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Jan. 24, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:24:29
1266 Rage and Happiness - A Convo
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All right. Well, this is a call that was requested by Nate, which I think makes good sense.
And, Nate, you wanted to get us started with the topic at hand, the four-letter word?
Rage? Mm-hmm. Or...
Oh, never mind.
Let's see. Where do I start?
So, two days ago...
This is just one example, but...
I can give a good description of what happens for me.
In Houston, it's just pretty much car city.
There's basically no public transportation or anything like that.
I mean, there is, but nobody really uses it.
I'm sorry, so what you're trying to do is start the conversation about rage by provoking my rage with wild tangents about public...
Transit, is that right? That's the goal?
I'm not that interested in the public transit in Houston, but if you could just get to the actual meat of the matter, and I know it's tough to hear me say that, but go for it.
All right. I'm just going to say my noble hope beforehand that traffic is inevitable, and there's always going to be wrecks.
But whenever I get into traffic...
I find it really hard not to feel, well, I guess that's not the goal, but I feel a combination of things, like helpless, like really high anxiety to where it's really hard to concentrate on anything but the traffic, and like exasperation and a lot of anger and rage, and then I feel...
Ashamed of all that at the same time.
Right. Sometimes I can try to distract myself with an audiobook or something, but when the traffic's totally stopped and I'm trying to get somewhere, and this is usually either trying to get home from work or trying to get to work on time,
sometimes I can think of your analogy of the keys and the passport thing and try to...
Just remember that I don't have to be on time to my job, really.
He's kind of a flexible guy, and just make sure I get in and get my work done, and that's it.
So there's no rational reason why I should be freaking out, but I do.
I'm sorry, there's no rational reason why you should be freaking out?
Yeah, like for instance...
No, I understand what it means.
I'm not sure what you would base that on.
Just basing it on something.
Maybe that's just an assumption I have.
I don't know. Maybe that's part of why I just sort of feel this shame about it.
Like, oh, I shouldn't be angry.
I should know all these things.
I don't think that I've ever said we shouldn't be angry.
Yeah.
I think I have a strong association with that feeling of shame with anger.
Right, because, I mean, just to clarify the issue with the keys and the passport, I mean, that's once a year or two that that might happen, right?
We're not talking twice a day with traffic, right?
Right. This may be once a week, you know, like a bad accident where I don't get home for like two hours.
Oh, yeah. No, it's killer. No, I understand.
I understand. But it sounds like you're coming to conclusions already.
You know, it's completely irrational, right?
Which is not RTR, right?
RTR is not that, right?
As soon as you jump to a conclusion, you're not curious about yourself because you've got an answer, right?
It's crazy. It's irrational.
That has also come to my mind, and I've tried to not draw conclusions, but it's kind of automatic for me to draw conclusions.
Alright, so now you're annoying.
What does automatic mean?
The thoughts in my head that make me even more angry.
They're automatic. And intensify this feeling.
Because you realize that's a conclusion as well, right?
Oh. And it's a conclusion that gives you zero control.
Because they're automatic, right?
Like the beating of your heart.
Like you can't will that to stop, right?
Right. So you're helpless, and you're just a conclusion machine about this, which is very typically the case with rage, right?
Right. And we don't know what the point of this anger is that you feel.
It may be a complete lifesaver.
It may be trying to prevent you from having an aneurysm or a heart attack.
We don't know. Okay.
Right? Right.
But if you've come to conclusions about it, then there's not much point having a conversation, right?
Because it's crazy, and it's just bad, and it's like, okay, well, it sounds like you've got it all sorted out, so there's no point chatting, right?
Right. Right. Right, but it's the conclusions that I think are the thoughts before the feelings.
Right, and if you say that those thoughts are automatic, then again, there's nothing we can do, right?
It's like the operation of your spleen.
Philosophy cannot reach that which is automatic in the body, right?
Philosophy is about choice, right?
And if it's automatic, then there's no choice.
So what you're basically saying to me is, Steph, I'd really like a call about something that's completely impervious to change.
I wanted to talk about how I could change these thoughts in my head.
Yes, but if you say that they're automatic, right?
They're not changeable. Then they're unchangeable, right?
These are completely automatic, if I remember rightly.
Oh. Okay, we'll just stick with non-automatic thoughts.
I'm not sure what that means.
Well, if they're not...
Well, I'll just go with the idea that they're not automatic.
You'll go with... No, are they automatic or not?
Do you have any control over your thoughts and feelings or any...
I mean, you certainly don't. The reason I'm so opposed to these conclusions is that they give you no control.
They give you no...
Because you can't be curious, you can't try and understand, you're not open-minded, you just...
It's like this, right? Right.
I feel really frustrated.
Sure, and I know that.
And for sure, I mean, if you'd sat down and thought about the conversation ahead of time, I don't know if you did or didn't, right?
Then you would have known that if you started off with conclusions, no curiosity, and saying everything was automatic, that that was going to be annoying, right?
Actually, I thought it would have been helpful, but I guess not.
Okay, that's fine.
Step me through the thinking that jumping to conclusions and saying that the thinking is completely automatic.
How is that helpful?
How is that going to...
Those are all the...
Well, those are all the things I thought about before the call.
But I didn't realize they were conclusions.
I just thought they were...
They were what goes on for me.
I didn't see them as conclusions.
I was just explaining what goes through my head.
Okay. Does it make any sense when I say that they are conclusions?
Like when you say, it's automatic, it's crazy, and so on, and I shouldn't feel this way, that these are all just judgments, right?
With no curiosity. These are the thoughts that run through my head while I'm in the car in this rage state.
Okay. Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about what you think now about your rage.
Oh, no, no, no.
I was just explaining what goes, all the things that run through my head during the time that I'm in the car.
Okay, and which of these things do you think is inaccurate?
Oh, I'm sure they all are.
I just don't know how to change them.
I don't know how to stop them or figure them out.
It's like...
Okay.
I just don't know what it is.
So you're saying that you don't know how to work with these feelings of anger within you?
No. Well, you do.
Right? I mean, this is not your first time around the block when it comes to self-knowledge.
And philosophy, right?
Now I feel shame again.
