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May 18, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:35:12
1070 Joy and Defenses
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All right, if everyone can just punch their headset when they come in, that would be that would be excellent.
It wouldn't be a problem.
It's like, I just called you 30 seconds ago.
It's like, I'll call you right back.
Wait, I have to get off and sit on my headset, squidgy around a little bit, and then we can talk.
That actually wasn't me.
I don't know who that was.
That was me. Oh, sorry.
It's much funnier if it was Greg, so I'm going to edit that part out.
Oh. Yeah, well, it wouldn't be a proper FDR call without a little bit of...
Right, exactly.
Right. Unless, you know, the cult meets inside a washing machine, just nobody would recognize the conversation.
Right. Right, right.
So, okay, so, yeah.
Yeah, so, this therapy session...
Oh, just... It's hard to put in words, but...
Do you want to... You have a webcam, right?
Do you want to dance it? Sure.
Okay, everybody. Sorry, go ahead.
Woohoo! No, what I'm finding interesting about the last two or three therapy sessions, this one especially, the stuff that we're talking about in session isn't...
It isn't really all that new.
I mean, I've talked about this stuff before, but it's strange.
It's kind of...
I don't know, like...
The best metaphor I could think of for this was like...
It was like you gave me a box full of puzzle pieces, right?
And I've been dumping out that box and looking at all these pieces individually over the last, god, I don't know, what, two years?
And then, like, in the last two or three weeks, it's like all these puzzle pieces are actually starting to fit together now.
It was about two years for me in therapy, too, so that seems like a fairly good stretch of time.
And so, I mean, we went over just today, specifically, the nature of my relationship with my mother, which was pretty fucked up by the end.
By the end? I'm sorry.
I mean, by the time he actually squeezed you out of the birth canal?
Is that the end that you...
I'm just trying to figure out where you are in time here, brother.
No, and that's a good point.
It was pretty fucked up all along.
But... Just in terms of...
its implications for me and my romantic desires, my sexual desires, my social skills, and all of that.
And it really...
I mean, it's stuff we've touched on before in bits and pieces, but for some reason...
Today, it just kind of stuck.
And I think it was because...
Like, before, when I thought about all this stuff, I would think of it in terms of how...
Like things that – like natural desires and normal human behaviors and things like that.
I would think about those things and think about how...
And I would think of them in terms of how bad or awkward or weird or strange they were.
Right.
And after talking to my therapist today, it just suddenly occurred to me, you know, like, it's not weird.
It's not bad. It's actually good, right?
I mean, because we're kind of...
We're...
Not programmed, but...
Human beings are set up to...
When they're born, set up to desire things, to want things, right?
Right? That's why we're born, right?
We're a product of desire, right?
We're not a product of a firm handshake and a slouch in a hammock, right?
Right, right. And all our lives, that's attacked, right?
All our lives, that becomes an object of scorn and ridicule and literally hatred.
Well, not all of it, right?
I mean, if you desire to serve your country, nobody's going to complain in the government, right?
No, that's true. It's twisted, it's turned, it makes us enslaved, right?
I mean, we're enslaved through our desires, and our desires are actually for freedom and independence, but sorry, come on.
Right, right, right, exactly.
Yeah, and so, I mean, it just kind of clicked in my head that everything that I was taught was ugly is actually beautiful.
Right, right. I mean, of which sex and love and romance and all these things is the core, right?
Yeah, for me it is.
Yeah. Yeah, most definitely.
And that's been...
I think, too, that kind of...
Like, I remember last summer when I was bopping around in Europe, sort of...
I sort of made it a personal mission to find something beautiful to look at, right?
Like, you know, art or architecture or something like that, right?
And none of it really kind of clicked with me because, you know, it's all...
It's either religiously oriented or it's, you know, politically oriented or it's...
Well, and you can't carry it with you, right?
The beauty that you possess within, you can carry with you.
You leave the Louvre, and it's like, well, that was great.
Do I take a postcard? But you can't carry it with you, right?
Right. It's all external.
There's nothing internal, right?
You can't... And I was thinking about that today, too, after the session.
You can't change what's inside of you by working on what's outside of you, right?
Right. Yeah, there's no external solution to the problem of insecurity in particular, right?
Right, right, right.
And just after that session, I remember just stepping outside and just feeling like...
Not like a weight lifted, but more like...
Like, there's this mirror in my head that was in a million pieces, and all of a sudden it came together into one image, right?
And do you know why it happened, I mean, not this week, but at this particular time in your life?
Because I have a theory, but you may have a better one, I'm sure you do.
I... Actually, I've been too giddy to think up theories for it.
Well, perhaps we shouldn't get you going then.
I've been so happy without coming up with theories.
Well, no, it's not really a theory.
I think it's just an observation, which is that the reason that this is happening is that you're acting.
Now, that's an interesting idea.
Well, it's... I mean, it's...
It's happening because you're going out and putting yourself out there romantically or taking tangible steps, measurable steps, right?
That's why I always annoyingly urge people into action, right?
Talk to your parents. Talk to your lover.
Open up these discussions.
Talk to people. Take action in your life.
Philosophy is not about the head.
Primarily, it is about action because when you do take action, it's what actually liberates you.
The thinking does not. The hamlet does not, right?
Oh, definitely not.
I've done enough of that.
Yeah, so when you take action and you act in opposition to how you were programmed, you wake your heart up, right?
You wake your mind up in a totally different way than thinking about stuff.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, and that's definitely true because, I mean, all of this stuff, all of it, every single thing I've talked about in the last two or three...
Therapy sessions. All of it, you and I have covered in the last two years.
All of it. In different ways, or in smaller chunks, or in other contexts.
But essentially the same stuff, right?
And so I understood all of it.
It just wasn't like...
Like I didn't feel it.
Well, because you weren't acting on it yet, right?
Right. Sorry, when I say you weren't acting on it, it doesn't mean that you weren't making big decisions based on philosophy.
But in terms of where you were the most blocked, you weren't blocked in terms of theorizing, right?
No. In fact, there are times when...
We would have paid good money to have you blocked in terms of theorizing, just as people would pay good money for me to be blocked in terms of theorizing.
That wasn't your barrier, right?
Your barrier was self-confidence and the desire for romantic love in that area in particular, right?
Yeah, yeah. That's true.
That's absolutely true. And that's why I've been sort of pestering for a long time, and others have too, and I'm sure you have to yourself as well.
So, let's do it, right?
Right, right, right.
Because then you are acting in opposition to how you are programmed, and that's when you come up against the resistance that you actually have in yourself.
With the resistance comes the hatred and the anger against those who controlled and undermined and crushed you, and that hatred and anger gives you the strength to break through walls, right?
Yeah, it does.
Yeah, I remember sitting in the session today just talking about some of the things that went on when I was a teenager and just getting fuming mad about it.
No, that's right. That's exactly why.
I always feel like I should have a big hood on and a leprous face, you know, embrace the dark side, you know, that sort of thing.
But it is the power that we need.
It is the strength that we need to fight the evils that we have experienced.
Yeah, and I think the difference, though, this time was that...
I mean, it felt...
It didn't feel bad to be angry.
Right? Right.
I mean, it felt really, really good.
Anger is healthy. Right, it didn't come along with a whole bunch of guilt.
That's what I meant. That's good.
Because, I mean, guilt with anger should only come if we've been unjustly angry, right?
Or if we're being unjustly angry, which we're not.
Right. Right.
I definitely agree with that.
Definitely agree with that.
So... Since I left the session today, it's just been sort of...
I was expecting it to dissipate at some point in time, but it's been kind of amplifying, accumulating almost since this afternoon.
Just the level of energy I feel like I have now is...
It's weird. Yeah, but that's the heroine I've been talking about, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
I think so. Sorry, I don't mean to call you a female hero.
Just to be clear.
Or an illegal and archotic.
Yeah, but I mean, that's the real joy when we have that kind of breakthrough that comes from action rather than from thought alone, right?
Yeah, there have been a number of things that I've actually taken forward steps on.
I mean, not just on the dating front, but two or three other things as well that have kind of gone along with that.
And I think there's been...
I'm pretty sure that this started before today, actually.
Because I've been feeling really...
Motivated to do stuff over the last two or three days.
And it's sort of like this session was, I don't know, like the straw that broke the camel's back or, you know, the last little bit of concrete to chip out before the dam completely breaks, right? Right, right.
I mean, that's, you know, after the anger comes the joy, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's why, I mean, and not to toot, right?
But that's why I have the podcast called The Joy of Anger, right?
Because after the anger comes the joy.
And because we always think that if we're going to get angry, it's going to be like some bottomless pit that we're going to fall and, you know, spit at the stars forever.
But that's not what actually happens.
That's the same myth that's like, well, if you stop seeing abusive people, you'll regret it.
It's like, It's all just a myth to keep us enslaved and to keep us away from our just and righteous anger.
But once you have the anger, you use it to expel the negative people and the negative thoughts, and after that comes the joy.
I mean, that's certainly been my experience.
It's been Christina's experience.
Right, and I think that's why this didn't work for me.
What I mean by that is that...
That expelling my parents from my life didn't work immediately for me because I... It's an odd situation because I'm pretty sure that I couldn't have...
I couldn't have gotten to this state if I was still around them.
but I couldn't...
Do you see what I'm saying?
Oh, totally, yeah. I mean, we've seen the people who breeze into this conversation.
They really dislike their parents, and then they say, that's it, I'm cutting them out of my life, and they don't make any particular progress, right?
Right. Right, right, right.
But it is reclaiming.
I mean, just getting rid of the parents doesn't solve the problem, because you need to undo the effects of being parented that way, and you don't deal with that by getting rid of your parents, right?
Right, right. It's like you said— Sorry, if you've been brought up, and I've used this metaphor before, but like one of those women in the 19th century in China, their feet are bound, right?
And you say, well, you know what?
I'm going to get rid of the people who bound my feet.
Well, that doesn't make your feet magically uncurl, right?
Right. That takes a lot of work.
Yeah, well, that takes walking around and crying in pain, right?
And it takes someone stretching out your feet and saying, okay, this is going to be painful, but this is the necessary change, right?
Right, physiotherapy, right?
Yeah. I'm sorry, you were saying earlier.
Well, I was just going to refer back to something you said a while ago that clicked in my mind just then, was that getting your parents out of your life is easy, but getting them out of your head is where the work is, right?
Yeah. Right, and we want to do that all mentally, right?
We want to do all of that mentally, and that isn't going to work.
What we need to do is act in opposition, and we can prepare ourselves for that, but we need to act in opposition to the commandments we were given, right?
So my commandments were things like, you have no needs.
You are here for the convenience of other people, right?
Right. Right. And so it's fine for me to sit there and do my affirmations in the mirror and stuff like that and to learn about the past and to undo some of that and feel the pain and so on.
But at some point, I have to start acting as if I have needs.
I have to start expressing my needs to people.
I have to see if they're interested and empathetic in them.
I need to negotiate. Like, I need to actually take action to make this stuff work.
Yeah. And if I don't, then it's...
I'm writing a great novel on the surface of a lake.
It just is not going to lead anywhere, right?
So we need to take action in opposition, and that's why some of the stuff around FDR, which was hardest for me, was expressing my needs in terms of donations or expressing my needs.
To be assertive without being abusive, all that stuff's not easy.
But if you don't act in opposition to how you were raised, you still remain forever.
You get rid of the prison guard, but you don't get out of the prison, if that makes sense.
Right, right. And that was certainly happening for me some months back, right?
I was just trying to think my way through all this stuff and not do anything about it.
And that's exactly what was happening is that I understood all these ideas, but I still felt like I did the year before.
Right, right. It's like my understanding has increased and my life has not changed.
