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Oct. 16, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:12:27
1483 Life Goals - A Conversation

What to reach for when you're falling...

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I had applied for a scholarship through the state to go back to school.
Apparently, people with histories of mental illness, they're able to gain assistance, monetary assistance from the state.
For vocational rehabilitation and in order to do that, some people go to school.
I've been accepted by this program.
I will get like a four year scholarship or anything that student aid doesn't cover.
So I'm trying to figure out exactly what I want to go to school for.
Right, right.
Yeah, I've just been mulling over a few ideas and the closer my deadline gets to making my decision, the more ideas keep reiterating.
I mean, just kind of inundating me and getting overwhelmed.
I don't really know what to do.
Alright. And so you can study just about anything that you want?
Yeah. Yay!
Option paralysis. It's lovely.
I have so many choices. I don't know what to do.
It's sort of like trying to look at a kaleidoscope through the eyes of a fly.
What do I focus on? I do not know.
Right. No, I think I understand.
But how long have you got and how long have you been putting it off?
I met with my counselor about two weeks ago and that's when all my test results were in and she said just take some time and decide what you want to do because we had narrowed it down to like three or four things that Which are pretty, pretty different.
I could figure out a way to, like, compile, like, to kind of blend them all, probably post-graduation, but I couldn't possibly study all of them.
Okay, so you can study, and you said you got it down to, was it three or four options?
Yeah. Yes.
And... Yeah, I'd love to hear what they are, if that's alright with you.
Sure, yeah. Well, the first one was dog training, because they'll also send me to the vocational technical school.
Now, do you want me to mention the emotions that I get based on your way of saying dog training?
Yes, please.
Okay, didn't sound too enthusiastic to me, but...
Right. Well, I'll go down the list and you'll probably hear more enthusiasm in probably one of these choices.
Right. So there's dog training.
There was photography.
I'm sorry, what was that? Photography.
Photography, all right. Advertising and then going to school for performing arts.
And those are all pretty different.
I don't know what career I could get out of going to school for performing arts, but that is my most passionate area of study.
It's one that I have most experience in and one that I just don't think that I want to live my life without at least revisiting.
Right, right. But it's, yeah, I mean, yeah.
Yeah, you could go to performing arts and then 20 years later start a podcast.
Anyway, but we're looking for something a little bit more immediate because that may not be the best or most sensible approach for sure.
All right. So dog training, photography, advertising, and performing arts.
There's nothing that I missed, right?
Right, that's pretty much it.
Right, right. Right, okay.
Now... Do you want to talk or do you want me to talk?
Do you want me to ask questions? What's the best thing for you?
There are a couple things that I wanted to share, like the history behind my experience with school in general, which I think that has something to do with my reservation and just kind of going balls to the wall with this thing.
I don't know exactly where it will all lie, the stress and the anxiety all lies, but probably the fact that I attended so many schools in my elementary and high school years and my mother tried to prevent me from graduating the year I was supposed to graduate.
So I think I have all these ghosts And all this, like, metaphorical stuff still around when I think of success and when I think of studying and when I think of my relationships with students and stuff.
And it probably doesn't all seem like it will...
It probably all doesn't sound like all these things connect, like, in an obvious way.
But... And then the fact that I've really, like, focused in...
In maintaining my independence and finding a financial security, it almost seems like I'm cutting myself short by allowing these things to permeate into my conscience, like into my present, if that makes any sense.
So I guess that's all I have to say about that.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I just missed that last bit.
You were saying that if you allow this to permeate, you're selling yourself short if you allow this to permeate into your consciousness.
Could you just remind me what this is?
I'm sorry, I just missed that part.
Sure. I think there are things I believed in, like I had core values around school that I think still exist within me that I don't necessarily, I don't think they're part of who I,
like I don't think that they're Organic, for me, they are things I've learned about myself from my parents, such as I don't deserve the time and energy around going to school.
The other core value is I don't deserve the investment around the equipment that I will need in order to become a dog trainer or become a photographer or And it even goes into little activities like hiking or something.
Like the money around it.
And it's interesting that I petitioned the state to help me do this.
And I felt confident about that because one thing I remember was that my mom always made me feel like I was dependent on the state.
And at this point in my life, it's almost like I'm making the state pay me back for how I endured.
They set her up, basically.
I'm okay with that.
I'm just a little nervous that I'll mess it up, that I'm going to fail.
You're going to fail, so you're going to go into these courses and then you're going to fail in some way, right?
Right. Now, but, sorry, and I want to make sure that I sort of get on the receiving end of everything that you wanted to say.
Is there more that you wanted to say before I start doing my Ramble Tension Spittlefest, or should I go ahead?
I do want to say that I attempted to go to school for massage therapy twice, and I failed both times.
And what does failed mean there?
Failed, failed, immediately failed means to me like I didn't do my best.
I didn't overcome struggles and challenges.
I wasn't prestigious enough.
I wasn't smart enough.
I didn't apply myself enough.
I know I'm smart enough, but I just didn't apply myself enough.
I let emotional things take over me.
Sorry, do you regret that?
Do you wish that you were a massage therapist now?
I don't wish I were.
I'm a self-therapist now, so I don't regret it, no.
So it's not really a failure if you stop doing something you don't want to do, right?
That's true. No, I mean, that's an important point, right?
I think it is, yeah.
Sometimes... Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead.
Well, I think I would have been, at this point, I may have been just searching for another strategy about careers anyway, at this point.
Even if I had made some money as a massage therapist, I definitely was not in a good place to be around bodies, because I had a lot of body issues to handle, and that's why I did not succeed.