Yeah, no, I understand that.
But I mean... If you find that, assuming that the thoughts are automatic, jumping to conclusions that they're crazy, jumping to conclusions that you just should not have these feelings and it's bad to have these feelings and so on, if you heard some other caller talking about that or talking like that, what would you think?
If they had read RTR, say, twice or three times or something like that?
Um... I'm trying to picture that.
Okay, let's try and make it easier.
What does RTR say?
And let's just use that as the, you know, guide, right?
Because what you're doing isn't working in RTR. It's the opposite of what you're doing, so we can assume that that's at least some step in the right direction, right?
Right. Okay. So, the first curiosity and honesty is with yourself, right?
RTR is with self first and other people afterwards, right?
Right. Okay. So, when you have a challenge like this, what would be the honest and curious and respectful thing approach to take with yourself?
I wonder why I feel this way.
Yeah, I feel this and I'm not sure why.
And I don't know if it's good or bad.
I mean, people kept saying to me, is this media stuff good or bad for FDR?
It's like, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know.
I'm ambivalent, right?
Right.
I'll have to see, right?
Right.
But if you're going to take a huge amount of emotional energy and simply flush it down the toilet like a dead goldfish saying, it's bad, it's wrong, and it shouldn't be part of me, then that's not respectful to yourself, right?
Right.
No. No.
I... I feel really frustrated now.
Go on. I am...
I'm not sure how to stop it.
To stop what? That line of thinking.
You can't stop it.
I mean, have you ever been able to?
No, of course you can't.
And that's the whole point, right?
Okay.
Thank you.
Everyone gets a seat at the table, right?
Every part of you gets a seat at the table.
Even the rage and perhaps especially the rage right Right, so this is kind of like the critic yeah That which we treat as an enemy within ourselves only gets stronger, right?
If you cut me down, I shall return far more powerful than you can ever imagine.
Imagine, imagine, right?
And you know all of this, right?
Right?
Yeah, I do. I just, I feel this lump in my throat and I feel really...
Anxious and sad at the same time.
Okay, go on. I don't know.
I don't know any more than that.
I don't know why. There's a clicking or a thumping.
Is that coming from you? Let me get closer to the computer.
Just a reminder, if you're not talking, if you could mute, please.
Okay, so basically we have this reality that you came charging into this conversation.
And I give you as a regular listener for some years the respect of knowing that you know what you're doing.
right? So you were attempting to create frustration within me and were succeeding, right?
Because you're kind of coming in like you're, you know, fresh off the boat from Tasmania, right?
As if we'd never talked before, as if we hadn't had conversations about your dark side, as if you'd never read RTR. I mean, not only did you read it, you read and reviewed it, the text relative to the audio, right?
I mean, you studied it, right?
And then you come in with the most anti-empathetic, anti- RTR, anti-honest, anti-self-respectful nonsense, right?
Right, but I was explaining what goes through my head.
Yes, but then you were saying you don't know how to change it, right?
The metaphor would be that it's like you studied a fantastic diet book, right?
Right.
That says here's what you need to eat to Lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, right?
You studied this book for three years, right?
diets and then you call up the guy who writes the book and you say I have no idea how to lose weight I mean that's how it strikes me Maybe I'm being completely unfair, but that's how it strikes me.
Now I feel frustrated and a lot of shame again.
And you can feel shame if you want.
I don't think that's... I mean, that's not going to help in this particular situation.
I just want you to be aware of what you're doing.
I'm not trying to blame you.
I'm not trying to put you down. I just want you to be aware of what you're doing, right?
Right. I... It's hard not to...
I should know this.
You do know it.
Right?
This is all stuff that you know.
Right?
And it's not just RTR, right?
I mean, it's... The Ask a Therapist, it's the podcast where we've talked about self-respect, self-knowledge, everything you do is right, your feelings are valid, curiosity with the self is the foundation of empathy with others.
I mean, this is probably a hundred podcasts, right?
And a book. And on truth could be considered in that category as well, right?
Right. And I mean, there's no magic wand that puts theory into practice, right? That says, okay, now I've read 50 diet books, so I have to put down the Twinkie, right?
And I don't know what makes it go from theory to practice.
I don't know.
Genuinely don't know.
Maybe I'm just making it more complicated than it is, or I'm really struggling to figure this out.
No, you're not. You're struggling to not figure it out, right?
Because you come at me with all this nonsense about, I can't change it, and I try to reject my rage and it doesn't work, and all this stuff, right?
And, I mean, it puts me in a difficult situation just between you and I, right?
Which is that I either kind of go along with Nate doesn't know anything, which is disrespectful to you, right?
Or I bring you up short, right?
Like I'm doing, right?
And say, well, I ain't experiencing frustration and I think it's because you know all of this stuff and you're speaking the complete opposite as if we've never talked before and you didn't ever study this stuff for years, right?
Why am I doing that?
Well, it's because, you know, we reproduce in others what we repress in ourselves, right?
So you want to put me in an impossible situation.
You want me to feel frustration.
You want me to feel bewildered.
And you want to suck me into the impossibility of dealing with all of this stuff, right?
Thank you.
Like, either I start with, here's page one of RTR, let's read through it together, right?
Or I assume that you know it, but you're avoiding that knowledge for some reason, right?
For some reason.
I don't know if it's because I feel so anxious right now that I can't think.
Very straight. Right.
And... I don't think that you did think much about what you wanted to talk about on the call today.
It's not a criticism, I'm just sort of pointing it out, right?
Because if you jotted all this stuff down, you would have realized exactly what would have happened, right?
these ways of opposing yourself and so on, right?
I should have probably journaled about it more.
And that's fine.
I mean, it's fine that you didn't, right?
It's just important to note that you didn't, right?
I mean, it's like, you can do it or not.
It's fine with me either way, right?
right?
But we just have to be curious about why not, right?
Starting to learn that journaling about something before taking a difficult problem to somebody is probably wise.
Yeah, I mean, it's like there's a premium podcast with a fellow who, having listened to the show for a couple of years, tells me about how wonderful his mother was, and she was a mystic, right?
And he says this with all apparent sincerity, right?
