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Nov. 5, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
51:21
1502 Death by Enthusiasm - A Conversation

Enthusiasm brings out the cross-hairs...

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Well, this is... I just pasted into the Skype chat what I sent to you earlier.
And the feeling that I had after that was I didn't feel the isolation or the sorrow anymore.
But I also did not feel like it was...
I didn't feel resolved or that was right or anything, really.
Right. Like it felt like a short circuit.
Right, right, okay. And I think it's because some of the judgment's in there.
Right. Like, when am I honest, when am I gentle, when am I kind kind of thing?
Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing.
and also I don't like myself.
Yeah, that part too.
Right.
And what are the answers to those questions?
You know, I...
Well, no, I didn't go on to answer those questions.
Well, I think that's important.
And, you know, when you say, when am I honest?
Well, obviously, there are times when you're honest, like all of us.
And there are times when you're consciously dishonest, like all of us.
And then there are times when you're unconsciously dishonest, which is, you know, like all of us, right?
So... So it's not fair to say that you're not honest, right?
But in what area do you feel that you're not living your values?
In most, right?
I mean, obviously we all, you know, don't to some degree or another, but...
Well...
I mean the first thing that comes to mind really with that is I don't know this doesn't sound I was going to say the commitment to self-work.
And that's kind of not quite a value.
I don't know.
Not in the same way of honesty, gentleness, kindness.
And... I did also have The Critic emerge last week, I think. Do you mind if I ask you a more direct question?
Oh, sure. If you don't mind, and I'm certainly happy to hear, but the thought that popped into my mind, which may be useful, may be completely not useful.
The question was this, do you think that you're inspiring other people?
Because your first question, and the reason I'm asking that, James, is that your first question was about yourself, self-work, right?
Which is about you.
And of course, there's nothing wrong with things being about you at all.
But you said that it didn't feel right.
Yeah. Because you've been doing philosophy and psychology and you've been doing therapy for a couple of years now.
Not so much with the therapy.
That's really been on and off.
Right, but I mean, I'm not saying you've been doing therapy for a couple of years, but you've had the experience.
Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, you've listened to a lot of shows, we've had some conversations, you've made some big changes in your life.
Do you, and I have no idea, right, whether you should or shouldn't, but these are just the thoughts that are going through my head, and you can just tell me if they're Full of complete nonsense, of course.
But do you feel that...
Because you said living your values.
And that to me means actions in the world, if that makes any sense.
Do you think that the treasure that you have stored up in yourself through your pursuit of truth, is it available to anybody else that you meet?
In other words, how would people know that you love philosophy?
Right.
It seems to me, and again, you can obviously tell me if I'm full of nonsense, but it seems to me that you kind of hide it.
No, I think that's right.
It's the guilty secret. I'd rather be caught with porn than an FDR podcast.
Or whatever. Something around philosophy or self-knowledge.
I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't.
I understand. I have no particular opinion on the matter.
I think that there is a phase where we gather enough knowledge that we can start to become of real utility and inspiration to others.
And I'm wondering whether that might be where you could be.
Because that's the only way that I know to cure the loneliness.
Because that's really what?
The isolation, right? Right.
If that makes any sense. It does make sense, yeah.
Because if people don't know your greatest values, the things that give you the most joy and the most excitement in life, I assume it's something to do with philosophy or self-knowledge, if people don't know that about you, then they don't know you, right?
So that the feeling of isolation is going to That's why I'm always annoyingly lecturing people to go into the world and inspire people.
It's not to transform the world, though I'm sure that will have some effect on that in the long run.
But it really is around letting your light shine so that people can find you.
Right. And tell me, I mean, I don't want to tell you what your issues are, of course, right?
But these are just the thoughts that I had.
And tell me if they have any resonance to you.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, I really...
I don't go out.
I don't share myself with the world or anybody, really.
Just as a matter of fact, I just...
I haven't...
I've met very few people here, and I haven't kept in contact with anybody, really.
Right, right, right.
As far as loneliness goes, I mean, I haven't seen you, and maybe you have and I've missed it, of course, right?
But I haven't seen you sort of pose on the board and say, you know, here's where I am.
Is there anyone else around, you know, who would like to get together and chat?
I mean, I'm sure there's some people within a reasonable drive who listen to the show, right?
And again, you know, it may not be that that makes anybody compatible, but at least it would be a place to start where there's some values shared in common.
