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Feb. 11, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:31:41

1281 Nagging Goals - A Listener Conversation

Rewriting your life goals.

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	Alright, Nate, you on?
	Yes. Alright, so do you want to read your email, or did you want to just talk about it?
	Yeah, let me read it, because I think I described it pretty well.
	Thanks for taking the call, by the way.
	Okay, so... I felt somewhat blocked off and on with my writing.
	I've spent my whole life being this jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none because I'll become interested in something, become semi-good at it, and then abandon it for something else.
	The only thing that Just to elaborate on that, the only thing that I became a little more than good at was computers, because I spent a lot of time on them as a kid, and I was really interested in them for quite a while, and then I've lost interest over the years.
	One thing I've always wanted to be as a writer, and I've I've wanted to be a writer since I was a kid.
	Also, I tried writing stories and all kinds of things when I was young.
	I get a lot of stagnation, or this feeling of stagnation that I just can't or don't want to.
	I'm afraid of trying to make any kind of career move or anything that's a major change or Figuring out what I want to do and because, you know, I know that I haven't stuck with anything and that I worry that I'll lose interest.
	So, you know, changing from one career to another, it adds some risk to it, I think.
	And being blocked with writing is difficult because I'm reading this outlier book.
	You've read that. And I'm having trouble getting past the part about the 10,000 hours thing.
	It makes me feel really anxious when I was working at MD Anderson.
	And I've more recently gotten into Citrix and sort of lost my interest again.
	So I'm trying to figure out where I'm Where this is coming from, and I assume that this is something that comes from my history, just because that's where everything comes from.
	I noticed this morning when I was talking to Justin about it that I felt a lot of the same feelings that I was feeling with you on the rage call at first.
	Right. And where I just would sort of...
	I said something along the lines of...
	I don't know how I ended up like this, which is just sort of not true.
	I do know. But I was blanking out about it.
	I haven't had any real...
	I've been thinking about it all day and haven't really...
	Come up with any theories about how exactly I thought about your procrastination video and how it might fit, but it doesn't seem to fit.
	I don't get the goosebump feeling or anything like that from it.
	I know there was a guy in therapy like this, group therapy, who would bounce around from idea to idea and never really stick with it.
	But, I mean, he was a lot worse because he wouldn't stick with it For even longer than necessary to even start.
	So he would start something and never really start it.
	So it was similar, but not exactly the same.
	He had an awful history, too.
	That's basically the gist.
	I don't know where to go from here.
	Right, right. No, I mean, you're not alone in that.
	And I certainly do understand the feelings.
	And I think I understand the frustration.
	I mean, I've certainly had my fair share of failures, if not perhaps slightly above the average.
	But this is different, right?
	Because in a sense, failure is better than this.
	It sort of reminds me when Christine and I were on our honeymoon, we went...
	and we rented a moped to drive around the island together.
	It was a beautiful day.
	And the moped had this kind of annoying motor.
	And what it did was it would start and we'd sort of open it up.
	And, you know, it wasn't a Harley or anything, but it was a, you know, it was a fairly meaty moped.
	And it would start, but there was something wrong with the motor.
	And every time we'd hit gas, it was sort of...
	And then we'd coast for a while.
	It couldn't ever get any traction in the motor.
	It sort of became a little maddening after a while.
	Because we could almost walk faster than this.
	Right. I think I had a motorcycle like that.
	Yeah, and I had the same experience when I was on a more meaty dirt bike motorcycle in Northern Ontario when I was in my teens.
	The battery fell out.
	Oh, no, no, it was the alternator.
	Some damn thing fell out where it would just kind of start and then stop.
	And I ended up having to wheel the damn thing back to the cottage I was staying at, which took like a good part of the afternoon because I was pretty far out.
	And it's that sort of feeling.
	It's like, You know, will it go?
	Will it not go? And of course we can't control enthusiasm, right?
	So I understand the frustration.
	Now, at least I think I do.
	Does the one I'm talking about make any sense relative to what you're feeling?
	Yeah, kind of just...
	Well, let me describe the feelings more and maybe that will get somewhere.
	Sure, please do. When I'm writing, say I'm wanting to write and become better at writing just by writing more and maybe looking into some creative lighting classes.
	I had been given some exercises to do by someone describing things in the room.
	Becoming better at descriptions and giving more details from certain aspects and viewpoints.
	I want to do this, and I want to write better, but it's like that girl you were talking about who wanted to be an actor, but she never really...
	I'm not doing it.
	There are some things that I'm doing and I'm not doing, and I feel this resistance.
	It's the only way I can describe it.
	It's like there's some kind of mushy barrier that if I could just sort of figure out what's blocking me, because obviously there's a large part of me that wants To write more.
	And let's say I want to write about anarchy again.
	I want to write about statism and try to explain things in a different way.
	And I come up against these thoughts that are like, well, Steph already explained all that.
	that, why do I need to do it again?
	You know, just like...
	I feel sort of...
	And maybe part of me doesn't want to write about the things that another part of me wants to write about.
	Maybe it's what I'm writing about and not...
	I have no idea.
	Maybe I'm avoiding writing about something that I should be writing about.
	Or maybe part of me doesn't want to write, but I don't get that...
	That just wouldn't make sense to me.
	Well, the first thing that, I mean, when I'm in a corner like this, and again, you tell me any time I go off book, but any time that I get in a corner like this, what happens for me, or at least what I find to be the most productive, is The most productive thing to do is to throw away all assumptions.
	And I know that doesn't mean anything right now, but I'll tell you what it does mean in your context.
	And we'll see if it...
	It's blank slate time, right?
	Right. As I've mentioned recently, when I had these dreams about the wave or the tsunami...
	And I kept thinking, well, what is overwhelming me in my life?
	What is overwhelming me in my life?
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And I didn't solve the dream until I threw away that initial assumption that it was me who was being overwhelmed.
	You know, like, you have to throw away, when you're really stuck, you have to throw away all of your assumptions and start with a blank slate, right?
	With no preconceptions and no judgments up front.
	Right. Because you gave me a whole bunch of assumptions here.
	And I'm not saying they're false.
	Sorry? Yeah, I'm real good at that.
	Right. Well, no, we all do. I mean, we're all good at that.
	And we need to have those assumptions in life.
	But you gave me a whole bunch of assumptions.
	And just the ones that I noted were...
	I want to write. It's from my past.
	I was known as the flighty one.
	I'm a jack of all trades.
	Every time I get interested in something, I then lose interest in it.
	I want to write and I want to do the creative writing, but I have a block and that block needs to be overcome.
	There were lots of things that you have as conclusions about this matter, right?
	But they don't help. Right?
	So those would all be...
	Those are all on the table as in maybe they're not true.
	Oh. Okay.
	All of them. Everything. We will give that you're a carbon-based life form with two testicles.
	At least I'm going with the assumption on the latter.
	But other than that, if your name is in fact Nate, other than that, we are going to take nothing for granted.
	Okay. Okay. So, I have two arms.
	Okay, so let's start with the first thing.
