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Jan. 19, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
53:00
1258 Integrity and Self Attack (Convo)

Sex with the ex goes awry...

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I should be doing. I just feel like talking to you might help.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
Sure. So the issue that you have with your ex, maybe you could just give me a bit of background about...
It was a couple of months ago you broke up and did she move out?
Just give me a little bit, if you could, some context for what has happened since.
Yeah. Well, what happened was, we weren't really living together, it was just that we were working together and we still work together, which is the main problem.
And basically, we broke up in the end of November, like toward Thanksgiving in November, just before we broke up.
And then... A month went by and we were having distance.
I felt like I was feeling better about myself.
I felt like I was moving forward.
Um, then around, um, let's see, December, um, on the 30th before New Year's, I had, on the, yeah, it was the 30th of December, I had a, um, started having chest pains at work.
I was freaking out.
I was making hard for me to breathe.
I had a lot of irritation in my chest.
I called the doctor that I was seeing at the moment and they were saying that if you have chest pains you need to go to the emergency room and it was getting a little bit harder to breathe.
They took me to...
Half of it might have been toward my panicking because I was having chest pains.
And so they took me to the hospital, to the emergency room.
I got out of work and then basically went up there and they told me that I had just had...
I guess there was a... I had basically a sprained muscle in my chest, and there was some muscle and cartilage, I guess, pressing up against my rib cage, causing some irritation and inflammation, and all that pain, I guess, was just what was causing the severe chest pains.
They gave me some medicine for that, and I had like...
Kind of a clear bill of health, so to speak, except for obviously the sprained muscles.
But within the time that I had had, that I was freaking out about getting...
Like I was actually having a heart attack, which I know that sounds ridiculous being that I'm only in my 20s, my late 20s.
That... After that, I... Also, to give some more context...
My ex...
Actually, the only... The main thing is she did...
Like, she was... She did give me, like, she said just out of appreciation, which I didn't quite understand, and I told her, like, you really don't have to give me this, and I could have easily not have accepted it, but she, I kind of,
I don't know, in the moment when I was looking at her and trying to do it, and she gave it to me at work, so I kind of didn't want to get into it at work, and So, she gave me this gift, which was a video, and this was before I went to the hospital.
Then after I went to the hospital, I had freaked out, thought I was going to die, and I really felt like I wanted...
I guess I just...
I felt like I wanted to be...
Close to someone, and I just...
Even though I hadn't been in any serious danger, I had thought I had been, and it just made me reflective, and so...
I... Like, she called me about, you know, around, you know, New Year's, making sure to see if I was okay, and I told her I was fine, and then, you know, I had this movie, and I was kind of feeling insecure.
I was like, well, you know, it sounds so stupid when I explain this, but I felt like, I mentioned hanging out At her place and just watching the movie and then, you know, me later on just going home, which obviously was a recipe for disaster if I had thought about it.
But what ended up happening was, of course, as pretty much anyone's probably thinking, I went over there, we watched the movie, there was some back and forth, and eventually I ended up Staying the night and all the connotations that are leaded into that.
Then after that I felt like crap for the next two or three days and I started going like I felt like I had manipulated her and taken advantage of the situation.
And I talked to my therapist about it, and then I also talked to her about it, and I told her, like, we can't be in a relationship.
I feel like I have manipulated you, and I've taken advantage of you, and I don't think that, you know, this was not respectful of you, and I broke up with you, and I shouldn't have done this, and I apologized profusely and close to tears, because I just, I felt like I had been a complete creep.
And, so, I explained that to her, and then, um, and then she said, well, it takes two to tango, and blah blah blah, and, um, then I tried, then after that, uh, um, We started talking more, I guess, at work.
I guess she just felt it was okay.
We felt it was okay, and I didn't tell her not to, so we started talking more at work.
We brought up some issues, and we just kept talking and getting...
Um, I guess, I guess kind of friend-like, and so it's kind of trying to maintain some sort of friendship, which obviously isn't going to, it doesn't work if you really want to help someone and you really want them to, um, to move on. It's just kind of, I believe, like I heard in one point, it's kind of like crippling them.
It's not allowing them to grow, and, um, and I've slowly been starting to realize, um, That it was...
And I just started realizing that it was kind of a gross manipulation in my point because she would talk to me about what's going on with her family.
She would kind of use me as like a almost...
And I would allow myself to be used, not to excuse myself, to be used as a therapist and try to help...
Kind of trying to help her because I thought maybe I could help her and even though I can't...
Then, after that, recently, there was this friend, there was a...
Who was having this band that he was playing and he was trying to do some shows and stuff like that.
And so in order to...
And I needed to get some pants because mine had been wearing out completely.