But the second time, I feel it was a little less about body issues, but it was more so about sacrificing myself Within my marriage, because that was when my ex was sick, and I had pleaded to go back to school.
You know, I basically felt like I begged for some kind of support, that I follow my quote-unquote dream.
And halfway through, he told me that it was unrealistic that I continue going, and I just I didn't go anymore, and I actually landed in hospital again for depression and thoughts of suicide.
Right, right.
But it wasn't about the massage school itself at all, I don't think.
I think that was just another dichotomy I needed to create in order to feel victimized.
Right. I didn't get a lot of attention in my marriage unless I was being victimized or sacrificed in some way.
And even then, that's not really attention, right?
No, no.
I don't really know what to call it other than just symptomatic.
Stalking? I don't know either, but it's not exactly the same as attention, right?
Right. Would you care to distinguish the difference for me?
I would, but not just now.
Maybe if we have time at the end, remind me.
But I want to keep focusing on this thing, which is more pressing, which is your question about life goals.
Because this is going to be a pretty big investment.
And you don't want to fail again, obviously.
And so... So I think it's important.
Now, obviously, I'm not an expert on life goals.
I mean, good heavens, I run a podcast, right?
But I do have some methodologies which I found sort of useful in big picture stuff, which, you know, just as my normal disclaimer as a rank amateur might be of some help to you.
And I think that the main thing that I want to communicate to you is a very deep sympathy, first and foremost.
And I can...
I can tell you a little bit about that if you like.
Yes, please.
Thank you.
When, I mean, you came from a severely dysfunctional background as far as what you have communicated to me.
When we arrive in adulthood, when we come from these kinds of backgrounds, and we are in a sense in competition with people who come from far more functional backgrounds, It's hard not to feel retarded.
I mean, is that an unfair statement?
It's hard not to feel like you're just kind of, everyone's sprinting around and you're kind of dragging yourself along the tarmac by your teeth or something, right?
Right. Exactly.
I definitely, yeah.
When I was like five, I remember my first thoughts of comparing my crayon collection to other Yes,
absolutely.
The consciousness does not yet exist in the world for people to look at the walking wounded who come from difficult childhoods with a lot of compassion and sympathy.
It's a very broad statement.
It's not true for all people in all situations.
It's something that I have found to be true, and most of the people that I've talked to, and I'm not really able to think of many exceptions, if any, have found that to be the case as well.
When we stumble out of these black, ugly caves of traumatic childhoods into adulthood, we feel crippled, but we feel like we can't say that we're crippled, and we feel like no one can see that we're crippled.
So we kind of have to lurch around and fake it, which makes us feel embarrassed and ridiculous and ungainly.
And again, this is just my thoughts on it.
I just want to make sure that it's actually sort of fitting with your experience.
Oh, yeah. Well, I definitely find it fitting.
I've felt that way in job interviews.
I've felt that way before in circumstances where my judgment is called upon.
And, you know, right away there are comparisons being made to others who seem like they have their shit together.
And I've even, yeah, I do find that fitting.
Right, and of course the people who did grow up in more healthy environments, you'd think that they would have more sympathy, right?
I don't think that I'm just naturally stronger and healthier than some starving kid in India.
I'm just bloody lucky that I happened to be born in the West, right?
I'm not superior, I'm just lucky.
And that's of course something that I've been hammering for months, if not years.
We just generally need to, as a society and as a culture, recognize the difference between luck and virtue.
And most people will try to reverse the two and they'll say, I'm better or I'm worth more, I'm valuable or I'm good because I was lucky.
And other people will say that I'm bad because I was unlucky.
You see the difference? We are good because we are good and we are lucky or unlucky because of the mere accidents of birth and parenting and environment and so on.
But people who have been lucky want very often to feel that they're just better.
And people who are unlucky have the opposite tendency.
We think of ourselves as bad, like we somehow did choose our family environments and therefore we made bad decisions Even before we were born, you know, even before we were conceived in some bizarre platonic manner, right?
Right. It makes absolutely no sense.
Right, right.
So, I sort of wanted to just...
The reason that I want to start with sympathy is that, and of course, when I can wedge my daughter into the conversation in any way, shape, or form, I will absolutely do so.
So, I'm going to mention Isabella and tell you what...
What I think is really, really important.
To give you a sense of what you may have missed or some aspects of which you may have missed or been denied or had robbed or withdrawn from you as a child.
You know, she expressed preferences even in the womb.
Right? I mean, before Isabella was born, she would move when I spoke.
I mean, obviously she would move away because I didn't stop speaking.
But no, she would respond and she responded to To my voice soon after she was born.
You stick your tongue out at a newborn and they stick their tongue back.
And that's a completely bizarre thing because they've never seen a tongue before.
How do they know what a tongue is?
Like it's mind-blowing, right?
So we have choices even before we're born, right?
And it's very clear to me, at least, That it's very continuous, that process of having preferences, right?
So, I mean, and I won't bore y'all with the stories again, but, you know, Isabella has had, you know, from within a couple of days of being old, she had preferences, things she liked, things that she didn't like, things she preferred, and blah, blah, blah, right?
And that is something that Is only growing now.
Now she likes to play with the vents.
And she likes to, unfortunately, like all kids, I guess, wants to play with plugs.
She's obsessed with belts.
You give her a belt, she's good to go for like 20 minutes.
Just whipping it around and...
Not whipping it, but turning it over and chewing on it and so on.
She just loves that stuff.