	You want to write. Yes.
	Maybe you don't. Maybe the writing is assignment the box of provocation.
	Maybe. I have no idea whatsoever.
	But maybe you don't want to write.
	Maybe you want to not write.
	In other words, you want to try and not do it.
	What? Because that's a Simon the Boxer thing, right?
	Maybe you want to resist writing.
	Not to write, but to not write, if that makes sense.
	Oh! Like, maybe you've got it completely backwards.
	Not that you want to write, but there's a block.
	But you want to not write, and therefore you need the desire to write to achieve that.
	I mean, just look at it from completely the opposite way.
	It doesn't mean that the opposite is true, but it's a good place to start, and it will stimulate your creativity in thinking about the problem.
	Sorry, go on. Yeah, I can see what you mean there.
	So, like, let's just put aside the writing and say, like, maybe it's like, I want to not become a ballet dancer, and And therefore you won't practice, but you'll go to auditions, right?
	And you won't get parts, and you'll go, oh my god, I'm not becoming a ballet dancer, and you'll strive harder, but then you still won't practice.
	Do you know what I mean? Right.
	Right. For some reason, I don't like the idea that I don't want to write.
	Right.
	Now, that could be because you do want to write or because if you give up the desire to write, you lose the Simon the Boxer of being the guy who loses steam.
	Okay.
	Well, let's go down that road first and see where that goes.
	And again, none of this is true.
	Because all of your preconceptions are not leading you to a productive place of answers, we're just going to flip everything over and see.
	It's like we're sitting in a car.
	We're trying to drive and we don't even know that it's upside down or the wheels are spinning in the air.
	So we'll try flipping it over and see if we get some traction.
	That's at least what I do when I'm really stuck in a problem.
	So let's talk about how you feel.
	If you lose the desire...
	To write. If you just said, you know what, I'm in my mid-30s, if I haven't done it by now, you know, have you seen the movie Juno?
	Yeah. Okay, now again, I'm not putting you in this category, but there's the guy in Juno, who's a commercial writer or something, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	And Jennifer Garner is his wife.
	And do you remember what she says to him at one point when he gets real skittish about having a kid?
	That he's still a kid?
	I don't know if she says that.
	I think she does.
	But she also says to him, and it's a really great moment, because he's in his mid-30s, right?
	Right.
	And she says to him, you know, you're not going to be a rock star.
	Yeah.
	And it's – he wasn't – he wanted to avoid responsibilities, right?
	Because even being a rock star would have been too much responsibility for him.
	He wanted to avoid responsibilities, so he kept this dream alive that he was going to be some kind of rock star.
	And he didn't take any steps towards actually becoming a rock star.
	He just kept it there so that he could avoid responsibilities.
	And I'm not saying that's your motive.
	I'm just saying that that's something that I remember from that film.
	Right. In other words, what he wanted to do was to avoid what his life actually was.
	Because he had this fantasy life that somehow his life was going to go through a radical change called Someone's going to listen to one of my commercial jingles and give me a record deal.
	I'm going to go on the road and I'm going to open for Radiohead or something, right?
	Right. Now, he didn't actually pursue that, but he wanted...
	It was actually a mark of dissatisfaction with his life, right?
	I mean, he had a lovely house.
	He had an enjoyable career.
	He got to work from home.
	He had Jennifer Garner as a wife, and she's not two miles a bad road, right?
	So, you know, what's to complain about?
	Well, the complaint is, I'm not a rock star, right?
	Yeah. And he needs the complaint, and then when a child is coming into the picture, he runs away because he wants this rock star thing, but he doesn't actually want it.
	it what he wants is an escape from or and every rejection of repudiation or dissatisfaction with his life as it is so let's let's I mean that's just a I was just going over that as a possible illustration of something that may have been true
	If you were to say to yourself, you know what, I'm going to work empirically, not intellectually, right?
	Because we say central planning doesn't work.
	Well, why doesn't it work? Well, the theory is bad, but most importantly, we have enough evidence to know that central planning never works.
	We work from the evidence, not from the theory, right?
	So, If you were to say to yourself, you know what, the evidence is I'm in my mid-30s and I've only ever dabbled in writing.
	It takes 10,000 hours to become really good at something.
	I really don't love to do it because otherwise I'd be doing it.
	So it's just kind of something I keep around like homework, you know, so that I have something that I have to do that I can berate myself for or something like that.
	If you were to give up Wanting to write, since clearly the way that you want to write isn't working, so this way is never going to work, right?
	Right.
	If you were to give up everything you knew about wanting to write, what's the feeling that arises?
	Trying to feel it.
	Or if I said to you, Nate, forget it.
	Don't bother. You don't really like to do it.
	Your life's half over. You need 10,000 hours of dedicated work to become an expert at anything.
	At your current rate, you might crank out a short story by the time you're 70, which will never get published, and you're just going to sit there berating yourself for not doing something you're never going to do and aren't very good at anyway.
	So forget it. Just take it off the table.
	You're not going to be a writer.
	You're not going to write. Hmm.
	How would you feel? And if you accepted that, I'm not saying any of this is true, but let's just do the thought exercise, right?
	I think the first thought is...
	Or the first feeling is anxiety.
	Okay, let's talk about that.
	Well, um... It's something...
	I can't say that it's not something I don't enjoy, because when I'm doing it and I have that flow, I can do it.
	And, you know, I've gotten feedback about what I have produced from it.
	No, no, no, no. You're going off on some other tangent here, right?
	Okay. Okay. You can't write.
	Drop it from your list.
	What do you feel? Your life has to be complete without writing.
	You have to be happy without having writing as a goal or an idea.
	Despair and anxiety. Okay, so don't tell me how you can write, because maybe you can.
	I don't know, right? I haven't read much of your stuff, and I'm sure you can.
	But let's say it's off the list completely.
	Tell me about the despair and anxiety.
	Okay. Well, then, the despair is like, well, now I have to start all over with something else, and I don't even know what.
	What do you have to start all over with?
	But you see, this is a bit of a reinforcement to the theory, right?
	Because you don't say, oh, good.
	well if this is off the list I could really relax you say well shit I'll have to replace it with some other goal right oh Yeah, or I've got nothing left, or nothing to do.
	I mean, I've got this computer job, you know, and I don't have anything else.
	You don't have anything else.
	Okay. That I would want to do.
	I mean, I think about things like, okay, playing an instrument, and then I picture myself, you know, playing the piano or something, and I just sort of feel uninterested.
	Okay, now I understand that.
	Let's stay with the feeling about this.
	this.
	So what does it mean to have nothing to do?
	It means...
	It means I leave...
	I have not...
	It means that I really just...
	There's nothing to me.
	I provide no value.
	Okay. And what does it mean to provide no value?
	What's wrong with providing no value?
	It means I'm worthless.
	Okay, what's wrong with being worthless?
	Well, it's a bad feeling.
	No, that's circular, right?
	Oh. Because if you say, well, it's bad to be worthless.
	Why is it bad to be worthless?
