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Sept. 16, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
54:21
1152 Social Anxiety -- A Couple Convo
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Time Text
Working now? Yeah, sorry about that.
I'm all here. Sorry if you'd like to stop it again.
Sure. Hey, Steph.
I still feel scared at the notion of jumping full force and delivering my values.
I feel stuck.
I'm a fence setter. My alternative is not desirable either.
Knowing what I know now, if I were to give up and stop going to therapy, stop learning philosophy, stop living my values, then I would just lead a miserable, shallow life surrounded by miserable, shallow people.
This is coming too ahead for me because I know what it means when it comes to my relationship with Colleen.
I see that she desires to live a life of truth and virtue more than anything else in this world.
I feel like I'm falling behind.
No worse, I feel like I'm holding her back.
I don't want to hold her back.
I don't want to hold myself back.
However, I just continue to feel increasingly scared.
Every time I think of following Colleen up this path, I think of reporters writing stories about FDR being a cult.
I think about my future acquaintances automatically rejecting me before they even get to know me because of who I am associated with.
I think Of a hard life for my children who will be born into a cruel world.
I feel sad and think I am so shallow for even caring about what other people think about me above what people like Colleen and the FDR community thinks of me.
I feel ashamed for continuing to bow to the fear that they cause of me.
My anxiety levels are peaking just writing this email, heart racing so scared to even hit send.
I want to talk to you about this and I want to work through the fear so I can move forward in my life.
I want this for myself and I want this for Colleen.
And that's basically the end of the email.
I mean, that's a powerful and deep email.
What do you think of it now? Well, after listening to that podcast you did with James, I'm...
Feeling a little differently about it.
I mean, I haven't felt so afraid since that podcast for whatever reason.
I still feel fear, though.
I mean, just reading that, thinking back on the way I was feeling just brought up all that fear again.
Right, right, right.
Well, you mentioned what others think of you and what Colleen thinks of you, but I mean, of course, the real issue is what you think of you, right?
Right. And without a doubt, there are lots of people in the world who don't want us to deliver values, who don't want us to ask these questions, who don't want us to critique what we're critiquing, who don't want us to expose what we're exposing, right? Not because they're evil, I mean, necessarily, but just because it's really uncomfortable, right?
Yeah, yeah. So, you're not alone in this.
I mean, I'm just working on a book that is...
Controversial, to say the least.
And, yeah, it can be nerve-wracking.
I don't really know what the alternatives are because, you know, once you see, you've seen, right?
You can't unlearn what you know, right?
Right, right. So, for me, it's like, hey, I mean, I wish other people had done it and I could sit in a hammock, but unfortunately not.
So, when people like this reporter came by and they want to...
Goose us and there's this big, bad, ugly, cold world.
Well, there is, right?
I mean, it's not a fantasy, right?
I mean, it is that way.
And of course, what they're trying to do is, not consciously or anything, but they're trying to scare us, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, by slurring, slandering that which you really care about, you're afraid of guilt by association, right?
Yeah, yeah. And not even getting a chance to make your case, right?
Right, right. Yeah, that's a big fear of mine.
It's just, you know, automatically being thought of as a cult.
It's kind of like when I was an objectivist, how people automatically kind of wrote me off because of how they associated objectivism with a cult.
Right. Now, the people...
But let me just ask you, given your time as an objectivist, were the people who wrote you off people that you really miss?
No. No, I don't miss one of them.
No. Okay.
Step me through the logic of this again.
It's like, damn, that radiation killed all the ugly bacteria in my food, but what if I want to get sick?
Yeah, I don't think it's logical.
Oh, no, it's logical.
I guarantee you it's logical, because we're not random, right?
I'm just not sure what the logic is yet.
Yeah, I guess I don't understand that.
What do you mean? Well, it's like you're some woman who has a magic helmet that repels assholes, right?
And it's like, damn it, this magic helmet's repelling all these assholes!
I'm afraid I'm not going to have enough assholes around me!
me what am i gonna do yeah i guess i my thoughts on that then when you say that is i'm afraid the whole world is full full of these people
I mean, of course there's people at FDR that I've met, and it's great that there is this segment of the population that does exist, but I don't know why I can't think of it in my own...
in real life.
I'm sorry. I know.
I'm sorry. I'm getting flustered.
No, no problem. But it's interesting that you mentioned a segment of the population on the board who's like this, right?
Right. Now, take a look to your left, I'm going to say.
She's on my right. On your right!
Oh gosh, so 50-50.
