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Aug. 5, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
55:32
1121 Getting on the Beam

When to stop coming to FDR.

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Time Text
Hello? Hey, how's it going?
Hey, it's fine. Okay, that should be better.
So, what's up? Hang on, just let me turn this up.
Okay, so I've recently had some confrontations with my parents that have gone a bit differently than usual.
The first one was some days ago with my mum.
I don't quite remember how it started, but it...
Escalated into basically that I don't interact with them enough and I should try to interact with them more.
And my mum said some pretty horrible things, I guess.
She called me a hamster, like I live in my room all my life kind of thing.
I mean, I'd die a lonely geek or something like that.
She called me abnormal as well.
I was saying how horrible that was to me, but I got so emotional that I ended up in tears and so angry.
Going for them, I guess, would make sense.
Would be the good wording.
I kind of did an analogy of how they treat me like a slave kind of thing.
But then, my dad came back half an hour later and my mum didn't even tell my dad at all.
She's acted like it hasn't happened.
I still don't know whether my mum has told my dad about it.
And then yesterday, my...
Dad tells me that I don't interact with them enough and I need to show more effort and a similar thing happened there where I kind of escalated and I just kind of got really emotional and in tears and angry and kind of...
I keep on saying kind of, and just kind of talked, gave them a, I don't know, kind of a bit of a lecture, like it was all one-sided, and they both just, when it happened, they both just stood there in silence, and then I just left, kind of thing.
So yeah, that's what's happened with me lately.
And I've just kind of been thinking about I need to move out soon because it's really awkward in this house now.
Right. Not everything. Yeah.
That's about it. And what is it that you want to talk about with regards to that?
Um... Basically, I don't exactly know.
Well, you came into the chat room and you had issues that you wanted to talk about this, and what were they?
I was just kind of updating everyone on what's been going on with me.
No, I don't think that was it.
Okay. I think it was because...
I want to...
It's gotten to the point where I've talked to both my parents about this kind of thing now.
And I need to kind of move out, I guess.
Maybe that was it.
Well, my experience, again, it's just my experience, but my experience when you were telling me these stories was sort of like you were trying to say to me, look how nasty or unpleasant my parents are.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I was.
I was just trying to...
But yeah. What would be my...
The purpose in me saying that, though?
Well, you tell me. Well, is it...
Is it because I just want to kind of defu it and things like that, or just...
Is it that? I don't know.
I'm kind of stuck here.
Okay, well, I mean, what were you looking for from me when you wanted to talk?
Let me ask it another way.
For how many months have you been complaining about your parents?
Ever since I listened to FDR. Which is how long?
And before that. I don't know, almost a year and a half.
18 months. Yeah.
18 months. Yeah.
And how does that make you feel when I say that?
it makes me feel I I didn't really have a national reaction to that It makes me realize that I haven't done anything about it in a long time, for a long time.
Done anything about what?
Confronting my parents.
Not discussing it with them at all.
Okay, and what is the point of confronting your parents?
Because I feel like I'm living...
Two lives at the moment, where I've got FDR and then I've got my other life.
And the point is to kind of bridge the gap between those two things.
And how are you going to do that?
Be honest with my parents.
Tell them that I'm not happy.
For what end? To have relief, I suppose.
From what? From living this double life.
And how is that going to be achieved through honesty with your parents?
Well, because one of my life is honest and one of my life is being dishonest.
So you mean that your interaction at FDR is honest?
Hopefully. Well, but when you talk to me for the nth time in years or a year and a half or more about how bad your parents are, Do you believe that that is really honest about what's going on with you and your parents?
Maybe it is. I'm just asking.
I don't know what you mean exactly.
Well, let me put it to you another way.
If you have a friend who complains about the girl that he's living with month after month after month after month Yeah, at what point is it manipulative?
Yeah, I understand yeah What do you understand? It means that I'm not actually being honest, I'm being manipulative.
I've complained about my parents for 18 months.
And you're having the same fights that you had 18 months ago?
Yeah. So what's going on?
I mean, that was sympathy. I mean, I genuinely sympathize.
