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May 7, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
51:34
1059 Mr. Nihilist Part Three
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Time Text
Hello? Oh, hey, how's it going?
Alright, how are you? Can you hear me?
I can hear you just fine. Okay, good.
I was just making sure the ringtone didn't come on on my computer.
No, I've just, uh...
I guess recently I've just been, uh...
extremely depressed.
to sum it up pretty easily.
And my aunt called me after I told my parents I didn't want to talk about anything, which they didn't really respect that at all.
They kind of Kept sending me text messages, so instead of calling me, they sent me text messages, which is like, oh, well, we won't call you, we'll just text you.
Didn't make sense.
But, no, my aunt called, and she's the aunt that lives in L.A., the only family member that I hadn't lost complete respect for.
And she called me trying to hit me with guilt trips, I guess my mom was talking to her about And she called me about it and that kind of hurt and was irritating.
I had to explain everything to her.
I had to explain some things to her which I didn't want to.
I found out from my father that my student loans were being handled by my mother who doesn't pay her bills.
Like every time I have given her Like, given my trust to allow her to pay my bills, because she says she wants to help me out, she hasn't paid them on time.
Or there's always a conflict of her not paying them on time, and she's never been really good with her stuff.
I mean, we used to live in a fairly nice suburb, and there were times where she didn't pay the utility bill on time.
Like, the water wouldn't work, or something like that.
So that was kind of...
So I'm kind of like...
I was a little annoyed by that.
So I pretty much basically was...
And he knew that she couldn't pay those, but he gave them to her anyway.
So later on today, I got to go up there and pick those up.
Something I really didn't want to have to deal with.
Sorry, I just wanted to make sure I understood.
Why is it that your mom is paying these bills again?
Well, before, when we started, when I first started going to school, they were like, We'll help you out.
We'll, you know, take care of everything.
Don't worry about it.
And, you know, we're going to help you and you don't have to think about this.
I said, well, I can take care of some of this if any...
But they kept talking about, no, no, no, no.
We'll help you. It'll be fine.
It'll be great. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I bought it and then it...
And as increasingly as the years went by, I had...
It just became so stressful that slowly but surely I've been taking things out of their hands because it's not working and I have to worry about it.
So that's why now I'm starting to move to grab everything.
On the hinges of also doing that, I also feel the overwhelming, I guess, immensity of the responsibility that I'm now having to take on and that's a bit frightening.
Sorry, what is the immensity of the responsibility?
Paying my student loans on time.
Just so I understand, why is that an immense responsibility?
To me, it's like...
I'm, I guess, taking on my full financial burden because...
Sorry, I don't mean to be annoying, but you're in your mid-20s, right?
Yeah, yeah. So I can't exactly see how paying your own bills is an immense and ground-shaking responsibility.
Again, I don't mean to sound cruel.
I mean, I sort of did it from the age of 15 onwards, so maybe I'm missing something and I'm perfectly happy to be corrected.
If there's a complication that I don't understand...
But paying your own bills – like to me, a massive responsibility is I have to get this hot in an icebox across country in three hours to save someone.
That to me would be a massive responsibility, but I'm not sure how paying your own bills fits into the category.
And again, I could be totally wrong in this, so correct me if I am.
Yeah. I haven't had to deal with it.
I just, I hadn't had to really deal with it before.
And, um...
I mean, the whole thing that started with college was, I guess, um...
I didn't, in the beginning, even want to go to college.
So, it was more of people telling me to go and frustrating me to the point where I said, fine, I'll just...
You know, I'll just end up going.
And then getting in there and realizing how much it was going to cost and all this other stuff.
And so I started...
They said that they were going to take care of it to get me in there, so I hadn't had to think about it.
I hadn't had to worry about it.
And... To me, those types of responsibilities didn't come until later in my life.
So while everyone else is probably picking up the tab of their school, the first years that they went in there, or earlier, paying those bills, I hadn't had to deal with that kind of responsibility.
Sorry, I'm just going to be annoying in the precision of your language here, because I get that you're feeling depressed and overwhelmed, but it's important to understand whether you're contributing to that.
