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Sept. 1, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:24:52
1139 Depth and Creativity - A Listener Convo

Making sure your horse doth feed.

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Time Text
All righty.
How's it going?
How's it going?
Hi. It's going all right.
I'm a little bit sleepy, but I've got some coffee in me and I had some food for breakfast.
As opposed to, you know, screws or nails or something.
Food. All righty.
Let's just make sure everyone's in.
I'm just checking in the chat window.
All right.
Just try and keep background noise to a minimum, those who are bowling with marbles.
Yeah, it sounds like there's like an engine going somewhere.
Yeah, if you're not talking, if you could just remember to click on mute in Skype, that would be great.
Okay, so JC, did you want to get started with the...
Okay, yeah, okay.
I've been working full-time as a writer since January, pulling in an alright income.
I mean, a better income than I've ever pulled in before.
It's probably around the same amount as a skilled laborer would make.
I worked for the same company from basically The day after I started listening to FDR until late July, but I had already gotten a second job by then, and I'm working there right now as an editor and a writer.
This background noise is really distracting.
I'm sorry. It's not yours, is it?
No, it's definitely not mine.
Oh, it stopped. Okay.
I'm a little disoriented because it was like I was in a wind tunnel and now I'm not.
So, okay. And the problem to me, I don't know if it's like a huge problem or not, but...
Oh dear.
You've gotten a little quiet there.
Did we drop you? Did we...
Let's see. Ah, call.
It call. It call was dropped.
We'll bring him back. Ah, voicemail.
I have a feeling his internet went down.
I have a feeling his heart is not gonna be able to get the heart out.
I have a feeling his heart is not going to be able to get the heart out.
I have a feeling his heart is going to be able to get the heart out.
I have a feeling his heart is going to be able to get the heart out.
I have moved a little bit.
Hopefully it'll be okay.
Where did I cut off?
You were getting the same wages as a skilled laborer.
You've been starting since January.
Okay, yeah. So I've been working since January.
I started this new job when the old company kind of fell apart or closed the department or whatever.
And... Last month, I went through some pretty bad financial straits that were my fault, more or less, where I ended up not being able to eat for a week.
But, I mean, I got paid and I was okay after that.
And then I started focusing on work pretty intensely after August 9th, this month.
I worked pretty well from the 9th till the 20th, and then my motivation seemed to just evaporate once I had made enough money to make it through the following month.
And then I just felt like I didn't really...
I wasn't able to, when I sat down to focus, just nothing was coming out, and I would just be sitting, staring, and not feeling like I was going to get things done, and I just keep getting distracted.
And is it that you have writing assignments that you are supposed to be working on?
Is that right? No, I don't have assignments at this job.
I'm completely self-directed for this one.
Right, so you made enough money to make it through the month, and then your motivation dropped off, right?
Yeah. That's bad?
It's bad because I want to have enough money so that I actually have savings so I don't end up in a situation again where I'm squatting and not having enough food and stuff.
I hate being one disaster away from Not being totally broke.
I just don't want that to happen again.
Sorry to interrupt you, but just to be specifically accurate, part of you wants that, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely, because...
Part of you doesn't. Yeah.
Look, I was going to get to that.
I kind of enjoy it when I'm going through something awful.
I find it kind of funny and exciting.
Right. Right.
So, I mean, throughout this month, you know, I was just kind of focusing on getting everything together.
Like, I made more money in 10 days than I used to make in a month, just, you know, powering through, doing, focusing on getting the work done and setting up, you know, goals for every day that I'd make and trying to monitor how I'm doing things and structure my day so that I don't get distracted or anything.
It's not like I was not producing very much.
At the top of it, I was writing 16,000 words a day.
A lot. I wasn't even feeling tired.
Actually, the more that I would produce...
The more relaxed I would feel at the end of the day.
And I could do that in like six to eight hours.
But the days that I would produce less, I would end up working longer and I'd feel much more tired at the end of the day.
Right, because when you're in the zone, you're not fighting yourself, right?
Yeah. And so...
It was last weekend that I got to this Saturday.
I wrote four articles and then I just felt, you know, I've been staring at the screen.
I've been trying to work and then I just keep, you know, clicking away and reading something online and it's just not worth it.
I should take a break.
I should do something fun.
So I just pretty much spent the rest of the weekend not thinking.
Playing games. I guess the day before, I think this is important.
I was reading Psychology of Self-Esteem.
I hadn't finished it yet. But I got to a point about, you know, choosing to be more conscious.
So I tried it.
And I just, my brain felt much, I felt a great deal of clarity.
That I haven't felt for a while.
I don't, the way, I guess it was like taking a stimulant.
My thoughts were just much more rapid and I felt more capable mentally than I normally am.
But after that I felt exhausted and it didn't carry over into the next day.
And it was also kind of frightening because I realized that if I had been conscious like that, I wouldn't have ended up getting into this relationship or making a lot of mistakes over the past few months.
But now I feel sluggish again, and I felt sluggish the whole week, more or less.
Right. But what I'd like to be able to do is I'd like to be able to Focus on getting this work done that I know will bring me money so that I have the financial security to move my writing career forward and in a more interesting way to take risks to send things to places where they might get rejected.
Even though I don't really get the feeling that I'm going to go through a lot of rejection, I just need to know that I can go through it, because I can't be in a situation where I just focus on things where there's a chance that I'm not going to get paid for it, and I send off a dozen things and I don't get paid for any of them, them and then at the end of the month I need to pay the bills and I don't have the money.
Well, clearly we're not in control of inspiration, right?
Right. I mean, if we were in control of inspiration, we'd all sit down and write sonnets and pop songs and be millionaires, right?
Right. So, inspiration is an unconscious fertility that we can only romance, we cannot control, right?
Right. Right.
And I guess I was trying to – because the more I tried to clamp down on it, the worse it became.
Of course. We know this from anarchic theory, that the more you control individuals, the less productive they are.
That's why communism doesn't work, right?
Right. What occurs in the social occurs in the personal, right?
We have a servant, so to speak, or an employee, who sometimes feels like a boss, called inspiration.
And if we try and order that employee around, they go inert, right?
Yeah. But the weird thing, what I don't get is, like, I told myself, okay, I'm going to take two days off.
And taking two days off made things worse.
Well, but see, that's because you're telling yourself to do stuff.
You're not in charge, right?
Look, if you were in charge of everything in your brain, right?
I'm not saying that you're overweight, but all of us would probably turn up the fat burners a little so we could eat more, right?
We'd have incredibly joyful dreams about riding unicorns or whatever, right?
We would be happy every single day.
We would not experience anxiety or pain, right?
I mean, if we were in charge, we would make all those decisions, right?