	Because when I'm worthless, I call myself bad, right?
	It's circular. What's the problem with being worthless?
	With not contributing short stories or musical performances or articles about anarchism?
	What's wrong with being, what you call, not producing things that you would say would be a value to others or whatever, right?
	So it feels bad would not be a...
	Yeah, that's because it feels bad because you already think it's bad.
	I'm asking you, why do you think it's bad?
	And if you say, well, because it feels bad, all you're doing is telling me because I think it's bad, but I need to know what that thought is, right?
	Oh, right.
	Right.
	I see what you mean.
	Like people will say, what is there to this guy?
	You know? I mean...
	You know, kind of like that...
	Have you seen The Yes Man yet?
	No, no. I have a kid.
	Oh, right, right.
	Is it on video?
	Not yet.
	But see that when you do.
	Jim Carrey plays this part where he's just...
	He's just kind of going nowhere.
	Yeah. And there's nothing to him, and he doesn't really commit to anything, and his girlfriend dumps him because of it, and, you know...
	I don't...
	Look, I gotta tell you, I haven't seen the film, and maybe I'll be completely wrong about this.
	There's a lot of propaganda floating around about work these days.
	And the reason for that, in my opinion, is that nobody's getting ahead anymore.
	So people are like, well, fuck this, right?
	I'm not getting any raises.
	My salary, most people's salary now is lower than it was 20 years ago.
	Statistically. So people are saying, well, fuck it, I'll...
	I'll watch my grass grow and have a beer.
	I'll chase butterflies through the woods, right?
	I don't want to work that hard anymore because it doesn't get many.
	All I do is end up paying more taxes, blah, blah, blah.
	So people's work ethic is beginning to decline for obvious and logical reasons, right?
	That neither humans nor animals work or breed well in captivity.
	So I've just noticed there's a lot of propaganda about...
	Excellence and hard work and meaningful labor.
	And some of that is coming out of the ruling class paranoia that the cows don't care about giving milk anymore because they're taking too much, right?
	But that having been said, I mean, it's a very essential question, right?
	Which is, what's wrong with being worthless, right?
	Because when I said what's wrong with being worthless, you said basically in the eyes of others, right?
	Yeah, it's like, it's not about what I think of it, but what others think of it.
	Yeah, is it defensible?
	You know, when someone says, what do you do?
	Well... Nothing.
	Well, whatever, right? I mean...
	I sit here. I mean, it's just, it's not an attractive quality, I think.
	Just like if...
	But again, that has to do with other people.
	Right. I mean, if you were to say, I sort of put myself in your shoes, right?
	And I say, well, what I would do, well, I have an enjoyable career in IT, but I spend a good deal of my free time Studying philosophy.
	I'm very much into self-knowledge.
	I go to therapy. I journal.
	I really think about my life.
	I am, you know, changing my habits from dating destructive women to looking forward to dating healthy women.
	I quit using drugs.
	I've lost some weight. I'm exercising more.
	But really, it's a study of philosophy in the self that is the most important thing to me outside of food and shelter.
	Does that sound like somebody who has no value to the world?
	No. Phil made a very good point in the chat this morning.
	What are you talking about?
	You've probably spent way more than 10,000 hours with studying all this philosophy, chatting on the boards and debating and studying all this psychology and all the self-work chatting on the boards and debating and studying all this psychology and And all these hours have been spent, and this is something I am doing, and this is not something I'm resisting doing.
	This is something you want to do, right?
	You don't sit there and say, oh shit, I signed a contract with Steph that said, I spent at least half a goddamn hour in the chat room, so fine.
	I'd rather be writing a short story, but I'll go sit in the chat room or I'll listen to a podcast or I'll read a book on philosophy or whatever, right?
	And not to sound really...
	This is going to sound...
	Really bad. Okay, but after all of this, all of this, okay, that just doesn't work.
	I can't even say it without it, you know, me seeing the ridiculousness of it.
	Sorry, mime it. I'll make something up.
	I'm still not a shaved cat.
	sorry go on what does studying we're learning philosophy other than okay other than all those that long list of things that you mentioned about you know improving life and putting things into practice and all of this stuff um see how stupid that sounds It's like, aside from all these great things...
	I mean, aside from not getting married to this crazy woman you were getting married to and not getting into other relationships and losing weight and quitting drugs and going to therapy and self-development and learning knowledge and wisdom and security and happiness in the world, other than all that, what the fuck have I been doing with my time?
	Like, what...
	I wanted to say, what does learning all of this...
	It's like...
	The difference between learning and producing, I guess, is what I'm trying to point out.
	Like, I'm going to school, and I'm learning all this stuff, and...
	But I guess the difference is that I'm putting it all into practice.
	Um... Maybe you're right.
	I'm trying to not write, and I'm trying to not do other things as well.
	All of this is going to come to a head at some point, and who knows what spills out of it later.
	Sorry, all of what is going to come to a head?
	You mean the studying of yourself and philosophy and so on?
	Yes, all of this work.
	Well, I can tell you one thing.
	It's not going to pop anything out if you think that you should be doing a writing.
	It's just a way of silencing yourself, right?
	Right. It's just a way of giving yourself a goal that seems like appealing and something you can talk about, and it's like a Once I learn how to juggle fire, I'll be happy. I don't really feel like practice.
	It's just a way of not enjoying the moment.
	Right. And I would submit, and I say this with shocking amounts of humility, I would also submit...
	That you don't yet know what you're really good for.
	But you won't ever know if you keep inventing goals that don't come from the full tilt boogie organic Miko system charge.
	And I say this, I don't want to talk about myself, but just to mention it, you know, it's like, oh, I'm going to be an actor.
	Oh, I'm going to be a director.
	I even wrote a puppet show based on a Greek myth, the Greek myth of Prometheus, and did some directing on it.
	I mean, I'm going to be an academic.
	I'm going to be a software guy.
	I'm going to be an executive.
	I'm going to be, right? I was going to be a playwright, novelist, poet, all these things, right?
	And I would... Start with rushes of enthusiasm and I would sort of peter out a little or I'd have some success and then it would sort of peter out and so on.
	And that was the continual pattern.
	And then I took a year and a half off and I didn't work.
	I worked on books.
	I wrote The God of Atheists.
	And so I worked on books, but I didn't know that that wasn't a plan like now I'm going to be a writer, do or die.
	It was just like, you know, this thing's been bugging me.
	I'm going to try it and see and...
	Of course, you know, what came out of that is Freedom Aid Radio, right?
	And that sort of stuff came out of that.
	This book, How to Achieve Freedom, I really wanted to write it before Isabella was born.
	Because she sucks at taking dictation.
	It's like drool and where's the breast, right?
	Oh wait, sorry, that's me. But she's bad at it too.
	But... I couldn't, and it just didn't come to me, and I'd sort of make plans.
	I had good plans for it, I started to write, and I was like, ah, nothing's happening, forget it, right?
	And it turns out that it was damn good that I didn't write it last fall, but instead waited until this last while, because it's coming out like a demon, and it's great.
