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Aug. 10, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:14:49

1123 Sunday Show Aug 11 2008

Harsh laughter at a wife, an irritating employee, Cartesian prejudice and a FOO re-contact...

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	Alright, well thank you everybody for your patience.
	It is just a little after 4 o'clock on August the 10th, 2008.
	And thank you so much to everybody who gave Christina her good birthday wishes.
	We certainly do appreciate it.
	And we certainly do appreciate the kind wishes that went to her and to the baby.
	The baby is doing just fine.
	He is kicking when I tickle him.
	Oh, wait. Sorry, that's the mom.
	But I think the baby is as well.
	I'm reading stories to him, mostly selections from H.P. Lovecraft.
	And he seems to be alarmed, but enjoying them.
	So, oh, have we gobbled?
	Is that right? I'm connected directly to the internet, so there can't be anything that I can do that.
	So, we'll just have to struggle on, and we'll switch to questions if mine is robotic, but of course the recording here is fine.
	And that, of course, is the most important thing.
	So we can switch to questions directly.
	I don't have any particular intro topic at the moment, so if you have questions or comments or issues, feel free to chime in now.
	Or soon. Or now.
	Or soon. Or now. Hello?
	Hello. Hi.
	This is Kyle.
	Hello. Sorry, I haven't ever called in before or anything.
	I had a question.
	I've been talking with my wife a lot about just like a lot of different family issues that she's been having and stuff and it's been making me reflect on some of my own family stuff and more I guess some of the responses that I have,
	more particularly when I talk to her sometimes for some reason I get a really sort of mean tone for some reason and I don't know why it keeps happening and it's kind of weird and I can't really figure out why I would do that because I don't feel any anger or anything towards my wife or anything like that.
	Are you an archaeologist by chance?
	Um, no.
	Have you been to Egypt?
	Uh, no. Okay, so I'm just trying to sort of work praxeologically.
	We're trying to eliminate the I have disturbed a mummy's tomb approach.
	Uh-huh. So we can safely put that to one side, is that correct?
	Yes. Okay.
	Can you give me a circumstance under which you get this mean tone in your voice?
	Um... I can't remember a specific instance.
	It's usually like we'll be talking about something, and then I'll make a joke about whatever we were talking about, and it'll just sound really mean.
	And she'll stop and tell me that kind of hurt my feelings, that came off really mean.
	I don't understand what was going on.
	And I'm having a hard time trying to figure out why also.
	And can you tell me why you can't remember any of these?
	Because it's a little hard to work with you if you don't remember any of them, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. I think that you do and the reason that I think that you do is that if you're calling in to me to ask for help with a particular circumstance, the first thing that would be wise to do would be to be able to recall or recount one of those circumstances.
	Is that right? Yeah, that's true.
	So you do remember them, and with all due respect, right?
	I know this is a difficult subject, but for sure you remember them.
	And if you don't, is your wife around?
	She is. I do remember one now, actually.
	Oh, good. Okay. We were talking about her brother because she's been having a lot of trouble with her brother.
	And recently with what she wants to do with the relationship with him or how she is going to just deal with talking with him and stuff.
	And She'll be talking about how she feels like what she wants from talking to him.
	I think in the instance I made a...
	She phrased it kind of weird and I just started laughing at the way that she said it and it really hurt her feelings and then I just kind of went off and started talking about how that was funny instead of like...
	I guess I kind of changed the subject or something.
	Okay, and what did she say about her brother that you found funny?
	And I think we can say that it was not funny, but something that you simply found to be...
	It made you feel anxious or upset or something.
	She was talking...
	I think it was about how she wasn't...
	She doesn't really know him at all anymore.
	Um... And she doesn't...
	I think she's mostly looking back on the relationship that she had with her brother and uncovering that maybe it wasn't really a great relationship like she thinks it is or thought it was.
	So she felt that she was and is close to your brother and that she was no longer as close and she was expressing that and you found that you laughed as a result of that, is that right?
	Yes, that's true.
	Now, is it because, sorry, do you think that she has not had a close relationship with her brother or was that news to you?
	Um... I think that she felt close to her brother, but I don't know that she really had that great of a relationship with her brother because of the circumstances of her household.
	And so I kind of felt like she did not really have a relationship with him, even though she felt like she did.
	Right, okay. And was this something that had been contentious between you beforehand, that she thought she had a good relationship with her brother, but you didn't think that was true?
	Yeah, it had come up before, because when she was dealing with her feelings with her parents, I had brought up her brother, and she would get tense and tell me that she didn't want to talk about it yet.
	Then we had kind of...
	It was sort of, it would be kind of tense for a little while after that, I think.
	So do you sort of feel like, if I understand this rightly, do you sort of feel like you said to her, it's cold out, take a jacket.
	And she said, that's ridiculous.
	I don't need a jacket.
	It's not that cold. And then you go out and then 10 minutes later she says, you know, I think I need a jacket.
	It's really cold, but with no reference to your prior conversation.
	Is that right? Yeah. Or is that just too abstract a way of putting it?
	Maybe too abstract a way of putting it.
	Okay, so if you have said to her for some time, I don't think you have as good a relationship with your brother as you think you do, and she has said, no, no, I do, and now she's saying that she doesn't, is that sort of the situation?
	Oh, yes. Yes, it is.
	Okay. Okay.
	Now, when she was saying to you that she is questioning her relationship with her brother, did she mention at all the prior circumstances of you mentioning to her that you didn't think she had that good a relationship?
	Not any of the ones where I felt that there was tension, I think.
	Maybe like... Well, because we've been talking about it...
	No, she hasn't. Because we've been talking about it for a couple days now, and she'll talk about...
	Reference back to what we've been talking about in these recent talks we've been having, but nothing really about when I would bring it up before, try to talk about it before.
	Because I think I even was starting to talk about it...
	For a while now.
	Because she's never really seemed very happy after she talks to him on the phone or anything like that.
	So she brought it up as if it was news to her that she might not have a great relationship with her brother?
	I think... I think it's more like she kind of has known for a while but hasn't really...
	has tried to hold on to the relationship.
	Like, she's been saying she hasn't wanted...
	She doesn't want to give up on it yet.
	And I think that that's what...
	She kind of knows that there's not a lot there but she doesn't want to stop trying for it, I guess.
	And what is your opinion about her relationship with her brother?
	Um... I don't think it's very good at all.
	I think she's going to call him tomorrow or today.
	She tried yesterday. And I'm really anxious about it.
	I don't think it's going to go very well.
	You're anxious about her conversation with her brother, is that right?
	Yes. And why are you anxious about it?
	Well... I'm worried that she's going to get hurt.
	I don't feel like it's going to go very well or she's going to be very happy with the way that it comes out.
	So would you say that your major concern is that your wife might be hurt?
	Yes. Can you help me understand if your major concern is that your wife might be hurt, how you square that with you laughing at her when she's feeling very sensitive about a family relation and causing her pain?
	I can't. I absolutely cannot.
	And I don't. That's why this has been bugging me so much because I realize that it's like she's opening up to me and I'm just kind of like shutting it down, I guess, because I try to just laugh and make it all not so serious or something.
	Have you been listening to this show for a while?
	Um, like a month or two probably?
	Maybe three? Okay, got it.
	Well, then you may not know this particular sequence and we'll run through it fairly quickly.
	But can you tell me about your intimacy or honesty with your parents and siblings if you have them when you were growing up?
	Um, well, my...
	I think my...
	I had kind of a...
	I had a messed up childhood.
	My mom got addicted to drugs at some point when I was really young and my parents got divorced and my mom got custody so we had to live with her for a couple years and then at some point she lost the house we were living in and I had to move in with my dad and his stepmom.
	I've never really That was probably when I was about 11, when I moved in with my dad.
	And since then, I've never had a relationship with my biological mother.
	And then my stepmother has always been pretty abusive.
	She had the military dad and her mom were both abusive to her, too.
	And then my dad was also...
	He... I think...
	He would yell and spank sometimes, but he...
	He seems to be a good person and I've been talking to him recently because I read through the RTR book and I've been talking to him and he's been really open to talking with me and discussing things and I've actually been really surprised about how it's been going with him and I realized recently because I have a brother also that I just don't have any sort of relationship with him and I haven't for a really long time either.
	First of all, of course, I'm really sorry to hear about this just wretched history.
	Sorry, are you eating something or moving something?
	There's a noise that I can hear.
	No, I'm not. Okay, sorry about that.
	Can you tell me why it is that your mother got custody rather than your father or rather than a shared custody?
	Well, she got custody and then my dad, we would go to see him on, I guess it was every other weekend.
	I'm not sure. I asked him kind of what happened because I didn't understand why she would get the custody, but he just said that they tried everything that they could do and they couldn't get the court to give him anything more.
	And then I confronted him because I was like, well, you knew that this was going on in the house.
	Why didn't you? What were you trying to do?
	Because you can't.
	I couldn't see him.
	It wouldn't be okay with me if he was just like, well, this is happening.
	I'll just leave him there. It's going to be fine, you know?
	And he said they were constantly meeting with their lawyers and they had all these papers written up so that as soon as they had the chance when my mom lost the house, we had to live in a hotel for three days after they got kicked out.
	Once my dad found out, they came over and they already had all the custody papers made up, so he made her sign all of it over to him at that time.
	But I don't really know exactly why.
	I've only just been told that it was just really hard for him to get custody.
	They wouldn't give it to him for some reason.
	Okay, and what's the story with you and your brother?
	We don't... I don't know.
	Because we were together at my biological mom's house, and I guess we were sort of close then, but I kind of have a hard time remembering any really specific times that I remember where I felt close to him.
	I don't think it's ever really changed very much.
	Sorry, I just lost a concentration there for a second.
	What didn't change very much? I don't think I've ever really...
	I can't ever remember being close to him, really, and I don't really think that that has ever been different.
	I think that we just really haven't had a relationship.
	We've just kind of been sort of friends because we're always in the same place, I guess.
	I don't really know.
	Well, we just don't seem to have any relationship at all.
	Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean when you say you don't seem to have a relationship.
	That seems to me sort of like a yes or no question, if that makes sense.
	Well, we don't have a relationship.
	I don't know anything about who he is or what he does or what he likes or anything like that.
	I don't think I ever really have.
	So, sorry, you mean to say that you lived with him for 10 years or more?
	I guess you said you were 11 when you switched over to your dad's place.