Right. But we're not in charge, and it's a damn good thing we're not, right?
Yeah. You know how, in economic theory, the reason that central planning doesn't work is that no individual is smart enough to know how an economy should be run, right?
Well, I propose that the same thing is true with the personality.
Our conscious ego is in no way smart enough to know how everything should be run.
Yeah, I'm definitely getting that sense because anything I try just seems to have the opposite effect that I would expect.
Right. And, of course, that is exactly what happens with central planning in economics, right?
Whatever they do has, through the law of unintended consequences, usually it creates the opposite effect, right?
Yeah. So, Charles Murray in Losing Ground puts forward a scenario where the government starts a program to have people quit smoking, and in every scenario, smoking increases.
Yeah. That's definitely the sense that I've gotten from this.
Right. So, if you're in opposite land, then you need to listen more than you need to speak, right?
Yeah. When you're in opposite land, you're in the George Costanza land from Seinfeld.
If everything I do, if every instinct that I have is wrong, then doing the opposite should be right, right?
Yeah. So, if you feel the urge to say, well, I have a goal and I'm going to whip myself like a tired horse to get there, and the horse just lies down, you can sit there yelling at the horse, but it doesn't really matter, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I certainly get the feeling that it is like a horse.
Like a giant, massive object that's totally stubborn.
Right. But see, the interesting thing is, who is more stubborn?
The horse that won't run, or the guy who keeps yelling at the horse that obviously won't run?
The guy. Right.
So, you know, calling your horse stubborn is probably not a very wise thing to do.
Yeah. So I'm going to put forward two possible scenarios about motivation, and you can let me know which one you think might be correct.
Now, if we look at the big view of where you are in life, you have, over the last month or two, achieved some significant self-knowledge about some habits that you have that you'd like to change, right?
Yeah. I mean, huge, big, compulsive sexuality and job performance problems and so on.
I mean, you've had stuff around your family, I mean, certainly since you've been part of this.
Right. You've just made huge strides in terms of self-knowledge, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
There's also the sense that, you know, like you said, I don't really have this single catastrophe all by itself.
It always has to be, like, five things at once.
Like, not only do I break up with my girlfriend, I move again across the country, and then I'm broke, and then I lose one of my jobs, and, you know, yeah, it's all at the same time.
And now what's happening is you're saying, okay, I'm going to stop my compulsive dating.
I'm in therapy twice a week.
I'm really examining my family issues.
I'm examining my guilt, my shame, my anxiety, my hunger, the tension.
And I really want to be highly productive as a writer and I want to improve my career and I want to get more jobs and I want to...
Do you understand? Yeah.
Do you understand why the horse has lain down?
Yeah. Okay, tell me.
But it seems kind of counterproductive because I want to be able to have that money so I can also have more choices.
Like if I want to take a month off...
Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt.
I fully understand why you'd want more money.
I really do. Trust me.
I'm on the line begging for donations every day.
I understand why you'd want more money.
But... Do you understand?
You said you understood why the horse is laid down.
Can you tell me what you understood when I asked that question?
I guess I don't understand it at all, really.
Or I'm avoiding it.
So you're saying to yourself, I'm in a therapy twice a week.
I've eliminated the core anxiety management compulsive behavior of dating, right?
Yeah. I've just had a breakup.
I've just moved. Right?
Yeah, this is the second breakup in six months, so...
Second breakup in six months, absolutely.
Yeah. You're involved in a highly challenging philosophical and psychological conversation.
You're really digging into your issues, which you should be totally admired for, in my opinion.
So, that is a lot to be taking on, right?
Therapy twice a week, self-examination, a cessation of compulsive anxiety management behaviors, right?
Yeah. That's a heavy load, right?
You've got, like...
300 pounds on the horse's back, right?
Correct.
And then you're saying, now we have to sprint because I want to produce a lot more material and improve my career.
Right.
And what is the horse going to do?
Well, what it did was it went far enough to keep me alive and then it stopped.
Can you blame it? Not really, but I get the strong sense that I could very almost easily.
It's like a lot of people go to work eight hours a day and every day, month after month, but for me it's like I can't For some reason, that's an impossible thing for me to accomplish.
So far, yes, but you have to remember, JC, that you started life with some pretty heavy fucking burdens, right?
I mean, you had a completely lunatic family, right?
You had a horrendous upbringing, right?
So you're entering the race carrying an anvil, right?
I mean, even by the standards of families as a whole, yours was pretty far out on the lunatic fringe, right?
Yeah. That's something else I wanted to try to figure out is...
Well, I guess I know, but I mean, there are a lot of things with me in writing motivation that are related to my past.
You know, I don't know how much the distant, the further past is as related as the stuff that's more happened when I was a teenager and recently.
Sorry to interrupt you. Can you just hold that thought?
Let me put out the two scenarios and figure out which you want to take.
Sure. So either what's happening is your unconscious is saying, we can't do it all.
Yeah. We can't solve the sexual compulsiveness, the family issues, the anxiety, the hunger, the occasional depression, the loneliness, a therapy twice a week, and also having a job.
We can't do it all.
In fact, the reason that your unconscious is shutting down, in my opinion, is because in your family, you had a rule called we can do it all, right?
Perfectionism. Yes.
Right, so the more demands that you place upon your unconscious, the more your unconscious is going to regress to an inert state of bullied childhood.
Okay.
The more you place unrealistic expectations on yourself, the more you're going to feel deep down like a child being bullied by his father, right?
Because your father was like, you know, we're rich, we're professionally successful, we are physically attractive, we are fit.
Everything had to be perfect, right?
Yeah. And I mean, I've been running 10 miles, you know, probably like 10 miles, like three or four times a week, too.
Yes, so you've also taken on a program of physical fitness, right?
Yeah, probably more intensive than the one that I was following before, even.
Right, so that's even more, right?
Yeah. It feels a lot more manageable than it used to, though.
Well, yes, but you can't do it all.
You can't do it all at the same time, right?
You can't fix your eating issues, do health stuff, therapy twice a week, work on all your personal issues, stop your compulsive behaviors, and massively improve your career at the same time.
It's unrealistic. Now, this is not something that you were taught, right?
No. Like, we are like a horse, and we can carry a certain load.
Let's say you can carry 300 pounds as a horse.
Well, if you're going to put something on the horse, you've got to take something off, right?
Otherwise the horse is just going to fall over.
But all you're doing, not because you're dumb or anything, but just because this is all you were ever taught, is you just pile more and more on the horse and then get frustrated when it falls over, right?
Yeah. I guess it's a little different for me because normally my response is just to, you know, give up, become totally inert, do nothing.
But that is also, that comes with self-recrimination, right?
Yeah. So you lie down with the horse and you say, we're both lazy.
