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April 13, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:18:12

1037 Sunday Call In Show Apr 13 2008

A corrupt therapist, a drive-by outrage, and the secret sorrow of veganism and animal rights.

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	Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us.
	This is the 13th of April, 2008.
	Sunday afternoon call-in show.
	Welcome to the Philosophical Mud Pit.
	We're going to turn the internet into a cage match throwdown.
	Or... Talk philosophy.
	We're trying to figure out which one is the most macho.
	Just an update for those of you who've expressed endless concern about how my shoulder is.
	I know it's number one on everyone's mind.
	First, check on Steph's shoulder.
	Second, establish stateless society.
	It's good, actually.
	I'm back to full weights at the gym and just wanted to mention, for those who are skeptical as I was, in fact, that something called cupping Different from a reach around.
	Something called cupping in acupuncture is actually quite good and works very well.
	Just don't have your wife experiment.
	With knitting needles. That's not the approach that you should take to find.
	Otherwise it takes a certain amount to come back.
	But I just wanted to recommend it.
	I had some ultrasound done and so on.
	But the cupping seems to have done some good.
	It's painful, but it's helpful.
	So this is just something to note.
	I don't know how it works.
	I imagine it's something to do with increasing the oxygenation of the muscle and tissue where the cupping is because it sucks all the blood apparently in your entire body.
	It's one of the few times I didn't have any original ideas because I had Oh, only about an ounce of blood left in my brain, which is pretty much like my whole teenage years.
	But it actually was very helpful and very good, so it's just something I'm throwing out there.
	I'm not big into alternative medicine.
	I don't even know if this is alternative, but it seemed to work quite well.
	I went for two sessions, and except for the hysterical crying and weeping, it was actually quite relaxing.
	Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting because they move these superheated cups around your muscles, or around your back, and it feels totally fine until they hit an area which they call constricted.
	And then it literally is like you're having your entire spinal fluid sucked out by the proboscis of some sort of ancient space monster.
	And who hasn't been there?
	So it's really quite an exciting...
	Feeling the acupuncture doesn't hurt when the needles go in but they do manage to address that by moving them around until they pretty much come out the other side of your body and they ask you if that hurts and then they apply heat and then they basically just have somebody sit on you and grind around on the needles until it hurts and then that is considered to be a successful treatment.
	I'm not sure if it actually helps or if it just feels so damn good when they stop, but it definitely is worth giving it a shot if you have those kinds of aches and pains.
	Just thought I'd throw out something completely non-philosophical for your edification, entertainment and perhaps health.
	That's it. Just wanted to thank the subscribers and the donators who are my total heroes who are making all of this possible.
	Just wanted to let you know that it's a pretty heavy flow through this month from people who have donated to advertising.
	And we're picking up an extra thousand people a day.
	Coming to the FDR site.
	Just wanted to mention, if you wanted to come by and take a look at this, this is based on a listener's suggestion, which, of course, enrages me because it's such a brilliant idea.
	I can't believe I didn't even remotely think of it myself.
	Hang on. No, wait. Ah, there we go.
	Yes, it was my idea.
	The rewriting of history, which I learned to do as a husband, is actually working in many, many dimensions now.
	But what I've done is I've used the philosophization To create custom, not exactly custom, but specialized XML feeds.
	And what that means is beforehand, you'd come to the psychology page, say, and you'd see the intro to psychology, and you would see a list of podcasts on psychology in an ASH-approved iframe.
	And then you'd sort of get to download each one individual if you wanted, but there was no feed.
	You couldn't get all of these psychology podcasts into a feed catcher like iTunes or Juice or whatever.
	But I use the Philosophysician to create specific feeds for economics, for psychology, for philosophy, for relationships, and so on.
	The biggest category, random spittlefest whining.
	So if you go to these pages, which I think is pretty cool, I've replaced the iframe with that blue grasser widget which allows you to Play the podcast directly from the page, which is good.
	I mean, it's a step up. But more importantly, I have added these custom feeds just for these specific incidents.
	Now, they only go up to podcast 999.
	But the point is, for people coming in who just go to those landing pages, I've also added a one-click, throw it into iTunes, throw it into a bunch of other podcatchers, both web-based and PC-based.
	So if you're interested in, say, just the economics podcast, then you can go to the economics page and you can subscribe and get automatically added to your feed catcher all of the podcasts.
	So this, I think, is a huge step forward.
	And again, thanks so much to the listener who came up with this idea.
	Because people come to the page and what they used to have to do was they'd say, oh, here's a bunch of stuff on economics.
	Economics say. They'd then have to download each one of those individually.
	They couldn't add it to a feed catcher.
	Or they'd subscribe and get the whole buckshot scattershot of FDR hitting everything, right?
	FDR is sort of a nuclear bomb when maybe what you need more is a sniper weapon.
	So, I just wanted to mention that out there, and I hope that you will take advantage of it.
	I've also been posting the Philosophysician feeds that are created by users on the board, those ones that are particular to kinds of topics.
	There's one on self-defense, there's one just on ethics, and so on.
	So, have a browse around the website.
	The last thing that I mention about what I've done to the website is, on the podcast page, it used to be that you could look at the feeds in that Grasser widget, divided up by...
	there are four podcast feeds because you can't go over 256k.
	So you'd see Free Domain Radio Volume 1 through 4, you'd click on that and that was all in sequence, but I've added a second widget below that which uses an OPML file to parse out the podcast so that you no longer see them by volume, in other words by numerical or date sequence, but now You can click on the podcast page and look at the podcast by category.
	I think there are six major categories.
	Economic, psychology, philosophy, relationships.
	And there's one actually dedicated to Ask a Therapist, which is a very popular show because there's less me.
	But have a look at the podcast page, freedomainradio.com forward slash podcast.
	Podcasts.html. And you might want to play around with that.
	I've really tried to make this slice and dice of the podcast to be that much easier for people to get a hold of.
	Because I'm aware that not everyone's interested in everything because they're mad!
	But it is a reality.
	So just check that out.
	And you may want to add those custom feeds.
	If you're only interested in particular things, then come on the board and we'll completely mock you for going out of sequence.
	But... That's just the price you pay.
	So that's it for my intro.
	Thank you again so much for the donators.
	Remember that the Free Domain Radio book deal is cooking along at the moment for the next week or two.
	And you can get all four FDR books for $39, PDF, or I think it's a little bit of $49 for all of the audiobooks.
	And On Truth still remains free.
	And you can also get both the PDFs.
	And if you want searchable text plus the audiobooks, you can get them both for $79.
	That is a mighty good deal, I must say.
	So that's it for my intro.
	Mr. M, you have been patiently holding off on bending our ear.
	And I've just checked. It is, in fact, mostly bendy today.
	So it's all yours.
	Great. All right.
	Well, yeah, I've I'm about to have my third therapy session this week, actually tomorrow, and I'm feeling a lot of ambivalence about my therapist.
	But most of it's positive, but there's this little Mr.
	Critical that's been nagging my ear about it, about this therapist.
	Can I just maybe run through what the situation is and see what you think?
	Sure. Well, on the whole, it's pretty positive.
	She loves the idea of the Miko system.
	She started talking about this false self and true self.
	Her website talked about the myth of the family.
	So on the whole, I like that.
	And she agrees with my decision to defu and wants to help me through that.
	So I like that, but, and this is where I'm thinking maybe it's a part of me that's giving a criticism about just a minor flaw.
	Before my therapy session, I was looking around the bookstore of the university, the local university, and I saw local authors section.
	And one of them was her last name, but it was her husband, I assumed.
	And that was confirmed by seeing him outside of her house.
	And it is a top presidential advisor for every president from Ford through, I think, the first Bush.
	So... The Mr.
	Critical is saying, do you really want relationship advice from her?
	But I don't know if that's a just criticism.
	Does that make sense? Go on.
	Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt, so I just want to make sure that you had said your piece.
	Oh, well, yeah.
	I'm not sure if it's a just Mr.
	Critical or if it's something trying to...
	Because I've been feeling a ton of...
	New emotions are coming up, like bubbling up from my past through talking about it.
	And I don't know if it's my false self, like, no, no, no, no, you don't want this, you know, like, pulling me away.
	Or if it's a true, like, if it's really something, because it is something that's been nagging my mind, and I don't want it to keep me from being as honest with her as possible.
	So I don't know if any of that made sense, but that's basically my piece.
	Okay, I mean, it totally makes sense, and I can certainly understand the concern that you have.
	I mean, it seems to me to make perfect sense.
	But let me ask you this, and I don't mean to cheapen what it is that we do here, so I apologize for using the term, but let's give it a shot anyway and see if it sticks.
	Sure. Was your reaction emotional or ideological?
	Emotional. Okay, and then tell me the emotion that occurred when you saw that your therapist's husband was a presidential advisor.
	Fear. Go on.
	Fear and anxiety kind of mixed.
	Sort of a fear, and I guess the thought that preceded it was fear that it will hinder some of the things that I talk about.
	Like, I'm fully aware that I don't want to bring up politics in the therapy that's neither here nor there.
	And in fact, when I said something like, and my dad screamed at me about the Iraq war, but The particular views of each party involved were neither here nor there, but the point is that he screamed at me.
	So that was the approach I took for that situation, because I didn't want to get into it in terms of...
	Like, I didn't want to fall into that sort of cycle.
	Like, I've heard you talk with people on here that it's not for philosophy or politics, it's for mental health.
	You mean the therapy itself?
	Yeah, yeah. I don't want to fall into...
	I mean, it's not particularly cheap, and I'm paying out of pocket, so any dollar that I'm spending on a philosophy debate, I could do that here if I want.
	Now, why did you examine this book?
	Oh, I didn't really examine the book.
	I just saw it and didn't really look at it very much, but I saw it when I was looking at the local authors section, and I mean, the last name stuck out.
	So I don't know if there was something unconscious.
	Sorry, you must have picked it up and looked at the author bio, which is not on the front but the back, right?
	Yes, yes, yes. I mean, by examine, I didn't flip through it, but yes, I did pick it up and look at it.
	And why did you do that?
	Hmm. Curiosity, but I'm not sure if there was an unconscious motivation.
	I'm sure there was. Well, I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't, and certainly, I mean, information is information, right?
	Right. But I think, you know...
	This is a tough area of the conversation that we have.
	Because when we talk about the new world that we are not just exploring but creating, it can lead to feelings of exhilaration but a kind of Nietzschean loneliness to, you know, we hyperboreans, we gods, we, you know, like it is a very tough place to sit.
	I think that empirically and rationally we have some good reason to believe in it.
	But... If you were to go back to the moment, if you were able to go back in time or have a Skype chat with yourself a few seconds before you picked up that book, and you were to say, what are the odds of there being good news in this book?
	Well, the title of the book was like, Eyewitness to Power or something.
	Okay, so if you could say the book's name is Eyewitness to Power and there's no confirmation, what would you say the odds are of getting good information?
	Because I think you processed all of that, right?
	The odds are, well, given the title.
	Minus stability? Yeah, negative.
	Yeah, good call.
	And I'm just pointing this out.
	Again, I'm not saying necessarily that you should have avoided that knowledge.
	But the reality is that I don't know of any of Christina's colleagues whose husbands, actually one, whose husbands are in business or in the software field or in less regulated fields.
	We've got one who's in banking.
	But they're mostly Oh, a lot of them are artists?
	Yeah, that's true. So, a lot of them are artists.
	And artists are musicians and painters, right?
	So, well-daubed socialist rat bastards.
	Sorry. So, I mean, you know, but people who would be on the leftist sphere, right?
	Because they would be reliant on government money or government support for their art, for the most part.
	So, there wasn't going to be good news in this examination, right?
	Yeah, I think that's pretty clear.
	So run me through, if you feel comfortable with this therapist, emotionally, I'm assuming you do, because otherwise there wouldn't be a question at all, right?
