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Feb. 10, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:04:39
1280 Melancholy and Anger - A Listener Conversation
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Time Text
Hello.
Hey, how's it going?
Hello.
Alright, thanks. How are you?
I'm well. I'm just getting the last few people in.
Now, we're going to get a couple of interruptions.
I have to do this on wireless.
So if it happens, we'll just pause for a few seconds and wait for it to catch up.
Sure.
And if my laptop battery runs down, I might have to give you my cell phone number to transfer, but I think I've got a lot of juice in it, so it should be fine.
One more.
Okay, so what's on your mind?
Okay.
Well, it's been interesting.
It's feelings that I'm thinking are provoked by the weather.
I was saying that in the chat room.
But it could be other things as well.
But what's happening emotionally for me is that it's getting up to like 70 degrees here, Fahrenheit.
So like 21 Celsius.
And it's really bringing back two distinct memories for me, which is really bringing up a lot of complex feelings for me.
The two times it's bringing me back to are April 2003, which was, as you know, my very nihilistic, depressive state when I was an adolescent.
Yes.
And that's been something I've been exploring over the past six months of therapy.
And it's interesting that I'm almost like...
Reliving it in my own mind, and it's really been bringing a lot of sadness, but it's not reliving as in acting out this time.
This time it's introspective.
Right, it's reliving without falling asleep in coffee shops.
Yes, yes, and exactly, exactly.
And so it's been basically, I've been feeling this weather, I've been thinking of April 2003, and just sitting down and crying.
Right. And it's also transporting me back to about March, April of last year when I was in Boston and having my first experience with therapy.
Right. And exploring for the first time a lot of this family and personal development stuff.
And like spending an entire afternoon walking the streets of Boston, taking my journal to the Bay, sitting down and just journaling for hours.
So that's a good memory.
And it's just interesting that these two are...
It's almost like a body memory.
And that's why I wonder if it's the weather that's bringing this.
Well, tell me more about what you think in terms of the weather bringing these...
Let's start with the one that's tougher, right?
Which is the 03 one?
Sure. Well, it's very...
I mean, it's almost exactly like the weather on actually the day that it was like April, mid-April of 2003.
I remember very, very vividly the episode I've told you about where I just...
I and other people in my life at the time described it as just snapping, like going ballistic.
I was throwing desks around in an empty classroom.
I was...
I'm screaming, wailing, just in basically a hellhole of my own making, of my own mind.
All right, but certainly not of your own making, right?
Right, right, right. Not of my own making.
Good correction. Of my parents.
Good, very efficient. Go on.
Okay, go on. And see, that's interesting because it's a good catch because I do think there's a part of me that still owns a bit of that.
Sure. Sure. And takes responsibility for it, which is something I've been trying to work through.
I remember it being breezy, about 70 degrees, rain in the air, but not quite raining yet.
I remember the road I was on when I was being sent home, because it was the day before the class trip, and I wasn't allowed to go because I was unstable or whatever.
Right. Called unstable.
Okay. Yeah, and so I remember the road I was on and the look of the air, and this is almost exactly reminding me of that, and it's been just so, like this underlying melancholy feeling that I've been feeling.
Right, okay. And which isn't provoked, as far as I can tell, by events in my life.
Right. And that's why you think it might be the weather, right?
That's what I'm thinking, but I don't know.
And that's why I brought it up in the chat room, because I was curious if you've had experience with that before, or...
I know Justin was saying something like, smells have done that for her.
Right. Um...
I would not start with the weather.
And the reason, and that doesn't mean that the weather's unrelated, but I wouldn't start there.
The reason being, you know, there's this idea out there that the unconscious is fuzzy.
You know, that it's murky.
That it's not precise.
You know, that precision is reserved for the conscious mind.
You know, like the conscious mind is a It's a computer or a calculator or a reasoning machine while the unconscious is this big messy ecosystem that gets confused easily, right?
Right, right. Like it's just triggered by...
Yeah, you smell something and you're right back there and, you know, like the unconscious can't differentiate between now and then and, you know, do you know what I mean?
Like it's just this big baggy mess of associations that are imprecise and need to be organized by the conscious mind and so on.
Oh sorry, you're cutting out just a little?
Sure, that it's imprecise and it needs to be organized by the conscious mind.
Still a little... No problem, it'll come back.
Let me just wait for ten seconds.
Is that any better?
Not really for me, is it?