Yes. Well, that's not sympathy, right?
No, it's not. It's not very helpful to the poor horse, I don't think.
Yeah, look, your horse, or we could actually say your inner child or whatever, right?
But your horse navigated you through some pretty treacherous obstacles as a child, right?
Yeah, I should think so.
I mean, your horse is smarter than you are.
My horse is smarter than I am.
I can contribute some stuff to the personality, like some analytical stuff, some research stuff, some fact-based stuff.
But, you know, my horse is smarter than me.
I didn't sit there and come up with UPB. The horse coughed up some UPB, right?
It's not like I pre-script my podcast with painstaking...
I just, you know, I just whinny into the mic, right?
Yeah. So, you know, respect for the horse is very important.
If you respect the horse...
It actually turns into a Pegasus.
You can go anywhere and do anything.
But if you say, I'm in charge, you are my slave, and you will do what I say, the horse will basically just give you the hoof finger, right?
One thing I tried was setting a low goal...
of how much I would do every day and I kept exceeding it.
Let me interrupt again because this is hard to transfer this kind of thinking.
Yeah.
How about asking your horse where it wants to go?
I don't really trust it.
I get that sense, right?
Because it tends to, you know, when I ask it what it wants to do, it's like, well, I don't know.
Let's go up to Seattle.
Hey, you know. Well, no, that wasn't your horse, right?
That was your defenses.
That was your anxiety avoidance, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm looking at the chat.
Does your horse trust you at this point?
I mean, that's an important, right?
Empathy is what other people choose, or hooves, as the case may be.
One of the great challenges of self-knowledge is to look at ourselves, our conscious selves, as our unconscious sees us, if that makes sense.
Instead of looking down into the unconscious and saying, what do we think?
Looking up from the unconscious and saying, what does the unconscious think of us?
Yeah, I'm just thinking...
Yeah, I think the horse thinks that I'm kind of crazy.
It's like, you're going to take me up a cliff, you know?
Well, go on. Tell me more about what the horse thinks of you.
Yeah, I think it definitely thinks that I'm kind of impulsive and definitely kind of loopy.
Okay. Go on.
Because I... I'm generally kind of self-destructive.
And sometimes I kind of like it.
When I landed from Seattle, looking at my bank account, being like, oh, well, hey.
I wasn't quite broke then, but...
Like, my aunt hadn't deposited the rent check yet, so I sent her an email saying, can you wait until the first week of next month to deposit the check so I can get paid and I won't overdraft?
But she deposited the check anyway.
You know, I overdrafted like 400 bucks because, you know, the check cleared and then all my automatic bill payments went through.
So, it was like...
Oh, we lost him again.
Oh, you're back? Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah. Uh...
And the worst things kind of got, I kind of laughed.
It was kind of funny.
It was pleasurable, actually.
It's like the worse the better.
Yeah, bring it on, right?
Yeah, it was very much a kind of bring it on kind of thing.
It's like, well, you know, I'm not dead yet.
Let's see what else you can do.
And there is a certain amount of, I don't know that that's necessarily bad.
I mean, not that my judgment means that much, but things can get so bad that they become funny, right?
Yeah, it definitely got that way, because it was like, then the department closes.
I knew that was going to happen.
That's why I'd already gotten the second job a few weeks before, because I had the feeling that it was on the brink, because they had already fired all the writers except for me and one other woman.
So my thought about it, so this is the one possibility that you're just piling more and more stuff onto your horse because that's all you were taught as a kid is constructive perfectionism, right?
You've got to be able to do it all.
You have no limitations.
Limitations are for the weak, right?
Right, yeah. That's really how I feel is that I feel like any limitation is artificial.
I'm making it up like it's imaginary.
Right, right. And your horse is disagreeing, right?
It seems that way, but I didn't get the feeling that I was pushing myself to a breaking point.
I feel more exhausted when I try to relax.
I didn't say breaking point, right?
Your horse is wise enough to not keep going when it's overloaded, right?
I'm not saying breaking point.
What I'm saying, though, is that dominating yourself with ego-driven goals without respecting yourself The power and need for participation from your unconscious won't work.
You know, it's so funny, right?
Because we say that we should not have...
We anarchists say there should not be a central authority, but everything should be a negotiation of equals, right?
Yeah. But then when it comes to ourselves, we turn into fucking Stalin, right?
On steroids. Yeah.
Yeah, that's certainly how I... You will do X! Yeah, it's like...
Yeah, you fulfill your quota, and it's like...
I exceed my quota, and I say, good worker, and I'll do it again tomorrow.
And more, right.
And more, yes. Right.
So that's one possibility.
Now, the other possibility, which is worth tossing out there, is that you...
You're looking for dissatisfaction.
You're looking for unhappiness.
Yeah, and the other thing I wanted to bring up is that there have been several instances in my history related to writing where the better I have done, I have been savagely attacked.
Sorry, you have been savagely attacked by who?
By people in my life, by my parents or my ex-girlfriend.
And eventually I kind of internalize those attacks to make it so that I self-destruct when things start looking good.
Right, right.
And it's been specifically tied to writing.
And I'd like to get into those because I think it's interesting.
Yeah. So that's another theory of mine, is that I've got kind of an Icarus problem, is that I figure, oh, well, if I fly too high, my wings are going to melt and I'm going to fall over.
So I just kind of swoop down when I seem to be getting high.
Well, let me give you a metaphor, and we'll see what you feel about it, and that should give us the direction to go in.
Okay. So the first metaphor is you were in a ship.
You were on a ship that sank a mile offshore.
You've been clinging to a...
Piece of wood, you know, dodging sharks and getting sunburnt all to hell.
And you finally get to, you drift to an island, and you are exhausted, obviously, you're dehydrated, you're hungry, and you stagger up to the beach, and then you fall over, and you rest, right?
That would be the logical thing to do, right?
Yeah. That's one option.
Now, the second option is, you...
What you would like to do is you like to swim out to sea, get exhausted, come back to shore, and then swim out to sea and get exhausted again.
That it's repetition compulsion.
Both of those situations sound just like me.
Okay, but one of them is going to be more accurate than the other.
The first one seemed a little bit more accurate.
Well, the first one is certainly accurate in terms of your childhood, right?
Yeah. I mean, you were born on a sinking ship, right?
Yeah. And you had to struggle your way to shore.
Now, struggle then becomes your habit, right?
That's all your muscles know how to do is kick and struggle.
So then when you get to firm land, you feel disoriented, right?
Dizzy, afraid. And I should add that that's something I used to do with my dad is, you know, swim out far into the ocean and swim back.
Okay, okay, okay.