	But you say you have no idea who he is as a human being?
	I thought I did, but he's been going through a lot of really bad stuff in his life right now.
	And I don't really know what's...
	I don't know what...
	He's not acting how I thought he would act as a person.
	I feel like I just don't know who he is.
	Well, first of all, sorry to interrupt.
	Without a doubt, you do know who he is.
	I mean, you can't live with someone for that long and not know who they are.
	You may not like who he is.
	You may not agree with the choices that he's making.
	But without a doubt, you know who he is.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	That's true.
	I mean, you may be confusing disagreeing with someone as to not understanding them.
	Maybe.
	Well, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think that's true.
	Because kind of a big thing that happened recently, too, that I guess he's never really been good in...
	He never would go to school, and then I guess he just had his senior year where he dropped out because he missed half the year.
	And then he was, I guess, drinking one night, and he cut himself on the arm and went to the hospital.
	But it wasn't bad, but it was this really big event that happened.
	And then it was just really surprising.
	I had no idea that he was having any...
	I knew that he was having trouble because he wasn't going to school or doing anything like that.
	But I've tried to talk to him and there was never any way to...
	I could never see anything.
	I didn't know what to do or what...
	So was this, do you think, a suicide attempt or was it a form of self-mutilation?
	It wasn't...
	I don't think it was a suicide attempt at all.
	Because it wasn't... If he was trying...
	A real suicide attempt then.
	Like, it just wasn't.
	I don't think it was at all.
	Because he got out of the hospital, like, went, they just let him go, and then he went home and then went to work later that night and, like, just kind of went on forward.
	Which I thought was kind of weird also.
	He just went on, you mean, do you know if he sought professional help or therapy or anything like that?
	No, he didn't. That night after he got off work, he came over and I tried to talk to him about how I thought that he should really do it because we had had this really bad childhood together.
	And he said that he would maybe think about it, but I don't think that he really has done anything.
	And have you taken advantage of that yourself, therapy or counseling?
	No. I've tried it a couple times.
	I don't really ever feel like I got anything out of it from the people that I would talk to.
	Because we had to go a couple times as a family because of the troubles that my brother was having in school.
	I had to go on one or two other different times just because they were I guess also because of my brother, they wanted to check me out too.
	When your wife was talking about her brother, what was the feeling that occurred before you left?
	And by the way, just so you know, because this is your first time calling in, I don't know if you've listened to any other call-in shows.
	I don't know is never an answer.
	I mean, with sympathy, right?
	It's hard to remember. But there's no point calling in if you're not willing to dig this stuff up.
	So what was the feeling when she was talking about her brother?
	My guess is that you felt a kind of arising anxiety or a kind of unsettledness or maybe even a kind of hysteria or a kind of panic or a kind of irritation.
	Something was building in you when your wife was talking about her brother.
	I think I felt...
	I know I was feeling sad and I was sort of...
	No, I was...
	I was feeling sad and I was feeling...
	I think I was feeling anxious as well.
	Right, okay.
	Go on. I kind of feel like...
	Well, it would sort of make sense that if I would laugh and she's dealing with her brother, then I'm still not okay about my brother.
	But I thought that I was.
	Now, you just jumped out of talking about your feelings, too.
	It seems as if, logically, it could be something, something.
	Yeah. Yeah, go back to your feelings, if you don't mind.
	You say you were feeling sad.
	You were feeling anxious.
	Was there anything else? Um...
	I think I kind of felt...
	Maybe sort of like that I had been right, like I was right the whole time or something.
	That you were right about her brother, is that right?
	Yeah. Like if she's realizing now, it's like, well, I was right before.
	I think I remember feeling like that as well.
	Okay, so you felt that you were right, and in a sense when we're right and another person is wrong, particularly when we've been right for a while or a long time, and the other person has been denying what we say, when the other person admits that we have been right all along, it puts us in a position of power.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes. And how we handle that power in the moment is very important.
	I mean how we handle power at all times in our relationships is very important because in all relationships there is a surrender of independence and autonomy and there is a vulnerability because we put the other person's judgment Very high in our hierarchy, right? If my wife disapproves of something I do, it means a lot to me.
	It's a disaster to me.
	Versus every other person on the internet who disagrees with what I do doesn't really bother me that much, right?
	But when my wife disagrees with something that I've done, it really hurts, and it's something that I'm vulnerable to, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that does make sense to me.
	And this is why...
	Some people... Oh, sorry, this is why a lot of relationships tend to get weird and unpleasant, if that makes sense.
	Because people don't know how to handle the power, and they only have the experience of seeing the power being abused, in the case of their family, where we have that kind of power disparity.
	I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
	Well... This is why personal relationships tend to get very strange, because we continually are put in positions of power in our personal relationships, and we have only seen in our families power being abused, right? Yeah.
	And so our great temptation is to abuse that power, because that's all we know, that's all we've seen, right?
	Uh-huh. So I was abusing the power that I had when she admitted that I was right by laughing and hurting her feelings?
	Well, I don't think, if I understand what you were saying correctly, I don't think that she did admit that you were right.
	I think she talked about it as if you hadn't said something before.
	Right. So was...
	So let me give you...
	I'm sorry, you go ahead with your question.
	Oh, well, I was going to say, am I lashing out at her for not admitting that I was right?
	For, like, not maybe appreciating my input?
	This has nothing to do with your wife.
	I completely guarantee you that it has nothing to do with your wife.
	I can tell you what it's to do with, in my opinion, and you can tell me whether I'm on the mark or not.
	Is that okay? Yeah, that's good.
	When you were a child, you repeatedly said or thought or wanted to say to people, something is really wrong here.
	And people kept telling you, no, it's not.
	Everything's fine.
	Don't worry about it.
	Does that ring a bell or is that not on the mic?
	Thank you.
	No, that does ring a bell.
	And I believe that it was to do with your mother, but you can tell me what you think it was or what it actually was, not what you think it was.
	It's hard for me to remember my childhood.
	childhood, I have a really, I have very few memories of a lot of it.
	Would you like me to help you with some leading questions?
	Yes.
	Yeah, I think that would be helpful.
	So you were seeing your father every second weekend, right?
	Yes. And your mother was spiraling into drug addiction, right?
	Yes. Did you tell your father, hey, mom's stoned?
	No, I wasn't...
	I was told this by my dad.
	I didn't actually know at the time what was happening, I don't think.
	I don't remember knowing, and when he told me, it was news to me that that had been happening.
	I'm sorry, I just lost the thread of what you were saying there.
	Could you just repeat that?
	I didn't know that that had been happening, that my mom had been on drugs.
	My dad told me, and it was a surprise to me when he told me that.
	And then later on, on a visit where I saw my mom, she talked to me about it as well.
	Sorry, I'm trying to understand what you mean.
	Do you mean that your mother was on drugs and was being financially irresponsible but you saw no evidence of that in your childhood or in your environment?
	Is that right? No, I saw evidence of it in my environment.
	I didn't know what the cause of it was.
	I didn't know that the...
	Oh, I see.
	Now, did you talk to your father about the chaos and instability and emotional disconnectedness that you experienced when you were with your mom?
	No.
	Did he ever ask about your experience of living with your mom?
	No. I guess your father did notice because he would have had some interaction with her, right?
	I mean, there's always negotiations when you're co-parenting, even if you're separated.
	He would have dropped you off.
	He would have talked to her on the phone.
	They would have had to arrange changes in the schedule, all those kinds of things.
	Did your father...
	How did your father know or did your father know that she was on drugs and how long was the gap between him knowing and you going to live with him full time?
	I think the gap was about a year long.
	I think there was a year between when they got divorced and when I went to live with my dad.
	Now, do you know if she did drugs before your parents got divorced, or has your dad ever told you?
	I think that's one of the reasons why they got divorced.
	She had started to do drugs.
	Okay, so is your dad seriously sticking to the claim that though he had evidence that she was a drug user and getting a blood test is very simple, right?
	That she had evidence that she was a drug user and if you're a parent being a drug user is being a drug abuser, is your dad seriously saying that she got almost sole custody though he was aware that she was abusing drugs?
	Yeah, that doesn't make any sense at all.
	It makes no sense whatsoever if you understand that, right?
	Yeah.
	So you're being fed a load of bullshit, frankly.
	And I think that you know all of this unconsciously, so I think when people come and talk to you about the, quote, honesty of their feelings, I think it makes you angry.
	Because I think that you're being pretty manipulated by your father, right, who's just not being upfront and honest, right?
	Right. You don't leave your children with somebody who's abusing drugs.
	You just don't.
	Right? Yeah.
	And if you do leave your children with somebody who is abusing drugs, you damn well ask them all the time how things are at home and you keep a close watch on the situation, right?
	Yeah. You don't just not talk about it with your kids, right?
	Yeah. And you sure as hell don't have to wait for them to be pretty much homeless before you act, right?
	That's true. I mean, would you do that?
	I mean, not that you'd ever be in that situation, but you wouldn't do that, right?
	No. So I think that you are...
	Hyper alert. I'm not saying your wife is bullshitting you at all, obviously, but I think that you have a lot of anger built up, and it's probably unconscious, about the number of lies you've been told.
	I only heard that I was hyper aware and then it got garbled.
	Sorry about that. Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And that comes out, I'm sure, as harsh laughter.
	When you laugh harshly at someone, what you're saying to them is, you're bullshitting me, right?
	And it's contemptible and it's pitiful, right?
	I'm sorry, it's breaking up again.
	I can't hear what you're saying.
	Well, we'll try.
	If you're gobbled, we'll have to maybe take this call another time, but we'll try again.
	when you laugh at someone harshly, what you're saying to them is, you're bullshitting me, it's contemptible and it's pitiful, and you're insulting my intelligence.
	Now, I don't know anything about your wife and it doesn't really matter, but you have a history of people insulting your intelligence with these ridiculous lies. but you have a history of people insulting your intelligence Like, I knew your mom was doing drugs, but I could not get custody.
	I mean, this is ridiculous, right?
	Yeah. I mean, now that you understand this perspective, it's ridiculous to have ever believed it, right?
	Yeah, yeah, it really is.
	And I don't think that I ever really did because I didn't feel...
	I still didn't...
	I didn't feel any resolve or anything at all.
	I didn't feel anything change after he told me that.
	No, I bet you nothing did.
	And, um... When you listen to this again, I really want you to pay attention to your earlier description to me of your father's and his communication to you about your childhood.
