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June 25, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:24:23
1097 Blame, Guilt and History - A Convo

Through the rubble to the future...

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Time Text
Hello? Hello?
Hey, how's it going?
Oh, crap. Hey, Greg, I thought that I want to kill my boyfriend thing could have been metaphorical.
Like, oh, I could just kill my boyfriend.
I suppose it could have been.
But I agree.
We've certainly had some volatile stuff lately, so maybe that would be it.
It certainly is an odd way to introduce yourself, but it might not have been quite as a kill-or-death trolley as it appeared.
Possibly. So, El Kempong...
El Campong. I'm Austin.
Hi. Okay, I didn't know if that was your name or if you were actually a town.
No. So what's...
What's up?
Well, first, I guess, thank you for taking the time.
It's a real pleasure to be talking with all of you.
Exciting, certainly.
If not, perhaps a little nerve-wracking.
So, there are sort of a couple of things going on, I guess.
And I've just been sort of getting anxious about Whether or not I'm really implementing my values in life, that's not really a good feeling, and I'd sort of like to get started on that.
You mean actually putting it all into practice, or at least more of it than you feel you are?
Yes. And you said you've listened to a bunch of podcasts and you've listened to a bunch of books and stuff like that.
Is that right? Yes.
Yes, that is correct. I have listened to lots of podcasts.
I have read the books.
So, yeah, I just felt that it was time to sort of dive in.
For reals, anyway.
Right, okay. And what part do you feel that you're not putting into practice?
Or is it all?
Well, it's not all.
This is actually something that I was...
I'm sorry, I can't remember which one.
I think it was one of the Ricky Sandwich ones talking about how libertarian types don't really like to identify with collectives at all or groups.
And I was right there with you on the podcast, and I was like, yeah, wow, I really, really identify with that.
And I was really hoping that you would sort of delve into that some more.
But anyway, hopefully not too beside the point.
I've sort of drifted away over the past year from identifying with any sort of group Or label ideology politically, religiously, whatnot.
And I'm sort of worried that that's more a defense mechanism than anything legitimate.
So in terms of identifying as an anarcho-capitalist, And any sort of venue, I guess, it makes me really uncomfortable.
And that's not really the place that I'd like to be at.
Right, right. Yeah.
Sorry, go ahead.
No, sorry.
Please. Well, I agree with you, and I don't like calling myself a libertarian.
I don't really like calling myself an anarcho-capitalist.
It's like sort of if you're a philosopher and you don't believe in gods, it's like saying that, introducing yourself and saying, hi, I'm anti-Zeus.
People say, what the fuck does that mean?
You're anti-Zeus? I mean, why can't you be uncle?
You sound like you have a cold. So, I agree with you that...
To categorize ourselves as identifying with a specific conclusion that philosophy leads to is not very helpful, right?
Right, as you say, a slave to reason and evidence.
Yeah, I mean, doctors don't say, I am a prescriber of antibiotics, right?
Because that's just one thing that certain aspects of science and medicine say is a good idea in certain situations, right?
Right, right. I am a UPP-compliant thinker.
Oh, no, wait. Actually, that's a good one.
But no, we don't want to identify with conclusions.
We always want to identify with a methodology, right?
Because that's what keeps us alive and curious.
And the one thing that seems to happen to a lot of thinkers is they identify with a conclusion and then they get all kinds of rigid, right?
Right. I mean it was supposed to be scientific Marxism and then it just became dogmatic ideological arseholery, right?
Sure. The same thing can easily happen with libertarianism and in fact it has happened with libertarianism in many ways.
Libertarianism is just – and of course it's a very broad term that goes all the way from paleo-conservative to Ron Paul supporter to more on the anarchist side and so on.
So that's why I'm trying to wean myself off that kind of stuff and just say philosopher. - Perfect.
Thank you.
That's fair. I guess it would be more accurate than to say I sort of shrink from bringing it up, and I've become incredibly disinterested in any sort of political conversation with the people that I usually hang out with.
Any sort of talk about politics, I just sort of Get frustrated and or quiet because it makes me really anxious, the prospect of piping up with philosophy.
Right, right.
And I'm only too well aware of the implications of that.
So I guess that that's sort of the area that I need some help in is sort of...
Getting over that, I guess, and actually stepping up to the plate to try and bring philosophy about trying to have reasonable conversations with other people so that I can actually see who's worthwhile in life.
Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, that's sort of like saying, with all due respect, I'm really interested in becoming a doctor, so when do I get to cut someone open?
Right, right. Well, it might be a while, right?
I mean, that would be sort of my, you know, I mean, maybe you'll do it faster than I did.
I'm certainly trying to do everything that I can to distill what took me a frickin' quarter of a century into something that takes a whole lot less time, but in terms of Becoming a philosopher who openly gets people interested, excited, and curious about ideas that leads people through that dark chasm of thought or dark chasm of doubt to that sort of sunlit uplands of thought on the other side.
That's all...
Horribly complicated, skilled stuff that takes, you know, reasoning.
It takes self-RTR. It takes a trust of your instincts.
It takes a lot of confidence.
It takes a lot of curiosity.
It takes a lot of compassion.
And these things, I think, are fairly natural to us, but they're kind of pounded out of us a lot, right?
So it is not a quick thing to become a philosopher in the way that you want.
And I think it's a great thing that you want to do it.
But you've been reading some books on karate, right?
And now you're like, when do I get to be Chuck Norris, so to speak?
That's about as much of a metaphor as I can come up with.
And the thing is, well, you'll train, right?
You'll learn. You'll take it a step at a time, right?
Yeah, sure. How's that for a total non-answer?
Does that give you nothing whatsoever?
Let me give you something a little more specific then because that's just nonsense, right?
You know, that's the snatch my pebble speech that every annoying teacher ever gives, right?
But what's going on in your personal life?
I mean, forget about...
Talking to people about philosophy, because I think what you really want is to get traction in your personal life.
There's no shortcuts to certainty about philosophy, and people can smell an agenda.
They can smell, well, I want to enlighten you.
They can smell that six miles away, and they never, ever, ever want to be around people like that, right?
Right, and that's one of the reasons that I've sort of drifted away from identifying with any sort of label whatsoever, is because I really don't like coming off as proselytize-y, if you will.
So when I say start having conversations politically with people, I don't mean like...
Do the whole jujitsu master, convert them in three conversations thing.
Just sort of like getting a little bit of traction.
But yeah, the personal life, I am also aware of the emphasis that you like to place on that.
Well, and sorry to interrupt, but you can't...