Take a look to your right.
Does she appear digital?
No, no. Okay.
Now, if you were to complain, say, to most of the FDR members...
That way you live with a woman you love who is dedicated to philosophy, but there are prejudicial bastards you might meet in the future.
I mean, just given the average love life of most people on the board, where do you think the sympathy scale would be, you know, on a one to minus million?
Minus million. Well, maybe not exactly, but...
Or some of them.
So, I mean, you have that primary relationship, right?
So, I mean, that's a lot further than most people have gotten so far, right?
And, you know, it's partly due to working at it, partly due to coincidence and so on, right?
And I'm not trying to invalidate what your feelings are at all.
I'm just trying to figure out what they're not, right?
So for instance, you're worried about people in the future who might discredit you or act negatively towards you because what? you're worried about people in the future who might discredit You're going to wear your hoodie to work?
I mean, how are they going to know?
Right. There's no secret handshake, right?
Right. Well, weren't you saying to me the other night, like, if FDR becomes more in the public eye, like, you're heavily associated with it?
You know, people can just look on the board and know that it's you, that sort of thing?
Right, right, yeah.
That people can figure it out? Or if somebody were to mention, hey, look at this, you know, at work, reading this article by this, in the Guardian, uh, And they start to make comments about it.
I just...
I guess that's what freaks me out.
Well, yes, but the Guardian was adroitly deflated, right?
Oh, what do you mean? Well, I mean, I kind of got she was looking for scandal, right?
For sure, yeah.
And I didn't lie to her at all, and I didn't minimize anything at all.
But she was so disappointed when she said, how many defoos, right?
I said, I don't know, 15, maybe 20 out of 20,000 listeners.
Right. Right?
I mean, I think more people have been hit by lightning who listen to the show, right?
More people have been downed by fucking killer bees, right?
Yeah. So, there...
There's no scandal, right?
Right.
And so who's going to write about it?
But I just, yeah, you're right about this instance, but I just, you know, I can see it growing again.
I mean, just since I've been part of FDR for a year, it's expanded so heavily.
I know this is going to come up eventually, and it's that future that I fear.
Well, we don't know.
Don't assume that it's the future that you fear.
Right? A fear this palpable, this tangible, I would not assume that it's in the future.
It might be. Right?
Maybe you have the ability to travel forward in your mind through time, right?
But I would doubt it.
So you think it has something to do more currently in my life?
No. No?
No. I mean, what if you got to be scared of, right?
You live with a woman you love, you've got a great new career, you're doing well in your job, your health is good.
I mean, unless you're just, you know, attacked by evil gremlins that only you can see.
And I hate that. I mean, that's Thursdays for me.
But then there's not, right?
There's no reason for the palpable fear at the moment, right?
Right. So is it other people's fear?
No. No, because you're not in contact with enough.
I mean, you've gotten some bad people out of your life, right?
All of them. I mean, I have one friend left, and he's, you know, I think actively working towards being honest with his friends and family.
Fantastic. So it's not the present, right?
Not the future, not the present.
Yeah. Dammit, now I lost my thread here.
It was really complex, too.
There was like 12 more things.
No, wait, no, there was only one, actually.
Okay, then I've got to look back again.
Look, the deeper the feelings, the deeper the history.
The deeper it is in your history, right?
Yeah, yeah. And I get that this is not exactly a panic attack, but it's not far off, right?
Oh yeah, I mean it's close.
It feels like it's getting close.
Yeah, so I totally get that.
I totally sympathize with that.
I'm joking and I'm not trying to minimize your feelings, but this is a general good rule of thumb.
The deeper the feeling, the more overwhelming the feeling, the earlier you start your investigation.
Well, as we've talked about in the past, my mom was very prone to anxiety attacks and was a very neurotic person.
Right, right.
And what did this mean for you when you were very young?
Mainly, it meant that I was restricted from doing things because of her fear.
Okay, and what were the things that you wanted to do that you were restricted from doing?
Mainly socializing.
I'd meet somebody new at school that I liked, and I'd tell her I was becoming friends with this person, and I wanted to go over to their house.
She would fly into...
I haven't met their parents yet.
I don't know anything about this person.
You can't go over to their house.
And so I would suggest that she meet the friend's parents, and she...
She would usually agree to that, but it never felt like...
Well, did it change the outcome?
Like, I mean, could you then go over to this person's house?
Yeah, I mean, after my mom would meet him, but it was always very reluctantly, and it was very restricted, like, well, you can go over there for two hours, but you have to be back by this time, or if I wanted to spend the night, it usually was, no, you can't spend the night.