	Do you remember what you said?
	Yeah. What did you say?
	Well, that he...
	Like, he had kind of...
	Like, saved me from it.
	From, like, my mom, I guess.
	Yes, but... Sorry, what I meant was...
	I wasn't at all clear, I apologize.
	What I meant was...
	What is...
	What did you tell me about talking to him about this stuff now?
	Oh, that he was very, like, open talking to me about it.
	Right. Do you understand that there's reasons to be skeptical of that, to say the least?
	Yes. Yeah.
	Yeah. So I think you've been lied to a lot and I think that you've wanted to tell the truth and I think you've also known the truth and you've known that people are lying which is why you have this derisive laughter when people are telling you something that you've told them for a long time.
	I bet you communicated to your father about six million different ways the distress you were experiencing Yeah.
	And who listened? Nobody did.
	Nobody did. Right.
	So you're going to have a lot of anger about that, right?
	About having your self-interest as a child sacrificed for the sake of other people's immediate comfort.
	Your dad left your mom because she was doing drugs.
	In other words, your dad left your mom because he couldn't handle her behavior, right?
	Yeah.
	How the fuck were you supposed to handle it?
	If a grown man who chose the woman cannot deal with her behavior, cannot manage her, cannot interact with her in any positive way to the point where he flees the house, how is a 10-year-old cannot interact with her in any positive way to the point where he flees the Thank you.
	It's like me being unable to lift 300 pounds at the gym and then saying to a 10 year old kid, "Here, you hold this weight." I feel like I've been tricked a lot.
	I think it's more than a feeling, my friend.
	I think it's more than a feeling, but tell me what you're feeling just now.
	You sound sad. I think I've always wanted my dad to be, like, the good guy.
	And everything that happened.
	I don't agree. I don't agree.
	No? No.
	No, children want the truth.
	They want the truth. I don't think it's you who wanted your dad to be the good guy.
	It was my dad who wanted my dad to be the good guy.
	Yes. And that's why you didn't tell him what was going on.
	Because if you told him, he would actually have to act and be a good guy.
	And save his children from this calamity of your mother.
	Here.
	That's true.
	It does not benefit you to call your dad a good guy if he's not a good guy because lying, particularly about such important issues, is not to the benefit of you, right?
	Right.
	If a woman is raped, it does not – I'm not equating the two, just giving you an extreme example.
	If a woman is raped, it does not serve her psychological health to call it lovemaking, right?
	Right.
	But it does serve the tortured conscience of the rapist if she calls it lovemaking, right?
	Right, yeah.
	I'm feeling very angry now, because I feel like I tried to...
	Because even now, I tried to talk to my dad, like, honestly about it, and then he just lied to me.
	Yes, he did. I mean, based on what you're telling me, which I'm sure is correct, he certainly didn't give you the whole story, to say the least, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you.
	I think I have a lot to think about right now.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that you should try giving therapy another go.
	Look, I mean, you had a completely disastrous childhood.
	I mean, it's hard to find a single redeeming factor in it at all.
	It sounds like you ended up out of it a lot better than your brother did, and I certainly applaud you for that.
	But if you act out your history to your wife, it will undermine and possibly ruin your marriage, right?
	Yeah. You need to deal with these issues so you can deal with your wife as an individual in the present rather than as a manifestation of the past.
	Yeah. Because I don't want to do any of these things to my own wife.
	No, and if you have kids in time, you certainly don't want to...
	Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well it sounds like you wanted to stop here, which is totally fine with me, and obviously mull it over, and if there's anything else I can do, please let me know.
	But yeah, I think that a re-examination of what other...
	View your childhood like everyone else would have viewed it who was around you, and with all the knowledge that they had that you didn't have.
	That's an important thing, I think, to do, and to try and figure out and say to yourself, ideally, what would I have done in that situation?
	If I knew that my, like if your wife started doing drugs and you had two kids and you then divorced her, would you leave the kids with your wife?
	I mean, one blood test and she loses custody, right?
	And the court can order that immediately, right?
	Yeah. So, okay.
	Well, I'll let you hold it over and you might want to talk about it with your wife some more for sure.
	But, yeah, I think there are some secrets worth exploring here that will be very helpful for you.
	Again, with all sympathy to the pain that they will cause.
	But the alternative to going through it directly is to act it out, which is much worse in the long run.
	Yeah. Okay, well, thank you very much.
	You're welcome. I hope that it's helpful and do keep us posted.
	You can use the board to talk about it with people and do keep us posted on what happens and all the best and all my sympathies in the world for what you suffered as a child.
	It is just wretched. Okay, thank you.
	All right.
	Okay, if we have another question or comment or issue or problem on any topic that your thunderous hearts desire, but feel free to let me know.
	Steph?
	Hi, it's Kevin. Hi.
	Hi. Well, I'm going through kind of a career crisis, I guess you'd call it.
	And, you know, you've been talking a lot lately about careers and changing careers and Yeah, those resume podcasts, and things came to a head, and I think I'm going to be leaving my job.
	Sorry, just for those who don't know, Kevin is an exotic dancer, if it's right, Chippendales, right?
	And you were aiming for Mr.
	August, and you had the tool belt, but you were having trouble with the Panther, is that right?
	Not exactly, no.
	I'm sorry if I have you confused with my alter ego, Sebastian von Vixenhead, but...
	Sorry, please go ahead.
	I just wanted a little levity after the last call, but please, sorry, go ahead.
	No, that's fine. No, that's fine.
	Well, I mean, you said from the beginning that, you know, following the truth will fuck things up, I think was the exact words.
	I think that was it. You know, I work for the local public school system.
	Sorry, I think you were pausing there for me to go, the horror!
	So there it is. Go on.
	And, you know, it's finally come to the point where I just have to get out.
	And, I mean, it got to, just this week, it got to the point where I took, like, I just, I took Thursday and Friday off, and I think I'm going to start looking for some work tomorrow.
	I mean, I'm willing to take anything at this point.
	Okay, and, sorry, go ahead.
	Well, it's, you know, and I've got...
	I guess I'm a little conflicted about it because there's a part of me that's like, you know, that wants to leave, really. I mean, even just thinking about going back there, even for a day, creates this well of anxiety that That's just, ah.
	But then there's another part of me that's like, well, but you work there, you have responsibilities and that kind of thing.
	Does that make sense?
	No. No?
	No, that last bit doesn't make sense.
	You work there, you have responsibilities.
	I mean, the only job that has no responsibilities is the one that I've got.
	So I don't think there's two.
	So tell me what you mean about that last statement, I work there, I have responsibility?
	Well, when I was brought in there, I work as a tech for the PCs that are in the school that I work at.
	And... And it became readily apparent pretty early on that there wasn't too many people in the entire school that knew much about technology in general.
	So I ended up doing a lot more than what someone in my position would normally be doing around the school.
	And... And...
	The people that run my school are pretty clueless.
	I'll just put it out there.
	My boss, the principal, is, well, not very smart.
	And... There's always been at least one person at the beginning of the school year who at least knows something about, that knows a little bit of technology and knows something about the way the school system works, who is able to get things running.
	Well, that's tough, right?
	Sorry, it's tough because it's a public school system.
	The number of people who know Commodore 64s and pets definitely diminishes over time, for sure.
	So you have a bit of a monopoly that way, but sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I mean, we're running computers with XP. It's not, you know, it's not too backward in that respect.
	Right. But the problem is that in the beginning of this year, there is really no one that is going to be able to take the reins.
	See, what happens is that our principal hires good people, and then she drives them out because if they don't kiss her ass...
	She doesn't support them.
	Right. And I think she's pretty much driven out the last person who would dare come to our school.
	So, if I understand it, not to cut to the chase or anything, but I'm the only one allowed to ramble.
	Is it that you feel that without you, the students will suffer because of a lack of technical expertise in the school?
	Um... Yeah, that's part of it.
	I mean, I just think the school itself will have a problem getting off the ground.
	Right. So it's like you say, if I leave, the school will suffer because of the lack of technical expertise and that maybe you should take the bullet because you can handle it with the magical power of philosophy, whereas someone else won't be able to.
	I mean, I'm just casting about trying to figure out where the core of the issue is for you.
	Well, I mean... Well, I guess that's kind of the thing.
	It's almost the opposite of that, because I feel like I can't handle it right now.
	I mean, you know, I'm...
	You know, going through a lot of...
	You know, a lot of stuff.
	Just, you know, trying to work all this philosophy into my life, I'm still...
	I'm still taking baby steps, really.
	And... I don't know if I'm really ready to take on a lot more things right now.
	What does a lot more things mean?
	Well, like one of the things that I was – I'm a computer tech and I was tasked with doing – with coming up almost by myself with the AP sort of – with the assistant principal sort of giving input the actual schedule that the students follow and the teachers.
	Huh? Yeah.
	Huh? The schedule.
	Huh? Oh, so you're not just responsible for the network, you're responsible with what the network transmits as well.
	Okay. Well, that's what I'm talking about.
	I'm basically like a free agent while I'm there.
	Right, right. Can type, will travel, right.
	And because I have a little bit of a brain, I guess, I get tapped for stuff.
	And what is your saving situation?
	Do you have enough money to take some time off or can you reduce your expenses to take some time off?
	Yeah, that's kind of the problem.
	I don't really have the ability to...
	I mean, the only solution I see is if I can get maybe a job doing something smaller.
	I mean... Just to keep the money coming in because I do have some debt and I have the rent on the house.
	I mean the room that I'm in.
	Right, okay. So even if you were to cut your cost to the minimum, you don't feel comfortable without a job for a while?
	No, I don't. No.
	Because I would lapse into credit card hell and my credit rating would...
	I mean, I don't own anything really that could be taken away.
	And how is it that you've ended up with little money?
	I mean, don't public school jobs pay at least fairly well?
	They do, but I have not been wise with my money.
	You mean you've spent money on food rather than donating?
	Well, I spent money on all kinds of stuff.
	So you're a bit of a spender, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Okay. Because, I mean, there's dealing with symptoms and then there's dealing with causes, right?
	Right. Exactly.
	So, I mean, the first thing you need to do is stop spending.
	Right. I mean, I'm no financial expert and blonde wigs look pretty bad on me.
	Sorry, blonde hair wigs look pretty bad on me.
	But I will say this, that the only financial...
	Tip that I ever give people is just stop spending.