I mean, you can't take anybody, any place that you haven't been yourself, right?
Sure, sure. So you can't take anyone further down to really inhabiting knowledge.
I mean, not just you know something, but you really know it, right?
Right. You can't take anyone further than where you've been yourself.
And I'm not saying you are, and I don't know, and you can let me know.
But if you're avoiding bringing values or philosophy to bear in your personal life, then you're going to be worse than useless talking to people about philosophy.
You'll actually be in the way, right?
Right. Yeah, this is actually a fairly relevant time, I guess, in life.
I'm certainly making efforts to do just that.
So, let's see, my parents are currently in the process of getting divorced.
And how old are you?
I'm coming up on 20.
Right. Do you think, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to get a sense.
Do you think it's something like a lot of people are like, okay, they're old enough, let's break up?
Or is it something more recent?
A long time, but they'd be kind of holding off because you kids were teenagers or whatever?
In a sense. It's been about a year now.
They have to be separated for a year before they can officially get divorced.
When this was all brought up the first couple of times, they're fairly amicable about the whole thing.
They aren't openly bitter.
I like that.
They aren't bitter, right?
I mean, it's buried there like Krakatoa.
The plot thickens.
The plot thickens. .
But when they sort of brought the whole thing up, they didn't want to tell us, my brother also, they didn't want to tell us why it was exactly that they were getting divorced.
Okay, so I'm just going to try it because I don't know your command of Swiss, but when you said they didn't want to tell you exactly, does that mean that they didn't want to tell you approximately or they told you 95% but not 100% or what does that mean?
They basically didn't tell us why they were getting divorced.
They said there were...
I'm going to be totally annoying.
Sorry, just so we can keep this conversation efficient.
Please. And I'll just keep annoying you as you go through this, but when you say stuff they didn't tell us exactly, when what you mean is they didn't tell us at all, that just makes it easier for me to understand, if that makes sense.
Sure, yeah. I'm sorry, is that clear what I mean?
Yes, I think so.
So just grit your teeth and give me the bold facts, so to speak.
I shall do my best.
So they told us that there were issues between the two of them, and we didn't need to know about it until we were older.
So they left it at that.
And I just called my father up a week ago, a week and a half ago now, because I thought it was about time for me to find out exactly what it was that caused the split.
So... Let's see, my mother is coming up to see me.
I'm taking classes over the summer.
So she's coming up to have this conversation with me face-to-face in about another week.
But the information that I've gathered from my father thus far is he...
He kind of belittled my mother.
And this was all, like, perhaps more shocking than it should have been when I had this conversation with him.
It was a really, really unpleasant conversation.
But he sort of belittled her.
She's into...
I'm sorry. Can you just stop for a sec?
When you say he sort of belittled her, I'm not sure what you mean.
He belittled her is what I mean.
Okay, good. Just stripping away the Swiss.
I'm looking for the holes in the Swiss cheese here.
I appreciate that.
So she is into hippy-dippy sort of spiritual stuff.
And he never took that seriously.
And he would kind of...
And so the impression, or what he said, excuse me, was that she felt belittled by him because she felt like he was being superior, like he was not treating her as an equal.
And I think that this translated into other areas of their life as well.
Is your dad an engineer?
No, no, not an engineer.
He is actually unemployed currently.
This was another large factor in the separation.
I sort of grew up overseas.
Hi, this is Steph.
A little after the fact, the listener here talked a lot about some family history stuff, which he wanted to have cut out.
So I have. So, because you're giving me a lot of detail here that's not particularly relevant, which is fine.
I understand that you've got a lot of info to process, but what I'm sort of getting out of this is that your father, for reasons which you called selfish, and you can tell me more about those if you want, decided to pretend that he could save something that couldn't be saved, and as a result, he lost credibility in his company and got canned, right?
Right. Yeah, essentially.
Yeah, because, I mean, if they're keeping an entire division running for a year and a half, that probably costs them millions and millions of dollars, which otherwise they would have saved if they'd been able to close down the non-functioning asset earlier, right?
Right, and the new management that they brought in, they kept it up for about another year and a half after he left, but then they came to terms, I guess, with the fact that it was beyond repair.
Yeah. Right.
So what's happened is he's moved himself.
This is a really tough thing because obviously he sounds like a competent and respected professional.
What happens is as you move up in the management – you may know this or you may not – but what happens when you move yourself further up in the management sphere, your integrity and honesty become that much more essential.
And if you don't show that or if you don't display that or display the opposite, which is sort of deception or avoidance, then you can't be demoted but you can't be trusted and so there's no place for you to be, right?
Right. Right.
So he kind of toasted his career, and so he's kind of at sixes and sevens now.
It's like he doesn't have good references.
He's pretty high up there in the hierarchy, so he can't take any sort of mid-level position.
Correct. He's kind of overqualified for a bunch of jobs, but he's under-praised or doesn't have good enough performance to get the kind of jobs that he's used to, right?
Right. Right, and we moved back and the plan was that he would be re-employed inside of a couple of months.
Five years later, he had unsuccessfully attempted to employ himself and taken a lower level job, which he then proceeded to leave.
He didn't really know, I guess, what he wanted to be when he grew up.
So he was essentially unemployed for a long time, and this was a major source of tension between my parents.
Does your mother work?
Is that right? She did eventually start to work, although we had some savings.
Right. Okay. So, but this wasn't...
Now, sorry. Did your family ever try and figure out why your dad was so unhappy in his career that he would do this?
I don't think so.
My mom...
Wanted my dad to get another job really badly.
She felt insecure living on the savings.
And that's not how he felt.
This is all sort of new information for me.
This is just what I found out from the call.
I'll be getting the other side of the story soon.
But she was insecure living on the savings, and he felt fine living on the savings.
He wanted to figure out what the right job was for him, I guess.
It just seemed like he didn't really make a move to do that.
So it was a major source of tension.
Well, and avoidance, right?
Yes, yes. I mean, if Christina came home, or I guess we don't leave home that much anymore, but if she sort of said, hey, I don't want to be a psychologist anymore, that would be something we would have to sit down and figure out, right?
I mean, what was going on? How did it come to this way?
And so on. But just kind of, you have to keep working because it makes me anxious.
And I know I'm simplifying it, but that would not be something that would help her, right?
Right. Right. I mean, if somebody – I mean, the reason that we've run out of steam in these areas is that – and your dad ran out of steam, right?
I mean, he just didn't – Yeah, he did.
He's just like, who gives a shit, right?
And we all have those, right?
It's those risky business moments, right?
We all – but sometimes they just stay.