I can hear you fine.
Oh, okay, that's better, that's better.
Yeah, so it needs to be organized by the conscious mind because it is messy and imprecise and sort of flails around, associating somewhat randomly with various sensations.
That's sort of the common or mainstream view of the unconscious.
Right, right. But I think if you think about the dream analyses...
The unconscious is metaphorical, but it is astoundingly precise.
Right, right.
So, I wouldn't say that your unconscious is confused by the weather.
I mean, maybe, maybe, who knows, right?
But that's not where I would start.
Because that's to say that the unconscious has little ability to process time.
And time is actually very effectively processed in the unconscious, because sometimes around anniversaries people can get depressed, or anniversaries of stuff that happened ten years ago can trigger feelings.
The unconscious is very precise with time, and some people can train themselves to wake up at the same time every day, and that's an unconscious thing, right?
Oh, right, and I mean, I remember...
Just time-wise, if I know that I have a job interview in the morning or something, I'll set my alarm, but I'll still wake up 15 minutes before I set my alarm.
Right, right. So the processing of time is, to some degree, an unconscious process.
And people who've lost, through brain damage, particular aspects of what is associated with the unconscious in the mind end up with a very difficult or problematic ability to process time in issues, right?
Yeah, yeah. So it may be the case that your unconscious is sort of time-confused, but that wouldn't be my first guess, because the unconscious is so precise in that way.
And better at it than the conscious mind, right?
Right, right.
I mean, we've all had that situation where we get absorbed with something, and we end up becoming late for something.
And the unconscious says, dude, time to go, right?
Yeah, yeah. So we can lose track of time consciously more so than we can unconsciously, if that makes sense.
Right, right.
That makes sense.
That makes sense. So I wouldn't start, again, this may be the case, but that's not where I would start.
It doesn't seem to jive with the stuff that I've experienced and others have experienced with the unconscious.
So maybe you can talk a bit more about the melancholy?
Yeah. Sure.
Well, it really started up last night.
I was sitting and I was reading.
Reading what? Reading just the New York Times from the morning.
It was actually not even current event stuff, it was just I was thumbing through the New York Times magazine actually.
And what were the articles about?
The articles were about...
It said something like...
It was about performers.
So like actors and actresses of today.
And it was from the content.
It was about...
Really photography of them.
And how photography has devolved from...
sort of a an art with regards to to performers into using the performers as models for the latest products or whatever so so it's more more marketing is that right Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it really kind of bored me, so I put it down, and then I started to feel a little bit melancholy.
Okay, go on. And it was like a sadness.
I wanted to cry, but tears weren't coming.
It was a neck tension almost, but like a throat tension.
I could feel the tears in my throat, but they weren't coming out.
Right. Right.
Was there anything else that you were reading in the New York Times?
I thumbed through it, but I found nothing interesting, and so I set it down.
Was that the only article that you read?
Yeah, that was the only article that I looked at with any sort of...
more than a passing glance.
Okay. And do you remember...
Do you still have a copy of the article?
No, I don't. Okay.
Do you remember at that point...
I'm sorry? Oh, I was saying, but I can answer questions.
I remember it decently well, although I stopped about halfway through.
So it was more like a 12-page feature with mainly pictures and little blurbs.
Okay. And what was it that you found boring?
Well, it was just, to me, the petty lives of these petty people.
And like it...
It's something that would have interested me about a few years ago, especially with regards to music performers or whatever, like jazz performers or composers or whatever, but now it's like I don't care.
But I don't know what I was expecting to find interesting in the first place in the article.
Well, To me, what's interesting is that it's not interesting.
Oh, go on. And that it's not interesting followed by melancholy, right?
Right, right.
Like if I find a television show boring, then I will switch channels, but I don't feel melancholy.
And I'm sure the same is true for you too, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Right, so sadness that follows boredom Usually indicates that boredom is an avoidant.
Right, right.
Would it be helpful if I tried to find the article online?
It certainly would be. And try to see what the trigger point would?
Okay, one moment. Yeah, because it's important to know when you stop reading, I think.
So, yeah, absolutely. Take a moment.
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Yeah. Yeah. I'm just getting used to making all these sounds with Isabella.
Who has gained a third, more than a third of her post-birth body weight over the past seven weeks.
really quite something to think about.
I'm just going to leave this bit silent so I can cut it out.
Wait for Greg to come back.