Now, these two are not unrelated circumstances because if you're born out to sea and you spend your whole life getting to shore, then when you get to shore, you feel a lot of anxiety because you don't know what to do and all your muscles know how to do is swim and kick and fight off sharks, right?
So your temptations to go back out into the water are because that feels familiar, right?
Yeah, it does.
Now, if someone is exhausted and keeps going back out into the water because they were born out at sea and struggled to shore, what would you tell them to do, or what would you say would be the wisest thing for them to do?
Take a break and try to figure out why you're going out and doing that, because it seems to be unpleasant.
Right. And of course, for you, perfectionism is the water, and lust is the current, right?
Yeah. So you have stopped going back into the water of lust, at least for the time being, right?
Yeah. And we do want to get you back into lust.
I mean, there's no question of that, right?
But we just want it to be healthy, right?
Yeah. I think this way of looking at things is, first of all, don't go back into the water.
That's the key, right? Don't go back into the repetition.
And the second thing is that, yes, you need to rest.
And I think that's why your unconscious is saying, now we have enough for the rest of the month.
We need to rest. - Well, I have enough for this month when I get paid, but then I still have to work for next month, But I mean, I could conceivably, you know, make enough in a week, really, if I pushed.
But this is part of self-trust.
And this is very tough, I understand that.
But the self-trust is to say, I will be fine for next month.
I need to rest this month.
If I rest this month, my unconscious will reward me with creativity.
If I let my horse rest, he'll be able to run again.
If I keep whipping my horse forward, it's not going to work.
Yeah. Well, what happened in this previous month?
I started working pretty well after I started eating again.
Because, I mean, I was too broke to afford food, you know?
No money at all. Now, can I just pause you for just a sec?
Yeah. This is about the tenth time that you've talked about not having any food?
Yeah. I'm sorry, it's stupid.
No problem, but just help me understand why that keeps coming up for you.
What is it you're trying to communicate, that you're not getting reception?
Um... I was just trying to go through when I felt I was inspired to get work done this month, and there were two events that happened that afterwards I worked well.
Okay, but hold off.
I say tenth time, but not in this call, but you've mentioned it a number of other occasions.
Yeah, I know, because it was, I don't know, it was very different for me.
Well, what it means is that you're trying to communicate something, and you're not getting the reception that you need or want, and therefore you feel the need to repeat it, right?
I guess so. It seems kind of whiny.
What is the goal of saying, I could not eat for a week?
What is the goal of saying that to someone?
What response are you looking for?
.
Sympathy, but I don't even think I deserve sympathy for that.
And are you saying that no food passed your lips for a week?
Yeah. So you had no nutrition at all?
Water. Okay.
And I could have gone to like a soup kitchen or something, but I... So I think it was intentional.
Ask someone at FDR to lend you 50 bucks, right?
Yeah. Because that is just wildly self-punitive, right?
Yeah. I mean, in an advanced industrial country where you have people who care about you, even if it's just the people at FDR, which is not inconsequential, there is absolutely no reason to starve yourself for a week, no matter how broke you are.
No, Charlotte. It was like a couple weeks after.
But yeah, you have people who will take you out for your birthday.
There will be people who will lend you 50 bucks, right?
Yeah. And you can eat okay for 50 bucks.
I mean, I've been a student for a week.
Yeah, I know I can.
The self-punitive aspect is even worse because for that whole week, my paycheck was sitting in the mailbox and so were two credit cards that I had applied for.
But my neighbors had moved it to the wrong slot.
But when I really wanted to look for it, I found it in like 10 seconds.
So like that whole week, I could have just deposited the check and used the credit cards, but then they were there the whole time.
It's just, you know, two feet away from where they should have been.
Right, so what is it that you're trying to say when you say, I didn't eat for a week?
I starved myself for a week.
And why is it that...
You don't want to say, I punished myself by withholding food for a week.
Because it's obviously irrational.
And when you say, I didn't have any money and I couldn't eat for a week, what is it that you're trying to communicate?
That's a lie. Well, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a lie.
I think that's a bit harsh on yourself.
I mean, at the time, I thought that, oh, no, the check's not here.
What's happening? Oh, my God.
I kept looking at the mailbox and seeing that it was empty.
And, you know, why hasn't the stuff come in?
So at the time, I genuinely thought that.
But do you understand that when you talk to a community that would have lent you the money and say there was no way I could have gotten food for that week?
Mm-hmm. Do you understand that's kind of aggressive?
Yeah, it is. I feel kind of shabby.
No, don't. Look, you can feel whatever you want, right?
But we're just asking the question, right?
Because there's... Don't judge, right?
There's important information, and this is why I'm pausing on this.
There's important information here.
Yeah.
Right?
Because you didn't give people the opportunity to help you, right?
In fact, you didn't even give yourself the opportunity to help you by finding the two credit cards and the paycheck.
Yeah. Right? Right.
You say you have an aunt who you pay rent to, right?
Well, right now I'm just kind of squatting.
Well, sure. Until I get kicked out.
She would have lent you 50 bucks, right?
Yeah. And she...
But, I don't know, I just didn't want to talk to her because I had told her to just hold off on, you know, depositing the check because I was afraid the check might bounce.
No, I understand that.
But if you had died in that week, she probably would have said, well, I'd rather have lent him 50 bucks, right?
Yeah. And withholding nutrition for yourself for a week is very bad for you, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
You know, I couldn't get any work done at all.
No fucking kidding.
Yeah. Sorry, sorry.
So when you don't ask people for help, right?
And you don't eat, you don't give other people the opportunity to help you, and then you keep telling those other people, I starved for a week.
That's a little messed up, right?
Yeah, it is. And I think that the reason you keep talking about starving for a week is because you need to understand what was going on there, right?
Yeah. Because if you don't ask the community for help, That's totally fine, right?
I mean, people can do whatever they want.
But if you don't ask the community for help and then you complain that you were starving for a week repeatedly, then there's something else going on, right?
Right. And the reason that you keep bringing it up is you want someone to notice that you were starving for a week because that is so obviously a self-destructive act that you need help processing it, right?
Yeah. Like how on earth, in an advanced society, with a community that would be happy to help, did you end up not eating for a week?
That's an important question, right?
Right.
And it's not because you're manipulative, and it's not because you hate yourself, and it's not because you're bad.
It's because you wanted to communicate something and didn't have the words, right?
Because this is probably a pre-verbal situation, right?
I'm sorry.
What I mean by that is that this is a repetition, I bet, of something that occurred before, like when you were very, very young.
Yeah, I feel like crying almost.
Okay.
Tell me what you feel about that starvation.
Because the withholding of food is not uncommon in terms of parental punishments, right?
Yeah.
I thought about it at the time and I couldn't remember a time when my parents didn't feed me.
If anything, they fed me too much.