And I don't know why. It's completely bizarre.
Things that... You don't even do to try and make her laugh will absolutely make her laugh.
And then things you try to make her laugh with, she'll be like, whatever, right?
So, as a parent, it's an absolutely fascinating thing to see this development of preference, right?
And she has, of course, preferences with food.
She doesn't have preferences with clothing yet, because I don't think she's figured that stuff out, but I'm sure that will come, right?
So, she has...
These extraordinarily strong and deep preferences, what she likes and what she doesn't.
Even particular ways that she likes to be held.
She has different preferences between my wife and myself.
I think you get the general idea.
Even before birth, we have these amazingly deep preferences.
And that only continues as we get older, right?
Right. I think part of my exploration in what my preferences are, part of that has been to kind of open up my memories of my earliest preferences.
I remember telling my mom I wanted to be an artist when I was, like, five.
And I do remember not having any kind of interest come from her about that.
My preference was always to...
Well, my preference when I was alone was to kind of, like, look at things and kind of, like, just analyze things.
That is the only thing I remember knowing about myself, my earliest self, was deep thinking and analyzing things.
But I'll look at videos of when I was a child, and I don't see anything that resembles the kind of freedom that you allow Isabella to have in expressing those preferences.
Yeah, in fact, it would be quite tragic.
If she did not have these preferences, it would be quite depressing, right?
Right. Yeah.
Sorry. Sorry, just one technical thing there.
So, and this is Isabella at nine and a half months old, right?
And she already has really strong preferences, and she's fierce with her preferences.
If I'm changing her and she wants to get up, she'll just get up.
Like, she'll just turn and twist and, I mean, obviously, I don't want to physically restrain her, right?
I mean, if she's going to plunge off the change table, I do.
But she's very strong in her preferences.
She's very strong, right?
And very strong-willed in her preferences.
And that, to me, is a beautiful thing to see.
And it is an absolutely heartbreaking thing to see.
For me, right? It's bittersweet, which I guess is the ambivalence of accelerating parenting from like the Middle Ages to the 25th century, which is kind of what I'm trying to do from my own history to her future.
It's really heartbreaking because I see what was just smashed up in myself.
What was just hit with a bulldozer and a meteor and a nuclear bomb and just smashed atoms in myself.
That's That's very powerful because that's a living example.
What you do with Isabella, I know from personal experience, is an example that has helped me tremendously in dealing with my inner child and making the switch from the self-loathing to the self-compassion, which has It brought me years away from depression.
It's very powerful to witness and I can't imagine what it would be to experience.
Right, right.
So I just want to really reinforce that we are born with these very strong preferences and very strong-willed preferences.
She's not aggressive at all.
She is not aggressive at all, but she's immensely strong-willed and assertive.
And I think that's natural.
I mean, I think that's how we all are.
Sure, isn't that what creates such a struggle?
In parents, it's like they get so angry and they take things so personally because of the The inner strength, because of the raw, natural strength that we're supposed to have that exists in babies.
Right, right, right.
And it is, again, it is a beautiful thing to see.
I would be heartbroken if she didn't have that.
But at the same time, I mean, it's really sad to see.
Because, I mean, for obvious reasons.
So when you are, at the age that you are, looking at How to make a choice?
How to have a preference?
I mean, I think it's really, really important just to have sympathy with yourself, right?
Because you haven't expressed much sympathy for yourself in this call, and that's what I was listening for at the beginning.
And that's what I'm here to try and remind you of.
It's like you were suddenly dropped in China, you know, wearing a potato sack, and you don't know how to speak Chinese, and you're saying, man, I must be stupid, because everyone here seems to know how to speak Chinese perfectly, right? But you weren't taught that.
And in fact, the metaphor is not great, because you have to work to learn Chinese, but we're born with these naturally very strong preferences.
And they're benevolent preferences.
I mean, she gets frustrated if she doesn't get what she wants, if I can't give her what she wants.
But she doesn't get angry.
She doesn't hit me or anything. She doesn't throw things at me, right?
She's just upset.
And that's perfectly fine.
And that's perfectly valid. That's perfectly reasonable.
I accept that she's upset.
I don't, you know, I say, I'm sorry, but I can't do it right now.
We're driving. I have to wait till we get home or whatever, right?
Okay. I think I understand the importance of having the sympathy because I couldn't come to the desire to have a better life if I didn't have sympathy for who I am naturally.
Because who I am naturally, I do have preferences and I need the financial stability in order to live my preferences.
It's just kind of a catch-22 because I need to be secure in my preferences.
In order to gain that financial stability and to have confidence in what I choose.
My confidence is the problem at this point.
Right, but I think that your confidence needs to be supported by recognizing that your preference is, if I understand your history correctly, and correct me if I go astray at all, Your preferences were actively opposed as a child.
So you have to be taught Chinese, but willpower and preferences, strong assertive preferences, we're born with.
They have to be actively opposed and in many ways attacked in order for us to end up adrift in adulthood.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely. Yes, my preferences were definitely attacked.
All my life. By a very young age, I had taken on my mother's preferences and I had actively expressed them, such as I had the option to live with my father when I was quite young, but I was adamant in the decision to stay with my mother.
And I know that she was the one that reiterated that idea in my brain constantly because it was at my mother's house where I was being physically abused.
Right. And again, I just want to rewind that briefly just to remind you of the need for sympathy.
If I remember rightly, you said, I took on my mother's preferences.
But I would not say that that would be an accurate description of that.
Because that sounds voluntaristic, you know?
True, true.
I don't know the best way to put that, probably.