Right. In fact, in a lot of ways, it gets worse if you don't act, because then you're just kind of torturing yourself with all this self-knowledge that you're not acting on.
Well, and of course, what you do is you put a lot of time and energy into philosophy, and then philosophy doesn't save you, and that's really scary, right?
Well, it's, yeah, especially because, I mean, at that point, the temptation is to throw philosophy on the fire, too, right?
Right, but the problem is after philosophy is nihilism, right?
Or hedonism, right? Which is even more scary, so it's a really paralyzed position.
Right. Right.
And I do think, though, that there's a kind of...
There's a kind of tension between thinking and acting or, I don't know, a dance or an orbit.
You know, the two are in orbit around each other and sometimes one is leading and sometimes the other one is leading, right?
Absolutely. Sometimes we need to plan, and other times we need to act and see what happens.
I mean, and there's no easy equation for that, at least that I've ever been able to figure out.
You're right. I mean, that is a kind of dance.
At least that's been my experience.
Right. And, I mean, up to like the last maybe month or two, I've never been comfortable with Acting without absolute certainty, right? And I would rationalize it as, well, you know, if I just act without absolute certainty, then I'm just following your orders, right?
Yeah, or following some sort of whim or, you know, acting irresponsibly and so on.
Because, of course, we all grew up with parents or a lot of us grew up with parents that acted without an excess of prior consideration, we might say.
Yeah. I think?
That anger, that spontaneity, that allowance of ourself to act and make mistakes and to act and learn, and to act without exact prior knowledge, but with a trust in our own virtue and our own capacity to learn from experience, until we go back and reclaim that, we're still fundamentally in our childhoods, I think. Right.
Right, right. And I hate to use the word, but I can't think of another one at the moment, but it's like...
Over the last two or three weeks, especially, at various points, I've just been giving myself permission to do things, right?
Permission to feel certain ways, permission to think certain things, and permission to act on certain impulses.
And once you do that, then you don't need the permission anymore.
Right. You need it the first time, but then after that, it's like, oh, well, that was easy.
Right. And, I mean, that's part of the Mika system idea as well, which is that we don't have all the answers, like it or not, right?
Right. Consciously, right?
Consciously we don't have... I just was watching a house where he's on a bus.
And he's in an accident, and I won't get into any of the details if you see it, but his unconscious is giving him image after dream after message, you know, and there's a total ecosystem conversation that goes on, and once you're into the concept, you can see that it's not particularly original, it's everywhere, right? And that is part of the, sometimes we think it through, and sometimes we have to trust ourselves that we're doing the right thing anyway, if that makes sense.
Oh yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.
Well, thinking is fundamentally about the past, right?
Instincts are about the future.
Because instincts are about the past projected into the future.
Thinking is always empirically based, which is always based on that which has already occurred, right?
And that's the limitation of thinking in relation to the future.
And that's why thinking tends to get people stuck in this revolving door of yesterday equals today equals yesterday.
But it is our instincts...
That get us through.
And I've used the metaphor before, but empirically, a girl of 12 doesn't look down and say, hey, you know what I'm getting next is boobs and pubic hair.
Because empirically, she's got no evidence of that in her own prior life.
But of course, the sort of biological instincts, for want of a better word, are preparing all of that and soon will be doing all these lush and goodly things to her body.
But empirically, that doesn't make any sense, right?
Until I was 16, I wouldn't say, hey, you know what's coming next is a whole lot of scalp, right?
Because empirically, full head of hair, right?
So this is just a part of – whatever we work on empirically is almost always about the past.
And it's almost always a repetition or a fear of a repetition of past trauma in the future.
But our instincts in the ecosystem and so on are much more trying to drag us to point us towards the future.
So we're not driving a car only looking in the rearview mirror, which of course is completely dangerous, right?
Right, right, right.
Well, and the thinking for things like...
Like, especially in my case, like the anxiety and the anger and the resentment and the bitterness and all of that.
All the thinking did was help me understand the source.
It didn't help me get past it, right?
It was the acting that helped me get past it.
If that makes any sense.
It does to me. And what other people think about this conversation, just in case anybody's still listening who's in on the call.
I know for myself that I've been noticing this changing Greg as he's gone on and started applying more of this stuff.
Two or three months ago, we started talking more than we had, which was not at all.
And it was nice talking to Greg, and I enjoyed it.
And now, the past two or three weeks, I've just noticed that Whenever I talk to Greg, I start laughing.
I feel this joy to be around him sort of radiating out from the center as it was.
And one of the things that you said that...
Working with this stuff and getting bad people out of our lives ends up bringing good people into our life, but I hadn't quite figured out how that worked.
And now I kind of figured out how that worked.
It's like this sort of gravity well that, hey, get me some of Greg.
So Greg, are you going to send some over?
Yes, please. Please do.
Yes, I'm working on a distribution method right now.
Perfect. It's like a virus, but better.
Much better. I mean, I remember various plateaus that I kind of reached throughout this conversation.
You know, when I came into this, you know, you have this whole, like, one to ten scale of happiness that you talked about in one of your podcasts.
I can't remember which one, but...
I think I've decided that it's logarithmic because when I came into the conversation, I always considered myself like maybe like a four, right?
And going from four to five...
I'm sorry, was that a plus four?
Sorry, go ahead. I guess I'm being a little too optimistic there.
So we'll say a three.
No, no, that's just my...
Go on. But I remember going from like three to four, and I'm like, okay, that's cool.
You know, like when I first found this conversation, I'm like, this is great.
This is awesome. Excellent, right?
And then at some point in time, I went from like four to five, and it was like, wow, that feels good, right?
Yeah. And then today I just went from like five to six and it feels like I just jumped three numbers.
Right. Like, I went from 5 to 8, but...
I've noticed this as well.
That would mean there's only two numbers left, but that can't possibly be the case because...
I mean, I just sort of started this whole thing, you know?
Yeah, I wouldn't, you know, there's a lot of things that I try to tell people not to put a ceiling on.
Like, never put a ceiling on how smart you think you can be.
And never put a ceiling on how creative you think you can be.
And for heaven's sake, never put a ceiling on how loving and happy you can be.
Well, I'm definitely seeing that now.
Right. Right, and once your heart is stretched this way, it can never return to its former shape.
Now, this doesn't mean 24-7 euphoria.
Hey, it would be great if we could sell that, but that would be a little guilty.
But it does mean that you can't go back to, right?
You know, they say a mind, once stretched by a new idea, never gains its original shape, and that's very true.
The same thing is true at the heart, though.
Yeah, I think I agree. Definitely think I agree with that.
Sorry, Nate, you were saying? Yeah, I was just saying that I've noticed this in Greg, too.
And it's not just with Greg, it's with me as well.
Especially... Well, because you've been trying to...
Sorry, but you've been trying to help people, right?
Yes. How's that been?
Um... Good.
I especially feel better after group therapy and doing the same thing.
I guess maybe because it's in person and that's what everybody's there for.
And... I mean, I did experience a little frustration today, but I do feel a lot better coming out each time.
And every time I talk to somebody and have a productive chat in a chat room with somebody, it does feel a million times better when I'm helping them, when I'm trying to make it all about them.
And you were right about that.
It's a huge relief just from ourselves, right?
It's not like ourselves or these monsters that we have to get relief from, but to focus on somebody else and to really help them, as I said before, it's like we become a clear pane of glass.
And that's, I mean, it's not like you'd want to spend, you don't want to become like 24-7 altruist guy, but the joy that you get out of helping somebody else, you know, if they're worthy of it and if they're working at it too and this and that, right?
I mean, it is, you really get to focus on somebody else and that means, it is very similar to what I've experienced at times, though much better in terms of meditation where you sort of The clutter of the mind evaporates and you see something bigger and more glorious.
That, to me, is in the realm of helping and enlightening and playing with and sometimes pounding and teasing people into thinking more clearly or thinking usually at all.
It is a real relief from the little detritus thoughts that are constantly spinning around.
When you focus on somebody else, those clear away a little bit, right?
Right.
That's exactly what kind of happens.
Well, I definitely, for myself, I find the...
The, what I find enjoyable in that is the ability to focus on a problem, right?
The, so just especially like when you're doing it in the chat room.
You really have to be tuned into the timing of people's responses even.
And the length of their responses and the Right, right.
There's a huge rush, for me at least, in the analytical aspects of that.
And then when you can actually succeed at it and help somebody, and you can just, I mean, just out of the blue, they're like, you know, like a rocket ship of euphoria, you know, jumping all over the chat room, you know, thanking you and everything.
I mean, that's, that's, that's huge.
It is, it is. And you know that that's not going to go away, right?
I mean, it doesn't mean that they're going to do philosophy 24-7.
No one can, but that doesn't go back out.
That fire never goes back out.
It might go down for a while, but it'll always be there.
Right, right, exactly.
Yeah, I noticed that now, and this happens not all the time, but most of the time where it didn't happen at all before, that whenever I'm in the chat room sort of talking with people and it ends up being just one-on-one that, you know, I used to feel in conversations with people that I did have to analyze everything consciously, you know, how should I go about this?
Okay, where's the little through line here?
And now it's just like, it's sort of, It's not...
I don't want to say it's not a conscious process because it is, but it just feels like it...
There's not like midgets in the back working the levers.
It kind of feels like it happens automatically without, you know, having to worry consciously about this argument, that argument, which argument.
And I've ended up having more people than ever saying, you know what?
That's really great.
I'll think about that.
Thank you for helping me.
And that's just a wonderful feeling, not to have that weird anxiety.
That's not my vibrator. - Not mine either, good lord.
Oh, I'm sorry, I should have switched my microphone off.
Steph, I don't want to know.
I can't see where that's coming from. Sorry, if you could just mute your mic if you're in, if you just mute your mic if you're not talking.
There we go. Silence.
It's wonderful. This process of trying to slither past someone's defenses is not something that you can consciously plan.
At least I've never been able to.
Right. And so it has to be a sort of weird, instinctual, Luke Skywalker in a swamp, eyes rolling up in the head, X-wing lifting up kind of process where you just, you know, let go of your conscious self and act on instinct, which is completely weird for a philosophy thing, but it just works.
I've got this long, long, long email from a heavy-duty objectivist guy who I think I'll do it on video.
But, you know, much though I hate to say it, and I resisted this for a long time, but, you know, we always work with empirical facts, not with theory, but if you just try and get into the other person's shoes and try and listen as sensitively as you can, you can figure stuff out in terms of how to communicate them that you just can't get by reading Dale Carnegie, if that makes sense. Right, absolutely.
One of the first libertarian conferences I ever went to was one of these ones where they have this, you know, are you a blue?
Are you a red? You know, there's four personality types and so on.
And, you know, it was all about, you know, well, the first thing you need to do is figure out what kind of personality you're talking to and then adjust your strategy accordingly by looking at these, you know, charts and this and that and the other.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's NBJ, I can't remember what they are now, this is like over 20 years ago, but...
Yeah, it was a big dream.
Right, and I mean, there's nothing wrong in terms of like, you know, okay, so this is one aspect of the MECO system, but don't piss the rest off by saying this is all there is, right?
But to me, that sort of mechanical, you know, if I get the right screwdriver into the right screw, I can turn it, that just seemed kind of like...
Shouldn't it be livelier and more intimate than that in terms of active listening and trying to figure out what works and so on and trusting instincts but having the rational argument?
To me, it's a whole personality approach that you need to talk to other people in a way that's really effective.
And that's why libertarians are sort of known as such boars, right?
It's input-output, right?
You could write a computer program to debate libertarianism very well, right?
Right. I mean, they're kind of working in those choose-your-own-adventure books.
Milia, I don't know if you've read those when you were a kid.
If you take this decision, go to page 23.
If you heard the word minimum wage.
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Right. Well, and fundamentally, those sorts of cookie-cutter personality profiler type things.