Yeah. I don't know.
What do you mean in my...
What's going on with my parents?
Well, what's going on with you?
You've got this philosophical resource...
Yeah. You've got, you've listened to a whole bunch of podcasts, you've read a whole bunch of books, right?
Yeah, yeah. There's no theoretical thing that you don't understand.
You're a very intelligent fellow, right?
Yeah. So, what's going on?
Why are you still doing the same thing that you did 18 months ago?
I mean, it's like, you know, it's like you go to a nutritionist, right?
Yeah. You say, you know, my steady diet of Snickers bars leaves me tired and irritable.
Yeah. And you spend a year and a half studying nutrition, right?
And what is your diet at the end of that year and a half?
Still Snickers.
Steady diet of Snickers, leaving you tired and irritable, right?
Yeah.
So what's missing in terms of putting this stuff into practice?
Integrity, I suppose.
Well, I guess in an abstract way, but what I mean is what's missing in you.
Emotionally, intellectually.
I mean, is it that you disagree with the theories about voluntarism and love in relationships?
No. I think it's...
Um...
That I, uh...
I don't really know what to do.
Sure you do. With...
No, no, no. Don't play dumb with me.
That never works, right? You know exactly what to do.
If you agree with the theories and so on.
And if you don't agree with the theories, that's totally fine.
Then you should object to the theories or stop listening to the show.
But all this theory that doesn't translate itself into practice is worse than a waste of time.
I can't understand why people...
You're taking the brunt of this, so I apologize if I'm wrong.
I simply cannot understand why people spend all this time studying philosophy and don't change their lives.
I genuinely can't figure out what the point of it is.
So what's missing is that I'm not actually living philosophy.
Or rejecting it.
I mean, just listen to my podcast, right?
But what is the disconnect in terms of the theory and the practice?
Um... Because according to your intellect, the theory is true.
According to your practice, you might as well have never listened to a single podcast, right?
Yeah, sure. Um...
I don't know. I don't want to say I don't know, but I don't consciously know what's stopping me from putting it in practice.
Well, we can eliminate the intellectual opposition because as far as I understand it, you don't have that.
Yeah. So it's not intellect that's stopping you, right?
Sure.
So it must be emotions?
Um...
Yeah.
But I don't know what it is.
I feel...
Right.
Have you got a question of how do I feel when or something?
I don't know. It might make it easier.
Well, I mean, you know that the practice of this process is to speak honestly and openly and in a vulnerable manner to those you are close to and keep doing it until the relationship either gets better or you leave.
Yeah. So, that's not news to you, right?
No. So, let's say that the first six months were just a warm-up and you've now spent a year not doing that, right?
Yeah. But is not my recent interactions at least moving towards that, or is that?
You don't move towards being honest, right?
Okay, well... You either are or you aren't, right?
Is it not that, then?
Well, tell me. Are you getting resolution with your parents?
Or are you just fighting with them?
I'm getting resolution.
That was what it was about.
But that's not how you talked about it in the chapter with me, right?
You didn't say, it's been tough but I'm getting some real resolution about my parents, right?
What you did was you said, can you believe my mother did this and it's so bad and my father did this, right?
Yeah. Um...
A guy who complains about his wife for a year and a half, or for the entire time that you've known him, and then continues to complain about how bad she is, is that person moving towards either reconciliation or divorce?
No, I did actually say in the chat that it was...
I said it makes me more...
I think I said it was relieving.
And also that it makes me want to move out sooner.
I don't know whether...
I'm sorry if I missed that, but I'm just going by the conversation that you had with me.
I didn't see all that went on at the chat room.
Okay. No, I've been...
I feel like I really want to move out now.
I applied for jobs, but that's kind of died out again.
What's died out again? You mean looking for jobs?
Yeah, after our conversation I went looking for jobs for about a week and I applied for some jobs.
But now I've had some more time to look for more and I haven't.
Right, and why not?
I know it doesn't make sense, but this is what I think.
Is that... I've got...
No, it doesn't make sense, no.