	You know, we're not in charge of these horses, right?
	Yeah, that's what I've noticed about when I do write something.
	It's like pulling a cork out of a dam and the whole thing coming out.
	And then the first thing we want to do is say, oh, let me do that again, right?
	Yeah, and it doesn't work.
	Right, and if you could will it, right, every songwriter would be Paul McCartney, right?
	Paul McCartney would be Paul McCartney and not write the crap he's written for the past 30 years, right?
	Liverpool oratorio my ass, right?
	He'd just keep cranking out yesterday and, you know, signs for peppers, right?
	But... Of course, they had that eight hours a day at that German place.
	Yeah, absolutely. And you know that still hasn't helped him for the past 30 years, right?
	Oh, that's true.
	He hasn't really done very much.
	Right.
	Yeah, I didn't think about that.
	You know, and we'll talk a bit more about your childhood in a sec if it's of interest to you, but this is my suggestion.
	You know that line from Microsoft, where do you want to go today?
	Well, that's the ecosystem morning meeting, right?
	Right. Where do you all want to go today?
	If you don't know, no problem.
	We'll assume that there's someone not at the table we haven't met yet.
	Who knows, right? If you try to will it, it will forever feel like climbing Mount Everest using your teeth.
	That's kind of it.
	If I come out with something, like an article or just a great post or something like that, or just a poem, those rarely come out.
	I get this sort of feeling that, okay...
	Everybody's... And of course it has to do with everybody else.
	It's like this pressure of, okay, what has he done for us lately?
	Or what has he done lately?
	It's just, oh, he's a one-hit wonder.
	These kinds of thoughts run through my head.
	Right, right. And that has to do with taking ownership for creativity and for taking ownership, and I mean soul ownership, for your life's purpose and meaning.
	And you don't have...
	That ability, and it is destructive to assume that right in your life.
	Right? So what you do is you become sort of dictatorial, right?
	Which is what you learned as a kid.
	So you say, okay, folks, the morning Miko system meeting, right?
	You say, right, that's it.
	Everybody take notes.
	We're going to be a writer, right?
	Right, and we're going to produce one thing a week.
	Today we write, and here's the schedule, and here's what I want to do.
	All right? And some people raise their hands and you're like, put your hands down.
	We're going to be writers. This is not a negotiation.
	In fact, I should have just made this a one-way conference call and left you people in the dungeon where you should be cranking out short stories, by the way.
	You're right. It's not a negotiation.
	This is not a two-way street.
	It's not even a democracy.
	Now get back to work and build me some pyramids of art, right?
	You glistening slaves of mine, right?
	Right. As opposed to, hey, I don't know.
	I'm sorry that I've been bullying us for the past 20 years about stuff to get done, because that's all I knew.
	But you know what? I don't know what we should be doing.
	But I will tell you this, my Miko system mateys, I will tell you this.
	That I am absolutely and completely and totally assuring and creating Our worst fears.
	My worst fears. Because I say, well, gee, what if I don't leave anything of importance behind?
	And nothing gets published except an article or two.
	I never get paid.
	I don't dive in.
	I don't have a lot of inspiration.
	So, it's coming true.
	You know, my purpose of no negotiation, you all go down to the dungeons and write, is producing exactly what I'm afraid of.
	Which is scant creativity and excess of dissatisfaction, right?
	Right, total self-fulfilling prophecy.
	It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Oh my god, if I don't whip these horses, we're not going to get anywhere.
	And every time you whip the horses, they stop, right?
	Right. Or if they produce something, it's crap.
	Right.
	Or it's, you know, they may you whip the horses and they just shit on your head.
	I was wrong about everything that I thought my life was supposed to be about.
	I mean, that's how retarded I was, right?
	And my ecosystem was like, oh, fuck, just let him get it out of his system.
	You know, we'll wait for podcasting.
	Just let him run around until he tires himself out and fails.
	And then we'll pick him up and give him some new inspiration.
	And then when I shut up, right?
	And I went to therapy and I learned the minkosystem stuff and I actually began to listen and approached my mind with humility as before an immensely powerful, slightly unpredictable and a little dangerous god, right? Or pantheon, really.
	And was willing to take orders.
	And to fetch water.
	That's when I gained traction, when I stopped imposing and started listening.
	And to do that, I had shut up for a long time.
	Sorry, go ahead. Why do you think that...
	I asked Greg this the other day, and why do you think that...
	He never answered, but why do you think that...
	Going from one extreme to the other is, like, you go from this dictator to a servant.
	Like, why not down to the same, like, you're just another equal voice at the negotiation table.
	I've become an equal voice.
	I've become an equal voice.
	But the reason that I needed to do that was I needed to gain the trust of them ecosystem.
	Oh. Right? So I needed to balance that because I treated them as slaves.
	And so I needed to become a slave so that I knew what it was like, so that I made my restitution, right?
	So that I apologized and, you know, you bear the burden, right?
	So that you gain the trust, right?
	That's right. That makes sense.
	I mean, if someone's been beaten down on you for 20 years, then walks up to you and says, I think we should be equals, what are you going to feel, right?
	Not too pleased, right?
	No, that would piss me off.
	It's kind of annoying, right?
	Yeah, this is...
	This is going to be very helpful, I think.
	I just need to stop saying I'm going to be X and just leave it at I don't know for now, I guess.
	And then let them tell me.
	That sounds enthusiastic.
	I know, it doesn't sound very enthusiastic.
	I'll walk into a dark jungle blindfolded, rubbed down with Uncle Ben's marinade of tiger, and I'll just see what happens.
	Right? Bye-bye, Lego.
	Yeah, that sounded dumb.
	Look, what you're doing isn't working.
	Right. It's not working, and I can guarantee you it hasn't worked.
	How long has it not worked for?
	Um... For as long as I've been doing it.
	Which is? God, four years now or so?
	Five? Off and on for a couple of years at a time over, I don't know, since I was nine, eight?
	Since I could write, at least.
	Right, but you told me about your IT career, right?
	You learn stuff, you lose interest.
	How long has that been going on? Oh, right.
	Let's see, when did I lose interest?
	Probably around 26 years old.
	Okay, so coming on for a decade or so.
	And what about women that you date and then become less enamored of or lose interest in or become averse to?
	How long has that been going on?
	Um... Since I was a teenager.
	So 20 years, right? Right.
	So a couple of decades, there's a pattern, right?
	And as you say, this was forged in childhood, and this is why, I mean, I understand all of that, but we're just trying to deal with the present at the moment, right?
	What you can do about it now.
	So we got 20 years, plus, plus, but let's just say 20 years of not succeeding in these plans, right?
	Right. Right.
	And with the piano, I lost interest several times.
	Right. And what you haven't done is, as far as I understand it, is RTR, right?
	With yourself, right?
	I'm with Chris, and I don't know why.
	And I'm curious, right?