Because we had those 18 years in the corporate world, and you see plenty of those come across your desk.
And I think what they do is fundamentally attempt to dehumanize the human.
To try and turn the human into some kind of machine that you can tweak and just the fact that...
You're bringing the objectivists up as a great example of that, right?
Because they completely and totally, not only do they dismiss the power of the subconscious accumulation of knowledge, I mean, they kind of reject it, don't they?
Oh yeah, they say basically that your mind is something that you program with your conscious mind and your unconscious simply plays back what your conscious mind tells it to, right?
Right, like the essay in Rand's...
Yeah, like emotions are not tools of cognition.
And it's like, frankly, fuck that.
Of course they are. I mean, I'd love to say that they weren't, but they are.
And the conscious mind is a very late development in the whole pyramid of consciousness, right?
of what it means to have a human mind, it is a very late development.
It's like two bricks on the top of a massive pyramid, and there's a whole lot of instincts and intelligence that came along beforehand that we should, you know, we ignore at our peril, right?
But the objectivists don't really like the idea that there is innate knowledge.
Right.
I mean, they put all this focus on the evidence of the senses, right?
On the five senses, but then completely ignore the fact that the senses are wired directly into our subconscious brains.
Right, right, right, right.
And I remember, oh man, this is going back at a conference.
I think it was the same libertarian conference, or it may have been another one.
A guy got up.
And asked Barbara Brandon, who was giving a speech, this is way back, but he asked Barbara Brandon if Ayn Rand had ever discussed a dream she'd had.
Or had ever brought up a dream that she'd had.
And, you know, Barbara Brandon, you know, there's a thousand-yard stare, and then there's a thousand light-year stare, and she would be sort of along that, right?
And she was actually, I mean, obviously somewhat critical of objectivism at this point, but it's...
It's just something that you couldn't imagine, right?
But, I mean, that's just what actually happens, right?
I mean, if you do keep track of your thoughts, your dreams, your impulses, your emotions and so on, you will find out that they're incredibly sensitive to your environment and that the deepest part of our unconscious is that which is tuned to the most sensitive parts of our daily lives.
If you accept that, then it provides a huge amount of insight into religion, right?
Because they say, well, pray to God.
Well, I get answers. It's like, well, yes, you do, because you're dropping question marks into the pyramid, right?
And you'll get them back, right?
So if you believe there's no such thing as innate or instinctive knowledge, then human society as a whole and the history of human thought, it just makes no sense whatsoever.
And the prevalence of religions can't be explained.
Sorry, go ahead. And there's absolutely nothing at all mystical about it, right?
I mean, this is all...
This is all empirical experience that we're actually, these are experiences we're having, right?
This is all data that's coming to us, you know, through our five senses and then being interpreted by both the conscious and the subconscious mind and replayed in dreams and replayed in other ways.
In imagination and whatnot.
And to ignore that or to dismiss it is to, to me, to literally be unscientific about the human experience.
Right.
And so when we have dreams that somebody is chasing us and then it turns out later that that person is in fact dangerous, and we didn't know that at the time, that is really essential information for us to have if we want to be responsible and empirical about life and the information that's that is really essential information for us to have if we want to Right.
Right. Absolutely.
And that's why there's nothing at all weird or mystical or strange at all about following an intuition, right?
Because it's essentially allowing the mind to use all the evidence it has available to it, which is much, much more than what's crammed up in the two frontal lobes.
Right, right.
Because the frontal lobes are manipulatable in a way that the rest of the brain is not, right?
Because people can get you to say there's such a thing as God, but they can't fake your brain to actually show you a God that you can talk to and touch and taste or whatever, right?
Right. And so that part of our brain that philosophers say is our biggest guide to the truth is that part of our brain which is specifically targeted by propagandists who can't reach further down, who can't get into the pyramid.
Right. The surface tip of the whole pyramid.
Yeah, the fear, the social conformity, the just wanting to get along, all that kind of stuff.
All of that can be directly manipulated by propagandists, by parents, by teachers, by governments, by priests, and so on.
But they can't get below that level, right?
They can't get further down.
No priest can preach so well, if you're sane, where you actually see Jesus peel himself off the cross and do the Macarena down the middle of the church.
Right. Right.
Right. And that's the genius of it, right?
Because what that priest is doing is convincing you to manipulate yourself.
Well, not convincing when you're a kid, right?
It's bullying and fear and that, right?
But, I mean, there's no convincing because that would be more of an argument than propaganda.
But it is something that we save ourselves from propaganda.
At least I did.
Through more elemental aspects of the personality than the conscious mind, which was really great at analyzing problems at an abstract level, but it stayed away from the spine and the balls.
No disrespect to the testicularly challenged in the conversation.
It's the same thing for women, but it doesn't get to the spine and the balls that you really need to put philosophy into action.
That's deeper than the conscious mind.
That commitment, that takes a lot of different tools than I understand the arguments, right?
Yeah. And I can say unequivocally now that it's dramatically changed the way I feel about myself, about this conversation, about just about everything that I've done over the last two years.
Um, the act of acting.
Um, and it was kind of, I mean, it was kind of awkward at first, because, you know, because it's sort of, I mean, it's, I don't want to say a leap of faith, but it's, um, it's, um, um, There's definitely an element of...
I mean, you just have to trust that what you're doing is...
Like you say, right?
What you're doing is right.
Right, right.
Well, I'm completely thrilled that you had this epiphany in therapy.
I think that's perfectly wonderful.
And it is amazing just how quick a boost it can be, right?
And how long it can stay.
Yeah, I thought for sure by now it would be like faded.
I thought, wow, this is amazing.
There's no way this is going to last.
What's in the air in that office, right?
But it's definitely sticking.
Even more than sticking, it's kind of like It's kind of like accumulating.
It was much more euphoric when I left the office, but now it's more...
How to put it...
It feels a lot more like confidence than just giddiness, if that makes any sense.
Well, sure, but that's what happens when we act on our values, right?
And I'm not saying that you haven't acted on your values, but in this particular area of difficulty for you, right?
That's what happens when we act on our values is we break out of the past.
We break out of the prison of fear.
Yeah, and no, I think that's a fair criticism that I've been kind of avoiding acting on those values, for sure.
Well, in this area, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's been a double-plus and good topic for you, right, and for other people around, right?
Right, right. It's definitely been kind of a black hole of bitterness for a long time for me, for sure.
Well, and it may still be at times for sure, but it was a topic that's like, it was a don't go there topic, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's an elephant in the room, right?
Well, then, I mean, those of us who had talked about it with you before were, I'm sure, somewhat aware that, you know, mommy was guarding her precious little angel.
Yeah. Right?
Like, I don't know any way to get past old mama smog here, so we'll just have to wait until she goes to sleep, right?
Right, right, right.
And in the therapy session, it occurred to me that, not this one, but the previous one, that especially the way that I used to behave when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, I I thought that was all me, right, at the time.
But all I was doing was acting as a proxy for my mother.
What do you mean? Right?
You know, because...
Well, the way that I put it was, you know, if my mom was standing behind me in class, she would be making the same faces at the girl across the hall that I was making, right? You say rights like this is comprehensible to people not in your family?
What? What?
She was hitting on girls you were interested in?
No, no, no. You know, like when...
Like when I would have...
When a girl would show interest in me or I would have an interest in a girl, I would get really...
Like, angry and...
I mean, just, like, really full of, well, rage.
Right, so it'd be like, hey, I like you!
Or something like that? No, I wouldn't even say anything.
I'm just kidding, I know.
I would sneer and sometimes snarl at him, right?
Sure. And...
And the thing is, if, like I say, if my mother was standing behind me at the time, she'd be making the exact same faces, right?
The ragey faces.
Yeah. Right.
Right. Like, go away, little girl.
This one is mine.
Right, exactly.
Exactly. Mommy's keeping this one, right?
That's exactly right.
So I was basically just a proxy robot for my mother.
Right, because what confused me was you said my mother would be making the same expressions that I would be.
But of course, that's not the most accurate way to put it, right?
Okay. Well, you would be making the same expressions that your mother would be making, right?
Because you would have learned them from her.
Right, right. Yeah, absolutely.
Like, she wasn't copying you, right?
Obviously, you were copying her, right?
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right.
Okay, yeah, that makes more sense.
Yeah. Yeah, I was the one that was programmed, not her, right?
Well, she was too, but not by me.
I just thought she was programming, right?
She was the programmer. Right.
Yeah, because, I mean, there is a pretty strong biological imperative not to get enraged at people you're attracted to.
I'm no biologist, but I can't think that's really good for DNA replication.
Yeah. Unless you're actually Genghis Khan, which unfortunately is not the case, or fortunately.
But yeah, that's not a...
I mean, we all feel shy about it, unless you're nuts, right?
You all feel shy about approaching someone that you like, especially when you're young and there's a rejection and you don't know and blah, blah, blah.
And so we feel that, but the desire overcomes the fear.
But in this case, you know, the rage of, you know...
Right, right, right. No, that's exactly right.
And just my dad's answer to this whole problem was just absolutely precious.
You know, that's God calling you to the priesthood.
You what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Yeah. Because I didn't date and I didn't like women, yada, yada, yada.
Well, you know, that's God calling you to the priesthood.
Well, you must have liked women if your mother had to program you to snarl at them, right?
That would be the case.
I mean, just logically, right?
Right. I mean, we don't have to tell a kid who doesn't like broccoli not to eat broccoli, right?
Right. Right. Right, but she didn't do that to any of my other brothers.
She waited until they started dating, and then she went nuclear on them.
But they did get that far, right?
As far as dating, you mean?
Yeah, I mean, they weren't snarled off right from the beginning, right?
No, no, no, right, right, right.
And what this means, and it's very likely, I mean, there are so many family mysteries that we go to our graves not ever knowing, and of course our goal is to not care after a while, because it's all the past, but for sure, at some level, she reminded you of someone that caused her to pick you out from From your brothers, right?
She reminded me of someone.
No, sorry, you reminded her of someone.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That had to have been true.
Yeah, I mean, it's not like...
I mean, I know that my brother, I mean, it was not at all subtle, reminded my mother of my father to the point where she'd say pretty much 12 times a day, you're just like your father, it's driving me mad, right?
It's like, you know, I think that trip's already done, but...
So, but I reminded her of her father, and so I was the golden boy and this and that, right?
Which, of course, was just another way of saying, I'm going to give your brother another excuse to beat up on you.
But, so for sure, she picked you, and we always, as kids, we think it's because of us, right?
But... But she picked you because you reminded her of someone and that was where the channels of her pathology went, right?
But you just fit it into some, and probably not even that well, but better than the others, you just fit it into some slot in her pathology based on the impressions that she'd gotten when she was younger.
And so, okay, you're 3% more like so-and-so than the other kids, so suddenly, bam, you know, you're the one who's focused on for this role.
That totally makes sense.
It's got nothing to do with us, right?
Totally, man. I have a lot of the same physical characteristics of my grandfather on my mom's side.
Her dad. Now, was she like a special girl for her grandfather?
That I'm not sure about.
That whole family was so incredibly tight-lipped about their past and their history and their lineage.
I knew my grandfather a little bit.
He died when I was four or five.
I never knew my grandmother.
And all the sisters...
By the time I was old enough to understand family affairs, all the sisters on that side of the family were not talking to each other.
And my mom never talked about her past, ever.
Well, she didn't have to in a way, right?
So my guess would be, and again, these things are impossible to reconstruct, but if I had to sort of put some cashola on it, my...
My guess would be something like this, that your mother had a pathologically horrible kind of over-involvement with her father, which was probably inappropriate at 12 million different levels.
Sorry, go ahead.
Well, just to embellish on that, I know that...
Excuse me, Greg. I don't need any help embellishing anything.
