Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

July 13, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:28:37

1107 Sunday Call In Show July 13 2008

Some big little news; confidence in contribution - and navigating a breakup...

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Thank you everybody so much for joining us.
	This is 4.06pm Eastern Standard Time, July the 13th, 2008, Sunday.
	And I hope that you had a wonderful week.
	I guess we will start the show off with a wee announcement.
	There has been some Question, at least I get persistently dropping into my inbox some questions about why I haven't done a specific parenting series, and the reason for that, of course, is that I try not to suggest much that I have not already guinea-pigged on myself,
	or I guess in this case it would be Ourselves, and so I guess we just wanted to mention that the Free Domain Radio clan will be growing by one, affectionately known as LCF, or Little Chatty Forehead.
	Christina is 17 weeks, almost 18 weeks pregnant, and so we should have a December baby, all things going according to God's plan, and I just wanted to mention that.
	And the weird thing is that 17 and a half weeks ago, I was actually doing a podcast, so I don't know exactly what happened, but all I can tell you is that Christina is very fast.
	So I just wanted to mention that we're very thrilled, very excited, and obviously we've been holding off because the first trimester is always slightly risky, but we're past that.
	We've seen The baby who appears to be groping or miming for a microphone, so for sure it does appear to be mine, which is also a relief of course.
	And we've seen the baby waving.
	It has a spine, it has a nose, it has ears, eyeballs, fingernails, and a fine coating of hair, which of course would indicate that it's not mine.
	But I just wanted to mention that, and of course we will be following the whole process obsessively.
	Oh, we're cutting out? I'm just going to keep going and you can hear it then on the recording if you can't get it.
	We will be following the whole process of parenting and so on as we go forward through Free Domain Radio.
	It will be part of the podcast and video series.
	Since I have a generalized theory that children are born benevolent and happy, I can certainly guarantee you that If my kid turns out mean and unpleasant, that it will be entirely Christina's fault.
	So I just wanted to mention that up front so that we have it in the record, as it were.
	So I just wanted to, because, you know, she's actually quite a lot of a nicer person than I am.
	So it actually will be me, entirely me, if the baby turns out to be mean and like something out of the It movies.
	So I just wanted to mention that we're quite thrilled and excited.
	And is there anything you wanted to add?
	No, not really. Just a little chatty forehead.
	I think I'm in for something.
	What do you think you're in for, sweetie?
	A lot of uncontrollable, what was it that we were talking about earlier today?
	Screaming. Screeching!
	Absolutely. It will be like a bird, a mother bird, attempting to figure out which bits of worm to disgorge into which open beaks.
	It will be very tough when Christina comes to the dinner table and is feeding both.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	What was that? You can't give babies the same kind of meds you know.
	Well, but see, that's debatable.
	And of course, we will be following the progress of Christina calibrating the...
	We don't know the gender yet, and we don't particularly care.
	Obviously, we're just happy it's got four fingers and a thumb on each hand, and what looks like to be a fairly agile monkey tail, which is really cool, because it'll be able to work with an extra keyboard, which is great.
	Anyway, that's all going to be quite a thrill.
	We just wanted to mention to get everyone up to speed on where things are.
	We've had questions for a while about are you guys going to have kids and so on.
	Work, work, work. We've been on the case.
	I don't know if anybody has any questions or if anybody wants to just move on to another topic.
	I don't have anything else particular prepared at the moment, but I just wanted to mention that.
	To the community that if we screw it up, you'll be able to learn from our mistakes and if we don't screw it up, hopefully we'll have something of use to pass along to the community in terms of child rearing and how best to get the mowing at an early age and taking over other chores that daddy doesn't particularly like.
	So anyway, just thought we'd mention that.
	And I turn the audio over to you, the fine listeners.
	Oh, congratulations.
	The baby has a question. The answer is no, you cannot relocate.
	So we just wanted to mention that up front.
	Sorry, go ahead. I was just saying congratulations, that's all.
	Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
	Christina, I think some of those congratulations are for you.
	I mean, I know that the majority of the work is mine, in terms of helping you shop for maternity clothes.
	Did I do anything else?
	I think I've heard that they can start hearing pretty early.
	So, I mean, if you keep talking a lot...
	Hang on one sec.
	Apparently, according to all my pregnancy books, the fetus's ears have moved into position, or are slowly moving into position, but they can pick up sounds by this point, so Steph has been actively talking to the baby.
	Well, the problem is, the problem with having the baby in Christina, which is something that we did discuss beforehand and decided to go with the road more traveled, so to speak, It's that Christina as a therapist spends all her time talking to people and has a baby who's you know obviously bonding with the sound of her voice and so what we have is a very very small set of Sennheiser headphones which we are inserting into her belly button so that the baby can get up to speed with the podcasting while the baby sleeps so that he will also bond With my voice,
	because as it seems, after the, what is that called, the period after you have the baby, but before you go back to the mat leave, after Christina's mat leave is done, she's going to be going to work at Meadowvale Clinic, and I will actually be the primary caregiver of the baby.
	Hang on, just have to help Christina.
	She often seems to get a little faint and dizzy when we talk about that.
	My new office space, there are actually four offices.
	So there will be, at first, maximum three therapists.
	And I think the one room will be set up for staff who will not know how to function.
	First of all, by himself at home alone.
	And secondly, with a baby to boot.
	Well, and of course, Christina will be hoping for that.
	Well, not hoping, but waiting for the inevitability of the first call, which starts, did you take the baby with you?
	So when we're mulling over, you know, the sort of homeschooling versus private schools or whatever, we're still sort of mulling all that kind of stuff over.
	So we don't have any particular answers as yet, but fortunately we have quite a while to make the decisions.
	So anyway, I just wanted to mention that.
	Is there anything else you wanted to add there?
	You look like you had something on the tip of your tongue.
	No? All right.
	So yeah, here's hoping that philosophy works and we don't, you know, cock it up too badly.
	But I think it's going to be, I mean, I'm obviously looking forward to it.
	We both have quite a lot of experience with children.
	Myself as a result of working in a daycare.
	For many years as a teenager and Christina as a result of being married.
	So I think that it's been a pretty good easing into the whole situation.
	And I also was around with my nieces when they were babies.
	So I'm fairly good with babies.
	I know which parts of them are the most tender and edible and how to marinate them.
	All that kind of good stuff. So it's quite a thrill.
	We're quite excited. Any idea, Steph, what the homeschooling situation is in Canada these days?
	Yeah, we can homeschool up to high school, which I guess is grade 10?
	Grade 9. So that's when the baby is 13?
	Something like that. Yeah, puberty.
	So yeah, we can homeschool until then, and then they have to go to some sort of more formal education.
	They can get ready for university if that's what they want.
	No, I can't do anything about the audio.
	It's just a Skype thing.
	We've had this all week that the audio has been cutting in and out.
	So I'm, you know, real sorry, but not much that we can do about it.
	I mean, all the computers are off and all that kind of stuff.
	So nothing else is chewing up the bandwidth.
	So we will just have to give it a shot.
	Oh, yeah. Have we thought of names?
	Absolutely.
	Aristocrates, Nietzscheopolis, Ein Randestein, Lots of fabulous names, which elicit great excitement in me and some cold heart slaps from Christina.
	But we have two, which Christina can introduce them to you, I guess.
	We're thinking that if we have a little girl, we're going to name her Isabella.
	And if it's a boy, we're going to name him Michael.
	And if it's some contortionist blend of the two, is a Bichel.
	Or something like that.
	Well, you have to be prepared, you know?
	I mean, it was in the Boy Scouts. Reminder, erase all of this before the baby actually figures out language.
	I like Isabella because it can also be a question.
	Isabella?
	Yeah, it's I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A, which is very nice.
	Yeah, we were thinking of Sophia as well, but we were concerned that I might actually mistake the baby for a sofa and lie on it.
	So that was something.
	That's also why we haven't named the baby hammock or carpet or wife.
	Oh, oh, oh, sorry.
	So, yeah, sorry.
	I know that we've been sort of mulling over when to drop the baby bomb, but we figured that now might as well be as good a time as any because things are progressing just beautifully.
	Steph, are you worried about having to both deal with the baby and FDR? No, actually, I think that it's going to be enormously similar.
	No, I'm kidding. A squalling beast that needs to be regularly fed.
	It makes me exhausted. No, I'm not particularly worried about it.
	I mean, babies sleep like 16 hours a day when they're first and more if you don't give them espresso.
	So, no, I'm not particularly worried about it.
	I mean, I'm sure there will be a dip in some productivity.
	But the way that I'm sort of figuring out on covering that up is to...
	I may release The God of Atheists as a podcast series so people have some more material to work through.
	I have a novel which Charlotte has kindly edited which is waiting to go.
	So there'll still be ways to sort of push out material.
	I may aim to get Achieving Anarchy out before the baby is born because I really can't imagine that there's going to be a huge amount of productivity just afterwards.
	But No, I think it'll be fine.
	I think it'll be fun, and I think that actually it's only going to enhance what we do here at FDR, right?
	I mean, it's a guinea pig, frankly, is what I'm saying.
	Another name that was rejected by...
	Steph, you could always have the baby do some podcasts, too.
	Absolutely. Little Chatty Forehead, as we've already nicknamed him.
	Yeah, the LCF can probably get some in, and given some of my ranting costs, if the baby is colicky or is teething, they probably will be about 80% the same.
	Or it could be a little chatty gurgler.
	Actually, I think it's just little chatty crapper.
	It's the way that it really works.
	What if there's some comedian who talks about how the amazing thing about babies is like those Volkswagens at the circus where clowns keep coming out because they just seem to produce a whole lot more than you put into them in terms of food.
	And I certainly do remember that.
	Right, right.
	Oh, and Tom, are you on?
	Is Tom on? I think he is.
	Tom, thank you so much for a wonderfully, wonderfully kind donation that you sent in a day or two ago.
	Just fantastic. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.
	It lifts my spirit.
	It infuses me with energy.
	It has been wonderful. And there was a couple of days with no donations other than the regular subscriptions, which is becoming more unusual.
	So I just wanted to thank you so much.
	For reaching into the old wallet and sending me some money, it really just put a spring in my step and allows me to not have to go back to work full time as Christina demands to be kept like a princess while having the baby.
	Because we do have an all-you-gold, all-the-gold-you-can-eat contract with the baby already signed, so that's going to be a challenge.
	Will there be a shower?
	Certainly my annual shower comes up in August.
	Is that what you mean?
	Just there, okay.
	Will there be a shower?
	Sorry, I'm adding some of that.
	Thank you.
	We haven't really thought of it yet.
	We haven't really thought of it yet.
	I certainly do suggest Sponge Bath, but no luck so far.
	But this is something that we are still mulling over.
	Well I mean we were originally thinking of doing a sort of Christmas FDR thing for the people who had d-food and stuff, right?
	Because otherwise it's like, you know, staring at, I know, as Charlotte mentioned, it's just staring at the ball going down on Times Square with a Mickey or three.
	So we were thinking of that, but, you know, if the baby's coming, which is December the 18th, is that right?
	Yeah, from the 15th to the 20th is tough because, of course, storks are normally south at that time of year, so we don't know exactly how that's going to occur.
	But it may just be a bit too sort of messy if we have a baby just before, but that was sort of something we were thinking of before.
	I don't think it's going to work out.
	Maybe something before Christmas?
	Like a pre-Christmas? Yeah, pre-Christmas.
	But that wouldn't be observing the actual birth date of Christ the Lord, so...
	Yes, for all those religious zealots out there, we would be, we would be, what, blaspheming?
	Second coming Molyneux, again, another fabulous name that was just completely dismissed by a wife, hell-bent for some reason on maintaining the baby's mental health, so, and keeping him or her out of my claws of vanity, but anyway...
	Yeah, you can keep telling me that it's choppy, but there's nothing that I can do.
	so you can type it if you want but there's nothing we can do about it.
	And of course the best way for it to be less choppy is for the listeners to talk so feel free to I mean, we don't have to talk about babies all day.
	I'm happy to, but it will be...
	I mean, it'll be a thrill for me to have another family member in diapers.
	So I don't feel quite so singled out when I have long podcasts or shows.
	So that's quite a thrill for me.
	Again, mental note, erase this before the baby can ever hear it.
	Steph! Hello!
	Yeah, I'm Looney to those of you who are on the board.
	I'm here over at some good friends' house, people I've known for 20 years.
	I've introduced them to this conversation.
	And I've invited them to sit in and listen to this call.
	Oh dear, sorry. Sorry, everyone.
	Sorry. So, do you have any...
	John, did you have anything you wanted to do?
	Yeah, I wanted to thank you.
	My buddy Paul has been having major changes in his life to the good as a result of your material.
	So thank you very much for that.
	You're welcome. I think we can all be happy that he's decided to start wearing pants.
	And that was one of, obviously, one of the first things that we talked about, that philosophy would be helpful with him covering up the nether regions.
	So, I kind of think, it's only going to progress from here.
	He also looks cute in a skirt, so, you know.