But I think it might have happened when I was at...
Tell me about the feeling. Tell me about the feeling.
It's a dense sadness.
It feels kind of humid.
I don't know why humidity comes up, but I'm thinking like a rainstorm almost.
I totally get that sense, too.
So I'm with you with the humidity, but go on.
For some reason I'm thinking like a rainstorm in Florida.
Right. I don't know why.
My grandparents lived down in Florida for a while.
I don't know. At the time too, I stopped talking to my ex for a week.
That was when I stopped eating also.
This is when I stopped talking to her for a week and then I started talking to her again later on.
Actually, I started talking to her and the day after that, I found my paycheck stuff.
I started eating again.
- Right, go on. - Even my therapist offered to give me money to eat.
Because, like, I saw him the week before.
I wasn't eating, and he was like, here, I'll give you 50 bucks.
But I told him, no, it's okay, because I'm going to get my paycheck.
Okay, I see Greg is getting frustrated.
I'm just trying to walk through what happened in this period.
People want to rush you, but don't worry about it.
This is how you get into the emotions, so just take your time.
Yeah, I... When I wasn't talking to her, I felt really awful.
The not eating, I think, made it worse and made it seem worse than it really was because it definitely, without any brain sugar, you're Happiness level goes down, down, down, down, down to the lowest point possible.
Were the sensations during that week...
Obviously, physical hunger was a very strong sensation.
Was it the physical pain of hunger or was it the emotional pain that was worse?
The emotional pain.
And also...
This is another thing I was doing was sleeping on the floor, instead of just going to Kmart and buying an air mattress, which is what I did.
But yeah, I was sleeping on the floor, too.
And you know, sleeping maybe like an hour or two hours a night or so, just because sleeping on the floor is painful.
Right. So there was a lot of self-punishment here, right?
Yeah. Okay.
And there's also a manifestation of this hunger that you feel, right?
You feel...
Sorry, there's a lot of background noise here.
Yeah, I was just fixing my microphone.
I'm sorry. You have fed your hunger for affection with sexuality, right?
Yeah. Yeah. With physicality.
And I don't just mean sex, but I mean with sexuality as a whole, romance, and so on, right?
And you had made the decision at this point, I think, to stop doing that, right?
Yeah. Because you say, I stopped talking to my ex, right?
Yeah, first it was only for a week, and then I talked to her again for like five days, and then I sent this email that I talked about yesterday, saying, we're not going to talk anymore.
Right. So... And obviously when you were a kid, you were starved for affection, right?
Yeah. Affection, acceptance.
Can you move your mic back a bit? You're rumbling with your breath.
Okay. You were starved for affection as a child, right?
And in order to fill that void...
You tried to fill that void with a man's needs rather than a child's needs, which is through sexuality rather than intimacy, right?
Because the hunger for affection arises from what you lacked as a baby, as a toddler, as a child, right?
And as an adult, you tried to get that affection through sexuality, right?
Yeah. But sexuality was not Obviously, sexuality is not an appropriate way for a child to get his or her needs met, right?
Emotionally. No.
So you were kind of putting a round peg into a square hole, to use an unseemly metaphor, right?
Because what you needed was emotional affection, care and love, and respect for who you are, right?
Yeah. But the way that you pursued it, which is totally understandable, is through...
Compulsive sexuality, right?
Yeah, it seemed the best way to feel that.
Because... But it didn't...
No, no. Of course.
Now, it worked, you know, in terms of a temporary...
You know, when you're in pain, you need morphine, right?
So, I mean, we're not going to condemn that.
We're just going to point it out, right?
Yeah.
And then when you decide that you are not going to fill your bottomless hunger with sexuality, you starve your body, right?
Yes.
which is a physical manifestation of hunger that you refuse to feed your body, but in the same way, at the very moment that you refuse to feed your defenses or your pathology around sexuality, right?
Yeah, and I kind of equate that to basically dying.
Well, it certainly feels that way, right?
Right. When we stop using our habitual defenses and we look at the void, the pain, right, the existential horror of our histories, it absolutely feels like we're going to fall forever, right?
Yeah, it really felt like this person that developed...
Since February, talking to this woman just felt like it was just dying, flailing about for a little while and then died.
And now I feel like I'm made out of clay, you know, misshapen clay instead of, you know, a fully formed person.
Right. And of course, misshapen clay can be molded, right?
Yeah. It is what an artist works with to produce art, right?
Yeah. So, I would say that this was two things, right?
The starvation. And again, it's all just nonsense theories, right?
Whatever fits is right. Yeah, sure.
But I would say that the first thing that it fit was that it was a physical or somatic manifestation of your spiritual hunger for love.
And the second thing is that by mingling in the physical agony of starvation with the emotional agony of starving for love, you blunted the emotional pain.
Right. I definitely did.
It made it easier to deal with, I think.
Sure. It's like the reason people cut themselves, right?
Yeah, or if actually, like if you're shot or something, sometimes you're supposed to give yourself a swift punch to the leg or something, you know, hurt yourself in another area to dull the pain from something else.
Exactly. And that's why you refused help, because food would actually have been more painful for you in a way than starvation, because it would have highlighted the existential hunger.
Right. It's like last week, Friday before last, it's activating my mind and then realizing what's going on with me.
Then I feel worse when I notice everything.
Okay, tell me what you're feeling now.
I feel sad, but it's blunted.
Or... On a different level across a membrane or a veil.
Right. Does that make sense?
Yeah. In your earlier metaphor, there was a time confusion, which I understand, because you said it was like humidity and also like a downpour.
And humidity occurs before, at least when I've ever been in Florida, when it's raining like hell, it sure doesn't feel humid anymore, right?
Right. So it's like it's the before and the during that your metaphor was working in your mind?
Yes. So it's the past and the present, not the future, right?
Because if it was the future, you'd say, well, you know, it feels like I see flickering thunderclouds on the horizon coming towards me, right?
Yeah. But the humidity is the past.
The downpour, I would say, roughly could translate to the metaphor of the tears of the present, right?
The humidity is the impending sorrow of the past.
The downpour is the sorrow of the present, right?
Mm-hmm.
- Mm-hmm.
I did cry a lot during that week.
I'm just remembering it now.
I hadn't thought about it much, but it really hurt like hell.
Right. And you were inflicting upon yourself a kind of helplessness, right?
Yeah. You were also inflicting on others a kind of helplessness by telling people who would have helped you, I couldn't eat for a week.
Yeah. And so, given the amount that you have to work on at the moment, and the amount...
And it's not because you're crazy or nuts or broken or anything like that.
What's happening is that you're simply trying to evolve from a very primitive gene pool, right?
Your family history is very primitive.
Lots of acting out. Lots of vanity.