Sorry, just kidding. If there's one thing I don't need help with, it's embellishing.
But sorry, go on. Well, I mean, my mom, she tried to commit suicide three times, so...
That in and of itself tells you that, you know, her childhood must have been really, really fucked up.
And she had a sister that killed herself when she was 15.
Yeah, no, I remember you saying that.
So my guess would be, and again, this is all nonsense, this is all ridiculous theorizing, but my guess would be That your mother had some sort of claustrophobic,
sexually screwed up relationship with her father, and then when you came along, you either had the physical or personality traits that reminded her of her own father, and if her own father had been sexually inappropriate with her, then your sexuality would have provoked incredible anxiety for your mother, right?
Yeah, yeah, that makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Right, so then you have to be neutered because your grandfather was a bastard, right?
Yep.
Yep, that makes perfect sense.
And it may not be specifically sexuality, It might just be a real claustrophobic emotional relationship, in which case she never wanted to share her special relationship with Daddy with anyone, because that was his pathology.
And so she never wanted to share her special relationship with little Greggy with anyone, right?
I mean, this is the way that this stuff photocopies, right?
Right, and the older I get, the worse it gets.
Well, if it's true that there was sexual pathology, then for sure, the older you get, the worse it gets, and it's particularly going to come to a peak around puberty, right?
Yeah, and I was thinking about that today, too.
That makes a hell of a lot of sense, because a whole bunch of things happened right around my 14th birthday.
My brother John was born...
And I know in retrospect, I didn't know at the time, but I know in retrospect, after he was born, my mother just automatically started refusing my father.
Since my brother was born in 80, they haven't had sex.
Right, right, right.
But was there anything that occurred with you that...
Was it with your mom or when you were around puberty?
Well, there were a couple of...
Yeah, yeah, there were a couple of odd things that happened.
I mean, the whole household was pretty repressed to begin with.
Um... This is a little embarrassing to talk about, but...
I had a sketchbook and my mom found it, right?
And... She would never confront us directly on that kind of stuff.
She would go to my dad, right?
And so... I ended up going on one of those drives in which he basically told me that if I kept that up that they were going to have me committed and so at that point I basically decided that I just decided I wasn't going to do it anymore.
I literally couldn't keep anything private.
Every day I went to school, my room would get tossed.
Which is not funny, right?
No, I guess not.
You guess not? Okay, I'm happy to hear what part of that is funny when parents are invading you like your personal space and ripping it apart to look for illicit, shockingly sexual interest from a teenage boy, whatever next, right?
Right. And then get threatened with, you know...
With an asylum, right?
Yeah. And this would, I mean, again, not to overly pound the theory, but this would...
minor prop up to the theory that if your grandfather was sexually inappropriate with your mother when she was a child, that, and if you reminded her of him, not because of any of your, obviously, you know, pathologies, but just in terms of your appearance or your voice, I mean, these things, it's eerie sometimes when you see someone who's a kid.
Until you've been around kids and parents, it's hard to see.
But once you see that, it's like the way they stand, the way they meet, it just really plugs into people's personal histories, which is why a lot of parents go so nuts on their kids, right?
But it would, to me...
Be entirely logical that if your mother, if you sort of plugged into the dad part of your mom's brain, that your growing sexuality would be a direct and hysterical threat to her memories of inappropriate behavior when she was younger.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes perfect sense.
That actually scared me when you...
whoa. What happened?
It actually scared me when you said that, Steph, because I've kind of experienced that in my own family.
You know, my grandmother would forget my name, and she would always start off with calling me the names of her two youngest daughters, and guess who my weird pathologies turned out like?
So, it's an interesting thing that you'd propose that theory.
And can you just give us a bit more details about that?
Because that was almost as vague as Greg sometimes.
Oh, yay! I'm on my way to achieving Gregdom.
Greg, I think there's a battle for King of Switzerland.
But anyway, we'll figure out the coup stuff.
I could be the King of Switzerland.
I wouldn't mind. Can't I at least be vague about that?
No. It's not a coup, it's a goo.
You don't want to hear about my sticky page sketchbook, do you?
I imagine that you probably have some of those things.
Oh, good lord. Sorry if we've had a beg from the chat window to let's not go down here, please.
It's like, can we just have one philosophical conversation that we don't have to edit out for absolutely filthy boy talk?
Can we just have one?
But sorry, go on. Oh, damn!
Okay, so whenever I would do something that my grandmother considered beneath me or something that was not ladylike, she would always start off by yelling at the top of her voice, Rebecca! Well, no.
So she'd snap her fingers, try to think of my actual name.
Karen? The name of her youngest daughter?
No. And she would end up lighting on my name, finally.
Um... Actually, the aunt that I'm most like is Rebecca, the one for whom I wrote the fateful thesis, who's a total...
Horrid enabler bitch who has this pathological need to be needed and run everybody's lives and just frankly destroy them.
Destroy anything she touches.
And then the next aunt's name that she called out, Karen, who's the one who turned into the sort of...
I'm a fastidious, very staunch Catholic school English teacher woman who is so hidebound and horrible and exactly like my grandmother in everything needing to be prim and proper and we have to have a plan, we have to have a plan, damn it!
And at my worst, I'm the worst kind of combination of those two individuals.
I'm sorry, I just think I felt a little chill here as the self-esteem dipped a little bit.
Could you just go back over that last bit again where you say you're the worst combination of these horrible individuals?
No, no, no. I said at my worst, as in, you know, when I don't check myself or when I ignore my feelings or when I don't think things over.
Oh, okay, okay, like security guards and then, okay, got it, got it, okay.
Right, exactly, yes.
Doshin jousting is definitely Rebecca.
Got it, okay. So I don't know if that's just an anecdotal thing, or if, you know, my grandmother was calling me those two names because I reminded her of her two youngest children, but of course I was my grandmother's golden girl, and so was Karen when she was growing up, so...
Yeah. Well, no, I mean, a lot of parents live in this complete fog of history, right?
They just don't live in the present at all.
At all. I mean, my mother would break out into German at times, and it's like, Mom, I mean, I don't know what kind of Cal-Heinz catastrophe you're talking to, but we don't speak German, right?
So, they just live in this fog of history, and it's hard for us to get that as kids, because we don't have history when we're children, right?
Right. And, you know, at the time when I was a kid, I mean, I'd met these aunts twice in my life, so I didn't know what the hell she was talking about.
Fortunately, you know, by the time I was growing up, the chain and padlock had been removed from the refrigerator and the Save the Whales posters and the things from the old regime had been cleared away.
But, yeah, of course, you know, I was still growing up in the house with my grandmother, so...
Now, sorry to just interrupt you for a sec.
You realize you're back to Chortley, Charlotte, right?
Like telling this was kind of like a cool adventure?
No, no, it was not a cool adventure.
No, no, I'm aware of that.
I mean, I don't know if anybody else was hearing that, right?
But was anybody else getting that or was that just me?
Absolutely. That was not just you.
Okay, well, she doesn't want to hear it from me, so somebody else do it.
Pretend you're a security guard.
It's fun. Nice, I'll bend over all of you can kick me in the seat of my pants.
I'll go quietly. Sorry, Charlotte, you're actually chewing on your microphone.
I'm not sure why it's so grindy.
Oh, no, I'm not.
I'm pacing around, but now I'm standing stock still.
Okay, or get a microphone where you can pace.
Okay, but Asher, did you want to say?
Because, I mean, we were hearing like, oh, wasn't it funny about this and wasn't it funny about that?
She didn't know my name, but then the lock was taken off the fridge.
I mean, that was sort of what I was getting, but what were you getting?
Yeah, I mean, it was like there were two different things going on.
There was what she was actually saying, and there was the tone, and the tone was like she'd been on some kind of amazing world adventure type thing that was just a fantastic time.
Or if it was dangerous, it was kind of like cool Jurassic Park dangerous, you know?
Yeah, like a movie type thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, or like in Harry Potter, they have these Harry Brown school, totally different, not nearly as much fun.
But in the Harry Potter stuff, there's danger, but it's exciting, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah. I've been trying to get angry at Mother lately, but because I didn't even like Mother when I was a kid, so I have less of a problem working with stuff that she did.
But with my grandmother, it's very much...
Different because, you know, mother was aggressive all the time.
My grandmother was passive-aggressive, and she pretended to be nicer to me than my mother ever did.
And of course, it was just to hurt my mother and to hurt me, because she wanted revenge of some sort on my mother.
But it's harder for me to get...
Angry at my grandmother or to realize the stuff that my grandmother did to me or even, you know, realize that my grandmother was the worst kind of horrid bitch just because...
You know, I loved her to death when I was a kid.
You know, if anyone had asked me whom I preferred, whether it was my mother or my grandmother, I would have told you that I loved my grandmother and I didn't like mother too much.
Charlotte, when you were a child, what did you call your mom?
How did you address her? I called her...
Let's see.
I didn't really call her anything.
I just started talking.
Usually I called her mother.
Okay, that's...
When you say mother, I get kind of a sense of disconnectedness, like it's almost a conceptual tag rather than something personal, if that makes sense?
Yeah, I mean, I rarely saw her when I was a kid.
So I mean, she, until age 12, it was sort of a disconnected thing.
Mother was a woman that lived in the basement that I saw on Saturday night.
Right. I mean, the word to me doesn't seem like a very close relationship at all.
It doesn't seem anywhere near as affectionate as mum or mummy or anything like that, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, I mean, we were never affectionate.
She wouldn't let me be.
It was just if I went to try to hug her or something, she would just tense up.
She didn't want it. Well, neither did my grandmother.
Right. But we were never, ever particularly close.
The only difference between my early childhood and my adolescence was that once we were out of my grandmother's house, she didn't buy me stuff or take me out to dinner anymore because she didn't have anybody to compete with.
Okay. Sorry, go ahead.
I didn't mean to interrupt. Sorry, go ahead, Ash.
I was just gonna say, I've never, I don't think, met anybody that calls their mother, mother before, if that makes sense.
Usually it's kind of mom or something slightly more affectionate.
Yeah, my mother called her mother, mother.
And that always confused me, or sounded strange to me.
And I could never figure that out.
Yeah, Aunt Karen calls my grandmother mother.
It's just, I want to say, I think my Aunt Karen secretly hated my grandmother as well.
But, yeah, I mean, the not affectionate term kind of reflects the relationship.
But, um...
But the thing is, Charlotte, you brought this stuff up as, you know, we were at least talking about Greg's severe pathological sexual dysfunction passing through the generations, right?
Yeah. And you tell it like it's a story and a kind of funny story.
If that makes sense. And it's not criticism, it's just a point to get out, right?
Yeah, that's something that I've always done.
I mean, you know, when the family gathers around the Christmas table, they tell the most...
It's something you've always done.
Okay, so we don't need to change it because it's something you've always done.
Well, it's definitely something...
No, no, no, it's something you've always done, so we're good with that, right?
Because we never try to change things that we've always done.
Staff. I'm just kidding.
I know what you mean. Like an episode of Little Rascals or something.
Something like that, yeah.
And the reason that I bring it up is it's certainly not offensive.
It doesn't bother me in any way that is fundamental or anything like that.
It's just that I think that that's a defense that you have that's not going to serve you as well as other ways of approaching it might.
Right. Did I just piss you off a little earlier?
I think I did. Yeah, when you were teasing me, I was feeling really, really frustrated.
Yeah, no, I got that. So what happened?
It's just like, you know, the thought going through my mind was, yes, I know, I understood the first time.
Obviously, I didn't. I don't think you did understand the first time because obviously, and this is not at all because you're a very, very intelligent woman.
There's nothing to do with that.
But you and I have talked about this how many times before, right?
Right. And you've heard me talk about it with other people, right?
Even on this last Sunday show with Kevin about the laugh, right?