With your own language.
So, I mean, you chose to go to school.
I mean, sure, you got pressure to go to school and so on, but you chose to go to school.
And it's not like everybody kept responsibility away from you.
You chose a situation of less responsibility, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's important to understand, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Because what you're looking now is you're saying, God, there's this huge and massive and overwhelming thing that, you know, called paying my own bills, which, you know, people on the planet do all the time, right?
Yeah. I mean, I would say that getting leukemia would be a huge and awesome and terrible responsibility, right?
Not paying your bills.
Yeah. I'm not convincing people.
At all. Well, I mean...
It's fine. That's my perspective, right?
Yeah, I just...
My thing is, is that...
I mean, I'm...
I guess for me, to me it just seems that way because I've never done it before.
So it's just not doing it before.
And maybe the language is improper, but to me it seems like it's immense.
To me, because I haven't done it before.
It's like, you know, you're starting to do something from scratch that you've never done before.
And, you know, there's quite a bit of risk involved.
And if you don't get things right, you could ruin, you know, fuck up your credit.
it, you could ruin your chances of getting another apartment, all these other things that are running into that.
And to me, that seems like an immense responsibility that I haven't had prior to have to deal with.
But the way that you describe it is that you're experiencing more stress and frustration having your mom or other people take care of your finances, right?
Yeah.
So it seems that, I mean, it's a way of looking at it, and you can look at it however you want, but I think it's perfectly valid to say that I am reducing my stress by taking over my own finances, not that it's so negative, right?
Because it's a positive. I mean, you'll experience less stress if you take care of your own finances, right?
Yeah. But the way you frame it to me is, oh, there's this terrible thing where I have to pay my own bills, and it's like, but it's a good thing for you to pay your own bills, because it's less stress and you have control over the situation, right?
Yeah. But you understand, like, you go to the negative there, right?
Yeah. Not to the positive.
You know, it's like somebody gives you a new car and it's like, well, you know, but the gas prices are crushing and the insurance is expensive.
You know what I mean? But it's like, hey, you get a car!
Yeah. Yeah.
At this point, I know it for you, but paying bills is not one of the more complicated things in life.
Assuming, I mean, that you have the money to pay the bills, and that's another issue, but you can set up automatic withdrawals, you can, I mean, it's a brain-dead operation, it just takes a little while to set up, right?
Yeah. I mean, my main problem also is, you know, managing that I guess, for me, and doing that and working and making sure I maintain my job...
And being having enough to pay for rent because I'm going to be doing...
I mean, again, this may sound like I'm just a whining little kid who's been taken care of by his parents for all so long.
But for me, this is something that seems rather difficult because I haven't done it before.
Yeah, like you've been operating with a net before and now the net is removed.
You're removing the net, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
But it's a noose, right? It's not a net.
It's a noose. And if all you do is focus on the negatives, then of course you're going to end up depressed, right?
Like if all you do is you say, well, I've never done this before.
It's overwhelming. It's difficult.
It's challenging. It's complicated.
It's risky. It's this and that.
Well, that's like saying, okay, well, I'd really like to have children, but boy, you know, they keep you up at night and they're expensive and there's health complications and who knows and blah, blah, blah.
Then all you're going to do is be depressed about having kids, right?
But you're not focusing, as far as I can tell, at least based on what you've described so far, you're not focusing at all on the positive aspects of it.
I think that you probably are living a little bit in this fantasy land called good people will take care of me.
Because it's not healthy parenting to take everything on for your kid until they're in their mid-20s, right?
Yeah.
I mean, that's not good parenting, right?
You're supposed to give your kid a series of increased levels of responsibility so that by the time they're in their late teens, they can handle living, right?
Yeah. And your parents have kind of kept you infantilized that way, right?
Yeah. And so I think you maybe feel resentful because maybe you feel like it would be great if they continued to take care of me but were responsible and functional as well, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
But that could never conceivably exist.
If they were responsible and functional parents, they would not be infantilizing you into your mid-20s.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
There's no scenario where good parents will take care of your bills into your mid-20s, unless you're functionally retarded, which clearly you're not even close to being, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So, I just, you know, it's important to have reasonable expectations because I think part of you is like, well, I want to have good parents and I want to have my bills taken care of, but those two things are mutually exclusive, right?
