sure. Anyway.
	So, okay, so...
	Right, so I'm the unjust one keeping him locked up.
	But then I'm sort of in a double bind, right?
	Because if I unlock him now, he's abusive and...
	Kind of aggressive. And so the just thing is to release this guy, but if I release him, then he's just going to go ahead and inflict all that pent-up abuse and aggression anyway, right? Oh, I'm sorry.
	Perhaps you think that he's in a cage and you're not.
	Perhaps that's the mistake in thinking.
	Right?
	The prison guard is still in the prison, right?
	Perhaps you feel that you can keep him in prison and free yourself, right?
	No, what I think is that we're both kind of trapped.
	Right. I mean, the question is not, should I free him?
	him, the question is, do I want to be free?
	Right?
	Just logically.
	Okay.
	Right. Because you're guarding this guy, right?
	You're on your guard against him.
	You're making sure you're checking his lock five times a day.
	You're not letting him out. You're not any goddamn more free than he is, right?
	Right. Right.
	That's exactly right.
	So, the question is, do you want to be free?
	Not, do you want to let him out?
	Well, the answer to that is obviously yes.
	Okay, so then you have to ask, were your parents right about your anger?
	Because you're acting like they were, like your anger was.
	Your anger was certainly destructive to them because they were abusive, right?
	Sure. And so your question is now, have I become what my parents...
	Have I actually become that?
	Because to your parents, your anger was crazy and dangerous and destructive and horrible and virulent and virulent and shameful and all this kind of stuff.
	Has it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
	That's what you're torn about, right?
	Sure, sure. Yeah.
	I'm sorry, that didn't sound at all convincing.
	Oh, yeah. I'm...
	I'm...
	I don't know.
	I... Yeah, I guess that would have to be the case.
	That would definitely have to be the case, because why else would I be having so much trouble with the self-conversations?
	Right. And can you see why your anger...
	Because if you can't understand why this guy is so angry at you, then of course his anger is going to look unjust, right?
	And scary and abusive, right?
	Sure. Yeah.
	Yeah. But if you've taken over the prison, and this has been the case for over 20 years, right?
	Yes, that's true.
	And you still keep this guy under lock and key, he's no longer going to be that angry at the original abusers, right?
	Who's he going to be angry at?
	Well, obviously, the guy who's left in charge, which is me.
	Who keeps him locked up, right?
	and gives him the impossible situation of saying, hey, the moment that you're no longer angry about being unjustly imprisoned for four decades is the moment I'll let you out.
	Which is never going to happen.
	Dangling the key in front of him, snatching it away, right?
	Right. Well, I really want to let you out, but you seem to be completely unjustly angry.
	Strolling away, whistling, twirling the key, right?
	You seem to be completely insane.
	Well, you're totally taunting him, right?
	Yeah, I guess so, in a way.
	Okay, in what way are you not taunting him?
	Well, I mean, in those self-conversations, I was trying to be as...
	Inquisitive as I possibly could.
	But you weren't willing to accept responsibility, right?
	You're like the doctor coming along and saying, gee, how can I help you with this bizarre injury that seems to this weird imprisonment, right?
	Right. Which is exactly what the goddamn parents do, right?
	hey, if you're mysteriously upset about something that had in your past, maybe I can help in some way.
	Yeah, I guess that's true.
	Thank you.
	Okay, what part of it is not true?
	I don't want Swiss cheese for lunch.
	Well, I'm just trying to...
	I'm going back over those conversations in my mind and trying to see how that metaphor fits.
	Well, look, he's angry at you, right?
	Right. And you feel that that is unjust, right?
	Well, at best, kind of frightening.
	Right, and at worst, just horrifying, murderous, and abusive, right?
	Yes. Right.
	So, you've been the abusive one who's unjustly kept him locked up, based on believing the propaganda of your parents who did not have your best interests at heart, to say the least, right?
	Right. And you're calling him crazy and abusive, right?
	But why do I get to say that I still believe in the propaganda of my parents?
	Because you're saying that you locked him up because he was crazy and abusive, right?