	You know, like I'm not a big one on how to diet.
	Just stop eating as much, right?
	I mean, that's sort of all it.
	We don't have much control over income.
	We don't have any control over the economy.
	We don't have any control over interest rates or anything like that.
	But we do have control over whether we buy something or not, right?
	Now, I can go a little too far the other way.
	And I'm sorry, somebody just asked what other kind of weeks there are.
	I feel that to answer that would diminish the possibilities of the question.
	So I won't. But you just need to stop buying stuff, right?
	Yeah. So that would be the first thing, because...
	What it sounds like you're lacking is a longer term plan.
	Now, clearly, there's no easy way to switch into another career or another job right away.
	I mean, yes, you could quit this job, you could look for other jobs and so on, but that may make you feel too stressed and so on, right?
	But we can put up with stuff if we know there's an end point.
	Mm-hmm. Like the last couple of months of my last job, I really didn't like it at all, but I knew that I was working to save up money so that I could start FDR without having to be my wife's financial bitch, so to speak.
	And so because I had that as a goal, the accumulation of income to start out FDR, then the crap I had to put up with at work made more sense, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Oh, boy, you sound remarkably unconvinced.
	Well, I was just thinking, because, you know, what kind of triggered us was that we were...
	Our principal, just to...
	I'll try to make this as short as possible.
	She bought interactive whiteboards for our school.
	I don't know if you know what those are. You may have seen some of my YouTube presentations, but yes, I have some ideas.
	Well, yeah. Okay.
	Right. And she bought interactive whiteboards for a school population.
	For a population of teachers that's not really tech-savvy.
	Right. And then she tasked me with...
	Training them on how to do it, on how to use it.
	Right. And...
	Sorry, you're shifting around a lot there.
	You're getting a lot of growls off your mic.
	Oh, I am? Okay. I need to get listeners into the Iron Maiden, but sorry, go on.
	Okay. And...
	The training was supposed to be on Thursday.
	On Wednesday, I told my principal, look, I'm really not ready for this training.
	I wasn't. I wasn't comfortable with teaching the teachers how to use this thing.
	Sorry, and when did she ask you to do the training?
	It had been a few weeks back, actually.
	Okay, do you see any problem with this scenario?
	Yeah, I do. And what's that?
	That I knew about it and didn't do anything, I guess?
	Well, you did something, which is to not tell her until the day before the training, right?
	Right, right. I mean, I'm sure that she's not the best person in the world, but if you were my employee, I'd be pissed too, right?
	Yeah. You know, you agreed to do it a couple of weeks prior, right?
	Yeah. And then you acted as if you were ready to do it for those couple of weeks, right?
	Yeah. And then the day before the training you say, I'm not ready.
	Mm-hmm. So...
	Go on.
	Help me understand that.
	Oh... Help you understand it?
	Yeah, because what you did was you kind of sold me a bill of goods a little earlier with all due respect and affection, right?
	Yeah, I know. You were saying to me, oh, my principal, she's so difficult and she's so this and she's so that.
	And then the evidence that you give me is of kind of an annoying employee, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, I guess that's kind of the problem.
	What kind of the problem?
	That I, well, that I am an annoying employee.
	Yeah. And look, this is not to say that you may have damn good reason and so on, right?
	But you understand that you're acting aggressively towards your principal, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	So she's got a mom thing going with you for sure, or you've got a mom thing going with her, right?
	Yeah. Because in our prior conversations, we've gone down this road with regards to your mom, right?
	Right. Right.
	Right. And this is probably why, as you become more aware, this situation at school becomes less tolerable, if that makes sense.
	Could you repeat that again?
	As you become more aware, and we had an emotional talk the last time that we talked, right?
	So as you become more emotionally aware, you are going to find your Simon the Boxer scenarios less and less tolerable, right?
	Yeah. So, all I'm saying is that the faulty ratio is not in the stars, but in yourself, right?
	What is happening here is that you are blaming an environment for something that you are bringing to the environment.
	Now, if you don't bring that to the environment, I'm not saying that that makes the environment magically good, right?
	But if you are bringing this to the environment, which is, as you say, being an annoying employee, then changing jobs won't help, even if you go to the private sector.
	So you don't think it'll change at all?
	Oh, I guarantee you that it won't change.
	I guarantee you that if you are acting out family business at work, changing your jobs won't change a thing.
	Hmm.
	And I'm saying that not because… I mean, you can change this, right?
	You can change this. I'm not saying that you're now doomed to this passive aggression for the rest of your life, but the problem is it's still unconscious for you, right?
	Because when you were talking to me, and you'll hear this when you listen to this again, when you were telling me about your situation, you were talking about the problem being only your environment, right?
	Right. And then you told me that you're the annoying employee, right?
	Well, you didn't tell me.
	I kind of got it, right?
	Yeah. So the reason that you called to tell me about this kind of stuff is because you need me to tell you that you need to resolve this situation in yourself first.
	That changing jobs won't help, right?
	Yeah. And the way that you break patterns is you do the thing which is going to be the most horrible for you, I guarantee you.
	Do the thing that's the most horrible?
	Uh-huh. Which would be what?
	Well, you should go to your boss and apologize to her.
	Yeah. Because even if she's, you know, whatever, the nastiest known human being, in this instance, you kind of screwed her over a little, right?
	Yeah, I did. And there's never an excuse for that, right?
	This is something that is important.
	She may be a bad person, in which case you should not be her employee.
	But as long as you remain her employee, her being a bad person does not give you license to be a bad person, right?
	And again, I'm not saying you are a bad person, but to act in this kind of way, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes sense. And of course, it's not her fault that you had your mom, right?
	No. No. I mean, in fact, it's almost my mom's fault that I had her, actually.
	I think that's entirely right.
	So, obviously, you don't have to apologize to your mom, right?
	Because you didn't choose to have her as your mom, and you had no choice to stay in the relationship when you were a kid, right?
	Right. Right. But you did choose to have this person as a boss, right?
	And you have chosen to stay there, and you did choose to spend the money, which means that it's harder to quit, right?
	Right. So you do have ownership in the relationship with your boss that you just don't at all have in the relationship with your mom, right?
	Right. So am I annoying you enough yet, or should I keep going?
	No, tell me what you're feeling about what I'm saying.
	No, it makes sense.
	I think that that was what was...
	See, I was trying to figure out which side was right.
	Inside me, I guess. Right.
	You mean you and your boss?
	Is that right? Well, the...
	Which... Well, because I told you before that I was having a conflict where it was like one side really wanted to go and the other side was like, we'll stay and...
	I mean, not stay, but I mean, like, felt bad about it.
	Yes, and the way that I always try and suggest that people deal with these kinds of conflicts, and it's great that you're bringing it up, because this is something that's easy for people to forget, right?
	But what I suggest that people do when they're in these kinds of conflicts...
	Is if you're torn, if you're ambivalent, then the solution, as is the solution to just about everything, is relentless teeth-gritting honesty, right?
	So the reason that you want to – if you're going to leave this work situation, then you want to leave that work situation with as little ambivalence as humanly possible, right?
	So that you don't bring baggage or luggage with you.
	You don't want to be like a car driving with that just married stuff hanging off the back, the cans, or like a kite with the tail.
	You want to be free of that kind of stuff, right?
	You don't want to be the bird flying with the ball and chain, right?
	So, and that's why I always say to people, you know, go talk.
	Go talk to your parents, go talk to your girlfriend, go talk to your wife, go talk to your children, go talk to everyone that you're having this ambivalence or this conflict with.
	And that way, you then get peace, because either the relationship improves or the relationship does not improve, in which case you simply lose the desire to interact.
	There's no longer even any ambivalence, right?
	You just know and you're at peace and you leave and you don't take any baggage with you.
	Right. And I mean, I don't think the ambivalence is with my boss specifically because I know that I have zero respect for her.
	No, that's not the issue though.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you right up front, but that's not the issue.
	The issue is that you're scared of her.
	Yeah. That's true.
	Right, that's your Simon the Boxer thing, right?
	Which is that I can't be open, I can't be honest, I can't have my needs known because I'm going to be humiliated, ignored, rejected, put down, right?
	vaporized, vanish, all that kind of stuff, right?
	And apologizing to people is often considered to be an act of weakness.
	It is a great act of strength and generosity to apologize to people.
	It is an act of ownership.
	It is an act of self-ownership and self-esteem.
	Because when you apologize to someone you've done wrong to, even if they're not that nice a person, if you apologize to someone you've done wrong to, what you're saying is that I can do wrong and still be a good person, right?
	Whereas if we feel that we can't do wrong and still be a good person, we will never apologize, right?
	Because to apologize is to define yourself as a bad person or a controlled person, to give the other person all the power, right?
	If we're afraid of other people, it's because we feel that if we put ourselves in a diminished position relative to them, if we apologize to them, put them in a position of power, then we're doomed for eternity, right?
	Yeah. But if we ourselves...
	Are strong people. Then we can put other people in position of power over us and just see what they do.
	And if they are gracious with that power, good.
	If they abuse that power, we survive, right?
	Right. If you go and apologize to this woman, And she's like, yeah, you little pissant, now dance for me, right?
	And start shooting at your feet.
	Then you will probably have a little less ambivalence about your work situation, right?
	Right. But if you're engaged in this subterranean tug of war with her for power, for, you know, I'm going to do it and then say, well, I can't, and you probably implied that it was unjust for her to ever ask in the first place, you know, like it's inappropriate for you to ask the day before you're supposed to.
	If you're engaged in this kind of under-the-table tug of war, you'll never, ever come to a conclusion about the relationship because there's just no honesty and there's no vulnerability, right?
	Right. And without that, then I won't know.
	Yeah, because if you're bringing bad things to the mix, right?
	If you keep adding four fistfuls of pepper to the pot, you'll just never know whether the recipe tastes any good without you adding that mess, right?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Well, I think I got it.
	Thank you.
	What did you get? Well, I mean, yeah, so...
	I guess I got to apologize and talk to her.
	Just tell her what's up.
	Yeah, personally, I wouldn't go spill my guts.
	What I would do if I were you, and this is just my opinion, right?
	But what I would do is I would go and apologize and just say, look, I was irresponsible when it came to the training because I agreed to do it and I gave you every indication that I was going to do it.
	And then the day before, I told you that I wasn't going to do it, and I did not reference the fact that I had, and I did not apologize, and I almost acted resentful, and that was wrong of me.