	As you say, hopefully you have something in common with what you believe.
	Yes. Okay.
	Just to give you a background, this was before my first session with her.
	Oh, this was before your first session?
	This was before my first session, the book looking.
	So it wasn't like I was comfortable with her and then I looked at the book.
	I don't know if that's relevant, but that's just to give you background on that.
	Oh, I see. I see. Okay, I didn't understand that.
	Okay. Okay. So, if you felt fear and concern about her husband's occupation, why didn't you cancel the session?
	Because you kind of put yourself in an impossible situation.
	I don't think it genuinely is impossible, but it feels that way, right?
	I like her, there's a lot that I believe in about her, but her husband is a state-sucking toady, right?
	I mean, to put it in coarse terms.
	Yeah, well, I guess the thought crossed my mind, but it was literally an hour before my session, and I just didn't know how right that would be in terms of, aesthetically, if it would just be sort of rude.
	It would have been on the hook for the session, right?
	But what happened was you put yourself in an alarming situation and then you sort of explored this emotional relationship with your therapist with this knowledge beforehand, right? Yes.
	And so that's kind of putting yourself in a difficult situation, right?
	Yeah, it is.
	Right, because if you feel, if you genuinely feel, I'm not going to give you any answers here, but if you genuinely feel that this is a good therapist, then you kind of messed yourself up by examining this, right?
	Yeah, because it's given me this little...
	You've got an out.
	You've got a way of holding yourself back from the therapeutic relationship, of looking at it from a distance, of refusing to surrender, to trust, right?
	Right. So then, because you put yourself in the middle here, because if you said, Okay, look, this woman's husband is a statist, a state guy, a government guy, a mafia head, or whatever, right?
	And it's like, okay, I'll go to my first session.
	I'll tell her, look, I'm an anarchist.
	I'm not comfortable with your husband being involved in the state.
	You can bill me, but I'm not going to, right?
	But you didn't do that. No, I didn't.
	Right, so you began to explore this relationship.
	And the reason that I'm pausing on this particular moment, Greg, is because...
	Oh, there's a few people cooking around with this kind of stuff, you know?
	Well, she's a Catholic, but I think there's potential, right?
	I don't mean in terms of...
	Oh, you mean on the boards? Right.
	I mean, this is a big theme that's going around FDR at the moment.
	You know, I'm horny, and she seems like she might be rational, so I'm going for it, right?
	Right, right.
	And what that is, is you take step by step that you get into a relationship...
	It's harder and harder to get out, right?
	Yeah, it is. I'm not saying you should get out of this relationship with your therapist.
	I'm not saying that at all, but what I'm saying is that knowing that you had some significant alarm, you still went in, right?
	Yeah, now that brings up two questions, if you don't mind.
	No, no, go ahead. What's that?
	It shows about you, brother.
	Go on. Oh. Well, given that I looked at the book, and I mean, I totally agree with you that I had processed that before...
	I'm sorry, loud car outside.
	Okay, given that I had processed that this was not going to have good news in the book before I looked at it, why do you think...
	I'm trying to figure out why I looked at it.
	And I guess we can look at that question, then I have one more.
	Sorry, Greg, it's Christina here.
	Why were you in that section to begin with?
	Why was I what? Why were you in the section of local authors to begin with?
	Were you looking for something written by your therapist?
	No, no, no, no. It was right next to the best-selling books, and I was just taking a look at what was...
	It was at the very front of the store.
	Okay, so you just happened to be...
	Yeah, I saw it from a few feet on the right or so.
	I was standing to the right of that bookshelf, and my eye sort of was drawn to...
	Eyewitness to power.
	Okay, so millions, hundreds of thousands of books in the bookstore.
	You just happen to be standing right beside the shelf with this particular book.
	It's so absurd.
	Well, the weird thing was, of course, they were almost completely blocked out by the massive pyramid of UPB books.
	Oh, gosh.
	Now, that also raises another question.
	I guess, Christina or Steph, do you think there was an unconscious motivation for me to find something as an out of therapy?
	Because, I mean, I had significant anxiety about therapy before I went in.
	Sorry, this is the thing, Greg.
	You didn't take an out.
	Because an out would have been, ah, fuck it, her husband's a statist, I'm not going, right?
	Oh. You're an innie-outie around thing, right?
	Right. Because you're not all the way in, and you're not all the way out, right?
	Right. I'm sort of...
	There's the trepidation of...
	I think the fear came from the thought, I mean, it's...
	He wrote in RTR that someone's relationship says a lot about them as a person.
	If she has a relationship with this man who did a lot of evil things, obviously, there was that fear.
	I've already addressed that fear, but now I'm really curious why I was...
	Well, as Christina pointed out, standing with all these tens of thousands of books in the bookstore next to this one, and then why I examined it more.
	Well, and then why you continued to go to a therapist who you had significant moral qualms about.
	Right, that was my second question.
	Right, because clearly you didn't go to a therapist and say, this really troubles me, I think your husband is evil.
	So I'm not sure that I should be my therapist, right?
	I mean, there's stuff that therapists are supposed to be neutral about, right?
	I don't think your spouse's Satan is one that they can particularly manage, right?
	Right. And I'm not saying he is Satan, and I'm not saying any of that, right?
	We're just trying to figure out what's going on for you.
	Now, my opinion is that this doesn't matter.
	Yeah, that's what I've rationally come to the conclusion.
	But, I mean, there's obviously emotional reasons, so can you go on?
	Well, why don't you tell me the reasons that you have deployed, so to speak, to get there?
	Hmm. Well, the thought that just came to my mind is...
	Hmm.
	No, I'm blanking. So there was a reason, but it's left.
	It is no more. No, it's a bad reason.
	I don't know. I'll toss it out.
	An unwillingness to accept that the world is as it is.
	I don't know if that's a good reason, though.
	Well, I mean, this is part of ambivalence as a whole, right?
	Which is that we do have to accept the world as it is, we don't have to like it, right?
	This is part of the ambivalence that people who are engaged in changing the world face.
	You have to accept reality and you have to want to change it.
	Acceptance and a desire for change are two things.
	It doesn't work in relationships, right?
	You can't say, I love my wife and she must change, right?
	A wife can say it, probably.
	But a husband, apparently that's just not a...
	Okay, we'll get into my issues later.
	But we look at the world and we say, we have to accept the way it is.
	Because otherwise, just, you know, we're doing the Ron Paul thing or whatever, right?
	Just doing nonsense that doesn't get anywhere.
	But we also have to say, and it sucks and it should change, right?
	Yes. So accepting the world as it is, is a healthy thing.
	But you're not in that situation here.
	You're not in a change the world situation here.
	You're learning a specific set of skills.
	Not to do with your relationship with others, but to do with your relationship to yourself.
	Right. So what do you think, based on what you know from this, what was going on for me?
	When I made the conscious decision to ring her doorbell, or...
	Not even just to ring... I mean, obviously I'm sort of...
	Okay, to make the decision not to bring it up at all in that first intro session where we're both exploring if it's a mutually beneficial therapeutic relationship.
	You mean not to bring it up at all?
	Well, why didn't you bring it up?
	I'm not saying you should have, but I'm curious why you didn't.
	I wanted to. There was part of me that wanted to, but then there was this fear of But it's not an appropriate thing to bring up.
	Well, it certainly would have been a new one for her, I'm sure.
	I'm sure it would have been a new one.
	I'm sure it would have been a new one.
	But look, let's take another example.
	If you find out that the best dentist in town has a wife who works for the government, what are you going to do?
	I'm not going to care in that instance.
	Right, because I'm looking for a specific skill that you have, and I could really care if your wife is the head of the mafia, right?
	If you're the best dentist, that's what I want, right?
	Right. That makes a lot of sense.
	When it comes to somebody who's trying to impart to you a specific skill, We all have to balance these things, right?
	So maybe you get some anarchist who's into yogic flying next time.
	What are you gonna do, right?
	Maybe the time after that, she's an anarchist and realist, but she doesn't like the band Queen.
	I mean, it could be anything!
	Now that's just unacceptable.
	Well, that's what I'm saying. Right there.
	There we draw the line.
	A lack of love for Freddie, you're out.
	Right? But that's sort of what I'm talking about, right?
	You can't get perfection because you aren't perfection.
	I'm not perfection. Christina is perfection.
	But that's just a different standard. Right?
	Right. But when it comes to, I mean, I've mentioned this before, my therapist was into yogic flying.
	Yeah. She believed that a whole bunch of monks praying would bring world peace.
	She was completely insane as far as that went.
	But by God, she was good at dream analysis.
	And she was a Jungian, right?
	Collective archetypes and so on, right?
	So I couldn't learn a goddamn thing about metaphysics and epistemology.
	In fact, I had to resist trying to instruct her on that stuff because I'm like, no, I'm here to learn.
	And what you do respect that I don't know enough about Is the depths of the unconscious and its relationship to what happens in my life.
	And a respect for inner processes.
	She had a real, really great ability to do that.
	So, that's what I paid her for.
	Right. Yeah, and this one on our website says that therapy should be archaeology of the unconscious.
	And I mean, I really do enjoy what I'm getting from her so far.
	What's her website? I'm suing her.
	No, I'm just kidding. It's an actual problem.
	Let's do the rescue! If you feel comfortable with her emotionally, look, there's ambivalence in every relationship.
	Particularly early on, right?
	Because you never meet anyone who believes exactly what you believe.
	In fact, that would be insane, right?
	So there's a give and take in relationships.
	I mean, I taught Christina what not to do in most situations, and she taught me what to do.
	No, like Christina brought a lot of really great relationship skills to the table, and I brought a lot of really great philosophical and psychological skills to the table, right?
	Things that she had I didn't know, things that she didn't have I knew, and so on, right?
	So there has to be a kind of give and take, right?
	And I think what will be really interesting, since we all do have to go through life in a statist universe, which is not going to change maybe in your lifetime, certainly not in mine, How do we navigate and negotiate with people?
	Because it is entirely possible that you will find at some point in the therapy where her corruption based on her husband's occupation is.
	I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that he's evil.
	He's not out strangling kittens.
	He's not out shooting Iraqis.
	In the social context that he's oriented in, He's a man worthy of respect.
	Again, that's just the reality of the world that we live in.
	I think that if you accept the values That she has, which are not particularly common, right?
	I mean, the fact that you found a therapist willing to go on record with this kind of stuff is not particularly common.
	My therapist certainly had some particular limitations, not just with basic reality, but with man-to-man stuff in terms of my brother and I, right?
	So there were limitations in that.
	But I had so much to learn that I was there for almost two years, three hours a week, before I ran out of things that she could teach me, right?
	Right. Right.
	Yeah. And not to take too much more time out, but I'm curious where you think it goes from here.
	Do I try RTR-ing my fear about it with her?
	Or do I just succumb to the winds and let her sort of take me and just sort of...
	I don't know if it would be shoving it under the table, but just getting what I get out of her in terms of mental health Knowing that, yeah, her husband's corrupt, but she's a good therapist.
	Right. I mean, do you tell your dentist that you think his wife is corrupt?
	No, I don't. No!
	Especially not your dentist, right?
	Oh shit! I rolled right in front of your drawer!
	Damn! Right, right.
	I think you've got another bad tooth in there.
	It's like, I only have one left, right?
	So no, you don't, right?
	And not because obviously you think she's going to hurt you or anything like that.
	But when you look at the priority of the issues that you have to deal with in your life, your feelings about your therapist's husband, not even in the top 10,000, right?
	Yeah, that's a very good way of putting it.
	Yeah, I've Yeah.
	Like, just what I mean, right?
	I mean, you didn't go to therapy because you had no problems, and then you have a problem because you looked at the book about your therapist's husband, right?
	You had all these problems that you wanted to deal with in therapy, and this one that you then tripped over an hour before your session is not one of them, right?