Right. You know, that the complete opposite of every value that I talk about, and I think is reasonably proven, is wonderful, right?
And he doesn't notice it, right?
until I pointed out to him.
I think I remember that.
Right, so when you come in and say, these are automatic thoughts, I change them, and then I oppose them within myself, and it's completely irrational, and I fight, and you jump to all these conclusions...
And you don't say, and so a core problem is that I'm jumping to conclusions, but you just talk about them like they're true, right?
Right.
Right.
I feel sort of...
high anxiety and anger at the same time.
Sure, sure, sure.
And I don't know why.
I don't know if it's you or me or...
Because if I came in and did that, and naturally you felt frustrated, I could see certainly why you would be frustrated.
Right, right. And I mean, that's fine, because we're dealing with the form and the content at the same time, which often happens, right?
Because you're probably feeling quite similar to what you felt in the car, right?
Exactly like that. Right, and you're trying to give that feeling to me with rapping in a bow, right?
Or those feelings. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
That's fine. I'm a big boy, right?
And I know this is a tough topic for people, so I just, again, I just want to point that out.
I mean, I'm not trying to shame you.
I'm just saying that this was the interaction, at least from the way that I saw it.
All right.
So that's kind of how I'm feeling in the car.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel it.
Well, you didn't make me, but you were certainly doing your best to lob it over the wall.
But yeah, so this is what you feel in the car, right?
Right. I'm sorry.
And generally, and this is again all nonsense theory, right?
But this is sort of the way that I work with the question of rage.
Generally... Rage, for me, is anger plus helplessness plus self-attack.
Right? So when you are in the car trying to get to work, you feel anger at the delays, you feel helpless to get to work any faster, and you self-attack like...
I'm going to be late. I should have left earlier.
I should have whatever, right? Right.
Does that seem reasonable?
Right. Or I self-attack for being angry and helpless.
Yeah, it's just...
I perpetuate it.
Right. Because, you know, when you're angry and you...
Okay, so let's look at a situation...
Where we have anger without helplessness.
So let's say that someone grabs a bag of yours and you just chase after him, right?
Yes. Or let's say a dog.
Let's make it even easier, right?
A dog or a child.
Grab something of yours and runs.
And you'd be a little angry, but you wouldn't be...
But you would act, right?
Right. I'd go after him or something.
And so you would not be self-attacking in that moment, right?
Because you're acting to deal with the problem, right?
Right. I can get away or I can go or I can get him fight or flight.
Right. Fight or flight. So if you can act, then you can...
You will not self-attack and you will not feel helpless because you're not you're not helpless you're acting, right?
Right Yeah, I kind of heard about this recently, right?
So if you are let's just say I don't know a situation we've probably all been in you're in a lineup somewhere and someone cuts in line, right?
Yes, and How many times do we sit there and debate with ourselves?
Should I say something am I a chicken?
How do I put it and we get worked up, right?
I've definitely had that problem.
Right. So, in that situation, we have anger, but we also have helplessness and self-attack, right?
Does it really matter?
Am I being a coward?
But I don't want to. I'm scared, right?
We go through all of this stuff, but because we don't act, we feel helpless, and we also self-attack, and so the anger, and that makes us enraged, right?
It doesn't mean that we're going to pull a hair out or anything, but it does mean that it's different from the anger when a dog grabs our bag and runs off with it, right?
When we chase after it. That makes sense.
Or we've got a $20 bill and the wind takes it.
We're angry, we're frustrated, but we go and get it, right?
Right, in the case of the line guy...
Are we being petty if we bitch about it to the guy?
Right. Do we feel dominated by the rule called I don't know, oppose injustice or something like that, right?
Right. So, I mean, if we look at those three, and there may be more, but maybe these aren't even the top three, but these seem to me the three important components to rage, which is Anger plus helplessness plus self-attack, right? Right.
I mean, we may feel angry and we may also feel helpless, but we may not feel self-attack in that situation.
So, for instance, if a flight gets delayed, we may be angry and we're also helpless because we, you know, maybe we can't change the flight or whatever, right?
But we don't self-attack, right?
I've felt a lot of rage before due to a delayed flight.
It's the same kind of rage, I think.
Okay, tell me what the thoughts were about that.
Well, I think it was to New York, or both New York and Chicago, I think, that got delayed, and I was really upset.
Well, sure, but how do we get to rage?
It's okay to be angry about that, and it's frustrating, but how do we get to, you know, fist-clenched rage thing?
I'm helpless there.
And, um...
Trying to remember that time and where there might have been self-attack.
Maybe that I blamed myself for not scheduling an earlier flight like I had planned.
And where were you going when this happened?
In New York. Oh, for the FDR trip?
Yeah. Right.
And just out of curiosity, when you were delayed, what did you feel that other people's response was going to be that when you showed up late in New York?
That they were put off and had to change their schedule and come pick me up at another time.
So you didn't feel that they would be sympathetic, right?
Oh, right. Right.
Whether it's true or not, that's kind of what I felt.
Right. So this is a kind of self-attack, but it's an anticipation of the attack of others, right?
Right.
Right.
Right, right.
This makes more sense now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I can think of so many other situations where I felt the same way, afraid my boss would question me about why I was, you know, ten minutes late.
Right. Right, and this is the impossible.
I'm sorry, go ahead. Even when rationally, I don't even know if the guy knows whenever I'm there.
It's a fear that I have that doesn't seem to compare to reality.
Right. I think there's some common components that we can work with with this, right?
Which is that you can't do anything...
About delays in traffic, right?
Right. I mean, you can, right?
I mean, when I would end up in that situation sometimes, I would just pull over.
I would pull over and have some dinner and resume my trip in about an hour when the traffic had cleared up.
I mean, you can't do that going to work, but I mean, or sometimes I just turn home and say, like, I got to work from home because I spent an hour and got like two miles, right?
it.
Yeah, in the case of the other day, I read, I was able to read for about an hour of that two and a half hours of traffic, so I was able to distract myself for long enough, but the feelings just, you know, they got too intense, and I wasn't able to read anymore after that.
Right, right, right.
Okay. And when it happens on the way home, is there a component of self-attack that occurs on the way home?