Okay, I actually found it.
Can you post it in the Skype window?
Yeah, I can.
And actually, wow, I stopped fairly soon.
Now that I see it, I didn't get halfway.
I stopped in the middle of this article about Kate Winslet.
Right.
And I remember feeling the sadness, actually, when I was looking at the picture that was at the top And that's actually, wow, now that I'm looking at it, it's coming a lot more clearly.
I felt the sadness when I was looking at that picture that's on that page with the red background.
Did you paste it into the Skype thing?
Yeah. To your Skype name.
I'll do it in the chat room.
Oh, great. Wow.
She's in a red room, right?
Yes, and that's the picture that triggered the sadness for me, the melancholy.
Right, that's similar to the wall that I have, right?
Yes. And she looks very depressed.
And at the same time, alluring, right?
Because she's a very attractive woman, right?
Right, right. But yeah, that's a thousand-yard stare.
Okay, so how far did you read?
Um... I read to...
Okay.
About the end of the second paragraph.
graph.
Okay. So, around when...
So, I'm just going to read the second paragraph.
Let's just read... Okay. According to my own highly unscientific study, just about everybody loves Kate Winslet.
Wasn't a survey at all. Blah, blah, blah.
This guy wrote a novel called Kate Winslet.
Seems like a nice person.
She's different from one movie to the next.
They thought she was a terrible actress.
A lot of men appreciated her fearless on-screen sexuality.
Lesbians have a special fondness.
as they think she's a goddess.
Winslet isn't unique, but it's mysterious.
So did you get to a starring turn in a tiny film called Hideous Kinky?
Yes, I got a little past that into the third paragraph a little bit and then I just started to feel that upwelling and I felt, or I called it boredom, but I don't know that it's boredom now that I'm exploring that.
Right. So you're reading about an unhappy stay-at-home mom?
Who carries on a passionate affair with a handsome stay-at-home dad during their toddler's nap time.
Is that right? Right, right.
The movie is called Little Children.
And she separates herself, saying it's so hard for her to play a bad mother.
Did you get there? Yeah, I got there and then around there is when I stopped.
I didn't get further.
Right. It got to the point that I began to feel sorry for both the character, says the writer.
Sarah wasn't really a bad mother, just a terribly distracted one.
And the actress who had brought her to life with such subtlety and compassion that a summary judgment like bad mother seemed not just inadequate but totally beside the point.
Did you get that far or was that when you began to zone out?
I didn't get that far, but now that I look at it, it's not surprising that that sentence came next.
Yeah, I think we kind of got where that was going, right?
Right. Damn, and I blamed the weather.
Well, and again, we're just playing around here, right?
To see what it might be.
But again, that's where...
Well, just looking at it again, it's quite clear that this is stuff I've been working through with regards to my own mother.
Right, so do you want to talk about...
I mean, I don't want to lead you through the stuff you're working through in therapy, but there's stuff that strikes me about what is said in this article.
But the important thing is to get your thoughts about it.
Well, really what struck me just now is a real sadness and anger about the Sarah wasn't really a bad mother, just a terribly distracted one.
Right. Because that's definitely something that I've really been struggling with with regards to my own mother.
Like, it's really been hard ever since that chat in October.
Right. With you. Right.
I've really been trying to get some moral clarity on what it is that she did to me.
Right, right.
And it's really easy for me to make excuses for her.
Sure. But what is it that strikes you as interesting?
Because that's what's been going on for me in therapy and what's striking me in this article.
But what struck you?
Because I'm sure you have some insights.
Well, if you don't want to talk about the stuff we talked about before, that's fine.
I would like to know a little bit more about, now that you've made a connection that seems to be valuable for you to talk a little bit more, though if you don't want to, that's fine, I can continue, but I'd like to know a little bit more about what struck you about this article.
Sure. Well, what's interesting is that in conjunction with the kind of seductive but sad picture, Because given what my mother did to me, that image is not one that is uncommon in my memory.
You mean sort of, to put it coarsely, depressed but sexy?
Or depressed but sexualized?
Sorry, can you repeat that after coarsely?
Depressed and sexualized or depressed and vaguely erotic?
I guess, wait a little. Okay.
What is it about the photo that you find to be similar?
It's still, sorry, cutting out.
Okay, it'll come. What about the photo is similar?
Well, my mother was very attractive.
And that thousand-yard stare is something that I would often...