And so instead of hopping on a bus on the weekend and trying to walk All the way down to this friend's band stuff.
He also invited her as well.
So... I took the ride to get a ride from her to go get the pants and stuff and then go back to go to the actual concert thing and we talked there and it just started hitting me even harder that, you know, this really wasn't even...
A breakup, it was kind of like, okay, there's no sexuality other than that extreme measure of not doing what it was supposed to, just being completely stupid and doing that.
But we're still talking, we're still hanging out, and she's still having these issues and And I realize that I need to separate.
I need to just, not even as friends, not as anything, I need to just put her at a distance and...
I know that I'm not hanging out with her for my own good.
I'm not doing it for her good.
I'm not doing it to help her.
That's not helping her.
It's just me.
I'm getting value out of someone thinking I'm valuable and I'm kind of Using her, again, to try to hyperinflate my self-esteem because I have such a lack of it to get it from her.
From, you know, valuing my opinions on things.
And then she's also getting inflated self-esteem from me because I keep saying, no, you're a good person, blah, blah, blah.
And so it's kind of me kind of being sort of parasitical in that regard and not being respectful and giving her the distance she needs so that she can grow herself.
And I realized that that was not...
I hope we... But I'm still...
And I realize it was kind of like...
It's kind of like an addiction to trying to get this kind of self-efficacy from her.
And... I'm...
And I know what I need to do.
I need to just say, like, I need some time away.
I need to stay a step away.
And I need to... I need my time to myself and this isn't going to work.
And probably talk to her and say, look, I feel like our relationship is more based on sexuality than it is on anything other than self-efficacy.
We don't really talk about...
Main important issues and stuff like that, and this is really not, you know, we broke up and I made a terrible mistake, and I know that I need to talk to her about it and do that, and I'm going to.
It's just... I guess it's either a painful revelation of understanding that part about myself, and even if I already unconsciously knew that part about myself, I'm still exploring a lot of that.
Not to go on a complete tangent, but I'm trying to write this thing on the history of shallowness.
I tried to post it in the thread before, but I think it has a lot to do with this trying to obtain value.
Saying women are only good for certain things, and men are only good at certain things in relationships, but yeah, that's been what's been currently going on.
Well, that's certainly quite a lot, and I just mean by quite a lot, it's obviously challenging, complicated, and intense.
So, now, how do you think that I could be of the most I mean, there's some thoughts that I've had about what you're saying, but I want to make sure that I'm being as helpful as possible to you.
Honestly, my...
And this may sound weird and twisted.
I'm kind of feeling like I just need a lecture on, like, don't do this.
Stop. Save her.
Don't do this. But I know that you're not that type of...
It's just this weird... Oh, I have a lecture for you on don't do this, but not what you think.
Okay. Yeah, no, I absolutely have a very stern lecture for you, but it has nothing to do with what you think it's about.
Okay. Is that okay?
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay. Okay, brother, brother, brother, brother.
You have got to take it easy on yourself.
Oh my god, are you in some fucking Nuremberg war crimes trial of the century or something?
Oh my god, man!
The things that you say to yourself are mind-blowing!
I'm corrupting!
I'm exploiting!
I mean, you had sex with an ex, dude!
Yeah. That's not unheard of, right?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, like, you're so hard You're harsh on yourself.
It's like the movie Fight Club where the guy just keeps punching himself in the face.
Except you're not even getting paid.
No wonder your heart is giving out.
Holy crap, dude.
I'm thinking, you're calling me up, you're sending me emails saying, I'm so ashamed, I've done such terrible things.
It's like, Steph, I have her body in the trunk.
How do I dispose of it?
What you did was have sex with her?
Oh, what a relief, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So what's up with that?
I mean, help me understand that.
Do you think you're the first guy in history to have a complicated, long-term, convoluted breakup that involves some sex after the fact that both people are mutually into?
Do you think you're the most evil guy for doing that?
Well, no, it's just I feel like I've been listening to these podcasts and I've been, you know, understanding, well, I've been mentally understanding, obviously not emotionally processing it, but I've been mentally understanding it and just conceptually understanding it, and then I go and do this.
Yeah, but look, you know the theory of ethics, right?
Did you initiate the use of force?
No. What about fraud?
No. Okay, so there's certainly no immorality here in that sense, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you get that?
Yeah, yeah.
May it have been a mistake?
Well, maybe.
But don't compound that mistake with...
If it is a mistake, don't compound it with self-attack.
That's never going to teach you anything.
Yeah. You shouldn't obey ethics because ethics has a gun to your head.
That's not ethical behavior.
Yeah. Do you see what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you? Yeah, I mean, if I feel like, you know, it's the end of the world in order, if I don't do something right, then that's not me choosing, that's just me trying to avoid the end of the world.