It certainly happened to me, but – in a variety of things, but – and it happens in relationships too, right?
Yeah. Why am I here?
What's going on? But it's when you make a decision that's not authentic or organic early on, and you can sustain it sometimes for years or even decades, but eventually your whole motivation just goes poof, right?
Right, it caught up to them.
Right, and then you have a real tough time because...
You need a soft place to land.
You still have responsibilities because you chose to have a family.
You chose to have kids, right?
You chose to incur those expenses, right?
But, yeah, I mean, people don't understand, and you, I think, know it.
I know it. Some other people on this call know it.
They don't understand what an ephemeral thing motivation can be.
Like, motivation can just...
Leave you in the fucking dust one day, and it's like, huh?
I thought we were doing fine, and now?
I don't want to do this anymore, and what the hell?
Right? I mean, again, it's just weird, right?
And then this thing which you did, and maybe even enjoyed for a long time, you just can't stomach it.
It can literally be one day to the next, right?
Right. And it doesn't sound like your family...
Was the kind of environment where this could be processed, right?
No, not really. I don't...
I think that they tried to...
Sorry, when you say not really, do you mean that it kind of wasn't?
I mean, no. I mean, no.
Okay, got it. Thank you for that.
I appreciate the insistence.
Sure. Annoying is my game.
Sorry, go ahead. What a lovely game it is.
It sounds like they tried to communicate about these issues.
I heard that they tried going to marriage counseling, but my father felt like this was just sort of flippy-dippy spiritual stuff.
I guess he didn't really connect with The counselor.
And so my mother felt more belittled by this.
And so I don't think that the communication between them, I guess, for several years before they actually made the jump to get separated was pretty bad.
Right, okay. Now, why are you telling me all this?
I don't mind that you are. I'm just curious why you're telling me this.
That's just sort of the place that I'm at right now.
And with the personal life, my mother's coming up to have the why-did-we-get-separated conversation.
Anyway, I feel like really, really...
Anxious and thinking about talking to my parents about all of this.
Sorry, what? I feel anxious talking to my parents about this.
I'm sorry, about what?
About their separation.
You won't be talking, you'll be listening, right?
Right, right. Yeah, I guess about hearing about it.
So why do you feel anxious about it?
Um, I...
They, uh...
It's not a pleasant prospect to contemplate how bad things were between them.
And I already know that it was really bad, but I guess it's just not something I'm sorry, you're fading out a little bit there.
Could you just... Oh, sorry.
Is that better? Yeah, it's better.
Great. It's just not a pleasant prospect hearing about exactly how bad things were between them and sort of confronting them, asking them about why it is that they weren't more proactive communicating any of this stuff to us before.
I don't really...
Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, it's just that you're giving me conclusions, and I don't know what the cause of those conclusions are, so you say, well, it's going to be unpleasant to hear them talk about how bad the marriage was, and I don't know why that would be unpleasant.
I mean, again, with all sensitivity to that it's not fun for your parents to get divorced and all that, what is it that's unpleasant?
What is it that you anticipate that It's going to be unpleasant.
What is going to happen that you just think is bad?
And I'll sort of tell you, because the anticipation is the problem, right?
Like last year, I had the tooth cracked, I had to get the tooth extracted, right?
I didn't actually feel any nervousness in particular after I found out I had to get the tooth extracted.
It was not knowing what the hell was going on that was the problem, right?
Right. So, what is it that you fear is going to happen in this conversation?
Because if the marriage was bad and they got split up and you're 20, I'm not saying it's fun, but the worst is behind you, right?
Right. Right. Like for me, once I actually got the tooth out, it was like, actually, this is okay, right?
I mean, it's right at the back.
It's not visible. It doesn't cause any problems.
It's healed perfectly. I can still chew.
So it was like, it's all behind me now, right?
You fear something in the future, right?
And when they go and talk about the past, that's all behind you, right?
But it's something in the future that you fear.
Right. Yes.
The proactive communication, I really don't like that I had to come to them to talk about this, and in talking about that, I'm sort of scared of their reaction.
I brought this up with my father.
I asked him why they weren't more open about this before, and he gave me some sort of passive-aggressive stuff, like, you know, if we made a mistake parenting, then I apologize.
Oh, no! I'm so sorry.
I shouldn't laugh. That's terrible.
If mistakes were made, please submit the complaints through the proper channels, right?
No, I know. Right, right.
Emphasis was mine, but essentially...
Excuse me. That's what he said.
And can I give you a thought on this?
Just to sort of clarify where I think you might be, and you can let me know if it's all nonsense.
I'd love to hear it. Well, it sounds to me, Austin, that you're kind of hanging on to your respect for your parents with your broken fingernails, right?
Right. And they're kind of fucked up, right?
It's not looking pretty.
Right, right. So you're kind of like, just like, please don't be Dex, right?
Please, please don't be idiots.
Don't be defensive.
Don't be annoying. Be wise.
Be mature. Be someone that I can look up to.
Don't turn me into the parent, right?
Right. And so in anticipating these conversations, thinking about RTR and all of that good stuff, it's anxiety-inducing.
So that's probably not a very good indication either.
But yeah, I'm sort of hanging on with broken fingernails, I guess.
Right. And what that means is that you don't respect them.
I mean, you're willing yourself, too, right?
Or you want to. We all want parents we love.
We all want parents we respect.
And that doesn't mean perfect parents, and that doesn't mean parents who are never petty or immature, but parents who, like, they right themselves.
You know, they can be petty or immature or nasty, and then they say, oh, man, I'm so sorry.
I don't know what happened to me there, but we'll figure it out.
And they're kind of like a ship.
You know, they right themselves again, right?
Right. But...
It sounds like...
It sounds like...
I can't put any words in your mouth if you know me, right?
But this is sort of what I'm getting from you.
It's like... There's nothing sadder...
Almost. There's nothing sadder...
When you are...
Someone's kid.
And you first look at them.
And you realize you just can't respect them.
And you've been trying and you've given them opportunities and that's why the first book was on truth, right?
Which is to talk to parents about ethics.
Right.
And when you look at your parents and you realize that they're infantile, that they're defensive, that they're immature, that they're petty.
And they may not have always been that way but that's where they've ended up and there isn't any particular chance of changing it particularly at their stage in life.
That's really sad, right?
Thank you.
Yes. And I bet that your prediction is going to be bang on.
Because you've got a prediction, right?
How it's going to go. Yes, I do.
Right. I mean, when I had my tooth problems, I didn't think like, they're going to give me candy, right?
I mean, I didn't think it was going to be great.
I knew it was going to be something bad.