Walk in and see my mother giving in her bedroom as she was getting ready in terms of putting new makeup on and all that kind of stuff.
And my mother was in many ways.
She would have distant periods followed by intrusive periods with regards to me and my brother.
So, like, she would keep her distance or be emotionally...
What's the word?
Emotionally unavailable.
Like that picture.
Right. Go on.
And then she would intrude in the ways that we've talked about before.
Yeah. Or in other ways, nagging, yelling, or even just dumping emotionally.
I remember my mom, when I was five or six, coming to my bedroom crying about how she's a worthless person, and I got the sense that she wanted me to make it all better.
Right, right, right.
Okay.
And it's a pattern that I've noticed in me as well that I, in my past, have been emotionally distant to my friends, followed by acting out.
Yes. Yeah, that's what Jessen was talking about yesterday.
I wasn't in on that call, but that part of the call-in show.
Right. And was there more that you wanted to say about this?
No, except that right now, it's really getting hard for me to be connected with my feelings, and I do apologize for that.
I'm getting a flatness.
Don't apologize. That's good, because this was the boredom, right?
Right, right.
So it's productive.
What do you mean?
Well, the dissociation you felt with this article Which you experienced as boredom followed by sadness or lassitude or melancholy.
You're probably feeling the same thing now, right?
Yeah, I'm feeling a very, and it's like, when I think of the most recent calls that I've had with you, this one seems I'm not as connected to my emotions and it's fitting the pattern and I don't like that.
That's great. That's great.
No, that's good. That's very good, right?
And in reference to the pattern, I've also noticed with regards to my own participation on the boards, I've been sitting back a little over the past few weeks.
Yes. Yes, for sure.
So, in some ways, I've been having my private conversations with my friends, but I haven't been posting as much or jumping in the chatroom as much or whatever.
And in some ways, I've almost been living, I think, a little bit of that picture in my own life over the past.
You've been living, sorry, say that again?
Living in some ways, in minor ways, that own picture, I think.
The picture of the mom?
Like a thousand yard stare. Oh, okay, okay, got it, got it, okay.
Okay, good, so then your unconscious sees this article and says, here's how we're going to wake up, right?
Because this is what we're dealing with.
Right. Or, to be more precise, your mother said, stop reading, right?
Right. Because you're going to get my secrets if you keep reading.
Right. When you said that, my hands started shaking.
Go on. Well, I think it's true because it's been something that I've...
Over the past four months, I've committed to three or four months.
I've been committing to uncovering this stuff, and it's been followed by frustration, because I'll talk about a dream on a call-in show, and I'll get some more insights, but then I'll hit a roadblock.
And I'll have a conversation with you, and I'll make some great breakthroughs in therapy, and then I'll just stop, right?
And it's been almost like an inspiration followed by resistance, and I'm feeling...
It's an overwhelming shaking right now.
Go on. And I'm shivering, too, and I just don't...
Like, I get the sense that what's on the other side of all this is great and scary.
Right. Sure beats being bored, doesn't it?
Sorry, come on.
Tell me about what you're feeling.
Well, that's true. You feel alive now, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
Well, what's on the other side is moral certainty and peace.
Which your mother doesn't want you to have, right?
Right, right.
Because moral certainty does not pay off for abusers, right?
Right, right.
They do what they do with the expectation of never being caught, right?
Never being known and with the support of people like this journalist, right?
Sorry, can you repeat that?
Well, they do what they do with the expectation of never being caught and one of the reasons they know they'll never be caught is because of people like this journalist who write this stuff, right?
Right, like, uh, the, uh, what was the part?
Uh, terribly distracted, but not a bad mother.
Yeah. And, of course, the phrase, hideous kinky, is not unknown to you, right?
Experientially. Right, right, and that's when I started to dissociate and get sad.
Right. And why do people like Kate Winslet?
I mean, what value does she bring?
Well, she's attractive.
Yeah, she's pretty, right? She's very pretty.
And there's a bit of...
Like, I've always gotten a sense with Kate Winslet that it's almost like a mature sultriness, not like a cute kind of pretty.
Yeah, but...
I mean, she's naked in almost every film I've seen her in, right?
Well, I've only seen her in Titanic, but...
She was naked there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've never thought that she's a terrifically talented actress, to say the least.
She's okay, but...
Right, well from Titanic I've gotten that sense that she was just a pretty face.
Yeah, decent. Good at being waterlogged, right?