Yeah, all you're doing is then obeying the ethical ghost with a gun.
I mean, that's not ethics.
That's just fear and compliance and obedience.
That's not ethics. Yeah.
Yeah. I guess I just...
I don't know.
I just always feel like I should...
I don't know.
I just always feel like I shouldn't I don't know, this sounds horrible, but it always feels like I shouldn't be doing that.
Like, I should know better.
I shouldn't do that. I should...
Now, sorry, the shouldn't do that is...
I mean, you have kind of three things that are going on as far as I understand it, and tell me if I'm way off base.
The first is that you're talking with this woman that you went out with for a long time that you currently work with, right?
Yeah. The second is that you had sex with her once after your breakup.
Yeah. Yeah. And the third is that you are trying to give her some wisdom or insight about her family.
Yeah. But, I mean, in that token, but it kind of feels like I'm doing that, but she's not, like, I'm trying to help her with that part of her family, but, I mean...
I guess maybe I feel like I'm not helping because she hasn't gone to a therapist yet and she hasn't...
Okay, so that's fine, right?
But trying to help someone and failing is not exactly a moral crime, right?
Right. I mean, if that were the case, then the number of people who've left FDR should put me in jail, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
No. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. I mean, you can't date someone for a long time and then never care about them.
Yeah. Be indifferent to them.
That would be sociopathic, right?
Right. So the fact that you care about this woman, the fact that obviously you're attracted to her because, you know, that's part of any romantic relationship.
That doesn't end when you break up.
The fact that you would like her to see a therapist...
And to be happier is, to me, entirely natural.
Yeah. Now, I'm trying to figure out one thing, though.
Actually, I'm trying to figure out more than one thing.
Okay. But help me understand.
It seems like a contradiction to me.
I could be wrong, but you say that you were exploiting her by having sex with her.
Yeah. Help me understand your reasoning behind that, because I don't see it.
I mean, she wanted to have sex, right?
Yeah. Okay, so, I mean, she accepted your invitation.
She gave you the movie. You went to watch the movie at her place.
Everybody knew what was going to happen.
She welcomed that. She took you into her house.
You watched the movie. She accepted your sexual advances.
You guys had sex, and she didn't call the police in the morning, right?
Right. So I'm just trying to figure...
Because you say, I don't want to act in a disrespectful manner towards her.
But it seems to me that by basically saying it was all your responsibility that you had sex, that seems to me to be treating her with extraordinary disrespect.
Like she didn't have a plan, she didn't have a motive, she didn't have a desire, right?
Right. I mean, help me understand that.
I mean... That's how I see it with the information that I have from the outside, right?
But, of course, I could be completely off base.
Well, I kind of feel like emotionally I told her the relationship was over, and then I go back and confuse her by, you know, being physical with her.
Sorry, when you say that you confuse her, is that her statement or your statement?
Did she say... I am now confused because we had sex.
Well, afterward, when I started to talk to her and tell her, like, I felt bad about...
Like, she said, yeah, she said she was a little confused as to what's going on.
And I was just saying, yeah, I don't think the relationship can continue.
She was like, yeah, definitely.
And she also told me, like, yeah, if you hadn't brought it up, she would have.
So she doesn't sound very confused.
And she also sounds like she accepted...
Or she felt the same way that you felt, that the solution was not to get back together as a couple, right?
Yeah, yeah. So, and I, you know, with all due respect to you and your girlfriend and your relationships, and your relationship with her, I'm going to put this crudely, but I think this is respectful to her.
Yeah. What if she just had an itch to scratch?
That's possible, yeah.
I mean, women have sexual drives and desires, like men do, and maybe she just wanted to have sex.
Yeah. Right?
And it wasn't like, I'm opening the flower and petal of my womanhood to regain the lost love of my life, right?
Maybe she just wanted to have sex.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, is it impossible?
I mean, it seems to me that that could be, because that was useful, right?
It's like, hey, you're attractive.
I almost died.
Let's get it on, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and it could have been that, I mean, it seems that that could very well have been homotov as well, right?
Right. No, yeah, definitely.
In other words, it's not that she absolutely wanted to get back together with you, it's just that, like all couples with a long-term relationship, you know what each other like and you can have great sex, right?
Yeah, yeah. And it seems that she has not made much of a move to attempt to get you guys back together since, right?
No, no. So I don't see how you were exploiting her.
And again, just let me know if I'm off base here.
Well, just with the ride to go get stuff and maybe to help, she's offering to help me get my groceries and stuff like that.
And I feel like I'm, I don't know, I feel like I'm using her because I kind of broke up and now I'm still talking and we're still getting a dialogue.
It may sound silly, but I still feel that way.
Okay, and that's fine.
But we have to look at the empirical evidence for that feeling, right?