I knew that my only means of survival were to just go along with what my mother wanted me to do.
Yeah, I mean, the answer is that you, I mean, and I don't know, the answer for me was that I just got attacked for preferences which were inconvenient to others.
Exactly, exactly.
Financially, everything.
When I was about to exit high school, my preference was to get the heck away from my mom.
It wasn't about school.
It wasn't about anything.
Because my opposition at the time was her fighting the dean of my school to keep me there for another year.
Just to keep me there.
She was going to get some kind of monetary compensation as a survivor benefit because my father had died as long as I was in school.
So I just didn't have, you know, my preference was independence at that point, and that's where I'm stuck.
Like, the idea of not being confined to any one situation and just having emancipation Doing things on my terms are things I'm just constantly...
I'm just really serious about that.
I don't know.
I feel like I'm getting lost right now.
No, I mean, I think you're bang on target.
But I think that no one can tell you what it is you should be doing with your life, fundamentally.
I mean, I think that As an annoying moralist, I might have things to say, like, not to do with your life, like, you know, strangle kittens or whatever, but I don't think you're in any danger of that, right?
But no one can tell you what to do, and that's why this call is not about, here's why I think you should be a photographer, because what the hell do I know, right?
I mean, that would be meaningless, right?
But my concern is that it's always so important to just remind yourself of the reasons why you have difficulties with certain things, because otherwise you're just going to feel Broken in the wrong way, right?
Sure. Because if you don't notice that you've sprained your ankle, then you're just going to think you're lazy for running slower, right?
Or running in a circle or whatever, right?
Right. So it is really around having an appropriate and, I think, self-sympathetic approach to understanding the effects of your history on your current capacity to make decisions.
I still find it sometimes Scary to be assertive, right?
I've been working on this shit, Christ, longer than you've been alive, I think, right?
So it's still, it can be scary, even after working out for a long time, to be assertive, to make decisions that are in conflict with other people, right?
So my suggestion is, you know, given, you know, your youth and given your, you know, your recent marriage and your family history and so on, I think that it should be perfectly...
Understandable that it is not a muscle that you have very well developed to choose what it is that you want to do with your life because that muscle was opposed and attacked and atrophied, right?
It's a survival mechanism, right?
Right. I'm sorry, that really hit me.
Definitely. It's like an atrophied muscle.
Yeah, it is. It really is.
You're not allowed to move it.
You're not allowed to lift it. You're not allowed to work out.
The weird thing is that you have to build up a muscle to make it strong.
But we're born like titans, like gods.
We're born incredibly strong.
And then it has to get slowly atrophied and weakened over time.
But tell me what you mean.
Well, I was watching Kill Bill last night.
And... I just keep playing the part in my brain when she's in the car after getting out of the hospital, after escaping the hospital, killing the people who raped her while she was in a coma.
And she's in the car.
She's trying to make her atrophied legs work for her.
So she's in a wheelchair.
She gets in the car. She's staring at her toes and she starts meditating on moving and wiggling her big toe.
And it takes her about 14 hours to make two of her feet.
Her legs, her feet, everything must work.
Miraculously. And I haven't seen the film, but it's angry willpower that does it, right?
Yeah. Yeah, because it's a Tarantino film, so it's not about gentleness and introspection and self-understanding and care and self-love and tenderness and inner child.
It's all about just getting angry at your toe until it moves, right?
Right. She thinks about her trainer.
She thinks about the agony she went through with her trainer.
She was tortured into becoming a ninja warrior.
When I didn't have sympathy on my life, I felt like I should have that kind of willpower.
No, I don't.
It's just kind of a That expectation is kind of just like an echo.
It's still there, but in a very faint way.
I don't expect myself to do the things that I used to expect myself to.
I think by becoming an organ donor for somebody who treated me so terribly, I think that's a perfect example of the lack of compassion and sympathy I have for myself.
And I think that's the kind of negative willpower that I summoned.
It's like getting blood from a stone.
I get sad when I think about that kind of pressure that I put on myself.
You mean to have that kind of willpower?
Yeah. I don't think it comes from a very healthy place, and I think you can run on empty pretty easily.
Yeah, it is my belief that it does not come from a very healthy place, but it comes from a perfectly understandable place, right?
Because in your childhood, when people got things done, they used angry, dominant willpower, right?
Right, like white knuckling it.
Yeah, like you yell at your toe to make it move, and you yell at your child to get what you want.
Right. And if you don't have that in you, and I think it's a wonderfully beautiful thing that you don't have that in you, right?
If you don't have that in you, then it's a sword that you can't use, thank heavens, and you have to find something else, right?
Something other than angry willpower has to be the motive force of your life.
That's an amazing statement, really, because I wonder what that will be for me.
I don't really know what that will be for me.
I tried to tell you. Is it going to be the sympathy?
Is that what it's going to be?
It's self-sympathy. It's self-compassion.
Yeah. Right.
We don't get to, you know, we who have this weird fucked up sensitivity, whatever you want to call it, right?
We don't have it in us to yell at people and bully them and intimidate them to get what we want.
That's fair to say, right?
And so since that's not what we're going to do to get what we want, we have to find something else.
Thank you.
And there are lots of other ways to get what you want in life other than yelling at people or bullying them, right?
You can be sexy to get what you want.
You can Sorry?
That never really got me anything good.
No, look, I didn't say it was a good way.
I'm just saying it was a way, right?
There is a way. I mean, there's lots of options.
You can become rich, right?
There are many options. You can play the pity card, right?