	That's true, but only if he's standing over the subway grid.
	Right. True.
	No, new people need to understand that the sense of humor bit is definitely set high in these conversations.
	Hopefully, and hopefully the baby won't be any funnier than me, or you won't be seeing the baby for a while.
	So, Greg, M, you had a question or a comment?
	I mean, it's no disrespect to the baby if we move on to other topics, because there's not much going on at the moment other than, you know, we get to see him squirming around a little bit, and that he looks at the moment like some sort of form between, a cross between a squid and that thing from Alien.
	So, a little tough to bond right now.
	We had a little gummy bear last time.
	No, the first time, the second time we saw a little gummy bear.
	I didn't feel so much bonding as hungry.
	So that's just, as the progress goes forward, hopefully we'll end up with a recognizably human form.
	I always consider that to be an extra special bonus.
	Oh yeah, we'll have plenty of time to talk about the baby from here on out.
	Well, first of all, congratulations on the announcement, guys.
	You just, it's absolutely thrilling.
	Really? What's that?
	It really is. She said it.
	Yeah, I heard that.
	I mean, if anyone else has baby questions, I can certainly hold off, because this isn't baby-related.
	This is something I had before the show.
	No, let's go on. We'll have tons of time for baby questions as we move forward, but let's go on with the regular show.
	Sure. Well, this is regarding the honesty conference.
	Oh, sorry. Can you believe that Greg just doesn't care about her baby?
	That's unbelievable. He seemed like such a nice guy.
	Oh, is this thing on? Sorry, Greg.
	Go ahead. Thanks.
	These kinds of mind games should produce a very healthy child, I'm sure.
	Before we go on, Greg, I just want to thank you very, very much for that lovely CD. Oh, no problem.
	I really hope you guys enjoy it.
	That made me look good. Sorry.
	I'm all here. Sorry about that.
	Go on. But it's no problem.
	I'm happy to share that music.
	It's some of my favorite music.
	But yeah, so this is a question about the honesty conference we had the other night?
	Yes. And sort of, I made a commitment after that call to be...
	I'm more proactive in sharing what I have to offer with the community as a whole like in the public forums and In the chat room, especially the public forums is where I really have that aversion, and I've always had that, you know that.
	Yes. And I just got stuck, and so I don't know if I was trying to force myself into an action plan before I'm emotionally ready, like if I have to focus on the core belief of I have nothing to offer, or the assumption, or what you would call that.
	I don't know if I should focus on that value or that belief first because it just felt really tense and forced because there was a post yesterday that I really desperately wanted to contribute to but just couldn't bring myself to.
	It was the thread where the guy posted about wanting to write his archbishop about quitting the Catholic Church.
	And that was something that I had gone through like a few months ago and I realized a few months ago that it wasn't the church I wanted to tell that.
	It was... It was others in my life.
	Right, I mean, it wasn't a bishop who raised this guy directly as a Catholic, it would be his father that he would talk to about that, or his mother.
	Exactly. And I wanted to kind of ask him if there's a little more about his experience of that, and I thought I had some stuff to offer based on my experience, but I just couldn't bring myself to reply.
	And I'm curious if you have any thoughts regarding that, because that's a big issue of honesty that I have in this community.
	Well, it's, when you say you couldn't bring yourself to reply, just give me the physical description of that.
	Like, I mean, you're sitting in front of the computer, and you, like, I mean, obviously it's not, oh, so you might want to move your mic just so the other way you get some breath.
	Obviously, it's not like your hands suddenly start to strangle you or turn into Jim Clary's claw hand from Liar Liar, but is it just a big emotional block that you can't get through, or what is it that actually happens when you're sitting in front of the computer and want to reply?
	Yeah, it's an emotional block.
	It's sweaty palms.
	It's a lot of fear and anxiety, and the fear is of Well, there are a few fears.
	There's a fear that I'll go too fast, because I never know if I'm putting my experience onto others.
	And there's also a fear that I just don't have anything to add, and I should sit back and let others add their value, and that mine is just sort of second-rate.
	Does that make sense? Sure, sure.
	Now, let me ask you then, when it came to your childhood, Usually, there's two poles of experience that result in where you are.
	And the first pole is whenever you did participate, you would be mocked or attacked for some reason.
	That's one pole. And the second pole, though, is that you were forced to participate in things that you didn't want to participate in.
	And I would guess a little closer to the second, but let me know if either one of those apply or to what degree.
	Yeah, it was definitely closer to the second and just based on activities and things like sports.
	Music started as something that was kind of forced on me but then it grew into an escape for me.
	But I'm curious, did you guess that based on my symptoms or just based on your prior knowledge of me?
	Oh no, just based on your symptoms.
	Because you would have had, if you had been forced to participate in things that you didn't want to participate in, then you would have ended up with a resistance to participation, which is what would have arisen when you started to try and participate more, if that makes sense. A resistance because you had been forced into it so many times in the past.
	Right, right.
	So, So is there a chance that something in me perceived your statement the other night of I would certainly like to see more participation from you and then as sort of a template of you have to do this?
	Well, the way to answer that question is to ask yourself, and this is why the first RTR is always with yourself, how did you feel when I said that?
	Because the way it sounded to me was you felt grateful for the compliment of me saying it would be great if you participated more because you have a lot of great stuff to add.
	You sounded like, I'm glad that you see that, that would be fun.
	I mean, you could have been feeling something different, but that's what I got.
	No, that was totally what I felt in the moment.
	I just felt enormously grateful For those who don't know, this podcast in question will be released Monday or Tuesday.
	So it can't be logically that you would have perceived me as being like your dad saying, you know, come sit at the table and talk to us, you know, when you don't want to or whatever.
	Because if you had felt that I was sub-subbing for your dad in that moment, then you would have felt resentment at my invitation to participate more, right?
	Right, which it was quite the opposite, I felt.
	Right, and I certainly wasn't saying participate more because it's good for the community.
	I'm saying you have a lot of value stuff to offer, and if you did participate more, I think it would be great for you and great for the community, but that was just so...
	I certainly, there was no commandment, and also it doesn't come...
	I mean, your parents' guilt around maltreatment of you It poisons the underlying message of you have to participate.
	The guy who beats his wife has to berate her to buy him a birthday present, right?
	Because she doesn't want to.
	She hates him, right? People who treat others badly They want the appearance, like a play.
	They want the appearance or they want the fruits of virtue while having the freedom to commit vice.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So bad people, particularly parents and so on, but lots of people, bad people will always get mad at people who shy away from them because it reveals to them their own corruption, and so they will always get angry and force or enforce a kind of participation, which would normally flow from just a desire or happiness to be around that person, right?
	Sorry, what was the very last thing you said?
	It normally comes from From a desire to want to be around that person to participate, right?
	Christina doesn't have to bully me to spend time with her, right?
	In fact, she has to sometimes slip out of the house unannounced to get some free time away from my clutches.
	We don't have to sort of bully each other to spend time with each other.
	That's just the natural gravity of love and attraction.
	And the same thing with a good family.
	I mean, I'm hoping that You know, our kid wants to spend time with us because, you know, he or she enjoys Christina's cooking and puts up with me.
	I mean, however it's going to shake, I want the kid to want to spend time with us, and in fact, if the kid doesn't want to spend time with us, that would be a pretty good warning sign that we were not doing something right, or rather doing a whole lot of stuff wrong, right?
	So it's sort of like a union.
	The union doesn't want the free market, but then they say they have value, right?
	And so if they say they have value, then they should welcome the free market.
	It's the same thing with the academics, right?
	They say, the free market academics, they say, oh yeah, I'm worth $150,000 a year.
	That is what I'm paid for the knowledge that I have.
	And then they, of course, they should be happy for a free market to be created in academia, but they resist it tooth and nail because they know they don't have that value and it's kind of stolen money.
	And in the same reason your family would have bullied you to participate because your natural resistance to participating with corrupt and nasty people Would have made them feel guilty, and therefore they would have experienced you as causing them discomfort or attacking them, so they attack you back to reduce those symptoms, you know, all the stuff that we talk about in RTR. So I'm guessing that the invitation to participate came across as a quite nice thing for you, i.e., you know, someone's noticed they have a lot to offer.
	But then when you sat down to do it, The resistance that was left over from your family kicked in.
	Not the invitation, but the execution seemed to have been what caused you the problem, right?
	Yeah, that sounds right, because it was...
	I mean, every time someone does say something to the effect, implicitly or explicitly, recognizing my value, it just...
	It's heartwarming, and then, like, in the moment, it's just extremely heartwarming, but there's also a bit of sadness afterwards when I mull over it, and just how new that is to me.
	Well, sure. Well, sure.
	And I think there's an additional layer of subtlety when you sit down to participate in the resistance that comes up in you.
	If we play that game which we play here sometimes called Follow the Benefit, I think that we could quite quickly see that it is the quality of the community that is causing you the discomfort in communication, and that's a leftover from the family prison, right? Because bad families don't want their children interacting with good communities.
	Right, right.
	Anymore than a guy who beats his wife doesn't want her to join a feminist group, right?
	Right, right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I can't hear you.
	Sorry, go ahead. Oh, you can't hear us at all?
	Is that right? No, when I started talking, it sounded silent.
	No, sorry, but go ahead.
	I didn't mean to interrupt. Oh no, go ahead.
	I didn't hear that you were talking.
	It just cut out. Go on.
	Should we go back and forth like this for a while?
	No, you go ahead. Well, I mean, so you have a dual layer of resistance, which is why it's so hard to penetrate.
	The first is you have an echo of resentment within yourself of having been forced to participate in the past, but I would put that at a relatively minor level.
	The more major level is that you had a consistent, though unconscious, commandment from your parents to avoid good and healthy communities, right?
	Because this community is not friendly to unfriendly parents, right?
	No, not at all, no.
	Right. So the core belief is not that you have nothing to offer.
	Right. That's not the core belief.
	Because if you genuinely felt that you had nothing to offer, then you would have...
	And if you genuinely had nothing to offer, then I would be being manipulative by saying, you have stuff to offer, you should participate.
	And then, if I was being manipulative when I said that, you would experience what?
	Resentfulness. Yeah, irritation, resentfulness.
	It would refoo you, right?
	Right, right. Because it would be a way of humiliating you.
	It would be like me saying, oh my god, you have the best voice ever, you should totally enter the singing competition if you in fact have some wretched off-key voice, right?
	Oh yeah, yeah, it would be an act of malice.
	Right. So, to invite you into an act of humiliation and self-destruction, to put it in dramatic terms, you would experience all of that as manipulative, as false, as me running my own agenda, as not being honest, and so on, right?
	Right. Yeah, so if that were my core belief...
	Yeah, so the core belief cannot be, I have nothing to offer.
	Right. That makes sense, yeah.
	So what is the emotion that is reacting to you posting?
	What is it really saying?
	Hmm... You could just move your mic a little bit.
	Sorry. Here, I'll move it.
	It's hard to access, actually.
	Oh, of course. And it's not due to any lack of intelligence or sensitivity.
	This is just, we're not supposed to open this door, right?
	The whole point of this door is it's supposed to be completely invisible and there's not even a wall, right?
	Right. Right.
	I... The emotion I'm wanting to say is fear.
	Yeah, for sure. I think fear is an accurate way of putting it.
	What is the statement? What is the consequence that occurs?
	The stuff that you gave me was a fine and sophisticated surface story, but let's say you go a little too fast, or let's say You post something that may not be quite as relevant as something else, or maybe someone else could do a slightly better job in that.
	Right. But none of that would evoke the kind of fear you're talking about, right?
	I mean, nobody sits there at the archery range and says, Dear God, if I don't hit the bullseye first try, the earth is going to open up and swallow the town, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	You know, I'm thinking that the fear is that my foo will see.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Are you sure that definitely is the fear, but that's not the fear, right?
	That would be something which would result in what?
	Right.
	So your FUSI's and what happens?
	Or what happened in the past when you would try to contribute and get it, quote, wrong?
	Right.
	Humiliation. Humiliation. Yeah, you would be verbally attacked or assaulted, right?
	Right, right.
	Right, so for you, the fear is not, I have nothing to contribute.
	The fear is, contribution is deadly, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And that's important, right?
	That's an important distinction. Because if you think, the really important thing with core beliefs, they are never self-generated.
	You don't just wake up one day and say, I'm worthless.
	I have nothing to contribute.
	I'm lazy. I'm unstable.
	I'm needy. I'm selfish.
	I'm bad. All of that is just singular statements of the self, which is not where core beliefs come from.
	Core beliefs come from being told and interacted in a way that reinforces it.
	They come from other people.
	They do not come from the self.
	Right, making it real in my childhood.
	Right, so if you look at...
	It's sort of like looking at a planet that's orbiting and not even seeing the sun and saying, well, that's weird.
	What the hell is it circling, right?
	It's only one half of the equation.
	So if you say, well, my core belief is I have nothing to offer, that is a statement of singularity, right?
	That is a planet without a sun, but it's still orbiting, right?
	Because where would you get that from?