Right, right. So she's not that talented, but she's pretty and she's...
I don't find her that sexy, but she's quote sexy, right?
Right, I agree.
And the picture is lifeless, right?
Yeah, it's a living death.
Well, yeah, but it's more than a living death because she's inflicting it on others through the photography, right?
Right. They took lots of pictures of her, I guarantee you.
That's the one that was chosen.
That's true. So the question, I think, is what was behind or in your mother's thousand-yard stare?
Where was she?
Sorry, I'm just thinking.
No rush. Where was she?
Why did that occur?
And why do you have such a strong memory of it?
What was going on for her that she dissociated, let's say, that much?
Well, given that it almost always came before or after an intrusive, to say the least, action, I'm going to go out on a limb and say self-hatred.
Why is that a limb?
Why? It doesn't feel right?
Well, I don't know. It just seems...
It's striking me as a...
I mean, it's not something that I'm unaware that my mother had, but it just seems...
Like, it feels...
Very heavy, to say that, and it feels...
I don't know. It's almost like that's a very strong term to use, but I think I'm using my mother's language there.
Yeah, I don't think it's accurate.
I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but it's not the primary emotion.
Because you can experience self-hatred and do nothing, right?
Just sit there in a chair and hate yourself, right?
Right.
But that's not what happened, right?
So, hatred of me and my brother.
Right.
Well, I'm not sure that I would start with hatred.
Because hatred is a feeling that the virtuous can experience, so it's not very differentiated.
Right. Then...
I'm getting kind of stuck.
Sure, I understand.
And again, this is just the way that I think of it.
May be true, may not be, or whatever.
But... I think...
the thousand-yard stare...
represents...
a desire to detach...
The conscience for what is about to happen.
Right, like a vanquishing of responsibility.
Yeah, moral responsibility.
Conscience is a very simple thing.
Conscience is just UPB, right?
Conscience is the rules are universal, right?
And when we break those rules that we know to be universal, we experience, if we have any humanity, guilt and...
And your mother obviously suffered when she was a child, and so how is she going to overcome that knowledge and that experience in order to cause suffering in children?
Well, she has to ditch UPB, and that only occurs through dissociation.
People dissociate so they can do bad things, right?
Yeah, that...
That feels right for me.
Yeah, and that's common. The criminals will say, I felt like I was in a dream, I felt like I was watching myself, it was like someone else's body or someone else who was doing these things, right?
Right, right.
Dissociation is preparation for evil, right?
Yeah, yeah. And they know that if you want someone to do bad things, you have to put them in a dissociated state, right?
Through chanting, through some sort of hypnotic action, through all this sort of stuff, right?
Oh, sorry, you cut out during that whole string?
Oh, now it sounds better.
Well, in order to get someone to do a bad thing, a very bad thing, you have to get them to dissociate through chanting, through a uniform, through collectivism, through patriotism, Through boot camp, you have to get them to dissociate.
Right? Right.
Right. That's true.
You have to get them to separate from their conscience.
And just in my own experience, when I've committed actions which have hurt others, dissociation has always come right before it.
Absolutely. Because we have to dissociate in order to Kill empathy in order to overcome UPB, in order to kill the conscience.
Right. Yeah, that's right.
And I think it's really, it's still hard for me right now.
To get the enormity of that, I'm still just kind of flat, and I don't like that.
Okay, and tell me where do you think the flatness comes from?
I don't know, but I'm feeling frustrated, because I see that I... I don't know, like I feel sad, really sad, but it's almost like it's not sad enough.
Go on. Like, I feel sad, really, right now.
And it really came up when you said the dissociation of my mother would lead to evil actions.
Not would lead to, was required for.
Oh, right, right.
There's a little distinction, but important.
But sorry. Yeah, it's not causal, but...
It's necessary, but not sufficient.
But go on. Right.
And... And it was...
I feel the sadness, and it's again, it's actually reminiscent of what I felt yesterday when I was reading the article.
Like it's coming up and it's in the throat, but it's not coming out.
Sorry, why does it need to come out?
What needs to come out?
What do you want that is not occurring?
I don't know, like almost more affect?
Well, but telling your emotions what they should be doing is dissociation, right?
Right, right.
That's true.
I mean, it also indicates the kind of vanity, which we all have.
Which is, I know what will help me emotionally, right?
And so my emotions should do X, Y, or Z. Right, the tyrant of the self.