Mm-hmm. Again, you sound woefully underconvinced, which is fine.
I'm just...
Yeah, no.
It's just... Can you hold on just one second?
Sorry.
Just give me one.
I'll be right back.
Bye.
Bye.
Hmm.
You'll never know just how much I love you.
Amen.
Hello? Hey, how's it going? Yeah, girlfriend was calling.
Sorry about that. But, no, I understand what you're saying, and I understand that, you know...
If they're being productive, there would have been a series of steps to get to me where I wouldn't have this kind of anxiety over taking on normal responsibilities, which most people deal with anyway.
I understand that.
It just...
I still have a feeling of anxiety toward it.
Sure, and the anxiety is not bad, right?
It's just that you need to temper you.
There's things that happen like, you know, we get hit by a bus and we have to recuperate and that stuff is objective, right?
Or we get bone cancer and have to have some sort of horrible transplants and stuff, right?
So there's things that happen to us that are objective and then there are things that happen to us that our emotional experience is enormously dependent Upon our interpretation of the events.
Does that make sense? I caught the last part and I kind of get that, yeah.
Well, what I mean is that when I was, I guess a couple of years ago, more than a couple, eight or so years ago, I was leaving a parking lot in a hurry and I clipped the side of my car.
And I was mad, right, because I put a dent in the door.
And in the wheel rim over the back wheel.
And I was really mad.
But it turned out that when I called my insurance company to talk about it, that I actually had not upgraded my driver's license and so was losing a huge amount of money every year based on overpaying for insurance.
Which I never would have figured out if I hadn't called my insurance company.
So I have saved like five times the repair bill of denting my car based on reducing my car insurance by upgrading my driver's license.
There was some new graduated thing and I came in and I wasn't aware of it or something like that.
So initially I was like, man, I can't believe I dented my car and that's going to cost me $2,500 to fix, right?
But then, now I look at that, I look back at that and say, I'm really glad that I dented my car, if that makes sense, because now I've saved, you know, five times that in terms of insurance.
Yeah. So you see, if I'd been hit by a car, it's not likely I would be able to put a very positive spin on it.
But you can even do that.
I pulled a muscle at the gym 10 months ago, and it's been sort of off and on a problem.
But what it's caused me to do is to be much more responsible about...
How I use weights, how I lift weights, the posture, the proper pose, and so on, right?
So it's possible to say, man, I can't believe I've had this off-again, on-again tendon injury for the last 10 months, and that's a real drag.
Or I can say, this relatively minor injury has probably helped me prevent getting a much worse injury, and I can be happy that I got off with a warning, so to speak, rather than really pulling a muscle badly or whatever, right?
Right, right. So there's stuff which can occur, which it really just kind of depends how you want to look at it, right?
Yeah. And if you process this like, it's overwhelming, I can't do it, I'm not ready, I'm not prepared, and if you catastrophize it to the point where it's like, I'm going to lose my job, I'm going to lose my credit rating, I'm going to end up living in a cardboard box and I'm going to die of rabies.
Yeah, pretty much.
That's, I mean, that's guaranteed to just, that's going to make you stressed, but it's not in the situation, right?
That's your interpretation of the situation.
That's the story you tell yourself about what's happening, right?
Like if you, I don't know, if there was some terrible food disaster and no food got delivered to your city, then you would have an objective disaster on your hands, right?
But this is not that.
You have to pay your bills.
And you can break it down bit by bit.
And you can say, okay, well, I'll make a list of the bills and when they're due.
Like, you know how to use a spreadsheet.
You're an intelligent guy.
I'll make a list of the bills and I'll figure out my income.
I'll figure out what I can afford.
I can figure out, you know, can put some stuff in a bucket called miscellaneous and so on.
And there's six million books available for how to handle your personal finances.
And you're a very intelligent fellow.
And, you know, like you can take this step by step and be up to speed in a month or two.
Guaranteed. Yeah.