Sure, no, and I've not done that, but I did meet up with one individual who later, I think, disappeared, like from FDR. Disappeared, I was going to say.
That sounds rather ominous. I did meet up with one individual who was never seen again.
No, I hadn't seen him since then.
Right, right. Oh, you mean online or on the board or anything like that?
Yeah, online, on the board or anything, yeah.
Right, and of course, again, just to reiterate, because I really want to be sensitive to your inner critic, right?
I'm not saying that you should or must or, you know, whatever, right?
I'm simply talking about for your own happiness, right?
For your own benefit, right?
Mm-hmm. Right, because in a way, you have inherited a tradition of secrecy, right?
Yeah. Are you talking about your dad keeping secrets?
And, you know, in a sense, if there's things that you love and you don't...
Have them out there in the world at all, you're kind of keeping a secret too, right?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And a secret that actually is probably more positive for people to hear than fistulas in your butt.
You know what I mean? It's actually a positive thing for people to hear.
And not always, right? Sometimes people get mad about it.
And I don't know whether this is something that Is the plan for you, right?
Do you have this as a plan where you're going to come out of the closet for gay people?
Come down from the tower, so to speak, or come out of the ivory tower?
Do you plan to sort of put your heart on your sleeve with regards to your values?
Is that something that you want to do or think you should do or would be useful to do?
I mean, I think it is, but that's just my opinion.
I can't prove that to anyone.
It's just my thought. But is that something that's on your list?
It's something that I would love to do, but I don't have it on a list.
Sorry, I don't mean a list like eggs, milk, coming down from the ivory tower, flashing people my philosophy badge.
No, but I mean, is it on your...
Is it something that you want to get to, right?
Like, you have this thing on your list, I assume, called, you know, maybe I'd like to meet a girl, settle down, get married, whatever, have kids.
You have that. It's on some sort of future plan, right?
Sure, yeah, yeah. I'd like to have friends or, you know, better friends or more friends or closer friends.
You know, you have this on your list.
I'd like to lose some weight. I mean, you have these things on your list.
They're sort of part of your general...
I mean, they may not be, you know, 4 p.m.
tomorrow, but they're on your list of things that you want in life, right?
Yeah. And the degree to which...
I'm sorry, go ahead. I don't mean to keep talking if you've got stuff to say.
I was just going to say that it's definitely ambivalent, you know.
There's a part of me that definitely wants to because keeping secrets is hard work sometimes.
And there's a part of me that really doesn't want to do it.
Go on. Just...
I just entered a bank of fog.
Excellent. That's good.
That's where we want to go to, right?
Something to do with work.
This, this, this.
That I can't do it at work.
At least not. Yeah, and nobody's saying that you have to, right?
Right. I mean, I certainly would not say that...
I mean, there aren't any hefties, right?
But are you conscious of it as a desire and way you can't do it?
Because then, of course, if you are, then you're closer to where you can do it, right?
Right. If that makes any sense.
No, that does make sense.
And I don't think I'm...
I don't think I have any places in my life I can do it.
I mean, in terms of, like, when I get off the computer...
Which is rare. Right, but again, that is something that can be enormously helpful to know, right?
Because then if you say, well, I want to do this thing, I want to do this thing, but I don't have any place where I can do it, right?
Like, if you want to meet a girl or whatever, and you don't have any place where you can meet women, then you're obviously not going to achieve that, right?
And it's not something that says, well, now I have to go do X, Y, and Z. It's just knowing that Based on current trends, I cannot achieve what it is that I want to achieve in this area.
And then what you do is you say, well, do I actually want to achieve it?
And if no, then it's like, okay, fine.
I'm not going to be a ballerina, so I'll sell the 2-2 on eBay.
Or you say, well, I do actually want to achieve this, and therefore I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. Right, right.
Because the last thing that I want you to do, the last thing that I want anyone to do, is to use philosophy as a tool for isolation, as an excuse for solitude.
As a way of shielding or fencing yourself off from other people.
Well, I have this terrible secret called philosophy.
And that which is supposed to bring us together is actually driving people further into the deep well of isolation.
And that's really not...
What philosophy is, I think, supposed to do, but it does do that for some people.
Now I have a new guilty secret that I can't talk to people about.
Right. No, you know, I don't know if that's the case or not with me.