	That's a really good way of putting it.
	Yeah. Wow, that clears a lot of that up.
	Yeah. I'll definitely keep you guys posted on how it's going.
	I think I'm getting a lot out of it so far.
	There is a principle involved in therapy, to me, which is just complete and total surrender.
	You are in the hands of an expert.
	Just listen to what she says and do it.
	If it's not right for you, you'll find out.
	But don't second guess your therapist.
	Right? Right. Don't second guess your therapist.
	Just trust her.
	Open your heart, you know.
	Now this particular issue, you won't be able to deal with this issue about your husband's therapist by talking about your therapist and her husband.
	Because it comes from some deeper and earlier place, right?
	Oh, I'm certain it does, yeah.
	Right, to do with parental corruption, to do with corruption by those in authority.
	Never ever try to deal with the symptoms, right?
	That's one of the base philosophy of FDR. That's why there are so many goddamn podcasts.
	Always go for the cause, right?
	So, if a symptom of problems that you have with authority and corruption shows up in this way, dealing with it as if this is the cause rather than the symptom is going at it by us backwards, right?
	Ooh, that's a really good one.
	Yeah, yeah. I totally agree.
	Totally agree. So what I would do is I would say to myself, okay, these are the feelings that I had.
	They hit me like a ton of bricks, and they can't have been generated by me looking at this book in the present, right?
	Right. So I'm going to go back to the first time I remember feeling those, and I'm going to bring that stuff to therapy.
	Oh, okay. So this can be a great way for you to get stuff into therapy that you can work on, right?
	But you don't work on it in the level of effect.
	Like, because this stuff happened to me when I was five, I'm now bothered by your husband.
	I'm not saying it's entirely psychological or anything like that, but if it bothered you this much, go back to the root and bring that to therapy, not the symptom that showed up an hour before the therapy, right?
	You know, when you said to go back to the root with, take the root to her and work with that, a lot of the tension in my chest and my hands just went away.
	So I think that got rid of a, just thinking about doing that really has brought a lot of relief to me.
	Right, right. So many times you see people in therapy and what they do is they bicker about the details.
	I'm not saying this is you, right?
	But this is just sort of a principle.
	You know, he never does the dishes.
	Well, she leaves the toothpaste cap off the tube and shit like that.
	And you just know it's not about that.
	It's not even about, like when couples are fighting about money and sex, it's not about money and sex, right?
	They're always focused on the details for the effects rather than looking at the root causes which produce those things.
	And so it becomes an endless game of whack-a-mole, of symptomology, right?
	But this is a very, very...
	I think the reason that you did this unconsciously, I think the reason that you did this was this is one of the big issues you wanted to bring into therapy and you didn't know any other way to get it conscious.
	Ooh, okay. That makes a lot of sense.
	Wow. I don't have anything else to add if If you have anything else to add, I feel good about it.
	I was hoping, because I knew a successful insight would be a thud, because you said the tension went out of your chest.
	I was hoping to get all the muscular tension out of your legs and just hear a thud.
	But maybe that won't happen, and that's okay.
	We can live with that. No, I'm lying down, so no chance of that.
	Okay, well, thanks very much.
	Do keep it posted on how it goes, but yeah, rip the...
	Rip the scabs off your heart with your therapist.
	You've got to grind as much value out of these sessions as possible.
	She should really need three security guards to get your sobbing and broken ass off her couch.
	That was certainly the approach that I took.
	Although it's a little extra for the security and the hidden buzzer alarm system that she's going to need to install, it still is worth it in terms of efficiency.
	And the dry cleaning, that's right.
	Okay, well, thanks very much.
	I appreciate it. Keep us posted.
	And we have...
	Next.
	Thanks, guys. Okay.
	Looks like nobody else is going to pop in.
	So I had a question for you, Steph.
	Um... I know that I've heard this answer like 65 million times, but when I'm actually in the moment of trying to extricate my emotions from somebody else's, I'm never really sure how to do that.
	So I was going to ask you, how do you figure out in the moment, if you're feeling a bunch of conflicting emotions, what's yours and what's somebody else's?
	Well, for me, there are three things that I use for the most part.
	I use a seismograph, a specter detector, and several World War II-era depth charges.
	It can be a little unsettling to those around you, but it can be very, very helpful.
	Do you have those as implements or options?
	You know, I have the depth charges, but it's kind of a pain to lug them around with me always.
	Right, that's true. And the money for an airstrike is tough.
	Okay, well let's switch to plan B and we'll talk about ways.
	There are three possibilities for me when we're dealing with opposing emotions within ourselves.
	Sorry, I have to refer a little bit to the ambivalence series now in 622 volumes.
	I just published part 6 today.
	The first possibility is that you are experiencing healthy ambivalence, which is you can't decide and you can see both sides and so on.
	The second possibility is that you are experiencing unhealthy inner ambivalence, which is self-attack.
	And the third is that you are having your feelings and somebody else's feelings are coming into you from the outside, if that makes sense.
	Okay. That seemed like an ambivalent okay.
	Yeah, it just seems that, you know, last night that's what I thought was happening, but I'm not sure if that's true or, you know, that was my question, how to determine, you know, if that's actually happening.
	Now, if you could avoid telling me anything about last night, that will allow me to do a whole lot more empty theorizing.
	How does that sound to you? Exactly!
	Empty theorizing is what we want from you, Steph.
	I don't want to go into too much detail because I've already spilled 15 pages of ink on this, but I nearly died last night.
	Some guy almost ran me over and then...
	Jumped out of his car and threw, like, physical things at me.
	And as he drove off, the only thing that I could really feel was sadness.
	Which is, it's interesting for me, because, you know...
	What the fuck?
	What are you talking about? You're feeling, tell me what the hell happened.
	I don't understand this at all.
	I mean, I know you've all got space aliens and, you know, Kraken and, like, Godzilla, but what the hell?
	I was crossing the street.
	I was crossing with the light.
	You know, I had the light and some idiot 25-year-old in one of those lovely sports cars comes tearing around the corner against the light and nearly hits me.
	He passes within like an inch of me where I'm crossing.
	And so he rolls down the window and calls me an effing whore.
	And... I got really angry.
	And all I did, sorry about the bus in the background, was I just pointed to the lit crosswalk sign that still said, you know, walk.
	And then he got all pissed off and he got out of his car and he threw something at me which hit me and it really hurt.
	And then he tore out and drove off.
	Alright. Alright.
	Has anything like this ever happened to you before?
	No. I've been in, like, dangerous situations before.
	But, you know, never with, like, some random dude.
	Okay. Well, before we get into the emotional side of things, just help me step me through the reasoning.
	This total sociopath is driving like a complete idiot, screams out verbal abuse at you, and your processing of the best next step is to yell back at him?
	No, I didn't yell back at him.
	I didn't say anything.
	You said that you pointed at the light, right?
	Yeah. And what was the purpose of that, do you think?
	Sorry? What was the purpose of that, do you think?
	That was, it was just like the reaction, you know, we've talked about before.
	I got really, really, really angry.
	And so the purpose of that was like, fuck you, mate.
	Right, so you escalated.
	And look, I mean, I'm totally aware that this guy was being a complete and total asshole, right?
	Yeah. This is just a complete lunatic.
	He might have been high on PCP. You don't know, right?
	He could have been a criminal. He could have been a gangster.
	Certainly anybody screeching around against the lights and screaming at women that you're a fucking whore.
	This is a clearly highly toxic and dangerous predator, right?
	Yeah. And my major concern is...
	That you can't control his behavior, right?
	And obviously you were crossing with the light and so on.
	But it's my concern about the escalation that you brought to the table, right?
	Because this is a dangerous situation.
	He could have been armed, right?
	Yeah. And that's what I realized later, you know, when I got home and after I... I stopped using other people to manage my anxiety and actually thought about it.
	I realized that I was just doing the same template thing.
	The only thing that changed is what I felt after it happened.
	Whenever mother would start screaming at me, I would get really frightened, but I would also get really angry.
	And my first instinct would always be to fight back, say, you know, fuck you, mother, etc.
	And then, of course, she would just escalate as well, at which case I would retire and go cry for a while.
	Right, right. And so, I mean, of course, all of these crimes pale to the rope and fake art incident.
	But, you know, so we have to deal with the real core of the issue there, which is what happens to you when the dictators in museums unjustly attack you for no reason.
	I swear to God, that chariot's a fake.
	I know. I know.
	Absolutely. And God knows that the entire free world should be behind you on that.
	But we have a pattern a little bit here, right?
	And it doesn't have anything to do with museum people.
	It doesn't have anything to do with drivers and cars.
	It fundamentally doesn't have anything to do with your mother, right?
	It fundamentally has to do with the people in your life in the future, right?
	Yeah. I can totally understand that when you're in a provocative situation like that, like with this driver, that to point at the light and basically say, you're driving against the light, you son of a bitch.
	I'm not saying you said that, but that desire to engage is really dangerous.
	Yeah. Yeah. And that's not something you want to be doing.
	Right, absolutely. So, let's get back to your original question, which was whose or what feelings?
	I don't think it applies to this situation, but maybe there's a way that it does that you can help me to understand.
	Because this is not a relationship, right?
	This is not a complex relationship.
	This is just a guy who almost killed you, who called you a shockingly vile name, and then who threw something at you which thankfully was not a knife, right?
	This is not a relationship.
	This is not somebody you invited into your life, right?
	Right. The thing that weirded me out was why I should have felt sad and lonely afterwards.
	I'm not sure if the situation warrants those feelings or why it was those feelings specifically.
	Okay, so this guy did what he did, he threw something at you, then he jumped in his car and ripped off, is that right?
	Yeah. And when did the feelings of sadness begin?
	Just as soon as he got back in his car and left, tears started coming to my eyes, and I started feeling this overwhelming sadness.
	Well, maybe I'm missing something because it's too obvious, or maybe I'm looking at something that's too obvious when it's not.
	But you had just told me how your mother would attack you, you would attack her back, and then she would escalate, and then you would retire and cry.
	Yeah, but it wasn't from sadness.
	It was like impotent fury.
	Well, but this is progress, isn't it?
	Because under the impotent fury is what?
	Uh, I suppose sadness.
	Well, that sounded like a very convincing.
	Let me check the bottom of the screen and go with sadness.
	Did I just skip the impotent fury this time?
	I just, you know, it's like you looked up the answer in the index.
	Ah, that would be sadness for 500 points, Alex.
	I had to check the emotion menu because I wasn't sure.
	Right.
	Earthlings would feel sadness.
	Right.
	I mean, but that is.
	I mean, because the feeling is sadness and fear, right, when you're attacked like that.
	Yeah.
	Again, that was completely unconvincing.
	Like, yeah, if you say so.
	Okay, yes, Steph, yes.
	No, no, no.
	If you're not getting it, that's fine.
	It could be an incorrect thesis, right?
	But when a child is attacked by a parent, it is absolutely terrifying, and the aftermath of that is sadness.
	I mean, there is an initial fight or flight, but what's underneath all of that is real sadness and most fundamentally desperate interstellar solitude, right?
	Because you've got no bond.
	A parent who can attack a child is basically saying, we've got no fucking bond.
	You are my emotional punching bag.
	I'm going to use you like I would use a fucking rag to wipe my shoes.
	You do not exist for me, except as a place where I can vomit my emotions into.
	I have no empathy for you.
	Anytime you make me feel uncomfortable, I'm just going to pound the crap out of you in one form or another.
	You are a piece of shit to be wiped off my shoes.
	I mean, this is an extreme way of putting it, but based on the little that I know about your mom, probably not wildly off the mark, right?
	Not wildly, no.
	So that is going to leave you when you are trapped in a situation where somebody who has power over you is sadistic, exploitive, destructive, manipulative, has no bond with you, that you have no emotional reality to them.