You can be the minister of gloom and doom from the kingdom of woe is me, and you can make everybody feel sorry for you, and then they will.
Give you what you want, right?
You can manipulate six different ways from Sunday.
You can bully, you can frighten, you can buy people, you can set them up, you can buy a great car, whatever it is.
There's lots of different ways.
I think they all suck, but they are ways to get things done, right?
To get what you want.
Those are all ways that I think I just survived using all of those tactics.
Um...
But see, I don't want to survive anymore.
I want to live. I want to have an enriched life.
I really do. I'm sorry to cut you off, but by achieving things based on my...
Not that I'm a Not that I'm a saint, but that I have capability, I have skill, I have credibility.
Like, one of my favorite ideas is thinking of myself as a public speaker about things that I could be compassionate about.
And along with that, I've kind of brainstormed what's around that.
Around that is credibility, enthusiasm, compassion for those who don't know something, the ability to express New ideas, you know, because I have evidence that they work, whatever it be, you know, based on psychology or based on technical skills, like technical things or anything like that.
I don't want to be, I mean, when I was speaking about performing arts, those are like Things that I gained immediate gratification from.
When I'm on stage, I feel loved.
Sure. I feel validated.
I really do feel validated.
Yeah. I just want to be credible, and I want to have an education behind it.
I don't want to be that...
I identified myself with one of my first characters that I played.
I was the Artful Dodger.
I was just always like, yeah, I am the Artful Dodger.
I can do anything with nothing.
I can't live like that anymore.
I don't know if this goes on.
Thank you. I really appreciate that, and I think I really get what you're saying.
So let me bounce something back at you and see if it makes sense.
I haven't seen Kill Bill, and I don't know if this happens in this film, but in so many films and so many TV shows or whatever, there's this scene, right, where the hero or the heroine is totally cornered, right?
Everyone's closing in, they're in an alley, and they're just, they're screwed, right?
They're toast, right?
And then something happens.
You know, they pull out something, or some trap door opens, or some ninjas come from the sky and snatch them away, and they get away in some really clever way, right?
You think they're never going to make it, and then they just pull something out of a hat and they make it, right?
The more unexpected and clever it is, the better you write.
Well, I'll tell you my silly particular personal theory of what is called authenticity, because I think that's what you're talking about.
I don't want to manipulate people.
I don't want to play them. I don't want to be loved for talent or beauty or ability or money.
I want to be loved for who I am.
I want to be authentic To who I am.
Not dominated by the past, not plowed under the wet earth of conformity.
I want to be actually who I am.
And my experience and my theory about what authenticity is, is authenticity is the trap door that opens up right under your feet when you are completely cornered, beaten down and screwed.
When you just can't find any other way to be that you have been taught how to be, when you can't swallow a single pill out of the entire array of medicine that has been spread out in front of you your whole life, you simply can't swallow one of those jagged little pills anymore you simply can't swallow one of those jagged little pills anymore and you don't know how you're going to live and you don't know how you're going to you kind of throw yourself off a cliff and you fall into who you actually are.
And you only throw yourself off a cliff because you're completely cornered, like the end of Thelma and Louise or whatever, right?
Like, you just...
It is...
The authenticity, individuation, are the ninjas that rappel down from the sky and yank you away from all that is cornering you.
And you don't know that they're coming, right?
And the reason that I'm saying this is that when you say at the beginning of the conversation, dog training, photography, and advertising, and performing arts, right?
Which you seem to have discounted, which, you know, I'm going to just sort of go with that.
I did not see a flow out of the things that I believe or I've experienced you being interested in to any of these things, right?
And I'll tell you what made me do the FDR thing or whatever, do the philosophy thing.
It wasn't so much for me, what do I want to do with my life?
And that's a bit of a misleading question for me.
That's a question that's never been that helpful to me.
So for me the question, what do I want to do with my life, was never helpful to me.
For me, the most helpful question was, what do I want to provide to the world?
What do I want to give to the world?
Right? And if you want to give to the world beautiful photographs, then I would say, be a photographer.
And if you want to give to the world happy and well-trained and obedient and helpful dogs, then be a dog trainer.
And if what you want to give to the world is funny and clever and amusing advertisements, then be an advertiser.
And if what you want to give to the world is the escapism and joy of comedic or tragic performances, then be an artist, right?
But what do I want to do with my life is to me it was...
Too much on the selfish side.
For me, it was much more about what do I want to give the world?
And it made it easier for me with Free Domain Radio because I said to myself, do I want to really give the world another software package?
Right? Do I want to give the world another presentation of buy the software?
Do I want to give the world another technical white paper about how great the software package is?
Do I want to give the world another analysis of all the competitors in the market and how this product stacks up against them?
And don't get me wrong, for years I did want to give that to the world.
I was thrilled to be able to do that.
I was thrilled to get the opportunity to do that.
And then I wasn't.
You know, there's these Disney films where the heroine, you know, she's walking through the woods or she's singing and dancing through the woods, right?
And there's these sunbeams and these birds all flying around her hair.
And after her footsteps bloom up these beautiful flowers, you know?
I don't even know which movie it is.
Probably all of them, right?
Like, all the movies, there are no parents, right?
And... For me, it's like, what are the flowers that I want to leave behind?
As I walk through the world, what are the flowers that I want to leave behind?
I mean, A, that's totally gay for me to say, but I think you understand where it is that I'm coming from.
If you can imagine me as a Disney heroine with...
Anyway, but... And I would do, obviously, more pirouettes than your average Disney heroine would, and there would be even gator birds flying around me.