I wasn't there for that.
Okay, but I just talked about it with Greg when he put the little laugh out about his parents coming in and pillaging his room, right?
Right. Yeah, I'm not sure why I laughed at that.
That didn't come up in therapy.
Because it's scary, right?
I mean, there's scary feelings and this and that.
So we put a laugh on it.
We feel drawn to talk about these things because they're traumatic.
But we also feel drawn to diffuse them by laughing, right?
Right. Yeah, that's correct.
And this will keep happening, right?
Until we stop the habit of laughing at stuff that is horrible, right?
Right? Can I work on one person at a time?
One person? What do you mean?
Like I said, I haven't dealt with the grandmother stuff yet.
I'm in the middle of mother.
Well, but if you're just pushing defenses from one person to the other, that's not as efficient as it could be, right?
Like if you say, I'm not going to laugh at things that are difficult, I'm going to avoid that out, so to speak, then that's going to cover all the situations.
It's going to be that much faster, right?
Like if you just say, I'm going to reject that as a defense.
That's interesting.
I didn't even think of it during the time I was speaking about it.
Okay, well, when you were talking about your childhood, how were you experiencing the telling of the story?
I don't know.
I mean, it was sort of a continuation of the feeling that I had, like, all tonight.
Like, hey, great.
You know, rolling along.
I didn't really feel a change in mood until I got to the end, and I'm like, okay.
Padlock on the fridge thing.
Yeah, well, we know what issues that brought up for me.
Maybe not so funny.
And you realize you're just doing it again, right?
What do you mean? Maybe not so funny, right?
That wasn't a laugh.
Well, I know, but it's still a very ironic distance from your own experience, right?
Which we all know, I mean, at least the people who've heard the story, was completely wretched and beyond horrible, right?
Yeah. And the ironic distance is a habit that you have, right?
And we talked about this in terms of the little lamb and my dears and this and that, and we've talked about it in terms of the humor thing, right?
Yeah. Putting it as a funny story or taking an ironic distance from your own history, right?
And to me, there's nothing, again, to me, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with doing that if you want to do it, right?
It's just that when you talk about horrible things in a way that is lighthearted or has an ironic distance, it puts other people in a very difficult position.
That's all, right? I see what you mean.
What do you mean? I'm sorry.
What do you mean?
What do you see? What is it that you see that I mean?
Well, if you say that it puts people in a bad spot, I mean, because either they can say, oh my god, that's horrible.
In which case, I've already kind of pre-denied both my feelings and theirs.
Or they can laugh about it, but it's not something that one should really laugh about.
And if it happened to them, you know, they hopefully wouldn't be laughing about.
There's no real tack for them to take.
Right, right. And that's sort of a little bit what I felt when we were sort of getting into this, right?
Okay. I'm sorry, Steph.
No, no. There's no need to apologize.
Honestly, genuinely, it's completely and totally fine, right?
It's just that, for sure, you knew that I was going to call you on it, right?
Sure. I mean, deep down, right?
That's probably why I brought it up.
Right. And that's what I mean by a difficult situation, because you just heard me call Greg on a totally minor example, right?
Right. So I just said to Greg, well, you know, that's really not funny and blah, blah, blah, right?
And then you come in and describe things that are almost more horrible for longer as funny, right?
Yeah. You know, the interesting thing is my attention's gone away.
Your attention? Yeah. Yeah, I was feeling a little bit weird.
I mean, not weird weird, just a little thread of tension through my neck weird from the time I came into this conversation until the time when you said, you're laughing.
And then as we started talking about it, I'm feeling...
Odd? No more tension?
Is this what I needed to figure out?
I'm not sure if it's that, but it's an odd sort of coincidence.
Well, my guess would be something like this, that there was something about Greg's tale that was bringing up some tension or anxiety in you, and it may have upped a little bit when he laughed about something that was difficult.
And what happened was...
This tension, you were taking an ironic distance from the upset feelings, right?
Yeah. And that was because that's dissociation and that usually manifests itself as physical tension or it can be hypersomnia, sleepiness or whatever, right?
But if you take an ironic distance from your own pain, it's going to make you tense and feel a little nervous and disoriented and so on.
And so I think unconsciously you needed to kind of get a bit of a shock back into it, if that makes sense.
It does make sense, but the tension started before even this call, so...
But that could have been work that you were doing on yourself, and I'm a little confused now, because earlier you said that you were feeling, trucking along, I can't remember the phrase exactly.
Yeah, but that tension was still underneath it.
I mean, there was tension, and then meta level, I was laughing.
Right. Okay, so if you were, I mean, if you were feeling not close to yourself or not sympathetic to yourself or not sensitive to yourself and your history, then you would have felt anxiety about that distance from yourself, but would not know, I'm guessing, did not know how to break that, right?
That makes sense.
And so... I mean, it sounds like you needed somebody to bring you up short, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it does.
I think that's what it was.
Right, so it's like, okay, well, I can't stop this particular dissociation, so I'm going to get Steph to do it for me, if that makes any sense.
Thanks, Steph. Now, I need one other situation, but no, no, no.
Bad, bad topic.
Bad topic. Thank you.
But when did that start for you?
Right, because, sorry, so when you said to me, but this is what I've always done, right?
I think I experienced that as a kind of annoying bit of passive aggression.
Right, because... If you have a habit, and I wouldn't even say it's a bad habit, it's a defensive habit of laughing at your pain or your history.
And I and other people have been saying, you know, that's not a good habit and blah blah blah, that's sub-optimal, you know, whatever, right?
And you say, well, this is what I've always done.
That's kind of dissociated from who you're talking to, right?
Because I know that that's what you've always done in the past, but as of a couple of months ago, we were sort of talking about doing something different, right?
So coming to me with this statement, but that's what I've always done, I experienced that as a kind of aggression.
And I think that my mockery of you back, which I think started off a little warmer and didn't end up quite as warm, which is probably why you then felt that anger or that frustration...
Yeah, that makes sense.
Right, right, right.
So when did you feel that tension or that distance coming up within you?
It was after the last conversation that I had with myself.
I told you last night that I was working on some mother stuff.
So all the boys had a nice little wailing session on a ballistics gel mock-up of mother.
It was, I think, the daydream that I had.
Not the actual mother in my head, but a ballistics gel mock-up of her.
Really odd during that, because I was angry and I was laughing at the same time.
You know, they were all taking baseball bats to this ballistics gel mock-up of Mother, and I was laughing.
And so a little bit later on, I got an email from my guidance counselor saying, the TA said that you haven't showed up for two of your final exams.
Are you alive? And I wrote her back an email saying, yes, I'm alive.
I just don't want to take the exams.
Please give me whatever grade you see fit.
And then it was after that.
Because yesterday was an interesting day.
You know, I was working on, why the hell am I in college?
Why am I still acting like I'm going to be going back to college?
And the response that I got was, well, just don't write your final exams.
And so the tension thread sort of carried forward, and it went away a little bit while the boys were beating up on Ballistic Jail Mother.
But it's come back after that, and I'm not sure who or what it is.
I can't get an answer quite yet.
So you decided not to write two final exams?
Right. And...
I mean, forgive me for being so blunt, but doesn't that just bomb you out of university?
Yes. Okay.
So that's quite a decision, right?
Yes. And, um, so why are you still there?
How do you mean? I mean, I apologize because it's too long ago that I was in university, but is it all done?
There's nothing else to do?
Are you out of university now for the year?
Yeah, this week is technically the last week.
I have one class.
It's actually Lynn's class, the art history professor I keep telling you about.
I can write that final exam or not.
And after that, after I decide whether to write that exam or not, I mean, that's it.
I'm done for now.
I'll be put on academic suspension.
I can still go back in the fall if I feel like I want to.
I mean, it's tanked my GPA and I'm not going to get into any reputable grad school, but I don't want to go to grad school anyway anymore.
But the actual decision that was momentous was not, let me not write these two final exams.
I mean, yeah, that's momentous, but the actual momentous decision was, you know, everyone in my head was chorusing, don't write the exam.
We've made you not want to study for a reason.
We've made your attention go through the roof whenever you think about walking over to write these final exams.
Go through the roof for a reason.
You know, just don't freaking well do it.
And then the last words that I exchanged with the person who was, you know, sort of in the vanguard of the do not write these exams contingent was, you know, she asked me, Can I trust you?
Can I believe in you?
And I asked her the same question back.
You know, you're just a voice in my head.
Can I trust you?
Can I believe in you?
And she said, I wonder.
Well, I'm curious too.
Let's walk to the subway and see how I feel.
So I got on the subway.
I was feeling okay, as, you know, I kept getting closer and closer towards home, and eventually when I passed the, if I don't turn around now, I won't get back in time to write the exam mark, I actually felt at peace.
It was weird.
Okay, so you're, sorry, go ahead.
Well, I just want to say, I guess the momentous decision was the one to trust them.
You know, which, in every other situation, they've given me advice, and I say, okay, I acknowledge it, and you're probably right, but I'm going to go do X anyway, because it just seems like the right thing to do.
And this is the first occasion where I've not done that.
Okay, and I'm just trying to figure out, and I mean, it's a big decision, we can talk about that another time if you like, but I'm trying to figure out if you're listening to the MECO system and engaged with the MECO system and so on, how is it that we end up with you giggling about your past?
That's the part that I can't figure out.
It's... It's odd because the tension that I started feeling after I got home and decided to watch a movie rather than do anything else, that sort of carried through into today.
And I've been thinking, okay, there's something else I'm not doing, something else I'm not doing.
You know, some other piece of information I need, something I'm not processing.
And then, voici la defences.
So, I'm not sure if it does follow through or not.
And did you talk to anyone about this exam question?
I mean, anyone external?
Anyone external?
Yeah, I started talking with James about it.
Right. But started means didn't get far, or...?
Um, started means he had something that was slightly more pressing than my exams, and because I was still...
What could be more pressing than your exams?
I'm just trying to figure... Because it's huge news to me, to be honest, and I mean, I don't have any opinion about the rightness or wrongness of it, not that my opinion would matter, but this is a bombshell to me, to be perfectly honest with you.
Why is it a bombshell to you?
Because, I mean...
You just blew off two exams.
Yes, I did. Well, one of the classes I was going to fail anyway.
The other class I had an A in before I blew off the exam.
So I might still get a D, which would give me credit for the semester anyway.
I guess that's in a weird way.
That's kind of what I've been counting on.
Sorry, I just missed that last bit.
Been counting on. Oh, just been counting on, you know, saying, hey, my whole semester of work's not wasted, even though I get an F on the final.
I had an A anyway, so that averages out to a D. Hooray.
Sorry, I can't figure, are you in school or not in school?
I can't figure that out. Like, if you're not writing your final exams, and you're not going to go on to grad school, and you're pretty much going to be on academic probation, which is going to mean, like, so maybe you'll get a degree if you slog.
Like, I don't know if you're in school or not in school.
That's what I can't figure out. Right now, I have absolutely no plans to return to school.
Well, but you're going to finish this class out, but you're saying, well, my semester isn't wasted because I get a D, but I don't understand what that means if you're not going to finish.
I'm not saying you should finish or anything like that.
I'm just trying to figure this out because I'm trying to mentally reorient myself here because, well, we'll get back to that in a sec.
So what does it matter if you get a D or not?
Exactly. That's an argument that I had with myself.
It's like, they said, okay, you keep telling us you're not going to go back to school, and then you keep acting like you're going to go back to school.
You keep caring what grade you get.
You keep caring what Lynn's going to think about you if you don't go write the exam in her class.
Okay, and when did this decision come about not going to the exams?
Or when did you start thinking about that as a possibility?
Two days ago. And you didn't talk to anyone about it?
Uh, besides James and me?
Well, that doesn't count if it got derailed by something else, right?