It's going to feel like a massage. I'm sorry?
It's going to feel like a massage.
I hope there's a happy ending, right?
So you have a prediction that things aren't going to go positively.
In fact, I bet you know exactly how it's going to go, right?
Yep. I mean, you've known these people for 20 years, right?
You've studied them like an anthropologist because that's what children do in a family.
They study their parents.
They're like a farmer studying the weather.
That's our job.
We study our parents.
And that's why if you're kind of not that great a person, having children is going to make you chronically annoyed.
Because kids – my brother put it this way once and I think he's right – I mean, he said to kids just, you know, you got this big box of issues, right?
And everybody else in your life, they're just kind of, they skirt around to these issues, right?
They're like, oh, okay, well, we don't go there.
They're polite, right? Because we're British, right?
We don't make anybody upset.
No religion, no politics, no sex, right?
But he said kids, they're just like, hey, what's in the box, right?
They reach in and rummage around and yank stuff out, right?
They don't know. They're not sensitized that way or you could say traumatized that way, right?
And so we know all of our parents' failings, all their weaknesses, all their pettiness.
And we can survive, our respect can survive that, right?
And flourish even, right?
I mean, nobody requires perfection because none of us are perfect, but there's kind of like the straw that breaks the camel's back, right?
Where you kind of look at your parents and you go, man, I just can't do it anymore.
I'd love to, really would love to, but I just can't in terms of respect and love.
Sorry, go ahead. That phone call was sort of that straw for me, I think.
Well, when did it start for you, though, right?
Sorry, when did what start for me?
When did it start for you, this unraveling?
I had sort of avoided thinking about a lot of this for a long time.
And... And yeah, my girlfriend asked me some questions about it.
Mentioned that I had been maybe a little bit on the emotionless side.
So I've listened to your podcasts on that as well.
Do you know why I'm laughing?
No, no.
My girlfriend commented that I may have been a little bit on the emotionless side.
Oh god, you caught me.
About one-tenth, maybe one-fifteenth, maybe one-twelfth Vulcan.
That's what I think she said. Occasionally.
But, I mean, you have your fluency.
Oh god, you caught me. The official badge of Swissery, but sorry, go on.
Um... Fair enough.
So I had avoided dealing with some of this, and I thought that it was about time to start trying to deal with it.
So that's why I called up my father.
So it's really only recently started for me, because I had been avoiding it.
Right, and you realize you're avoiding it again, right?
Yes. Yes, I do.
Do you want to pass your girlfriend in? I'll ask her. Just kidding, sorry.
So, let me ask you this, because I can ask you some more functional questions, because you seem to be a functional kind of fella.
Because I speak Swiss and Vulcan, so I can switch.
Okay, this is not to do with anything to do with praising me or anything like that, but this is just a comparator, right?
You, Austin, were interested in talking to me or somebody else in the chat room because you needed some feedback or some whatever, perspective or advice or whatever, right?
Right. And good for you.
I mean, dear God, if only the world could be full of people who actually were willing to ask for advice when they were confused, right?
Right. Right.
I mean, it's not easy to do, right?
And we're all just afraid that we're not going to get picked for the sports team called Help Me, but good for you for doing it.
I think that's courageous.
I think that's manly, manful.
I think it's wonderful.
So, I guess the question I have for you is, when did you last do that with your dad?
Ooh, I couldn't even think of a time.
Okay. Let's say you're four, right?
And you have a problem, right?
Can you go to your dad?
Do you go to your dad? Did you ever go to your dad?
Say, oh, there's a bully, or I have a problem at school, or I have a problem, I don't know, I can't tie my shoe, whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah. I guess definitely when I was younger, if I had problems with kids at school or concerns about classes or something, I would go to my parents to talk about that with them.
How old are we talking here?
Probably up through middle school or so.
So 10 to 13 years.
Okay, so when you were 13, you were going to your parents for advice?
That might be a little bit late, but...
So can you give me something a little more closer?
I don't just mean abstract.
If you want to do the feeling thing, then you have to get used to living in your skin and not saying, well, I guess scientifically and approximately I can see somewhere around 10 to 13.
Try and remember the last time that you actually did that you can remember going to them for help, right?
Um... Hmm... I would go to both of them, actually, in high school.
So it was maybe two or three years ago, if I was getting really frustrated with...
With classes, with activities and stuff.
It was always a really big push to fill up a resume, to get into college.
So I would get really, really frustrated with all of the things that I was trying to do.
And I would sort of go to both of my parents.
But yeah, they just would tell me You know, you're just about there.
You know, keep it up.
I know it sucks now, but it'll be worth it.
You're just about there?
What does that mean? I'm sorry, I don't know what that means.
You're just about in college.
Oh, sorry. I don't believe when I hear that phrase.
Okay, okay.
I mean, I've gone to them recently, but I mean, I don't know, it doesn't really...
It wasn't very satisfactory.
Okay, it wasn't very satisfactory.
Does that mean that it was somewhat satisfactory?
No, not really.
It was just sustaining.
It helped me kind of keep trucking along.
But I wasn't very happy.
Because I can't figure out this interaction at all.
Like, you come and you say, X, Y, and Z is bothering me.
And they're like, you'll be in college soon.
And you're like, okay, I'll keep trucking along.
Yeah, they would say, you know, you've got to...
Excuse me. They would say, you're doing such a great job.
You know, you've been... Balancing everything so well.
You're doing such a great job.
We're proud of you. Keep it up.
You're just about across the finish line.
So that's what I meant.
Is that any clearer?
I think you just stole my motivation for the next year as well.
Because, I mean, that's not listening to you at all, right?
Right. I mean, they're just like, hand me that parenting Hallmark card.
And they just read it open, right?
You're doing fine.
You're almost there.
Signed, mom and dad. Good for you.
And then it plays a little electronic song, right?
Or something like that. Right, and I've tried to do some of the legwork on my own, and this is something that has occurred to me before.
But they always tried to encourage, or at least they would say, you know, Come to us to talk about anything.
So that only made it feel that much worse when I thought about something like this where I would go to them to talk about things and they would just say, keep trucking along.
Right, okay. They would always say, you know, open, honest communication is a really good thing.
You know, feel free to come and talk to us about anything.
Right, and sort of what they meant was, you talk at us and we'll make comforting noises.
Yeah, I guess so. Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, right?
But it just seems to me like...
I mean, if you were to characterize the conversation that we're having...
I'm not saying you're doing great.
I think you are, but that doesn't mean anything, right?
Because if you already believed that you were doing great, you wouldn't be frustrated, right?