	There is no more isolating thing in the world.
	It is easier for a child to be on a desert island than in that kind of household.
	Because the palm trees on a desert island do not actively attack and degrade the soul of the child, right?
	Yeah, because I remember after she would scream at me, I would search desperately for somebody to talk to, which is what I did last night as well.
	Right, right.
	So I think that this is good progress.
	In what way?
	Well, because before, you were feeling the defenses.
	You would feel the outrage, you would feel the anger, and you would get into protracted fights, right?
	Yeah. And before, meaning like a month ago, right?
	Right. Oh, you're hosed now, sister.
	Oh, you're so hosed now.
	Oh no, I've been exposed!
	They have laid down their weapons, and you are exposed to the underlying sadness.
	Oh, what is it?
	Oh... Damn!
	No more walls.
	That sucks! Well, no, it's not walls, right?
	I mean, you were like one of those Burmese tripwires, right?
	Somebody puts their foot wrong, there's 12 javelins through their eye sockets, right?
	Well, you know...
	One or two in my day, right?
	Yes. And so now, I mean, you're feeling the flash of anger, which, you know, that's what it is.
	And of course, in a situation that volatile, who wouldn't, right?
	I mean, it's not possible. But then you actually don't sustain the anger.
	You don't sustain the defense, the rage.
	You feel the sadness and the isolation of that kind of attack, which is actually what it's designed to do, right?
	Yeah. Why escalate it, though?
	Yeah. Well, see, I don't know because to me that is a perfectly understandable fight or flight situation.
	You weren't thinking things through.
	This wasn't a long-term relationship.
	It's not like you were sitting on an email for two days and then wrote something totally vicious or anything like that.
	I mean, this was a fight or flight situation.
	But the fact that you didn't go home stewing, and I'm going to get this guy, and what was his plate again, I'm calling the cops, and escalating within your own mind, the fact that you went straight to the sadness is very important.
	I don't know about your personal relationship, so I'm going to go way out on a limb here and just watch me fall to my demise, but If you have a habit of escalating aggression, then you will have a desire to engage with aggressive people.
	On the other hand, and this is where the liberty of sadness is, on the other hand, if you feel sad when you're around aggressive people, what do you not have a desire to do?
	To escalate and get into protracted fights with museum docents.
	Right. You feel no desire to engage because you're just sad, right?
	Right. So you withdraw and you're like, wow, this really makes me unhappy, right?
	Whereas before, you know, the Xeno warrior goddess of museum honesty, right, or whatever, right?
	But you would sort of rouse up and get into it with these people, right?
	But if you feel the sadness, you don't have that desire, right?
	Yeah. It's, um, now that you've said, you know, Xena warrior goddess of museum honesty, um...
	A thought that popped into my mind is that the only people that I've really escalated it with are either people that I don't know or mother, you know, my other personal relationships.
	It's been trying like hell not to feel anything or say anything, but of course I've escalated it within my mind, so that's still escalating, I guess.
	I mean, it's better than escalating it in your voice or your actions, but yeah, I mean, it certainly would be the case, but the sadness is massive progress.
	I think you should be enormously proud.
	I mean, it's completely horrible.
	You know, FDR, right? It's better when it feels worse, right?
	That's just the...
	But the great thing is, is that my guess is that you self-soothed a lot more rapidly by going through the sadness than if you'd gone through the anger, right?
	Yeah. We should just rename ourselves the Masochist Club.
	That's a possibility.
	That's a possibility. But of course, the real masochism is the escalation, not the sadness, right?
	Right, because that protracts the craptastic feelings, I guess.
	Yeah, I mean, here you felt sad and you cried, which I think was entirely right and healthy.
	And then you felt relatively calm, right?
	Eventually, yeah, once I realized what was actually going on.
	Right, whereas if you, you know, whereas this did not happen, this is just for those who don't know, this is based on a FDR trip to New York, where you got into some conflicts with some museum people, but that didn't happen with those people, right?
	There was not a sadness followed by a relative calm, right?
	Yeah, it was, you know, a sort of weird anxiety and then, like, explosion of, like, post-fact anger.
	Ah, the PFA. Yeah, no, I mean, but that didn't settle you back down, right?
	Whereas the sadness does.
	That is the body returning to a more positive emotional equilibrium through a genuine processing of what's occurring, not a defensive overreaction, right?
	Right. One more thing I was going to ask, Steph.
	Between him calling out the epithet to me and, you know, when he opened his car door, I thought, like, really calmly to myself, okay, he's going to come beat me up now.
	It's weird because I didn't feel anything.
	What was that?
	Well, but you know the answer to that, right?
	Was it just dissociation?
	Well, of course it was dissociation, but why?
	The fog is rolling in.
	Could you help me with that? Well, you were beaten as a child, right?
	Only occasionally, but yes.
	But you were in a situation of imminent danger as a child, because when your mom is screaming at you and she's lost control, We're all terrified, right?
	Yeah. We don't know what the hell is going to happen, right?
	Right. So that's when we space out, right?
	I guess that one was the easy one.
	That was easier than some of the others, right?
	But this is a mechanism of dissociation from imminent danger that you learned through verbal or physical assaults as a child, right?
	Or both. And there is, I mean, in the times of extreme danger that I experienced as a child where injury was imminent, I don't remember anything except a clarity of experience.
	I don't remember the pain.
	I don't even remember particularly the fear.
	I do remember an extreme clarity of experience and an amazing ability to think.
	In those moments. Because you're planning, right?
	You're like, well I have to get out of this situation of imminent danger.
	How can I best do it?
	And I remember very clearly when, as I've mentioned before, like my mom was sort of pounding my head against the door as a kid, thinking that if I resist, I could die.
	So I'd better go limp.
	Like it was very clear.
	And I was not experiencing any physical pain.
	I wasn't even at that moment experiencing fear.
	I was just looking at very clearly the options that were available to me and the outcomes that would occur.
	Right? Does that ring a bell with you at all?
	It sort of rings a bell.
	Whenever they were beating me, I would just feel that same impotent rage.
	So, I guess it all ties in.
	Well, sorry, let me just back up a second there because I didn't have any emotional experience of that.
	So I didn't feel any impotent rage at that point.
	But when this guy got out of his car and you said, I guess I'm going to be beaten up now, that's in terms of the clarity of thought that I was talking about.
	At that moment, you said you didn't feel anything, right?
	You simply were processing the situation and the likely outcome, right?
	Right. That makes sense.
	Not the impotent rage part, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	I see what you're getting at.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	And that to me isn't entirely healthy.
	I mean, I needed to have that clarity of thought in that moment.
	Because if I had resisted, I could have been killed.
	I mean, she was completely out of control, right?
	And I was like, five.
	No, I was four. You can't leave.
	You can't fight back.
	You can't reason.
	Obviously, she knows that you're in pain and she knows that she's doing something that's dangerous to you.
	This isn't the first time that you've been attacked and you know that neighbors aren't coming to help, right?
	So you really are in a blind alley and the only way out is submission in the moment, right?
	You go limp, you simply cease to resist, exactly as you would do with a bear that is mauling you.
	And you hear this same situation of this clarity of thought when people who are being attacked by a grizzly bear.
	I mean, I've read this a number of times and it's always kind of stuck with me where Where people will say, well, I realized that if I struggled, the bear would continue to attack me.
	And this is true of people who've had arms chewed off.
	They'll literally sit there and have this incredible clarity of processing.
	They're not distracted by pain.
	They're simply thinking through the options within the situation and they have this astounding willpower to lie there while being mauled so the bear doesn't kill them.
	That's so interesting that you bring that up.
	Because I recorded something last night and, you know, the reason why I said that I didn't start running away from him is that, you know, you don't really run away from a bear.
	They just want to attack you even more.
	So, yeah. And you had this clarity where you said, okay, I'll take the beating if it's going to come because it's more dangerous for me to run away because then I'll further engage his fight or flight mechanism to the point where he could do something really stupid, right?
	Right. Yeah, this is common when you face predators, right?
	I mean, this clarity of thought that occurs.
	In fact, I remember I was watching a 60 Minutes where they were talking about how this shark tourism industry was endangering surfers.
	And this guy was surfing, and he was attacked by a great white shark.
	And the great white shark wrapped its jaws around him.
	And, you know, his arm was half severed and his chest was wide open.
	I mean, he was just a mess.
	And he said, you know, I didn't feel any pain.
	And the shark was heading out to sea with me in its mouth.
	And I remember thinking, well, this is it.
	I'm going to die. And it was clear.
	There was no pain. Like, he was conscious of everything that was happening.
	Knew he was in a shark's mouth.
	Knew that he was injured. Could see the blood.
	Didn't feel any pain. And he said, but then I thought of my kids.
	And I thought, if this shark takes me out, then I'm not going to ever see my kids again.
	And then he reached around, jabbed his fingers in the shark's eye, the shark let him go, and so on, right?
	Apparently we don't taste that good to sharks.
	But that kind of clarity of thought, while in extreme physical danger, which occurred for, you know, all too many of us when we were children, that is something that we all have.
	It's an essential survival mechanism within the mind, because we sure did face a lot of predators, a lot of whom would actually let us live if we stopped struggling, if they thought we were dead, right?
	Yeah. So that dissociation is entirely healthy and would have come, of course, from a prior sense of imminent physical danger in the past when you were helpless as a child.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Thank you, Steph. You're welcome, and I hope that this guy hit a wall two blocks later.
	Well, thanks very much.
	If anybody else has any comments, issues, or questions, feel free to speak up.
	Uh, hey Steph, can you hear can you hear me?
	I sure can. Well, I'm a bit nervous, I guess.
	Ooh! Sorry. Well, I bought my real-time relationships.
	I guess it's about a month ago right now.
	A few weeks at least.
	But since I... Got it, I've read about 30 pages, and I haven't been able to pick it up and get into it.
	I'm assuming that you can get the extra small font version that's only 31 pages, right?
	Is that a no?
	Is that right? No.
	Okay, so you get about 30 pages in and then you get stalled?
	Is that right? Well, I've read that far, and then when I tried to pick it up again, or pick up where I left off, I just sort of lose interest.
	Like, I don't want to do this right now.
	I don't want to, I don't know, think about this, I guess.
	Do you have your copy handy?
	Yeah, it's right next to me, actually.
	Okay, so just tell me roughly where in the book you lose interest.
	Let me see. About the page it says love.
	Oh! I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.
	Alright, so I'm just looking at my copy here.
	Page 30, I've got closure and self-trust.
	Trust, is that anywhere close to that?
	Yeah, I think so.
	Hedging, baggage...
	Ah, love. Love, page 34.
	Love and objectivity, love compared to what?
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Okay, and remind me about your personal relationships or situation at the moment, particularly romantic.
	Um... Uh, well...
	I don't really have any romantic relationships.
	I'm 17 and I live with my parents, so...
	I mean...
	That's about the extent of, you know, Against people who would fit into that category.
	Right, right. No, I remember. Love and a firm handshake.
	Okay. So, when you get to the area of love within the Real Time Relationship book, what does the word mean to you?
	Um... Love of who?
	I'm not really sure what you mean.
	Um... Well, when I look at the word love, I think of love of my wife, I think of love of the truth, I think of love of my friends, I think of love of the FDR and the community, I think of all of those, love of the future, I think of love of the potential of people in the world, I think of the love that I have of interacting with and trying to teach people stuff and learning from them and so on.
	So the word love radiates out Love is the body of the hydra and it goes out in a number of different directions from there, for me, in my mind and in my heart.
	And when you look at the word love, what is it that it evokes within you in terms of associations and what the word means?
	And if that's too tough or weird a question, and I know that it is, then I'm happy to ask you some other questions if that would be easier.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, that's kind of blanking out.
	I can't really think of anything to associate that word with.