	If you say, contribution equals punishment...
	That is a two-person core belief, right?
	You contribute, your father or your mother or someone else punishes you, right?
	Yes, yes, exactly.
	And the solitariness of, I have nothing to contribute, there's only one person in that equation, right?
	Right, right.
	But... I mean, we don't grow up on a desert island.
	We're not raised by wolves. Sometimes we feel it would be better if we were, but we don't grow up in isolation, right?
	We don't grow up living in the sewers.
	We grow up incredibly influenced by other people, and how they influence us produces these core beliefs.
	They are a reaction, not a generation.
	Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	And it kind of hits me in the gut because it does resonate in a pretty core way.
	Go on. I'm just feeling a lot of deep sadness right now.
	And what's that sadness to do with?
	It started when you were talking about the core belief arising from others, and this core belief, this assumption that I'm going to be humiliated when I contribute, just remembering all the instances that I can think of that do confirm that that was other-generated.
	And is there not a lot of sad but sweet relief in this perspective that you can't talk about an orbiting planet without talking about the Sun?
	Yeah, it takes a lot of responsibility off of my back, for sure.
	Amen! Can I get an amen, brother?
	Because, I mean, this is the truth of the matter.
	This is not the shrugging off of responsibility.
	This is an accurate and honest understanding of the influences that we are subjected to as children.
	Right. Can you repeat just that first bit, please?
	It garbled. This is an accurate and honest understanding of what we were exposed to as children.
	Oh, right, right, yeah.
	I mean, it's like saying, there's no such thing as gravity, I just like the Earth.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, the planetary metaphor makes a lot of sense.
	So it is one of those...
	Sorry, that's why I say, there's nothing wrong with you.
	Our parents want us to internalize all of that, the bad parents, right?
	They want us to say, well, I'm selfish, I'm bad, I was disrespectful, I was inattentive, I was clumsy, I was careless, I was bad, right?
	But that's all nonsense.
	We're just trying to survive in a hostile environment, those of us who grew up in this kind of situation, which is, you know, too many.
	Obviously one is too many, but there's too many of them.
	The majority of people in the world grow up in these kinds of situations, if you think about places like the Middle East and Africa, Asia, and a lot of people in North America.
	So it does take a weight off us, doesn't it?
	Like a weight of original sin, right?
	That's a great way of putting it, because it did sort of feel when I described it to you as something to do with my value or my belief of my value.
	It felt very similar to the religious concept of original sin.
	It's not similar. It is that concept.
	The original sin concept is derived from this, right?
	This basic illogicality of the parent who says to a child, you are bad!
	Right? Because, obviously, if the child is born bad, then the child is not bad, right?
	Right, right.
	Like, compared to what? The child is born bad.
	Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's no possibility of anything else, right?
	And if the child could have been good, but is bad, then it's the parent's fault, not the child's.
	I mean, if the parent is feeding the child, and the child has no other chance of getting food, and the child is told by the parent, you're just too thin, so give me more food, right?
	But don't blame me for your parenting.
	Yeah, yeah, that does make a lot of sense.
	And it just feels right, and it feels...
	It's that...
	I've described it in podcasts before, too.
	It's the relieving sadness, the kind of...
	Yeah, just lifting a burden off of my chest, and...
	And I feel like I want to cry, but it's just not coming yet, but I think it will, and I think that'll be quite relieving.
	That's all right. We can wait.
	Think of kittens. Think of me getting up at 3 in the morning because a baby is crying and his or her mommy is being selfish.
	Just think of that. Think of it.
	Oh wait, now I'm crying. Okay, now, so you have a question about how your participation is valuable or not valuable, so the people who are listening, if you're in the FDR chat window, would you mind giving Greg a short sentence about whether you find his contributions in this conversation or this conversation in particular to be of value?
	We get a hell yeah?
	Your contribution has been of enormous value.
	I second that. Hell yeah.
	I think his contribution at the moment to be quite valuable.
	Absolutely. Three thumbs up from the guy with three hands.
	Greg has amazing things to offer.
	GM is a great contributor and a good personal friend to me.
	Yes. Hugs to you, buddy. Especially now.
	Yes. So, unless they're all lying, which, okay, that's 50-50, but let's assume that they're not.
	I think that it's safe to say that you do have things to contribute, right?
	Yeah, and, yeah, I mean, thanks to you all, because I do enormously appreciate it, and I feel the same just gratefulness that you, like when you mentioned the other night.
	So I don't feel the resentfulness that would come if this were my core belief that I don't have value.
	So I think that's a good indication of that.
	Don't worry, that will come back when you next have to reply to an email, but you'll be able to work through it.
	And of course, the thing to do is come into the chat room or talk on Skype or give someone you know or care about a call and say, here's where I am.
	I want to respond to this thing, but I'm feeling X, Y, and Z, right?
	You know, I mean, don't do all of this alone.
	That's why we have a community, right?
	Right, right. We never think of that in these moments, right?
	Oh no, I blanked out and I just felt alone.
	I was sitting on my bed and I was like, you know, I just went through what this guy went through less than a half a year ago.
	And then I just blanked and felt so alone.
	And it completely skipped my mind that there were probably at least ten people online on Skype or Yahoo or whatever that I could have sent a message to, right?
	And who would have been honored to help you.
	I mean, it's a beautiful thing.
	It's a beautiful thing to reach out to someone when you're in distress, right?
	I mean, I have this true honor so often in my life, and this is something that I'm just so enormously grateful for, for people's trust in this area.
	It is an incredibly beautiful thing For someone to reach out in grave or great distress.
	It's a noble, a beautiful, a trusting, a magnificent, and an honoring thing to be on the receiving end of.
	People want you to do it.
	They're honored if you do it, right?
	Oh yeah, I mean, it's just amazing when you put it that way, just how un-UPB my reactions to asking people for help can be, in that I feel honored when people ask me for help, but I feel that they will be burdened and Sigh or whatever if I ask them for help.
	It's just amazing that complete reversal of the situation.
	Oh, absolutely, yeah.
	And of course, and it's perfectly logical that you would feel this way because when you would reach out for help to your parents, that is exactly how they would react, right?
	Oh, absolutely, yeah.
	I can also tell you this, just before we move on to the next question, and this is a subtle angle to this, but while you're waiting for that, just have them all over this.
	One of your greatest fears is that you have nothing to contribute, right?
	Oh, I'm sorry, can you repeat what you just said?
	Sure, one of your greatest fears is that you have nothing to contribute, right?
	Yes. I can guarantee you that the reason that you have that fear is two-fold.
	One, you have an enormous amount to contribute, and two, you really want to contribute.
	Because remember, when we're with sadists, when sadists are our parents or cruel people are our parents, they can only hurt us because of our desires, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So that which we're the most afraid of is exactly that which we wanted the most.
	And that's why the big scar tissue was there, because our parents sniffed out that desire and used it to control us and hurt us, right?
	Oh, exactly. Yeah.
	So it's not accidental that you have this fear, and the fear that you have nothing to contribute tells you exactly what is one of the greatest things of value about you, which is your capacity and desire for contribution.
	Right, right. That does make sense, because one of the things that we work with here at FDR is that we're the greater the fear, the greater the desire in a lot of ways.
	Right, and The greater the trauma, the greater the gift that is buried, right?
	I'm not sure I follow.
	Can you maybe make that a little clearer?
	Well, think of a backyard where someone has buried a whole bunch of treasure, right?
	And they haven't done a very good job of smoothing it over.
	What do you see? You see a big lawn with a bunch of piles of earth, right?
	Mm-hmm. Right, so the earth has been attacked to put the treasure under, right?
	To bury the treasure. The wound is where the treasure is, right?
	The wound in the earth is exactly over the gold in the ground, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So it is where we have our greatest capacity for gifts, for generosity, for compassion, for beauty, for truth, for love, for kindness, for strength, for courage.
	It is exactly where we have these greatest capacities that we have the greatest amount of trauma.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, this is the paradox which says, how do you know you have something to offer, a lot to offer, which you very much want to offer, because you have this fear that you have nothing to offer, and that's how you know.
	Wow, that makes a lot of sense, and I'd never thought of it that way.
	As I said before, I don't have any trauma over not becoming a ballet dancer, right?
	Because I have the flexibility of a speaker, right?
	Oh, right, right. And because I never wanted to be a ballet dancer, nobody could mock my desire to be a ballet dancer, right?
	Right, right. So if you had never wanted to contribute, nobody would have mocked and punished you for trying to contribute.
	It's because you wanted to contribute that they had to do that, or they got to do that, right?
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
	So whatever it is that we think the least about in terms of ourselves is actually where our greatest treasure and greatest desire actually resides.
	The scar on the earth is always above the treasure.
	Wow. Wow, that was a beautiful way of putting it and I totally appreciate it.
	Oh wow, this chat has given me a lot to work with, for sure.
	I'm very glad. I'm very glad.
	Is there anything else you wanted to ask about this, or is that enough to chew on for a bit?
	Oh, I think that's enough to chew on, and just thank you so much.
	I really appreciate your help with this.
	Oh, I appreciate you bringing this topic up.
	This is a huge, huge topic, and you would be absolutely stunned to realize how widespread this is.
	This is every carbon-based life form.
	So what you bring up that is the most personal is almost always the most universal in this case, for sure.
	So thank you so much for having the honesty and for asking for help, which, of course, as I said before and still believe, is an incredibly beautiful privilege.
	And thank you so much for trusting me with that.
	Oh, my pleasure.
	Thank you. Stefan.
	Hello. Hello, this is John, Paul's friend again.
	Hello. Stefan, I personally was blessed with a pretty marvelous family, a very loving mother and a very fun-loving father who was a bookie, Big Johnny Raff.
	So I had, for the most part, a wonderful upbringing.
	I wanted to address the question of your viewpoint.
	Do you feel that there are intrinsically bad people or that they are simply acting out of their egos, acting out of programming that they received from other people?
	Well, I mean, as a philosopher, I'm going to go with, sorry to be annoying, but with none of the above.
	I think that there may be some people who are born with defective brains, where they cannot develop the capacity for empathy in the way that some people are born colorblind.
	But I would consider that to be enormously rare.
	And I would also think, because the brain is so flexible when...
	Babies are small, that there's a lot that could be done to overcome that.
	So I don't believe and I don't know of any examples, and certainly science doesn't support the supposition that people are sort of born bad.
	Because if they're born bad, then they're not bad, right?
	They just are who they are, right?
	I think that people do exhibit poorer behavior when they're raised more badly in general.
	But there's no way to determine that for sure.
	Some people, of course, who are raised badly end up as completely wonderful people because they know they have a lot of issues to deal with and therefore they end up often more healthy than the average population.
	So I think we have choices about what we're going to do when it comes to dealing with our histories.
	And those people who make wise and courageous choices to openly confront and deal with their histories end up doing a lot of good in the world.
	And those people who avoid trauma end up not doing a lot of harm in the world.
	So I think it has to do with, for me, it just comes down to personal choice in the face of where you need courage to deal with these things, if that makes sense.
	Yes.
	So you're saying the people who confront their issues and confront their difficulties, face them and work through them, actually have a greater ability to produce something of value in the world for themselves and others.
	right? Yeah, I used the metaphor before, but it's sort of like if you have a family history of heart disease, then you can either basically say, to hell with it, I'm just going to eat chips, sit on the couch, and maybe you die at 40 or whatever.
	Or you can say, Well, you know, because I have this family history of heart disease, I'm going to watch what I eat.
	I'm going to exercise.
	I'm going to keep my stress levels low.
	I'm going to do everything that I can.
	And you will actually end up healthier because of your knowledge of a history of heart disease.
	You will end up healthier than if you had never had any history of heart disease because you'll make all the better choices that put you in a lower risk category even than the average population.
	Unfortunately, our internet voice control here got very garbled, so I only got part of your answer, but I think I got the essence of it.
	Yeah, so, I mean, that's sort of my...
	Or another way of putting it, if this comes across better, is that if you break your leg, you could actually end up with a stronger leg than if you'd never broken your leg if you go through physiotherapy and if you do all the right things.
	Right. Now, do you believe that ultimately...
	We're accepting the beliefs from another person.
	We're taking them on.
	It's ultimately our choice or ultimately our response to what's going on.
	So it's not that the other person is to blame.
	It's just that they were acting out of their own insanities or their own craziness.
	And because we were not able to We didn't have the logic and the brain capacity to sort it out when we were young, that we were basically reacting to them.
	But later on in life, we can recognize that we chose to buy into that way of thinking.
	Sorry, do you mean like somebody who's raised by his parents, say some guy.
	Some guy who's raised by his parents to be religious, are you saying that he has a choice in the belief system that he absorbs as a child?
	Well, I'm saying basically later on he has a choice to look at it.
	You know, you're saying that he basically, his belief system was an automatic response to the belief system that he was being fed by his parents.
	Is that correct? Is that what you're saying?
	I would not emphasize the choice that children have when it comes to absorbing the belief, and this just statistically, right?