They strike me as coiffed apes, if that makes any sense.
Like, so primitive.
So much acting out.
So much projection.
It's a very primitive psycho class, right?
No responsibility for self.
Control and brutalization of children.
Vanity, show, pomp.
Physical exercise for the sake of vanity and show.
That's all very primitive, right?
It's like Aztec or something.
My mother was a dancer once too.
Right, right.
So... You're trying to evolve past this pre-medieval psycho class, so to speak, right?
You're trying to raise the standard, lift things up, carry the whole burden of history up a mountain to a new place, right?
So that your kids will not experience the childhood that you experienced, but will experience something very different, right?
Yeah. Right?
So it's not because you're broken. You're just...
You have it within you to take on the task of changing the future of your family tree, right?
Right.
I feel that strongly that I also feel like I'm limited artificially for some reason.
Bye.
Does that mean artificially?
If you could move your mic back a bit, you're also breathing into it.
Oh, it's far away from my mouth.
I don't understand why. It must be just very sensitive.
It could be your nose, that your nose is breathing.
Nose goes out more sideways sometimes.
Yeah. Anyway, sorry.
What does it mean, artificially limited?
It feels like I stop just for play, you know, that I'm playing with myself, toying with myself.
Yeah. Like, I could do more, but...
Well, that's the perfectionism, right?
Growth is a negotiation.
It is not an edict.
It is not a commandment, right?
Yeah, I certainly do feel, you know, growth is kind of terrifying, and I seem to go through it very slowly, at least to me.
I mean, in reality, it's been...
Like, I can't even recognize myself from January...
Right, so we're talking eight or nine months, right?
Yeah. So, again, you know, patience is key.
Like, I bumped into my old ex on the sidewalk.
Oh, the ex-model, is that right?
Yeah. Well, actually, both of them are ex-models.
I found that out. And dancers, too, I'm sure.
Anyway, sorry, go on. Yeah, um...
The newer one was also an old ballerina.
She quit that, though. Right.
We'll get into the you're dating your mom another time, but go on.
Yeah, I know. Jesus Christ, it just happens.
Anyway, so I was working at the NYU library, so it wasn't like a shock that I bumped into her on the street.
She was working at the law school.
She called out to me.
Well, I was walking past and I said, oh, hi.
She just kind of chatted me and she asked me, have you talked to your parents again?
You know, I just looked at her.
It was like she hadn't changed one bit.
In all those months, I guess.
And, you know, I told her, no, of course not.
I'm never going to talk to them again.
You know, have a nice day.
Bye-bye. You know, I didn't want to just ignore her because she probably would have yelled at me or something.
At least that's my excuse.
It's also important to feel how you feel in the presence of someone from your past, right?
Yeah, she seemed like ancient, like from a hundred years ago.
It was the strangest sensation.
You know, it's just weird, you know?
And today, actually, I was thinking more about her, like the day that I dumped her, actually, how that happened.
I don't know if it's really relevant to now, but I was thinking of it earlier.
I feel sad, but also kind of disconnected from how I was then compared to how I am now.
That makes sense?
Right. It just seems like strangers.
Like strangers. Yeah.
I mean, I can totally understand that.
You're still the same person, but you're not as defensive.
You're open to pain, which of course is essential to growth, right?
I mean, there's no physiotherapy without pain, right?
But there is increased flexibility, strength, and movement.
So you are the same person, but you are more connected to...
You're on the horse now, right?
Right. Yeah, there are some things that I recognize from back then compared to how I was with Lauren, I guess, like charming and being the comedian.
And that sort of thing.
Like, every person...
I guess that if I'm in a relationship with someone, there's something that I pick up on in that other person that will, you know, light them up, make them laugh, and make them feel happy.
Right. And I'll always identify that really quickly.
Yeah, that's definitely part of your childhood, right?
That you had to be of value to people who did not find you as an individual valuable, right?
So you had to be a performer, you had to put on a show, you had to entertain them in order for them to treat you well, right?
Right, and that's part of the personality that I feel like has, you know, fallen off.
It's like a mask or a costume or something.
Right, and there will be a time in the future where you can resurrect your entertaining and charming side, because there's nothing wrong with it.
You just don't want to use it as a substitute for who you are, right?
Right. Like, if I feel like I can't pick up chicks without a Camaro, I need to ditch the Camaro, right?
But that doesn't mean I can never own a car in the future, right?
I don't get the sense that it's necessary.
I just do get the sense that it takes up way too much of what I consider to be my identity.
Right, right. You want it to be icing on the cake, not the whole cake, right?
Yeah. So, my basic thought is that you are going through an enormous amount of change, an incredibly rapid amount of change,
And I would suggest that having the conscious goal of taking a huge step forward in your career as well, at the same time, in addition to all of this incredible personal work that you're doing, is another form of self-punishment.
It's another form of falling short.
Right, because one thing that I kept focusing on is, oh, if I keep up the amount of work that I did today, and I do it every day for the whole month, I'm going to have this massive amount of money.
And what am I going to do with that massive amount of money?
Well, I'm going to put it in this savings account, and then I'm going to do it with this when I make that amount of money, and so on and so forth.
And I would think about it as I was going to bed, and it would make me more tired.
Yeah, because what you're doing is you're withholding approval for yourself in the same way that you withhold food from yourself, right?
Yeah, like I will feel approval if I make this amount of money.
And then it kept going up because the amount I would produce would go up.
Right, so you just keep moving the goalposts so you never score, right?
Right, exactly. And then I fall very short by the end of it.
Right. And withholding approval from the self is a very powerful defense mechanism.
Right? It's a very powerful repetition compulsion, too, because, of course, you never got any approval as a kid, right?
You're always short, right?
You always fell short in some goal, right?
Yeah, well, like, it would be, oh, well, you did well on this thing, but, you know, but we didn't win the championship on the basketball team, or you only got in the playoffs on one of your basketball teams, and they benched you on the other one, you know, that kind of thing.
And you got a B in math!
Right, so the withholding of approval is an elemental Way of controlling and humiliating a child by making them dance for a standard that can never be achieved, right?
It's like the greyhound races where they have that little hare that goes whipping around the track, the little rabbit.
Well, any time the greyhounds get close, they just crank up the speed of the rabbit to keep them running.
Yeah. That's how they keep them domesticated, useful, livestock.
Right. And plus, I keep comparing my performance in the past to the present.
It's like one time at my old job, they gave me an assignment.
Well, they said, well, you know, we have this client.
We screwed up. The deadline is today.
I need you to write 40 articles on monster trucks.
Well, you know, they asked me if I would do it, and I said, well, sure, because it kind of flatters my...
I guess my can-do-it attitude by being like, well, I know nothing about monster trucks, but I can write this much about it, about something I know nothing about and get paid for it.