	Okay, well that's actually very good information for me, though it may not be that much fun for you.
	Do your parents tell you that they love you?
	Yes. And do you feel that they love you?
	No. Okay.
	I wonder if that might have something to do with it.
	Because earlier we were talking about when we have conflicting feelings.
	I mean, you want to read the RTR book, right?
	I mean, you've heard that it's a great book.
	I think that it is.
	So you want to be able to get through it, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	But there's a part of you that doesn't, right?
	Want to get through it, and that part of you doesn't want you to go past this love bit, right?
	Yeah, I'd say so.
	Now, have you ever heard me use the overused metaphor of the guy with the counterfeit detection machine?
	Yeah, I've heard that, you know, once, maybe.
	Once? Oh, you've only listened to one podcast then.
	Okay. Well, I'll just run over it very, very briefly here, and sorry to those who've heard it before, but it's just such a good metaphor, and so clarifying for people that it's worth recycling.
	And, of course, I am into the environment, and I don't want to end up filling a landfill with too many underused metaphors.
	So... If...
	Your parents say that they love you, but they do not in fact love you, and I'm just putting this out as a theory, not saying it's true, right?
	Then you would have an incentive to really learn about love, right?
	Yeah, I guess. You guess?
	Sorry, is that 17-year-old lingo for I'm completely certain, or is that, I guess, like it's Steve Man with the T? Well, why, I guess?
	If your family did not love, but you wanted to both love and experience being loved, then it would be to your interest to learn about love, right?
	Yes. Like, I mean, if your family fed you nothing but, I don't know, ding-dongs, ho-hos, and Twix bars, and that was not good for you, it would be to your interest to learn about healthy eating, right?
	Uh, yeah. If you wanted to be healthy, right?
	Because otherwise you just end up eating this crap and die at, I guess, 17 and a half, right?
	Yeah. So...
	If it is in your interest to learn about love, and real-time relationships has some good stuff to say about love, of course I think it's got lots of good stuff to say about love, then if you learn the truth about love, it is to your benefit.
	But if your parents do not love you but only use the word, is it to their benefit or not?
	It's not to their benefit.
	It's not to their benefit, right?
	So, to pull out the hoary old metaphor, if your parents are passing along dollar bills called love, which are fake, and the real-time relationships book is a counterfeit detection machine, then your parents aren't going to want you to examine their love to this rigor, right? Of course not.
	Right, right, because they are revealed as counterfeits, as manipulators.
	Again, I'm not saying it's all true, I'm just saying this could be a thesis that could work, right?
	So, you want to keep going, but your parents do not want you to keep going, right?
	No, I guess not.
	And we could imagine, and this is with all due sympathy to the fact that you're 17, right?
	So you're still somewhat hosed because you're at home and you'll be at home for at least another year.
	Is that fair? Yeah.
	Yeah, so you might be entirely wise to not read this book for another 11 months and 29 days.
	It's possible.
	I'm just saying, I'm not saying you shouldn't, although the best way to get a 17-year-old to do anything is to say, by God, you should never read this book.
	Never! I'm going to read the book, right?
	But if you've got to stick around for another year, you may not want this light on, right?
	I guess that would be reasonable.
	Yeah, it's, you know, it's, again, because I don't want to get into too many details about your parents, because this will take a long time, but But these are just possibilities, right?
	Either you really want the knowledge and your parents don't.
	You know, you can, just to make it a little easier, you can imagine hyper-religious parents or just religious parents, and their, you know, their 17-year-old kid is reading a book on atheism, right?
	And he knows that if he says to his parents, you know, this whole God thing is a complete candy-ass leprechaun fantasy, or however you'd put it, right?
	Something. Oh, I've already been through that.
	Oh, you've been through that, right? So, you know, that's a whole shit sandwich, right?
	Mm-hmm. I mean, that's a whole lot of not fun, right?
	Definitely. Right, right, right.
	I mean, trying to talk atheism to religious parents is like trying to stuff 12 pounds of sanity into a half a pound crazy bag, right?
	It's no worky so well, right?
	No, of course not, no, of course not.
	Right, so with this, it's even more personal than God, right?
	Because I bet you your parents believe in their love for you even more than they believe in their God, right?
	Um, um, I guess, I guess.
	It is.
	I'm going to stand from the ledge of 41 years down to 17 years and say that your parents have much more invested in their protestations or proclamations of love for you than they do even in their love of God.
	Because God ain't going to stick around when they're old, right?
	Not going to wipe their asses.
	Yeah, I guess so. Sorry?
	Yeah. So, this may not be a book that's gonna do you a whole lot of good, right?
	I mean, if they're a bunch of rats in the darkness, I'm not sure I want the light on.
	I'd rather not know, you know what I mean?
	If I can't get out of the basement, right?
	You know, they always have this thing in a horror movie, right?
	These guys in the basement, and they hear these whispering and these scuttling noises, and they don't know exactly what it is and so on, right?
	And then they find a light, and they switch on the light, and there's like 12 million rats with their teeth bared sitting on the walls, right?
	And part of it's like, why'd you turn the light on?
	You're in a horror movie. You shouldn't be doing that, right?
	So it's possible that that's the case, right?
	Yeah, it's possible.
	Have you read Untruth by chance?
	Oh yeah, I have. And did you experience the same thing with that at all?
	No, not really. The other thesis is that the book is only good for the first 30 pages.
	I mean, that's a theoretical possibility, right?
	No, it's not. I'm just kidding.
	Just tricking you there, seeing if you'd go for it.
	But Untruth talks about some of the stuff there too, right?
	About parental manipulation and proclamations of love, right?
	Yeah. But that didn't bother you as much, right?
	Um, no.
	Well, mostly because I hadn't sort of tried it out, I guess.
	Oh, so you didn't have the conversation with your parents that I talk about in On Truth about virtue.
	I'm not saying you should have, I'm just asking.
	Well, no, I hadn't had it until I read the book.
	And how did that go? Not great.
	Go on.
	I don't really know what to say.
	Well, we don't have to say much, right?
	But we can just say that it did not go well, right?
	Yeah. And so if that didn't go well, it seems quite not likely that it's going to go well in terms of real-time relationships, right?
	Definitely not a very appealing prospect of talking to them about it.
	You can learn about the truth without acting on the truth.
	When we're raised in families that are volatile or reactive, What happens, and I'm sorry, I'm going to lecture a bit here, and this is partly because your audio is looping, so it's hard to get a lot of sentences out of you, but when we're raised in reactive families, what happens is our parents get angry and they blow up, right?
	Or our mother gets sentimental and so she starts hugging us until we can't breathe, right?
	Right? And our brother gets mad and breaks our toy.
	So feeling immediately leads to action.
	This is in a dysfunctional family, right?
	And so what happens is we become frightened of thoughts because thoughts lead to action and the action is almost never positive or healthy or helpful, right?
	And so for you, there may be this association that if I learn that my parents do not love me, and if I learn that I should be honest and vulnerable in the moment with everyone around me, then by God, I have to do that with my parents, right?
	Well, you don't. You really and truly don't.
	I mean, that's like saying, if I'm unjustly imprisoned, and I come up with a foolproof getaway plan, the first thing I need to do is tell the gods, right?
	I mean, that would be silly, right?
	You can have the thought, you can have the idea, you can have the knowledge, you can have the wisdom, you can have the exploration, you can have the self-knowledge.
	You can learn karate without beating anybody up, right?
	And you can learn the truth about love and family and relationships without putting yourself in any kind of abusive corner.
	The whole point of philosophy, well, one of the core points of philosophy, is that there are no unchosen positive obligations, right?
	You don't have to confront your parents.
	You don't have to talk to them about the limitations of their love.
	You don't have to criticize them for the way that they raised you.
	You don't have to struggle to make yourself visible to them.
	You don't have to try and change the patterns of history.
	You don't have to try and rewrite the core family values.
	You don't have to take anyone on at all.
	You could read this whole book cover to cover.
	You can practice it in your mind's eye.
	You can practice it on your hamster.
	You can talk about it with your hand puppets.
	You can talk about it with your friends.
	You can write about it, you can blog about it, you can video about it, you can do whatever you want, and you are not obligated to put this into practice with any one person at all.
	all.
	It's all theory, right?
	Because if we believe that thoughts lead to actions, we will be driven to regulate our thoughts the way that we should regulate our actions, right?
	So I can get angry at somebody knowing that I'm not going to strangle them.
	I'm not saying this. This is an extreme example.
	I'm not saying this is anything that's part of your situation.
	But I can get angry at somebody knowing that I'm not going to be abusive.
	I'm not going to call them names.
	I'm not going to put them down.
	I'm just going to tell them my experience or my thoughts.
	But if I thought, oh my god, every time I get angry I'm going to strangle a kitten, then I would not allow myself to get angry, right?
	I'd have to avoid knowledge.
	I'd have to avoid who I am.
	I'd have to avoid my genuine experience because it would lead inevitably to X, Y, or Z, right?
	Mm-hmm. Like if every time you throw a snowball off a mountain, it turns into a lavenage that kills a village, you'd be like, hey, guess where I don't play snowballs is on the mountain, right?
	So, if you feel, or if you believe, which is what is inevitably going to happen if you come from this acting out kind of family where impulse is followed by action without thought or consideration or conscience, Then you're going to feel, well, shit, if I find out the truth about love, I'm going to have to confront my family about it.
	I don't want to do anything about that.
	So I'll get to page 30, and I'll find a fabulous video game to fall asleep in front of, right?
	Pretty much. Right.
	Well, you don't have to do any of it.
	You don't have to put a single thing into practice, right?
	It's just knowledge. It sits in your head like it's in a vault.
	It can't be accessed.
	It can't be ripped out of you.
	Nobody can see into your mind.
	You have complete privacy between your ears.
	It's just knowledge. Just because you read about the Mayans doesn't mean you've got to dance around naked in a grass skirt.
	That's my preference, but that's not everyone's preference.
	You can be thankful that this is not the webcam show.
	For you, anyway. Because, you know, there's an age restriction.
	Sorry? Christina's eyes are actually burning and watering, in fact.
	So, you can all understand that, I think.
	But does that make any sense?
	Does that help at all?
	Um... Do you want to take your back?
	I want to put you on the spot because I know you're feeling a bit nervous.
	Um... Well, nervousness is mostly gone now.
	It's just building up the courage to actually begin talking.
	Yeah, and then you listen and you're like, this guy's kind of an idiot.
	I don't even know why I was nervous.
	Don't worry, the kind of bit will fade away too.
	Uh... So the question was, does this idea that you can read more without having to put anything into practice, does that help in terms of realizing that you don't put yourself at any risk by acquiring knowledge?
	I'm really not sure.
	Well, those couple of approaches that it may not be the time for you to read this, that your parents may definitely be opposed to this, and also that you can read it without having to act on it, that's all I got as far as what I can offer you in terms of advice.
	And again, I don't want to put you on the spot.
	If there's anything else you'd like to raise about this, I'd be happy to talk about it, but that's kind of all I got to offer at the moment, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it just seems like I... I kind of need to think about it a little more.
	Okay, and be sure to post on the board to think about your thoughts about this as well, because it may have been a swing and a mess, and there may be something else that's going on.
	You do need a smaller font.
	But let me know.
	It also, you know, I'd be happy to send you the audio book if you would prefer to take a swing at that instead.
	Yeah, I'll think about it.
	Okay, if you do want that, just send me an email and I'll send you a copy.
	Okay.
	All right. Okay, well, thanks very much.
	Do keep us posted. And I know it sucks a whole lot learning this stuff at 17, but it sure beats figuring it out at 37.
	I'll tell you that for sure.
	So thanks very much. And if anybody has time for one more question, if anybody has a comment or issue or problem to bring up, you can also lean upon the talents of the lovely Christina, if you are tired of my vaguely foodie brogue.