It would seem less so than going into work, right?
I know that I'm angry that at my night, you know, that I had things I wanted to get done or do or things I wanted to enjoy or things I wanted to do that night.
But I think the self-attack in this case was for feeling angry.
Right. Okay, so you felt angry and then you began to say...
It's bad for me to feel angry, is that right?
Right. And the thought is that it's irrational, is that right?
It's irrational to feel angry? That with all this effort and investment of time I've put into self-work, that it must have been all for naught because I'm angry.
And I know that sounds completely ridiculous, but that's what it says.
No, it doesn't sound completely ridiculous because of the way that you were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, right?
That you're still a bit shy, as are a lot of people, of putting the theory into practice.
And I include myself in that number from time to time as well, so I'm not sort of hurling bolts from a high thundercloud here.
So... When you're spending two and a half hours stuck in traffic on the way home, you're like, I wanted to do stuff tonight, so you get frustrated.
And then you start to self attack because you shouldn't be getting angry, right?
Right. Why shouldn't you be getting angry?
Because I've invested all this time in self-work and therapy and all this stuff.
Right, now I understand that, but why should that not result in you getting angry?
Yeah, therein lies the non sequitur, I think.
Well, no, it's a genuine question, right?
I mean, why should work upon yourself, being open and honest and curious with yourself and expressing your feelings to yourself and so on, Why should that result in an anger-free existence?
Maybe it should. I just...
I don't understand why that would be the case.
I think the...
Well, here's one theory.
The world thinks anger is bad and...
I grew up in a family where being angry got attacked, and even more attacked if I got angry for being attacked, or got laughed at by my older brother for being angry.
Right, right. Now, there's something you said there that's very true, I think, and something that you said there that's very not true.
What? Well, you said the world thinks anger is bad, right?
Right, there's that whole, the Christian, I mean, it's one of the seven deadly sins or whatever, seven, you know, one of the, Christians and Buddhists are always like, you shouldn't feel angry and...
No, no, I understand that, but I mean, what is the way that people actually live, right?
So your parents were very angry people, right?
Right. Did everyone think they were bad?
Right. I mean, let's just work empirically, right?
Forget the texts, because nobody lives by the texts.
Let's just look at what actually happens, right?
Right. They were allowed to be angry.
Did anyone think that they were bad?
Because of their anger? They didn't.
Did other people? I did.
Did other people? Because you said the worlds, right?
But I'm just asking for the evidence for that.
I'm not trying to corner you. I'm just trying to understand where the idea is coming from.
I mean, were they kicked out of church?
Were they shunned by their community?
Were they shunned by their extended family?
I mean, did their parents disown them?
I mean, what happened because of their anger?
I think they got shunned at times.
By who? By...
Like the master-slave thing where they get really angry and then the other person can feel self-righteous and start, you know...
Okay, I'm sorry. This is all too abstract for me.
What I want to understand is, did they get kicked out of their church for being angry?
No. Okay.
Did anyone in their family disown them for being angry?
No. No. Did they end up unemployed because of their anger?
Well, I've heard of some people getting fired.
I'm talking about your parents. Just your parents.
Oh, from my parents.
No, no. Do you know anyone who refused to see your parents or cut them out of their lives because your parents were angry?
No. So, tell me how, again, the world hates anger or doesn't like anger.
Give me an example, of course, and I'm being annoying, I know that, right?
Because, I mean, this is the part that you said that I don't think is true, but there's another part that you said that I think is very true.
But the part that you said was that the world hates anger, and I've never seen anyone get shunned for anger.
I've never seen anyone...
I mean, to take a silly...
But horrendous example.
Do you know that in the Catholic Church, not one, though a third of the concentration camp guards were Catholics, not one person, even war criminals, got excommunicated for their role in Nazism by the Catholic Church.
Not one. This is just kind of shocking.
It's very interesting, too.
I didn't realize that...
I mean, this is something that I've always thought...
Would you say that the invasion and slaughter of Iraqis was an angry action?
I mean, it's the ultimate genocidal rage, right?
For sure. And Obama pats this guy on the back, right?
And thanks him for his service to the country.
And people, they may not like him, but not because of this rage, right?
So I don't see how rage...
Maybe it's because everybody's afraid of the angry people?
Well, it could be, for sure.
It could be, for sure.
But forget the theory, just if you don't mind, for the moment.
And let's just look at the empirical facts.
That it's hard to find an example in the world where someone...
It's shunned or rejected, particularly by institutions, because of anger.
I mean, I had teachers who yelled at me.
I got caned.
I had priests who yelled at me, other adults who yelled at me.
It seemed to me that the world ran on anger and intimidation and rage when I was a kid.
I mean, maybe it was different for you, but...
Yeah, you're right.
That's... Okay, what did I say that was right then?
Well, what you said that was right, in my opinion, was that it is very true that the world hates rage, but only in slaves.
Right.
I mean, the masters are allowed to get angry.
The slaves are not.
Right.
But this, yeah.
So the children, George Bush is allowed to invade Iraq, but you're not allowed to not pay your taxes.
Right.
Right. Because his rage is, you know, however misguided or blah, blah, blah, right?
I mean, as people will say, his rage is a noble leader, you know, maybe misguided, but attempting to do something big and so on, right?
Whereas not paying your taxes is, you know, breaking the social contract and putting the poor in jeopardy, right?
So the people just make up all this nonsense to defend the anger of those in power and to attack any potential anger on the part of the slave, right?
Because if the slave gets angry, the whole system comes falling down, right?
Right. If we have those kinds of parents, as you and I had, and we get angry and we say, no, no, no.
You used ethics the whole time I was growing up to tell me what to do.
You put yourself forward as a moral, a wise and aggressive moral entity.
And so now, I want to know the reasoning behind your ethics and how that reasoning resulted in such atrocious Decisions, right?
Such as beatings and yellings and intimidations and verbal abuse and so on, right?
So, when we get angry, that's incredibly healthy, right?
In my opinion. And what it does is it breaks us out of the mold of being a slave.
Wicker slays are not allowed to get angry.
Yeah, this really resonates with me.
Right, so yes, the world hates anger, but only on the slaves, right?