	I mean, kids who are born to Muslim parents in Syria tend to be, shockingly, Muslims and not worshippers of Zeus, and they tend to hold those kinds of cultural values.
	So, for sure, children have very little control over what goes into their brains any more than a baby has control over what goes into its body.
	Right. Understood.
	But I would say that the parents are to blame, for sure.
	I mean, the parents are responsible.
	The children are less responsible, but certainly as you become an adult, your responsibility levels increase and the parents can't be held completely unresponsible.
	And it depends, of course, if you are living in Syria in the 12th century, it's hard to blame you for not having a knowledge of science and reason and so on, because these things would have been heavily punished or generally unavailable.
	But that's not the case anymore, right?
	Any parent who has access to a library or the internet or, I don't know, Oprah and Dr.
	Phil to start with has some knowledge about what happens and better ways to do things.
	And, of course, it really comes down to when it comes to things like verbal abuse and physical abuse of children.
	The dividing line between crazy and corrupt is, do they do it in public?
	If other families are over, or if the play date is over, does the mother call the kid stupid and bad, or does that only occur in private?
	If it only occurs in private, then she knows it's wrong, she's capable of not doing it, but she just chooses to indulge herself when she has the kid all to herself, and that makes it corrupt rather than ignorant.
	Understood. But you're not inviting us to blame them, right?
	You don't consider there's any value in getting into blame.
	Well, I'm not sure what you mean by blame.
	Perhaps you could tell me a little more what you mean by that.
	When you say blame, you say, well, it's their fault that I'm screwed up.
	You know, where you're assigning the cause outside of yourself.
	Yes, they did this.
	Yes, I bought into it.
	Yes, that was not a non-optimum action.
	They were acting out of their...
	Whatever they were acting out of, either some evil intention or some ignorance, or their idea that that was the right thing to do, or they're upset because they were blaming somebody else for their condition.
	But you're not inviting us to go blame them to say, oh, you know, to have a lowering of affinity for them because of what they did.
	Well, I don't know what...
	I'm not sure what you mean exactly by blame.
	Certainly, I would assign responsibility to parents.
	Responsibility means they cause those things.
	That's simplicity.
	Well, sure. If my mother hits me, then she's responsible for hitting me.
	Absolutely. She was the one who hit me.
	But now, if I am going to Hate her, dislike her, not talk to her anymore.
	Those are my chosen responses.
	Rather than to say that's what she did, I can either respond negatively to it, positively, or neutral.
	Neutral is that's what happened, period.
	Well, sure. And I would say, for instance, my mother did hit me, and my response to that was to sit down and talk about it with her and with the extended family and attempt to get some of these skeletons out of the closet, and she was continuing to be verbally abusive into my 30s.
	And, you know, I asked for better treatment.
	I said that this behavior cannot continue.
	I wanted some honesty within the family.
	And I was roundly rejected by that.
	The family structure, the family cycle of abuse was too strong for my reasoning to break through that.
	And so I have not seen my mother in nine years now.
	I haven't seen my father in probably a decade and my brother in years now as well.
	That's taking responsibility for the health of my environment, right?
	I mean, if you have toxic people who won't change, then I think it is an active responsibility to get those people out, particularly, you know, I don't want to drag my wife into that, it's not her fault.
	Certainly don't want to drag my kid in and have my kid exposed to this kind of toxicity, so I think that that's a responsible action.
	You know, the same way that a wife who's being beaten should leave her husband, I view the same thing with family who is abusive.
	Absolutely. So, in other words, you attempted to sort it out using communication.
	It didn't work, so you just separated out from it.
	Oh, sure. Yes, absolutely.
	Okay. Beautiful. Yeah, that makes sense.
	Well, thank you. Certainly a good clarification.
	And it is a question that comes up a lot.
	Of course, there are some philosophies which say, you know, family is everything and you must always forgive, but I think that's not valid.
	I think not to lose love, not to fall into the trap of losing love because what was done or not done.
	I mean, that's a trap.
	Well, sure. And it is because I wanted to retain my capacity for joy and attachment that I had to get the destructive people out of my life so that I could love my wife more fully without, you know, this queasy feeling of having to go and see my family who is, you know, pretty strange and nasty.
	Absolutely. In other words, it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep yourself in an environment that's constantly interbulating you.
	Yeah, for sure that is going to generate frustration and helplessness and anger.
	I mean, who wants that, right?
	Life is too short. Absolutely.
	It makes sense. So, you know, the fundamental formula is handle if you can and if you can't, get away.
	Yes, I think so.
	And the handle, if you can, is even if you think you can't, it's still worth knowing.
	As long as there's no physical danger, it's still worth knowing for sure.
	So I've never regretted the time that I invested attempting to, let's say, elevate the discourse in my family, my family of origin.
	I've never regretted that time, and it gave me a lot of freedom when I decided to cut off Conte.
	Beautiful. Thank you, Stefan.
	Thank you. I appreciate it.
	Excellent questions. I consider you very wise because you agree with me.
	That's a joke.
	Even though I've never met you, I think that it's you who's been in my mind when I try to evaluate my theories.
	So I'm very glad to have met you finally, which is called my muse.
	It's a delight to have you in the world.
	Thank you. I appreciate that.
	Alright, we have time for another question, or a pas de deux, if anybody had anything to...
	Yes? Hello? Hello?
	I kind of wanted to take this back to what Greg was talking about earlier.
	I had something to add to that.
	Yesterday, I... I had a very strange experience in the chatroom with you.
	I had the urge to say something that I felt really anxious about saying because I kind of thought that it might sound kind of annoying.
	Sure, sorry. What was the interaction?
	I don't know if it was entirely as honest until I realized it wasn't as honest as it could have been had I said something else.
	What was the interaction?
	You had said something along the lines of tolerance being a vice for Intolerance, something like that.
	Just for those who weren't around for this chat, if I remember it rightly, there was a fellow who came in who said, you know, could not religion be a metaphorical reinterpretation of reality?
	And I somewhat flatly, though not unkindly, said, no, it is not the case that religion is a metaphorical interpretation of reality.
	A poem, a play, and a movie that is called fiction, that advertises itself as fiction, is a metaphorical interpretation of reality.
	But religion is not, right?
	Religion claims metaphysical truth, and it does not claim metaphorical interpretations of reality, but rather claims that it is the absolute truth, which creates falsifiable statements, and blah blah blah.
	So I was quite rejecting of this fellow.
	And he really, you know, kind of clung to his thesis and so on.
	And then at the end, just before he said he had to go for dinner with his parents, he said, Well, I like to have intellectual honesty and integrity to give the benefit of doubt even to my enemies, and that's why I have a tolerance and openness towards religion.
	All of these things which are, you know, smiles on top of the table and hobnailed kicks to the shins under the table.
	In other words, when somebody comes and says, Well, I'm the opposite of you because I'm tolerant, wise, understanding, and intelligent, right?
	It's like, hey, thanks, right?
	So this idea that we should be tolerant towards the intolerant is something that I consider to be quite a vice among intellectuals.
	But is that the conversation that you were discussing?
	Yes, yes.
	And when you said that, I felt really anxious.
	Because what I wanted to add to that was something...
	Like, I had the urge to...
	I had something totally typed out.
	Then I realized that, well, here I am trying to explain something to Steph that he already knows.
	I mean, why am I... You gave a metaphor one time a long time ago about, like...
	If a surgeon wants to amputate a leg, telling them that the patient can't walk is just kind of insulting.
	I wanted to say something along those lines, and I realized, oh, this is one of those annoying questions, situations, so I need to sit here and think about what it was that I was feeling.
	And then you left the chat room, I think, right around that time.
	I'm not sure. And then I went to a movie last night, and while I was in the elevator on the way up to the parking garage, it hit me what it was I was feeling.
	What it was I could have said, to be really honest, because I'm trying to up my commitment to honesty after that phone call.
	I thought, well, I had nothing to add or anything I say is going to be attacked or anything like that.
	Then I realized, well, I just wasn't being honest in that moment.
	I could have just said, well, that statement makes me feel anxious because isn't it intolerant to be Not tolerant of the intolerant, and doesn't that just all tie us up in this big contradiction of, you know, you can't possibly be tolerant of everything.
	Well, in your life, you didn't obviously remain tolerant of Rachel's intolerance, right?
	Exactly, right.
	Sorry, but that didn't mean that you were going to hound her until the end of time, screaming at her that she's intolerant, right?
	Right. But you did not tolerate her irrationalities, neuroses, which is just another way of saying intolerances or bigotries on her part.
	So intolerance for intolerance seems to me a healthy thing.
	It doesn't put you in the same category any more than self-defense puts you in the category of initiating violence.
	Right. Right.
	But if I'm intolerant of intolerance, then that, I know that I'm stating the obvious here and you totally know this, then I'm also being intolerant, which makes me intolerant of myself, I guess.
	Okay, I got you until the last bit.
	I didn't get how that makes you intolerant of yourself.
	Because if I'm being intolerant, I'm an intolerant of intolerance that makes me intolerant of my being intolerant.
	Okay, you're making me all kinds of blonde hair.
	And maybe I'm just being blonde and I'm...
	No, listen, I think I understand what you're saying.
	You feel intolerant of something, right?
	Right. Which is intolerant.
	Well, don't give me a right, because this is an unconscious thing then.
	Don't give me that, you know, uh-huh, right?
	Because this is a complex thought, right?
	If you, Nate, feel intolerant of something, consciously or unconsciously, and then I say, we should reject the intolerant, that would make you feel anxious, right?
	Right, because I'm intolerant of...
	Because I'm saying we should not talk to Nate.
	We should reject Nate. Essentially.
	Just logically. Not literally, but logically.
	Well, emotionally, that's how you would experience it, right?
	So what would happen is you'd say, well, Steph is saying we should all reject Nate the same way that we all reject intolerant people, right?
	Right. And you would experience that to be humiliating, right?
	A put-down. Sort of.
	Yes, yes, I think so.
	Okay, so if you would experience that as a put-down, then your desire would be to level up with me, right?
	Yes. And you would do that by stating something blindingly obvious and being annoying, right?
	Because when you state something that is blindingly obvious, then you are putting someone down, right?
	Like if I say, Nate, now remember, the earth is round.
	I mean, that's annoying because it's insulting, right?
	Yeah, it's kind of leveling.
	Well, it is leveling, not just kind of.
	So the question is, how did you experience, we'll call this fellow Bob, and sorry to talk about you like you're not here, but...
	Hey, you're not here. So this fellow Bob, when he was talking about tolerance and open-mindedness and intellectual integrity and curiosity with regards to religion, how did you experience that?
	Because for me, certainly he seemed to get Greg's spleen in all kinds of Gordian knots, I just experienced it as mild irritation and a kind of ignorant condescension that I just assumed was unconscious.
	Like, this guy probably is, you know, the big fish in the little pond problem, right?
	So he's probably one of the smarter guys in his area.
	And he hasn't come up against some of the basic questions which you would bring up to bear.
	If he can go around saying religion is just a metaphor, when religion clearly does not portray itself as a metaphor or as fiction, but rather as a metaphysical truth.
	Obviously epistemological and moral truth.
	Then clearly he hasn't come up against any particularly good debaters or philosophically inclined people before.
	And so he's kind of written his windbag sky balloon too high, right?
	And now he's come across a big gale which puts him down.
	And so because he felt humiliated by having missed the basic fact that religion does not portray itself as metaphorical but factual, So he felt put down by my questions and by Greg's somewhat less friendly rejoiners, which were valid.
	So he felt put down by us, and so he had to level up with us by pumping up his own intellectual integrity and moral superiority and putting us down, right?
	Right, which is intolerant.
	Well, it's certainly dishonest, right?
	Right. And it is hard.
	When we come across that basic fact, the first time we come across this basic fact, which is, hey, the state does run on violence.
	How come nobody told me that?
	And hey, I've been talking for years to people about how religion is metaphorical, and not one person has pointed out the basic fact that it's not, that it claims to be a valid and empirical and universal truth.
	So that's kind of humiliating, right?
	Because it means that either people don't care about what I'm saying, or they're frightened, or I've been basically talking in a language that people don't even understand for years, and I haven't noticed that, and no one's pointed it out to me, right?
	Right. That's really scary for people, right?
	They think they're on solid ground, and they're living in some, you know, acid-drenched sky castle of clouds, right?
	Right. So he got really anxious about all of that, so he felt like he was falling down a well, and he threw us down to break the fall, right?
	Right. So how did you experience that interaction?
	Well, I just found it to be very sort of just irritating, like you say, just very high-horsed.
	It sounded... I'm very familiar.
	Well, this had to be something that is familiar to you, right?
	So when somebody gives you some windbaggy theory and you point out the basic contradiction in it, or the basic, like, do you not even understand what religion is and you're theorizing about it?
	You don't even know that religion says that it's true and you're theorizing about it?
	Like, is that retarded or what?
	So when somebody comes up with a big windbaggy theory to you and you point out a basic fact that they've missed, which of course we often do when we talk about taxation being coercion, where has that shown up in your life prior to FDR? In my relationships, all of them. Your relationship with the women, right?