Right? This isn't like you have to become a brain surgeon in six months, right?
Right. Does that make sense?
Yeah. And what you will get out of that is increased confidence on mastering this task, and you will get less stress, you will have less involvement with your parents.
I mean, overall, I mean, if they were a God, this would be a situation to fall on your knees and pray to have, right?
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Again, woefully under-convinced, which is fine.
It's just that you're hanging on to this, like grim death, right?
You don't want to let this one go.
It's not that...
I understand, and I hear what you're saying, and I definitely...
It definitely makes sense, and changing my perspective on it would definitely make sense.
I... I definitely understand that.
I definitely get that. I always see the darker end of things because I feel like if I'm overly confident about how well things will go, I won't see them fall apart behind me.
Okay, so if I understand that correctly, then you prefer to look at things in a more negative light because you feel that it's going to be less of a letdown in the future?
Yeah. But then I'm really confused because you wanted to talk, but you prefer the way that you're feeling.
And so if you prefer the way that you're feeling, I'm not sure what the call is for.
You know, it's like, doctor, doctor, I need to, you know, I need to talk to you because my elbow hurts.
And then it's like, well, stop doing that thing that makes your elbow hurts.
It's like, no, no, no, I have to do that thing.
It's like, oh, okay, well, then your elbow's gonna hurt and what are you wasting my time for, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you don't want to change this, right?
Because the alternative for you is even worse.
So for you, it's a choice between this stress and the stress of potential catastrophe when things go wrong and you're somewhat, quote, unprepared, right?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I do want to get rid of the anxiety and I do want to get rid of the frustration.
Honestly, you don't. You really don't.
You don't at the moment. I mean, I'm not saying that you wouldn't prefer it if you could sort of magically wish it away.
But you don't want to get rid of this frustration because the alternative is worse.
For you, right? Because I've been sort of working hard for 20 minutes or so trying to give you alternate perspectives and you don't really care about any of them.
And that's fine, but I'm just sort of pointing out that that indicates that you don't want to get rid of it.
Hmm. I mean, if you go to a dietician and say, gee, I'm developing early signs of diabetes, and she says, well, if you eat less than 12 candy bars a day, you should be fine, and you're like, no, no, no, I have to keep eating the 12 candy bars, and it's like, okay, then you choose the diabetes, right?
And you say, well, I don't want diabetes.
Well, don't eat the candy bars.
No, no, no, I have to eat the candy bars, but I don't want diabetes, but that's not an option, right?
If you don't adjust your thinking about what is going to happen here or what is happening here, if you won't adjust your thinking, then you will get the anxiety and you will look at it in a negative way.
It's like if you don't want to look at things in a negative way, you have to stop.
Or if you don't want to feel negative about stuff, then you have to stop looking at things that are at best ambiguous in a negative way.
But if you don't want to stop looking at them in a negative way, then you're going to feel depressed and negative.
I mean, there's no other equation that could come out, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I just...
I guess I've done that a lot, and it just...
I mean, that's just a major shift from the way I'm normally used to thinking.
Okay, well, tell me what you thought was going to happen when you talked to me about this.
Because you wanted to call, right?
You wanted to talk. And what did you think?
I mean, you wanted to talk because you wanted relief from the anxiety and the depression.
that you thought I was going to say that was going to give you relief sorry fogging right now Let me keep... No problem, you can take your time.
I mean, I'm sure you didn't call me up just to complain and not take any advice, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure that's the case.
So you must have been expecting me to help in some way, right?
Yeah. And so what did you think I was going to say or do that would be helpful?
And if you're totally...
I guess... Sorry, go ahead.
I guess just...
I'm not sure.
I guess what you just did, I don't...
See, I'm not understanding this action of mine that I ask people for...
I tell them about this problem, and then I get the answer, and it makes sense, and yet I still have the anxiety about it.
Right. But you reject the answer, right?
Yeah, and I don't know why...
Because it makes sense, and you're not the only person to tell me this, and I don't understand why I just reject it and then go right back to doing what I was doing before, even though I know that the answer would be to just look at it differently.
Well, but the question is, why do you keep asking people if that's what you're going to do, right?