	Hi, Seth. I have a yearning-burning, if that's okay?
	Burn and yearn. Thank you.
	Really, my question's about the psychological roots, I guess, of why I feel like...
	Because I am, as you know, vegan, and I'm trying to understand why I feel...
	So it's hard to pinpoint what exactly the emotion is, but my thought is that when I hear about people eating, you know, I understand that someone's eating meat or someone eats animal products, I... It feels like I judge them as immoral,
	even though... I talked to a number of people on the chat window about veganism and UPB, and they came up with some great arguments, especially Nathan, Rich, and Jess, and I remember.
	Which were really helpful, and so I can understand logically why, like, veganism and vegetarianism is not UPB, it's just a, um, it's just a personal preference, right?
	But, it, I mean, it's like, um, the whole Randian idea.
	Like, you, you understand the logic and then you just change.
	And you're supposed to be rational because rationality is the highest virtue or whatever.
	But obviously, because it's clearly a psychological thing for me, it's just understanding that logic alone isn't enough for me to not get over the passion I feel about this issue.
	I mean, to put it bluntly, I do not feel free with this, with this problem in a way, because it certainly affects the way I interact with others and the way they view me and I view them, because whenever the topic comes up, it just generates a massive load of arguments.
	Everyone's false self comes out, they make fun, and they say the same old jokes over and over again.
	I've heard them all, and...
	It's a really difficult situation to be in, but I'm sure if I can just sort of get over that, just get over the psychological block that I have, then it won't be a problem.
	I enjoy the diet as a personal preference, I enjoy it.
	Makes me happy. I feel very healthy.
	All sorts of things are going well for me.
	And I don't mind anything about checking packets to see what it's got in them.
	But I was wondering if I could just pick your brains on that issue, because I'm really finding it hard.
	And you like me, right?
	So far? I like you.
	I love you. Yes, I do.
	That may change at the end of this part of the conversation because for me, the roots of animal sympathizing over and above, you know, we should treat animals well and so on.
	And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't eat them.
	I mean, I'm not a particularly meat-eating kind of guy myself.
	Christina is a complete vegetarian, total and like, but she just doesn't like meat, right?
	So I mostly eat Vegetables, but I have no particular objection, plus I exercise, so for me, I feel I need the protein and the meat, but I don't eat very much of it.
	But let me ask you this.
	I'm going to ask a couple of questions that may be a little tough, but just try and be as honest as you can.
	I'm sure you will. What would you say, in terms of the proportion of time that you spend talking about cruelty to animals versus, say, cruelty to human beings, what proportion would it be?
	Cruelty to animals versus cruelty to human beings.
	That's an interesting question.
	On FDR, I definitely don't talk about animal cruelty much at all.
	Until, like, the topic really comes up.
	Then there's a massive argument.
	Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	Sorry, go on. I mean in your social life, not FDR. FDR is like a special universe, right?
	But in your social life, how often does the topic of animal cruelty come up for you emotionally, even if you decide to say nothing?
	Versus the topic of cruelty to human beings?
	Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question.
	And it really annoys me just how much I can't talk about anything deep, which I'm really, I guess in my head, really interested in, which is human cruelty, which is third world poverty, all sorts of things.
	But emotionally, yes, you're absolutely right.
	It's always animal cruelty, which comes up for me.
	It's more of an issue.
	It's more in my face, if you see what I mean.
	Like when I think about someone eating meat, my mind almost jumps to a mental image of someone killing the animal, farming the animal.
	And so...
	It's just... I want to say it's not a big deal.
	I want to say it's just not important to me.
	Let's move on. Let's talk about something really important.
	That doesn't work. Because we have to go with the facts of the matter.
	And the fact of the matter is that it really is important to you.
	And just saying, oh, it's not, doesn't mean anything, right?
	Hmm, hmm. Empirically, it is, and you can accept it or you cannot accept it, but empirically, again, this is where the Randian stuff doesn't work for me nearly as much, because they just say, well, reason it out and you're fine, but the empirical evidence is that reason alone doesn't solve this issue, right? No way, not at all, no.
	And I'll give you a...
	Sorry, I was just going to say, obviously it gets me a step on the way.
	Like talking about UPB, I just found a really good couple of points Nathan made.
	One about subsidies, but one in particular.
	Not everyone can be vegan, thus UPB can't apply.
	I thought that was just great.
	Sorry, let's not go into the intellectual argument, because that's not...
	No, and thank you, because I'm not interested in talking to UPB now.
	I just want to get into the...
	Let me give you a brief...
	Because I do ask this question a bit, and I've addressed it in one podcast before.
	I'm going to touch on it as briefly as humanly possible here.
	I think that animal cruelty, cruelty towards animals...
	is heinous.
	I think it's absolutely awful and abysmal.
	And I think that a good degree of the civility in a society can be measured by its treatment of those who it considers evil and animals.
	I think that's where compassion and reason and judgment need to be at their most important.
	I don't believe that there is a shortcut To the good treatment of animals that does not require, as a prerequisite, the good treatment of human beings, particularly children, right?
	Absolutely. This is an issue which Justin raised as well.
	We know for sure that one of the indicators of sociopathic tendencies within an adult is cruelty towards children as a child, right?
	I don't know if you've ever heard that.
	Right, of course. Like, why would you turn into...
	Like, why would anyone...
	The question pops into my head.
	Why would anyone choose to work in a slaughterhouse?
	Like, what kind of person would think that way?
	Or, what's the point?
	What kind of person would abuse an animal?
	And, I mean, the answer is obvious.
	A child who's been severely abused by his parents.
	Right, so, cruelty towards animals...
	It's an effect of cruelty towards children, right?
	Right, right.
	In the same way, when we look at something, and it can be anything to do with what the government does, but just, you know, to pick anything out of the air, look at the war on drugs, right?
	So people who are smoking some fairly harmless vegetation are thrown in prison where they are brutalized by God's Raped by their fellow prisoners where any last shred of humanity they possessed is ground out of them and they're released back onto the streets, right? Right.
	So we can also of course look at things like war.
	We can look at things like the banning of DDT which has cost 60 million lives.
	We can look at the foreign aid funding of dictatorships.
	We can look at Abu Ghraib. We can look at the rendition programs which get People murdered on a regular basis for governments.
	We can look at democide and so on.
	And we can see, I think quite clearly, that if we do want to help animals, and I think that there's nothing wrong with that, I mean, I think that's a great thing.
	But we can only help animals by helping children, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So the reason that I asked whether you have more empathy towards cruelty to animals or cruelty to people is that, and this is not a criticism, we just need to work from the facts, right?
	My guess is that you have a far stronger reaction to cruelty towards animals, even within your own mind, than when you think about cruelty towards people.
	Yeah, I guess that could be true, yeah.
	Well, when we hit the border to Switzerland, we have to turn back, right?
	Because if you say you guessed, I can't tell you that, right?
	No, you're right.
	I don't know why, but I'm just crying now.
	laughs There's nothing wrong with that.
	This is a good and healthy thing.
	You are among friends.
	We can cut this part of the podcast out if you feel shy or embarrassed about it, so just let your feelings flow.
	There's nothing wrong with them. They're perfectly healthy, right?
	No, absolutely. I just feel so passionate right now about the whole issue.
	Okay, well, why don't you tell me what you're feeling and the thoughts and everything that's going on with you.
	Such complete sadness.
	I've been just hearing you talk about you just have to list off all those things that happen in the world.
	And I hold it up in my mind.
	I hold up Abu Ghraib.
	I hold up people being thrown in jail.
	Just in my mind.
	I hold that up against animal cruelty and I think there is no comparison.
	What is worse? This complete disconnect.
	Why are my emotions so geared towards animals and not what really counts?
	Well, first of all, I hope that you have sympathy for your perspective.
	Because it sounds like you're saying, what kind of cold-ass bastard am I that I care more about animals than people?
	That's not what I'm thinking.
	That's not what I'm thinking.
	I think that you care desperately about people.
	In fact, I think that you are incredibly empathetic towards people.
	But I'm going to put a thesis out, and I can do this either directly or I can ask you questions, but because you're feeling very strongly at the moment, it might be easier if I just tell you, but it's totally up to you.
	No, that's a good idea, yeah.
	Thank you. No problem.
	I think, and again, here I crawl out on the limb, perfectly willing to fall, Wile E. Coyote style to my death.
	Wile E. Coyote, of course, is not a real creature, so we're not talking about cruelty to animals, but I'm going to put out a thesis here, very briefly, which hopefully will help with clarity, and maybe it's totally wrong, and we'll try something else.
	But I think that you, when you were a child, were treated like an animal, by somebody who was cruel to animals.
	I think that the compassion you have towards animals, which I respect and I think is a good thing to have myself, I really do.
	All the compassion and tenderness, that feeling.
	But I think that it's a proxy, it's a stand-in, For something that's harder for you to face, which is how you were treated.
	And the tenderness that you feel and the horror that you feel towards the cruelty to animals, again, there's nothing wrong with it as an abstract goal or principle.
	It's a wonderful thing to think and feel.
	But I think it takes you over repetitively and interferes with your relationships with people and may not be on the right hierarchy of values even if what you really want to achieve is cruelty to animals where you've got to focus on ending cruelty towards children in particular.
	I think it crowds out other things for you because it's about you.
	And it's about your history.
	Yeah, I understand, yeah.
	Well, tell me where that thesis fits or doesn't fit in terms of your own history, particularly as a child.
	Well, my family has always had two cats.
	And I've got so many memories of my parents just screaming at my cats and kicking them.
	I mean, I wouldn't say they're particularly more abusive towards animals than I'd say most people are.
	Because when they...
	Hey, I'm so sorry to interrupt you.
	I'm so sorry to interrupt you by shouting the story.
	That is categorically not true.
	I'm no expert on this, and the last pet I had was a hamster when I was 10.
	But I can completely and totally promise you that very few people scream at and kill and kick their cats.
	I think that you're not...
	Sorry, go on. Sorry, just to really clarify, because I think it's quite important.
	I didn't mean, like, kick, as in, like, across the room.
	Not to hurt, just, like, push out of the way with your foot, if you see what I mean.
	No, but the screaming at the cats, right?
	Yes. That's not...
	And that resonates with...
	Sorry. Go on.
	I was just going to say it really resonates with...
	Sorry, this is really hard.
	Good for you. Keep going.
	And it's just hard, too, because I've spent the day with my dad...
	Working at his office.
	Helping clear out some stuff.
	It's not important, but he...
	When he'd go mad, like, when I was a kid, and this feels so weird to say, because in a way I'm thinking, like, yeah, but how could that be?
	Why would anyone say that that's a big deal?
	Like, everyone does that. But when he'd get really mad he'd just yell and he'd throw things around the room.
	He could trash a room in like 15 seconds almost.
	He really went nuts.
	There used to be a glass window in my back door of my house which would always be smashed and it would always get replaced.
	It got replaced about five times because he'd just Always keep going to that window to kick, just let out some aggression, just smash things, and I'd be terrified!
	Just... just completely terrified of this guy.
	And, like, having no security at all.
	And he'd let it out on our pets as well.
	He'd just scream at them for no reason.
	If they, like, meowed, he'd just go crazy as if, like, they were trying to really annoy him or, like, they're not allowed to do that if he's on a bad day or something like that.
	But, Jesus, I mean, I can't.
	I just have a very strong association with my parents' treatment of our pets and my dad just completely flipping out.
	Which he does often.
	Right. Right.
	Right. That's all I wanted to do.
	No, look, I mean, that is stuff.
	I mean, I tell you, my blood is pumping, you know, my chest is tight, that what you went through is a really staggeringly evil and terrifying situation, that this guy's psychotic rage laid waste to significant aspects of your childhood and of your soul
	I mean obviously this was perpetual
	This is something that went on and on throughout your entire childhood, and I would imagine continues to this day in terms of the fear of the misery, right?