I don't know. What are gay birds?
Bluebells? I don't know. Bluebirds.
Anyway. But it is...
You could wear your blonde wig, at least.
No, I think I would be much more striking as the cue ball head that I am.
I think that would be quite the Disney heroine.
Yeah. But I think that's really important.
What kind of trail do I want to leave behind in the world from my day?
Yeah, that's interesting.
Right, so if you, and again, nobody can tell you what you want to do with your life, but if you love truth and authenticity and depth and self-knowledge and so on, why not be a counselor?
Why not be a therapist? I mean, I don't know, right?
But if that's the stuff that you love in yourself, And the other thing, too, that I think has been very helpful in terms of life goals, which has always been the most successful way to approach it for me, is, you know, is there a way to get paid for doing what I do for free?
Is there a way to get paid for doing what I do for free?
Why did it go into software eventually?
Because when I got my very first job, I guess more, not my first job, but my first job that had any kind of steady income, I bought a computer.
Right? I could have bought a car.
That's how expensive computers were back then.
Not a very good car, but I could have bought a car.
And I programmed night and day and loved it and so on.
So I did all of that.
I used to go on Saturdays to the computer lab and just program all day.
And with the other kids we'd share tips and all this and that.
I loved it. So I did that for free for years.
Could I find a way to get paid?
Eventually I did, right? Obviously, free domain radio was a massive, all-consuming hobby for quite some time before I even thought about charging anyone, right?
Or it was suggested, I think someone suggested, oh, I'd like to donate or whatever, right?
And it's like, really? Really?
Right, so, you know, whatever it is that you're doing for free, and I had a director who, you know, she liked my acting, right?
But she also knew that I was a writer.
And I was, at this time, I was sort of I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
I came off two fairly successful acting gigs.
One is playing the lead in Macbeth, the other playing the doctor in The Elephant Man.
And I was like, I like to write, I like to act, I like to write, I like to act.
And she said to me something very smart.
She said, well, when you go home and you have spare time, what do you do?
I said, well, I write. And she said, do you practice your accents?
Do you pick up scene studies?
Do you get other actors together to read plays, to figure out new stuff?
I said, oh no, I write.
And she says, well, That's important, right?
What do you do when you have some free time?
And is there any kind of way to translate that into a profession?
Now, if you love taking photographs, you love taking photographs and the idea of leaving beautiful photographs in the world as your legacy, then hey, be a photographer, right?
If you You know, turn on the advertising channel or, you know, you go to YouTube and look up the world's funniest commercials and you're just completely delighted at telling, you know, inventive and witty tales in 20 or 30 seconds, be an advertiser, right?
If you love dogs, you understand, right?
Yeah, I do.
So, tell me what you're feeling. I think...
Oh, man, I'm sorry.
Oh no, no, feelings. You absolutely have to apologize for feelings at Free Domain Radio.
This may be the one part I don't cry, but sorry.
What I really, what I think about constantly is how far I've come because of the work that you've introduced to me.
And the only thing that I really want to leave behind is It's like my story is sharing the story of how I was able to gain my independence.
I don't know if that would mean anything to anybody or if I could make money on it, but that's what I think about all the times.
You want to help people.
Yeah. Right.
And you can do that in the performing arts, right?
You can do that in interpretive dance, as I have often done, though never published the videos.
There's lots of what you can do by being a therapist, you can do it by being a writer, by being a performer, by...
I mean, lots of different ways. You can even do it probably by being a photographer, right?
Right. I mean, if you were...
I mean, this is not something that...
This is just something off the top of my head, but, you know, we see photographic exhibits of some truly terrible stuff, you know, like murderers and genocides and so on.
You can see these photographic exhibits with these terrible pictures.
I've always thought it would be a fascinating project and I think a hugely enlightening project to take a camera around a mall or a parking lot for a couple of days and just take pictures of people yelling at their kids, if they are, or, you know, snapping at their kids or whatever,
right? Because... I think that's telling a lot more about the human condition because when you photograph the murders at the end of it, and again, I'm not saying it's a direct causal correlation from just snapping at your kids or whatever, but people are fascinated by the violence at the end of it, but it's much more important to talk about the harshness that's at the beginning of it all, right, of that kind of problem, right?
That to me would be, I would be fascinated to see that photographic exhibit, but you won't see it because it's still not something as a society that we're very good or prepared at looking at, right?
Right. So, wow.
Yeah. Wow.
That would be something that being able to present that to the public would entail using something that I use, like, primarily to make my money with, have a career with, and then since it's not exactly a very popular topic, It would have to be something I do on an independent level.
I agree. Just like FDR, I was very independent until you were able to get some backing for it, and then you left your career with your energy going into FDR. Right.
And what I mean by that, and this was obviously just an idea off the top of my head, what I mean by that is that there's ways of being able to tell this story in a powerful way without necessarily, I mean, through that, right?
Through doing photography and so on.
So there's lots of different ways that you can...
I'm just thinking about ways you could incorporate tenderness and care for the helpless as a dog trainer.
Well, if you're a dog trainer and you go into a household and you treat the dog with such firmness and gentleness and respect and civility that it melts the child's heart or the parent's heart.
If there's any problems in the family, you could do wonderful work that way as well.
There's so many different ways that you could incorporate it.
It's not so much what you do, it is relative to the impression, the footsteps of flowers that you want to leave behind you in the world.
Once you know that, then I think you're a lot closer.
But if you just say, what do I want to do?
The problem is that you don't know what you want to do because you haven't had that training, right?