Like, if you know that's what you're going to do, why call me?
Well... I mean, I know this sounds like I'm being a total jerk, and that's fine.
I'm genuinely curious.
I'm not hostile, or I'm just genuinely curious.
It's like, if you know you're not going to take the prescription, why go see the doctor, right?
I guess I was hoping you would word it in a different way that would...
Help me see it differently.
All right. Well, what did you think I was going to say when you said that having to pay your own bills when you're in your mid-twenties is a complete catastrophe?
I mean, really. I mean, just out of curiosity, what did you think I was going to say?
I thought that maybe you might have said that I was possibly...
That my parents hadn't quite prepared me for it, and that it's sad that you're underdeveloped in this aspect of your life, but there are slow steps that you can take to get there, and I don't know.
I guess I just imagined different language.
I'm sorry. And by that, do you mean sort of more sympathetic language?
Yeah. But you and I have already talked twice, and I've been enormously sympathetic, right?
Yeah. And that hasn't helped you with this area, right?
Right. Does that make sense?
Yeah. And that doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy for how you were raised.
And that doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy for the situation that you find yourself in.
Well, you kind of have to learn some of the basics sort of later on in life.
But sympathy itself, since you've already certainly received that from me in the past and a great deal of it, it hasn't helped you avoid this situation, right?
So sympathy in terms of you and I isn't the answer.
And of course, if I told you to have sympathy for not being taught these kinds of things for yourself, that wouldn't be something you don't know.
I mean, you know that, right? Yeah.
Right, so there's no point in me telling you something that you can very easily tell yourself, right?
Right. Because I'm not adding anything.
I mean, you know. You know that you were raised.
And you also know that you slimed out a little bit here, too, because you took all these goodies, right?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Right, so you made a bit of a devil's bargain here.
Yeah. Well, I knew that.
I mean, I was running under the...
I was running under amorals anyway when I was in that situation, so yeah, I was definitely...
Well, you took the path of least resistance, and I can understand that, right?
I mean, again, it's not like you were taught to take the path of most resistance in your life, but you took the path of least resistance, right?
Yeah. People want me to go to school?
Okay, I'll go to school. They want to pay my bills?
Okay, I'll let them pay my bills, right?
Yeah. And what's missing in that is pride, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
You're going to feel better if you're taking care of your own bills.
You're going to feel more proud, right?
Yeah. You've got control over your own destiny.
You can spend your own money.
You don't have to rely on these crazy people.
You don't have to deal with your parents.
You're going to just be a whole lot better off, right?
Right.
But for you, it just sounds like you're resentful that you have to take over your own finances.
I guess, yeah, in a way.
Okay, in what way...
Sorry, in what way are you not resentful?
Because, I mean, again, that's all I'm hearing, and maybe I'm hearing something completely wrong, but I haven't heard any enthusiasm or positivity about it.
What I hear is, I can't believe these bastards are making me pay my own bills.
Well, I mean, the way that, for me, is that...
I don't know, I just... I felt like there was a promise of something that was maybe to my parents and there was something that was supposedly supposed to be taking place there and it was something I wouldn't have to worry about and I was also hoping at some point to start...
I don't know, I just...
I feel like there was at some point where I was going to ask them to do it After listening to all the stuff that was happening on FDR that I was planning on just asking them to do it myself without, I guess, without them just, you know, not doing it at all.
I was just slowly going to work up enough courage to do it myself.
And now I kind of feel like, you know, my time to do that has been squandered and it's over and now they're handing it to me and I have to Develop that and at the same time, I feel like I've lost a chance to actually have that moment where I feel like I'm actually taking some responsibility instead of letting the responsibility just fall on me, which seems to be normal in my past.
I can certainly sympathize with that, right?
You kind of wanted to climb the wall, but instead you kind of got thrown over, right?
Yeah. So you feel some regret for not having acted more decisively earlier, right?
Like they took away your moment to tell them what's what, right?
Exactly. No, and that is sad, right?
And that sadness is very helpful, right?
Because if you had done it earlier, right?
It's for the future, right?