	And I'm really sorry. That was irresponsible.
	It was unprofessional, and it was obviously frustrating for you.
	So I apologize for that.
	Now, I wouldn't then go into...
	And I'm having trouble with this job as a whole and I don't know what I want to do with my career and I have these credit problems.
	I'm not saying you would, but what I would do is just put that limited apology up front or a complete apology about a limited topic and see what she does.
	Okay. If she accepts it graciously and she talks about her experience, then great, right?
	That's going to relieve some tension.
	Mm-hmm. The other thing, too, is it actually trains you to not do it.
	Because if you do something kind of weaselly like this, and then you don't have to apologize, because apologizing is not fun, right?
	Then in a way, you're doing the crime, but you're not doing the time, so to speak.
	Right. So it means that you're more likely to do it again in the future, to the detriment of your sense of control and self-esteem.
	Whereas if every time we do something that's wrong, we have to apologize, we actually end up doing things less wrong, so to speak.
	Right. Because we're like, well, I could do this, but I sure as hell don't want to apologize, right?
	Yeah. You don't sound very pleased at the moment, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Very pleased? What do you mean?
	Well, I find sometimes when we talk, you get kind of clipped, if that makes sense.
	You know, it's the...
	Yeah.
	Yeah. So what's that covering up?
	What are you feeling about what I'm saying?
	And it's okay to get mad at me.
	I could be totally wrong, right? It's just my opinion.
	No, I'm just thinking about...
	I haven't been working on my full potential there in a long time.
	It's just bringing up a lot of stuff, I guess.
	Because, you know, you've talked about the government employees before, you know, how they're kind of a waste, for lack of a better word.
	I'm not sure that I've said that all government employees are a waste, but perhaps you can tell me what to mean.
	Well, I mean... Well, but, you know, you've talked about, like, how you've worked in government offices, and a lot of times it's just, you know, like you said, it's just getting home and that kind of stuff.
	And I think that for, you know, I've been working in the school system now for like, you know, like seven years.
	Right. And, you know, I just...
	And even the job I had before that, I just have a really...
	Lousy work ethic? No, you don't have a lousy work ethic because you work very hard at FDR. What you have is resentment.
	I mean, don't you go to work and feel resentful most of the time?
	Isn't that your daily experience?
	Whenever you're asked to do something or whenever you have an obligation, don't you feel resentful?
	Yeah. And can you think of a day over the last seven years where you've gone to work and been happy to take on a particular task that's been directed to you by somebody else, or is it always resentful, or is there some mix?
	Could you say that again? It all broke up.
	Sorry.
	Is it – have you – over the last seven years, how many days have you gone to work with enthusiasm and enjoyed the day?
	Maybe like the first couple of weeks that I was at this job.
	Thank you.
	Right, okay. Go on.
	And then I was given a task to do.
	Go on. Sorry.
	And my principal basically, after I'd worked really hard, basically just said, you know, that I basically said that I'd done it all wrong.
	And that I'd screwed up and she'd dress me down like in front of the entire...
	administrative and office staff.
	Right.
	And I'm imagining that it wasn't because you had looked at particular instructions and said, damn it, I'm just going to do the complete opposite.
	Right.
	So you followed instructions and then you got chewed out, right?
	Yeah. And then after that, it just kind of...
	All my enthusiasm just went down.
	Right.
	So you've basically been in prison for 361 weeks.
	Well, seven years, 364 weeks.
	The first couple of weeks were fun, right?
	So, what,.06,.7%, is that right, of your work life has been enjoyable, and after that, it was downhill, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	And, you know, that was the beginning of this job, specifically, because I've been at this job for, like, four years.
	How did she know she could do that to you?
	you?
	What signals did you give off in those first couple of weeks that she felt safe humiliating you in this way?
	Let me ask you this another way.
	When you were given this task to do, did you just go off on your own and do it or did you do it with asking for feedback along the way?
	I kind of went off on my own.
	Right. Do you know why I asked you that?
	Why? Because she didn't...
	Because I didn't ask for her feedback.
	And what does that tell her about you?
	That That I'm not really That I'm not really working for her?
	No. I don't think that tells her.
	No? That. I'm not sure.
	Well, if you had an employee and you said to your employee, go do X, and it's going to take them two weeks, and they went on, and they were just starting, and they went off to do it and never came back to you once, what would you feel about that employee?
	Or what would you know about that employee?
	Yeah.
	What would I know?
	I'm having a hard time thinking of this.
	I don't know.
	Yeah. Because the rational thing, purely rational thing to do when you're given a new task in a new environment, the rational thing to do is to go back for constant feedback, right? Right.
	Because you are in a new environment working for a new boss doing new things, right?
	Right. Right. And the reason that you do that is partly to make sure that you get this right.
	And the second thing is that, so at the end, people can't say to you, you fucked up, right?
	Right. Right.
	Because if you'd gone back to her every couple of days...
	And said, how's this, right?
	Does this make sense? Is this working out?
	Is this right? Is this wrong?
	All this sort of stuff, right? Mm-hmm.
	Then... She couldn't have said at the end, you screwed it up, right?
	Right.
	So, it was almost like I was looking to struggle.
	It's not that you were looking to screw it up.
	It's that she knew that you were terrified of her.
	She knew that you were frightened of her.
	Oh. And she also knew that you were terrified of negative feedback.
	And she also knew that you wanted negative feedback because she was irritated.
	I'll just give you an example from my own career.
	So when I was a manager at a company, I had an employee who was really difficult and would pretend to listen and then would just go off and do his own thing, right?
	We needed a database for tracking project time.
	And I had one that I'd written a while back, and I handed it to him with instructions on how to do it, right?
	How to change it. And he said, okay.
	And he went off, and he never came back.
	So a couple of days later, I said to him, how's it going?
	Do you have any questions? Because I knew what I'd asked him to do was complex, right?
	Yeah, I didn't hear that last time.
	Sorry. I knew that what I'd asked him to do was complex.
	And there's no way that he could have done it without feedback.
	So the fact that he wasn't asking me for feedback was totally Weasley, right?
	Right. So then a couple of days later I said, listen, I know you're going to need some help on this.
	This is a complex thing.
	what's going on he's like don't worry everything's fine right so then a few days later and and what was happening was he was intrusive towards me right Because I knew he was bullshitting me.
	So it was on my list of things that were going to be unpleasant to deal with, right?
	So then a couple of days later, I just said, I need to see what you're doing.
	And it turned out he had completely abandoned the database I'd given him and was working on some web portal, and I don't even know what the hell it was for, right?
	Some pet project he wanted to do.
	I ended up having to fire him and I knew he was angry at me Because he was causing me irritation and anxiety by withholding things from me, by nodding and smiling to my face and then going off and doing something else without giving me any feedback.
	He was messing with my head, right?
	Right. Because if he told me up front, listen, I'm not going to do it, right, I would have found somebody else to do it.
	Right. I knew he wanted to be fired, right?
	Yeah. He was an oriental fellow from the old school.
	He was very hierarchical.
	You had to bully this guy to get him to do anything, and he was a bully in turn to people who worked for him.
	So when I gave him freedom, it caused him anxiety, and therefore he turned around and caused anxiety and irritation back at me, right?
	Because he couldn't handle the freedom.
	Right. Hmm.
	So by not going back for feedback, you were irritating her, right?
	Right. I mean, I'm assuming that what she said was, and it doesn't matter what the content, it wasn't something as simple as paint the front hallway, right?
	But you can't really get wrong.
	So if it's complex and your boss asks you to do it and you go off and do it without asking for continual feedback and then you do it wrong, it's totally annoying.
	Yeah. And it's anxiety-provoking in the other person, right?
	Right. So you actually initiated the aggression here.
	Yeah, you're right, I did.
	No, I don't think you quite get that.
	I think you're saying it intellectually.
	No, I do.
	I'm just thinking about it.
	Because you just did it again with the training, right?
	Exactly the same thing.
	I'm on it, right? Yes, I'll do it, right?
	And because of that, she doesn't assign someone else to do it, right?
	Right. Right. Well, there would be no one else.
	Oh, sure. She could hire a consultant.
	She could do anything she wanted.
	True. Or she could have not bought the blackboards, right?
	Or the whiteboards. Yeah.
	Right. Every victim is a victimizer.
	You've got a dark side just like me, just like everybody else, right?
	Right. Right.
	Hmm. Hmm. And I say this not because you're a bad guy and you have good intentions and so on, right?
	But the important thing, the price of not being in touch with our dark side is we always feel like the victim, right?
	Because we don't want to look at how we screw with other people's heads and cause them problems and anxiety and so on, right?
	Right. We just want to feel like it's all their fault.
	Yeah, you know, woe is me, right?
	It's all me, it's all me. And look, if you were 17, I'd be totally on your side, right?
	Mm-hmm. But you're older than that and you've been around for a while and you've done the RTR and you were at the conference.
	So right now we can start to say, look, you have to look at your dark side and how you're not a victim but a victimizer of others.
	Not because that means you have to be a bad guy, but it just means that it gives you power to change your behavior.
	Whereas if you're just a victim, you have no power to change anything.
	Right. Right.
	Yeah, so if I take ownership of what's actually my part of this, then I can change the part that's my fault.
	Right, and if you improve your behavior and you apologize and you work through your resentment, because it's not other people's fault that you're resentful, right?
	That's your issue. If you get rid of all of that, and I'm not saying that's the easiest thing, but if you work on that, and you're positive and enthusiastic and glad to do stuff and ask for feedback and so on, then if the job situation is still shitty, you can leave with a clear conscience, right? Right.
	But if I go back and try to apologize and she...
	Snaps at me and makes me feel like I'm two inches tall.
	It would certainly be something to look at, for sure.
	Now, again, you've had seven years of building this relationship up to be what it is.
	It's not going to change immediately, right?
	Right. Right.
	So I wouldn't put it all down on one thing.
	She may handle this apology really badly.
	In which case, if you're going to stay there and it sounds like you need to for financial reasons, go back, be enthusiastic, be positive.
	Sorry, you're really bouncing and crackling like crazy here.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	So, um... If you go back and you apologize and she handles it ungraciously, then go back and be positive and go back and ask for feedback and go back and be enthusiastic.
	And after a certain amount of time, you'll just see if she's able to change.
	When you change something in a relationship, this is true of any relationship, if you change something in a relationship, the other person has to change.