So, it's been my experience that socially phobic people are very judgmental.
Uh... Yeah.
I don't know if you understand this because it's so close to you it may be hard.
I don't know if you understand the psychology behind that.
Well, I know other socially phobic people that, yeah, they're very judgmental of society.
Right. And we're on to talk, but we're not socially phobic.
We're socially refined.
But the reason that it occurs, Rich, is because your mother is attacking, or was, probably still is, attacks people in her own mind, right?
They're untrustworthy, the world is dangerous, it's full of bad people, you know, whatever, right?
Right, right. And we inhabit the world we create, right?
We inhabit the world that we create.
So if your mother is full of so many projections and hostilities and so on that she is ravagingly attacking other people in her mind all the time, what does she think they're doing as well?
Attacking her as well?
Yeah. She's dangerous, but she's so unconscious about it, she doesn't own it as her own thing, right?
Her hostility, her anger, her insecurity.
She's dangerous, but she projects that onto the world, so everyone becomes dangerous, right?
Oh, right, right, yeah.
Right? Everyone is like her, untrustworthy, difficult, abrupt, dangerous, abusive, whatever, right?
Mm-hmm. I mean, this is the fundamentals of projection.
We think... We escape our own dark side by projecting it onto everyone else, right?
Right, yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
Right, so the more hostile we are to other people, the more we believe that the world is dangerous, right?
Mm-hmm. How's your hostility these days?
Pretty high. I'm sure that's not a correlation.
Maybe we can try something else then.
Let's go back to the future. So, tell me about your hostility, right?
Because what I sense from you is you have an unconscious fear of retaliation from the world.
Like, you're going to pay for what you're doing, right?
Right. Um...
Well, people have always referred to me as kind of an angry person.
Like, I am always just talking angrily about society.
And I do that a lot in my head.
Every time I just see something on the news or read something in the news or experience something at work, I just become enraged.
I just...
My boss at work is kind of a recycle Nazi, and I just become so angry at that.
And I hear people talking politics about Barack Obama, and every time I hear that, I want to get very angry at the person who's talking about it.
Fortunately, I control myself, but I Right.
Why is Rich biting his own arm?
Right. Now I understand. Yeah.
Right. Right.
And how much fun is that for you in general?
Oh, not fun at all. I've stopped going to lunch with my co-workers because they talk politics because it just angers me so much.
I go home for lunch.
Okay, so you're avoiding the stimuli.
I'm aware that I say this from the comfort of my at-home study and I don't have to go into an office, so this is with all due sympathy, but I did struggle with this because I was, you know, blah, blah, blah, right?
So you're avoiding the stimuli, right?
You've got the frustration towards other people, right?
Yeah, yeah. Now, do you know what's at the root of that kind of frustration?
Well, I'd like to say that it's because I can't change anything about it.
I can't change what's going on.
Yeah, it's two things.
It's helplessness and fear.
And I understand the helplessness because I'm helpless to change what they say, but the fear...
No, I didn't say you were helpless to change what they say.
I am helpless. No, I didn't say you were helpless.
What I'm saying is you feel helpless.
Oh, right.
I do feel helpless, yeah.
Right. But you believe that you are helpless because you said it, I think, three times now.
Yeah, yeah. And, of course, it's true.
If you think you're helpless, you are, right?
Right. Because you get full of rage and frustration and then you avoid them by going home and blah, blah, blah, right?
Right. So you then become functionally unable to change the situation, right?
Yeah, that's... But it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
Yeah, it is.
Let me ask you this, just so I get a sense of where your automatic thinking is here.
Rich, do you want to change them?
Um... I don't know why I feel so stuck on that question.
I always try to ask the stuck questions, right?
Yeah. The answer that came to my head instantly was no, but I was surprised by that.
I think that that's exactly right, and I think it's right that you're surprised by it.
But it's sort of a basic question, right?
Right. It's like some guy who says, I'm dying to go to Casablanca.
I'll work anywhere.
I'll do anything. I'll ride the back of a dolphin.
I've got to get a Casablanca, right?
And I'm so crazed about Casablanca.
I can't eat. I can't sleep. And then somebody says, well, do you actually want to go to Casablanca?
And they should just stare at you.
Hey! Right?
I mean, it's an important question, right?
Right. Do you want to change these people?
No, I don't.
Okay, that's interesting, right?
Yeah. That's kind of non-linear, we would say, right?