Don't worry. Well, and just to sum them all over, but the other thing that I would mention is that you used a bunch of Swiss foggy weasel words when you were talking to me about your parents, like you were saying, things escalated, this happened, we ended up such and such, right?
Yeah. She said this and then I responded with that, none of which particularly indicates a choice or a purpose in the conversation, but rather just getting down into the muck and having a fight, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I do say kind of and things like that a lot.
Well, no, it's not the kind of.
I mean, I can understand that. I mean, honesty can be tough and so on.
But if you listen to this again, when you hear yourself talking about the fight that you had with your parents, I think you'll notice that you never talk about the choices and the process that you're going through, but rather that things just escalated or things just happened.
Okay.
So I'm just kind of… No, you go ahead.
Help me understand what the point of the podcast is then for you.
I mean, it's sort of like you say, well, I really want to go skydiving, so I'm going to spend year after year or month after month reading books about skydiving.
Okay. I mean, because if you want to go skydiving, it seems to me that at some point you get into the plane and you jump out, right?
And if you don't want to go skydiving, I can't understand why you'd keep reading the books.
I do want to defill and things like that.
and i have this tendency to put things off so later uh... it's kind of like uh...
uh...
well you know i'll get jobs in and a couple weeks i don't look for it uh...
I listen to the podcasts because they are...
They're great to listen to and they're revolutionary for thinking.
No, but they're not about thinking, they're about doing.
Yeah. It's like I've lived this life of kind of not having a job and things that I don't know what to do.
With myself, I guess.
I don't know what that means. You don't know what to do with yourself.
No, nor do I. I don't know what to do.
I'm so... kind of lost at what to say.
Well, what did you think that I would say when you were talking about your parents?
parents, what was your anticipation of my response?
I don't even know.
Well, I mean, you said that you wanted to talk, right?
Yeah. I imagine that we'd either talk about how I'm going to Move out or something.
And also kind of discuss what was said in the confrontations and how I felt in the moment and things like that.
Well, but I'm betting that you couldn't tell me how you felt in the moment, right?
I mean, because when I'm asking you questions about how you're feeling about your life and so on and what your purpose is in this and so on, you're not...
You don't have much, right?
No. But...
Um...
I was angry and upset with them for treating me, well, saying such like that I was being aggressive, an aggressive person when clearly they're aggressive.
Are you saying that you weren't aggressive in this interaction?
Um... No, I wasn't aggressive with them, I don't think.
How I escalated was, I'll just take the incident with my dad, was there's that Batman movie and my dad said, will I like the Batman movie?
And I said, I don't know.
I don't know what films you like.
That's how I escalated.
That's what the argument was about.
I'm sorry, the argument was about the Batman movie?
Now, the argument was about how my reaction to my dad's question was, he says, was aggressive and shuts down the conversation.
Because he, I'm sorry, I have no idea what the debate was about.
Can you just tell me again? My dad says that my interaction with them is aggressive and I close down conversations and how he doesn't like me being aggressive and things like that.
But he is aggressive.
I understand that.
And are you also aggressive?
Do you say things that...
I mean, are you on your best behavior or do you feel that you act with integrity with these fights?
Or do you lash out?
Do you get angry? I mean, what happens to you?
No, I do act with integrity.
I try and be curious.
I try and explore what they're saying.
And how does it escalate? Well, they get angry that I'm being curious and asking them questions.
And then what happens? And then I get immensely emotional and tell them how wrong they are.
That's not an emotion.
Telling someone how wrong they are is not emotional.
It's certainly not RTR. That's coming to a conclusion, right?
And that's what you, at least that's what I saw you say in the chat window, and that's what you were saying to me in the beginning of this interaction was how wrong they are.
So that's not, I mean, maybe it just doesn't make sense to you, but it's not the same as being emotionally honest with someone.
It's telling them that they're wrong.
Yep. And that doesn't come as a shock to you either, right?
No. But two seconds ago you were saying that you were being honest with them, right?
I don't get a sense that this knowledge is sort of embedded in you, because you're telling me that they are...