	What you started with this conversation with me is, well, I want to be a writer, but there's this block, and there's this, and there's that, and this is what happens, and then this is what happens, and it comes from my childhood, and here's how I'd like to overcome it, and these are the rules that I give my...
	like you just had nothing but answers right yeah yeah i there there are moments yeah i yeah that's basically i i revert back to that constantly and We all do. Again, this is not criticism, this is natural, right, given how we're raised, right?
	I mean, none of us are, I mean, even if we had good parents, we're just ordered around like a bunch of sheep for 14 years in public school, right?
	So, I mean, we all have this issue, right?
	Yeah, I think when I do ask myself that question, I tend to back away from it, because then there's this anxiety of, Well, what if I end up finding out that I don't want to be a writer?
	Well, no, that's not the anxiety.
	That's not the anxiety. Because if you end up finding out you don't want to be a writer, and you actually end up...
	Gaining relief and happiness and liberating yourself for other things, that's not bad, right?
	I mean, it'd be kind of terrible to waste another 10 or 20 years struggling to write and feeling bad about it and not really getting anywhere.
	I mean, that would be a pretty bad way to spend your life, right?
	Right. So that's not accurate.
	Yeah, no, it's... It's the anxiety of not having a plan.
	Because not having a plan requires self-trust, right?
	It's like those trust exercises we used to do in theater school where you'd fall backwards and people would have to catch you.
	Or we did one where we would cross an entire gym floor by climbing over people who would then, after we climbed, they'd go to the front and it would be like you'd be on this rolling human caterpillar mountain climb.
	And it's weird, right?
	Right. To try and do that.
	It's all these trust exercises where you're blindfolded and you've got to figure out things and you've got the trust that, you know, if you fall, you'll be caught, right?
	And in fact, you'll then fly, right?
	Yeah, having no plan causes me loads of anxiety.
	Right, right, right.
	And that is important.
	And here's where we get to the childhood stuff.
	Okay.
	Focusing on external approval, validation, value, worth, or, you know, all the stuff that we used, right?
	Which, when we broke it down, turned out to be the opinions of others, right?
	Right. Why did your parents oppose your deepest instincts?
	And substitute these little annoying mosquito flying around your head perpetually plants instead.
	Because they didn't conform to what they want other people to think?
	Well, that is a relatively bloodless answer.
	And I will tell you, if you like, why I think your parents opposed this, knowing a little bit, as I do, about your history.
	Okay. Because deep down, my friend Nate, your instincts are a tiger that would have clawed them down.
	Them and their Circle, and their God, and their government, and their souls.
	Because, as you said before, you hated them, right?
	Yeah. You hated them, you feared them, you loathed them, you wanted to rent them.
	Right, yeah.
	And you have to be kept away from that tiger.
	A yappy little fucking chihuahua has to be substituted for the virility and the certainty of the tiger, right?
	For some reason I feel sad.
	I don't know.
	What does that look like in...
	Non-metaphorical terms?
	What it looks like in non-metaphorical terms is you are never allowed to be at ease.
	You are never allowed to relax.
	You are never allowed to be without something to do.
	You are never allowed to be without a list that has to be checked off and chores and things that may need to be done.
	You are never allowed to just sit and think and absorb life and think about the world and mull things over and have nothing to do and have the sweet power of That comes from not having an endless swarming gnat full of chores flying around your head and pecking and biting at you.
	And interferences and stresses and the management of others and the eruption of the emotional intensity of others out of nowhere.
	And then when you're out of sight of your parents, society is more than happy to substitute the bullies of other abused children.
	Or, failing that, a festering conscience God who is constantly reading your mind and painting your forehead with the red letter of sin, right? But you're never allowed to be at ease within your own skin.
	You're never allowed to sink and settle into your own consciousness and to learn to trust and listen to the murmuring of your deepest instincts because that rends society apart as it stands.
	You always must be busy.
	That is the essence of all tyrannies.
	Wow.
	That...
	That fits.
	The anxiety that you feel when you're not busy is not your anxiety.
	Thank you.
	I said this to someone in a chat.
	I don't know if it's ever going to be released, but I think it's useful.
	In case it's not, I'll repeat the principle here and I think you'll find it very helpful.
	The feelings that we get, Nate, that are overwhelming to us are never our own feelings.
	They are the feelings of other people.
	I'll give you An example, right?
	So if you stub your toe or if you catch your finger in a door or whatever, it's painful, but it's not like it doesn't drive you insane.
	You don't end up with post-traumatic stress disorder, right?
	Right. Even a bad toothache or whatever, right?
	Because our brain doesn't actually store the memory of pain, of physical pain.
	It doesn't actually have any place to store it, right?
	Right. Right.
	So physical pain, the physical pain that simply occurs to us from living and bumping into the world and tripping and all that sort of crap, it's not overwhelming to us.
	And you think, think back to when you were a kid and you fell off your bike or you scraped your knee, there's no particular horror or even a memory of the pain, right?
	Right, emotions are stored in like associations in the hippocampus.
	Right, but physical pain is stored nowhere.
	Right. So, and this is a metaphor, so I'll keep it brief, right?
	So the physical pain that we, quote, inflict on ourselves simply through being accidental or careless or whatever, right?
	That never overwhelms us fundamentally.
	But if we are kidnapped and tortured for months, that is overwhelming, right?
	That will leave us with post-traumatic stress disorder, right?
	That will leave us with a permanently altered neurological system and neurological responses, right?
	Those long periods of helplessness and...
	Right, so the pain that is a natural part of living is not overwhelming.
	It does not scar us.
	but the pain that is inflicted from other people, particularly over a long period of time, that pain overwhelms us.
	In the same way, every emotion that we feel is overwhelming to us is other people's feelings.
	Thanks.
	Thank you.
	I'm not quite getting that.
	No, no, it's a tough one, so that's fine.
	We'll take another run or two at it.
	When I thought that I was being overwhelmed in that tsunami dream, it was not the case.
	What I was feeling was other people's anxiety in the face of philosophy, right?
	Right. What blew me away was not my own feelings of anxiety in the face of philosophy, which are not huge...
	But other people. So the reason that it blew me away and was a huge wave that I could never manage because it was other people's feelings, not mine.
	And that's why it was overwhelming.
	Is it like when I've...
	When I, um...
	Want to, um...
	Um...
	Express like a personal preference or just sort of assert my preferences in any way with people.
	The overwhelming anxiety I feel with that is that...
	That's their feeling.
	So when you're not busy and you trust that your instincts will lead you to a better, richer, truer, more honest, more meaningful place in life, the anxiety that you feel is your parents and by the by, just about everyone else's.
	Because if you go there, your tiger takes down their false self Without even breaking stride...
	What does that look like from their perspective?
	Like, if I were my parents, or if I were the other person's feelings...
	If I were the other person...
	Oh, okay. So you play your mom, I'll play you, right?
	Okay. Mom, there's no God.
	This is nonsense. Come on, I can't believe you expect me to believe this nonsense.
	This is just some crazy Bedouin fairy tale.
	Oh, that's hard to do.
	See, I'm not stressed.
	No, I'm not stressed. I'm not attacking her, right?