Right, right, for sure.
So what's that?
What's the assumption or what's going on there emotionally that you don't want?
I don't think you should and I don't care whether you should or shouldn't.
That's not the issue, right? But why don't you want to?
What is it that feeling you don't want to change them?
Because I just get the sense they don't want to change.
They're just... None of that.
I asked you not, could they be changed?
Do you want to change them?
And I said no.
And that no is important.
And it's not no because, well, I really do want to, but I don't think they can be, right?
That no was, no, I don't want to change them.
There was a lot of wisdom in that no, I believe.
Okay.
Right?
So don't start explaining it away with some justification, right?
I guess I'm stumped.
Okay. I'll ask you a question.
Do you ever want to lift a monster truck with your bare hands?
No. Why not?
Be fun, right? Be pretty cool.
Be a good career. Lift a monster truck with my bare hands.
You can't. You can't!
Okay. Okay, so you don't want to do something that's impossible, right?
Right. Which is kind of like being wise, right?
Oh. Ah, there he has arrived.
So, so that no in me that that's The wisdom's already there.
I already know that I don't want to change these people because it would be impossible to.
Well, what evidence have they given that they would be open to thinking, rethinking philosophy, life, society and family and friends and career from the ground up, disassembling themselves, casting themselves into the ocean and waiting for a greater god to be washed ashore by a random tide?
None, right? They're a bunch of IT guys, right?
Right. So, no disrespect to IT guys, but they've given you no indication, right?
Right. So, they are the monster trucks, right?
Mm-hmm. So, you don't want to change them because...
Because they can't be changed.
You can't change anyone, fundamentally, right?
Right, right. You can maybe assist someone like a coach, right?
I mean, the coach can't go out there and move the gymnast's legs for her, right?
Right. I mean, I guess he could, but it would be a pretty sad-looking gymnast to have a tubby Eastern European guy with a huge Nietzschean mustache moving around some Japanese twig girl, right?
Yeah. So...
You can only coach, and you can only coach if people show up with a burning, desperate desire and ability to become a gymnast, right?
Yeah, yeah. So, if you're riding the bus back from the Overeaters Anonymous convention, you probably don't look there and say, man, I could make each one of these people into a gymnast.
Right. Right?
Right. I mean, what you do is you hang out your shingle saying, you know, we'll coach gymnastics and you wait for, you know, the dewy-eyed young people to show up with the eager desire to become gymnasts, right? Yeah, yeah.
And it has always been the case that way where people come to me when, you know, they find FTR through me and then they start asking me questions.
It's never me, like, in hot pursuit of other people.
Yeah, here's the thing that I think you're on the edge of getting, which I hope will give you some peace, and I really do want that for you.
Here's the thing. We always think about...
I'm always telling people, like, you know everything about someone in the first few seconds or minutes, right?
Right. Do you know the same thing is true?
The same thing, exact same thing is true when they look at you.
Oh... You know I said you hang your shingle out, right?
Yeah, yeah. Well, train gymnastics, right?
It's emblazoned on your forehead in eyes that only the blink brain can see.
Half philosophy will fuck you up, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Right? They know!
And they're the ones who are choosing...
Not to change. They know you have the power, the capacity, they can see it, the trembling, right?
Like ancient villagers on a trembling volcano, they know what's underneath, right?
Yeah. So they're already saying, yeah, I see that there's a shingle out there that says I can get you Olympic gold as a gymnast, but I don't want to be a pirate.
I don't want to be a gymnast, right?
Right. So it's already occurred.
It's already happened.
It's come and gone, right? All you're doing is recognizing that they have passed by your gymnastics emporium, right?
Right. Glanced in and said, oh, gymnastics emporium.
Well, that's nice, right?
And there's no point chasing people down the street who've already looked in your store and said...
I don't know, I'm an 80-year-old, you know, widow.
I don't want to be a gymnast.
I can't, right? Yeah, and I know that.
I mean, even if I didn't trust my instincts, there's enough evidence.
They never ask me about my politics.
They avoid asking me any questions when it comes to things like that, volatile topics like that.
We are so obvious to people, it's ridiculous.
Yeah. It's ridiculous.
Yeah. I mean, they see the landmine that you are.
I say this just from their perspective, right?
And they've already made the decision.
I definitely don't feel that anxiety anymore.
Right. Because you're trying to will something.
You know, it's like a guy drove past your store three days ago, and you're like, shit, I'm going to track that guy down and make him a customer.