Or rather, You've had it actively resisted in you throughout your history.
So it's sort of like yelling into a canyon, right?
The echo might come back, but it's not the same as speaking, right?
But I found it more helpful to look at what impression do I want to leave behind in the world.
What I want to leave behind is I would love to rekindle passion in people for the world and for life in general.
For people who are completely depressed and they don't feel like they can live another day.
I want them to see that it's possible.
When I was speaking with my counselor about doing things like that because we talked about what my intentions are in whatever career I go into and a lot of it was to express myself and to Possibly going to arts therapy.
That was something that we talked about as well.
And the counselor said something like, so many people come in here with addictions and things, and they want to go out and be alcohol counselors, and they want to help addicts.
And there's no point in doing that.
They're just trying to...
He was just wrapped around a concept that people are just trying to Like, do things because they have experience in it or something.
Right. And I asked him, what did he go to school for?
He said he went to school for chemistry, and he's like, now look at me now.
I was like, yeah, you're working for the state.
You're one of those, you're just another asshole.
That's how I felt. Really?
Okay, yeah. So he may not have been helping or listening to you that well, but of course, you know.
That's a tough skill to develop for sure.
But I know that this doesn't help you make a decision about what you want to do in the next week or two.
I mean, I'm fully aware of that.
And of course, maybe there's someone who can help you with that.
I just don't think that would be disrespectful to the individual that you are and the amazing individual that you are, right, who has made the most extraordinary decisions.
Deep and rich progress, at least since I've known you and something to just be magnificently and enormously proud of.
But if you do want to help people, and I think that there is a sweetness that comes out of a particular kind of suffering and a gentleness that comes out of a particular kind of suffering and an outrage that comes out of a particular kind of suffering that is very powerful.
It is very powerful.
And I think that you have that and I think that you could almost do anything with the intent that I think you've expressed of wanting to help people as long as you keep that intent first and foremost in your mind.
I think that you could make a palace out of any house you wander into professionally.
But I think it will help you to make that decision about what it is that you want to do if you focus on taking that power That is so hard won.
It has come out of the ruin of your childhood in many ways.
The power that you have for self-empathy, for growth, for reflection, for compassion, for understanding.
That is a sword that comes out of our own bodies almost.
And if you want to use that sword, so to speak, to do good in the world, Or hug, you know, whatever you want to call it.
To hug the world, to teach people about the beauty of possibility and the escape from the prisons of history and suffering.
If you keep that in your mind, I think you could almost do anything and be a success at it.
But I think that if you don't have that in your mind, I don't think that you will get your whole being behind you, if that makes any sense.
Right.
And I don't think massage therapy would have done that for you.
I don't even know how I feel about massage therapy at this point.
But I don't think it would have given you this possibility.
Because it's non-verbal, right?
I mean, you would have helped people in a way, but...
Again, that's why I don't know that I would characterize it as a failure, right?
Yeah, back then when I was in school, I thought my whole life would change as soon as I stepped foot in the classroom.
Mm-hmm.
I would just fall in line and become a brilliant massage therapist and just change everybody's perspective on how they I've treated their bodies and I didn't even have a good one on myself.
Right. But at this point, I know how I am around animals and I know animals were the first thing that I felt compassion for.
You know, like I had a little dog in the house that I grew up in for a few years where I was brutally abused.
And I identified with this dog so strongly.
And I just found that I found that it's because dogs are abused on a daily basis just like children are.
Yeah. But that also compels me away from becoming a trainer because of the types of Parents, dog parents that I will come in contact with.
The kinds of...
I'm getting kind of sad thinking about this.
Like, I'm getting anxious thinking about how I will want to maintain my authenticity around a profession that I'm going to have to rely on for my livelihood.
And if I'm rejected.
In a world that does not appreciate my authenticity, then I will be poor.
I will remain poor and I will not find the kind of people who appreciate what I'm trying to bring to them.
It's like my worst fear that I'm just going to be stopped on.
My authenticity will be stopped on.
My empathy will be ridiculed.
Right, so if you're brought in to treat a traumatized dog, then you will be in the presence of a kind of someone who has abused an animal or been very harsh to an animal, and that's in a sense a resurrection of your history, right?
Is that what you mean? True, true.
Yeah, and I think that's very wise, yeah.
Right, it lies in the thought of me going to school for psychology as well, because as Lloyd DeMouth experienced, he couldn't He couldn't work on the things that he found worthy of attention.
He was... He left school, right?
Because he couldn't...
Or he left his job or something because he wasn't supported by the board or something.
Yes, sorry.
Let me just correct you on that.
And, you know, this is nothing to do with anything that I know about your jurisdiction, but...
You don't have to get a PhD to practice in the field of psychology.
Some people do, some people don't.
You don't even have to get an undergraduate degree or a master's degree to call yourself a counselor or a life coach.
You can just hang out your shingle and do it.
Again, you want to check with the local psychological association or board, but you don't have to spend You know, 15 years in school and getting, you know, it's not like becoming a doctor.
You can become a counselor or a life coach or something like that.
And again, the terms you need to check with your local jurisdiction.
but you can get into helping people without spending 10 or 15 years in school.
Really?
Yeah, really, absolutely.
And the other thing too is that one of the things that seems to be true, and I say this having read lots of people who've written about their own therapeutic careers, that you won't get abusers coming into your office because that you won't get abusers coming into your office because they don't go for therapy.
Right, that's a really broad statement.
I mean, and of course there are people who were ordered to go into like anger management or whatever, right?
But From my understanding, most people who are abusers don't tend to go into therapy.