The world worships and fears and always gives way to anger on the part of the masters, right?
Because if the slaves get angry, then the masters are out of power?
Well, if the slaves get angry, the masters attack, and then everyone recognizes that there's a hierarchy.
Whereas if you can keep the slaves shut up and stare at their fucking toes, then nobody provokes the masters and everyone can pretend that we're equal, right?
Right.
Right.
Why is it that those who confront our parents on their knowledge of virtue and truth make everyone so angry?
Because by doing so, we reveal a hypocrisy and a hierarchy in a lot of these situations, right?
Right. Reveal that it is not virtue, it's power?
Yeah, yeah. And it's worse because it's power that uses virtue.
In other words, understands...
A child's desire to be good understands virtue and uses it to accomplish evil, destructive power over children.
To turn them against themselves.
Yeah, sure, sure. And so the reason that I'm pointing all of this stuff out is that if you don't have this distinction in your mind, then you will be very ambivalent about anger, right? In other words, When you are trying to defuse your own anger, you are being both master and slave to yourself, right?
That sounds right.
It fits. Yeah, so...
This kind of gives me a UPB solution to the To the self-attack that happens when I feel angry.
Right. Because the master says, I'm angry, so fuck you.
Right? And the slave says, I'm angry, so I'm fucked.
Right? Right.
And so this core relationship that we have to anger, right, which is around the hierarchy...
It's complicated and it's dense, right?
Which is why saying, oh, it's crazy and it's this, and coming to conclusions about such a complex topic is why you can't solve it, right?
It's kind of like your...
I think you were talking about sympathy for your parents a while back, and...
And then you figured out that UPV was, you know, how they used ethics as a justification for punishing you, and therefore...
Oh, crap.
No, it's that they use absolute ethics to punish children, and then when their children come back and ask for the justifications, everything gets all Swiss and foggy and relativistic.
Well, we did the best we could with the knowledge we had, and blah, blah, blah, right?
Whereas as a kid, you were never allowed that defense to say, well, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, right?
Right, right.
And so I think that your anger in the car...
Sorry, I sound like the church lady.
I'm just getting over a cold.
I think that your anger in the car is not something to be dismissed because it would seem to me that when you're stuck sitting in a little cell for two and a half hours, that's kind of like being a slave, isn't it?
It is. It's like being in prison.
You can't move. You can't really even get off the freeway because, you know, there's...
I mean, the cars don't move.
Right, right. You can't even get to an exit, right?
So you're in a little prison there.
A little roving jail, right?
So why wouldn't you be angry?
And it's exactly the same as if they just put a 15% tax hike onto your paycheck.
Wouldn't you feel angry at that?
Oh, yeah. And so because the government runs the road, then it's all so fucked up and there's no charge for excess usage and so everybody...
Jams in at the same time and it's also badly run.
They're just taxing your time, not your money, which is six of one, half a dozen of the other.
It's just another injustice that's wreaked upon you by this monopoly called the state.
Right? Right.
Anger at injustice.
Now, but where your anger becomes rage is you feel helpless, right?
Like there's no alternative.
I thought it was in addition to self-attack.
Yeah, no, I understand that, but let's go with the helplessness first, right?
First comes the anger, then comes the helplessness, then comes the self-attack.
Because helplessness triggers all of these historical feelings in us, right?
When we were kids, we were helpless, right?
So we get attacked and we feel...
So I think it goes anger, helplessness, self-attack.
I mean, that's the way I experience it when that happens to me.
But maybe that just may just be me, but let's just work with that as a template.
No, that fits. That fits for me, too.
Right, okay, so why are you helpless?
Well, okay, I can't move.
I can't go anywhere. I can't do what I want to do.
I've got that in the car. What I mean is, why do you have a job where you have to commute?
I'm talking big picture here, right?
Well, because I can't get my house sold for another couple of months, hopefully.
It can be helped, just not now.
Well, no, you can get your house sold.
I guarantee you, right? Just maybe not for the price you want, right?
No, actually, I tried to ask her to lower it, and she says no banks are loaning money right now.
Well, but you can go private.
You can sell it privately. I mean, there's options, right?
If you put the house on a market for a dollar, you'd sell it, right?
Oh, right. I mean, Christina could sell their condo without a real estate agent because it just seemed too silly to give 6%.
But, I mean, there's things that you could do, right?
Or I could foreclose.
Or just, you know, just get out and not pay.
Right. You could do all of those things, right?
And now, let's say, just for the sake of argument, that...
If you were able to solve this problem right now, it would cost you $20,000.
I'm just making stuff up, right?
Right. Now, if you say, well, I don't want to spend $20,000, so I'm going to take another couple of months of being stuck in traffic, right?
So then I'm choosing one value over another.
Yeah, then it's like, okay, so I'm being paid $200 an hour to sit in traffic and read and listen to podcasts.
That's an optimistic way to look at it.
No, I'm not trying to be optimistic.
I'm just trying to be realistic, right?
I mean, let's say it's only $10,000 and it's only $100 an hour you're getting paid to sit and trade.
But these are the facts, right?
Then it's not helpless.
It's choice, right? And you're being well compensated for that choice.
Is this like trading bad credit for less stress?
Like, if you're trying to meet your bills and you can't...
I think you made that analogy once, though.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So I'm choosing, in a way, one value over another.
Right, and you can change that, right?
If you say, well, even at 200 bucks an hour, I don't want to sit in my car, then you can just say, okay, well, then I'll take the hit, and I'll move, and I'll whatever, right?
Won't have to commute. Or I'll rent the house out, even if I take a loss, because spending eight hours a week in the car commuting is worth X dollars to me, so whatever, right?
Right. But it's the helplessness that is the problem, right?
I mean, unless you're actually pinned underneath a log, right?
And even that, we're not helpless in our adult lives, right?
Right. We're not helpless.
We always have choices. We always, always, always have choices, right?
I mean, we couldn't stare down the chasm of history to people in the Middle Ages and say, I don't have choices, right?
They'd rise up like the undead army of Aragon and strangle us, right?
Are you kidding? I was bought and sold with a piece of land?