I was being honest with them, I don't escalate, and then I tell them that they're wrong.
Right. I don't know what to say.
Well, take your time. So how I should be...
RTRing with them then.
Because what happens is that I get...
I cry and I get very angry and then just kind of talk at them.
I tell them how wrong they are, as I said.
I need to not do that.
Don't know. Well, tell me what you're feeling now, because it sounds like you're one step up from falling into a coma.
Maybe that's just how I talk.
It's really hard...
I don't feel anything at the moment.
Okay, well, how long have you been trying to...
Sorry, go ahead. I feel under pressure.
Okay, maybe that's not an emotion.
I feel very...
When I talk to you, I feel very pressured to say something right or I feel very lost in what I'm saying.
Now I feel very sad and teary-eyed.
I feel very lost when I talk to you.
In general or during this call?
This call, the last call.
Every call we've had. Okay.
How long have you been attempting to be honest with your parents?
I've never really attempted to be honest with my parents.
I mean... So this last time was the first time?
This last fight? Yeah.
Okay, so for a year and a half, I mean, you've been imbibing this stuff which talks about honesty and openness and so on.
And you haven't been doing it, but then you tried to do it just in this last fight.
Is that right? Yeah.
And then you told them that they were wrong and then complained to them...
About them to other people.
Yeah. So what's going on in the year and a half when you're listening to this stuff and not doing it?
I mean, I'm genuinely curious about that.
I'm not sort of trying to come down hard on you.
Like, I'm genuinely curious about how it is that you study nutrition for a year and a half and don't change your diet of snicker bars, so to speak.
Yeah. Yeah. I've just grown more secretly contemptuous of my parents, really.
I haven't had much of a job at all.
I've just kind of been doing nothing for almost two years.
Okay, and why?
This is just an idea.
I don't know if it's the idea.
But, um...
I have all my...
All the... The material conference that I need here.
You know...
My dinner gets cooked for me and...
Uh... You know, I get given money on occasion to go out.
I don't need a job because I don't really need to pay my way at all.
And how old are you again? 18.
And this looks like it's going to continue indefinitely, is that right?
Definitely. It does, is that right?
Yeah. Okay, so...
Why is it that you don't talk about that side of things when you talk about things with your parents that they they put you up that your mom cooks you dinner that they give you money to go out that you don't have to get a job.
And what aspect what do you mean why don't I talk to them.
No, why don't you talk to other people about that?
Because you complain about them a lot, right?
But you don't talk about the things that they do that are, quote, nice or good or whatever, right?
Right.
I don't know.
I don't talk about that because...
Oh, you know. Is it because I want them to be 100% bad?
Well, I think you want to portray your parents that way.
So I guess the only question that I really have is...
What are your parents paying for when they do these things for you, when they invest the time and they invest the money and the energy, the emotional energy, to keep you around, right?
Why is it that they want to keep you around?
Because, I mean, obviously what they're doing is not healthy for you, right?
Right. So, what are they buying when they give you all of these things?
They can't be buying my company because they complain about my company.
Right. Okay, so the one thing that they're buying is complaining, right?
Okay, what else?
They're buying someone to interact with except each other.
Yeah, see? That didn't take very long.
They're buying you as a buffer between themselves, right?
Yeah. And you seem to be willing to piss away a fair amount of your youth in that role, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
And I can understand that because it's not the material comforts that keep you at home.
It is your parents' unconscious need for you to be there.
Does that make sense? Are you the last kid to leave home?
Okay, and how's their marriage in the absence of children?
They don't talk about anything of importance, really.
Right, and they've obviously...
They've been parents for like 20 years or more, right?
Yeah. And that's the role that...
They have for themselves, right?
And they want to keep you around to avoid the anxiety, I would suggest or as a possibility, to avoid the anxiety of who they're going to be if they're not parents.
Yeah. It's like there's a grenade in the room Called authenticity.
and they're throwing you on top of it to absorb the blast.
It's so hard to...
I find it really difficult to kind of escape from that.
Oh, sure. I totally understand and I sympathize.
I really do. I'm so embedded in it.