	And you're also not taking any role or responsibility in what you have done to exacerbate and continue his imprisonment.
	Because what he's really saying is, Jesus Christ, man, you've had the fucking key for over 20 years, and you won't open the goddamn door?
	and then you blame me and call me abusive for being angry at you?
	That's the parent who beats up their kid for 20 years and when the kid says, I'm angry about it, the parent says, but I'm scared and you're hurting my feelings.
	That's a good point. No, seriously.
	Yeah, yeah. So he has a lot to be angry about with you, right?
	This is the horrible side of the Miko system, right?
	And you saw this in Crazy Talk, too, right?
	Sure, sure, sure. People are like, yeah, look what a great leader you've been, Steph.
	You run this goddamn thing into an interstellar ditch, right?
	Right. Right.
	Right. Right.
	And so you understand his revenge on you, right?
	His revenge on you is you don't get out of fucking prison either.
	Right, we both go down together.
	Yeah, your self-management, your self-control, your concern about your angry side, it's consuming, right?
	Oh shit, did I put a foot wrong?
	Did I get too angry? Oh, I guess I didn't make my point well.
	Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I did the wrong thing here.
	This crazy-ass self-management you've got going on is a real prison, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Oh, I guess I explained it wrong.
	I withdraw my comment.
	It's like that little icon with the confused face, right?
	I've seen that dozens of times, right?
	I guess I don't know what I'm talking about.
	I guess I shouldn't have done this, right?
	This self-management is your prison, right?
	And you're in there with this guy, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So he's got good reason to be angry at you.
	And that does...
	See, this is the weird thing about ambivalence, is that that doesn't make you a bad person.
	Doesn't make you...
	If you let him get angry at you, right?
	Just let him get angry at you.
	Like a kid has a temper tantrum, right?
	Sure, sure. You restrain the kid from doing physical damage, but you don't scream them down, right?
	You don't throw them in the coal cellar.
	Okay. Sorry, you feel you should throw them in the coal cellar?
	Okay. No, no, no, no, no.
	No, I'm, again, trying to apply the metaphor to the situation.
	Just trying to see how it fits.
	Well, I mean, the first thing that you do is you accept, you know, tell me what I've done wrong, right?
	Lay it on me, what I've done wrong.
	Not, what are you so unjustly thinking about?
	I've done that twice and it just spouts off.
	Right. And then what?
	And then nothing.
	Because your judgment is that this is crazy and abusive, right?
	Like, why would I want to self-abuse?
	Isn't the whole point to have self-esteem?
	Why would I like myself like this, right?
	Right. Right.
	I mean, I gave him 11 pages of free reign to spout all the bile he wanted, and at the end, I just felt like I got nothing for it.
	Right, because first of all, you're looking at what you can get, right, rather than what you can give.
	Well...
	Okay, um...
	So...
	Right, it's not about you, it's about him.
	It's about your anger.
	And you say, oh, 11 pages, that should be more than enough.
	But that's one page for every four years that he's been in a prison.
	It's not up to you to say when his upset is vented.
	That's control, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Whose job is it to say when it's enough?
	Well, it's nobody's job.
	Well, it's his job.
	When he is satisfied that he has been hurt, when his frustration has been hurt, when his anger against you has been recognized as something that is just and healthy, then he will sit at the then he will sit at the table, and he will help you.
	Thank you.
	But if you view his criticism of you as shocking and unjust, his anger and rage towards you as shocking and unjust, you'll slam back the door, right?
	And then what will happen when anybody criticizes you in the real world?
	That's a good question.
	Well, you know the answer, right?
	What, I'll get upset?
	Your fault. Right.
	As I said in Ambevolence Part 3, that which we reject just becomes, or that which we project just becomes levers that other people use, right?
	And you fold with external criticism, right?
	Or you get angry.
	But mostly you fault.
	Yeah, that's true.
	Right, and that's an effect of your relationship with yourself.
	As I said, right, I mean, once you go through the scathing self-criticism that comes from fundamental mismanagement, which comes not out of malevolence, but out of fear and ignorance, right?