And you're saying you don't have choices when you can fly to Australia if you want?
That's right. Yeah, that helps to think of it in terms of that.
They're all choices and options, right?
Like if I find FDR stuff tough at certain times, I say, okay, well, I quit a year and a half ago to run this show full-time, and it has its ups and its downs, and it has its good days, and it has its challenging days.
But compared to what, right?
So if I'm having a tough day or a tough month or a tough three months, then what I do is I say to myself, well, go get a job, right?
You can get a job, right?
And how would you like that?
Or I could say, oh man, you know, the income, it goes up, it goes down, it's tough to figure out, and You know, it's all so complicated and, you know, oh, this guy, two guys canceled their subscriptions today, but then a little guy gave me a donation.
Whatever, right? I can sit there and say, oh my God, the income is stressful because it's too high and too low, right?
Right. But then I remember that one of the basics of investing is to diversify, right?
So what I say is that, okay, let's say there's a recession and my income goes down 20%, right?
Well, if I was working in a small software company as a CTO or a marketing executive, I would very likely get fired, right?
In a recession. But you can't get fired from what you're doing now.
Well, sure I can. If everyone stops donating, I can get fired, right?
But, so I say, okay, well, would I rather have a 50-50 chance of 100% or 0% income Which would be having a salary at my level in a recession.
Or would I prefer a certain only 80% reduction in income?
And I prefer the 20% reduction in income.
That's predictable, that's manageable, versus 50-50 chance of 100% or zero and going into work worrying about that every day, right?
That sounds, that makes sense.
Or, you know, if the media's beaten on me or whatever, I say, okay, well, if you get a job, there'll be a CEO and there'll be a board.
And even if you are the CEO, there'll be investors and a board, right?
And so in that situation...
People will be beating down on you too, right?
Whereas at least here, if people are beating down on me, I don't have to quit, right?
If I find it too objectionable.
Right. So it's not like if I go back to work in a corporate environment or entrepreneurial environment that I will have no problems, right?
The only people who have no problems...
The people with dirt in their mouth and coins on their eyes, right?
Dead people, yeah.
I see problem-free people.
That wasn't quite as catchy when they first pitched that.
Bad joke.
But I laughed anyways.
Very kind. So, the compare to what is essential for happiness, right?
Because it keeps us in perspective.
Otherwise, we're on this death march of inevitability, and we have no choice, and where we have no choice, we get helpless, and then when you put the helplessness together with the rage, we get the self-attack, and misery extends and expands, and choices that we might have otherwise evaluated, we don't look into, right?
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I won't say that because then...
I think I tried to frustrate myself there for a second.
And this is what happens, Nate, when you just say, I don't know whether this rage is good or bad.
I don't know what it's trying to tell me.
It certainly is telling me that I'm angry and helpless and it results in self-attack.
I don't want that. So, let's look at the anger.
Well, I can't control my anger, right?
Because anger is a primary emotion.
But helplessness is not an emotion.
Helplessness is a conclusion, right?
Knowing the difference between emotions and conclusions is an essential aspect of wisdom and peace of mind, right?
We can't affect our emotions, but we can absolutely affect our conclusions.
And I knew that theory.
I just wasn't putting it into practice.
Right. That's when you say the thoughts are inevitable.
What you're saying is, I don't know the difference between a thought and a feeling, right?
Which is wrong.
Yeah, you know. You know the difference, right?
And your anger is absolutely telling you that something is off balance in your life.
And it's really trying to help you.
You know, getting that feeling of I so do not want to be in this car for two and a half hours is It's valid.
It's important. It's got useful things to tell you.
Like... Move closer to work.
Right. Or if you're not, at least remember that you'll be well-paid not to.
Right. So it's not helpless.
Like, I'll take 200 bucks an hour to sit in a car.
It doesn't mean you'll never get angry, but it means you can remind your anger that, you know, if you sold out, you got a good price, right?
This is just very helpful because I can see myself in the car now when I feel angry and think that, well, I could just foreclose and I could just foreclose and move.
Thank you.
Yeah, or you can check the traffic.
I do this sometimes.
And again, I'm not saying that I never got angry at traffic.
It would be inhuman not to.
But you can check the traffic, right?
And you can...
Put World of Warcraft on your notebook and play at work and say, well, I'd rather play two hours of World of Warcraft and get home in 40 minutes than leave now and spend exactly the same amount of time with two hours less of World of Warcraft, right?
You're right. I'd sometimes sit at work and do a podcast.
I'd go for a walk and do a podcast or listen to music or whatever.
Because I'd rather do that than sit in a car stewing in my own corporate juices, right?
Or go have dinner or something.
Yeah, go have dinner. Go see a movie.
Close to work. And then just drive home when the traffic's clear.
Or, you know, say to your boss, you know, I just heard there was a big wreck.
I'd like to leave now, you know, but I will either come in early tomorrow or stay extra tomorrow or work from home tonight or whatever, right?
But it sounds like these sort of choices escape you and your day becomes sort of like a slinky going down the stairs, right?
Just this inevitability of rolling physics where you end up stuck in this car, right?
With no choice! Right? They do.
I don't know if it's that when I feel anger, and it could be that it's not anger, then helplessness, then self-attack, but anger, then self-attack, then helplessness.
Because if I'm not thinking of these things that I already know, then it must be because I feel a lot of anxiety and My heart's pumping and my brain has shut off my neocortex and I'm not thinking of these things.
I'm just in fight-or-flag mode.
Yeah, but I think that given the amount of study that you've done in these topics and therapy and so on, I think the answer is that you want to be in that little prison deep down, right?
Oh, you mean Simon the Boxer?
Yeah, yeah. Life without frustration Without challenges, without rage, without dysfunction, life lived in the epicenter of choice is really stressful for a while.
It takes a lot of getting used to.
I mean, I'm feeling that to myself a lot lately, right?
I've got everything. I've got the most meaningful job on the planet.
I get to have these amazing conversations with people like you, which do a huge amount of good in the world, I think.
My wife has a thriving practice.
We have a beautiful, healthy baby.
I mean, what could I conceivably ask for that I do not have?
That's stressful for me.
Because I'm a fighter.