And if you don't believe that you're doing great, then me just saying that you are is actually telling you that you're wrong, which is even more frustrating, right?
Right. Okay, so let's try this one on.
Which is... And you're...
Again, you're dodging, you're twisting, you're turning.
Fabulous, right? I'm like Snoopy on a doghouse here, right?
Oh, sorry. You're too young to get that reference.
No, no, I... Oh, you got it?
Okay. Good. All right.
Curse you, Red Baron, but...
Tell me, when you've gone to your parents...
And gotten useful insights, knowledge, and advice.
And I don't mean technical things like, how do I hook up the VCR? Again, you're probably too young to get that reference too.
Oh, no, no. I've used VCRs.
I know. Not quite that young.
We're not that far apart.
There's a gramophone, see?
So tell me when you went to your parents and got some good advice.
Something that was actually helpful, not, you know, breaking out the parental cheerleaders, you know, in emergency, break glass, retrieve pom-poms, read from Hallmark card, right?
But when you actually, they listen to you, they absorb, they said, well, you know, based on my experience, or I've tried this approach, or that, or what do you think of this, or have you tried that, or...
When have you sat down with your parents and gotten some useful advice?
I'm thinking. Take your time.
Take your time. I don't want to rush you, right?
And I'm not trying to build a case here.
Like, I mean, if you told me stuff, I'd be thrilled, right?
I mean, the important thing is just to be honest, to say, well, when did you get...
And you can take your time and think, right?
Right.
Because there's this while you're thinking I'll distract people with babble as I often do.
But there's this huge...
There's supposed to be this sun at the center of our solar system called wisdom, right?
But there isn't. And what we get is pat answers.
We get bromides.
We get cliches. Keep on trucking, right?
But there's supposed to be this solar system that we all orbit to different...
Depths called wisdom.
And wisdom comes from philosophy and self-knowledge.
And the unexamined life, as Socrates talked about, this is nothing new.
But we have the additional tools of psychological now as well.
But we're supposed to have this thing that we orbit called wisdom.
And there's nothing there, right?
We're like a bunch of planets floating through space without anything to orbit around, and we keep thinking there's something there.
And this something is the government, or it's God, or it's parents, or it's teachers.
It's something that's supposed to...
Dear Abby, I don't know.
There's supposed to be this wisdom that we're orbiting.
And when I ask people, it's astounding how nobody ever remembers getting good advice.
Um uh Let's see.
I really did appreciate some advice that they gave me recently and thinking about what I'd like to study at university here.
I've been sort of thinking about different things and I called them up to talk about transferring from one school to a different school inside of my university and I appreciated it when they said, you know, you have to Figure out what it is that you enjoy doing and go with that.
That was more from my dad than from my mom.
My mom was sort of hesitant on that, but I felt like that was pretty good advice, I guess.
Okay. And your dad has certainly earned, you know, that advice because, I mean, he kind of earned his career, right?
Exactly. And I think that that's one of the reasons that he was so enthusiastic to dole this out.
Right. And I'm not going to try and downgrade that advice to nothing, but...
Shit. Sorry. That's a tad on the technical side.
And again, I don't want to mean that therefore it's useless or there's some hoops that your parents have to jump through to satisfy you old mad internet philosopher, but… That is good advice, you know, do what you like.
It's not hugely insightful and it's also kind of technical, right?
Have you ever gone to your parents about advice with your girlfriend?
Yeah, I've gone to them to talk about roles in the past.
And was it...
Sorry, you would just put...
Was it something that was positive and useful?
Um... Yes.
Yes, I think so.
Sorry, I don't want to sound like I'm talking Swiss again.
But I... Let's see.
I had some issues sort of...
Sorry, there I go again.
I had issues with a couple of girls earlier on where they'd...
They would sort of...
Excuse me. There I go again.
They would be rather bossy, and I would just sort of submit to whatever was happening.
See, rather is so much better than sort of.
That was funny. Oh, gosh.
Look at me go.
Look at me go.
Yes, it is. Anyway, they would be very assertive, and I would submit to whatever it was.
It's sort of a challenge.
Excuse me. It's a challenge for me to assert my needs and relationships.
So they encouraged me to do that when I would go and talk to them about girls in the past.
Okay, so it helped in terms of you then were more assertive about your needs and the bossy girls backed off a bit and you got some better communication that way?
Eventually, yes. Okay, but the advice was good, right?
Yes. Okay, good.
And when was that? I would say so.
That would have been four years ago.
All right. And so we have over – and again, I'm not going to say that this is all of it, and you may think of more after this call, and I'm not trying to diminish this.
But we're talking two over 20 years, right?
Mm-hmm. Two?
Yes. And that took a bit of thinking, right?
That it did. I mean, I get two a day from my wife.
More sometimes if I'm going through something that's more challenging, particularly with all this crazy shit that I do at FDR, right?
Mm-hmm. So, that's two over 20 years.
Yeah, that's really sad.
Well, tell me this, right?
I mean, you listen to an average FDR podcast maybe 30 or 40 minutes.
How many things do you think that are useful or insightful are in a 30 or 40 minute podcast?
Oh, plenty. Yeah.
More than two in 20 years.
Right. So maybe, I would say, conservatively, a couple to a dozen, right?
Probably of stuff that just goes, huh, oh, whoa, hadn't thought of that, or whatever, right?
Right. So...
We have the capacity in useful conversations, and this doesn't mean that this is all that these conversations have to be or that's all we ever do, but we have the capacity to communicate useful, important, helpful information to each other at the rate helpful information to each other at the rate of 10 every half hour.
And what you're looking at is a drought.
Well, I don't know how the hell you got across these deserts.
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to get sidetracked, but speaking of deserts, the end of Everyday Anarchy was absolutely fantastic.
Oh, thanks. Yeah.
Absolutely fantastic. Just like the last two or three minutes when you started talking about Crossing Deserts of Isolation and the Bach song came back on, it was really, really powerful.
Really powerful. Thanks to Carl, who's on this call, too.
He supplied some excellent music, and he's doing the soundtrack for the new one, which has got some stuff like that in it, too.
Well, I look forward to hearing that.
Carl, good job. Thanks.
And the amazing thing is he does it with a kazoo and a spoon.
I mean, that's the real talent.
Oh, wow. That's great.
Yes, yes. Anyway.
And let's say that you'll think of ten times more, right?
Ten times more, and it's 20, it's not two, right?
Still, 20 over 20 years, right?
It's one a year. It's one a year!
What now? We're talking it's one a fucking decade.
One useful, positive, wise conversation every 10 years.