	Right. I mean, you can't hit me as hard as I hit myself, right?
	So other people's criticism, because it's always a mystery to people.
	Like, how do you face this every day, right?
	Well, I've already gone through this with myself.
	So why would other people's criticisms bother me that much?
	Right, anything after that would be just sort of...
	Easy peasy. And that doesn't mean I don't listen to other people's criticisms and so on, but their external criticism doesn't trigger savage self-criticism in me, which causes me to either get angry or fall, right?
	The volatile people are the people who fall...
	Sorry, go on. Okay, so...
	Alright, so...
	Someone criticizes me, and that's a trigger for self-criticism.
	How does that work?
	What do you mean? I'm trying to understand the connection between the criticism and the self-criticism.
	How does it become a trigger?
	Well, I mean, if you have a strong aspect of yourself that thinks that you're a very bad person, when someone else says that you're a very bad person, that just hooks right in, right?
	Well, this is interesting because if I've sort of split it off or isolated it as a separate identity, as in this sort of ecosystem thing, then I don't have to...
	Think of it as myself being a bad person.
	I can just sort of imagine it as some imaginary friend that's angry and abusive or whatever.
	You could, but what I would do is this, right?
	The way I would metaphorize it would be something like this.
	So imagine you have a prison full of unjust prisoners.
	They're not justly imprisoned and you've been in charge of this prison for 20 years.
	Right.
	Right. They also know that every day that you don't do that, you're less likely to do it because you will then, I mean, if you've only unjustly imprisoned people for one day, you're going to feel pretty damn good about letting them go, right?
	Okay, yeah. But if you've done it for 20 years, then you've got some conscience challenges, let's say, right?
	Right, conscience challenges and also ego identification challenges and Right.
	Lots of problems, right? Lots of problems.
	So they get increasingly desperate as time goes along, right?
	Right. Sure.
	And fundamentally, they also want to set you free, right?
	They have ambivalence as you have ambivalence, right?
	They know that you're in the same boat, right?
	So imagine that this...
	Well, they do know that, but he certainly doesn't seem all that interested in freeing anybody.
	He will be interested in freeing you to the degree with which you're interested in freeing him, in my experience.
	So imagine you've got this prison population that is getting increasingly desperate and frustrated.
	With what's going on and are increasingly aware and becoming increasingly aware that they might fucking die in prison.
	That they may never get out.
	That's true. Right?
	They're gonna fucking die in their cells and be thrown out with the trash, right?
	They will never see sunlight.
	They will never smell air.
	They will never walk free.
	So of course they're getting more and more frustrated and desperate, right?
	That's true. Now, imagine that you, as Governor Gregg, that what happens is that they see a newspaper on your desk that says Governor Gregg is unjust.
	What are they going to do?
	Thank you.
	I don't know.
	What I do.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Confused me with that part of the metaphor.
	Well, if I'm a prisoner, and I'm terrified of dying in jail, and it sure looks like that's what's going to happen, and the only way I can get out is to convince the governor that he's unjust, or convince the prison guard that he's unjust, the warden that he's unjust.
	Right. Then if somebody, if a newspaper lands on the warden's desk that says the warden is unjust, I'm going to be like, yeah!
	Oh, I see. He's unjust.
	Read the goddamn newspaper.
	See? You are unjust.
	The whole prison population is going to rise up in thunder.
	Bang their tin cups on their bars, right?
	Yeah! He is unjust.
	Read it! So we can all be free, right?
	Right, right, right, right.
	That makes sense. So, if you've got these prisoners who are angry at you, at the moment that some external confirmation or external...
	And they don't care if the newspaper is true or false, right?
	They just want you to be open to the possibility that you're being unjust so they can be free, right?
	Right, right, right.
	That makes good sense.
	Right? So, when you get criticized externally, the whole prison population rises up and yells that you're unjust, right?
	Mm-hmm. So, overwhelmed, you fold, right?
	If this keeps going on, I'm going to have a riot in my hand, right?
	Just burn the paper. Get rid of the comment.