Yeah. If that makes sense.
Like, exploiting her would be, lend me $5,000, which I never intend to pay back, and maybe we can get back together.
Oh, yeah. I mean, to me, if you'd said something like that, I'd be like, dude, right?
Clearly that's kind of manipulative, right?
Right. Right.
But I don't see a power situation here.
In other words, she doesn't seem to desperately want to get back together with you, and it seems like You know, she's enjoying you, helping you in these ways.
And it also seems, more than seems, is the fact that, I mean, she's helping you with groceries, but you're helping her by attempting to give her some feedback about her emotional issues, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So again, I'm wide open to the charge of disrespectful exploitation and her being some helpless and foolish patsy to your Puppet master manipulations, but I don't see it based on the evidence.
Yeah. Unless there's something that you've skipped over.
No, that's pretty much it.
Sorry, it's kind of grandiose on your part, and it really does diminish her role and her choices in things.
Kind of grandiose on your part to say, well, I am in control and I exploited and I manipulated and so on, right?
Because there's no evidence for it.
But you feel like you're running the whole show and she's some sort of helpless victim, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I... No, putting it in that perspective and like that, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
I... I did have some minor thoughts as to do...
To that reference.
But yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
I just...
I guess I didn't think of it in that way, and I guess I was thinking, I was kind of being diminishing in that sense of thinking that, you know, this was, you know, all my fault, and I was just, you know, and that she couldn't control her or something like that, and that kind of, as ridiculous as it may sound, but...
In that kind of mentality.
When I was trying to internalize all this that was going on, that was the dialogue that was going on in my head.
It was just like, why are you doing this?
You shouldn't do that. And I mean, in regards to, you know, it's like, well, she's still kind of, you know, hanging out with you and stuff like that.
And, you know, and then, you know, I mean, what are you doing?
Are you leading her on?
I don't think I am.
I'm still telling her we can't be in a relationship, but yet I feel like if I'm doing this, then...
And she hasn't gone to see a therapist.
Maybe if you stop talking to her, she'll go see a therapist.
Like, all those random thoughts were going through my head.
And maybe I'm inhibiting her from her personal growth.
And myself, inhibiting myself by trying to...
Well, I guess it's just...
I always felt like I was inhibiting her from her personal growth.
And... I guess then I felt bad that I was doing that.
I mean, that was just my process of thinking about it.
And I guess that is kind of ridiculous because she did choose...
She chose herself to spend time with me.
And it's not like I am asking her for things and not trying to reciprocate in some way.
It's just... I guess I felt like perhaps I might have been hindering her from...
I guess that was my argument.
That was my internal argument that I was hindering her from growing.
I got it. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you're sort of repeating yourself.
Yeah, I know. But have you asked her?
Have you said, ex-honey of mine, or what's with that effect?
Is my conversation with you inhibiting you from your personal growth?
No, I don't know. Because you're kind of living in this house of mirrors, right?
Where you're inventing all these charges against yourself without the input of the other person.
I'm exploitive. I'm inhibiting her from her personal growth.
I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it's some charge that you lay against yourself.
And then you basically argue with yourself in the mirror, right?
Yeah. Am I doing this?
Well, what's my motive for that? Well, maybe I'm just doing this and maybe I'm that and maybe I'm leading her on and maybe I'm exploiting her because we had sex and maybe this.
Like, it's all just a house of mirrors, right?
Because you're not actually asking her.
Right. And I'm just trying to point that out to you, right?
Because, I mean, I think you've read RTR, right?
Yes. Okay, so in RTR, it's like if you have a thought and you're in communication with someone and it's important to you, and that relationship is, and particularly if they're ambivalent or complicated thoughts or whatever, then you sit down with that person and you say, This is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm feeling, I don't know if it's true, but what do you think and what do you feel and what's your experience of what I'm saying?
But you're doing all, you have this whole relationship with a whole bunch of mirrors, right?
And kind of angry mirrors too, right?
Yeah. But we sit down with her and say, did you feel exploited when we had sex?
She'd probably be insulted, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And there's a little bit of vanity too, right?
Like, it may not be that we're that attractive.
It might just be that we're good in bed.
You know what I mean?
Like it may not be that the sex is a means to get our hearts, but rather just that, you know, there's a certain itch that needs to be scratched.
We're good at scratching it.
And that's, you know, it may be.
I'm just saying, right?
Yeah.
But you ask her what her experience is.
Because otherwise you're just making things up and attacking yourself, right?
Yeah. And clearly, or at least clearly to me, which doesn't mean that it's true, right?
But clearly to me, that's the point, right?
Because for you, in this situation, all roads lead to self-denigration, right?