Yeah, and you don't know. I don't know, right?
This stuff is so early and so primitive, and there's so much propaganda around it, that we don't know what's going to heal you.
Right? Yeah, thank you for that.
That's right. Right, and I understand the desire, you know, we all have a big cry and it'll all be better, but that, you know, that may not be the case.
In fact, I can guarantee you, if it's not happening, it's not what will heal you.
Right, well, and the crying that I've experienced in past calls or therapy sessions or whatever hasn't gotten me past this, so...
Right, right, because tears...
I know empirically that that doesn't work.
Tears are not where the healing is going to happen.
Okay, right when you said that, I felt an upwelling of anger towards my mom.
There we go. There we go!
Yay! Right?
Because what we have to overcome is helplessness and victimhood, right?
Right? Right, right.
And that will not be saved by tears.
And you will not fight your mother with tears because her purpose was to make you cry.
All right.
All right.
Go on.
I'm just, I'm shaking with anger right now.
Right, and that's why you went back to when you acted out your anger in 2003.
Right, throwing the chairs.
Yes, exactly. Right.
And I can tell, I mean, now that I'm experiencing this, I've been getting angrier at little things over the past few weeks.
Like, uh... Needy customers at Bonefish, the restaurant where I work, who ask for all the things that wouldn't bother me in the past.
I've been like, why is the phone ringing, right?
Things like that. But now I'm just really angry.
And I know it's uncomfortable, right?
We all was more comfortable sometimes with tears, right?
They're sadder and we get hugs.
But anger is not comfortable for people, right?
Right. And it's something that I'm trying to think.
I rarely, and I don't know if this is different for your experience of me, but I've rarely expressed my anger in public.
I've done a bit of that. Well, I've inflicted it, right?
And actions, right?
But I've never... I mean, there's the anger call I did, but sadness is much more on the surface for me.
Well, no. I think what it means is, because you're associating this with your own habits, what it means is that your family would accept you crying, but never you being angry.
Right. So when you say you've gotten a little bit of that, you've got that sense too?
No, I mean, I've done a little bit of expressing my anger in public.
I've got some pretty big yelly casts.
But it took me a long time, because in my family, I was allowed to cry.
In fact, sometimes that was even provoked.
Well, often that was provoked and encouraged.
But I was not allowed to be angry.
The structure could not contain that.
Right, right.
Yeah, that's, and that was exactly the case.
Right.
In fact, I, I can remember many instances of crying in school, and in fact, my self-image of myself was that I was a crybaby, right?
Your self-image of yourself?
Well, the image that my parents inflicted upon me.
The personality that you were allowed to have was of a victim.
Or was of someone who was sad.
You were not permitted anything else.
Right. And I was never allowed to express anger.
Right. Because anger is almost always moral, but sadness is almost never based on ethics.
The sadness was always personal.
Well, we can be sad if our dog dies, right?
And there's no ethical component, assuming our dog wasn't strangled by a statist, there's no ethical component to our dog dying, right?
So we're just sad, right?
There's no ethics in sadness.
Ethics is anger, because...
The good people feel angry towards evil people because of the violations of persons and property and so on, right?
Right. Right.
Anger is the response to an unjust invasion or expropriation.
Boundary violations provoke anger And boundary violations are immoral, right?
Particularly, of course, against children, which is what you've suffered from, right?
Right. So what it means is that when you are not allowed to be angry, what that means is you're not allowed to have the protection of virtue.
And, of course, the only people who don't want us to have the protection of virtue are bad people, right?
right?
Exactly.
Now, irritation is anger plus hopelessness, That's why it's nihilistic, because it means virtue will always fail.
That's what results in irritation, right?
Crabbiness, chronic annoyance, right?
It's the idea that...
Sorry, go ahead. Can you repeat the part about irritation?
Sure. And I'm assuming you're referencing the irritation I've been feeling at work or in other areas.
Yeah, everybody's irritation. Irritation is anger plus hopelessness or futility, right?
Right. And so if anger is virtue, irritation or chronic crabbiness or whatever is the idea that virtue will always fail.
And so we feel that when we feel some sort of boundary violation that we can't control.
So you said, oh, the phone keeps ringing.
Well, the phone will keep ringing.
It's a business, right? If the phone doesn't keep ringing, you don't have a job, right?
Right. It was a Saturday night at one of the busiest restaurants in town, right?