Right. Well, that would make you pretty anxious because it's impossible, right?
Who knows where the hell he went, right?
Right. And he already drove past the store.
If he wanted to be a customer, he would have stopped, right?
Yep. We are as visible to other people as they are to us.
It is mutual. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it sure does. You're trying to jump on a bus that drove past town two months ago.
The transaction has come and gone.
The possibility has come and gone.
The opportunity has come and gone.
And there was nothing you could have done to change it in the past anyway.
I mean, clearly these people learned, I mean, just from the evidence you've given me, right?
These people obviously learned to talk about politics in their family, right?
Right? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so they've come from families of Democrats and Republicans, and they're probably multi-generational, right?
Or if not, then they're new enthusiastic adherence to the cult of democracy, right?
Right. And so, I mean, seriously, what are they going to do?
Say, hey, Mom, Dad, you kind of dragged me into an evil cult here, right?
Yeah, yeah. Now, if you want to change that in the future, right, if you want to change the opportunity, right, then I would suggest the following.
If you walk past some gymnastics store, some gymnastics training, I don't know, what do they call them in martial arts and dokus or whatever the hell they are?
Yeah. Dojos.
I reached back to my under-40 brain and it happened to kick up something.
So, if you're walking past a gymnastics dojo, which is probably an entirely wrong combination of words, and you see the gymnastics teacher screaming at and pummeling a little gymnastics wannabe girl, even if you want to be a gymnast, you probably don't want to be that guy's gymnast, right?
Right. So if they see you tense up, right?
Cheeks go red, right?
Your hair flies out like mine, right?
And you're tense and you're avoidant and you're silent and you're stressed, right?
They get all of that. You're as visible and you're an open book to them.
Right? Yeah, yeah.
Well, what they're going to say is...
sure I don't want it.
It's more like there's a closed door and there's just the sounds of someone getting beaten up on the other side.
It's like, I don't know exactly what's going on in there, but I know I don't want to go through that door, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So I think you're trying to will something that's just way long gone.
There's nothing, but you're not put here to change people, even if that were possible.
You can observe the statist in his natural habitat without getting attacked or infected, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's just what these people do, right?
They talk politics.
I mean, I joined this mailing group for the Psychohistory group, right?
Right. Jesus, dear God, they are addicted to politics.
I mean, it's like literally 90%, 95% of the emails are about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or John McCain or this kind of stuff, right?
And I'm like, hey, that's interesting, right?
This is what people talk about.
I listen to them, right? Yeah, yeah.
It's good to know how they think, what they think, right?
You can be anthropological, right?
I mean, we should never...
We should try, I think, hard the word is sometimes.
We should try not to avert our eyes from reality, from facts, right?
Yeah. Right, right.
And this is the facts of where people are.
There's nothing to change about it.
There's nothing to fight for in it.
There's nothing to alter about it.
Because to will that is to will the impossible.
It's like trying to will people to stop and come into your store.
You'll get stressed out.
out, they'll be less likely to want to come into your store and you won't gain new customers anyway.
I mean, if the people who click on FDR from StumbleUpon, over 90% of them bounce, right?
Now, these are people who are interested in the topics.
Philosophy is like for the ultra-elite.
It is not for the palate of the common man.
In fact, the common man will do almost anything to avoid it, right?
Right. We are, as this DeMoss and the psycho-historian said, we're a new psycho-class, right?
And everyone can see that.
Everyone can see that. What does psycho-class mean?
Psycho-class is...
of phases in human development, right?
So in the early Middle Ages, just about everybody would be considered a psychotic, right?
They had visions, they would have fits, they would speak in tongues, they would believe that they could commune with the dead, they would, you know, see the vision saints, like they would genuinely, what we would consider in the modern world, like if somebody just popped out of the early Middle Ages, the modern world, they'd be psychotic, right?
Right.
Because the amount of trauma and abuse that they had experienced as children rendered their brains misfiring on just about every cylinder you can think of, right?
Yeah, yeah. And there's more advanced psycho classes, right?
So in the 19th century, we began to see the rise not of the psychotic or the borderline personality but the neurotic personality which was people are healthy enough to only be neurotic, right?
Yeah. But society doesn't arise evenly, right?
It's like evolution, like any evolution.
There are mammals and dinosaurs, right?
So when we cruise around, particularly on the internet, right, we get people from earlier, more primitive psychoclasses because it's all reproduced within the family, right?
Right. So we're kind of like a new psychoclass, right?
That's why it's hard to feel at home, right?