	Especially. This tolerance thing.
	This... Well, they would just say, well, I guess I'm just more tolerant, and I try to be more tolerant of the bigoted, prejudicial beliefs of religious people.
	Well, of course, they don't describe it as being bigoted and prejudicial, but...
	Yeah, they don't know any better.
	This is how they grew up. That's all they know.
	They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're saying.
	They've never been exposed to different things.
	And I find that if I'm patient and curious and considerate and open-minded and this and that, then people really do begin to think.
	So they're giving you a big lecture on how to change people, right?
	And yet these are women who can't even change some basically self-destructive patterns within their own lives.
	They're giving you big lectures on how to convert Christians.
	And I'm sure that's where a lot of irritation comes into play, not to mention just the contradictions involved with just that.
	Yeah, there's a huge amount of rage behind blinding contradictions, right?
	Right. And so when somebody comes up, like the guy who came up a little while back in the chat room, and the chat room is just fascinating for this stuff, in my opinion.
	The guy who comes up and says, Well, it's the quest for self-esteem that makes you insecure, right?
	And he was pretty abrasive and abrupt about it.
	Oh, it's just psychobabble. Ah, dreams mean nothing.
	All this kind of stuff, right?
	I remember that, yes.
	So that guy, I mean, I wasn't there for the conversation, but the question for me would be then, so you would view yourself as a very strong representative of somebody who has good mental health, right?
	He would have to, because he's lecturing other people on mental health, right?
	Right. Right. And then I would ask him and I would have said, so do you think that other people are enjoying what you're saying or not enjoying what you're saying?
	Because if he says, well, they are enjoying what I'm saying, then I would say, well, I'm not, and I don't think anyone else is.
	Perhaps other people in the chat room can give a hallelujah if they say they are enjoying stuff.
	And because we're not crazy, other people would say, I'm not enjoying it.
	Oh, I didn't like it. I found it kind of...
	In which case, he can't even process how he lands for people.
	How is that mental health?
	You don't even know how you're coming across to other people.
	You think that you're healing them when you're in fact slapping them senseless.
	I mean, how is that a doctor, right?
	Exactly.
	Or he would say, I don't think that I'm coming across well to other people.
	In which case, he also doesn't look like somebody who's got a lot of mental health, because then it would be like, well, if you want to talk to people about your theories, why is it that you would start off by irritating them, right?
	And he would have to then answer that question.
	None of these things would lead towards an indication that he had good mental health, right?
	So when someone comes in and says, I know about mental health, you people are all idiots, I'm secure and confident, be like, well, you just called us idiots, so how does that fit into your theory?
	That kind of blinding contradiction always masks, it's an impossible situation, it always masks a lot of anger, right?
	All right, this is the, even in the moment, this is what you were saying afterwards about just, I was trying to address the content, I guess, of what he was saying by asking questions, but you had come in and said, well, I didn't even need to go through all that because I could have just said, in the moment, how are we perceiving you now?
	Yeah, do you know how you are coming across to me now?
	What do you think that I am feeling when you come in and basically say, we're all stupid and we've been wasting our time with this quest for philosophical truth?
	How do you think that I feel when you say that?
	Now, a sophisticated person will say, you don't feel good because you don't like the truth.
	Because you're being defensive or whatever.
	I'm telling it like it is.
	And I could have done that, I think, had I recognized the anxiety I felt and the fear I would have felt if I told him how I was feeling in the moment.
	Right. And so when people say, well, I'm telling you the truth and the reason that you're getting upset is because you don't like the truth, you can't handle it, all that kind of stuff, right?
	In which case, I would simply ask them and say, did you know that we would be defensive about this before you came in?
	And if he says, well, yes, I knew you would be defensive, it's like, well, is then being abrupt and dismissive and kind of insulting the best way, in your experience, to deal with people who are defensive?
	Or should you be more gentle and curious and help overcome their defenses that way?
	So there's just no good way that he can ever get out of that room, right?
	Because if he knows we're being defensive ahead of time, then he took completely the wrong approach, right?
	It's like, I knew the deer was shy, so I tried to approach it with an air horn.
	It's like, well, that's just retarded, right?
	Or he's going to say, well, no, you weren't defensive when I started.
	It's like, so then your actions have caused or at least promoted our defensiveness, right?
	Do you find that as helpful to take people who are not defensive and then make them defensive and irritated to get your ideas across, right?
	And this is all just about your experience in the moment, right?
	That's just real honesty.
	Like, do you know how I am feeling when you address me in this manner?
	Or what is your experience of how I'm feeling?
	That is just so important to establish, right?
	This is what I talk about in Practical Anarchy, right?
	The two sides of the table.
	Do you even notice that I'm on the other side of the table here when you're talking to me?
	Right. And I think I can really get this when I contrast this with...
	My honest confession of how I felt with, we'll just call him, his initials TM, when he came in while I was talking to Paul about, you know, in the chatroom.
	I think that was Friday. Just when this guy came in and started making these comments, and I said, well, my first experience of you is irritation.
	And that felt a lot different compared to, you know, this other guy who came in talking about self-esteem.
	Right, right. Now, but you have a little bit of a habit of, and this is not just you, but you have a habit of saying, I feel irritation.
	And that's it, right? Right.
	I feel irritated. Right?
	Which is like, I took a dump on your silverware, could you clean it up for me?
	Right? Yeah.
	Well, I'm trying to say, you know, this is how I feel and I don't know why.
	But then you have to come up with at least some thoughts, right?
	Because otherwise it's up to everyone else to fix your problem, right?
	And you will find over time that people become less and less interested in doing that if they're the only people who are working to fix your problem, right?
	And I'm sort of recreating the reason why I avoid doing that in the first place because I don't want to be a burden and all that stuff.
	Right. Well, trust your instincts.
	If the way that you're doing it is making you feel like a burden, then you probably are being a burden, right?
	Right. Or you can say to people, I have this urge, do I seem to be a burden to you?
	Just like, be completely honest with me.
	When I bring up, I feel anxious.
	Do you feel an eagerness to help me with my issue?
	Do you kind of roll your eyes and say, I don't know that I have 45 minutes to step mate through all this again?
	Right. Right. If it is the case that people don't have that, then it's up to you, certainly at this point in your sophistication of the conversation, if you want, it's up for you to find a different way of interacting with people in order to get them to continue to be enthusiastic about helping you.
	Right. Which is to not sit there, I feel anxious because, but rather this is some thoughts I have on why I might be anxious.
	Yeah, I mean, all the basics, right?
	I felt anxious when this happened.
	I started to feel like it's the chat room you can scroll up.
	You say, when this guy said this, I felt anxious.
	And then I felt more anxious here.
	And see, the thing is, what you do, Nate, is you only talk about your own feelings, right?
	What I've not seen you say is, I felt anxious when this person did X. Did anyone else experience that as well?
	Huh. That's a very good point.
	Because you're like, well, I felt anxious.
	Help me. It's like, why?
	But if it's like, I experienced this, did anyone else experience that?
	that.
	And if people say no, say, well, that's interesting.
	What did you experience when this happened?
	And you get the round table, right?
	About this thing happened, you know, what did you feel and what did you feel?
	And, you know, that can help also delineate where you are.
	If everybody feels the same thing, then you can have a communal conversation that's not just about you, right?
	And if other people felt something quite different, you can keep asking them about their feelings, which will help highlight your own over time.
	Hmm.
	Just getting feedback.
	Well, it's, you know, because if you say everybody should be interested in my feelings and everybody should be curious about my feelings, and you don't apply that as a UPB thing, people will stop their eyes after a while, right?
	Right. That makes a lot of sense.
	I'm hungry. Everybody should pay for my dinner, right?
	It's like, well, after a while, people are going to be like, I don't know so much about this, right?
	But if we should all be interested in each other's feelings, right, then you should be interested in other people's feelings, too, and all that kind of stuff, if that makes sense.
	Right, I definitely need to remember that.
	That's quite important, I think, for not recreating the very reasons why I tend to avoid And to your credit, to make sure that we highlight the things that you do very well as well, to your credit, you are fantastic at asking other people about their feelings.
	So I don't want other people who hear this, or even for you, to be left with the impression.
	But for you, as for most people, the challenge is, how do we both feel at the same time?
	Because for a lot of families, dysfunctional families in particular, the best that they can manage is emotions are like the talking stick that they have in some families.
	Only the person with the stick can do the talking.
	It's like you can have feelings or someone else can have feelings but you can't both have them at the same time.
	Because feelings always become a black hole and you have to just sit and stare at the person who's having the feelings and you can't have any feelings of your own because you're like a therapist or something.
	Oh, that makes so much sense.
	Right. The trick of the challenge is, we can all have feelings, and that's fantastic.
	And that is what a community, in fact, is, right?
	We all think and feel and communicate, and it's not me, then you.
	We can 69 these feelings.
	That's sort of what it is that I'm trying to say.
	Yeah, this kind of feedback really helps because, yeah, I need to ask for feedback more until I get this, you know, down pat, I think, on, you know, what is y'all's perception of me and what, you know, what do you...
	And that's a very, I think, vulnerable question for me to ask because I'm afraid of asking that.
	Yeah, I felt this, what did you feel, right?
	You can both have feelings.
	you can both discuss your feelings because that brings people really close, right?
	Right.
	I need to write that down and put it on a sticky along with this other thing.
	Yeah, think of it, you know, like tennis or something like that, right?
	Tennis, you hit the ball back and forth.
	You don't watch someone hit the ball against the wall and then you take over ten minutes later, right?
	And then you measure scores, right?
	You play with each other, right?
	And I think that would be the metaphor, I think, that would be around communication, right?
	I feel this. What do you feel?
	Not, I feel this, now help me with my feelings, right?
	Or, I'm going to sit there and help your feelings as if I'm a robot and have no feelings of my own, right?
	I mean, a good therapist shares her experiences with her patient, right?
	A good therapist brings emotions, and I'm not saying that we have to treat each other like therapists, but I just want to, even in a therapeutic situation, right?
	How Christina feels about a patient and what the patient is doing in the moment is certainly part of her communication, right?
	When you said this, I felt this, what did you feel, right?
	Right, and I'd love to make this whole environment, this whole community, even more therapeutic than it already is.
	I'd love to work on this part, for sure.
	It's honest, too, because if you think about it, if you suddenly feel anxious about a particular person in the chatroom, let's say, whatever it is that's going on, aren't you curious if other people feel that, too?
	Yes, and I think instead of asking, I tend to just expect them to say me too or something rather than, yeah.
	No, you don't. I mean, sorry.
	You don't, because if they don't say me too, you don't ask, right?
	What did you say? Well, you don't because, I mean, objectively, if you had expected them to say Me Too and they didn't say anything, you would ask them, but you don't, right?
	And it's not because you're a bad or selfish person or anything like that.
	It's simply because in your family, if one person was having a strong feeling, everybody else had to kind of freeze and not feel, right?
	Because it was dangerous. Huh.
	Like when my mom was like storming around the kitchen, slamming cabinets and so on, everyone else froze, right?
	They could never say, Mom, you're really kind of making me nervous.
	Well, what's going on, right? Because then you just blow up at you, right?
	Right. So the feelings becomes like a lion in the room.
	You can't focus on anything else until the lion is put to sleep or something.
	But more mature and relaxed relationships are, oh, you're feeling this.
	Well, I'm feeling this. And when did this occur for you?
	And we can both share our feelings because they're not dangerous predators that are out to hurt people.
	Yeah, and I'm already thinking of several incidences where I haven't done that.
	Where it would have been really helpful.
	Right, and it's not helpful, but genuinely aren't we curious whether other people have the same experiences that we do?
	And we're not curious with manipulative people because we know they're never going to tell us the truth and whatever lies they tell us will hurt us in some way.
	But I'm genuinely curious.
	When I have a strong emotional reaction to something, I'm always curious to find out if other people do, right?
	So I read an article that really cheeses me off.
	I'll sort of say on the board, this really cheeses me off.
	What other people think? Or I'll ask Christina, what did you think of this article or whatever, right?
	Because I'm kind of curious whether or not other people are having the same experience.
	It's kind of like in that film, A Beautiful Mind, John Nash, at the end, when someone new comes up to him, he turns to the person next to him and says, do you see that person?
	Because he's got this habit of seeing invisible people, right?
	I experienced this when this happened.
	What did you experience? It's a way of also treating somebody else as a safe and trustworthy person, which nine times out of ten will actually help keep them that way.
	I don't think I've been curious, but I think you've given me a very good reason to be curious.
	No, I'm saying that you are already curious.
	It's just that your curiosity was kind of pounded out of you by a dangerous family where to be curious about emotions was to go on a rollercoaster ride into hell, right?
	Yeah, that was definitely a dangerous thing.
	Feelings were dangerous. I wasn't even allowed to tell them how I was feeling, much less be curious about anybody's feelings.
	Right, right. And we don't want to recreate that situation where it's an either-or.