It's hard to get out. Definitely.
I feel very sad right now.
I don't know if it's sadness but I do have tears in my eyes.
And do you think they're coming from where you are as an individual or do you think that they may be coming from where your parents are as a married couple?
Who's going to be the saddest in your family when you move out?
Or who's going to face the most loss, I think would be another way of putting it.
My mom.
And why is that? Um...
Because I just feel I perhaps know my mum a bit more than my dad.
I don't know my dad at all, really.
That doesn't make sense.
Okay. I think it's because I'm stuck.
I don't know why I would choose my mum.
I'm sorry, choose your mum to be the most sad?
Well, yeah, you just don't know her consciously.
Yeah. Does your mom work outside the home?
Yeah. And does she enjoy her career?
No. And your dad obviously works outside the home.
Does he enjoy his career? Yeah.
Okay. That's one example, right?
So, the other thing is, does your mother have friends outside the family?
Yeah. As many as your dad or as fewer or about the same?
Probably more. Okay.
And is she close to these friends or is it more of a mechanical kind of acquaintanceship?
I would say she's probably friends with them to complain about.
Other people. Okay, so it's not particularly deep or intimate, right?
And does your mother have close relationships with people?
Sorry, would she say that she is close to you?
Yeah. And would she say that she is close to your father?
Yeah, I think it would be a lie, but I think she would.
Okay, if you sort of look into your mother's heart, who does she think she is closest to in reality, or at least that would be honest to herself?
Me, probably.
I think that's true.
Obviously, you know your family better than I do, and obviously you can mull it over, but...
Yeah. So if you're the person that she feels the closest to, then does it make some sense as to why she might not want you to leave?
Why me leaving? Why she might pay for you to stay around?
Yeah, it does make sense.
Does it also make sense why your father would go along with that?
Go along with making me stay at home.
Well, nobody's making you stay at home, but making it easier for you to stay at home.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go along with...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because...
It would make...
It would help my mum as well.
And what will happen to your mother when you leave home?
Emotionally. I haven't thought about this.
But you know.
Yeah.
She would be upset.
Yeah.
She might become depressed.
She might become depressed.
What do you think?
I think she might even might just avoid it though.
Avoid what? Kind of just avoid talking about me at all.
Well, but that doesn't help with depression.
I mean, depression results from avoidance.
It's not cured by avoidance, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, she would be depressed, but she would still avoid it.
Well, you can't avoid depression.
Well, you know, she'd try and suppress it.
You can't suppress depression.
But depression's not a matter of willpower, right?
But you don't just say to somebody who's depressed, oh, stop being so self-indulgent and snap out of it, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's involuntary, and it cannot be solved by willpower.
It's like trying to will away diabetes, right?
Without changing your diet.
Yeah. Yeah, so she'd be depressed.
And how would that be solved within the family?
how would her depression be dealt with?
What would happen?
I don't know whether it would be addressed.
Yes, you do. You know exactly whether it would be addressed or not.
Okay, I mean, it probably wouldn't be addressed.
And so what will then happen?
Or my mum would probably go on antidepressants, something like that.
Okay, and let's say it won't be addressed, but she would just go on some sort of medication, which has a very low chance of working.
Yeah.
And what would then happen to your family's attitude towards you, however unconsciously this may be, for leaving?
The attitude towards me?
They would...
They would hate you.
And how would that... What would their logic be in that?
Look what he's done to our family.
Yeah. Yeah.
You would be responsible for the mental ill health, let's say, of your family.
right yeah and would this occur with your siblings and your parents would Would this be...
Look, I mean, in some cultures, Spanish cultures, in particularly South America, there's...
And it's usually the youngest girl is not supposed to leave home.
She's supposed to stay there Take care of the parents as they age.
She's not supposed to get married.
She's not supposed to leave home.
That is her role.
That is what she is supposed to do.
And if she ever has the temerity to stand up and demand a life of her own, everybody jumps down her throat like a bunch of feasting vultures.
She's the one who gets left behind so that everyone else can go out and have a life, right?
Right.