That means if your parents live another 30 years, you got three more.
Right? Oh, that makes me really sad.
Yeah, well, tell me about that, because I can totally understand that.
I guess it's just staring over the cliff, you know, trying to hang on with broken fingernails, as you said.
It's a wonderful metaphor, but only I'm allowed to use metaphors when we're talking about feelings.
So tell me about the feelings.
Well, excuse me. Yeah, it...
It makes me really sad.
It's heartbreaking.
Yeah, it is.
Because what we get, at least what I'm getting coming off you, and let me know if this makes any sense.
But what I get is this feeling of empty and wasted time.
And this is the great tragedy of families, right?
People say I'm anti-family.
It's like, no, I'm just empty.
I'm anti-unrelatedness.
I'm anti-emptiness.
I'm anti-wasted time I'm anti-distraction.
I'm anti-bullshit. And a few meaningful conversations over 20 years is absolutely tragic.
Yeah. Yeah.
That rings true.
It's like, what are we doing with our time as a family?
Like, what does your family talk about?
Sunday dinner, you're 15.
What's been about? Well, we sort of stopped having dinner together about the time I was 13 or 14.
So there weren't really any Sunday dinners.
Okay. You're 13. It's Sunday.
Good dodge, bro. But we can go back two years.
I can say 13 as easily as I can say 15.
You're 13, and it's a family dinner.
What are you talking about?
And I'll just give you a tiny example, and this doesn't mean that this is 24-7 with my wife and I, but...
We were just talking tonight.
It's been about an hour.
And we were talking about like I took a break from recording this endless audiobook.
And I went for a swim this afternoon.
And I was sitting by the pool and I saw this girl who happened to remind me of an old girlfriend.
And I was talking with my wife about it.
You know, like how if people treat you badly in your life, you always think that someday they're going to call you up and say, I'm sorry that I treated you badly.
And what the difference is between people who experience this kind of guilt or remorse and the people who don't.
And like we had this great conversation, right?
We have one or two of those a day because that's called being related as far as I'm concerned.
It doesn't mean we can't also have pillow fights, but that's the foundation, right?
So what are you all talking about?
I don't get this with families.
I genuinely don't.
What do you talk about when you're at dinner, you're 13, someone's passed me the mash.
What are you talking about?
It's a little bit difficult for me to remember, but it was usually just how was your day?
I You know, what was class like?
Or how was work?
Wait, can you just slow down these questions?
My soul is leaving my body a little bit, and I'm trying to duct tape it back in, but sorry, please go on.
Well, on the rare occasions where we would try and rally together for a family dinner over the past four or five years, it might not have even been that.
It was just sort of awkward.
I like where you're sitting there and thinking of topics like, oh god, what can I talk about?
Yeah, yeah.
That would be a fairly accurate characterization.
I think Satan is living in my foot!
Or something like that. That was blurt stuff, right?
Okay. Nothing very substantive.
Nothing very substantive.
Nothing substantive. Excuse me.
Okay. All right.
So, what are you doing with these people?
And by that, I don't mean see your family or don't see your family, because I never tell anybody to not see their family.
Well, not that what I say means anything.
I'm just a bunch of bits on the internet, right?
But why would you want to put up with all this emptiness?
With your short life.
Now you're 20, you're going to live forever, right?
But it's not true, right? You got 50 years, maybe 60 years.
You could get hit by a bus in two weeks, right?
Right. Why would you want to put up?
With all this emptiness and avoidance and unrelatedness and chatter and nonsense.
Maybe there's something I don't understand because I never have been able to put up with that stuff.
And maybe there's a case to be made that I just don't...
I mean, I'm totally open to the...
You know, make the case. Sell me on...
Crap, right?
I mean, sell me on unrelatedness.
Sell me on empty chatter.
Sell me on avoidance. Maybe there's some giddy pleasure to it that I can't figure out.
But it doesn't even feel like people have fun on this fucking heroin, but they still want to take it.
Right. Um...
Yeah, I guess...
Excuse me, I guess.
There I go again. Um...
There wouldn't be a really good reason.
Do you think that you can break through this void?
Like, if you were to sit down and tell your parents what we're talking about right now, what would you say?
Um... Hello, robots!
I'm sorry, go on. Go on.
Danger, Mrs. Robinson.
Why don't you tell them about what we're talking about?
Actually, I would try my best to tell them exactly what it is that we were talking about because I'd really want to see how they would respond to that.
I would...
I would...
Talk to them about the empty wasteland sort of feeling and just really in the interest of seeing what they would do.
But I would definitely try and be totally upfront with them about it.
Just to sort of see how they'd respond.
I can't really imagine them responding positively, but I guess I would still give it a shot.
I don't know, maybe that's naive.
Wait, sorry. I'm just getting a little dizzy surfing on your enthusiasm here.
Let me just calm the board down a little.
I could talk to them about the emptiness and the horror of the...
Which is fine.
I mean, it's a daunting prospect, right?
Well, let me ask you this.
When you would be sitting at the age of 13, it's hard to remember the topics, but you're sitting at dinner at the age of 13.
What was your feeling at dinner when you were sitting there and people were just yawning their way through another empty conversation?
That was essentially it, just yawning away through.
Yeah, I just sort of wanted to go back and, I don't know, read or play a game or something.
Yeah, you needed some stimulation, right?
Because the horrifying thing about families is they're kind of like isolation chambers, you know?
They're so unstimulating.
If you take away the anxiety and the confusion and the upset and sometimes the anger and so on, you take all of that away, they're unbelievably boring, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, they make you dazed with boredom.
And I'll tell you this, I mean, it doesn't sound like your parents were like, you know, crazy, hidden, kind of yelly, crazy parents, but those parents are completely boring as well.
And there comes a time where the sort of storm and stress of dysfunction just kind of evaporates and you say, oh, this person's just a broken, clockwork, angry robot.
You know, they're completely predictable.
There's nothing new that comes out of this person because defenses are grindingly predictable.
It's Maybe why people who are determinists tend to be so defensive, because there is a grinding predictability to people who are defensive or people who are avoidant.
But why wouldn't you have said, I don't think you should have, but just why wouldn't you have said when you were 13, you know what, Mom and Dad?
I don't know why, but I find these dinners really boring.
Like, I just, I want to get up.
I want to go read. I want to go do something.
But we're a family.
Why do you think I'm so bored?
I mean, are you bored? Do you feel this is kind of, like, not interesting?
or, you know, what are you guys thinking?
It would have just been really uncomfortable.