	Only one of us can feel at any given time, and the other person has to, you know, nurse them through that feeling and have no feelings of their own.
	I think that's the sort of convalescence ward model of interactions with feelings, and I think that we can let that kind of history go and just be more lively and curious about the general emotional tenor of people's experience in the present.
	Yeah, that would be wonderful.
	Wonderful. Thank you very much.
	This is very, very helpful feedback.
	Oh, it's great questions. You know, great questions, as always, from you guys.
	They've always come up with the most fascinating stuff that I think is really, really helpful for people in general.
	I'm just astounded that I can bring useful answers out of my ass on a continual basis.
	I'm talking about the baby like clowns coming out of a Volkswagen in a circus.
	I think if I bend over, I can see the inspiration.
	I just wanted to mention those are all great questions and I really do appreciate those.
	Sorry, out of a donkey that I have in the basement.
	Sorry, go ahead. Are we done with N8? Is that enough to munch over?
	Yes, beautiful. Thank you.
	Great question. Very well done. Okay, I have a question.
	Yes. I'm still dealing with closure issues and I'm wondering what's the best way to get closure in a relationship?
	You mean the one you just had?
	Yeah. Alright.
	You and I might use the word relationship in slightly different ways, but perhaps you can make the case for me that it was a relationship.
	Oh. Okay, I feel kind of nervous.
	No, and you could be right.
	I find myself feeling not sympathetic.
	To where you're at.
	And obviously, for those who don't know, it's not because I'm a cold and nasty person, or rather not exclusively because of that, but because JC and I have had a history with regards to this relationship where I said, for God's sake, don't do it, at the beginning, and repeated it several times.
	And then he moved to Seattle to be with the woman, and it lasted, I think, two days, and then he moved back.
	So my sympathy level isn't that high, right, simply because it was so predictable in advance and everybody said the same thing.
	But that doesn't mean that I don't want to be sympathetic, right?
	So I don't know whether to deal with this as if you have lost a relationship or as the result of something else.
	So I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm certainly happy to hear the case as to this internet thing that you moved to Seattle to be with the woman with, whether that was a real relationship or not.
	I'm certainly happy to hear that case, but I'm not sure that I would see it that way.
	Why not? Why wouldn't you?
	Why wouldn't I see it as a relationship?
	Yeah. Well, because of the stuff that you and I talked about in the podcast that has no name, which won't be published, which is that you did very specific things when you got there against your better judgment, her deepest needs, that you kind of took what you wanted and knowing that that was going to lead to enormous difficulties and you did exactly what would be the most harmful thing to your relationship.
	Based on your history, which means that who she was as an individual can simply not have been very visible to you, if at all, if that makes sense.
	Okay, but...
	Yeah, that makes a bit more sense to me, but then why do I feel so awful about it right now?
	Well, but what is it that you feel awful about, right?
	I mean, for instance, we've talked briefly about how this is a Simon the Boxer thing for you.
	You know, love equals disaster, sex and lust equals disaster, and rejection, and nothing works out, and it's all futile.
	You know, the macabre or dark side streak, in fact, more than a streak that you have, which we talked about when you were up on the barbecue based on your Reading list or any choice of books, right?
	Everything that's apocalyptic and evil in the universe finds its home on your bookshop and you have a cynical or a dark side right to your interpretation of the world and that this disaster which was so evidently and obviously predictable from the very beginning you pursued against the advice of people whose relationship you respect and whose judgment you respect Which means that you wanted to get to this place,
	right? So I don't know if we're talking about a genuine and valuable relationship that you lost, or you kind of like to confirm your worst suspicions and this was a way of doing that.
	No, I don't really get that.
	I mean, I really... I kind of feel that it was valuable and that we did share a lot of ourselves with each other.
	But does that not constitute a relationship?
	I mean, because I guess we talked a lot but didn't act on it intelligently.
	Well, I have no idea because I don't know what any of your conversations were, but I do know that you moved there, obviously, with the goal of being with this woman for many years, if not the future for permanent, right?
	Yeah. So you were hoping to spend the rest of your life with this woman.
	You broke up in two days, right?
	More or less, yeah. I mean, that does indicate a lack of knowledge of the other person, right?
	Uh... Yeah, I mean, I think so, but it also seems to me that I knew everything I needed to know and didn't really act on it.
	Yeah, no, and I agree with that, but that means that you didn't want the relationship then, right?
	I seem to want it.
	Oh no, I understand that you seem to want it for sure, but you couldn't have acted more decisively to end it.
	And I'm not saying it was all your fault or anything, but just in terms of your knowledge and your approach, right?
	Yeah, and...
	I don't know. It seems like I acted really impulsively to go, also.
	I mean, I didn't have to go.
	I could have just, you know, moved out or something, but I, like, moved back to, you know, I went back across the country and kind of, it was like a snap decision, but I don't know if it was, it was like an intelligent snap decision or a stupid and irresponsible one.
	I'm not sure. Well, I don't know that assigning it to either of those two categories is going to help advance you in self-knowledge, right?
	Why not? Well, because how do you know it's either one of those?
	I can't right now, I don't think.
	So don't give it labels if you don't know, right?
	No, but I mean, I'm trying to figure it out because it's still really, really bothering me.
	Well, tell me what the emotion is that you're having trouble with because closure is not an emotion, right?
	So what's the feeling that you're having trouble with?
	Sadness. It doesn't hit me when I'm sleeping, but when I wake up I just feel really sad and just kind of carry it with me throughout the day.
	And what is the sadness about?
	I think it's about loss.
	I don't know. I like talking and making somebody, you know, happy during the day and smiling and joking and stuff like that and just having somebody to share life with.
	It just seems really lonely and darker than it was before.
	So JC, sorry, it's Christina.
	Is this sadness about this young woman or is this sadness about not being in a relationship?
	No, I think it's about this woman in particular.
	And when you feel the sadness, what are the thoughts that go through your mind?
	That I screwed up things very badly, and that I'm probably not going to be able to find somebody as impressive as she was ever again.
	Thank you.
	And do you think that those are rational thoughts?
	Based on what you know about her and based on what happened when you were out on, I guess, East Coast, West Coast?
	I'm not sure if they are or not.
	Right. So maybe the sadness, maybe the, I mean, I'm not saying that the sadness isn't real, but maybe it's based on some irrational interpretations of what actually happened.
	No, I mean, it could.
	It's just, I mean, I don't, I didn't feel like this at all in my, uh, with, Breaking out of my last relationship, which was way more, I guess, for relief.
	I was sad, but I didn't feel like I was giving up something very significant.
	I mean, I didn't really have a lot of respect for my An ex back six months ago.
	Although I didn't treat this young woman with respect, I still have a lot of intellectual respect for her at least.
	I think I do, it's just I didn't act that way at all.
	And how do you feel about your own actions?
	It just seems so dumb.
	It's like looking back at something that I've written and finding that every other word is a spelling mistake or something.
	Just like it was totally brainless.
	And do you think that if you had acted differently, that this relationship would have had a different outcome?
	Kind of looking back, when I had the first conversation with Steph about this relationship, I sent an email that I think pretty much said things completely dead on, that I wasn't ready for it, and that I wouldn't be able to handle that I wasn't ready for it, and that I wouldn't be able to handle us talking because that would
	And just reading that, it was just like, wow, I was completely dead on about that.
	But I guess the next couple months were just spent either fooling myself that we were ready for a relationship or that it was something that it wasn't.
	I mean, I'm not really sure.
	You know, it's interesting because you said initially that you feel a lot of sadness, and you said that it was about this particular relationship, and I'm getting a sense that that's not really the truth about the core root of the sadness.
	Okay. Why do you think that is?
	What else do you think it could be that's making you feel sad?
	that because I'm not going to answer that for you right away.
	I don't know.
	I'm kind of accustomed to being in a relationship and using that to prop up my ego a bit.
	Because, I don't know, I think it probably gives me an artificial boost that's not there when I'm by myself.
	That definitely could be part of the loneliness that you feel if you're not in a relationship, for sure.
	But given that you had some evidence, not even about this woman, but about yourself, and you didn't listen to your own instincts about where you were at, how do you think you'd feel about that?
	But that I didn't pay attention to it?
	I feel nothing about that.
	I don't know.
	I don't know, I just kind of felt numb right now.
	I think that you need to focus on...
	You had all this information, and we all do.
	I mean, everything is right in front of us all the time.
	And you even said that you wrote an email to staff outlining some of your thoughts about what might happen or where you were at.
	And you didn't listen to yourself.
	And there's no crime in that.
	We do that. But there are always lessons to be learned from that in retrospect or when we're, I guess, in kind of the situation that you're in right now.
	So you had these thoughts about what might happen.
	You didn't listen to yourself.
	And then the relationship ended somewhat quickly or abruptly.
	And I don't have all the details because for a variety of reasons.
	I mean, your conversation with Steph was private and he didn't share all of that with me.
	And so the relationship ended rather abruptly or quickly, and now you're back in New York, as I understand it, and you're feeling sadness.
	And I'm wondering if part of the sadness that you're feeling hasn't something to do with the fact that you had this information, you didn't listen to yourself, and maybe there are some thoughts that you have about yourself in this situation, that maybe there are some self-deprecating thoughts.
	Self what thoughts? I'm sorry?
	Like I'm stupid because I didn't listen to myself or that sort of self-criticism that can lead to feelings of real sadness, worthlessness.
	I don't know if worthlessness is part of your experience right now or anything akin to that.
	Yeah, I don't know. It felt kind of like I thought that I was worth a lot more than I turned out to be.
	Right. And so when you have that perception, again, thoughts preceding our emotions, what does that perception lead you to feel?
	Sad. Sad and diminished.
	Right. Right.
	And I'm wondering if that's the sadness that you're feeling more so than about the loss of the relationship itself.
	Since you knew that the relationship was bound to fail, I guess.
	It didn't really seem that way.
	I think it was a genuine surprise.
	I don't know what that signifies, but it was a surprise to me that things went badly so quickly.
	Okay, and perhaps, and again, because I don't have all the details or all the information, but based on what you've just shared here, I think what I heard you say was that you wrote an email to Steph outlining...
	Oh, no, it was to her, actually.
	Oh, to her. Okay. Outlining why this relationship or where you were at and why it wouldn't work out for you, if I'm not mistaken.
	Yeah, and then later she heard the conversation I had with Steph, actually.
	Right, so before you actually went out to meet up with her, you knew that you weren't ready, so this is, I assume it was before.
	Am I correct? Yeah, we both knew that, and I don't know, we talked a bit about, well, maybe we should wait six months or something, and I guess we tried not talking or something for a day, two days, whatever.
	It didn't last very long. Right.
	And so, again, just paying attention to the clues that you had, because then you said, it was a surprise to me that the relationship ended so quickly.
	It seemed to come out of nowhere.
	It seemed to be too quickly.
	Well, I mean, just in that short period of time, it seemed like a shock.
	But over the long period, it was almost, I don't know, it's like I wasn't even thinking about those possibilities.
	I mean, in the past that we had discussed at length, that seemed very reasonable, I mean, for both of us, because I guess we were both coming off of long relationships with very little time in between.
	I'm jumping back.
	And how long did you talk to this girl for a couple of months before you moved out, right?
	Since April. Okay, and during that conversation, during those, and you talked a lot, right?
	You talked like every day or every other day?
	Yeah, pretty constantly.
	So, if you're going to move in with someone It seems useful to me that you would have discussions about how the relationship is going to run.
	Yeah. Before Christina and I got married, we said, how are we going to adjudicate disputes?
	We flipped a coin that I never actually got to see, and Christina just said, I'll decide them all.
	But at least we had a working methodology that actually has proven to be perfectly wonderful.
	But no, we said, how is it that we're going to resolve disputes?
	Because disputes are going to come up in any relationship.
	And obviously we had ground rules, no raised voices, no name calling or anything like that, neither of which we're particularly prone to.
	But it was also, we don't go to bed angry, we work it out.
	However long it takes, we sit there and we work it out.
	That was sort of what we talked about fairly early on in the relationship.
	We talked about what is your approach to money?
	How much do you like to spend? How much do you like to save?
	What is your long-term goal in terms of do you want to live in an apartment and travel or do you want to buy a house and not so much with the traveling?
	Do you want kids?
	What is your relationship to in-laws?
	You know, all of that kind of stuff.
	Like, if you're going to try and start a life with someone...
	I mean, you don't start a business together with someone just by showing up and, you know, cranking stuff out, hopefully making some money, and then fight over the proceeds.
	You have these things worked out ahead of time, right?
	Well, we did actually discuss a lot of those things.
	And what...
	So you had discussions about how you were going to resolve your conflicts?
	Yeah. And how was it that you were going to resolve your conflicts?
	We talked through them.
	And, I mean, we had conflicts and disagreements, though not many of them.
	Like, I can think of two or three times, and I thought we talked through them very, very well.
	And I was enormously impressed with how that worked out.
	Okay, and obviously you had talked about the need for honesty and openness and curiosity, like you both read RTR, right?