	The tiger is not about rage.
	I... I get the sense that she would get really angry and...
	Right, so she would get angry and then the tiger says, well, the fact that you're getting angry just proves to me that you don't believe it at all.
	Right, because if I say to my math teacher 2 plus 2 equals 5, this doesn't start screaming at me.
	The fact that you're screaming at me only proves to me that you don't believe it either.
	And I think you should grow up and face the real world and stop inflicting these hideous little pitiful fairy tales on children.
	It's a pretty cowardly way to shore up your own doubts.
	Yeah, I can feel...
	Do you feel how overwhelming that would be to your mother?
	Yeah. It's disintegrating.
	It feels like they're falling apart.
	It's like James Taggart at the end of Atlas Shrugs, right?
	Or like that sand guy played by the guy from Wings, Lloyd, in some comic book movie, the sand guy who just falls apart.
	But Spider-Man 3 or whatever, right?
	Right. Right.
	For brief moments, I can put myself in her head and feel that anxiety.
	Yeah, I mean, the last conversation that I had with my mother, when I just said to her, Mom, I just feel...
	And I wasn't enraged.
	I wasn't angry even.
	I was just tired of...
	Hearing about how the doctors were poisoning her and the insurance companies were out to get her.
	And this is all she had talked about for years pretty much.
	And I just said, you know, I'd like us to be able to talk about other things.
	Because that's just one topic and we keep going round and round.
	I'd really like to have the flexibility to talk about other things.
	Because it's not fun for me to have just one topic.
	And it's your topic.
	And it's not a topic that I can participate in.
	Right? Oh, she would perceive that as a huge attack.
	Oh, yeah. She went insane, right?
	Right. Because if they say, stop using me, right?
	Right. Like, if I go read...
	I've done this before.
	If I go read my website or one of my articles and pretend that I'm my mom...
	Reading it, like if she were to go to my website and read something, I can feel what she would feel reading what she reads.
	Right, right, right, right.
	And there's a truth that these little distractions and Plans and lists and chores that you set up for yourself.
	There's a truth that you need to get to.
	That the world desperately doesn't want you to get to.
	And that's why you're not just making up all these things, right?
	About value and utility and worth and meaning and everything.
	No, these are the messages I get from everywhere.
	Right. From every nook and cranny of society.
	Right. This is what's like...
	This is all keeping the tigers at bay, right?
	Right. All the prestige, I guess, is the...
	Prestige is one of them, for sure, because prestige is something that keeps people in a perpetual state of anxiety, right?
	Like, every competitive thing keeps people in a perpetual state of anxiety.
	Because if they lose, they feel anxious, and if they win, they feel anxious because now they're on top and there's nobody go but down, right?
	Oh, wow, yeah.
	And sometimes I feel this, I mean, just even in the community, and I think you mentioned noticing this, but let's use Greg as an example, he's older than me. but let's use Greg as an example, he's older than But when this is where this writing issue started,
	He wrote something to his child self and I thought it was beautiful and I immediately felt anxious Because I felt that, oh, now I have to do it.
	And will I do as good a job?
	And maybe his job will be better.
	And what does that mean? Right.
	Right, because this kind of competition, this kind of comparison, will automatically produce endless anxiety.
	And then if you do a really good job, what happens is this moves you to the next level.
	And you're like, shit, now I have to do it again, right?
	Right. Yes.
	Yeah, it's called The Second Novel of Anxiety, right?
	Your first novel is really big, and then you're like, fuck, now I've got to write another one, right?
	Like that, well, a bunch of authors.
	Yeah, it's the J.D. Challenger Syndrome, right?
	It's like a one-hit wondrous, right?
	Yeah, if I don't...
	This is the kind of interaction or the family that I was in.
	I was in the middle and my older brother would always outdo me in terms of getting all the praise and approval of all his successes.
	I always felt inadequate in the face of that, like in his shadow.
	He was the super achiever, the hero, I guess.
	Right. And you would compare yourself to him.
	And wanting the praise of your parents is not irrational.
	I mean, that's perfectly natural for children.
	And unfortunately, it's used by some parents, right, as a way of keeping children down.
	But think of something, physical beauty, right?
	So let's say that...
	Let's just say there's some girl and she's very, very attractive, right?
	And so immediately she becomes anxious, right?
	Because she's like, okay, how do I put this to work for me?
	Immediately she becomes anxious when?
	Well, because she says, okay, how do I put this to work for me?
	I think Shania Twain, right?
	You know, this country singer, right?
	Or pop singer. She does a bunch of different stuff, right?
	So she was born in Timmins, which is one of the armpit towns of northern Ontario, right?
	Huh. Now, she's gorgeous, right?
	And... Kind of.
	I don't know. I mean, no matter what your taste, she's a damn attractive woman.
	Conventionally, yes. I think she's pretty.
	Right. She doesn't have the nose rings and African neck extensions that you like, but for mainstream taste, she's...
	Right. And so she's sitting there in Timmins, and she's like, well, fuck, I've got to stay here, right?
	Because I'm gorgeous, right?
	And I can sing, right?
	Right. So now she's got to go and try and make it in LA or Nashville or whatever, right?
	And she's like, oh shit, well I guess I could be a model, right?
	So she goes out and she starts doing modeling, right?
	Now modeling, it's not like the beautiful people, even people as attractive as she is, they're beautiful people.
	They go out, they start modeling and it's like, Well, now I'm competing with all the other beautiful people, right?
	And if you and I get a pimple, we're like, who gives a shit, right?
	I'm not going on a...
	Right. Right? But if they get a pimple, it can cost them $5,000, and they might never get called back by that person, right?
	Yeah, that's...
	That's terrifying.
	That's horrible. Right.
	Imagine if you got...
	If it cost you $5,000 every time you got a pimple, it'd be horrible, right?
	Right. There's just no control over any of that.
	Or like eating, right?
	You've got to do a swimsuit shoot and you're bloated from your period, right?
	I mean, it's not like this beauty then leads to a stress-free life.
	And then you turn 25 and you're like, fuck, now nobody wants to hire me.
	What does they say in Hollywood about actresses, right?
	There's the ingenue.
	There's only three ages for actresses in Hollywood, right?
	The ingenue, like the leading romantic young lady.
	The ingenue, the district attorney, and driving Miss Daisy.
	That's it. There's only three.
	They don't care about anybody else, right?
	Mother, baby, person. There's nothing in between.
	A maiden, mother, crone. So, what I'm saying is that if you're going to go into the comparison lifestyle, Which, it's not, I mean, it's not inhuman and it's not bad.
	I mean, but if you're competing against anybody fundamentally other than yourself, then you're forever going to live a life of stress and dissatisfaction.
	I'm not trying to be a better philosopher than other philosophers.
	I'm trying to do a better podcast than I did last time and I'm trying to keep...
	All you ADHD, look there's something shiny, scatterheads, focused on philosophy, right?
	And it's a challenge, and it's great that it is a challenge, because it means that I have to exceed myself and keep your interest with new thoughts, which challenges me, and this is why this conversation is stimulated by the listeners to such a large degree, right?