To these terrible charges that you're laying against yourself as an exploiter and a manipulator and someone who's inhibiting someone from their personal growth and...
It's like lord of romantic death, wielding bits of horror all over the landscape, right?
Yeah, yeah. Everything that you're doing is leading to self-attack, right?
And I'll tell you how to break that cycle if this is the case.
Okay. Because if your self-attack is your Simon the Boxer, if it is your repetition compulsion, then the reason you had sex with the woman was to self-attack, right?
Yeah. Yeah. The reason that you're trying to help her is so that you can end up self-attacking, right?
Right. The reason that you're in conversation with her is so that you can then say, maybe I'm inhibiting her and maybe I'm doing all these terrible things and she's not gone into therapy and I guess I'm not helping her.
So you can, like, you're just using her, like you're picking her up and clubbing yourself with her, right?
It's got nothing to do with her.
Yeah. If that makes any sense.
No, it makes sense.
That makes sense. That makes sense.
So the way, if we have, and let's, you used the word addiction, I wouldn't put it that way, but let's just use your phrase for the moment, because that's where you're thinking of it as.
If you have an addiction, right, and let's say for the sake of argument that talking to your ex is an addiction, people have addictions so that they can self-attack, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Guys who get drunk and crawl home and get yelled at by their wives do that, in my opinion.
Again, it's all nonsense, amateur stuff.
But in my opinion, they do that because they want to feel incompetent and shameful and then angry, right?
Yeah. And it's more of a...
Isn't it more of an unconscious desire to be...
To be, I guess, verbally flagellated or something like that?
Oh, absolutely, yeah. Absolutely.
There's a core belief, which is, I'm a bad person, and then people act in bad ways so that they can confirm that core belief, right?
Yeah. So, in this way, bad behavior is almost always treated as a cause when it is only, in fact, a symptom of the core belief.
And this is why, let's say that If you hadn't had sex, you would have, I mean, come up with something else to attack yourself with.
And if you stop seeing this girl completely, let's say that she moves to another country, leaves your place of employment, then you will then start to say, oh my God, I drove her away.
Oh my God, she had to get away from me because I'm so toxic and I'm so destructive and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Right?
Right, right.
That's true. So if you're acting in order to give yourself an excuse for a self-attack, then focusing on your behavior will not change a damn thing.
Okay. Hmm.
Like, for instance, like this movie that leads to your...
at her place and sex and so on, right?
Mm-hmm. So she offers you a movie, and if you'd have said no...
Then you would have said, oh, I'm rejecting her, I'm being cruel, I'm being cold, would it have really hurt me so much to take a movie, blah blah blah, right?
Right. No, you're right.
And then if you take the movie, you're like, oh my god, I'm exploiting her, her generosity, she wants to get back with me.
Do you see what I mean? It doesn't matter what she does.
Yeah, I'm just trying to devise different ways.
It doesn't matter what I do.
Like you said, it's not what I do, my behavior, it's mentally I'm trying to find some reason to attack myself.
Right, so you try to help this woman with her family and maybe it doesn't go as well as you like and then you're like, oh my god, I'm trying to help her but I'm actually inhibiting her and maybe it's just for me and maybe I'm being narcissistic.
But then if you don't help her, you're like, oh my god, I could help her but I'm not and now she's not getting into therapy because I'm not helping her.
No matter what, it happens.
Yeah, it's a little madhouse.
The lasers are on your forehead, right?
Right. Or lower down, depending on what you're looking at, right?
Right, right, right.
And so trying to adjust your behavior, because you thought, oh my god, Steph's going to give me a lecture called Adjust My Behavior, right?
Yeah. Yeah, that's not going to work.
Yeah. Right?
Because everything you do is going to lead to a self-attack.
And I'm wildly generalizing, and of course I could be completely wrong, but this is just the approach.
This is the way that I would look at it if I were in your shoes.
Okay. And also, you thought you were going to die.
Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'd want to have sex once more.
Yeah. No, seriously.
I mean, and you say, oh, it's ridiculous.
I'm in my 20s. Hey, people die of heart attacks in their 20s.
If you've got angina or some heart member or some weak heart, it can happen.
Yeah. Right? Sure. The breath is terrifying.
Yeah. Because all death results from a lack of oxygen.
It's terrifying. Yeah.
Definitely. So, you don't have, as far as I understand it, there's not a lot of Gentleness with yourself and saying, okay, well maybe I acted in a non-optimal way, but I did think I was staring into the abyss of death, and that might give me a few excuses, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
If that makes sense. Yeah, I kind of always...
I have this kind of mental standard, I guess, in my mind that it's like...
And I don't think it's a reasonable standard after just talking to you about it, but I still have this standard where...
No matter what, I should, you know, stick to my principles.