Yeah. And you have older siblings, is that right?
Yeah, I have one brother in university.
Right. How is he going to feel if you move out or defu or whatever it is that's going to come?
He's going to hate me for upsetting mom and dad.
No, sorry, just to be precise, he's not going to hate you for upsetting mom and dad.
He's going to hate you for the inconvenience that upset will cause him.
Yeah. Because he doesn't really care about your mom and dad.
What he cares about is that they're not on the phone complaining about you to him.
I mean, I don't want to be unfair, but that's sort of what I would imagine.
Does that make some sense? Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Right, so your parents would hate you, your father would hate you because it's inconvenient to him because your mom becomes depressed when you leave because she has been using you, or maybe your brother as well, as a kind of Psychological tourniquet or band-aid for herself.
So when you say, look, I don't care how much you're leaning on me.
I've got to get out from under you and go and have a life.
Then they fall over and they get all mad at you, right?
But of course, if asked rationally, they would say, well, of course, that's the point of parents is to grow their child into independence and liberty, right?
So your father would hate you for causing...
The hollowness in the marriage and his abrogation of his responsibilities as a husband.
This you may not know because your family doesn't seem to have made this transition very well at all.
But the job of a husband is to keep the mom from obsessing over the kids.
The job of the mom is to obsess over the kids, and that's wonderful, and that's healthy, and so on.
And the job of the father is to help her to stay in adult land rather than obsess about the kids.
Okay.
And so a father, though, who finds it inconvenient to interact with the mother in an adult way because they're not close, they don't have love, they don't respect or whatever, each other.
He is going to stand back and let her totally merge with the children.
Mm-hmm.
Because it takes a load off his relationship, right?
His obligations. Yeah.
He kind of uses the children as a human shield against the needs of his wife.
Can you feel that again?
He sort of uses the children as a human shield against the emotional neediness of his wife.
Okay, yeah, I get that.
This, of course, is horrible and exploitive, immature and destructive, right?
Yeah. So, he's going to hate you for revealing that about things and becoming...
His marriage will become less convenient to him once you move out, right?
Yeah, definitely. And your mom will hate you for it because...
It will reveal to her that she's been kind of exploitive with regards to her children, particularly with regards to you.
that she's been holding you close to her chest because she needs a hug and she's interfered with your ability to stand on your own two feet.
Yeah.
So you're like holding up the whole structure here, right?
Yeah.
I know, and it's hard to do.
It's hard to what? It's hard to think about, not think about, but it's hard to get out of it, because I'm holding it all up.
Sure. I mean, it's like you're the guy in the congregation who has finally figured out there is no God, right?
And we don't say to that person, well, just shut up and go to church, right?
Yeah. Does that make sense?
I think a little bit.
Okay, what part doesn't make sense?
Oh, sure. What did you mean by we didn't force him to go to church?
Let's imagine some Christian guy comes and posts on the board and he says, I am the center of the congregation in my church.
I deal with most of the social functions and I'm the treasurer and I pretty much run the church.
And I've recently come to the conclusion that there is no God.
What do you suggest that I do?
Would you feel the urge to post back and say, oh, for God's sakes, shut up.
Don't tell anyone about it.
Keep going to church and keep pretending to believe in God because otherwise some people may get upset.
Yeah, I get that. So what would you say to him?
Get out of the church.
Well, but you'd have no right to say that, right?
Oh. Why are you still in the church?
Well, but you know why he's still in the church.
Because it's the same reason you're still in the family.
Yeah. I mean, if there's one rule that I wish I could put into the world, it would be that you can't give advice to people about any problem you haven't solved yet yourself.
Okay. Um...
What was the question again? What would you tell him if you saw this post on the board?
Or what would you say to him?
I would...
I don't...
Um... I don't know what I would say to him.
I would say...
He's asking me what to do.
He's asking what to do and what would you say to him?
I wouldn't be able to give advice to him because...
I haven't done...
I don't know.
I'm stuck. Right.
So this is my suggestion to you.
I think that you need to stop with FDR until you can start doing stuff in your life.