I'm a scrappy who lifted himself up by his bootstraps.
From paperboy to CTO, I'm a fighter.
And I find it very stressful.
You know, like you've been riding a bike in a crappy gear up a hell of a long hill, and then suddenly you're down the other side, and you don't know what to do with your legs, right?
Right, I'd crash.
Well, it's disorienting.
It's weird. Yeah.
Yeah. It doesn't feel right.
Although when I sit and think about it in the moment and I think about the present moment and just how everything is right now compared to the way it was two years ago, it's an amazing feeling.
Yeah, I mean it beats getting divorced from Rachel, right?
Yeah. Maybe with a kid, right?
We're still living with Stephanie, or who knows what would have happened.
Right. So, it's hard.
I mean this with all sincere humility and empathy, right?
I mean, I find it hard to have what I want.
Right, so I replace...
Discomfort or stress with worrying, right?
It's the whole certainty.
We prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty thing.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's some truth in that, although I'm actually not that uncertain.
The more certain I get about the success of FDR, the harder it is.
I mean, it's tough. It's tough.
I mean, who'd have thunk it, right?
Three years ago, whatever.
A couple of little articles on the Rockwell, right?
I mean, who'd have thanked it?
It's not.
I know that feeling, especially lately.
It's very anxiety-provoking.
Oh, yeah, I know. It's completely freaky.
It's completely freaky. And stressful, right?
Oh my god, what if I stop having good ideas for podcasts?
Yeah, or what if I can't think of anything else to write and I'm done?
Right, right, right, right.
What if everybody just stops donating?
Right? I mean, it's like, you know, it's crazy.
Don't worry, it's not January 31st yet.
But that's how I while away my happiness, right?
I whittle it down to something that's manageable, which includes a little bit of stress and worry.
So that I can feel that I'm protecting myself from what?
Right? It's all nonsense, right?
And I'm working on unraveling it within myself.
It's hard. It's hard to do.
It's hard to have what you want.
And you've been working at this for way longer.
Well, and I've been failing at it for way longer as far as communication goes, right?
Failed actor, failed playwright, failed director, failed novelist, right?
All of these things, right? So...
It's not easy. To not be a narcissist and to get what you want.
I mean, narcissists are all entitled, so when they get what they want, it's like, yeah, that's how it should be, right?
But that's not the way it is for me, and I don't think that's the way it is for you or most of the other people here, right?
We are cautious in the face of, if not downright fearful, in the face of plenty, right?
Happiness must always be balanced with worry and doom and fear.
Yeah, and now I'm starting to really emotionally relate to that, to going down the hill with a bike because, you know, it feels out of control.
It feels just...
I'm bound to run into a wall.
If I'm this happy, then I'm moving too fast.
Oh yeah, and this is as close to human nature as we're ever going to get, right?
Which is that the most successful tribe would always sacrifice the most animals to appease the gods, right?
When we become too happy, predators begin to materialize around us, right?
In our minds. Yeah, it's always the calm before the storm or something like that.
Oh yeah, and it's always, I mean, it's reinforced in every movie you'll ever see, right?
The guy who's really happy always gets an axe through the head or something, right?
I mean, it's always the case, right?
The guy who's enthusiastic, who signs up for infantry in the First World War, gets mown down by 12 million bullets, right?
Right.
I mean, happiness is always followed by savagery and attack.
Right.
Wow.
I didn't exist.
These calls are always very surprising at the end.
It's like I had no idea where it would end up.
Well, you know, this is what's going to be tough for you, right?
Is that if you take this...
And the reason I'm mentioning all of this is if you take the practical suggestion that I made about...
Sorry, I just wanted to mention people in the...
I just noticed people in the chat room were saying, well, you know, the higher you are, the harder you fall.
But that's assuming that unhappiness is the ground and everything above that is not where we should be, right?
Which is part of the same thinking, right?
What if we're artificially depressed like a balloon held underwater and to relax is to bob to the surface?
And I felt this way about, you know, becoming depressed.
Available to, you know, starting to date and things like that.
Yeah, you're going to want to present Worry What, Nate, I guarantee you.
Yeah, because it's like, okay, I've been in all these dysfunctional relationships.
Is it more like it's been raining my whole life and it suddenly stops raining and I'm not sure if this is normal?
Or is it more like my leg has been broken my whole life and it's finally healed and I can walk now?
So it feels different, but better?
I think those metaphors are tough because they don't reflect the fluidity of the situation, right?
So the reason I brought this stuff up is I made a couple of minor practical suggestions about ways to think of you being in the car and being paid for it or ways to avoid getting stuck in traffic, right?
And what that will do is it will chase the demon of rage out of that particular situation, which is dangerous, right?
Because at least in that situation, you know where he is, right?
Right. If you chase him out of there, by being more proactive about the time you spend in traffic, then where does he show up?
Maybe you sprain your ankle.
Maybe you stub your toe.
Maybe you make a big mistake at work, right?
At least this has been my experience in life, right?
That I'm really wrestling with trying to make sure.
Since FDR started, I've always had some damn thing wrong with me physically.
I got a shoulder pull, or my forearm is sore, or something happens.
It's because I think, and I genuinely do believe this, and it's starting to pay off in terms of working my way through it.
It's because I have such an excess of happiness in what it is that I'm doing.
That I have to compensate.
Right? Because too much happiness is tough.
So it's kind of like I stopped getting into these relationships for a year or so and then he kind of escaped into other areas and...
No, maybe I'm...
No, no, that's... I mean... Like, he goes into a...
I mean, he goes...
No, I'm making it sound deterministic and like I'm not responsible, but...
Well, no, it is unconscious, right?
And the responsibility is to make it conscious.
We can't be responsible for the unconscious, right?
That's like saying we're responsible for our dreams.
Well, we're not responsible for our dreams, but we are responsible for trying to understand them, right?
Right. So, it's...
It's really hard.
You know, that's why I was saying, I don't know if the media attacks are bad, because it counterbalances the joy of Isabella.
You know what I mean? Like, it's like, now I know where the devil is.
Huh. Yeah, the giving me these choices, or not, you didn't give me them, you pointed them out.