	They simply cannot continue.
	The same way. If you used to yell at people, if you stop yelling at them, they will not be able to continue yelling at you.
	It's impossible, right?
	They will try and provoke you into yelling again or whatever, right?
	So she may provoke you into more passive aggression and she may give you needly criticisms designed to make you feel more resentful, but if you simply try and manage those feelings, she will change.
	It's like, think of two people at a tug of war, right?
	They're both straining like crazy.
	If one person lets go of the rope, the tug of war is over, right?
	Right, right.
	So, if you stop the resentful and the passive-aggressive and the manipulative and the messing with her head and screwing up her priorities, something will change.
	It simply has to.
	It's like you let go of the rope, the other person can't continue to have a tug of war.
	They just can't. Now, she may still go and do all of these things.
	There are people out there on the internet who still hate me as much as they did a year ago, but so what?
	They're just pulling on their own ropes now, so to speak, in more than one term.
	Right. Yeah.
	So I just have to see what happens.
	And the commitment for you is to enjoy your work as much as possible and to not surrender your power to resentment, to manipulation, to frustrating others, to feeling mad, to whatever, right?
	Just go there and try and extract as much fun and positive pleasure as you can.
	Because every day you spend resentful, it's just subtracted from your life.
	You never get it back. Right.
	Yeah. No, that makes...
	That... Yeah. Alright.
	That makes sense. So...
	All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
	Do keep us posted. And remember, stop spending money on everything except philosophy.
	Just kidding. Thank you very much.
	I appreciate it. It was a good call. I hope it was useful for other people.
	But I think that this is a common issue.
	And I also fall prey to resentment.
	I mean, it even happens with FDR. It is a challenge.
	Whenever you are breaking new ground in particular, resentment flares up.
	So it happens to all of us.
	nobody is immune to it but it is something that we need to have that commitment to enjoying what it is that we're doing and continuing to commit to enjoy it and then if it turns out to be impossible to enjoy at least we can leave it without regret and without baggage so i do keep us posted on what happens and let us know what happens with the apology if you don't mind i certainly would be curious to and practice the apology don't just walk in there and just blurt right just sit there literally if you've got a camera film yourself right to make sure that you're not
	i don't know um scratching your ass while you do it or some other sign of Just try and make it as conscious as possible with practice, and I think that will be helpful.
	That's why for me, when I apologize on camera, it's always chest up, just so everybody understands that.
	All right, well, thank you very much.
	I will move on to anybody else who has a question.
	I think we can do uno more.
	I think that's certainly possible, so let me know.
	Talking about the way I look at the universe, kind of like a, I don't know, nihilist or something.
	You typified, or you used a phrase towards the end of my view being something of a Cartesian conceit.
	I'll go with Cartesian.
	Conceit is not a word that I often use, but I'll certainly go with Cartesian.
	I remember the phrase, you definitely use Cartesian conceit, because I've been thinking on that for a while.
	Yeah, you're absolutely bang on.
	It is pretty much a conceit.
	I'm aware of the fact that it's an extreme way of looking at things, and conceit is exactly right, but I thought about that for quite some time, because I quite like being fairly honest, but it's a conceit, but...
	Having thought about it, it's a conceit I'm entirely happy with.
	It's a viewpoint that I use as a kind of yardstick or a measure.
	You know, like an astrolabe is used for looking at the stars.
	It isn't a star itself, it's just a measuring tool for making the context of the night sky useful for navigation.
	That's kind of how I use this.
	I used the conceit of that extreme viewpoint to measure all my viewpoints against and it kind of...
	I've used it to, I don't know, guard against that kind of level of assurity where I'm sure I'm right on a subject because I tend to find people who are absolutely positive In their viewpoint, that they are absolutely right.
	That there are, well, what's the word?
	I don't know, odious, self-righteous, sanctimonious.
	And dangerous. And very dangerous, yeah.
	No, I agree. As well.
	So if it is, I can see, and it pretty much is, I can see, then I think it's a kind of...
	I use it as a kind of psychological break to stop me, you know, leaping over into a fanatical viewpoint that, you know, science is the only way or evolution is absolutely correct and there is no God and blah, blah, blah, or, you know, whatever the particular topic is.
	And it kind of breaks me out of...
	Because I'm, you know, I'm a very kind of assured person.
	I'm very confident in myself.
	I'm very, you know, I'm...
	You know, I'm pretty sure that I'm right all the time.
	I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble following your logic.
	Oh, okay. I'll try and backtrack a step.
	Yeah, you were saying that you feel that people who are certain are odious, and you feel that you are certain most of the time, or you are right most of the time.
	You're certain that you're right most of the time.
	Yeah, I'm quite an odious person.
	Oh, so you mean odious like it's something that is a positive?
	No, I don't think it's positive at all.
	I just recognize my own fault.
	So you're negative. You're like a negative force in the universe, so to speak, by your definition, if I understand that rightly.
	You're like unpleasant, right?
	You're unpleasant and negative and difficult or whatever odious means, right?
	Nasty. I certainly have my moments.
	I mean, I'm quite good-natured.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but if you say that certainty is odious and you are certain most if not all of the time, then most if not all of the time you would be odious, right?
	Um... Yes.
	However, with this, in inverted commas, Cartesian conceit business that I've got going on as a yardstick, I kind of use that to kind of leave myself that kind of back door that says, well, you know, you're sure all your evidence points towards this.
	However, you know, you don't have all the evidence in the universe about every single topic.
	So there is the possibility that you could be wrong.
	Oh, sorry. I think I understand.
	So what you mean is that you say when, for your opinions, you feel that you are right most of the time, but when it comes to other people's opinions, you use this Cartesian conceit to undermine their certainty.
	Is that right? No, I'm more equal with it.
	I apply it to myself as well as to others.
	I can't be 100% convinced that you're right.
	Sorry, but again, I'm just trying to understand what it is that you're saying, but you said that you're right most of the time.
	Well, I said that I think I'm right most of the time.
	Because, you know, I try to live life, you know, honestly and report things, you know, as I see them, you know, call a spade a spade when I'm not calling it a fucking shovel.
	Okay, and can you tell me how it is that you know that you're right?
	What are the standards or the criteria that you apply to a proposition or to a belief to determine whether it is true or whether it is false?
	That it's never failed in practice, essentially.
	And can you give me an example of a proposition that has never failed in practice?
	Yeah.
	Well, staying up too late will make me...
	Too tired to function properly the next day or jumping off a wall will hurt when I land.
	That kind of thing. You know, basic stuff like that.
	Okay, so sleeplessness causes tiredness and physical injury causes pain.
	is that right?
	Yeah, that kind of thing or yeah or or even things like I've got quite an inappropriate sense of humour sometimes I I'm pretty much aware of that but also there's a large part of me that...
	And do you find that in your philosophical discussions, do you find that you meet a lot of people who disagree with the propositions that sleeplessness causes tiredness or that physical injury leads to pain?
	Um... I wouldn't say topics like that come up a great deal.
	Can you give me an example of a topic that...
	Because, I mean, you don't go to a physics convention and say that 2 plus 2 is 4 and water runs downhill, right?
	Because, I mean, that would be stuff that everybody would cover when they were about 5 years old, right?
	So what is it that is a proposition that would be worth discussing, if that makes sense, insofar as it would be contentious but something that you feel you have an infallible or certain answer to?
	Okay. Well, I'll take something like devolution, for example.
	Yeah, matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only altered.
	But that's not a contentious issue, right?
	Well, it is to some.
	To who?
	Well... How to phrase this without being offensive?
	I can't really. There are certain varieties of gong-banging idiots out there who believe in the occult and the supernatural.
	Well, the religious people would have a problem with this proposition, right?
	Because they believe that the universe was created.
	Yeah, sure. And if matter and energy can't be created or destroyed but only transferred from one form to another, then clearly there was no such thing as the creation of the universe from nothing, right?
	Hmm. Well, again, from a religious point of view, you could argue that the universe isn't created.
	It's more a manifestation of God's will.
	But that's kind of esoteric, I guess.
	But I certainly heard that argument positively.
	That it's a manifestation of God's will, is that right?
	Yeah, it's a manifestation of God's will and God being the omnipotent, omnipresent being that he is.
	I'm trying to paraphrase somebody else's argument here.
	And do you believe that if we look at a proposition like the universe is a manifestation of God's will, that's a testable hypothesis, right?
	I wouldn't like to try and come up with the experiment to prove it.
	Oh, it's actually quite easy, right?
	I mean, this is just based on Arkham's razor, right?
	So if somebody says that gravity is the will of pixies, right?
	Okay. Then clearly they would have to show the existence of pixies and how the existence of pixies caused gravity and also that gravity could be reversed because if it's the will of a conscious being, the will of that conscious being could change.
	So there's a completely testable hypothesis, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	And if I said gravity is the result of the will of the pixies, then if I could not show the existence of pixies, let alone that gravity changed, let alone that pixies were willing gravity, then my thesis would fall, right?
	Well, yeah, you say that.
	However, I mean, standard science of today, I mean, you're only going to look at, for example, the issue of dark matter.
	Dark matter has to exist for the equations of the universe to be right.
	80 or 90% of the mass in the universe isn't observable.
	It can't be proved, but it has to exist.
	And, you know, astronomers will talk about dark matter as though it's a concrete fact.
	I mean, dark matter is your astronomical pixie.
	No, not so much, because a pixie is a conscious being with willpower.
	I don't think anyone's saying that dark matter is not only must exist, but is also conscious and judges human beings whether they are good or evil, right?
	I mean, they don't go that far, right?
	They're just saying that there's this theoretical entity that has to balance the equations.
	We can't find it, but they also don't say that it does exist until they can find some proof.
	They say it must exist based on our equations, but they also don't describe willpower or conscious characteristics to it, right?
	Sure. Okay, yes.
	The reason that I was saying that is that you were saying that that's similar to the Pixies cause gravity, but it's not, right?
	Well, in the sense that you're saying that you can't prove that pixies cause gravity because you can't observe the pixies, then I'm kind of saying that you can't really prove the whole current thinking in the science of astronomy because you can't observe dark matter.
	Yeah, at all. So you can see the effects.
	I mean, you can't see gravity directly, but like you can see an atom, but you can see its effects on matter.
	So you would have to show, even if you couldn't observe pixies directly, you'd have to show that they had a conscious will, which of course would be an observable characteristic.