	Oh, oh, oh, okay, okay.
	Yeah, all right, I see now.
	All right. That metaphor took so long, I almost forgot what we were working for.
	Yeah, you're right. So the external criticism is the newspaper on the desk.
	Gotcha, gotcha.
	Okay, all right. And the prisoners are rioting internally, which is the collapse, the folding.
	Right, right. Okay, gotcha.
	Yeah, that sort of makes sense.
	So then the prisoners get even more angry, right?
	Right, okay, so they get more angry.
	Why did the prisoners get even more angry when you fold?
	Right, that's exactly the thought that was going through my mind.
	Because, well, the warden just gets replaced with another one, right?
	Do you want me to step you through?
	Yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll stay with the prison metaphor because we've worked it out.
	So, let's say a reporter comes in and accuses you of being unjust and the whole prison erupts with, yeah!
	Right? Right, right.
	And then you say to the reporter, yes, I am unjust, and you say that just to get him out of the goddamn prison so that you can get the inmates back under control.
	Right, but if— So you admit to being unjust to the reporter, right?
	And you hurry him out of the prison.
	And then you go and tighten all the locks on your prisoners, right?
	So then the prisoners feel incredible despair and frustration.
	Because their only hope has been, if he understands that he's unjust, he will let us out, right?
	But then they see that even when you admit that you're unjust...
	They don't get let out. Okay, so what you're saying is the actual folding is the admissions of the reporter or whatever.
	Sorry, say that again? So, when I fold to criticism...
	Yeah, you're saying my judgment is impaired...
	I make mistakes. I can be unjust.
	Right? Right.
	So the actual folding to criticism is shuffling the reporter out of the prison.
	Yeah, yeah. You're right.
	I'm totally wrong. I'm absolutely unjust.
	So you can leave now, right?
	Okay. So then your prisoner's gonna get even angrier, right?
	Now he admits that he's unjust and he makes mistakes and his judgment is flawed, he still won't review our goddamn case files.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	Right.
	So the MECO system has a lot to be pissed off about, right?
	I'm not saying that this doesn't make you a bad person.
	Okay, I'm following you so far.
	And this is why when we started, and we won't be able to go back to it now, but this is why when we started there were so many pauses, right?
	Because I'm like, hey, can I talk to a prisoner?
	And you're like, no, no, sorry, I have to talk on their behalf.
	Ha ha ha ha. Well...
	I mean, I just don't know how to end...
	I don't know how to let them talk, let alone talk for them.
	Well, I mean, it is listening without judgment, right?
	You know that much from therapy.
	Because when you start getting abusive towards yourself, let's say, when your prisoners start complaining about years and years of injustice and imprisonment, you get offended and you close the door, right?
	Or you get upset.
	Or you feel this is self-abusive.
	Well, how is it not?
	It's only abusive if it's unjust, and they have good reason to be angry with you.
	Okay, that's true.
	Or even if they don't have good reason to be angry with you, you're still judging them prior to all the evidence coming in, right?
	One of the hardest parts of the Miko system, and this is hard in any way or in any part of life, but one of the hardest parts of the Miko system is viewing ourselves as these other aspects of ourselves view us.
	What do I look like to my angry side?
	Well, I look like a conciliatory wimp.
	What do I look like to my loving side?
	What do I look like?
	It's self-empathy, right?
	If I put myself in the other aspects of myself's shoes, what do I look like?
	And it's from that, because people always say, like, how is it that you can see so deeply into other people?
	Well, it's because I've tried that process, as you've read about, of getting into the shoes of the other aspects of me, right?
	Right. Right, so what do you look like to your angry side, right?
	Asking those kinds of questions and just, even if it's lacerating, even if it feels like you're walking through fire and standing there, right?
	Right. Just continuing to be curious, right?
	Because you can't be any more curious about other people than you are about yourself.
	Right. Right.
	But one of the things that...
	I guess one of the things that still kind of confuses me about this is that...
	So the idea is not to fold, but to be curious, right?
	So because Because that would just be sort of like the opposite of just slamming the door shut.