	You're right. Whenever he walks in the room, whenever he makes a loud noise, or he comes into the room and I don't know he's there, like, I just feel the same feeling.
	It just comes right back to me.
	Right. And this is only after reading RTR that I really understand that now.
	Right. Right.
	Right. And of course...
	Like where those feelings are coming from.
	Go on. Well, I just mean before, particularly when I started listening to the listener conversations, people talking about their parents and their experiences.
	Since listening to those, I've felt this emotion a lot more powerfully than I did before when I just see him or think of him.
	He didn't even have to raise his voice or anything.
	I just feel completely terrified and anxious of him just by him being there and him acting completely normally as if nothing happened, which has just made me so completely insane.
	Right, because he has the capacity to restrain his temper, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Like, if you were a kid and...
	You were standing in front of a cop, he wouldn't scream and do this and that, right?
	No, no.
	Because the important thing to differentiate here is that this is not a biological issue, right?
	People who are schizophrenic or truly psychotic cannot control their behavior.
	They can't respond to stimuli and manage their behavior, right?
	Right. This is a question.
	This asshole could completely do it, right?
	He could totally control his behavior when he wanted, right?
	Right, right.
	God. That's what maddens me so much.
	He would do that, and I'd see it.
	But, like, as soon as it was just, like, me and him, like, in the same rooms together or whatever, he just, he wouldn't control at all.
	He'd just let rip. He'd be completely passive-aggressive or overtly aggressive and just shout at me and all sorts of things.
	And it's just...
	He's real big on bullying helpless children, right?
	That's how he gets his petty little size, right?
	That's how he gets his leg up, right?
	Is to bully helpless, independent, and frighten children, right?
	That thought just horrifies me so much.
	Well, sure. And this is nothing that I'm telling you that you don't already know deep down, right?
	Right. But it's so sick!
	Just, like, to do that and not even...
	Like, a bully will admit he's a bully.
	Like, a bully in the playground will say, like, yeah, I wanted his lunch money.
	Or, yeah, I... Like, I wanted to take out my aggression.
	This guy will just say...
	And my dad will just say, oh, nothing's wrong.
	Like, I'm not in a mood.
	Or, like, it's nothing's the matter.
	Just don't ask. Or get off my case.
	Or whatever. The same old rubbish.
	Just acting like he's not doing anything.
	But it's so...
	That's just what has been driving me insane all these years.
	And where was... Sorry, you go on.
	Where was your mum in all this? Her official story is that Because I've sort of confronted my mum about my childhood at a sort of like an RTR conversation, except before I really understood RTR, so it didn't make sense.
	At least it wasn't productive.
	But I asked my mum why she and my dad stayed together, and she said it's It's because she wants to protect me, or it's in my best interest.
	And I talked to her about when he flips out and when he goes into a rage, and she said that she just wanted to protect me.
	But what did she do?
	She didn't protect me.
	She just stayed out of it.
	She didn't leave him.
	She didn't call child services.
	She didn't say anything to him or comfort me at all.
	She wouldn't even raise the issue.
	I'm sorry, but it's even worse than what you're saying.
	Go on. It's worse.
	This is your biological mother and biological father, is that right?
	Yes. This is the scenario that you know deep down, but it's not conscious probably yet.
	Your mother met your father when they were young, and his irrational rages were perfectly clear to her very quickly.
	I mean, we don't need to know this, we don't need to have any confirmation, but we know that people understand and appreciate what goes on in other people's souls.
	We know everything very quickly, this is well documented, this blink phenomenon that we assess people very quickly, we understand them.
	So she knew that this guy had sick and disgusting rages Before she married him.
	Probably after the first date.
	I'm not saying that he raged at her at that meet or anything like that, but she knew for sure before they got engaged what kind of man he was, right?
	Right. Again, her official story is on this, and she completely follows the script in Atiyatu, that he just changed.
	Yeah, it just mysteriously changed, which is bullshit.
	And there's no way to predict that in the beginning, yeah.
	Yeah, well, that's not true. It's not true.
	And of course, if you know anything about her family history, you'd know why she ended up in this situation and so on.
	And then she said, okay, I'm going to marry to this guy who's a bully, who's got a rational rages, who's kind of psychotic, who's dangerous, who's violent, and this and that, right?
	And now what am I going to do?
	I'm going to give him children.
	This sick son of a bitch, who's a bully, who's psychotic, who's insane, who's violent, who's terrifying, who's destructive, who screams at cats, Thanks.
	Thank you.
	I'm going to have sex with him, I'm going to carry his children, I'm going to have his children, and I'm going to give him the children.
	It's not that she failed to protect you from the devil.
	She created you for the devil.
	You weren't a family and this guy kidnapped you and she failed to protect you from him.
	She created you for this guy.
	She delivered you to him.
	Signed, sealed, delivered, and helpless.
	It's not a matter.
	If I sell my wife into slavery, is it that I failed to protect her?
	No! I sold her into fucking slavery!
	I initiated the sequence that led to her enslavement and failed to protect her.
	Does that make sense?
	It does. I don't feel sad now.
	I just feel completely angry.
	Right. That's good.
	That's what that story is for.
	Because the sadness is your mother's self-pity and victimhood, which is bullshit.
	Sorry, I'm not taking apart any rooms here.
	I'm just being emphatic, right?
	You need to get out of the self-pity and story of your mother of, oh, what a victim am I. Bullshit.
	Bullshit, bullshit.
	The complicity of mothers is the core of child abuse.
	Mothers create that.
	Thank you.
	Because they choose these guys, and they breed with these guys, and they hand their children to these guys, and then they say, I was the victim here.
	Not you, who were born into this situation, but me, who had choice.
	Me, as an adult, who chose this guy, who chose to have children with this guy.
	I'm the victim. Not you, who were born into this situation with no choice whatsoever.
	God. That is just sick beyond words.
	It is, in fact. Just how could you do something so evil?
	Well, I try to talk about some of the edges of that in the RTR book.
	Right, right. Do you mean like looking into their past, looking at their childhood?
	I'm sorry? Do you mean looking at their childhood, saying why in a deterministic way they do that?
	No, I don't. Because then what happens is you fall back into sympathy, right?
	Exactly. I can even feel the anger fading now when I think about that.
	They made the fucking choice. They made the choice to meet and to breed and to...
	They didn't fail to protect their children.
	They threw their children into a lion's den, right?
	And then ate some fucking popcorn when the children got mauled, right?
	It's so sick. It's so sick.
	Not even that, it's just the lies that surround this whole thing, that they've been propagandizing me for my whole life.
	Well, of course, they have to, right?
	They have to. And it's their reliance that that propaganda will work that caused them to do what they did, right?
	This is why I say to people, if your parents are evil, Ditch them.
	Because it's people's belief that they can do this and not suffer any repercussions that causes people to abuse children this way.
	because they always believe forever and a day they're going to get away with it.
	You're right.
	You're right.
	Thank you.
	And so, when we started, we were talking about how you were treated like an animal, and you said, my father screamed at cats and he screamed at me.
	Right? Where is the sympathy for the mistreated animals?
	Well, that was you. Where is the sympathy for the brutalized animals, for those who exploit and destroy animals, who torture animals?
	Where is the sympathy for me?
	And the world has not shown you any sympathy, because as you say, when you talk about this stuff, you get ignored, you get laughed at.
	This is your Simon the Boxer thing.
	You recreate this.
	Rejection, right? This is your addiction.
	Because you're addicted, in my opinion, and this doesn't mean permanently, this is just the habit, right?
	Of reaching out for sympathy and being rejected, right?
	reaching out for sympathy and being rejected.
	Could this be true for other vegans?
	Yes.
	Why are we talking about other vegans right now?
	Nice try. Sorry?
	We're talking about you, right? Fuck the other vegans, frankly, right now.
	We're talking about you. Right, sorry.
	The only thought that came to my head was that I met a new co-worker the other week, and he's vegan.
	And I just remembered that...
	So you can see the light come into his face, like, come into the face of a vegan.
	Like, whenever they meet someone else who's vegan.
	Like, because then they found that sympathy.
	But then that's not...
	Sorry, maybe that's not relevant because then it wouldn't be the Simon the Boxer thing if they actually reach that sympathy.
	Like, they find that reciprocity of affection or whatever.
	Am I clear? Yeah, to some degree.
	I mean, if people really want to effect a change in how humanity treats animals, they have to focus on how humanity treats its children.
	There's no other way. There's no shortcut.
	There's no easy way to do it.
	There's no other way. Once children are treated well, we will be kinder to animals.
	So focusing on animals and not children clearly is not going to achieve the goal.
	And everybody who's into animal rights is perfectly aware of that.
	So the fact that they keep doing it means it doesn't have anything to do with actually wanting to help the animals, right?
	It's like these foreign aid programs or the welfare state or anything like that.
	If people really wanted to help the poor, they'd look at the facts and they'd say, well, shit, this doesn't work, and they'd be against the welfare state.
	But people don't do that, right?
	They just keep talking about the welfare state over and over and over again.
	Foreign aid or the war on drugs or government schools as, you know, well, without government schools, nobody would be educated.
	It's like, this is the exact opposite, right?
	So if people were really interested in the goal, They'd look at what they did and say, well, this doesn't work, I better try something else, right?
	But because vegans or other kinds of animal rights activists are broken records alienating themselves, because everyone gets deep down that if you're placing the health of cats above the health of children, the protection of cats above the protection of children, that your values are just a little messed up, right?
	And not because cats aren't worth protecting, it's just that there's no other way to protect them than to protect the children, right?
	Right, of course, yeah.
	So that's what people sense.
	When you come in and talk about protection of animals, and you're not talking about protection of children, everybody knows that just running some game in your head, right?
	That it's not really about the animals, right?
	And so they end up rejecting you, right?
	Just as you reached out and were rejected in your family, right?
	Yeah. I mean, I guarantee you that if you talk about the abuse of children, there's going to be a whole lot fewer jokes, right?
	That's true, yeah. That's really true.
	That will actually help you achieve your goal of protecting animals.
	And I believe that you really do care for animals, and I really, truly believe that you do care for children, and particularly your own experience as a child.
	And we can tell that from how accessible the emotions were when you began to talk about it, how sensitive and strong and brave you were in feeling and expressing those feelings, right?
	It was definitely very powerful.
	I can't remember the last time I got so angry.
	I know I didn't let it out ragefully.
	I didn't smash anything, but you know what I mean?
	In terms of the passion of it, the feeling of it, it was very strong.
	You had a healthy anger.
	For you to go and smash stuff would not be healthy.
	That's acting out. That's what we were talking about with the last guy, right?
	Right, right, right.
	To feel it, to be aware of it and have it inform your actions in a reasoned manner, that's healthy anger, right?
	Just going and breaking stuff is destructive.
	No, I know. I'm just trying to characterize it.
	When someone usually says...
	I got that the sadness that you felt was healthy, but also was commingled with your mother's self-pity, right?
	Like it was sad to yourself, but it's commingled in with your mother's narcissistic self-pity about how victimized she is, right?
	When she's actually the victimizer.
	Right. That actually explains a lot to me as well.
	That way we got to how brutalized you'd been and you felt angry, which was, I think, your feeling unmingled with other people's, right?
	Right. Right.
	Right. This makes a lot more sense now that you make that link between my mother's self-pity and my horror of my dad.
	Is that what you're making a link with?
	Or have I lost you?
	Yeah, whenever you would get angry at your dad, you'd run into your mother's defense of self-pity, right?
	Yes. It would disarm you, right?
	Right? Because then I can't feel anything against my dad just logically as a kid.
	We can't...
	Even as an adult, right?
	Even as an adult, right?
	Because you're playing fellow victim with you when she's actually focusing the victimhood on herself, right?