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Like mammals looking around and saying, hey, all we see is dinosaurs, right?
And we keep getting attacked for being mammals.
It's like, well, why do I feel so alone?
Why do I feel so separate? Because we're the next thing, right?
And it's hard, right? At first, mammal was a pretty jumpy little rodent, right?
Yeah. But anyway, enough of my sort of, what's happening for you?
How do you feel about all this? I'm sitting here just smiling.
I don't know. I just feel a lot better.
You know, no anxiety left.
I just keep thinking it's really weird for me to think of myself that way.
Oh, I know. It is completely weird.
And it feels, of course, completely grandiose to say, oh, don't you know we're the next thing in the human social evolution, right?
It completely feels ridiculous.
But... You know, just trying to go with the facts, right?
Right, right. I mean, we certainly come up with lots of new ideas.
You there? Yeah, sorry about that.
No problem. So, yeah, it feels completely weird and bizarre and so on.
But, you know, just trying to go with the facts, right?
I mean, that there are few of us relative to society as a whole.
And this is not true, obviously, just of this group.
Almost universally smeared and attacked.
Because they raise really uncomfortable issues about history.
And uncomfortable realities.
Particularly the prevalence of infanticide is something that drives historians completely nuts.
Because everybody likes to think that history runs on ideas.
If history actually runs on childhood, then you have to really radically evaluate not just history as a whole, but your own history personally.
But the reality is that People who do therapy, people who are introspective, people who are willing to abandon long-held beliefs and perspective based on reason and evidence, pretty new, right?
I mean, that's pretty new.
Yeah, it is.
And I don't just mean scientists, because scientists will do it with the physical world, but we're doing it with the social and internal world, which is not quite as easy, although we face much fewer sanctions as a result.
But the reality is that We're new because there's not evidence of stuff that we're doing that came before, and there's not a lot of people who do it, right?
Right. I mean, the ideas are new.
The application of philosophy in the way that we're doing it is new.
The approach to freeing the world that we're trying to take, which is to free ourselves as greatly as possible and then let...
Let's see what happens, right?
That's new, right?
Not taking politics, not taking academics, not taking religious affiliations as our base, but really working to work on the personal philosophically, not just psychologically, right?
That's new, right? Yep.
I mean, it's not in Rand, it's not in Brandon, it's not in Kant, it's not in Nietzsche, it's new.
So, and it has huge psychological effects, right?
Mm-hmm. So new stuff that fundamentally change psychology and interaction and what is called a relationship, that's kind of like a new psycho class, right?
Right. It's a new class or way of interacting with people in the realm of reality and honesty and intimacy.
Yep. Right? So all the people who are struggling to put RTR into practice, right?
Right. Which sort of feels sometimes like tenderizing your own forehead and heart with a meat mallet, right?
Yeah. I mean, but this is an evolution that is not, to my knowledge, not...
It's unprecedented, right?
Right. I mean, it's one thing for a psychologist to say, be honest, but it's another thing for a philosopher to say, be honest, and here's what honesty is.
Mm-hmm. Technically, philosophically, syllogistically.
So what we're doing is very new, right?
And it's very foundational because it's not abstract.
It's visceral. It's in the immediate, right?
It's a philosophy of life which you can work towards or, I guess, away from every minute, right?
Whereas objectivism was, you know, It was a little harder to implement in the daily life, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I had all these stirring speeches going on in my head, but no actual traction in my real life, right?
If I ran a railroad, this is what I would be doing, right?
But tough to translate into the moment, right?
yeah yeah so and I certainly don't mean that we're the only new psychoclast but this this approach that we have of working viscerally and honestly from first principles all the way through to emotional and intellectual expression it's pretty new there are other people I'm sure working along the same veins that we haven't met yet I mean but this is new and it comes with all the exhilaration and loneliness of newness right right
Right. Right. And the great honor always goes to those who were first, right? Because everybody gets just scary, right?
And once Edmund Hillary has gone up the mountain and come back, then people...
It's still scary and exhilarating to go up there, but at least you know it's possible.
So I think if you respect that you don't have to will these interactions, right?
Right, right. I just trust my instincts and...
And their instincts. Trust their instincts.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, just I'm working on this book lately, I've gained a new appreciation for other people's instincts, right?
I mean, that's why this is sort of on my brain, and I hope it's not a misapplication to put it into your situation.
Oh, no, I think it's very applicable.
So, tell me more about what you mean it's been on your brain.
Have you had that experience?