Yeah, they wouldn't have reacted with any sort of enthusiasm or in any way, shape, or form positivity.
What would they have said?
Because I think I just met that part of your parents a minute or two ago.
But what would they have said?
Um... Okay, so I just said I'm sort of bored.
Excuse me. I'm bored.
Well, I'll play you. You play your dad, right?
So you don't have to do the two-hand puppets thing, right?
So we're sitting at dinner, whatever.
I'd say, you know, like we have this same conversation and it doesn't...
I just feel bored.
I feel like we're not relating to each other.
Um... Gosh, I'm having trouble trying to think of what you would say.
What you would say, right? Because you understand, right?
All that is is being honest.
Right. I mean, you're not insulting anyone.
You're not being rude.
You're just saying, my experience of this family dinner is boredom.
And what are other people's experiences of this family dinner?
Because all that is is just honesty, right?
Right. Right.
I mean, there are these unbelievable chasms in family.
You know, everybody's supposed to, oh, family, we're so tight, we're so this.
But it's like, and I have this so often with people, and if you talk to people about this after you work through this stuff with your family, it's so common.
Oh, the family, the family.
But there's this incredible gulf because it's like when you say, well, why couldn't you just have told the truth?
Because your parents say to you, right?
Tell the truth, right? They prefer for you to tell the truth rather than lie, right?
Right. And so you say, okay, well, so I should tell the truth about what I'm feeling at dinner, right?
Right. But that's not good, right?
No. No. Suddenly telling the truth, ooh, that's not good, right?
No longer. Right.
So, and is this the, I mean, I'm assuming that this is not so much the case with your girlfriend, right?
No, no. Right.
So, isn't that what you're scared of?
I mean, these people erase you, right?
Right. I'm sorry, these people what?
Erase you. You have to manage yourself.
You have to watch what you say.
You have to not offend them.
They're like bombs that you have to defuse, right?
You don't daydream when you're defusing a bomb.
You can't dream. You can't be spontaneous.
You can't break into a jig.
You can't spin plates.
You can't juggle. It's like, just got to get the bomb defused, right?
Right. We don't have a sense of self when we're in that kind of danger.
And by danger, I don't mean any kind of abusive danger in this way.
But you can't be yourself, right?
No. No, I couldn't be.
Right, so if I said, hey, Austin, love to come over and steal your soul, do you mind if I borrow it for a day or two?
You'd be like, no, get behind me, Baldy, right?
Yes, that would be my response verbatim, actually.
Right. And if you want to know why your girlfriend says you're 112th Vulcan, because your family opposes your spontaneous feelings, your thoughts, your true self, right?
Mm-hmm. And you saw what that did to your father, right?
I did. I did.
You don't want that. Really scary.
You don't want that. That's just living death, right?
Right. And that's all I want, right?
If I have kids, if they're bored, I want them to be able to say, Dad, I'm bored.
I guess that would be a pretty crucial difference.
Well, they're not there for my convenience, right?
I mean, you don't have children because they make you feel better, right?
I mean, you're there to be a parent, right?
To get to know them, to understand them, to help them trust themselves, to help them trust their own feelings and their thoughts and to respect themselves.
And you don't get that.
You don't do your job as a parent.
I mean, to me, parent is not a title.
It's not sperm and egg, right?
Parent is, you know, what they say, it's a verb, it's not a noun.
It's not a biological descriptor.
It's what you do, right?
And if all you're doing is you're feeding and clothing and sheltering your children, that's not parenting, right?
That's fucking lawn care, right?
Right. Right. Parenting is when you talk to your children and you listen to your children and you teach them how to live.
I mean, I'm not a teacher if I force people to sit in a classroom and then sit there picking my nose.
You're damn right.
I mean, public school teachers, they're not teachers.
Right? They're like grating babysitters.
And your parents, it's just a biological word.
It means nothing. I mean, and this is something I've always felt.
I mean, I was six years old.
I was in boarding school, and I had to write letters to my dad every Saturday.
You had to get up, you had to get a haircut, and you had to sit down and write a letter to your dad.
And I wrote to him. And I wrote, Dear Tom, right?
And they were appalled, right?
I said, You cannot call him Tom.
He's your father. It's like, No, he's not.
He doesn't live with me.
I never see him.
I don't ever remember him being around the family because my parents split up when I was like a couple of months old, right?
It's like, He's not my father.
Because my father would be someone who would play ball with me, right?
Who would take me fishing, who would teach me about the trees, right?
Who would ask me what I thought and felt, who would cuddle me if I had a bad dream, right?
That would be a father. This fucking sperm donor in Africa is just some dick with a dick.
So... I'm inviting you, perhaps not so gently, but I'm sort of inviting you to just look at what it is to be a parent,
right? Because that's going to condition how you relate to people, because you've got this template called conformity, dishonesty, emptiness, avoidance, alienation, manipulation, whatever, right?
That's not parenting.
No. No.
That's a really good way to throw perspective on it.
That's not even pet care, right?
Definitely not.
And you don't want that to be your template for your girlfriend, for future relationships, for your wife, for you as a father in time?
No, I wouldn't really wish it on anyone.
Right, right. And that's why I think you felt the sadness, and the sadness is what is so often the case in families.
The sadness is just solitude.
Right?
There's no loneliness like an unrelated family.
It's sort of strange.
I'm not even feeling that sad right now.
It's more like just relief.
No, I think I blew your mind by mentioning that I got a haircut because this would make sense.
I think that's what's thrown you off completely.
But sorry, go ahead. No, I... It's a little bit surprising to me, but it's...
It's more just like a feeling of relief.
Like, I mean, all of that makes perfect sense.
And that little nudge, the perspective, that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. - No.
Sorry, I've been accused of many things, but providing little nudges has never been one of them.
Large nudges, perhaps.
Calling in the airstrike.
An elbow in the ribs.
No, the perspective, though...
I would have thought that would make me really sad, but...
Well, it's a relief to have something identified, right?
This dead spot, this dead chasm in your history, right?
The dead not being you, but just unrelatedness, right?
Yeah. I mean it's just – it's ridiculous and it's so common.
It's so common. We don't know how common it is until we actually start talking about the unspeakable, which is the lack of relatedness in families.
I mean I've been going to this pool once or twice a week.
If I just get tired of working in the tandoori oven, I call an office.
I go to the pool and I'll have a swim, right?
And Christina had a couple of patients who canceled the other day.
We both went to the pool. There were a whole bunch of kids there, right?
And a whole bunch of parents.
And the kids were playing in the pool and the parents were napping or talking on cell phones or listening to iPods or whatever, right?