That you could make... I'm a little confused just so I can make sure I understand where your thinking is.
A couple of times you've complained that your parents seem to be acting irresponsibly or without integrity or dishonorably in terms of like they kept a promise and they, you know, I can't believe that they're not doing this or they should be doing that.
Does that ring true at all, that you feel disappointed in your parents' responsibility or integrity?
Yeah. Okay.
Just step me through this, right?
Because... Let me give you an extreme example, right?
So, let's say that there's a guy who's, I don't know, like a serial killer, right?
He strangles teenagers for fun, right?
And you've known this guy for years.
And you lend him your car and he brings it back with a dent in it.
And you say, oh my God, I can't believe this guy is so irresponsible that he put a dent in my car and didn't even fix it.
Yeah.
What would be hard to understand about that perspective?
Well, you knew he was a crazy...
Serial killer, why in the world would you lend him your car?
Well, it's not even so much why would you lend him your car, it's like if serial killing is 10 on a 1 to 10 scale of evil, and putting a dent in a car and not fixing it is like.01, then you're complaining about the.01 without noticing the 10, right? Right. Yeah.
I don't think you're following there.
I think you're being very polite and saying yeah, but I don't think you're getting it.
Yeah, it's kind of...
I'm not quite sure what you get, but yeah.
Well, it would be sort of ridiculous.
Like, they say about George Bush, right?
I can't believe he lied, right?
About X, Y, and Z. It's like the guy started a war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people, right?
Right. What the fuck would stop him from lying?
Like there's evil ten million and then there's evil one.
And if he's done evil ten million, that encompasses evil one, right?
And if you focus on evil one, like, oh my god, I can't believe that George Bush lied, then you're missing the big picture, right?
Yeah.
So how does this relate to your parents?
Well, they've done things...
This is what I'm synthesizing, is that they've done things that would have me question their character in the past that are far more serious than the things that I've questioned about their character in the present having to do with the bills, but yet I'm focusing
on the small thing that has happened in the present, which is not at all as tremendous as the past offenses.
And so I'm spending all my time dwelling on a detail when I'm missing the grand scheme of what's going on.
And I'm focusing on that detail, which really isn't that much of a difficult detail.
Well, I think that's an excellent way of putting it, but I would change one phrase.
You said they did things in the past that might have made you question their character.
Well, that would make me...
No.
Do you think that they've done things in the past that would make you question their character?
I mean, if I know somebody who's abused a child, punched them, screamed at them, terrified them, beaten them up, and I know that that is a fact that went on for and I know that that is a fact that went on Is that something where I say, I question this person's character?
No. What do I say?
You don't question it. I know what that character is.
That I understand that character.
That I understand...
There's no question left about the character, right?
Yeah. Beating up a child kind of answers the question of character, right?
Repeatedly. Malevolently and self-righteously, beating up a child, there's no questions left, right?
Right. So what's happening is you're unable to stay on the evils that your parents did.
Yeah. Yeah, again, you're saying yeah, but you're not processing any of this, right?
Well, I'm trying.
It's just difficult.
I mean, I even went back to, um...
I don't know.
I have this conflicted feeling, this disgusting, conflicted feeling inside of me that I keep dealing with.
But, like, I wrote down a lot of, like you mentioned before, to write down, I guess, certain incidents that happened in my past.
Um... And to write them down, and I did do that, and I did process it.
Sorry, I'm going to have to call you back in just one second.
I just had somebody else call, and that's interrupted the recording.
I'll be right back. Okay. All right.
Sorry about that. Go on.
So you wrote down some stuff that happened?
Yeah. Yeah, so...
Basically, I wrote down a lot of what had gone on from starting...
Not even just my parents, but I guess...
Traumatic events in my life starting from K to 6 or 5.
And then I've been trying to process that information.
But at some point...
I have conflicted voices.
At one point, I despise my parents.
And then at another point, it's...
Like, well, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I don't quite understand it.
And I don't understand...
Maybe...
It's just, I guess, voices of doubt, so to speak, about my motives and things that are going on.
And... And...
I guess it's very...
It just...