	Yeah. Not that that's the source, right, or anything, but that was at least something you had the same vocabulary.
	Yes, I garbled a bit.
	But you both talked about the honesty and openness and so on in the relationship, right?
	Yeah. And you both had RTR as a reference, at least, right?
	Yes. Now, was there any indication that neither of you were going to follow the rules that you had set up for each other?
	Because you didn't do that, right, when you had conflicts, when you were together?
	Yeah, it seemed like it didn't work out nearly the same way as when we weren't together.
	It seemed like there was a lot more difficulty having extended conversation and feeling emotionally vulnerable.
	Well, and in a sense, right, as we talked about, I don't think this is anything privileged, but when you got off the plane and you came to her place, a friend of hers was there watching a Disney movie, right?
	Yeah. Which you felt was odd, but you didn't say anything.
	Yeah. And you didn't say, I feel like I want to say something, but I also feel a great deal of resistance about saying it, right?
	Yeah, I guess. Sorry, was that not correct then?
	I'm, yeah, I think so.
	Yeah, I think I am, because, I mean, I'm thinking, did I feel that anxious about it?
	I mean, I was annoyed.
	It seemed strange, but...
	Well, sure, but annoyed, seemed strange, doesn't matter, right?
	Whatever you felt, you didn't express, right?
	Yeah. And obviously, you had talked about the need for honesty in your relationship, right?
	Right. But then, I mean, I kind of started it off not...
	Being honest. Or I guess the excuse would be, oh, well, she was there.
	We didn't really have time to talk.
	We were tired or something.
	Well, but you weren't too tired for what came later, right?
	No. So that doesn't really work.
	No, no. That's why I said it was an excuse.
	Yeah, so you had these plans like, I'll live there for a day or two.
	I'll find a place. We're not going to have sex.
	We're going to date for a while and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah, they were kind of garbled.
	The plans, I mean. But you had the plans, right?
	You had the plans about how your relationship was going to run and what you were going to do when you got there, right?
	Oh, yeah, certainly. Right, and then you all just threw those plans out the window, right?
	Well, yeah, I guess so.
	Well, I'm happy to hear how you didn't.
	Well, it kind of got cut short.
	Well, but it got cut short because you threw all the plans out the window, right?
	Yeah. But the plans got thrown out the window like a couple weeks before I moved, I guess, really, for a few weeks, a month or so.
	What do you mean? I mean, talking about dating for a while first, we kind of...
	It kind of got, I think, thrown out with a lot of...
	Sexual tension, sort of.
	Oh, so this is perfect.
	So here you have your answer.
	Yeah. And what's the answer?
	What's the question? Is that, well, the sexual aspect of the relationship really obscured a lot of the other things?
	No, no, I don't mean that. Look, the sexual aspect of a relationship is fantastic.
	I don't mean that. What I mean is, because I was going to ask what indications were there that you guys couldn't stick to plan before you moved in.
	Oh, well, I mean, the plan continually changed.
	We had talked about, oh, maybe we shouldn't talk for a while.
	We should work things out before we move.
	And then, you know, the plans kept changing all the time.
	In a way that I think was more related to, I think, sexual desire than intellectual, what we knew was probably best.
	Right, so you had a thing where immediate gratification was going to displace better action, right?
	Yeah, exactly that.
	Oh, okay, so you knew ahead of time that plans were going to change, but you were going to still mouth plans.
	You weren't going to say, fuck the plans, let's rut like rabbits, right?
	I mean, that wasn't the plan, so to speak, but you kept adapting plans to meet your desire for more immediate gratification.
	Is that right? Yeah, and that...
	And then that's what happens in the relationship, right?
	All the conversations that you had ahead of time and the rules or the plans or the goals or the ideals that you'd set up just kind of went out the window, right?
	Yeah, just kind of melted out, and it wasn't...
	Well, no, no, they didn't... You keep saying it happened and melted out, right?
	I mean, these were decisions that you both made, right?
	Yeah. It didn't happen to you.
	It wasn't a third party. It wasn't an act of God, right?
	Right. It didn't melt out.
	You abandoned them.
	And you didn't talk about abandoning them, right?
	You didn't say, okay, I know we had this thing like, let's not have sex, but, you know, can we renegotiate?
	Or it's just like, okay, we'll have sex, right?
	Yeah. So the plans weren't even consciously renegotiated.
	They were just thrown out the window, right?
	Right, it was just kind of, well, I don't think we can stick to them or something like that.
	Yeah, but I mean, so clearly the standards mean nothing, right?
	Relatively. Excuse me?
	Well, the standards mean nothing, relatively, right?
	They're just talk. I'm not comfortable saying that, but I think that's pretty much what we did.
	Well, and I don't mean, this is in no spirit of criticism or condemnation or anything like that, but just working from the facts, right?
	Yeah, just from how things went.
	And that talk began, those standards began to crumble away a month or so before you even moved in together, and then they completely vaporized when you moved in together, right?
	Yeah. Exactly.
	Right. Right.
	Right. And I've put out all of these standards for truth and for falsehood and right and wrong action and UPB and this and that, right?
	And if I, I don't know, if you read, and I'm going to put this in a ridiculous context, but if you read, you know, Stephen Molyneux robbed a bank when asked why he said, I wanted a new laptop, how would you feel?
	I'd be horrified.
	But what would you think of me?
	What would your respect for me be like?
	It would drop significantly.
	Well, wouldn't it become, like, kind of disgust?
	Yeah, it would go to mud.
	Right. And this, of course, is why if you set up standards, it's important to stick to them.
	And that doesn't mean rigidly and, you know, but recognize that it's a huge thing to change mutually agreed upon standards, right?
	Yeah. But if I come up with all these standards and spend a lot of time propagating these standards of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, moral and immoral, and so on, and then I just go and act impulsively without talking about anyone, right, then I'm going to lose people's respect.
	In fact, their respect is going to be replaced with incredulous frustration, right?
	Like, what was the point of all these standards?
	Why would we waste our time with all this UPB crap if you just do what you want and justify it afterwards?
	Yeah, I think that's kind of how I feel about myself.
	Right, so the question is, who betrayed you?
	Me? No, no, I mean, sorry, that was an unclear question, my apologies.
	Who betrayed you in your childhood?
	Who had all these standards that then dissolved whenever they wanted something?
	Who taught you that standards are bullshit?
	Oh, my parents.
	I mean, that was like a...
	I guess like...
	They were very nihilistic.
	Well, but nihilistic is fine, as long as you say there are no such thing as standards.
	Yeah, I guess they were hypocrites as well.
	I mean, they acted as if they were nihilists.
	But they made up a lot of standards, I guess, also that they just broke.
	Yeah, no, I mean, it was the same in my family.
	My mother would say, you're grounded, and then she'd be bored, and she'd say, you want to go to a movie?
	Right? I mean, it was just lunatic, right?
	The standards were all nonsense, and, you know, the momentary gratification won the day, but then all these standards would be invoked again, right?
	Yeah. So you grew up with a paradigm called standards are bullshit, right?
	You talk pompously about them, but you never follow them for real.
	Right. I'm not sure this is connecting with you emotionally.
	In fact, I'm quite sure that it's not, which is fine.
	I just wanted to know where you are.
	No, I'm just...
	I'm just still upset about it because I still feel kind of blindsided by all this.
	Even though I know I shouldn't, it's still that way.
	Well, but that's not your learned behavior, right?
	That's just something that you saw.
	So, for instance, whenever you would confront your father or your mother on their lack of adherence to standards that they voluntarily put forward, what would they say?
	I don't think they would really say anything.
	They'd scream, you know. It's just not...
	Well, what would they scream?
	No, no, no, no. Actually, I do kind of remember, you know, they would kind of clam up and get secret.
	I know my mother would say something like, you know, you shouldn't know this.
	This is adult business, something like that.
	I mean, they'd kind of rush me out or they'd get really, really mad at me.
	All right, let me ask this another way.
	When someone comes up to your mother or your father now and says, why is your son not talking to you?
	Would they say, oh man, it's been a long time coming.
	We totally had a hand in this.
	Or would they say, oh, we're just so sad and blindsided.
	We had no idea. We don't know what happened.
	We were totally caught off guard.
	I think it would be something more like the letter.
	They'd be shocked. I guess they'd feign shock or something.
	Right. So do you see why I'm asking this?
	Yeah, because it is kind of like their reaction.
	Yeah, the reason that I'm not moved by your reaction is that I don't believe that it is your genuine reaction.
	I think this is just inherited habits from your family.
	Because I think of myself as a fairly compassionate fellow, and your sadness I experience as...
	Not consciously, but it doesn't move me.
	I experience it as annoying and manipulative.
	And that doesn't mean that that's true, that's just my experience of it, right?
	And since I believe that I'm a compassionate man, if I feel annoyed and manipulated by somebody's sadness, then I'm going to go at least contingently with the thesis that there's something not right, something not real that's going on.
	Yeah, well, I think I have been very manipulative, not just to, I mean, to her and to other people as well in relation to this, so that doesn't really surprise me.
	And when you came into the chat room and talked about your breakout with no mention of, and I'm sorry that I'm dumping this on.
	Sorry, I didn't hear what you just said.
	Also, when you came into the chat room and talked about the breakup with no mention of, you know, any sort of, I'm sorry that I have to burden you with this, with everyone who told me not to do it, right?
	no responsibility for the past, just, you know, I got blindsided and so on, right?
	Yeah, I can't hear you at all.
	Oh, okay. Well, forget that.
	Oh, there we go. There we go. No, I hear you now.
	Yeah, that's fine. So, do you feel that you're manipulating yourself?
	I mean, what would it mean to say to yourself, unfortunately, I was taught that rules or standards of behavior are just a pious cover for self-indulgence.
	That is the template that I inherited from my hypocritical, nasty-ass family.
	Yeah.
	I feel really horrible because I really don't want to acknowledge that.
	Why? I'm speechless.
	I can't even speak. I'm trying to...
	I'm just really afraid.
	And what are you afraid of?
	But acknowledging that, it's just...
	Don't run me in circles, brother.
	What are you afraid of?
	Maybe I'm afraid of their reaction or my parents' reaction or my reaction to acknowledging that.
	No. No, no, no.
	No, because, look, I mean, if you were so afraid of your parents' reactions to things that you did that were negative to them, you wouldn't have separated, right?
	No, yeah.
	So that's not it.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I want to say it, but I'm just frozen.
	Nothing seems to be coming out.
	Do you mean you want to say something that you know or you don't know?
	You want to say something, but you don't know what?
	Yeah, I want to say something, but I don't know what it is.
	And do you want me to keep asking questions, or do you want me to give you more of a response?
	You can give me a response.
	I think that would be more effective at edging this along.
	Okay. Are you proud of what happened with this woman?
	No, not at all. And the degree to which...
	Sorry, let me start that again.
	Your parents' portrayal and abandonment of rules was painful as hell to you, right?
	Right. Because if somebody just says there are no rules, then you don't build up any trust, right?
	True. But if somebody keeps convincing you that there are rules and then breaks them without comment, that is a real mindfuck, right?
	Yeah, it is.
	It's very confusing. No, it's not confusing.
	A Sudoku is confusing.
	It's hell. It's agony, right?
	Yeah. Because you want to trust your parents.
	You want to trust those who say that they love you and who demand that you love them.
	We want to rely on the people around us, right?
	Especially when they bring up these standards.
	You didn't ask your parents for these standards.
	You didn't demand that they give them to you.
	This is what they themselves brought to the table that then continually changed, ignored and then fogged afterwards, right?
	Yes. So somebody says, I will do X, and then they don't do X, or they do the opposite of X. And you say, you said you were going to do X. And when you get older, you realize circumstances change, you can't be so rigid, right?
	Right, that's very frightening and off-putting.
	It's horrifying because your trust is built up, you get fucked because somebody betrays you, and then you get called rigid and anal and stupid and needy For wanting trust, to trust that person, right?
	Yeah. Life isn't perfect, right?
	You get all these obvious stupid fortune cookie bullshit things, right?
	Don't be so judgmental.
	If people make mistakes, relax.
	It's okay. The world goes on, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I trusted her enough to go over there and she trusted me enough to have me move over and talk about just about everything in our lives.
	So it's just...
	That's really frightening to me that I was able I mean, I kind of did that.
	I mean, that we did that together, just kind of talked about a lot of stuff, and then didn't do it.
	Right. I mean, is not your fear deep down, JC, not that you were, in this instance, not that you were harmed by your parents, but that you have become them?
	Well, yeah, that kind of keeps happening with me, is that I act like them way too often.
	Right, right. Right, it's like when you were up at the barbecue and every topic that you brought up was dark, right?
	More or less, yeah.
	Right, and this of course is, you would rather be bringing more light sunshine ponies and unicorns to people, right?
	Yeah, I would much prefer that.
	Right, but you take a kind of dark pride in the Dostoevsky and darkness of your perspective.
	Yeah, I don't...
	I do. It's kind of stupid.
	I'm deep because I'm dark.