So, like, I did it, right?
And I kind of have been using that and some other things like, oh, I can write about anything that they ask me to, and I can do it really quickly.
So why am I having trouble writing now?
If I can basically...
Do anything at this standard, you know, copywriting gigs.
Why am I feeling...
Why am I having trouble doing it now?
That sort of thing. Well, but see, to me, that's like saying, well, I used to be able to climb ten flights of stairs when I'd spent all day sitting around.
Now I'm on the Stairmaster for three hours a day and I'm finding it hard to climb stairs, right?
Yeah. It's because of all of the extra exercise that you're doing that still is remaining somewhat invisible to you, right?
Right. Right. And I also feel like also on Saturday I was thinking about it is that I did all this, I'd made enough for the month, this month, I could have been doing the kind of writing that I want to be doing.
But see, this is what you've got to get.
Fuck what you want to do. Fuck what you want to do.
What does the horse want to do?
Why not be receptive to a goal rather than commanding a goal?
Right? Well, because it's like, now I have this time.
I should be doing the writing that I want to do.
That's not going to work. I promise you.
Because that's your dad.
And you will maybe get some shit done, but you'll be about as motivated as you were when you were a kid and your dad took you on those endless fucking runs.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think that the horse wants to read books or something.
So, read books.
Play with plasticine.
Take up interpretive dance.
Stare at your toes. But let yourself organically come up with desire.
Because then, when the horses are all...
Because more than one horse, right?
There's an ecosystem. The horses are all pulling together.
There's no way you can't go.
But if even one of the horses wants to lie down, the carriage can't move, right?
Yeah, that's certainly the sense that I get.
It's like if I kind of want to be inert, then everything goes fallow.
Well, but that's your dad, right?
Your dad is, you know, if you're not doing something, you're doing nothing.
You're a waste. You're a useless eater, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Life is about excellence and perfectionism and self-improvement and making a good use of the day.
Idle hands are the devil's work, right?
Yeah, that's very much him, because if I lay down on a couch just to relax, he would yell at me.
Of course he would. I had to always be looking busy at the very least.
Right. No, I understand that.
The hostility towards relaxation is foundational to abuse, right?
And that's, of course, I mean, we know this from dictatorships, right?
In Soviet Russia or Mao's China, there was no fucking moment of the day that you weren't busy in some goddamn task, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you'd go to work for eight hours a day, then you'd go to your young communist meetings, and then you'd go on marched hikes, and then you'd go for military training, and then you'd get six hours sleep, and you'd get up and you'd be busy all day again, right?
Right, yeah. That's just like...
Yeah. Very much so.
So, taking the leisure to...
Figure out what you want to do, not what you feel you should do, not what you feel would be prestigious or practical or useful or get you more money, but what you actually want to do is so essential to fundamentally doing what is right.
Your horses know exactly where to go.
Your horses know exactly how to grow.
Same way your body knew all about puberty, right?
You didn't have to teach it any.
You didn't have to show it diagrams, right?
Saying, put the curly bits here, right?
Yeah, I got the feeling that even when I was telling myself, oh, you must have recreation now.
Like, my recreation wasn't very relaxing.
Right, right.
I felt even more tired.
Right, of course, of course.
So you've got to stop giving yourself orders.
You've got to start listening. You knew how to navigate yourself through your childhood to get to adulthood with enough of your faculties intact that you could undergo this process, right?
Your parents didn't do it.
Their parents didn't do it. Their parents didn't do it.
but you could do it, right?
Your parents were completely broken by their childhoods, You were not. And that was instinct.
Right? So, your instincts got you here.
They'll get you to the next step, too.
They navigated you through that blinding maze.
They will get you to actualization.
But you've got to stop giving them orders.
You've got to stop recreating your childhood for yourself.
Right? Yeah, I guess that's what I'm doing.
Yeah, it's okay to relax.
In fact, it is essential to relax because that uncouples the fight-or-flight mechanism, right?
If you want to play video games eight hours a day, play video games for eight hours a day.
I tried that, and it was more exhausting than anything.
Then if you don't want to do that, but don't do it to distract yourself.
Yeah, like I'm doing it...
Yeah. That's kind of what I did, you know, just to distract myself really...
Because I couldn't just do nothing.
That's kind of how I felt about it.
Do nothing. Doing nothing is one of the most challenging things in life and one of the most fertile things in life.
All of the amazing things that come to me come to me from doing nothing.
I have been doing a little bit of nothing.
Sometimes I'll walk around and I get a lot of thinking done when I'm running sometimes too.
Right, right. But I keep injuring myself.
Like, I injure myself once every other week, practically.
Like, my foot hurts like hell.
Right, and that's just because you're giving yourself a goal that is more than you should be doing, right?
I guess so. No, you are, right?
I mean, there's some ambiguity in psychological stuff, but if you're running yourself into pain, it's because you're pushing yourself too hard, right?
I could also just see that my shoes are old.
They are. They've got holes in them.
Well, but see... That's like another sign.
It's like I'm running with shoes with holes in them and stuff.
Right. You're still pushing yourself too far relative to your equipment, right?
Yeah. So, I mean, as far as motivation...
I know this is about motivation for riding, but this is really about motivation for everything.
Yeah, it is. It's more than just that.
I mean... Yeah, you can't with your horses.
You can't make them all want to run in the same direction.
You have to negotiate.
Your horses can speak and know a lot more about the territory than you do.
Right? So it's about relaxation.
It's about self-negotiation.
That is how we get ourselves aligned to a goal that can surmount ourselves, what we know of ourselves, right?
You have a future that is probably, I would guess, put good money on this far greater than anything to do with your history.
Anything that your history would have prepared you for.
Anything that your family has done before.
And preparing yourself for that is going to take some focus, right?
When we are aligned with ourselves, we can just do absolutely astounding things.
Unprecedented things.
When we're all into the same goal, so to speak, right?
That's how I feel. I mean, I've certainly been getting much better than I ever have been.
My capabilities are growing to the point where things that would have been exhausting or impossible to me seem easy now.
Right. When you're not carrying an anvil, you can do things that would have been impossible before.
You can run, you can climb mountains, you can pole vault, you can do all of these amazing things, right?
But the anvil of unrealistic expectations and I should be and I must and this is my goal and ordering yourself and all of that, that just diminishes you.
That cripples you as surely as communism cripples an economy.
Right, so the anarchy is of the self, right?
Anarchy, statelessness, no central authority is of the self.
And if you have it in yourself, you can convince other people who can be convinced of its value, right?
If you don't have it within yourself, everything that you try to achieve in terms of liberating others won't work.
Because if you don't live it, people get unconsciously that you don't believe it.