Oh yeah, and I posted about it on my blog, but that's not really talking to anyone.
Right. I wanted to talk to you, but you weren't around.
What do you mean I wasn't around?
What do I do? This is what I do, right?
I know. I didn't see you this morning, though.
But two days ago, right?
Are you saying there's no way to send me an email or saying I have an urgent need for a half-hour chat or a 45-minute chat between two days and now?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I didn't even think of sending you an email.
It must mean I didn't want you.
I don't know. Well, but, I mean, is it just me or are other people blown away by this?
I'm completely and utterly shocked by this.
It's amazing.
I've been feeling anxious and tense this whole chat with Charlotte, just before Greg started talking.
Actually, while Greg was talking about the drawings, but I think it escalated during this whole conversation.
And I don't know if it's me or what, but I'm working with that fact.
What really blew me away was when you said that, you know, I haven't really listened to my MECO system before in terms of, like, you've acknowledged that you haven't followed their decisions, and then you did this time as, like, a first time.
And this wasn't just an exam.
This was going to be your future, right?
I mean, you wanted to go into academia, so this isn't just, like, a small...
You know, a small little decision that you're testing your MECO system out with, this is like probably the biggest one that you could have made.
Well, she's torn about academia, but anyway, sorry, go on.
Oh, absolutely. No, I see Ash's point.
As the first thing that you test out with your MECO system, you'd think you'd kind of allow it to build up its credibility a bit before then.
And also, when you said your mecosystem was shouting in a chorus to not do this, that didn't really sit with me right, because obviously there's still a big part of you that wants to do this.
I think you're very ambivalent about this, and the way you described it was as if your mecosystem wasn't ambivalent at all.
Well, and the ambivalence is pretty clear in the fact that she's concerned about getting the D, right?
Because if she really, if everybody in a row doesn't care, then an F would be as good as a D. And this doesn't mean that, I mean, not going to write the exams might be the perfectly right decision.
I mean, this is like, that's what I'm sensitive to, right?
I mean, so, and, but there's a, the two things that concern me, as I think what Ash quite brilliantly, as usual, pointed out, but that you didn't talk to anyone about it.
I mean, you've got a community of people who obviously care about you and who want to know what's going on.
And this came up in the tail end of a side chat of a other topic completely, right?
Yeah. The argument that they made, which convinced me, you know, all the while I was fighting back strenuously, was the one that said, well, look at the first time you failed out of university.
Why did you want to go then anyway?
And it was because I was frightened.
Okay, why are you in university now?
Because I'm frightened.
Okay, so if you're in university now because you're frightened, what good is the degree?
You know? Sure, and look, this is not...
To me, the content of the decision is not the point.
Again, I don't mean that it's not important.
It's obviously hugely important, but...
Did you know that it was a bombshell that you were dropping?
Yes. Were you conscious that it was a bombshell that you were dropping?
Well, now, here, with you guys?
Yeah. No.
Well, I don't think of it that way consciously now.
Does it make at all sense that it might be considered a bombshell that you're dropping?
Yes. See, there's a certain kind of dissociation here that's of concern to me, not about the content of the decision.
Which, again, could be totally right and blah, blah, blah, right?
But it's the fact that, you know, this unanimous MECO system, which is sort of a contradiction in terms, right?
It's like all ambivalence pointing to the same thing.
Well, it's an oxymoron, right?
Yeah, they weren't all unanimous.
Yeah, the MECO system is not the three musketeers, right?
Or it's all fighting each other, right?
But you didn't talk about it with other people and you brought it up.
In this conversation, as if it were like, you know, and then I picked up some milk from the store.
That is something that I did last night as well, yes.
What is it? Picking up some milk from the store.
I'm sorry, I'm doing it again.
Yes, I see what you mean.
Because, I mean, you will ping me once or twice a day with a question or a comment, right?
In fact, you did yesterday afternoon and you certainly did today as well, right?
Right. So step me through this, because I can't follow it to save my life.
Last night, I know, when I got home, I really wanted to talk to you.
But I didn't bother sending you an email, so I can't really have wanted you.
This morning, I got up, and there was an email from the TA saying, you didn't show up to write the exam last night.
Are you okay?
You can come today, this afternoon, if you like.
And then I sort of got caught up in his...
I did. Man, when I missed an exam, I missed an exam once.
I had to have like three doctor's notes to get to write it again.
They just say, hey, you know, let's do it again.
Okay, so you had a chance to rewrite it this afternoon or that offer was put forward.
But you were, I mean, you weren't ready, right?
Even if you'd wanted to. Oh, it's an exam in a Renaissance history class.
The exam is on Erasmus in Montaigne.
I could write it with my left pinky toe, with both hands tied behind my back, my eyes closed, and listening to all the German medals.
Okay, I got it. I got it. This is not a time for cuteness, I'm telling you, okay?
Okay, right. So you could have written the exam this afternoon.
Right. I hadn't studied or anything, but I could have done reasonably well if I'd written it.
It's just a yes or no thing, okay?
You could have rewritten the exam this afternoon.
Yes, yes. And when you got that offer, you obviously didn't rewrite the exam this afternoon, right?
No, I didn't.
Because the same feeling was occurring for you, like the don't write the exam thing, right?
Yeah, I had, you know, another conversation, and this was at 11, well, it was at 11 o'clock, and I had to leave by 11.45 if I wanted to get there in time to rewrite the exam.
And I had a conversation.
You know, I asked...
Everybody, except for the one person who was not currently at home.
And I said, look, I can go write this exam now.
And I am James, and we started talking about it.
And I just felt this overwhelming feeling like There's other stuff that's more important right now.
I don't want to go back to school right now.
School, not so much right now.
And everyone that I talked to said, look, just don't write the exam.
We have better stuff to do.
Right. We do understand that the methodology of the decision-making is not the issue for me.
Right. Like, what the decision is and how you came to it is not the issue for me.
Right. Well, you say right, but I'm not sure that you quite get that, and I know it's not a totally intuitive thing to get, right?
Right, then the question in my mind is, what is the question in your mind?
The question in my mind is a couple of fold.
Ash, you had something that you wanted to say?
Yeah, but mine was more about the methodology, so I don't want to sidetrack it here.
But if I understand correctly, what you're getting at is the way she kind of dropped it in the conversation, like fairly casually.
And it hit me as similar to the laughing thing that she was doing earlier.
It was like she was disconnected from her own experience.
And because of that, we kind of felt it kind of magnified, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, our shock is magnified because Charlotte's not feeling it, right?
Right, exactly. The same thing happened when she was laughing and the way she did it casually here, I think it was the same type of thing at work.
Yeah, it was odd because I was expecting on the subway last night to feel anxious as all hell.
I was expecting all hell to break loose, all kinds of anxiety and fear and everything else.
Because if I've been in school because I'm afraid, then not being in school should make me even more afraid, right?
And I thought it...
Very odd. That I felt a little sort of weird twisting of fear.
And that was it.
And that's something that I even wrote about.
Yeah, but that's not good.
That's not good. I know.
It's not good because you're dissociated, right?
Right. It's something I wrote about.
I'm like, okay, you guys said that I have to feel the fear and the anxiety and stuff that's going to come up by not writing these exams or being in school.
And I didn't get anything.
You know, why is that? And the answer came back, well, you're still expecting this not to have any consequences.
Expecting what? Not doing the exams?
Right. So, yeah, my central issue is twofold.
One is that, and this is just personal, right?
So you will ping me once or twice a day if I'm working away, and if I have time, we'll exchange a few words or whatever, right?
for the last couple of weeks or month or two, right?
And this was more so during the breakup and late or whatever, right?
But you'll ping me with questions or comments or, you know, just hide theirs and it's nice.
And if I have time, I'll write a few lines back and so on.
So there's been a stream of communication about relative to this decision, inconsequential stuff, right?
Yeah, except for the question that I asked you last night that was important to me.
But yeah, just generally, yeah.
But the other questions weren't time-sensitive, right?
Right. So, do you understand that it's really disorienting for someone to be asking questions or soliciting feedback for a month or two about...
Relatively minor, not minor, but relatively minor non-time sensitive problems or dilemmas.
Right? And then makes a massive decision about a problem which she has brought up repeatedly over the past six months without telling anybody.
I see what you're getting at, yeah.
And doesn't even notice that it's a bombshell when she brings it up.
And brings it up by accident, right?
Because this wasn't even the topic, right?
Right. Now I feel horribly like I'm stealing Greg's thunder.
Oops. Greg had a good run.
But can you understand that that's just jaw-dropping?
And this doesn't mean bad or anything like that, but just...
Yes. Yes.
So that's sort of the first thing.
And the second thing is that if you involve a community in the problem and then completely bypass them in the solution, it feels a bit off or odd, if that makes sense.
Yes. Because your complaints about academia, which are legitimate of course, right?
But your complaints and your ambivalence and your ambiguity and your torture about academia has been a not-in-constant thread in your discussions with people over the past six months, right?
Right. So you've involved people in the problem, right?
Right. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The community is there to help with that, right?
But then you...
You don't involve anybody in the solution, right?
Right. That's very self-isolating, right?
Yes. And what do you think that's going to do in the future when you try to involve people in your problems?
Because you know this answer, right?
This is one of the reasons you're doing it.
Sure, it's going to turn them off.
And why is that? Well, because I'm sort of, well, I'm taking from them, saying, okay, here's my stuff, here's my stuff, here's my stuff, you guys deal.
And you know what?
I don't value your input enough to ask for it when I'm actually making a decision.
We won't even know that you have to make a decision, right?
We won't even know that you're making a decision, and you'll just toss it out casually afterwards, right?
Right. That doesn't make you guys feel so hot.
Well, I mean, it's not the end of the world for any of us, right?
But my question is, why would you want to detonate your credibility with the community in that way?
Like, what Simon the Boxer thinks going on, right, that this would be your approach?
That's an interesting one.
I'd like to figure that out.
Well, you know the answer, because you did it, right?
And I don't want to make this sound overdramatic.
It's not like you strangled a cat or anything, right?
I mean, this is not any kind of death's door scenario.
But it certainly would be, for me, it's like, well, if Charlotte asks me her opinion, it doesn't really matter because she's just going to go and make her own decisions anyway, right?
And it's not like you have to submit your decisions to anyone on the planet, right?
Sure.
But it's like, you know, if somebody's agonizing about, I don't know, whether they want to have kids or not for, you know, month after month after month, and then you just find out that they went and got a sperm donor and they, you know, forgot to tell you.
I mean, it's just kind of weird, right?
And then the next time somebody comes to you with an agonizing problem, it's like, okay, well, you know, I guess I'll let you talk for a bit, but you're just going to do your own thing anyway, right?
Right.
And it's interesting to me when you say that I know, because I certainly can't bring it up consciously, at least not right now.
Thank you.
Well, but you know for sure, because when people are unconscious, they're still planning and plotting, and I don't mean this in a nefarious way, but they're still planning and plotting and doing stuff because they achieve a consistent outcome, right? Sure.
Sure. Right, so like guys who are unfaithful, right?
Oh, it just happened and so on.
And there's probably some truth to that, but it consistently happens, right?
Right. Right, so this is Charlotte is isolated, right?
Right. And this is not the first time, I would imagine, that Charlotte is isolated has been a theme.
No, there is something I've been thinking about recently that's a similar situation.
Well, and the very first time that you and I talked about your childhood, when you talked about the kleptomania, we talked about this foundational isolation in your childhood and that the kleptomania is because you were stolen from and nobody noticed and nobody saw and we're reaching a hand in.
You remember that whole thing? Right.
Right? So, Charlotte as isolated is a theme, right?
Right. Right. It's interesting that the situation that I was thinking about, which, assuming that I haven't completely detonated my credibility, I would someday like to talk to you about.