	Just folding. You mean if you say to your angry side, yes I am a bad person, now shut up.
	Yeah, if I just agree with him to agree with him, right?
	Well, still not letting him out of the prison, right?
	Right, and that's kind of what I'm wondering is...
	I mean, in practice, what has to happen to start that process?
	Because... Because I can't just agree with him, but at the same time, I can't just...
	I disagree with him either, because then it's just a...
	But see, you're putting up a false dichotomy, right?
	Which is that curiosity leads to resolution, right?
	If you just keep asking, go on, tell me more, and what about this, and what about that, and tell me more about how you feel about this, and tell me more about how I look like to you, and tell me more about everything that I've done that's wrong, and tell me more, and tell me more, and tell me more, right?
	Just keep going. Just keep going.
	Wow. And this, as you saw, mine went on, and I don't think that it needs to go on nearly this long for anybody else.
	God love you, right? But mine went on for over two years, right?
	That's true. Now, there's a framework in place that I've tried to communicate to other people that will make it easier.
	Right? So this two hours was like six months for me.
	But, yeah, you just keep going.
	Because the difference is you can't.
	I mean, abusive people in your life who've got no history or reason to be abusive with you or be angry at you, yeah, you get rid of them because they're just trying to inflict their own fucked up prison system on you, right?
	right but but you can't divorce yourself right i'm all trying to do is be scientific here i know that sounds weird talking about imaginary prison guards and shit like that but we're just trying to be scientific i don't go to calm people and say you know you're really angry at yourself i don't make up facts right no that's true right with the ecosystem i never tell anybody what to write I never tell anybody that they should do it this way or they should do it that way.
	If they're blocked, I'll try and help them.
	But all we're trying to do is look at what's going on in you psychologically.
	And this is what is going on in you psychologically.
	The empirical evidence is that you have a lot of self-anger.
	That's just an empirical fact that we have to work with.
	It is also an empirical fact that you cannot evict yourself, right?
	You could get frontal lobotomy.
	You could also get on Thorazine.
	You could do lots of things that would...
	But that's not an option, right?
	Right. So, given that you are, in fact, you have a lot of self-criticism, given that there are some reasonable grounds for understanding that, the reason or the causes, given that you have to negotiate with yourself because you cannot evict yourself, the only logical cause...
	self-management, self-control, and ultimate futility.
	Which is the life I've been living all along.
	Right, that's the life you've been living all along.
	And if you wanted that life, deep down, you wouldn't be in this conversation.
	That's true.
	You'd be over at the Limey Boards or wherever, right?
	You'd be joining your Mises and becoming Christian or something, right?
	If you didn't want this.
	I mean, again, we're just looking at the evidence, right?
	Right.
	Thank you.
	So given that you want peace in a real way and that you are interested in the ambivalence thing and all that, and given that you are angry with yourself and there does seem to be some just cause, and given that we know that curiosity leads to resolution, I mean these are all just facts that we're working with, right?
	Then we know that that's the only path that you can take other than continued and ever-accessivating self-management, right?
	Yeah, exactly. I mean, again, I know that we've been delving into some heavy metaphors here, but this is just the basic facts of the situation, right?
	Nothing's made up. Nothing's created, right?
	This is all just the empirical facts that we have to work with.
	Right, so just keep probing him until he doesn't have anything else to say.
	Yeah, and respect the fact that you're angry at yourself, right?
	Right. Because you don't know if it's just or it's unjust.
	Yet. That's a good point.
	I just made a snap judgment.
	Right. It's RTR, right?
	We communicate feelings. We do not communicate conclusions.
	Right? Right.
	Now, this guy, because you keep imposing conclusions on this guy, he's going to want to keep imposing conclusions on you, right?
	Just keep bypassing those conclusions.
	Keep going for the feelings, right?
	He's going to say, well, it's just because you're a weak asshole or whatever, right?
	And that's fine. Tell me more about how you feel, right?
	Forget the labels. Forget the words.
	Forget this or that, right? He does that a lot.