	So she appeals to your pity, which is actually supposed to be about you, which would lead you to your anger, and she uses it to create sympathy for her, which disarms you, right?
	And has you going to help your fucking dad at his office.
	And keeps the family secrets buried, right?
	You are as mute as a statue when you fall into that pit of your mother's self-pity, right?
	And this is what happened when you started to think about your parents' origins and their bad childhoods and so on and this deterministic thing and they were just acting out their histories.
	You start to feel the pity again and your anger dried up, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
	Yeah, you don't have to empathize with these people at all, understand?
	In fact, I think it would not be healthy to do so.
	I mean, I don't have to sit there and worry about my torturous bad childhood, right?
	I just got to jab him in the eyes and get the hell out if I can, right?
	Or just get out if I can, without jabbing anyone even better, right?
	Right, I mean, the woman being raped doesn't lie back and say, wow, this guy had a really bad childhood.
	No. No?
	No. She tries to get away, right?
	I feel so stuck right now though.
	Like, emotionally.
	Because... Because there's such a...
	Situational, if this makes any sense, a situational disconnect between my emotions and my behaviours because I need to wait here until I get my...
	I finish my college A-levels and then I can go to university.
	Like, there's no escape.
	It's like you're in a house that's burning down and you can't get out kind of thing.
	Sorry, what do you mean when you can't get out?
	Are you physically chained?
	No. Right, so you can.
	I'm not saying that you should, but let's deal with the realities of the situation.
	That if the house were, you damn well could get out, right?
	Right, of course. You may choose not to.
	You may choose to stay, but you're not stuck.
	You're not chained. Your feet aren't sunk in concrete, right?
	No, no. You could leave and you could share a room with someone, right?
	I mean, when I was doing my master's, I lived in a house with five other people.
	Four gay guys and a lesbian.
	It was like the cleanest house except for my bit, right?
	The hetero corner of sludge.
	And I paid like 250 bucks a month in rent.
	Right? So you could, theoretically, and maybe you would have to go into debt and maybe there'd be problems, maybe you could get student financial aid or whatever, right?
	You could do that.
	It's within the realm of possibility, right?
	Right. You could go and stay with friends.
	You could, you know, just say, look, I mean, I've got this crazy-ass situation that's just messing with my head unbelievably.
	This is my history. This is what I'm dealing with.
	Anyone can help me out, right?
	And I also know there is student aid, right?
	You can get student aid if you're in an abusive situation.
	In most places, again, I don't even want to know where you live, right?
	But what I'm saying is that there are possibilities that you can choose to avail yourself of or not.
	Only you can decide that finally.
	Your parents want you to not think of those possibilities, but aren't you a little sick and tired of obeying the crazy assholes?
	Of course. Yeah, my mind's just racing now, thinking of ways I can escape.
	Sure. You know what?
	The house is burning down.
	Right? I mean, in terms of your mental health, in terms of your happiness, in terms of your future, it is a toxic environment.
	The house is burning down.
	That metaphor didn't come into your mind for no reason.
	No, no. It feels like I'm on fire.
	Like... I know that's a crazy metaphor to use, but just being in this situation and not leaving, it's just a complete...
	Knowing what I know, understanding what's going on, knowing the truth about the situation behind all the lies, it's just so completely impossible to be here.
	Right, and that's why the lies are there, so that you'll stay.
	Because if you flee them like a burning house, they actually start to feel evil.
	And they'd rather you feel guilty.
	You understand, the abuse is just continuing.
	Right? They're sacrificing you for the sake of appeasing their own conscience.
	As long as you're around, they were decent parents.
	If you flee from them, like the stone evil that they are, then they're gonna feel bad, right?
	And they'd rather you feel bad than they feel bad because that's how it's always been, right?
	That's what they do. Right.
	You were sacrificed for their needs, always.
	I mean, you don't even exist, really, for them, except as a vessel to vomit their feelings into, right?
	To act out, to frighten, to bully, to terrify, to control, to manipulate, to lie to, to twist around.
	You don't have any independent, narcissistic people.
	And in terms of cruelty to animals, again, purely amateur bullshit diagnosis, so all the grain of salt in the world.
	Cruelty to animals is sociopathic tendencies.
	Cruelty to children is, to me, ten times that.
	So, yeah, these are toxic people.
	You know, they might as well be spewing out a kind of sulfuric acid into the air, right?
	Right, right. Just makes me not care about veganism at all.
	Well, again, I don't want to take that away from you, right?
	I mean, but the important thing is that you want to care about it for the right reasons.
	You don't want it to be a proxy for something else, right?
	Right. I mean, just to clarify what I mean, it's like it's just what I eat.
	It's just a diet.
	It's just my preference.
	Well, compared to the moral emergency that is your life at the moment, How cows are slaughtered in Tennessee, not that important, right?
	Who cares? It's like, put the oxygen mask over yourself first and then help those around you, right?
	Can you explain that metaphor a bit?
	Yeah, if you're on a plane, right, and they say, well, if the plane experiences decompression, these oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling.
	Oh, right, right.
	yourself first and then you help other people, right?
	But you save yourself first.
	You get yourself out of your own personal fucking slaughterhouse and then you worry about the cows in Tennessee down the road, right?
	There's no point worrying about the cows in Tennessee when you're getting bludgeoned daily, right?
	Hmm.
	Hmm.
	There is a point which is to avoid the fact that you're getting bludgeoned daily, right?
	But you don't want to live like that.
	It's like those anarchists who just hate their parents and just get angry at the state in proxy.
	It's like, don't embarrass us with your pathetic projections.
	I don't mean you, right? But it's like, you know, go deal with your shit to do with your family and then you can get mad at the state for the right reasons, right?
	Right, right. Wow.
	And that's why I said at the beginning that you weren't going to like me.
	I'm glad you do, it sounds like, but you may not like me quite as much at the end, right?
	Because this was a whole lot of pulling back veils, right?
	I love you so much, Mostert.
	That's very kind. But look, I can't tell you just how filled with admiration I am at the courage with which you attacked this issue.
	I mean, this was heroic in my opinion.
	Christina, too, was moved to tears by what you were doing.
	That's very touching to know.
	Thank you. It's a beautiful thing.
	People don't understand just how much strength and courage it really takes to be vulnerable and to feel like that.
	People always associate feeling with weakness and so on, but to me it's the brittle defensiveness of what your parents are doing.
	Incredibly weak and pathetic, right?
	Stepping on a kid's neck to make yourself feel a little taller.
	That's pathetic and ridiculous.
	Opening up about genuine pain and making that leap and talking about it in public, that takes some real stones.
	That takes some real courage.
	I just wanted to point that out.
	Just the admiration that I feel is enormous.
	Thank you very much.
	There's something going through my mind now which makes me feel like that, although I'm very grateful, of course, just to focus on my emotions now in the moment.
	I'm thinking really about the logistics of this.
	Like I say, my mind is just racing at how I can actually physically get out.
	Right. And I think that, you know, I don't know if you've been listening for the whole show, but we were talking earlier about how if you're being mauled by a bear, you get very analytical, right?
	You get very logical. Did you hear any of that?
	Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that's just so beautiful.
	I was very moved by what you're talking about there.
	But this is what you're experiencing now.
	You're waking up to the mauling you're receiving, right?
	And you're getting old and calculating and like, how the fuck am I getting out, right?
	Right, exactly, yeah.
	That's healthy. That's good.
	And I'm thinking which...
	Sorry, go ahead. Well, financially, I don't actually know if I could move out and...
	I don't know if I could.
	Like, maybe. But, like, I'm just sort of thinking through a list of friends of who would take me in.
	But how could I phrase it?
	Like, what do you say to a person that would get them to take you into the house?
	It's like... Wow, that's...
	But it's on the other hand.
	I think that if you're...
	The first thing to do is not worry about immediately how this is all going to be solved, right?
	Don't overwhelm yourself with that.
	I mean, in the last 40 minutes, you've come 6 million miles, right?
	And you're like, but what about 6 million and 1, right?
	You know, to take a moment, and you can take a day or a week or a month if you want, to be proud of how you have stared down your history in the face and emerged triumphant, right?
	And that's not to say, okay, well, forget about leaving because you've got understanding, but don't necessarily say, well, I've come six million miles, and now I'm going to fret about not being six million and one, right?
	Or how am I going to get to six million?
	It's okay to be happy with what you've achieved in this conversation.
	As far as, well, the RTR book would be my answer as to how you get people to take you in.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That just came to me. That's a really good point.
	You tell them what you were telling me.
	Like, I'm tortured by this incredibly abusive home situation.
	I don't know what to do.
	I can't find any way to get the money out.
	I will clean your bathrooms.
	I will mow your lawn.
	You know, whatever it is that I need to do.
	And all of that failing, if nobody will take you in, then what you do is you say, okay, well, what is the minimal amount of time that I can spend at home?
	Can I stay at my bridge?
	Can I go to a friend's place?
	Can I study at Starbucks?
	There's lots of different things that you can do to not be home, right?
	To come home when they're asleep and to leave before they get up.
	I'm just saying there are options, right?
	And where there's a will, there's a way, for sure.
	Once you're awake to it, and I never want to put myself in the position of trying to figure out somebody's logistics, because that's impossible, right?
	And of course, that would be to indicate that you can't figure it out, and of course you can, right?
	No, of course. Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, all of what you're saying is really helping, but I know that I can do this.
	Yeah, I know you can. Especially when you said you can wait, I think you said you can wait a day or a week or a month.
	But when I think about it, I don't know if I can.
	Sure, but it's a choice, right?
	The whole point is I'm trying to put choice back on your plate, right?
	You can wait a month.
	It's certainly logistically possible.
	But what do you prefer to do, right?
	That's going to be the hard thing for you to regrow.
	Because you grew up in a fucking gulag, right?
	So your will and your choice are beaten out of you, but they're coming back.
	That's the beautiful thing is that you can't kill these organs, right?
	So they're coming flooding back.
	And I'm just trying to put choice back into your language, right?
	So that you don't feel as trapped.
	Right, I get what you mean.
	Because to my mind, when you said that, I thought of people who reject anarchism or who reject God by jumping to the conclusion, well, how could we have ethics?
	And then it's all just some big psychological defense.
	But this is honestly a very strong emotion or urge or yearning right now in In my gut to say get out.
	Just to clarify, that's why I'm thinking so hard about the logistics.
	Right, and you understand that I tried to create a space where that feeling would occur.
	If I said, you have to get out, you'd be like, okay, but it wouldn't really be your feeling, right?
	And if I said, you have to stay, then you'd be like, no, I'm going to leave, right?
	But if I say, you're free to leave, you're free to stay, you're free, then whatever comes is your feeling, and that will sustain you, right?
	Because Lord knows, I mean, what the hell do I know about your particular circumstances?
	Other than, you know, helping you through the emotional side and making sure that you remember that you're free to do what you want, whatever you can figure out logistically.
	It's just the important thing is that the desire to leave has got to be yours.
	It can't be in reaction to what anybody else is saying.
	Right, and thank you very much for the way you did that.
	I'm very grateful. It's the least I can do for the gift of your courage in this conversation.
	Well, thank you very much.
	You're very welcome. Will you keep us posted about how it goes?
	Yeah, yeah, of course.
	And I'll read through ITR and just see what I can do.
	Absolutely. And again, I mean, if the audiobook would help while you're tooling around, just let me know and I'll set you up.
	I have it. Oh, okay.
	I have it, yeah. Well, thank you so much.
	That was great. I really, really do appreciate it.
	And it was a wonderful end to the conversation, and it also helped me from putting out any big, long, lengthy speeches, Lord knows, of which the show is not short of.
	So thank you so much, everybody, for dropping by this Sunday afternoon, and thank you for some wonderful, scintillating, and amazing conversations.
	And I will talk to you all next week.

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