I guess in some ways drives me a bit crazy trying to understand that, yeah, these things happened, and yes, this was assault, and yes, this was a horrible thing that took place, and then there's this other side of me that's saying, well, you know, this, you know, it's not...
I guess trying to make excuses for what they did, and saying that it, you know...
That they just didn't have the information or just didn't get it.
And I know this is something...
And I've been listening to the podcast.
I've been listening to...
And I went over RTR and...
I understand that those voices aren't necessarily...
You know, following the benefit and whatnot.
That those are not exactly voices that are coming from me.
But it still... It still has this prying, I guess, feeling.
That... It's still prying at my ability to focus on what is actually going on and to, I guess, minimize what my parents are doing and to ignore, I guess, to ignore what's going on, what's been happening in the...
what has happened in the past.
Right, but it doesn't need to be that abstract for you.
I mean, is there a child that you know of that you actually like in your life?
A child? You mean like a...
A real-life child that you know of?
Niece, nephew, kid, and anyone that you know of in your neighborhood?
Um... I know this will sound horrible, but define like...
Well, that you feel some, you know, you like to chat with or, you know, you feel some affection towards...
I feel some affection toward a different amount of people, but right now I feel sad for my sister, I guess.
No, no, I'm talking about a child that you may know of in your life, or that you may have anywhere around you in your life.
Are there any children around you at all?
You mean in my life growing up, or do you mean in my life?
Well, in your life right now. Not...
I mean, there are people in my life, but I feel some affection toward...
I don't know. Sorry.
Sorry. This is a yes-no.
Are there any children anywhere in your life at the moment?
No. So you don't meet any kids?
You don't talk to any kids? No.
Okay. Do kids walk past your house?
On occasion. Yes.
Okay, so kids walk past your house, and you look out at them, and I'm sure you don't feel hatred and rage towards these innocent children, right?
No. Okay, so if one of those children were to step on your lawn, or I don't know where the hell you live, but just go with me on this, right?
If you were to rush out of the house and punch them in the face, how would you justify that to yourself?
I couldn't. Well, yes you can, because you're just doing it, right?
With yourself. Well, I guess if I were to just...
I don't know how you could justify punching a child.
Yes, you do! Because you're telling me that you justify it with regards to your parents, or part of you does, right?
Yeah. So you know exactly how would you justify punching that child in the face for doing something, quote, wrong.
I guess to take on the embrace of sadism, I guess it would be, well, if I hit them now, then they'll never step on anybody else's lawn and they'll learn their lesson in some way.
Alright, and if that was the thesis, and then the next day they walked on your lawn and you punched them again, that thesis would be disproven, right?
Yeah. And if you just kept punching them, and you had to sometimes chase them down to punch them, And you had to put ice on your fists, you punched them so hard.
How is it that you would justify that for yourself?
It's just...
I know how I would, it just sounds disgusting to say.
But it doesn't when you talk about it with regards to your parents, right?
Yeah. So why do they get such different standards, right?
Why is that which would be revolting and evil for you suddenly become, well, I don't know, kind of ambivalent for them?
I don't know.
But this is how you fight...
This ambivalence, right?
This is how you fight for your soul, right?
And you don't have to, and I'm not sure that you're particularly motivated to, but if you did want to fight for your soul and to reclaim your soul, it would be to picture yourself doing what your parents did to you, you doing it to your future child or you doing it to some child that you know and like.
Doing that, and if you could not find any justification for your behavior in yourself, then you know that That there is none for your parents.
Yeah. But to be honest, I don't think that you really want to do it.
I think that you're into the wallowing myself.
I mean, it's a battle.
It's a battle to fight for your soul.
And I don't get the sense from this call that that's where you're at at the moment.
And that's fine.
I mean, you don't have to be there.
You don't have to do anything, right?
But that's just in terms of where I invest my resources.
I don't get the sense that you're into that.
Right? Because every time I tell you something, you're like, yeah.
So you're just not angry enough about it.
You just don't want to fight for it.
And... I... I... I... I...
And...
I... Look, it's not a big deal.
There's nothing to say right now, at least I don't think.
It's just that you don't want to do it yet.