Like I've read a lot of reports of therapy.
I don't think I've ever read one where a guy came in who'd, you know, abused his kid for 10 years or whatever and then came into therapy and worked through those issues.
I don't think that I've ever seen or heard of that.
Again, this is just my idiot opinion or amateur opinion, but it's not such a high barrier that it may not be as high a barrier as you think it is.
I think that it would not necessarily expose you to abusers in the way that you might.
Well, that's a very good point.
People who go to therapy aren't usually searching for a better life and recovery, but my mother was somebody who used therapy against me.
It was her ultimate weapon against me.
But did she herself go to a good therapist?
Yes, she went to therapy.
She went to therapy and she used that as her way into everything.
Every time a therapist could pinpoint that she was completely insane, she changed therapists and she would threaten them with a restraining order.
Right. And I would guess that if you did end up wanting to go into the therapeutic profession and you didn't, I mean, you would be able to spot someone like that over the phone, I bet.
Right. And then, oh, I'm sorry, I'm booked.
Whatever, right? Right.
I'm booked and then make an anonymous phone call.
Or whatever, right?
But there are ways in which you could, you know, take the stuff that you really love around self-knowledge and virtue and so on.
There are ways in which you could end up in that profession, which would not necessitate, if I understand it correctly, would not necessitate having a PhD and which would not expose you to an endless round of, you know, really nasty, ugly people.
Right.
And again, no one can tell you, but I just, if it's something that you've written off, I would say, wouldn't necessarily say that you should, you know, write it off.
But sorry, go ahead. I was thinking if I did go to school for the thing that I want to encompass through my other abilities, whether it be writing about my story or...
The reason I think Dr.
Alice Miller has so much credibility is because she's a doctor.
Her book, the drama, was so small, yet it was really hard-hitting and it was perfect.
And I'm not sure if many people would acknowledge it if she was not a doctor.
What I'm saying is if you have the history of going to school for psychology and having a An obvious understanding for what it's all about.
I think if you publish a book that...
I could see myself publishing a book with photography that I've taken, with my story, with applying knowledge of artistic and therapeutic activities, kind of a life coach type of thing.
That could be something that comes out of me going to school for psychology, rather than going to school to be a dog trainer and then saying, I'm tired of this, I have to write my book that I wanted to write for so long, and then I come out with it, and I'm a dog trainer.
I think what you're doing here is very, very interesting.
I just wanted to point it out.
You probably are aware of it, but just for others who may not have noticed it.
One of the things that when you come out of a very difficult or traumatic childhood, everything is moment to moment, right?
I never thought, what am I doing in six months?
What am I doing next year? I'm like, how am I going to survive the next five minutes?
That was my life.
Sometimes the next five seconds, right?
Absolutely. Right?
So one of the things that, you know, when I was facing this, you know, I think I'm not so suited for software anymore, what I'm going to do with my life, You know, what occurred for me was I wanted to look into the future and say, well, where do I want to be in five or ten years?
In five or ten years, when I'm looking back, what decision will I have wanted to make, right?
We're just not used to doing that, really.
Oh, no, absolutely not.
Right, but you just started to do that and say, well, if I want to write a book in ten years, how would I be best positioned for that, right?
Right. That's very important.
Not being a dog trainer.
Right, so it's not just about how am I going to pay my bills next week, and that's important of course, right?
But it is very important to think from the future back to where you are now, right?
Because, you know, whenever you make decisions in life, they put you in very different places, right?
Down the road. And they open up possibilities and they close off a huge number of possibilities.
Every decision that you make is an almost infinity of things that you're eliminating, right?
So let's say You say, I'm going to be a photographer, right?
Well, everything else but being a photographer is now off the table for quite some time, right?
So, decisions are not about, in a sense, what you want to do.
It's like, I'm not going to do anything else, right?
That's another way of looking at it that I think is important.
And I think looking into the future and say, what I want to achieve with my life as a whole, what kind of flowers do I want to leave in the forest as I traipse through this world?
I think looking at how you're going to best able to achieve that, you can achieve that, you know, as a counselor or therapist or, you know, psychologist or whatever, if you want to go the whole route, you can achieve that without having to write a book, right?
You can achieve that obviously with your patients, right?
Which is a huge and powerful way of helping people, right?
Certainly much more powerful than what I'm doing, right?
Which is just basically a little bit of philosophical review of the sort of empirical possibilities.
But you can do that without writing a book.
If you are a good enough writer, right, and you're passionate enough and you have a topic that works in a particular context, then, I mean, they really...
If the book will sell, they don't really care.
I mean, certainly they'd probably prefer you have a PhD or whatever, but, you know, again, I would really, really focus back just on what is it that you want to take...
Sorry, what do you want other people to take out of their interactions with you?
I mean, I'm always... The Dalai Lama said once, you know, he wakes up and spends six hours before he goes out into the world.
He wakes up and spends six hours going over his intentions, right?
What is it that he wants to achieve?
What does he want people to get out of their interactions with him?
Now, I'm not a monstrous fan of the guy, but I thought that was a very interesting statement.
Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter.
But, you know, before every call, before every Sunday show, I sit there and think, okay, well, you know, who am I talking to?
What's the history? What do I want this person to get out of the conversation with me?
How do I want to leave them at the end of the conversation?
And I sort of try and what do I think might be the hurdles or the logical challenges to overcome?
And I think that those things, when you have the intention of how it is you want people to come away from dealing with you, how you want them to experience you in the world, I think that has a lot of To do with what you end up doing with your life.
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