	So you can't say something has willpower unless you can observe it directly and reason with it and so on.
	So these would be ways in which you could test the proposition that the universe is the will of some sort of god, and of course there's no way to – it's completely false, right?
	It's just not a valid thesis.
	Well, it's certainly not provable.
	Oh, no, it is provable, and because it's provable, it's disprovable.
	And because it is not proven, right, and because there is no evidence for pixies that will gravity, then the thesis falls, right?
	Yeah, okay. It certainly wouldn't be published in any reputable journal.
	The thesis falls.
	You have trouble with that, right?
	You don't like that?
	No, I don't have any problem with that.
	Yeah, the thesis that Pixies will gravity, it definitely does fail because there's no way of gaining any experimental data on that.
	Oh, well, there is a way, which is to prove the existence of pixies and to find out that they will gravity through some test interaction with them or whatever, right?
	And so if that thesis falls, then the thesis that the universe is the will of a deity, or manifestation, I think it was, the will of a deity, that thesis falls because it's exactly the same thesis, right?
	We're just using God instead of pixies and the universe instead of gravity, but the same principle applies.
	Yeah, sure. From a scientific point of view, yeah.
	You see, you're hedging again, right?
	What other point of view are we talking about?
	Well, unfortunately, we're not really talking about my point of view.
	I'm trying to talk from someone whose religious point of view.
	Well, sorry, but if the proposition that the universe is a manifestation of the will of a deity is false, then a religious point of view is just a false point of view, right?
	It's just an error.
	It's like saying my point of view is that two plus two make five.
	It's not a point of view.
	It's just an error. Yes.
	That's good. I think we're in agreement with reason and evidence, which is usually a good place to be, right?
	Yes.
	However, I don't think somebody who was committedly religious would necessarily agree.
	And certainly I've met committedly religious people who just wouldn't take that point of view or that rationalization on board.
	Yeah, but that doesn't – sorry, we're not talking about a rationalization.
	It doesn't matter whatsoever whether people believe a rational argument or not, right?
	I mean there's a flat earth society that truly believes that the world is flat.
	They're just wrong, right?
	Yeah, sure. And it's the same thing with the religious, as you say, point of view.
	It's just, it's an erroneous point of view.
	It's simply, it comes from the childhood of our species, it is exactly the same as superstition, and it's simply erroneous.
	Yeah, I think I'm still conformably agnostic rather than atheist.
	Just by, I don't know, just by what my gut tells me.
	Your gut tells you. What does that have to do with truth value?
	I mean, a racist, not to put you into this category, but a racist gut will tell him the blacks are inferior, right?
	Sure. And he's wrong, right?
	His gut doesn't tell them anything, right?
	It's just another word for prejudice, right?
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yes, I suppose it is.
	I guess I've got my own little prejudices.
	And, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm probably tilting closer to the atheist side of agnosticism, but I am still agnostic rather than purely atheist.
	podcast.
	And what is your argument for agnosticism as opposed to atheism?
	I guess boiling it down to like a phrase that I just simply don't know.
	I mean, although I'm considerably more of a believer in the whole scientific method than I am in the whole The creation from divine will side of the argument.
	I can't completely put out of my mind that the universe could have been willed into existence by a giant gerbil called Gerald.
	I just can't.
	It could well be possible.
	Life could just be considerably more freaky strange and downright obnoxious than I can contemplate.
	So you think that the giant gerbil creation could be true, right?
	It could be true.
	The world could also ride on the back of a turtle, picking other things that I personally believe are pretty much nonsensical.
	So you personally believe that the world does not ride on the back of a turtle?
	I personally believe that that is nonsense.
	But you wouldn't feel comfortable saying that the proposition that the world rides on the back of a turtle is false?
	I wouldn't be comfortable with 100% surety saying that it was false.
	And is there anything that you would be comfortable saying with 100% surety?
	Only that I am unsure.
	And how am I supposed to square that with your earlier assertion that you feel that you're right about most things?
	I'm a prejudiced, bigoted person like everybody else.
	I've got my own beliefs.
	I have to live in the real world.
	But there's a difference between intellectualizing through a subject and actually living through a subject.
	Well, I don't know what any of that means, but I'm going to have to drop you off the call now and move to another question just because this is a show about philosophy and not about prejudices or opinions.
	If we do have a show called I Like Hamsters and I Like to Watch People Do Cartwheels, we can bring you back for that show.
	But this show is about objective, rational, or scientific truth, so I won't be able to continue to talk about mere opinions, right?
	Because otherwise we might as well just have a chat and say, what bands do we like, right?
	It would be about as solid a foundation as that, right?
	Well, yeah, fair enough.
	All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
	It was an interesting chat. We do have time for another question.
	If anybody has one, I am more than happy to entertain them.
	Hello.
	- Hello, Steph. - Hello.
	Hello. Hi, Steph.
	Sorry, is this Ash?
	Yeah. I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry to be annoying, but just because we've talked for the last couple of weeks, I think Greg had a question, and I haven't talked to Greg on the show for months, so do you mind if I answer his question?
	No, it's my pleasure. I'm sorry to be annoying that way.
	Greg, you had a question? Hi.
	Yeah. First, let me check to see if I'm coming in clear.
	Sure. Okay, cool.
	Well, I've been rereading RTR, and I had a question about your definitions for emotions, if you wouldn't mind offering if you wouldn't mind offering a clarification for me.
	Oh, that is a little rough, Greg.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, sorry. Can you hold that question?
	When you upgrade your internet, maybe we can have a conference call about that more specifically.
	I'm always very happy to discuss RTR, which I think is one of the most challenging and productive aspects of the conversation.
	So why don't you, when you get your upgrade for your internet, we can pick that up again, but you're hazing out quite a bit there.
	Oh, alright, yeah. No problem.
	Okay, sorry about that. Okay, Ash, sorry about that.
	your backup.
	Okay.
	Hey.
	So the food contacted me.
	The who? Oh, the foo.
	Right, right. Yeah.
	And I had a question about my reaction.
	I didn't really understand it.
	Uh-huh. I thought maybe...
	Um, well, I had like, I needed some kind of, I needed these savings bonds that I think I left there, you know, to like get by.
	So I asked them about it in an email and they wrote me back and they were like, oh, I love you.
	And they were just like, really, it was unexpected.
	And I wasn't angry, and I wasn't sad, and I kind of made myself cry for a minute.
	And I was like, what am I doing?
	I don't even know how to react to this.
	Is that normal to be completely baffled by this?
	Yeah, it certainly is.
	It certainly is normal. But you say you didn't know how to react to it.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Well, here we enter into one of the most challenging aspects of what is often called authenticity.
	Authenticity is that there is no correct script to follow.
	Right? There is nobody who is filming you like a director and saying, that was totally the wrong emotion.
	The script calls for you to be angry and you were laughing.
	And that is bad.
	And you need to do that take again, but with the right emotion.
	Right? Right.
	Authenticity is what?
	Just raw emotion.
	No, it's not raw emotion.
	Just a reaction, right?
	A natural... Yeah, authenticity is the right way to react is how I react.
	There's no comparison, right?
	Like if you have a movie script running in your head, so to speak, which says, well, if my parents contact me and tell me that they love me, I should burst into tears, right?
	Yeah. Because that's what a sensitive or healthy or good person would do, right?
	Mm-hmm. Well, um...
	That's not the case, right?
	There is no script.
	There is no external standard by which you are supposed to have emotions.
	There are, I think, good external standards about how we're supposed to behave, right?
	If I feel angry, you don't get to strangle a kitten.
	But in terms of your emotional reactions to what is happening, authenticity is, hey, what do I feel?
	Not, what should I feel?
	Right. Well, I asked myself, what do I feel?
	And I came up with, I feel blank.
	I really don't know what I feel.
	I feel blank, right?
	Yeah, I felt pretty numb and blank and like almost cool with it.
	But then a lot of other emotions came in and I was kind of curious as to whether I was forcing myself to come to a conclusion by RTRing with myself.
	You know, was I searching for an unnatural reaction?
	What was your judgment about feeling, as you say, blank and cool with it?
	It scared me.
	That's a feeling. What was your judgment?
	That it was wrong.
	Why was it wrong? Because if it was cool, then I just moved so friggin' far away and I just picked up my whole life just so that I could get that acceptance from them and feel okay.
	Sorry, I don't understand that last part.
	Could you describe it a little bit more?
	Them telling me that they love me, it was another symptom of their anxiety, right?
	But I also looked at it like, you know, oh, I finally got what I was looking for.
	They finally understand me.
	But they really don't. Right.
	And so what was their purpose in telling you that they love you?
	For me to come back, I think.
	Or... So they don't look like bad people.
	They even apologized.
	For what? My stepfather apologized for telling me never to step back in his house.
	And what restitution did he offer?
	He said, I'll look for your bonds.
	I'll look for the bonds, definitely.
	And then he closed it, confidentially, yours.
	Like, he's not going to tell my mom or something, which is crap.
	So he said that he was sorry that he ordered you out of the house.
	He would look for his bonds, and he implied that he would not tell your mother.
	Right. Yeah.
	Why did he tell you that he wouldn't tell your mother, do you think?
	He knows that she is...
	A screw-up. His purpose in their relationship, to me anyway, seems that he's always picking up the pieces for her.
	And would he say that he loves her?
	He says it all the time.
	Okay, and then he says that he loves you, right?
	Right. And would you say that you love her?
	Her? I don't know how to answer that.
	No. Yes, you do. I don't know.
	Love is sort of an undeniable feeling?
	I forced myself to say that I have for so long because I thought it was moral.
	Alright. Do you think that you, out of the blue, with someone you didn't love, just woke up one day and forced yourself to say that you loved her?
	Because you like to punish yourself and set yourself impossible standards because you're just a random masochist?
	Is that the theory? No, I think I understand what you're getting at is that she's been telling me to love her forever, and finally I don't have to do that for her, but he wants me to do it for him.
	Alright, I'm going to go one level further, sorry to interrupt.
	You said that she's been telling you to love her, right?
	But that's not the reality of the parent-child relationship, right?
	Right. I mean, if I told you to go move to China, would you move to China?
	No. Obviously you'd be tempted.
	But you wouldn't, right?
	Because, you know, what am I? I'm just some guy, right?
	What the hell? Yeah, okay.
	Whatever, right? Oh, yeah.