You don't want to fight for this yet.
Because we've been talking now for like 40-45 minutes, right?
And nothing that I say really has any effect, right?
I don't...
And again, there's nothing wrong with that.
that.
I'm just pointing it out as a fact that I have to work with, right?
Yeah.
Well, I don't quite understand what you mean when you say what you say has no effect.
Well, because you're exactly as depressed now as when we started, right?
And is listless and is unmotivated, right?
So...
Well...
I mean, I don't...
I'm not quite sure what you mean when you also say that I don't want to fight.
I mean, it...
I mean, I understand what you mean when you're saying that I'm still remaining...
I'm still despairing over things that I could easily change my perspective on and probably be better.
I never said easily.
I never said it, because if it was easy, there wouldn't be such a thing as a fight, right?
Yeah. But you won't take arms against the darkness, right?
It runs you over, right?
You just feel helpless in the face of it, right?
So to speak, yes.
What do you mean, so to speak?
I... I do feel helpless in some ways, but...
Okay, tell me how you don't feel helpless.
Tell me how you feel in control, energized, and empowered.
In the fact that I know that I feel helpless.
Well, but what does that mean?
So you say, I feel helpless.
How does that make you empowered?
At least I'm not...
At least I know...
At least I'm learning and knowing that these are...
That this is a problem and that it's something that I'm having a difficulty overcoming.
Not having a difficulty overcoming it, to be perfectly frank, because you're not even trying.
To know that you have a problem doesn't mean shit if you don't act on it, right?
Right, so right at the beginning of this I said, well, you could look at it this way instead of this way and you'd be much happier.
You're like, yeah, well. I mean, that's not trying.
I mean, I guess the way that it's worked for me before in the past is that people mention things about it and my reaction Always seems more despairing,
but slowly and surely I get back to the point, usually, where I'm able to figure out a way to, I guess, flip that perspective.
Well, let's see, but what you're telling me is you have a way that works for you, right?
At some point, yeah.
Yeah, so then you don't need to talk to me.
Because you have something that works, right?
In some ways, I...
I mean, yes, it does work, and yes, it does make...
and Because this is the situation.
We could go round and round. I'll just give you a summation of the situation, right?
So you come to me like a doctor and you say, I have an infection, right?
And I say, oh, you need to take these pills.
They're going to taste kind of bad and they're going to give you some stomach cranks, but they'll clear up your infection pretty quickly.
And you're like, no, I don't want to take these pills.
I say, okay, well... I can prescribe these other pills.
Well, I don't want to take these other pills.
Well, we could try this, we could try that, and I give you like 12 different solutions, and you don't want to take any of them, right?
And then you say, well, you know, but when I have these infections in the past, they just kind of go away of their own accord after some time, right?
No, I'm not saying that they...
Yeah, that is exactly what you said.
So what I'm saying is, look, I've got a waiting room full of people who are happy to take the pills and get better.
and what you're doing is you're not taking the pills, and you're telling me you're going to get better on your own, in which case, why are you taking up my office space?
What I'm trying to say, I guess so to speak, is that...
I don't know how to word this right.
I... When I answer in a more despairing tone about the thing... about the answers that you're giving to solve the problems that I'm having, it does not necessarily mean that I'm going to avoid those answers. it does not necessarily mean that I'm going to avoid It...
When just...
I guess what I'm saying is that...
I don't...
I've never in my life...
I just don't remember ever when someone gave me I don't know.
I get the advice, and it doesn't mean that I'm not going to listen to it.
It doesn't mean that I'm not going to try to apply it, and I'm not going to try to change my perspective, even though it doesn't happen in the moment.
To me, that feels like some sort of flipping the switch of a light, and I don't know.
That just seems so quick.
So what you're saying to me is that the advice may or may not have been helpful, but you need time to sit and process it.
Exactly.
Okay, well, then you should take the time.
I'll jump off this call now and I'll send you this as a recording and you can take the time to sit and process it and sift it over and see if there was anything that was of value for you.
Alright. Alright?
Alright. Alright, thanks man.
I'll send you this in the Skype chat.
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