	I'm not trying to compete against, I'm not like, oh man, I've got to beat Rand.
	Or there's some contemporary philosopher who came out with some great idea and I'm like green with envy or whatever, right?
	That's pretty...
	You said something quotable.
	I'm going to have to go back and write that down.
	Not trying to compete with other philosophers and...
	I mean, maybe I've missed it.
	I mean, have you ever gotten that sense that I'm like, well, this totally beats Nathaniel Brandon in terms of psychological insight, or this is, you know, I'm smarter than...
	I mean, I'm constantly praising other thinkers and, you know, deferring to the brilliance of so many other people.
	I mean, I'm not in competition, right?
	Right. I mean, I've had podcasts where I'm trying to help other people set up their own podcasts, right?
	Right. Yeah, I've never gotten that sense from you.
	No, I'm really not trying to...
	I'm not out to get Grammar Girl, if you know what I mean, right?
	Right, and very paradoxically that seems to – you're getting the effects from the – You're still getting that effect, though.
	Right. Now, there's a difference...
	Like, I'm not in competition with other people, but that doesn't mean that other people don't lose if I win.
	That's a slightly subtle difference about FDR. Like...
	If I win, and again, this is not me, but this philosophy or whatever, if FDR wins or becomes some sort of dominant social meme, well, a lot of people are not going to do well, right?
	And they're aware of that, right?
	Lose hard. I mean, there's so many people that would just, academics especially, Academics, you've got bad parents, you've got politicians, you've got soldiers in terms of the respect they might get from the general population.
	Lots of people are going to lose heart if philosophy wins, right?
	Right. So, they still win-lose.
	It's just that I think that the future generation and the world as a whole wins huge, and they're the innocent ones, not the ones who have done bad things in the past.
	So, sucks butt, right?
	So... I'm not in competition.
	I'm aware it's a win-lose scenario, because if it wasn't a win-lose scenario, then the hostility that people greet me with sometimes would be incomprehensible, right?
	Right, right. So it's a win-lose scenario in some ways, but I'm not in competition with anyone.
	I'm not even in competition with myself.
	My goal is to try and stimulate...
	Thinking to combine the richness of self-knowledge with the analytical rigors of more formal philosophy so that we get the full-tilt-boogie brain experience.
	And the challenge, of course, is...
	Move the conversation forward. Yeah, move the conversation forward, be interesting, entertaining, engaging enough to get people interested in themselves, and through becoming interested in themselves, then becoming interested in helping others in the long run, and that's still a bit of a future goal, but...
	But that's a goal not in competition with, right?
	Right. And because my goal is to spread truth, if someone else comes up with a better way of spreading truth, I don't lose.
	It's kind of an altruistic thing, in a way.
	Well, I... That's a loaded word because of the objectivist thing, so I don't want to go that road, if you don't mind, just now.
	It's complicated, and let's not go too far off, although, no, I've gone a little bit far afield.
	But if you don't have that goal, right?
	If you don't have that goal, then you don't have flexibility, right?
	So you need a goal in your life, Nate, that is...
	It's not specific to writing.
	Because writing is not a goal, right?
	It's a means to an end, right?
	Yeah, a means to getting ideas out, or a means to, at least as far as my big desire, which was what drives me in this conversation, it's what keeps me in it, and it's what, you know, saving the world, that whole thing. Helping people, right?
	Yeah, helping people. Now, I would submit that you don't know how to help people yet.
	And the reason that you don't know how to help people yet is because you think you know how to help people.
	And you don't. And you don't connect writing with saving the world.
	I guarantee you that.
	I guarantee you that.
	Because if you knew...
	If you wrote a short story tonight, no matter how good or how bad, a hundred people would not be shot.
	You would write that short story, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I mean, it wouldn't even cross your mind to say, well, I haven't played World of Warcraft in a while, so it's only a hundred people, you know?
	What does it matter, right? Yeah.
	Yeah, I'd write it. Of course you would, right?
	Because that's around helping people.
	But you don't have the connection between writing and helping people.
	Okay. I'm not totally sold, but I, you know...
	If you genuinely believed that your writing was...
	Truly helping hundreds or thousands of people, you do it, right?
	Right. I mean, that's...
	Or if you didn't do it...
	Sorry to interrupt, but if...
	Or if you wouldn't do it, then you'd know that your goal was not to help people, which would be fine too, right?
	Right. But...
	I've noticed that I tend to write more also when someone comes along with either an argument or a problem or something that I want to be able to help them but I can't put it into words and then I start trying to write it down and then it turns into something.
	Right, so that's a reactive goal, right?
	So if someone comes along with a problem, then I will do X, Y, or Z, right?
	Yes. So that's not your goal, that's a response, right?
	Okay. Because you can't control that, right?
	Yeah. I mean, you're like the woman at the bar, right?
	You can just make yourself pretty if you don't feel comfortable to go and ask men out, right?
	You just make yourself pretty and hope somebody ambles over, right?
	Right. Right. And you have no control over it.
	Yeah, so you can't control that goal, right?
	And that's what I mean when I say this as a knowledge.
	What is your goal?
	And you don't have to answer this, and it would be ridiculous to try.
	But I can guarantee your goal is not to write.
	It's like saying my goal is to podcast.
	Well, lots of podcasters out there, right?
	They all have the goal to podcast, right?
	That makes a lot of sense.
	And the goal comes from the Miko system.
	And the goal comes when you're receptive to yourself, Nate, when you sit down with that morning Miko system meeting and you say, I'm sorry, somebody had their hand up 20 years ago and I never took the question.
	I'd like to start now, right?
	Because when you are receptive to yourself, you can then be receptive to others, right?
	Because this is something that's missing from some of the long-time listeners, right?
	Is to be the blank slate.
	To just keep asking questions.
	Because I see this happen in the chat room where...
	Yeah, I've noticed the things...
	Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say that I've noticed that some of the things I don't do for myself, I don't do for...
	Like, if I don't have patience for myself, then I don't have patience for others.
	Right, and so somebody will say, I'm upset about something, and then somebody will say, they'll ask a question or two, and then they'll stop, or they'll get distracted, or they'll say, I'll be right back, or they'll get annoyed, and they'll say, well, now I feel annoyed, or whatever, whatever, right? Right. Yeah, I've seen that.
	That's pretty constant, right?
	I've not seen, at least to my memory, and who knows, I've not seen somebody really go through more than three, maybe four questions.
	And then you can see, there's sort of like an agenda, like they're trying to lead the person to something.
	Right, I've seen that too.
	And I think I've even done it a few times.
	Yeah, we all have.
	But the important thing, if you really want to help people, you have to just be receptive to them, right?
	Yeah, and I've had the best luck when I just sort of throw all conclusions about what their problem is, or what the answer is, out the window, and I just sort of ask them, And I've noticed that it kind of ends up resolving itself, or they figure it out while they're talking to me.
	Right, right. I mean, I don't think...
	I mean, tell me your experience of this conversation.