Yeah, well, I mean, in working on this new book, I have a newfound respect for the instincts of people who dislike us.
Right? Because they know what they're doing.
And in fact, they knew what I was doing long before I did, so to speak.
Yep, yep. So I would just say that the respect for the instincts of other people is very important.
I mean, that's why I don't call up random people and start reading podcasts to them.
Right. Because, you know, it's here, it's free, and, you know, the people who want it can't be stopped, right?
And the people who don't want it, you can't start them, right?
Mm-hmm. But anyway, tell me what's going on for you emotionally at the moment.
Just like before, I mean, I'm still just feeling very uplifted.
No anxiety. I feel a lot happier about what I'm doing.
Now, Colleen, just try to make sure that you manage correctly the morphine drip.
I do like people to feel better, but I do like them to keep feeling better in the long term.
So, no withdrawal. I mean, I don't want to keep going on if you've, you know, no point to taking more pills when you feel the problem is solved.
So, I mean, if there's anything else that you wanted to add.
No, I think that's it, and I hope this is helpful for other people, too, because it really made me feel a lot better.
Also, I wanted to let you know, I had my 90-day review today.
Ah! And I had a ton of praise.
The criticisms were very few, and, you know, I thought, criticisms I had of myself, too, that I thought, yeah, I'm going to work on these, and it was scant, to say the least, and he did something that he said was unprecedented and gave me a very significant raise.
No. Yeah.
Colleen, can you just reach forward a little bit?
Take your hand. Reach back.
Smack him on the forehead. No, I'm kidding.
I'm having such a bad time.
They're giving me all this money and I don't know what to do with it.
No, I'm kidding. No, that's fantastic.
I'm just kidding because I know that the emotional stuff is much harder to deal with.
But, I mean, I'm obviously completely thrilled.
Massive congratulations. I never doubted it for a moment.
Yeah, and thank you so much again for all your help in that regard because...
You know, you're a big reason I even pursued this job.
Oh, I'm completely thrilled, right?
I mean, this gives you another kind of liberty, right?
I mean, compared to where you were professionally even six months ago, right?
I mean, it's great.
And of course, through this process, you can, you know, keep your ear to the boardroom or if you can get in there anytime, learn how to run a business.
And then you don't have to worry about it because you can hire the people who are in this psycho class, so to speak, to use that phrase, right?
So you can build a company based on the people who you feel and will get the instinct about their trustworthiness, openness, vulnerability, intelligence, sensitivity, empathy, all that kind of good stuff.
You can build that environment going through this process of project management, learning more about how a business works.
Yeah, I'm definitely excited about that.
I actually was put in charge of hiring, we just have an HTML guy to do edits on websites, and I got to weed through the resumes and interview this guy, and I got a good feeling about him, so we'll see if that feeling...
We'll test that theory and see if that feeling was correct.
Right. Just don't make the mistake that I made when hiring and use the phrase, I'm sorry, sir, but you come from the lizard man psycho class and will not be suitable for this.
Just remember, apparently there are legal implications there.
Lots of lizard lawyers. Okay, well, I guess I'll stop talking if there's no need to talk more.
Congratulations a million-fold on your review and your bonus.
I'm completely thrilled and the sky's the limit wherever you want to go.
Okay, that's it.
Bye! Sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt.
Everything looked like it was wrapping up really nicely, but I'm really confused.
Should we speak slower?
I feel almost bewildered.
I'm just confused that that was that easy.
What was that easy? Sort of helping reach through that fear.
No, I think the question is, Colleen, why is it so difficult when we're talking to you?
I can see why this might be unsettling for you.
Well, it's not solved, solved, right?
I mean, it's not like this isn't going to come back, right?
Right. There's no magic wand where we get to erase our brain patterns, right?
Right. And what we didn't get into, which we should at some point, I think, is the relationship aspect of this, right?
Yeah. I'm just...
I guess...
We've talked about a few of these things before, around his anxieties with work and that sort of thing, and I guess I'm just confused as to why I'm not able to help him the same way you just did.
Well, first of all, I have this freaky-ass ability, right?
So, this is not a good thing to try and replicate, if that makes sense.
So, I just have this weird navigation-blindfolded thing.
So, that's the aspect of it too.
But the thing that I would sort of remind people is just to keep asking the fundamentals, right?
It's like, well, you feel really frustrated with these people.
Why do you want to change them?
Do you even want to change them, right?
Just keep going back to, you know, because, I mean, the stuff that's really great in FDR is the stuff where I just stared at a blank page until I had a brain spasm, right?