Right. And look, I know chronic irritation, particularly after we moved to Canada.
And we lived with my uncle in Whitby.
I would wake up every morning and I would grumble to myself like some cranky old man every morning while showering.
I'd come upstairs and I'd be like, now I have to say good morning to everyone and I have to put a smile on my face and grumble.
Like I was just a cranky, crabby guy.
Because I felt that There was no way to maintain boundaries.
And therefore, I wasn't allowed to be good.
I wasn't allowed to have any self-protection.
So, virtue was pointless and hopeless.
But I couldn't let go of virtue, so I became irritable and nihilistic.
Right, right.
And The reason I would say that this article triggered the feeling is because it's not your family that made virtue impossible.
Right. No, you don't get that part yet.
At least I don't think you do. It's not your mother that made virtue impossible for you.
I mean, it's true as a kid, but not now.
Not since you were older.
Is it myself?
No. No, it's people like this reporter.
Oh, she's not a bad mother.
She's just distracted.
Right. Which means that anger against your mother is, quote, immaturity, right?
Right. It's a lack of compassionate understanding for the difficulties that she went through and the history that she herself had, right?
Yeah, and we experienced that with the media over the past few months.
Yeah, culture is, fuck, the victim, right?
Because here's how it violates UPB, this kind of stuff.
Your mother was, in this view, your mother who dissociated and was sexually inappropriate, to say the least, and was aggressive and screaming and so on.
She's allowed to do all of that, you see, because of her history.
And we should have compassion and understanding for her, right?
But when you get angry, that's not allowed.
That's bad, right?
Well, why? You have a history.
Why is it that your mother is allowed to get angry because of her history and we should have compassionate understanding for her and not judge her?
But when you get angry, you're judged.
As immature, as lacking perspective, as lacking compassion, as lacking empathy.
Right? Right.
You have a history.
If her anger is okay because it was provoked by her history and her circumstances, why is your anger not okay because of your history and circumstances?
That's right.
Oh, man.
That's right.
It's a complete reversal.
When you were a child being victimized, your mother was the victim.
When you express anger against being victimized, you are the aggressor.
Self-defense becomes the initiation of force, and the initiation of force becomes self-defense.
Alright. An Orwellian black and white thing.
It's a complete reversal.
It's the Ministry of Childhood.
Yeah. It's...
I'm feeling really, as you're saying this, really fucking angry.
Yes, and this is a little bit of what I'm writing about in the new book, so...
You said that you were enjoying that stuff in the show yesterday, so I'll give you two seconds of that.
Oh, please. It was not our parents who broke us, Greg.
We were not broken by our parents.
Because evil people don't have the power to break, even children.
It was not our parents who broke us.
It was not the aggression or the violence of the evil people that broke us.
It was the indifference and excuses and counterattacks of the, quote, virtuous that broke us.
It was not the evil that was done to us that broke us.
It was the universal defense of that evil and the hypocrisy of the, quote, virtuous.
Because that meant there really was no escape or sympathy in the world as a whole.
It's not individual evil that breaks us.
It's not being put in a prison cell that breaks us.
It's the knowledge that the world is a prison cell and there will be no escape or sympathy in the future.
Because everybody will excuse and defend the evildoers and attack and undermine the justly outraged.
And that's why what we do here is so weird for people.
And so, fundamentally anti-totalitarian, right?
Because sweet souls are saved by sympathy.
And I don't know where we can get sympathy in the world except from here.
And that's why it wasn't your mother, it was the reporter excusing this kind of mother that causes the anger.
Right.
And then why that would send me back to April 2003?
Because, like we've talked about before, people didn't stop and say, hey, wow, this is something that's probably important, why this young adolescent is doing this.
Right. That was your, as we talked about before, that was your cry for sympathy and your understanding that sympathy is not forthcoming to the innocent victims of evil in this world.
While everyone pats themselves on the back and calls themselves sweet and good and virtuous, right?
Right. And when you mentioned that in the Colin show about a month ago, or maybe a month ago, I felt really sad.
Now I'm just feeling...
I'm really angry about that.
Right. I mean, the pressure that is brought against Free Domain Radio and our conversations is not primarily from the evil people that we expose as evil.
It is from the virtuous people that we expose as hypocrites.
Right.
So it makes sense to me that you would dissociate from this article because it reveals something about the world.