And no matter what, you know, it doesn't matter if I'm staring death in the face.
I should, you know, have honor until I die.
That's fine with me.
I mean, hey, I mean, if you want to put that fucking elephant log on your chest, that's your choice.
It's your choice, right? Yeah.
But the fact of the matter is, though, that you're not sticking to your principles by something.
No. Yeah, no, you're right.
Because you haven't done anything immoral.
You're not being curious, kind, and gentle with yourself to figure out the source of your behavior.
You're just abusing yourself.
And I fail to see how anything at FDR or RTR or philosophy as a whole or psychology says that shouting horrible terms at yourself It's living with virtue and integrity.
No, you're right. Right?
You're not living with integrity by self-abusing.
You are not living virtuously if you are self-abusing.
Right. So, that's the paradox, right?
Because everybody wants to pick up virtue if they have a tendency to self-attack, or that's their Simon the Boxer thing.
To pick up this club called Ethics Dispatch, And philosophy and virtue and integrity and honor and dignity and blah, blah, blah.
And then say, I failed to meet these standards.
Bang, bang, bang, right?
On the head with that big Flintstones club with a nail in it.
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's bullshit. Yeah.
I mean, if I had, you know, I've got this daughter, right?
So my daughter gets a little bit older.
Yeah. And you heard a tape of me Yelling at my daughter the way that you yell at yourself, would you say, now there's a guy who's living with integrity and virtue?
No. You'd say, geez, what an abuser.
Yeah. No, you're right.
You're right. Yeah, you don't believe me.
No, I believe you.
Yeah, you're right. I'm cornered.
I didn't get this before.
I'm going to start self-attacking with that now.
Exactly. I'm self-attacking again.
I know. I know.
How come I thought I was living with integrity when I'm clearly not?
I'm never going to get this stuff.
Oh, my God. Right.
Right. Right.
And you can do that if you want to.
You can spend the rest of your life.
Pounding your head into a high wall of rough brick, if you want, right?
It's your choice, your life, right?
You can stick your knives into your arms, you can shit on your sheets and sleep contentedly, whatever you like, right?
But the degree to which you self-attack is absolutely not the degree to which you're living with honesty and integrity, because you don't know why you're doing what you're doing.
Because self-attack is just a way of obscuring self-knowledge, right?
Right. Right.
I mean, we all understand that, right?
When we cross-examine our parents about virtue and they get mad at us, we know why they're doing that, right?
Yeah. What the hell are you asking all these questions for?
Well, your anger says that you don't want me to ask them because you don't have any answers, right?
Yeah. And you don't want to know that.
And so self-attack is simply a way of maintaining ignorance and brutality, of course, right?
But it's a way of avoiding knowledge, right?
RTR, the gentleness, the Socratic questioning, the persistence of curiosity with regards to the self and the motives, that is a way of actually pursuing knowledge, right?
But thinking that you learn anything about yourself by yelling at yourself is like imagining that you can become a meteorologist by yelling at the weather.
Yeah. You goddamn clouds!
Ruin my wedding! Hey, look!
Now I know when it rains. And what?
Right? It doesn't make no sense, right?
Right. Yelling at cancer does not make you an oncologist.
Yelling at the weather does not make you a meteorologist.
And yelling at yourself makes you no expert on yourself, right?
Right. No, you're right.
You're right. So...
Oh no. I'm sorry, go ahead.
Yes, yes. Fine speech, Steph.
That's great. Can we break that into something where the rubber might actually meet the road?
Well, yeah, something like that.
And it was, I guess...
Like, I guess I'm curious, and that's questions I need to ask myself, but I guess it's just kind of this...
I guess like you were saying before, it's a...
I'm understanding...
Well, I don't know if it's even understanding it, but I mean, I'm understanding some of the concepts that are going on.
I mean... But I guess I'm not processing them, so I'm not being...
I'm not really being...
I'm not actually applying them to myself the same way.
I felt like I was, for a while before when I was getting into RTR, that I was actually doing well, and then...
Then, obviously, either I wasn't doing it right the first time, or I slipped out of it again.
And I guess that's kind of that pendulum thing that you talked about before.
Right. In trying to make progress.
Well, the only thing that I can suggest, and I'll suggest this before, and I'll suggest it again.
It's like, just think of it in this way, right?
Let's say you're 100 pounds overweight and you're trying to lose weight.
And you go on a diet and you start losing weight, right?
And you go, great, I'm losing weight, so I don't have to diet anymore.
Maybe you lost 10 pounds, right?
Right. So now you're only 90 pounds overweight.
You stop dieting and you go back to your old habits.
And then lo and behold, you gain weight again, right?
Yeah. And maybe more, right?
Because your body's like in starvation mode and whatever, right?