	I'm like the ocean. But it's not.
	I mean, I keep bringing it up and it just annoys people.
	It doesn't do anything.
	Well, I mean, there's nothing wrong with deep, but what we want is flexibility, right?
	We want to have... And we want to be happy, right?
	Sorry, you're cutting out.
	There's nothing wrong with being deep, but we also want to be...
	We want to have the capacity for other things, and there is much more depth in happiness than there is in horror, right?
	Yeah, certainly. It is the sunny seas that go down ten miles, right?
	The muddy seas only go down three feet.
	So this is the real fear, right?
	The real fear is that you are recreating your parents' behavior for other people.
	Yeah, I didn't think I was doing that, but it just sort of...
	And then pretending bewilderment after the fact, right?
	Being manipulative after the betrayal of standards, of promises, of vows in a way that you made with this woman, and implicitly with the community, to be honest, right? Right.
	So, the betrayal followed by the fogging and the neediness and the help me, although I have betrayed things which I knew to be good.
	And I am bewildered.
	I give everybody the respect of brilliance.
	Everybody I talk to, I give the respect of brilliance.
	And I think that you are brilliant.
	I know that you're brilliant.
	And I also know that you're far too intelligent a human being to seriously say to the guy who said, "This is going to be a disaster.
	I have no comprehension of how this became a disaster." I mean, that's begging me to call you on it, right?
	If you understand what I mean.
	Yeah. And, I mean, that's...
	It's what I was doing.
	It's like I'm trying to find some other reason besides the real reason why it all gets messed up.
	And this doesn't tell you anything about your nastiness or corruptibility or anything like that, because I don't want you to focus on that.
	But what this tells me is the degree of pain that you experienced through the betrayal of trust from your family that you have not processed.
	What we do not acknowledge, we recreate.
	And if we don't acknowledge it enough, we recreate it in others, not just for ourselves, right?
	Because you can't feel the depth of betrayal that your parents inflicted upon you.
	You recreate it in other people, right?
	It's a cry for help. It's a plea for understanding, for sympathy, for sight, for knowledge, for empathy, for compassion, for recognition.
	And it's not because you lack any emotional apparatus, and it's not because you have failed to process.
	It's because your childhood makes it into the top 20 brutal childhoods that I've ever heard of.
	So this is with amazing compassion.
	At least, not amazing, like, ooh, I've met.
	It's with a huge degree of compassion that I bring this piece of knowledge to you.
	It's not because you're broken.
	It's not because you missed the boat.
	It's not because you lack empathy.
	It's not because you lack compassion.
	Your chest isn't caved in, your heart is not flat because you exhale too deeply, but because you had an elephant's dysfunction sitting on your chest for 20 years.
	Because where you're going to go is, well, there's something dark about me.
	Ooh, there's something sinister about me.
	Ooh, I got the infection from my parents too deep and now I have become them and so on, right?
	But I don't believe that's the case at all.
	No, I don't really get that anymore.
	I'm kind of used to. How's what I'm saying striking you?
	I mean, it makes sense to me, but I'm just kind of worried that what happened before is going to happen again.
	I'm just going to feel so lonely and restless and just want to do something about it.
	I mean, once that feeling just kind of strikes me, it's just like, it just...
	I'm not...
	Do you have any suggestions what I should do with that kind of restless feeling that I have to go find somebody and, you know, go...
	Yeah, don't.
	Yeah. You know, sorry, I wish it were more complicated, right?
	But... I mean there's lots of things that you can do if you don't try and manage your anxiety by having sex.
	I don't want to sort of reduce it to having sex because I'm sure you'd be as happy with some significant flirting, right?
	Yeah, I mean, just that.
	It's like, that does a lot for me in and of itself.
	And look, that is not insignificant.
	There is a significant biochemical change in your body when you get romantically interested in someone.
	It is a drug. It's like a drug.
	It is a drug. And it lasts about six months.
	Right. I mean, I feel like I've been on drugs for a while, and then it's now coming off, and now I'm getting the feeling of what it was like off drugs.
	Right. And the only thing that really comes down to it, it's like the AA thing or whatever, right?
	Not to put you in this kind of addictive category, but it's like, well, how do I not have a drink?
	You keep talking, you keep being honest with people, and you don't pick up a drink.
	But there's no magic to it, right?
	It's just the hard work of not picking up the drink, right?
	Yeah, I guess...
	Now, as you continue to work on yourself and to work through the pain of this savage childhood that you experienced, which was dysfunctional and abusive on every level that I can think of, you will have less need, right?
	Because need does not breed quality, right?
	No, it certainly doesn't.
	Right? Need destroys quality.
	Need is the opposite of quality.
	I mean, if I'm fainting from hunger, I don't pick a restaurant, right?
	Like, I don't know, I'll eat something I find on the sidewalk, right?
	So you can't have quality until your need diminishes, and your need can't diminish until you work to continue being honest with yourself and others about your past and your current experience, right?
	Yeah, that kind of makes sense, but...
	And it'll get worse before it gets better, right?
	I mean, that's a natural part of it, right?
	Yeah, I mean, that's what I know, is it's going to be really, really bad, and I'm still not acknowledging how bad it's going to be, because I'm still kind of fogging about this relationship.
	Right, but look, things could be bad, and they could be a lot worse, right?
	I mean, so I'm not saying that this woman...
	Sorry, I can't hear you. I'm not saying that this woman is at all in this category, but you might get involved with a nut job, right?
	Yeah, but she wasn't a nut job.
	No, no, no, I agree. But if need is the thing, right, then you might get involved with a woman who, oops, gets pregnant.
	Yeah. And there it goes.
	It's your life, right? Right.
	I mean, I don't... I... I still think very highly of this woman in question, so I don't think...
	I think that's kind of an improvement in and of itself.
	I don't know what to make of that.
	I think I'm a better judge of people.
	Maybe not. Well, I don't.
	Okay. No, seriously, I mean, the way that she treated you in the retail store, saying you humiliated this clerk, well, she was humiliating you, right?
	Yeah. So how is the clerk's humiliation so much more important than yours?
	That is kind of weird.
	It's not weird! Stop fogging me.
	Stop fogging yourself. You don't know what it is.
	It's complex. It's dense.
	It's based on her history. It's based on what you were used to.
	It's a very dense and complex interaction.
	You've got to get yourself off the easy answers.
	You're far too intelligent and sensitive a human being for that.
	But if you say, well, that was weird.
	You say, well, there's no answer, right?
	Where did the universe come from?
	Oh, God made it! We don't have to study anything to do with quantum physics.
	Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know.
	It just didn't bother me because it seemed kind of trivial, but maybe...
	But it's not. Nothing that happens in the first couple of days of a relationship is trivial.
	Nothing. Everything is essential.
	and you either deal with that stuff up front, or it starts unraveling the relationship.
	Because if you don't, then you're saying, I'm here for some other reason than to be honest with you.
	And nobody can respect that deep down, right?
	No. I thought that we had dealt with it up front, but I mean, obviously not.
	Well, no, and you have given me complete evidence as to how that wasn't the case.
	Yeah, right, right. You broke all the rules before you even got together, right?
	You changed them all based on your immediate desires.
	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I feel better about it, I just feel kind of hardened.
	Yes, and I mean, I can't obviously help you through that, because these are some pretty core defenses that we're dealing with here, but I mean, you're in therapy, so obviously your therapist can help you with that kind of stuff.
	The only thing that I want to get you to the place is to say, well, you say, let me take a couple of months off from dating.
	Take a couple of months off of what?
	Dating. Oh, well, I don't know.
	A couple months wasn't enough last time.
	Okay, let me take six months off.
	Let me take ten months off.
	Until I no longer have the option of being in a relationship and not being honored.
	Sorry, I can't hear you.
	The last thing I heard was six months.
	Until you have a commitment which says, I'm not going to be in a relationship unless I am completely honest.
	Until you have that commitment and are willing to do it, then dating is not an option.
	Because you're just going to get the same thing over and over again.
	The same evasion, the same weirdness, the same I don't know what happened, the same backlash, the same disrespect, the same disappointment, the same heartbreak.
	Till you can say, I'm going to be in a relationship and be honest, as honest as I know how, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much my partner looks at me weird, I'm going to be as honest as I know how in this relationship.
	And I'm not going to give myself any back doors.
	I'm not going to say to myself, I'll do it later.
	Oh, I don't want to roughen any feathers.
	Oh, it's our first day together.
	Why do I want to cause a problem?
	Oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, it's not a big deal, right?
	Until you don't give yourself those back doors, until you make the commitment to being honest in your relationships.
	Not because honesty is some abstract thing, but just because you don't want to go back here again.
	Until you have that commitment without a back door, without an excuse, where it's just like, nope, I'm going to be honest.
	I don't care how uncomfortable it makes me.
	That's my commitment.
	Then you can date if you want, but it's just going to be the same thing over and over again.
	Okay.
	That makes sense.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I don't know if I can...
	I mean, I can say it right now, but I don't think it'll mean anything unless I actually do it, so...
	Yeah, and look, you can take another year to do it.
	You can take another five years to do it if you want.
	You can waste as much time as you want not being honest with people.
	Not because you're a dishonest person, but just because, you know, we're all trained to be liars.
	I mean, that's just the way our culture works, right?
	But you can spend as much time as you want, but eventually you will just get to that, right?
	Yeah. Where the cost benefit just clicks into view when you say, I'm just not going to do this anymore.
	I'm not going to be in a quote relationship where I'm not going to be honest.
	I just won't do it anymore.
	The sex, the excitement, the sexual frisson, the what am I going to wear, what cologne, it just doesn't add up to that much.
	Once you get, there's just no substitute for that kind of honesty.
	because with the honesty, you get all of the other stuff and you can trust it and you can be certain and you know it's going to last and you can relax about it.
	And I just suggest make the commitment sooner rather than later because we don't live forever, right?
	Yeah, certainly.
	I'm getting old. 22.
	Well, certainly not old, but, you know, why would you want to put your heart through another five scarred and messed up relationships, which makes it...
	No, certainly not. Yeah, I'm getting the every-time-getting-harder thing for sure.
	No. And if you don't make the commitment, then all that happens is your parents have won, right?
	Your parents and culture and Jesus himself has won, right?
	Yeah. And you will spend the rest of your life lying and evading like just about everybody else does, right?
	And never be real to anyone, at least of all yourself, right?
	To be for effect and for manipulation, and I'm going to say this because it makes me sound cool, and I'm going to make this joke because then she'll like me more, and never be appreciated in love for who you really are deep down.
	I mean, that's a terrible life, I think.
	I don't know.
	I know I've said this before, but I thought that's what I was building towards, but I wasn't.
	Oh, guaranteed that you weren't, and you knew that you weren't because you never asked for any advice before you made the decision to move and set it all up, right?
	Yeah, that's right. I was really nervous about doing that.
	I thought about asking, but I didn't.
	I just kind of... Well, and so you knew, right?
	What would be said?
	Oh yeah, you knew that I would ask a whole bunch of questions that would unravel things before you went.
	Sorry, I'm not hearing you right now.
	You knew that I would ask a whole bunch of questions that would unravel things and expose all of this before you went, right?
	Yeah, oh yeah, that's why I guess I delayed things.
	And I don't know if I would have even believed anybody.
	I would have just... You believed us all already.
	That's why you avoided the community when you were making this decision.
	You believed us all already.
	Yeah. You accepted it all, you believed it all, you knew it all, and that's why you avoided us, right?
	Right. Because I guess I was avoiding the short-term agony of being alone.
	Sure, yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, the guy who really wants the drink doesn't call his sponsor, right?
	No. And, yeah, I mean, I guess...
	Yeah, that's right.
	I mean, I knew that there were Pretty substantial aspects to this that weren't all good, but we lied to each other and said we could work through it, I think.
	Oh, sure, yeah. I understand.
	And the reason, I mean, with this knowledge comes pain, right?
	It's like, oh man, I did know, and that's bad.
	But it sure beats thinking it just weirdly went wrong for no reason, right?
	Right, because, yeah, there's no resolution from that either.
	It's just like, oh no, a meteor hit or something.
	Right, right, right.
	Well, I don't want to keep pounding, and we've had a long show.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to bring up about this?
	I hugely respect the strain and the challenge of this aspect of the conversation to you, and I can't tell you how much I admire you for putting yourself through this radiation.
	It's something that I do to myself and have had done to me before, so this is not any kind of superiority thing.
	So I just wanted to say that I hugely respect and admire the strength that it takes to go through this kind of...
	This kind of examination, if that makes sense?
	Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know how strong I really am about this, about this in this particular area.
	I just...
	But I appreciate it.
	Thank you. You're very welcome.
	And thank you to everyone else for joining in and for some fantastic shows.
	And sorry, a fantastic show based on some fantastic questions from listeners.
	Have a wonderful week.
	And I will publish the conversation that we were talking earlier about the theme of the last month, which is honesty, will come out this week.
	And I would strongly recommend that you have a listen to it and let me know what you think.

▲