Yeah. So, where people get stuck, it's always important to blow away all of the prior perceptions, right?
All of the prior conceptions, right?
And just say, well, maybe you don't even want to change these people and you're getting stressed because you're forcing yourself to or you think you ought to or whatever, right?
Maybe you don't even want to.
Maybe there's some knowledge in there that you have that you're fighting, right?
To just blow away all the prior assumptions, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And just say, okay, let's pretend we know nothing, right?
Like when we were doing a dream the other day, I swear to God, I'm like, I didn't even know what the hell I was going to say next, right?
So it's just like, okay, well, let me assume that I know nothing.
And that's almost always a good place to start with when trying to help people and say, okay, well, if I was just wandering in on this, right?
No idea who this person was, right?
Because, I mean, that's kind of what defooing is, right?
It's like, do I even like these people?
You know what I mean? Starting from scratch, if I didn't have this history with these people, would I like them?
Starting from a blank slate, given the characteristics of who these people are, do I even like them?
Yeah. So with Christina, it's like, you know, we have to go to my parents' place, she would say, basically.
She'd put it nicer than that, but right?
Right. It's like, well, why?
Right. So the problem is you're probably trying to solve Rich's issues or help him with his issues while accepting a premise that's the cause of the issues, right?
Yeah. Yeah, when you asked that question, it was just like...
That's when everything got put in place, so...
Yeah, so just, you know, wipe off the page, you know, start with a complete blank slate.
I mean, for me, these conversations, it's not about me trying to do something.
It's basically about me madly trying not to do something, right?
Which is to just, not to come to conclusions, but just to start from a blank slate and say, well, let's question every assumption here, right?
Right. So it's like, well, I'm so frustrated because I can't change these people.
It's like, well, maybe you don't even want to.
There's no guarantee that you do, right?
So the deeper you can go to the root of the questions and the more axioms you can overturn, the better things are, right?
I mean, it was only when I said, well, morality doesn't exist, but it has to have value.
Like, maybe morality doesn't exist, maybe the objectivist argument isn't valid, and so on, right?
When you just throw everything out and start from scratch, that's when I think some really...
You know, that's where I think the really intense work occurs in intimacy.
Right, especially with, like, the repetitive problems.
Yeah, with the repetitive problems, they always come back because you're assuming something that is not being overturned, that needs to be overturned.
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
The other thing to look out for, and this is for both of you and anyone else who's listening for this, Whenever someone states a non-ambivalent desire, they're wrong.
Now, when you listen to this again, you will hear Rich say...
I can't remember for the life of me what it was, but it was something like...
And I don't even want to have that conversation.
Something like that.
And he didn't say...
I both do and don't want to have that conversation.
Right. Right, that's why I tried to highlight the difference by saying the, you know, the monster truck, right?
No, I don't want to lift that.
That's called having a non-ambivalent, and you don't have a lot of stress about monster trucks and lifting them, right?
That's called having a non-ambivalent desire, right?
Right, right. They're not expressing the other side of that,
right? Right.
So I took the other side of that, because I know it's there, because I'm all about ambivalence, right?
Yes. So he's like, you know, I want to change, I just want to change these people, right?
And he's sedating that like it's a fact, so I just have to go to the other side and say, I bet you don't, right?
Or at least you're not acknowledging the part of you that doesn't.
Interesting. Yeah, so, I mean, get a little bit of the history, right?
I mean, we certainly found where this comes from, right?
So, I asked Rich about his mom so that I could find out about the social phobia, which comes from the aggression.
Then I could ask about his aggression, see where that was, and all that kind of stuff, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Because fear, again, it's like fear doesn't always mean fear, right?
In this case, fear meant aggression, right?
Right, right. And so he was afraid of aggression coming back, right?
Just as his mother was. Right.
Exactly. So it's, again, just like...
You pull everything apart and start from a blank page, right?
Assume nothing, right?
I mean, that's really the basis of both science and philosophy.
The world looks around. Hey, maybe it's not, right?
Assume nothing. Of course.
Yeah. Okay, so...
Sorry, normally your silence is you generating some other completely evil question.
This wasn't the case. You're turning towards the light side.
That's what's happening. Yeah, that gives me better tools to work with.
Okay, Rich, I think she's done with me, but probably not with you.
So if you guys want to keep chatting, I think I can parachute out with relative immunity.
All right, thanks, Steph. All right, thanks, guys.
Congratulations again, and I'll talk to you soon.
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