It's a time in my life where I was isolated, and the person that I reached out to, the only person that I could reach out to, Couldn't fundamentally see me or my issues or give me any advice.
Oh, it's worse than that.
They would actively have rejected you for this to be this strong, right?
Oh, yeah. They would have, absolutely.
And I lived in fear of their doing so because they were the only person who...
Quote-unquote, loved me.
And to have lost them as well would have been...
That would have been it.
At least insofar as I believed at the time.
Right, right. And it's like the, quote, love that you had for your grandmother, which of course is crap, right?
Right. I mean, it wasn't love at all.
It was, you know, hi, I'm attached to you because...
I can't not be.
Well, it's just desperate clinging, right?
I mean, if I'm drowning, I grab a piece of wood.
I don't love it, right? Survival, right?
Right. Yeah, it was abject fear.
I may kiss it, but I don't love it, right?
Right. So, yeah, so, I mean, this isolation and the isolation which leads to dissociation, right?
Right. And also, I've got to be frank with you, leads to impulsivity, which is part of the kleptomania, which I know is not an issue anymore, but that was, right?
Kleptomania is to some degree around impulse control, right?
Right. And also, you said kleptomania is also about not really processing the consequences, and you say your ecosystem said something to you about that you still don't get that there will be consequences.
Right. Right. And I'm guessing that the MECO system was talking about FDR, not school, because obviously you're aware of the consequences of school.
I mean, you know that, right?
But you weren't aware of the consequences with FDR, right?
And by consequences, nothing's written in stone.
It's just effect, fallout, or whatever, right?
Right. I had not one thought about FDR or how this would be perceived during the entire conversation.
Right. For you, this had all the significance of you actually just picking up the bottle of milk, right?
Right. As far as the community went, right?
Right. As far as the community went, you know, insofar as how it related to school and my future life, I thought about that.
But as far as FDR went, yeah, the stuff I made at the store on the way home was, you know, as much in my thoughts as y'all.
Yeah, I mean, post the grocery list on the board and say, what do you people think, right?
I mean, nobody does that, right?
I'm tempted, but...
I don't know if we get approval of the great cult leader for our grocery list.
That's right. But...
But yeah, there's a lot of isolation which left you dissociated, right?
Or was wrapped up with dissociation, which is why you were laughing about the past, which is why you had the flash of anger, and which is why it's really hard for you to process that other people would even notice that you'd made a massive decision, right?
Because you're just so used to operating in defensive isolation, right?
Right. And, you know, the more that I think about it, the blog post that I made, which was like a voice post in, I think it's the most upbeat voice post I've made in a while.
It was like, somebody proved me wrong.
Somebody proved me wrong.
Somebody noticed what I did.
Anybody? Anybody?
Any comments? For sure.
Yeah. For sure.
And this isolation and fear you were talking about just then, it was almost as if you were describing the Mekosystem experience that you were talking about ten minutes ago, because In that, it was like a chorus of everybody telling you what to do, and you ended up kind of giving in to that.
You didn't negotiate with them or anything, so, I mean, that came across to me as you being very isolated and also afraid, because you weren't on equal footing with them whatsoever.
You just kind of gave in to the whim of the chorus of Minko system characters.
Yeah, I put up a good fight, but in the end, you know, it was just like, you know, they kept ratcheting up the tension because they said, well, we know you're going to write the exam anyway.
So you're not meant to put up a good fight?
That's the point? You're meant to negotiate with them?
They're here to help you, not for you to do battle with, if that makes sense?
Yeah. Right, exactly.
And the thought was, no, I don't want to do this.
Fight! Fight!
So, yeah. I think you did that to recreate that isolation and that fear within yourself because you probably could have negotiated with them and it might have had a different outcome.
It was just strange how you were describing those other things and it was exactly the same as your ecosystem experience.
It's interesting. Yeah, there's a certain amount of ceasing to exist.
And this is an overdramatic way of putting it, but I hope it makes some sense, right?
There's a certain amount of sort of ceasing to exist insofar as the ecosystem overruns, right?
You don't show it the exams.
You talk to me about stuff that's not relevant compared to the importance of this decision.
Yeah. And with the James thing, right?
I mean, I hope you understand.
That was a hugely aggressive thing that you did with James, right?
Oh, starting to talk with him?
Yeah. Well, because now James is going to find out or hear this or something, and he's going to say, are you kidding me?
Charlotte was facing this huge decision, and she didn't talk to me about it because she was saying mine was much more important.
He's going to feel like crap!
Yeah, he is. No, it's true.
I was trying to figure out whether to go to my exams and continue my academic career, but I put all of that aside to deal with your issue.
It's like, well, why didn't you tell me?
If you'd have told me, we wouldn't have dealt with my issue.
We dealt with it. It was much more important, right?
And yours was time-sensitive. Mine wasn't.
Right. Yeah, I started...
One of the reasons why I went into his stuff instead is when I started thinking about talking about it with him, I started feeling like, uh, not so much.
Right, no, I understand that.
I understand that for sure.
And that's part of the not existing, right?
And then when you were talking about your childhood earlier tonight, to me it was very surprising.
Because we've talked about it so many times before, right?
Right. So I was like, okay.
And now she's telling me, well, that's just what she always does.
But that's not true, right?
Because she hasn't for the last couple of months.
So where the fuck is Charlotte, right?
I'm not here.
Right. But to me, that's part of sort of what I'm trying to suss out from the past couple of days, right?
Right. And again, this has no bearing on the quality of the decision to go and do the exams or not.
It doesn't matter. I mean, I know it matters, but it doesn't matter in terms of what we're talking about here, right?
Because we're not looking at the content but the process or the form of the decision-making, right?
Right. And then...
And then you drop this bombshell with no conscious knowledge.
It's like you're not there, right?
And also, we're not there, right?
There's nobody in this world, right?
Right, because, you know, if I'm not aware that this is a big thing, you know, I'm not expecting a reaction, well, you know, if there's somebody there, if you're there on the other end and give a damn about me or anything, you know, there's gonna be a response.
Right. Right.
Or if, you know, if Steph has told me six million times and everyone else six million times that it's not great to laugh at things that are painful and I'm going to spend three minutes telling a giggle fest horror story, then I'm not there either, right?
For you. Right. Right.
And then when you say, well, that's what I've always done, as if I've never talked to you before, I'm also not there, right?
Right. Nor am I. Well, for sure, yeah.
I mean, this is defenses, right?
This is the false self. There's nobody in the false.
False self is an empty suit, right?
It's a hide of bright armor.
It's nothing. And there's nobody inside, right?
And I guess that's the part that I'm concerned about.
Right. That's really interesting.
Um... Mother in my head was talking yesterday, and in her three pages of crowing triumph, you know, she said, the other folks were actually, they were getting the better of her for the first time ever.
And she said, you know, well, hello, false self, come help me.
He's like, I'm not here.
You know, I can't do anything.
But the other question I would have is why go to the Miko system when you're still wrestling with the concept and not the community?
I mean, lots of people who care about you would be happy to talk about you for as long as it took, right?
Yeah. I don't know.
I didn't want to talk about it, really.
But see... A, you did, because you did end up talking about it, right?
Tonight. Right. And B, that's not your decision to make alone.
And that's not anything to do with FDR or the cult as it stands or anything like that.
That's not your decision to make.
When you're involved in relationships with people, it's not your decision what they need to hear that's important.
Like, if I'm tortured about something...
And I don't tell Christina about it.
And I say, well, I just didn't want to talk about it.
Would she have the right to be upset?
Yeah. Why?
Because you're saying either you don't trust her with it or you don't value her opinion or something to that effect.
Right. And we have – I mean I'm not going to do this to a guy on the bus, right?
But I mean we have a relationship, right?
And I have involved her in other things that are important to me and it's not my decision.
Now, I can tell her about something and she can say, I don't think this is a big deal.
I don't think it's really that important and so on.
on we can talk but i don't have the right when i'm in a relationship to pick and choose what i'm going to tell the people i'm in a relationship with i mean i can do that but that's just a kind of censorship that we find kind of gross i was talking about the mainstream media always slancing the certain way right but but intimacy is i don't know if it's important or not but i know it's something that's consuming my thoughts and so i'm going to share it right Right.
And that you can just pull the plug on communication if you don't feel like talking about something, the relationship shallows out a little, right?
Right. So the fact that you didn't want to talk about it, sort of irrelevant, right?
In fact, that would be a reason to talk about it more, right?
Right. I mean, I don't exactly like calling up people and saying, I think my book's smarter than you're giving it credit for because it might not be, right?
Right. With the everyday anarchy book, right?
But just what's on my mind, right?
So I can talk about it and people can not listen or they can not, you know, hang up on me if they want.
But I'm going to assume that is, you know, since I have a relationship with people in the community and the community as a whole, I talk about what's on my mind and then people can tell me if it's interesting or not or irrelevant or not.
But if it's on my mind, I got to share it, right?
Right. But that's not something that you have as a thing, right?
Right. A thing?
Well, it's not a standard, right?
Right. So you say, I don't want to talk about it, and you just don't talk about it, right?
Right. And that's why both you and I wink out in your mind, right?
Yeah. I think you're just saying stuff without following it, if you don't mind me saying so.
Like, it's a heavy dose of facts, I guess, and you're like, uh-huh, yep.
I mean, I'm not sure.
I don't know. I can't read whether that's connecting or not.
Yeah, I'm just...
There are other things that are coming in.
Crossways, yes. I am following you.
Well, let's go to the things that are coming in, because that's more important.
Can I... Yes, Greg.
Over to you. I mean, I don't want to sidetrack what you're doing, but I was just curious...
The impulse to slip this into this...
Oops, hang on a second.
Not so much, I fell asleep at three...
Okay, so this impulse to drop this into the conversation unconsciously, and this question's for Steph, I guess, is that the MECO system?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the true self is shooting up flares from over the horizon, if not fireworks, right?
So then, my next question is, does that mean that Charlotte's cast of characters is not really her ecosystem?
Huh? Sorry, there was a leap there, 12 dimensions that I couldn't follow.
What was that? Well, her cast of characters is, as she put it, chorusing, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, right?
And then, out of nowhere, this mysterious character sends up a solar flare to everyone here on FDR, right?
So, who's who?
Well, I mean, that's why we negotiate with the MECO system, because we don't know.
Right? So, what we do know, or at least what I know, and I hope you don't mind me sharing this, Charlotte, because you already, actually, I know you don't mind because you already talked about it, is that Charlotte was feeling a lot of aggression yesterday towards your mom, right?
You feel a lot of anger towards your mom.
Yeah. And it was, I think, the day before yesterday as well, if that's right.
Right. Right.
And so you had these mental images and that's what you pinged me about, the anger.
And I was saying, yeah, go with the anger.
Anger is good, right? I mean, it's protective and so on, right?
So you were feeling a lot of anger towards your mom and you acted it in a safe and productive way.
I think that's the first time you've done that, although you can tell me if it's not.
Right. Yeah, it is the first time.
And the thing with the anger, I mean, it only went down to a certain point.
It was like, I knew it was there, but couldn't quite get it, if that makes sense.
But yeah, I understand that. So you feel aggressive towards your mother.
And then what happens next is you get cut off from your community, right?
Right. Does that not seem like a cause and effect to you and other people on this call?
Or is that just me? Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Because your mother isolated you from people when you were growing up, right?
Right. And whatever rage and anger I felt towards her, I went and felt it alone because I had to.
Sure, I understand that, although it's not true that you had to.
It's not true that you had to.
There are kids' helplines, there are guidance counselors, there are people that you can talk to when you're a child.
You can go to the cops, you can, right?
But it was impossible for you because it would have resulted in too much aggression, right?
The cost would have been far too high, right?
Right. So that's just an...