Because frankly, you can't give anybody advice at the moment, right?
Because you've got a year and a half of knowing what you need to do and without having done it, right?
So the only thing you could really say to people is, well, you'd say to this guy, you'd say, well, you should listen to podcasts because they're interesting or they're entertaining or they're thought-provoking or whatever.
But you should never actually do anything about it.
it, you should continue to go to church and you should continue to pretend that you believe in God because the highest value is to not upset people.
And you would not feel very proud to give that advice, right?
Right.
No, I wouldn't. But that would be called being honest, right?
Yeah, it would. And I think that there is something which occurs wherein people continue to listen to theory as a way of avoiding action.
Yeah.
Do you ever say, "Well, I could look for a job or I could listen to a podcast"?
No, it's just, it's, I'll look for a job tomorrow now.
I'll do that. Alright, and how many podcasts do you listen to a day or a week?
Or books or whatever?
I probably listen to one or two podcasts a day.
Okay. I think that's not a good idea.
I really do. I mean, I hate to say to people, don't listen, right?
But I think that that's not a good idea because I think it gives you the illusion of progress without actually putting the rubber on the road.
You know, like I'm broadening my understanding, I'm enriching my knowledge, I'm deepening my wisdom, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But, unfortunately, you don't want your knowledge to go too far ahead of what you're actually doing in life.
Right? Like, you don't want to be reading books on vector calculus if you're having trouble with your times table, right?
That's funny, actually. Ever since I've listed FDR, I've accumulated...
Lots and lots of books.
Because the wisdom only comes from the doing.
The knowledge doesn't do your squat particularly, except it makes you tempted to give people advice which you yourself are not following.
Because if you were to give people the advice that you yourself are actually following, you probably wouldn't be able to type it into the window, right?
Like, listen to the podcast and do the opposite, right?
Yeah. And so I'm concerned that you're moving so far ahead in theory, so far ahead of what you're actually doing in practice, that the two are going to become permanently severed.
Yeah. If that makes sense.
It does. And theory can be an avoidance for the simple actions that we know we need to take.
It's so daunting to think of action.
It is. Absolutely. It is completely daunting.
It is terrifying. It is horrible.
And I have no problem.
In fact, I would strongly encourage you to use the FDR community when you are in action.
Yeah. But I would suggest don't listen to podcasts.
Don't come to the board.
Don't interact with people here until...
You have started to do, if that makes sense.
It does. Because at some point, if you're going to be coached, you have to be up on the balance beam, right?
You can't coach someone who's only reading books about gymnastics.
Yeah, exactly. Okay, I get that, yeah.
And my suggestion would be to try and figure out what's going on in your family that is keeping you there.
Right.
What is being bought?
What is being paid for?
And what are the consequences of you leaving?
And frankly, is your mother's depression your responsibility?
I would say no at all.
In fact, I would say it would be completely unhealthy to put her dysfunction down as your responsibility.
She's the parent after all.
She had all the power.
She made all the decisions as far as that goes.
And of course, it's not a sustainable plan to say, well, I'm going to stay here basically until my mother is dead.
Right.
Right.
Probably be another 30 years, is that right?
Yeah, so you don't want to be 50 saying, okay, now that the funeral is done, I'm ready to roll.
Yeah. But that's where you go if you defer everything one day at a time.
That's where you end up. 10 years, 20 years, they can go.
They can drip away.
Okay. Yeah.
Alright. I get it now.
Yeah. So figure this kind of stuff out.
Figure out what you want to do with your next couple of years of life.
How it is you're going to start achieving them and then just start working towards it.
Have the conversations with your parents that you need to...
You can be as honest as saying, I'm afraid that if I move out, mom's going to get really depressed, right?
And they're either going to say, yes, she is, in which case you can talk about how she can deal with that in the most positive way, or they're going to say, don't be ridiculous, of course your mother isn't going to get depressed, in which case take them at face value and get the hell out.
Yeah. Alright, well here ends your 18 month jump start.
Thanks, man. I'll talk to you soon.
Keep me posted. Okay.
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