It's never there all along, but having these choices...
I've just sort of noticed where I have choice, I'm happier.
And having these Choices, I'm trying to, well, this is something I'm working on, whether I'm actually succeeding or not is another question, but in some areas I am.
But I'm trying to change my language from deterministic language to choice language.
And I think Greg had made a post about his class that he's taking, the class.
I can't remember what it's called.
The managing the negotiation...
What do you call that?
Mediation. Mediation.
About changing the language to where you become responsible while at the same time you don't take the responsibility of other people.
Right, right.
And I understand all of that.
But my objection to these...
Tips, and they're very good and they're very helpful, is that, at least for me, it does not solve the underlying problem, right?
Like, if someone were to say to you a couple of years ago, you know, Nate, in a couple of years, you're going to be off drugs, you're going to have a secure income, you're going to have not dated for a while and have avoided marriage to a complete lunatic woman, right? Your health will be good, right?
You'll be involved in a philosophical conversation the like of which the world has never seen before.
You'd have said, what?
Don't forget my website and all the articles.
Right, and you'll be writing to an appreciative audience.
And invited to speak at a history conference.
Right. What would you say?
I would not have believed it.
That sounds like another guy.
No, no, but let's say that you accepted it.
What would you say about your life?
Well, I better get started.
What would you say? You even can't say it, can you?
Um... Maybe I'm not following you?
You would say about the life that I'm telling you about a couple of years ago, if you knew where you were going to be now, you'd have said, that's about as good as it's going to get, right?
I could not ask for a whole lot more.
Right, right. But now, you're enraged in your car.
Do you see how the tricks, the tips, don't solve the underlying issue?
So is it remembering...
No, see, even remembering is a trick, right?
Right. That doesn't work.
So you're still struggling with this, so...
Yeah, I mean, I'm struggling with it, but I'm externalizing it, and I think in a positive way, and just reminding myself that happiness is dangerous.
Right? Because people see happy people, a lot of them, and what do they do?
Yeah. Or throw the wet blanket on them, like I was saying.
So, yeah, it is dangerous.
Yeah, I'm not crazy. Do you think it will always be dangerous?
It doesn't matter to me.
It's not going to stop in my lifetime, I guarantee you that, right?
Right. Happiness is dangerous.
Because happiness reminds people that misery is not an absolute, which puts responsibility back on them.
Which makes them aggressive, right?
For sure. And that's why, you know, it's good to talk about the rage, and where it comes from, and this and that, and how it's interfering with your happiness, and I think it's good to remind yourself of the choices, and all that's good stuff.
But, in my experience, it's just pushing one side of a balloon, right?
You've got to look at the big picture.
And there's no trick as to how to stay afloat in new happiness, right?
It's just, um...
No.
And we see this happening all the time in this community, just to be...
I'll end up with this, right? I see this happening all the time.
Right? People have a breakthrough, and then they fuck something up, right?
Hey, I'll offer myself up as the...
Everyone. Everyone.
Everyone does it. Everyone does it.
They have a breakthrough, and then it's like, oh shit, too much happiness.
I've got to regress. It's pretty much a constant.
Yeah, it is. It's constant, right.
I don't see you doing it, though.
Yeah, but that's because I work a lot on FDR when I'm not on FDR, right?
I mean, I wrote these books, which were great for me working through all of this stuff.
I have notes.
I do podcasts, which I never release.
Which end up being just for me.
And I talk with Christina all the time.
So I have a lot of work that I do to try and avoid this stuff.
And I'm more aware of that as a danger.
And I'm certainly becoming more conscious of it as a danger that happiness is...
It feels like a high catapult with a hard fall.
Exactly. I like the metaphor about unhappiness is...
Well, even if this isn't true, that unhappiness is the ground and anything above that is...
Right.
That's what Freud said to a patient.
He said, patient said, can you make me happy?
He said, good lord now.
Yeah, I started reading more when I was trying to tackle this.
He said, the best that I can do is to return you to a merely ordinary state of unhappiness rather than a pathological state.
Yeah, he was a big pessimist.
I mean, Or was he just realistic?
I don't know, right? But I'm just saying, we're really pushing the envelope as far as human happiness goes, in my experience.
We're really pushing the envelope as far as human happiness goes, and it's what Damas says about war, right?
It's the most, when the country has the greatest economic progress, it has to sacrifice it all in a war, right?
Because too much progress makes people very anxious, right?
All of the 19th century wealth was destroyed in the First World War.
After the boom of the 90s comes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for America, right?
And England. So we have to be cautious about happiness because it summons devils.
So develop a slow motion sickness?
Well, it's just something to be aware.
I don't want to go on too long because my voice is giving out.
But it is just something that we have to be aware of.
Or at least, I should say, I'm finding it incredibly helpful to be aware of it.
That is quite interesting.
It seems like every time I... Yeah.
Like, lately it's been my car because now it's got like three big scratches on it.
It's like I have to be really careful now when I drive.
Right, whereas what you could say is I could be completely careless now when I drive because I've already got the scratches, right?
True, true.
Yeah, that's the danger of fixing them.
Right. So I just wanted to mention that, right?
Because you're certainly happier than you were a couple of years ago, but relative to how much your life has changed, and I put myself in this category as well, I'm still working through all of this stuff, but I mean, I'm much happier now than I was 10 years ago or 5 years ago, but even relative to how much I've achieved in those time frames, why am I not permanently ecstatic?
Well, because it's scary. Because it feels like I'm I don't know.
Running out into Sniperville with a glow suit on, right?
Look at me, I'm happy.
Axe in the forehead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm sorry about having frustrated you at the beginning of this, but what was your experience with the rest of it?
Good. I mean, I thought that you did a good job of navigating through to a clearer communication without self-attacking, so I think you should be very happy about that, and I certainly do appreciate.
You know, I can't do these conversations without you or someone, right, because otherwise it's just me rambling, and these particular ones need someone else, so I'm very pleased that we had the chance to have the conversation.
Great, great. Wow, that's quite helpful.
Thanks. Great. All right, man.
Well, I will talk to you soon, and I'll go and rest my voice now.
Okay. All right. Take care. Feel better.
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