	Like when people tell me what they like about something or whatever, I consider it.
	You know, I don't take on what they want from me unless I feel like it's absolutely necessary.
	So what were the consequences with your mother of telling her that you did not love her when you were a child?
	Hospitalization, just complete disaster.
	Hospitalization for who? Myself.
	Just, you know, I would be irrational if I didn't love her because of her rescue.
	So you would be, sorry to interrupt, you would be severely punished, right?
	Exactly. So do you see we went through three layers there, right?
	I haven't been keeping track.
	I'm just going with it. Well, the first thing you said was, I forced myself to tell her that she loved me, right?
	Do you see how that's not accurate?
	But I did it to protect my...
	No, she forced you to tell her that you loved her.
	Okay. Under threat of hospitalization, right?
	Okay. Right, right.
	Which is kidnapping and imprisonment for a child, right?
	Torture. Yeah, torture.
	Absolutely. The second thing you said was, I told her that I loved her because she told me to, or she asked me to.
	But she didn't ask you to, and she didn't tell you to.
	She forced you to. Steph, I lost you there.
	She didn't ask you to, and she didn't tell you to, and you didn't force yourself.
	You were forced by her to tell her that you loved her.
	Honestly, I missed out on that whole chunk right there, but...
	I'll try again.
	Okay. The reality is that She forced you under threat of torture to tell her that you loved her.
	Which is very different from the first two things you tried.
	You don't want to own the results of huge threats to your security as a child, right?
	If someone puts a gun to your head, right?
	And makes you step on a worm.
	You don't just say, I am randomly cruel to animals, right?
	Right, right, right.
	You don't just say, well, I did it because they told me to.
	No. You did it because you had a gun to your head.
	It was a survival thing.
	Right. So, I just think that's important.
	So, when I say, do you love your mom?
	The answer is...
	No, I've never loved my mom.
	And in fact, anybody who forces you to tell, any woman who forces you, any mother who forces you to tell her that you love her, with the threat of being tortured and imprisoned in a hospital, is in fact a loathsome individual.
	Yes, she is.
	It's not a question of do you love her, it's like, hell no.
	Rather, I loathe her.
	I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.
	This is just based on what you're telling me, right?
	I understand that.
	Nine, I understand that.
	I mean, if I told you that my mom had me imprisoned in a hospital if I didn't obey her, you would think she was pretty loathsome, right?
	I'd be appalled. Right.
	You know, I'd do everything in my power to save that child myself.
	Now, if your stepfather...
	Loves a woman who tortured you and then claims to love you.
	Does that fit at all?
	No. Not logically.
	But it's like he knew what to play with with me.
	He's been sending me these like puppy emails and like Just things to attract my sensitive side.
	Well, I don't think it's your sensitive side.
	I think it's your sentimental side.
	And what I mean by that is Jung said this.
	It's not my observation, but I think it's very true.
	That sentimentality is the flip side of brutality.
	I've noticed in my life that the people who are violent and brutal are very sentimental as well.
	To take an extreme example, Hitler loved animals, loved dogs.
	Oh God, really?
	Yeah, my mother would take in stray animals and nurse them while beating her children, right?
	I swear to God. And the people who are the most religiously violent have all these sentimental, dewy-eyed pictures of Buddy Jesus on the wall, right?
	Oh, that's so true.
	Yeah. And the people who are the bitch secretaries in corporations always have pictures of kittens hanging in there until Friday, right?
	Yeah. Quarterly.
	Right. I was at a training seminar and everybody there was just like...
	Really unhealthy looking, but they were saying, God is good!
	They're just freaks.
	Oh yeah, whenever you see sentimental people, for the most part, it's just a good idea to hightail it as quickly as possible if you can.
	Right, so these puppy emails and I love you and blah blah blah, right?
	I mean, these sentimental arguments without ever addressing the core evils in the relationship is entirely...
	Predictable, right? I mean, when you see it, right?
	I was expecting a more violent reaction, so I guess I was just surprised.
	Well, you may have been expecting a more outwardly violent reaction, but this was a very destructive message, right?
	Yeah, it actually sucked me in a little bit.
	But if he had sent you a violent email, you have to respect your enemies.
	It's very, very important. These people are very good at what they do, right?
	I mean, you're an intelligent woman, and you're growing in leaps and bounds as far as self-knowledge and awareness goes.
	And if he had sent you an openly aggressive email, you wouldn't have been sucked in, right?
	Right. So he did the most destructive thing he could.
	Yeah. This is a guaranteed.
	This is a guaranteed. Whatever he's going to do, whatever your mother is going to do, is going to be the most destructive.
	And if you say, well, I was expecting something more destructive, the fact that it is less destructive makes it more destructive, because it throws you off, right?
	It's confusing. It does, yeah.
	Yeah. It, like, blinded me a little bit.
	Gross. And it made you doubt and question yourself, and it separated you from yourself because you judged your reaction as wrong.
	Yeah. Yeah, I did.
	Well, don't do—never judge your reaction as wrong.
	You can judge your actions as right and wrong, and I don't think you have to worry about that, but your reactions are never wrong.
	Never. Okay.
	All right. Let's see.
	I think that it was really wise that I just, I'm so far away.
	Yeah. You know, it was like, because I mean, it's not the first time I left.
	It's just the first time I changed.
	Right, right.
	Well, it's the first time you have, you're really working on this moral clarity, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I was thinking today, wow, there was actually help this whole time.
	I wasn't just going crazy.
	There is help out there.
	I'm just lucky that I found it.
	Well, I mean, the whole point of what we're trying to do here is to, I mean, at this point in this phase in the philosophical conversation, the whole point at least of, I wouldn't say we, the whole point of what I'm doing here is what I missed the most when I was struggling with this stuff when I was a child and particularly when I was in my late 20s and early 30s when I was really struggling with family stuff.
	What I so desperately wanted was for there to be a sympathetic witness.
	It's still completely silent now.
	Oh. What I most wanted was for there to be a sympathetic witness to what I had suffered, right?
	Okay. But did you also pursue it?
	I'm sorry, go ahead. I also see it as you're pursuing a creative, positive outlet, though.
	I mean, you have...
	Achieved an artistic level with this as well.
	I hope so, and I hope that to some degree the artistic level just keeps people engaged in the conversation, right, in this attempting to unravel the histories that keep us from really rising to our full potential as human beings.
	So I hope that that continues, and of course the honesty that you and other people bring to this is fantastic for that, and I really do appreciate that.
	Well, yeah, the other thing that I appreciate from the artistic point of view is that it's inspiring, too.
	That you don't just have to, like, create crazy, stupid songs from being tortured your own child.
	You know, you can, like, do something tasteful.
	Oh, sorry. Do you mean the novel?
	Because I forgot to mention that, that the novel is available now for free.
	The God of Atheists, a PDF and audiobook download on the Free Domain Radio forward slash free page.
	Is that what you meant or did you mean something else?
	No, just like everything in general, really.
	Yeah, the books, you know.
	Right. I've tried to keep them entertaining and engaging from that standpoint.
	But have a listen to the novel.
	I think the novel is called The God of Atheists.
	It's pretty funny, I think.
	The taste issue you may want to revisit after you've heard some parts of it, but I still think it's pretty funny and you might want to give that a shot.
	I think it's pretty entertaining and I think it certainly goes quite deeply into how it is that I view the potential of the family.
	So I hope that you'll give that a shot.
	Oh, that's good.
	Alright, I'll check it out.
	Alright. I'm having a hard time right now, donation-wise, but as soon as I get on my feet, I'll be receiving some.
	I appreciate that.
	Don't sweat at all.
	You know, the old thing, right? Get the oxygen mask on your face first, right?
	And get yourself a very solid mask.
	and you'll know when the time is right and what amount is right.
	So don't worry about that.
	And this is a general note.
	There's lots of ways to contribute.
	But the important thing is that you go through a selfish phase, right?
	You go through a phase where you simply take everything you can of value from the community.
	And then when you are sated, right, When you're hungry, you go and get yourself full and then you can go and feed others, right?
	So I wouldn't worry about reciprocity at this point, but simply work on taking as much as possible because you have received so little in life that you've needed to that I would say gorge yourself senseless.
	Okay. All right.
	Thanks very much.
	You're very welcome.
	Thank you, everybody. It was a wonderful show.
	I appreciate everybody's openness and honesty, as always.
	And it was actually quite fun to delve into.
	Thank you to our Scottish friend to delve into philosophy again.
	It was a nice little treat.
	So thank you, everybody, so much.
	much remember to pick up your free copy of the god of atheists a novel at freedom radio.com forward slash free and i've also added the god of atheists and practical anarchy to the referrals page freedom radio.com forward slash referral if you could send emails out i ask and this is if you're you know if you've been around for a while and your your life is a little bit more stable if you've gone through these kinds of transitions um i'd really ask just um to you know half an hour a week you know grab some emails from the web
	go to people's blogs just to search libertarian blogs through google groups or yahoo groups You know, don't spam anyone, but just send them an email saying, I thought you might be interested in this.
	I really do appreciate that, you know, 15,000 books.
	I think that's largely been as a result of my efforts to get them out there.
	Just think what we could do with a community of hundreds or tens of thousands, if everybody wants to get involved, of people getting these books out there.
	On Truth, The Tyranny of Illusion, Universally Preferable Behavior, Irrational Proof of Secular Ethics, Real-Time Relationships, Practical Anarchy, Everyday Anarchy, and The God of Atheists.
	Oh God, no wonder I needed a bit of a break for FDR with six books in a year.
	But anyway, if you could get the emails out there, I hugely would appreciate it.
	And you can send the videos, podcasts, books, and so on, and feeds to people using the referrals page at freedomainradio.com forward slash referral.
	I would really, really appreciate it.
	It's a great way to donate if you don't have any money.
	Just spend half an hour a week.
	We're not Mormons.
	We don't say you have to go to Africa for two years to build outhouses in Zambia.
	But half an hour a week would be fantastic if you could take that time to post the links to the books on forums, send an email out to a couple of people.
	That's how this is going to work.
	And this is how the world, I think, is going to, through the efforts of us and others, be brought to a kind of stellar reason that has been a long time coming.
	Thank you so much for listening, as always, and thank you so much to the donators from this week and the new subscribers, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate dot html.
	You can sign up for 20 bucks a month, less than half the price of a cup of coffee a day, which we use to spread the word.

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