You could have done it, But you chose not to, and I'm sure that was a wise decision, right?
But it's different from saying you couldn't do it.
Right. Because if you say you couldn't, it becomes impersonal.
If you say, I couldn't because I would have been beaten up or strangled or something, then you get more anger out of that, right?
Right, that's true. So you aggress against your mom, and then what your mom would do in the past would be to cut you off from your community, right?
Or cut you off from people around you.
Right. You even cut me off from her.
She just stopped speaking to me.
Right. So you get aggressive towards your inner mom.
And what does your inner mom do to you?
She cuts you off from the community and says, don't talk to people about this.
Right. I was wondering why she didn't say something.
Well, she did. She said something.
She said, down with the biosphere, right?
Let's seal her off from the world, right?
Right. And then you're laughing about your childhood, right?
Which is your mom thing, right?
Right. I mean, I'm sure your mom found boundless things funny about your childhood.
Oh yeah, she could turn anything horrid that she did to me into a joke which she would happily share around the family table.
Right, so technically you got food.
Yes. Right?
You punched the foo and it punched right back, right?
Yes.
So that's an important thing to be aware of, right?
The next question that I...
Don't you stop making cute merry noises with me, woman.
I'm telling you. I know. I'm telling you.
I'm trying like hell not to laugh, Steph.
Okay. Well, don't because this is very serious, right?
This is a recreation, right?
Because if we let you laugh, we're recreating your family, right?
Right. And I don't want to be in the same interplanetary dimension as those assholes.
Right. The next thing that pops into my mind is, is what the hell do I do?
If I can't get rid of her this way and she, mother in my mind, gets her revenge anyway, then...
What's there for it?
I don't understand.
Are you really trying to tell me that you have no idea what to do next time?
Oh, um, counter mother by, like, actually going to people and not letting her pull this bullshit?
Um, that's a thought.
Only just a thought.
Well, that would be my thought, right?
Just do the opposite, right? Act in opposition to your programming.
Yeah, act in opposition to what you're programmed to do, right?
By evil people. Realizing that it is programming is the first bit, though.
Is she chuckling again? I think she is.
I swear to God, we're going to send a fucking human priest over to exercise this out of you.
We're going to have to do that, aren't we?
Thank you. I'll stock up on split pea soup.
We'll rewrite her programming with PHP. Don't you stop, Greg.
Don't help her. Don't help her on this.
Greg, don't make me laugh.
I'm not going to let this be funny.
Sorry about that. Right.
So, yeah, I mean, the thing is, which obviously I didn't even realize what in the hell I was doing until you called me on it, which is, I guess, why I frogged it up.
So... And you had to bring it up in a way that completely minimized it to give us every possible opportunity to ignore it, right?
That's why we bring up things as if they're funny, horrible things, so that we give people every opportunity to zone out and laugh, right?
Yeah. And actually, that pops up another thought into my head.
That's very interesting.
Another friend of mine was telling me about something horrific that happened to her in her childhood, and I was wondering why, you know, I could mentally say that's hard, absolutely hard, all the empathy in the world, but the basal thought was, am I expressing the right mix of sympathy?
I don't know what to say.
I was having a hard time like actually feeling what I thought I was supposed to be feeling but you know since I was dissociating from mine I mean obviously I couldn't really help her with hers yeah I mean empathy comes from empathy with the self because we can't empathize with another human being because we can't feel another human beings feelings directly but we can empathize with herself and that's what connection that's what the connection that's where the connection comes right Right.
All I could get was pissed off.
You know, I couldn't get anything else.
Right. Well, I'm going to just say, and I don't want to stay up all night, but I'll tell you this, Charlotte, you're still about a million miles away.
And that's fine. I'm not saying that as a criticism.
I'm just saying that I noticed that.
And that's also nothing to fix, right?
I mean, it's just a fact for me that I get emotionally, which is only a fact that I get it emotionally.
It's not an objective fact.
But you're still, it feels like you're still a million miles away.
It doesn't feel that you're quite as unconscious anymore, which is good, but I think that you've got it intellectually.
But I think for me, it's like we've, I don't know, put a few hand signals on the clouded outside of the biosphere or something, and you've recognized that there may in fact be life out there, but you're still about a million miles away.
Yeah, and I'm not quite sure how to get back.
And that's fine too, and that probably is not going to be something that is going to occur conversationally.
That is going to occur through you talking about this with people.
Sorry, I didn't quite get that.
Well.
Well, you've got a bit of a mess on your hands, right?
That's really interesting.
Well, I mean, just in terms of the community, right?
Right, but the thought that popped into my head when you said that is, what mess?
See, that's why I know that you're still a million miles away, right?
Does anybody else want to inform her what mess?
I realize now that you've mentioned it, what mess?
Yes. And the fact that I didn't even realize what mess until you said what mess just sort of reinforces, there's a mess right here.
Yes. And you're still heavily defended by this humor shield, right?
Oh, yeah. Right?
So, stop that. Okay?
Just take a deep breath and stop doing that.
Stop pumping the shine into your voice.
Stop making it cutesy.
Stop making it funny because it's not, right?
I mean, this arises from significant, brutal trauma, right?
Right. So, just stop doing that.
I mean, there's a lot of things that are complicated, as I've said a million times.
This is not one of them. I just stopped doing that.
Because it's insulting to everybody else, and most insulting to you, right?
Because you're like, well, if I pretend that it's funny, will anyone buy that it's funny?
If I pretend that it's cute, will people buy that it's cute?
Well, you've got to hang with a different and not quite so smart crew if you want to pull that, right?
Right. And not quite so caring crew about you if you want to pull that, right?
Right. I might as well go back to mother if I want to keep doing that bullshit.
Well, there's, you know, 5.999 billion other people on the planet who will let you get away with it perfectly well to your detriment and theirs, right?
Yeah. And you're here because you don't want to do that, right?
So, if you're here because you don't want to do that, then stop doing it, right?
Right. So, what's the mess?
The mess is, like, almost, well, I don't want to either overblow it or underblow it, but just a loss of credibility, obviously.
And... You know, a loss of my saying all this time, hey, you know, I'm being open and honest with you about my problems and please feel free to do the same with me, you know.
Open interchange of ideas and stuff here.
Yeah, I mean, I feel a little robbed, just to be honest.
Like, I just feel a little bit like, I would like to help you with this.
Right. Yeah, so what I'm saying is, you know, I've been saying all this stuff all this time, but, you know, I really don't have enough respect or love or caring for you guys to actually solicit your advice when I need it most.
Well, but that's the reality is it's the care and respect for yourself, right?
To say, I am worthy of other people spending time on my problems.
Right. Yes.
And there's James, right?
Right. You've got to talk to James.
That would be my suggestion. You can do whatever you want, right?
But my suggestion would be to talk to James, because he's going to feel bad, right?
Yeah, that's the first thing that I'm going to do when I see him tomorrow.
have the challenge of if you don't tell people, and I don't know how, I don't even have a theory as to how, right?
But let's just say you post on the board and you say, so I pretty much hit the eject button on academia, right?
Right.
Or however you're going to put it in, you know, whatever ways you're going to put it.
It doesn't have to be in the general board and wherever you want to do it or however you want to do it.
But you don't want to pretend that nothing happened, right?
Right.
So you kind of have to tell people about this decision, right?
Thank you.
Yes. And then you have to explain why you didn't talk to anybody about this decision and didn't bring it up, except in, you know, by quote, accident, if that makes sense.
Right. Because if you just say, oh, by the way, a couple of days ago I decided to just not take my final exams and blah, blah, blah, and I'm in this ambiguous situation where I say I want out but I still want a D or whatever, right?
And you're going to have to circle back and try and find a way to get people to understand what happened, in my opinion, if the honesty thing is what you want to stick with.
Right. And that's not easy.
Right. No, not at all.
And my thought was, well, I'll start now.
But no, I won't, because if I do it now, it's just going to be more of the same stuff.
And if there's one joke in it, one joke in it.
Then the entire thing's blown.
It's like, hi, I apologize for making jokes.
Well, if there's one joke in it, then certainly myself and everybody else on this call will just put our head slowly on our desk, right?
Right. You know, you're apologizing for this stuff, and you're still doing it.
Right. In which case, it's like, okay, well, there are some defenses that I bow before, right?
I mean, there are some defenses which you just go, hola, salam, you rule the world, go ahead, right?
Right. Right.
And I know that this may sound like a punishment, and obviously it's completely not.
I mean, you can do it or not do it or whatever, right?
But it's a way of not doing it again.
I mean, that's what the honesty is for, right?
Yeah, and the interesting thing is it doesn't feel like a punishment.
And, you know, where before a while ago...
You know, klaxons of the 60th dimension would have been going off saying, he's attacking you, he's attacking you, run, flee!
It is a cult, right? Right, right, absolutely.
Yeah, I didn't get that either tonight at any point.
No, and certainly, I mean, I totally understand how people get wildly defensive about this stuff and you say, oh, so now I have to do some sort of public groveling in order to regain favor of the inner council or something.
Like, I understand all of that.
And that is obviously a defense which you don't have, which is good.
But it's got nothing to do with that.
It's got nothing to do with the community insofar as, you know, we're all striving for, which doesn't mean consistently achieving, but we're all striving for honesty and openness and vulnerability and all that kind of good stuff.
Right. I mean, it's not for you guys.
That's how we play, right? Sorry?
Right. Well, it's not for you guys, my posting this stuff, my making an apology.
I mean, yeah, it's for you guys, but fundamentally, it's for me.
Yeah, I mean, because this is what you want in your personal relationships, right?
Right. I mean, if you had a boyfriend that you'd kind of talked about ambivalence around academia and then just happened to mention to him casually as you were heading to bed three days later that you blew off all your exams, I mean, he'd have 12 aneurysms before his head hit the pillow, right?
Yeah, he would have absolutely every right to be livid.
Well, I don't know about livid, right?
I mean, I don't think livid is that helpful.
I mean, angry for sure. Angry.
But, I mean, because I was surprised and angry, but that doesn't mean that, you know, right?
It just means like it's good information to have so that we can figure it out.
But you don't want that and you don't want to miss out on being helped by people in your hour of need, which is a beautiful thing, right?
Right. Right. And frankly, I don't want to miss out on helping people, because, you know, obviously if I have no credibility and I'll never ask for help, then why the hell should people ever ask me?
Well, for sure, and I don't think it's fair to say, and I don't think you really meant it, that you have no credibility, right?
I mean, it's just that you took a step with aggression towards a foo concept, and it kind of got you back good, right?
Which is, in a sense, to be expected, if that makes sense.
Yes, I hear some people snickering upstairs.
Yeah, I mean, you tried to take on quite a lot there, right?
And it is a hard thing to say.
You can't do this stuff alone.
It doesn't matter whether it's FDR or anybody else.
That's why I say to people, go to therapy.
You can't solve these problems alone because these problems are all created by solitude.
And you can't solve problems created by solitude with solitude.
You just can't, right? Oh, that's what he meant.
That's hilarious. Who?
Oh, just before I started having this conversation, I have a copy of you in my head, Steph.
So, Steph in my head said, you know, in all this we need an ally.
Right, right. Of course, yeah.
Of course. Of course.
Thank you, Steph in my head.
Excellent. Well, it sounds like I'm done because you just keep going without me.
Is there anything else that people wanted to add?
add it's late here so I'm going to stop unless there's something else that people were yearning to get in useful conversation Helpful? Positive? Yes.
Very much.
Okay. Fantastic conversation, both with Charlotte and with Greg.
Okay, great. Well, I'll send this around.
We'll do the usual shtick. And I have way too much material piling up.
I've got to stop doing podcasts for a little while, but we'll sort it out.
And I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.
Thank you, guys. Good night, Steph.
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