Right. Right. And that's the cycle of people who get into philosophy.
It was a cycle for me.
It's a cycle for you. It was a cycle for the guy on the Sunday show.
It's a cycle for everyone, right?
We apply the principles.
We make progress, right?
Right. And then we're like, whew, great.
I've got this down. I don't need to apply the principles.
I don't need to have a commitment to dieting anymore.
And then we fall back on our old habits.
We regain the weight and we get frustrated, right?
Right, right.
It's like the guy saying, wow, I ran a five-minute mile, so now I can stop working out because I need to run a five-minute mile in a year.
It's like, no, no, no, just because you did it once doesn't mean that you get to stay that way.
You have to keep working at it, right?
Right, right.
And for you, sorry, for you, for you, for yodeling, for you, and for everyone, and for myself as well, me too, right?
What happens is we have this...
Dedication to openness, honesty, curiosity with the self and with others, right?
And we make progress, and then we stop doing it, right?
And then we backslide.
And then we get frustrated, and the frustration causes us to backslide even further, right?
So it's like if you diet for a while, you lose 10 pounds...
And then you stop dieting and you gain back 15 pounds, part of you is going to say, well fuck it, dieting doesn't just work, I'm going to eat whatever the hell I want, it's all bullshit, right?
Right, right. Right, so...
As opposed to, you know, you might want to, like seriously, you might want to make a list.
You know, what are the rules that I want to live by?
Right? Now, you don't have to make rules up like, you know, I'm not going to, I don't know, strangle the homeless or something.
I assume. And, you know, just make a list, right?
So, honesty, empathy, curiosity, and firmness, or whatever it is, right?
How is it that I'm going to deal with people?
What are my rules? Or at least deal with them initially, right?
After that, you can treat them, my suggestion, as they treat you.
But, you know, honesty, curiosity, empathy, openness, whatever it is, vulnerability, whatever it is that you've got that I think are productive rules, or you, obviously, you think are productive rules, and you make a list of that, and you stick it up in your house, right?
I mean, when people diet, they write out their meals and they count the calories and they measure the exercise and they do the paperwork of change, right?
But what we all feel is, oh, I read that book.
I read a book on dieting.
It was interesting. Now I'm eagerly awaiting my weight loss, right?
You just make the list.
How is it that I'm going to treat people?
And then, of course, you make that, in UPP fashion, applicable to yourself as well, right?
It makes no sense to treat other people nicer than you treat yourself, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's just nonsense, right?
Because it's not UPP compliant.
You're a human being like they are, right?
Yeah. But the difference being that you can separate from people in the world, you can't separate from aspects of yourself, right?
Right, right. So make a list.
What is it that you consider to be good, decent, benevolent, positive behavior with people and with yourself?
Make that list! And then when you get lost, you look at the map, right?
When you find yourself falling into old habits, you look at the list of ways, and you can adjust it, you can change it, whatever, right?
You look at the list and you say, what am I not doing that I have committed to?
And change.
But otherwise, it's just, you know, old habits overwhelm us forever, right?
Yeah, it really is.
Like, I guess I felt like, oh, I'm smart enough.
I'll just process this, you know, just by reading it.
And it really is like a, it is like almost like a full-blown assignment, you know, like.
Almost like? No, no.
It's a full-blown assignment.
Change is a full-blown assignment, and it requires reference to principles that we are committed to and the willpower to follow through on it.
I use the word willpower basically just to mean a desire for happiness, and I don't believe in just willpower, right?
But yeah, write down what is good and decent behavior, and then you stick to those principles as best you can.
And when you deviate from them, then you return to those principles, right?
If you eat a cheesecake, you return to your diet and you say, okay, well, I ate the cheesecake, so let's adjust the diet now to make up for that and figure out why I did what I did.
All of that, self-empathy, self-knowledge, self-curiosity, self-understanding, gentleness, all of that empathy with the self.
But you need to have those principles.
I mean, reading RTR is like reading a book on exercise.
It doesn't change anything in your life other than to give you some knowledge.
And a call with me...
To extend the metaphor, it's like going to one gym session with a personal trainer, right?
Does that make you healthy? No.
No, not at all. It makes you sore, actually.
That's what actually happens with the personal trainer, right?
Yeah. But the personal trainer does that, and the book does that, so now you can do it for yourself, right?
And you have reference when you go to the gym, right?
You write down your reps, you write down your weights, you write down the exercises you did, you measure your progress, This is the basic paperwork of growth, right?
And we all don't want to do that, right?
We all just, oh, I've got the knowledge, I'll be fine, right?
But that's not how our lives work, right?
Because the unconscious is powerful, and habits are addictive, and the false self is always wanting to get back in the throne, right?
Right, right.
No, that's very true.