	Yeah, he does that a lot because you do that to him a lot.
	You say he's unjust and brutal and abusive and dangerous and murderous, right?
	So... But then you get all offended when he calls you names, right?
	That's a good point.
	Maybe that's not too just, right?
	Right. That's a good point.
	That's a good point. So it's all been just, at least up to this point, just an interchange of slanderous conclusions back and forth.
	Right. It is, as you say about politics, all kabuki theater.
	Right. Right.
	Right. And so you fear or you feel that people are hypocritical and they don't live by their values and this and that, right?
	And that may be true, but you don't know the degree to which that's a judgment about the world or about yourself, right?
	Yet. Right. Right, because I don't know where the line is between the projection and the observation.
	Right. I mean, once you start living your values, and look, I mean, this is all nonsense criticism because, I mean, you're amazingly brave and work very hard and this kind of stuff, right?
	And this is not fixing what is broken, right?
	This is attempting to become superheroes, right?
	This is not learning how to walk from a wheelchair.
	This is learning how to fly from a wheelchair, right?
	Right. We're not trying to rejoin the common herd of humanity.
	We are trying to gain a kind of freedom that I don't think has been around before.
	I don't want you to feel like you're deficient, right?
	We're just trying to go so much further than anything that's been going on before.
	Well, just in terms of the content of these kinds of things, These conversations, I mean, that's just a fact.
	Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is unprecedented, and this is unique, and this is all that kind of good stuff, right?
	Right. So, yeah, so that's, I mean, and I know that this is where a lot of people are getting stuck, right?
	Is that, well, abuse is bad and therefore self-abuse is bad and therefore repression is the only answer and so on, right?
	But abuse is bad in the real world because we have the option of de-fooing or de-friending.
	We don't have the option of de-selfing, right?
	Yeah, right. Well, we do, but we don't.
	Yeah, I mean, if you want to throw yourself off a cliff, I guess, but that's not a solution, right?
	Right. So I know that we haven't got any particular to-dos yet, right?
	But I think that we have a way of approaching it that has a little bit more humility in it, right?
	Because it's like, okay, let's assume that these other characters have the straight goods on us, right?
	Even if they're mad, right? And that kind of stuff.
	Right, right, right, right.
	And, well, then how do I get to a list of to-dos from here?
	Well, it's not with an apology, right?
	It starts with you saying to your angry guy, shit, I'm sorry.
	I've been totally cutting you off.
	I want to know everything that you're pissed off about me.
	I mean, it's exactly what we want our parents to do to us, right?
	Or with us, right?
	That's a good point. Whatever your parents did, do the opposite with yourself and you're probably on the right path, right?
	And be open to admitting faults, be open to talking about your guilt, be open to talking about your confusion, respect his feelings, ask him for more, ask him for more, ask him for more.
	Everything that our parents didn't do with us, right?
	Just kind of a self-RTR. Yeah, yeah.
	As I've always said, RTR is first with the self and only secondarily with others, right?
	Right, right, right, exactly.
	And avoiding also the false apology.
	Oh man, if you falsely apologize to this guy...
	They'll strangle you while you sleep, I'm telling you.
	I'll help him.
	Because that was a common habit of my parents once I got older.
	Well, and you do it too, right?
	I mean, my mother would apologize for the weather.
	Yeah, and you have that habit too, right?
	It's blatantly manipulative, right?
	Yeah. Because this all came out of this one comment in the chat, right?
	But you didn't self-RTR with that.
	You're just like, I'm sorry, I withdraw my comment.
	Yeah, you're right. That's exactly right.
	Right, so don't do that. I mean, don't do that.
	I mean, that much you know, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	It's hard not to fall into that habit.
	So for anybody who's still in there, this conversation, is there anything that other people wanted to add?
	or was this useful?
	Was this helpful?
	This is your wake-up call.
	Hello? I guess everybody's at work or something like that.
	But... Okay, well I'll stop now because we don't want to completely kill people in terms of their podcast listening.
	But I will compile this and send it around.
	People can have a listen. Thanks, Steph.

▲