And it would also make sense that going over that article now in a sympathetic environment, I would feel access to that anger.
Sure, yes, absolutely.
Yeah, two things save the victims of abuse, moral clarity and sympathy.
And that's what I've been pumping out like a geyser for the past few years, right?
Moral clarity and sympathy save the abused.
And those are the two things that the world consistently withholds from the victims of evil.
Children, not all victims, but children for sure, right?
Moral clarity, nope, there's no moral clarity.
It's all foggy. She had her reasons.
She did the best she could.
It's, you know, you should understand.
Moral clarity is specifically withheld, and sympathy is almost always withheld as well.
And those two things liberate us from the past.
But when we get them, we see the world very clearly.
And the lack of these two things from this supposedly moral planet that we live in, right?
Every call I have with someone.
It's moral clarity and sympathy, right?
Yeah, that's right.
And that's something that...
When I look back on my very first call I had with you in, what, October 2007?
Um... Uh...
Or maybe even before then.
It's... Those were the two things that And your showing those to me showed that the world didn't give me those.
Right. Right.
And when we get it, it's a relief and a horror.
It's a relief that we got it and a horror that we never did.
We're not horrified so much about the past we're escaping from because it's done.
It's done. And we're out!
We are horrified by the future and our knowledge of the world we are sailing into, not the prisons we are sailing away from.
Yeah, yeah.
Bye.
You're free of your mother, but we will face people like this reporter for the rest of our natural days, right?
Yeah. Alright, alright, that's alright.
And the last thing I need to do is be that reporter to myself because I have a tendency to take up my mom's stories.
Uh, no.
You were punished for not repeating what your mother said.
You were attacked You don't have a tendency.
I have a tendency toward baldness.
And back there. And lagaria.
But you do not have a tendency towards this because it did not arise in isolation, right?
You don't have a tendency towards repeating your mother's stories.
You were attacked if you didn't.
It's like saying a prisoner in a cell has a tendency to walk in a 10x10 square.
No, if he doesn't, he gets attacked.
Are you still there?
Yeah, I am.
So I know this is a lot, right?
But I mean, it's a lot of stuff that you got already because you processed it with the dissociation followed by the melancholy, right?
So, I mean, I know that we're sort of putting a lot onto this moment, but I know it was a big moment, right?
And it's Hopefully hoving into clarity to some degree.
Oh, it is. It's something that's been...
I've been really...
It feels good expressing this anger in a call like this.
Feeling the anger and having it come out in my voice.
Yes. It feels really, really...
Good. I think it's knowing that I'm not going to be attacked for that anger.
Well, it's encouraged. Your anger is damn good.
Yes. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. It's...
Yeah, see, without anger, we can't be secure.
We can't be safe.
And if we can't be secure and safe, we can't be vulnerable and intimate.
Right.
Like if we don't know whether the person coming up to us...
Is a friend or a foe is going to hug us or punch us.
We can't relax, right?
But with anger, we know whether the person coming up to us is a friend or a foe.
And if they're a foe, we can get out of the situation.
And if they're a friend, we can have a hug, right?
But without anger, we can't tell.
So we can't actually be relaxed, vulnerable, open, and intimate without anger, without the capacity for anger.
Right.
Right. That's right.
And that's why without the anger, without access to the anger, you have been less involved in the community, right?
Yeah, and it's been over the past two or three weeks that I've been kind of, not even kind of, just not posting much.
Followed by... The pretty regular posting that I was doing before then.
Sure. And I'm just...
I think it's amazing to me right now in this moment, and I want to work on this so it becomes more natural and more part of me.
I'm feeling a lot of anger still, but also seeing more moral clarity, like you were saying, about what both my parents did and the society.
It's not so much the sad melancholy that I had felt before.
Now it's much more...
Anger. Anger. Right.
Now, my strong sense is that the thing to do now, you journal about it, think about it, I don't think you need to talk about it anymore unless there's something else that you want to discuss about this, but I think that you've had enough clarity that to go and think and journal about it would be the thing to do, but tell me what you think.
Yeah, I've got my journal with me, so I think that sounds like something nice.
Okay. Well, go do that, and if you get a chance, let me know how it goes.
I will. And thank you so much for everything in this call.
This was really great.
Oh, anytime, brother. Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to give a call and to talk about this.
And I appreciate, obviously, the honesty and the passion that you bring to the conversations always.
So thank you so much.
All right. Well, take care.
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