	I've mentioned a few things about myself, but I don't think I've made the conversation about me, if that makes sense.
	No. It's all to try and bring something over to you.
	Right, and yeah, when you do, it's anecdotal.
	It's supposed to be illustrative, and it's also supposed to remind people that I'm not perfect, right?
	I've made six million mistakes, and we'll probably make six million more, but to re-humanize, right?
	I don't want anyone taking guru quotes, right?
	So I'm focused on communicating to you And I start by listening, right?
	Let you talk for 10, 15 minutes or however long it was, make some notes, see how I feel, see what I'm moved by and what I'm not moved by.
	And what I'm bored by.
	Because I assume that that, not because I want to tell you what I feel, but because I assume that that is important, that I'm feeling what you're not feeling, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And that's kind of being a blank slate.
	Give me honesty, RTR. This is what my experience is.
	This is what I think. And what you're getting at is you're saying that I need to do this each morning for myself.
	Yeah. Where do you want to go today?
	I am no longer in charge.
	I am just at the table.
	I'm not the secretary. I'm not the chairman of the board.
	I'm just at the table.
	And I need to just, like, throw all...
	either throw all the options out the table or take them all off or just, you know, I don't have to do anything at all.
	Well, you have to earn back the trust, right?
	Right. Which means they're in control?
	It means, you know, just listen for a while.
	Right. Right.
	Because you had 20 years trying to get this ship off the dock, right?
	So let go of the wheel for a while, right?
	It's counterproductive. Well, you know, it got you here, and, you know, I mean, most people spend their whole lives doing it, and if it's only 20 years, that's pretty good, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I didn't...
	I mean, I got a decent computer job.
	I'm getting paid more than the average person, so I guess it's...
	Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
	What? Oh, dear.
	Oh, dear. Did I go somewhere?
	What did you just say?
	I was just saying that I didn't do a horrible job.
	And then what did you say? Dictating.
	What was your proof? That I got a decent computer job and I get paid more than the average person.
	Uh-huh. Yes.
	Comparing. Was that? Comparing myself, yes.
	Right, which means then the next time you run across someone who's making more than you are, then...
	Then I have to top that.
	Then you feel like deficient and...
	Yeah, it's like when you drive through a rich neighborhood and see all the big houses.
	Who are these assholes? What do they do for a living and why aren't I doing that?
	Right. And then you drive through the poor neighborhood and you're like, oh, look at me.
	I'm all... And we'll never lose that completely, right?
	I mean, we have to, you know, that's not crazy, but it's not where the core can be in terms of how we...
	That's relativism, right?
	And there'll always be a smarter, richer guy in the world.
	And if you are the smartest and richest guy, you're going to get older and there's going to be another guy coming along, right?
	I mean, I guarantee you my daughter is going to be smarter than I am.
	Statistically, that's just going to be the case, right?
	Because every generation gets smarter.
	I mean, listen to Tom and that Times interview, you know what I mean, right?
	Guinness keeps coming out with new editions.
	Guinness? Was that Guinness?
	Yeah, the Book of World Records.
	Yeah, but I mean, just in terms of raw brainpower, every generation gets smarter, so I don't want to Sort of put a whole lot of stock on being a smart guy because, you know, this next generation is going to blow me out of the water, right?
	Right. So your value is not you make more than the average.
	Because if you say, if you suddenly find, like I did, that taking a 75% pay cut is the way to go, then you make less than the average, right?
	Right. And what happens to your value then, right?
	Right. If you say, well, I want to go backpacking like Greg did.
	I want to go tour the capitals, right?
	Well, then the income's not there, so where's your value, right?
	It has to be relative to your values and your goal.
	So that's very self-contained.
	Right. Yeah, it has to be, right?
	And the reason I'm hammering this point is that this is, you know, this How to Achieve Freedom book, I'm trying to put nothing in there that is reliant on anyone else accepting anything you say.
	I'm looking forward to that.
	Yeah, I think it'll be helpful.
	Yeah, so when I went earlier, when I mentioned wanting to write something about anarchy and then realizing you had already written everything, I could possibly say I was comparing there too.
	Yeah, you don't know how you're going to help people yet, and you're not even sure whether helping people is your goal, and it doesn't have to be, right?
	You need a goal that engages all of you.
	That is not comparator to someone else.
	That is not give you value in the eyes of others, right?
	This is authenticity, right?
	This is the meaning of life stuff that I was talking about.
	You need something that...
	It's going to engage as much of you.
	It's going to be challenging but not overwhelming.
	It's going to be something that you can sustain.
	It's going to light you up.
	It's going to make you enthusiastic.
	I don't know what that is.
	It could be Aztec architecture in popsicle sticks.
	I have no idea, right?
	But we know one thing for sure, that 20 years of you pushing at this boat hasn't got it out of dry dock, right?
	So you need to stop pushing and you need to start listening.
	Because you can't get this boat out of dry dock on your own.
	It takes a team. And you might not even be in charge of that team for a while, right?
	You might be lucky to be some guy pushing at the barnacle-encrusted hull down there in the bilge pump area, right?
	But that's still better than you just pushing – well, you steering and not getting out a dry dock at all.
	This is tough stuff.
	Yeah, it is tough stuff.
	There's always another level to this philosophy thing.
	Yes, there is. There is.
	But it's all the same principles, right?
	It's just another level that is really, really...
	I mean, I want you to be happy and I don't want you to be frittering around doing stuff and bullying yourself and being pleased and then displeased with yourself.
	I mean, I want you to have...
	The kind of life that gives you the kind of self-love and self-respect that will innately teach someone else how to love and respect you and get you the partnership that you deserve in life when you have that.
	That's another perfect quote.
	You know, it's like the guy who writes a 10,000-line poem.
	At least one of those lines is going to be good, and in a 90-minute call, I hope to at least come up with one decent line.
	Well, yeah, you've come up with several, actually.
	I just haven't pointed them out every single time.
	I don't want to go overboard because there's a huge amount of stuff to process, but was this helpful, useful?
	Is this what you were looking for in terms of...
	Quite so. Oh, good, good.
	Very enlightening.
	What about your conversation with me?
	Oh, it's great.
	I mean, your acceleration past the baffle gap that you had earlier in our conversations, you accelerate past that stuff fantastically.
	And this was not a conversation that was going to be particularly connecty emotionally, because this is a lot of abstract stuff, which I think is necessary.
	But I thought that you were in touch with your feelings.
	You were responsive.
	You laughed in a way that I've never heard you laugh before, which was just truly delightful.
	Like you had a really delicious giggle in that call.
	And I hope when you listen to it, you'll hear it.
	That was just a wonderful thing to hear.
	So I had a really good time.
	I've Thanks.
	Thanks a ton.
	For another great call.
	All right, man. Well, I'll send you a copy of this and let me know what you think.
	Oh, no. Go ahead and put it in the stream if you want or whatever you want to do with it.
	Podcasts in the stream. That is what we are.
	Okay. Have a good night after that song.
	All right. All right.

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