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah, no, it does seem like a...
I mean, that makes a lot of sense, and it's something that I definitely feel like I should start trying to implement.
I'm sorry, it's not trying to implement?
Sorry. I feel like I've made my point very well.
I should really start thinking about maybe looking into whether there's a gym around here.
Oh, I feel motivated now, baby!
Oh, I'm very fluent in Swedish.
Yeah, no, it's something that I'm definitely going to start implementing.
You don't have to, right?
You don't have to do it, but the consequences of not doing it It's this nonsense, self-attack, confusion, kind of a horrible life.
And, of course, you're going to be in no position to get the girl that you want, right?
Yeah, that's very true.
She's going to see you basically, you know, you're going to go out for dinner, she's going to see you basically beating yourself up with a stale baguette and say, hey, not sure I want to sign up for a life of this, right?
Seriously. Out of clubbing himself.
You know, a healthy woman's going to say, well, he's cute.
And I've heard that he's great and bad, but that's not enough, right?
Right, right, right.
So you've got to pry this self-attack off yourself, this house of mirrors where you keep punching yourself In the reflection.
And, you know, do some of the basic paperwork and reminders of change.
You don't have to do it for the rest of your life, but until it becomes more of an ingrained habit where you catch yourself self-attacking, you relinquish your grip on the club, you try to understand with empathy and with curiosity the root cause of where it comes from, the initial thoughts, the core beliefs, the Simon the Boxer, all of that complicated stuff.
And you do that, right?
In the same way that the best pianists and Michael Jordan continue to play their scales and practice their basketball shots every day.
Taika Woods is like the best golfer on the planet.
The guy practices six hours a day.
Yeah. And you say, ah, I'm so good.
I have such natural talent.
I don't need to practice, right?
Michael Jordan practices his layups and shots hours and hours a day.
That's true. And yet we who are on the...
On the golf course of personal growth, I feel like, oh yeah, no, I want to win the Masters and what I'm going to do is read one book by Jack Nicklaus and see if that's going to carry me through, right?
Right, right.
No, that does kind of seem a little bit ridiculous when, yeah, that does seem ridiculous when you think about it, yeah.
Yeah. Because what we're doing is tougher than golf, right?
It's tougher than basketball. Yeah, it's definitely...
Yeah, and it's something that you really do have to sit down and then seriously devise a plan and a complete strategy on trying to get yourself aligned with your principles and self-growth.
I think, yeah, that...
No, this is making a lot of sense.
Right. I mean, if people say...
Well, Steph seems to have some of this stuff pretty much down.
He wrote these books and blah, blah, blah, so that's good.
Well, but they don't see that this is all 30,000 hours of practice, right?
Yeah. Everybody wants the cake nobody wants to bake, right?
Right, right, right.
It's easy to lose sight.
I think it's easy, at least it was for me, it was easy to lose sight of that.
And it's like, oh, you just read the books, you go back over them a couple times, you try to, you know, and then you just implement them and everything will be fine.
They'll just start taking over automatically and I won't have to worry about it.
Yeah. Absolutely, and that's, you know, wouldn't it be great if that were the case, right?
But then, of course, if that were the case, the reason, like, the fact that the world is screwed up would make no sense, right?
If it were that easy to change and fix.
Yeah, because then all we'd have to do is say, here, read this book, you'll be fine.
Yeah, it's wonderful.
That's how it works. What that does mean, though, of course, is that once human beings do get it right, it will be almost impossible to end up with it going wrong again, right?
Because it's so hard to change.
But so the harder it is to get right, the more permanent that rightness will be, which is what gives me a huge amount of hope.
But that's sort of by the by.
I just wanted to sort of mention that.
Definitely.
Definitely.
No, I think this is extremely helpful.
um, I definitely am going to have to go over this and try and really devise a strategy on how to deal with this.
But I think, I wasn't quite sure why I was calling, or why I was, I mean, I knew it had to do with my girlfriend, and I guess it was for a different reason, but I think, I really, this has been extremely helpful, but not in the way that I thought it was going to.
Good, good, well I'm glad to still be surprising, and by the way, this should totally go in the general stream.
Okay. That's my thought.
I mean, have a listen if you like and let me know.
We didn't even use your name.
And frankly, great compliments were made about your sexual prowess.
That's always a good thing.
So it's just something that I'd like to do it, but it's up to you finally.
I'll send you a copy and let me know what you think.
But I mean, we didn't even use a name.
And I think you have a lot to be proud of in this conversation.
Okay. Okay. Definitely, yeah.
I'll give a listen to it, and I'll definitely get back to you on it as soon as possible.
Beautiful. Alright, man. Well, thanks.
Keep me posted. Keep us all posted.
Definitely. Thank you. Alright.
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