And look, this happens and it's not like you have to spend your whole life nose to nose with your kid.
But this is a pretty common thing when we see these families there.
And this is a wide variety of families and so on.
And they just...
I've seen one...
Mom, play with her kid for about 20 minutes.
The whole time that I'll be going to this pool.
Now, sometimes, if I'm sort of in the mood, I'll get a game going with the kids.
I used to work in a daycare, so I'm pretty good with wrangling kids.
And I'll get a game going with the kids, and I'll learn their names, and I'll make jokes with them and so on.
And they're so happy.
They're so thrilled that somebody actually wants to sit there and play.
We'll play volleyball or whatever.
I'll play something. And it's shocking to me because I just can't understand it fundamentally.
It'd be like getting married and not wanting to talk to your wife.
I just don't understand it.
If you don't want to talk to the woman, don't get married.
And if you don't want to talk to your children, I want to go to these parents and shake them and say, why did you have these children?
I don't understand it.
it.
If you want to talk on the phone and listen to your fucking iPod, why did you have the children?
Yeah, that's completely understandable.
Wow. And I mean, this is an interesting question.
I mean, for your parents, why did they have children?
Because they didn't want to know what you thought and felt.
Otherwise, you'd have been able to say, I'm kind of bored here.
And they wouldn't have taken offense.
They'd have said, oh, tell us more.
Like, why aren't children ever allowed to help the family emotionally?
emotionally?
Why aren't they ever allowed to point out deficiencies within the family in terms of relatedness?
That's a really good question.
I guarantee you my kid is going to be better connected emotionally than I am.
Guaranteed. And if I think that I'm going to only be teaching my kid, I have got to completely pass acquits, right?
Mm-hmm. Kids want to contribute to a family.
Kids want to have a voice within a family.
They want to help within a family.
They want to be valued members of the team in a family, right?
Right. Not houseplants that you have to water, right?
Right. Shouldn't be pet care.
They bloody well can contribute, too, if we just let them.
Yeah, it shouldn't be pet care, should it?
No, and I mean, people walk their dogs, right?
They don't play with their kids.
Or if they do, it's grudging and, you know, whatever, right?
But I just, I can't understand.
Why would you go through labor, pregnancy, birth, all the expenses, years?
Why, if you don't want to know what your children are thinking and feeling, if that doesn't fascinate you, I'm fascinated by what my wife thinks.
I always want to know. Because she's so interesting and so much fun.
This is just between you, me, and whoever else hears this.
I just can't understand it.
Yeah.
But anyway, we can end up here.
But I just wanted you to get a sense of what's missing.
If we don't see what's missing, then we kind of stumble around, right?
No, I really appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for the perspective.
That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for.
And how did the conversation go relative to what you were thinking, or did we go close to what it is you actually wanted to talk about, or did we just go another one of my windy cruises around Steph Brain?
No, I really enjoyed the conversation.
I wasn't really planning on talking about the Foo right now, but I... Oh, come on!
Come on!
You were going to call me and say that you wanted to get to the truth, and you've listened already to a whole bunch of podcasts, and you've read the books, so you don't need anything theoretical from me, right?
Well, I had in my mind a different conversation in the future.
Not the distant future, the near future, after I had the conversation with my mother, which is fast-approaching.
Right. And you know, I love talking about philosophy, so it's not like, ooh, let's go to the psychological stuff, right?
But it's just that you're obviously a highly intelligent fellow, great language skills, obviously an excellent taste in philosophy, and you want to be able to help the world.
You want to be able to enlighten people, right?
Right. Right.
Yeah, the first thing that I really wanted to do, which was, I think, sort of what I started off saying is just start living by my values more.
This was... What was I thinking?
That was pretty silly of me.
I guess that the right place to go to start doing that is the foo, isn't it?
What your true self was doing was saying, oh yeah, don't worry, we'll talk to Steph.
We're not going to talk about the family thing.
Oh, don't worry about that.
We're just going to talk about something abstract.
How do we best debate about the Fed?
Something like that. Don't you worry your pretty little head about nothing, right?
And then your true self gets on the call.
It's like, foo. Foo!
Foo! Foo! Foo! Right? Yeah.
Oh, gosh. Well, and the reason, like, you obviously have the intellectual and language skills to be able to do some fantastic things in the world, some great and meaningful and deep and powerful and wonderful and fantastic things in the world, right? To be a lighthouse, to be a beacon, to really, you know, send your brain fire over the night sky, right?
right?
Light up the world.
But if you don't know your history, if you don't know yourself, if there's lots that you don't understand yet about your own history, not Right. Because if you miss what are obvious truths to outsiders in your own life,
they won't give you any credibility about anarcho-capitalism.
They won't. Because they'll say, well, if you can't notice the obvious things in your own life, why should I believe you about a stateless society in the future?
Right. I really, really want to get to the bottom of all of that.
The... The history, or excuse me, the personal history.
Right.
Really want to get working on that.
And what that gives you is freedom and flexibility, right?
That means, like, if people want to talk to me about my family, I'll talk to them, right?
I don't have any landmines.
I don't have any things that I need to avoid.
Maybe I do, but none that I know of, right?
And if there is one, then I'll say, oh, shit, a landmine.
Let's talk about that, right?
Certainly. So, anyway, that's why I go to that kind of stuff.
So, I hope that makes sense.
Makes more sense than what I came to you with, that's for sure.
Well, no, but what you came to me with was, I want to be an effective communicator about the truth and about freedom.
And it's like, okay, let's see where you are with the truth of yourself, and then we'll see where you are with the truth of philosophy.
And look, I mean, to your credit...
I think you just did fantastic, what, an hour, 20 minutes of work?
I think you just did fantastic work.
I mean, I think that your capacity to be open, to be good-natured, to be curious about this stuff is hugely admirable.
And so I think that, I mean, you just did great stuff here.
Well, I learned from the best.
Right, right. Even if you had to trick yourself to get in here, you made it work.
That's beautiful. Okay, is there anything else that you wanted to ask, or I guess I've given you enough to mull over?
Do you mind if this is a podcast, do you want to listen to it again?
If I could listen to it one more time, that would be great.
Yeah, if you want anything changed, just let me know if you want me to put you through.
I have a piece of software called the Vulcanator, and what it does is it puts you into Spock voice, and that could be useful as well.
Can you give me a little bit of a falsetto as well?
Oh, absolutely. That way you can get a lethal shriek.
Alright, well, thanks for the call, and I will send you a copy of this, and I hope that it was useful for you.
No, thank you, Steph. It definitely was.
Have a really good night.
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