And if you advocate no central authority but order yourself around, like a field marshal, everything that you try to achieve will fail.
But if you live anarchy within yourself, negotiation, no central authority, then when you talk to people about freedom in any context, political, personal, religious, familial, you will have a kind of authenticity because you're living it and that gives your words power.
Which transmits itself to the unconscious.
It gives you certainty. But you have to live no central authority in order to free other people.
Clearly that's where you want to go, deep down.
But you have to get out of your own way to get there.
You have to stop ordering yourself.
If you want to liberate yourself and others, your future children, whoever it is you come in contact with.
Which is what I think you want to do.
Yeah, certainly.
It's just...
Well, right now I feel like I'm not sure where to go, and I think that's the right way to look at it.
Well, you aren't sure, but there's a part of you that's sure, but you have to stop ordering it for it to come out, right?
Yeah, I mean, I'm getting right now that my conscious mind has no clue...
Which way to go? Well, that's good, because the conscious mind is empirical, and it's all about history, right?
Empirically, when you're 10 years old, puberty will never happen, because it never has, right?
Right. So, a conscious mind is all about the past.
It's all about empiricism.
But our unconscious mind is all about the future.
And so, if you want a future that's different from the past, you can't use your conscious mind to get there.
You just can't. Yeah.
Because that's all about the lessons of the past.
The unconscious is about the possibilities of the future.
Right? Up until two months ago, empirically, you were going to be compulsively dating until you died, right?
Or being in long-term relationships or whatever.
But it would still be compulsive, right?
And they would all not work.
Yeah. Right, so empiricism would not have predicted a different future, right?
The evidence would not have predicted a different future.
Right.
But you have a different future.
And that's from the unconsciousness.
That's from your yearning for your hunger for a different life than the one you were trained to live.
Which is compulsion, repetition, loneliness, performance, anxiety, and relationship failure.
I know I haven't done much to help you with the actual process, right?
But I can guarantee you that if your patient If you listen to yourself, if you negotiate, you will end up with a kind of creativity that is not visible to you yet, but which you know deep down.
Yeah. Well, the actual process of writing is something I think I have pretty down.
That's not so much the problem as these other things that we've been talking about.
Sure, no, I understand that.
I mean, if we get the logs out of the way, the river flows unimpeded, so to speak, right?
Yeah. So I don't need to give you a current, we just need to remove what's in the way, right?
Yeah. I don't know why I'm thinking about it now, but editing generally ticks me off a lot.
Now, just before we get into another big topic...
Yeah, I'm sorry. But I think you've got enough to work on for a while, right?
Yeah. I don't want to get into the more technical aspects of things, which I'm happy to do another time.
But it's what we've talked about.
Does it give you a way of approaching your creativity, at least at the moment, that you feel will give you some chance to do something different?
Yeah, I think so. Okay.
Okay, good. I just guess I don't want to have like a two-hour thing with all possible topics under the sun just because that can be a lot for other people to process as well.
Right, right. That's what I was a little bit worried about, you know, going into this because there are a lot of things related to this that I could talk about for a long time.
Sure. But I would say work on not having these rules or standards for yourself.
Work on that for a while and see what comes out because what will come out of that will be a different conversation than what will come out just now.
Yeah, I'm just a little worried that what would come out of that would be that I'm broke again next month, you know?
Right.
And if you're broke again next month, then you can ask people to lend you some money.
I don't want to end up in another situation.
Like with my old ex-girlfriend, I was practically living off of her and her parents, and before that I was living off of my parents all the time, so I've been kind of wanting to train myself out of being dependent.
Well, yes, but I don't think you want to substitute dependence with...
You don't want to substitute complete atomistic isolation for codependence, right?
It's not an either-or, right?
It's not like, well, I either leech off people completely and permanently, or I never ask anyone for help.
Either my entire living comes from people, or I can't even ask people for 50 bucks when I'm starving, right?
Those are two opposites that don't...
That's not the only two choices in life, right?
I suppose not. And there's also no reason at all why I can't support myself.
Because, I mean, I've been doing it for months, but...
Right. I think that's a scare story to keep you stressed, right?
And we need to reduce your stress at the moment in order for you to deal with these things, right?
Yeah. I do have that motivated by fear problem.
Motivated by fear? Oh yeah, no, we all do.
Don't worry about that.
We all do. All people who are growing and changing are partly motivated by fear.
I mean, there's no way around that as far as I can.
And we're also motivated by discontent with the way things are.
So, I mean, to me, there's no Zen change, right?
There is always discontent and there is always aspiration and there is always fear.
But there's amazing joy in the process to me that outstrips all of those things.
Yeah, like right now, I have...
All my possessions I can carry on my back at one time.
Right, right. No, and certainly when I was going through my process of biggest change, I was living in a little room that was in a condo that was in somebody else's place, right?
So the minimalism, I think, is a natural part of this process.
Yeah, like before I went to Seattle, I got rid of most of my clothes.
And roughly 400 pounds of books.
So I just know 400 pounds because that's how many hundred pound suitcases I carried to sell them all.
So, yeah, it's like I'm down to the to the bare minimum now.
When I get paid for this month, I'm going to get a room in an apartment because right now I'm squatting.
I could get kicked out whenever and then I could just stay in a hostel or something.
I'm mobile. I'm going to close things off here unless there's anything else that you're about just now.
Is that okay? No, that's okay.
There was some stuff I wanted to get into that I was kind of, you know, very interested in wondering what you would have to say about it.
I mean, we can do that later or whatever.
Right. And I think that the things that you wanted to get into, I think, around the starvation of yourself and so on, I think that was what your unconscious more wanted to get into because that's what you were repeating?
Yeah, before this conversation even, I mean, consciously I was more thinking about how my writing interacted with old relationships where it pretty much always played a pretty big part.
Sure, but the highest priority thing in terms of your health, both physical and mental, was the starvation, right?
Yeah. Because that's where you can really harm yourself, right?
Right. Okay, well, do you mind if I post this?
Is that okay with you?
Yeah, sure. Well, thank you.
I really appreciate your honesty. I know that you've been doing a lot of hard work lately.
I know that the community as a whole really appreciates it, and I've got lots of positive feedback from the work that you're doing.
I think that you're very inspiring for people, and I think you should be very proud of that.
Okay, I think I can be proud of that while still realizing that I did some pretty...
I was not very good with this relationship that I was just in, but thanks.
Yes, absolutely, but it is the relationship that got you to change, so it can't have been all bad, right?
Right, no...
Okay, well, I will post this and be sure to have a listen to it again.
I think there's a lot of stuff in here that would be helpful for you and I think for other people as well.
And thank you as always for your honesty and your courage in working on these things.
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