Yeah, I don't know if it's...
I mean, certainly philosophy is a guilty secret, but I don't know if that's, like, the excuse I use, if that makes any sense.
Like... Well, I can't meet anybody who shares my values.
But that doesn't...
I don't know.
That doesn't feel right.
Well, let's ask a simple question, which is going to have a complex answer.
Okay. Your boss comes into your office or your cubicle or your, I don't know, your area, and says...
Hey, you know, we were just reviewing...
I don't know if you do at work or not, but it doesn't matter.
Just let's say you do. But, hey, we were reviewing some logs here, and it looks like you're visiting this free domain radio a couple of times.
And, you know, I checked it out just out of curiosity, and it looks like a philosophy site.
Is that something that you're into?
Mike, what's your feeling when he comes in and says that?
Excited and a little nervous. Go on.
Well, not like my boss now.
Because I just don't think that would happen with him, but it would be – It would be like, awesome I get to talk about it with somebody.
Because... I'm a little nervous, I think, because there's always this question of how far will they go, but at the same time...
Sorry, how far will who go?
The other person, if I start talking about it.
Right. But at the same time, it is exciting.
That would be a really thrilling thing to hear from somebody.
Right. Now, where I am now at work, and this may or may not be relevant, but I used to have the license plate on my car, the FRD main.
Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's not there anymore because I had to get new plates, and it's like $80 in six months to get new plates for this, and it doesn't seem worth it at this point.
I had people asking me what that was.
Mm-hmm. And I said, oh, that's a free domain radio.
That's a philosophy website.
And I'd be like, oh.
And that was it.
Like, no, that's interesting, or tell me more, or anything like that.
Right, and you blame other people for that, to some degree, right?
Huh, gee.
It sounds like it.
Like they just didn't seem interested.
Well, try rolling up your shirt and talking with your belly button.
It's a philosophy, whatever.
Well, let me ask you this.
And is this a productive line of questioning?
I want to make sure that we're doing something useful here.
No, I think it's productive.
I think that there's a...
There's definitely a gotcha there.
I'd like to go on.
How was enthusiasm or an enthusiastic person portrayed in your world when you were growing up or when you were a teenager or in your early 20s?
When you saw somebody who was enthusiastic or portrayed in the media as enthusiastic, how are they portrayed?
As silly or crazy or, you know, not all there, not all the cylinders are firing.
Right. Right.
There is a template in our culture which is very strong and is very powerful around enthusiasm.
That you're a giddy idiot cheerleader.
That you're clueless.
That you are intrusive.
That you are narcissistic.
That you are deranged, in a way.
That you are highly self-involved.
And that you are oblivious to the reactions of other people.
Like, even though they're rolling their eyes and slowly backing away, you are like someone who keeps knocking on the door.
When somebody has said clearly, I don't want your service, you keep knocking on the door.
You're like some stalker Jehovah's Witness who just won't give up, right?
Right, right. That's the template, it seems, and you can see this reinforced all the way from children's cartoons all the way up to Ingmar Bergman films, right?
If you've ever seen The Glass Menagerie, the guy who's enthusiastic is an idiot, and the guy who's cynical Is a genius, right?
Yeah, that's definitely the way it is in most popular cultural shows now, too.
Right, and there is this template of the giddy and enthusiastic, right?
So if you've seen a film called The River Runs Through It, or any other film that has anything to do with World War I, there's always some giddy, enthusiastic young guy who just wants to, you know...
Go and get into war and be a hero.
And he always gets mown down in the most gruesomely spectacular manner.
Whereas the wiser, more cautious, more cynical, more reserved guys are the ones who live, right?
Yeah, there's a character like that in Lethal Weapon.
This young kid cop is not even like 21 or something like that.
Who's enthusiastic, right?
Yeah, who's super enthusiastic about a gun battle and then he goes in and gets shot.
Right, and this is a template that we see over and over again.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that enthusiasm evokes feelings of murderousness in the general culture because these people, they get hit with planks, they get shot, they get drowned.
I mean, the enthusiastic people get spectacularly punished in the media.
Yeah. Enthusiasm equals ridicule, humiliation, craziness, danger, right?
And why do you think that is?
Why do you think that is such a common template that when we feel enthusiastic, we automatically feel imminent danger and ridicule and humiliation and fear?
It goes right back to...
Well, you know, for me anyway, and I imagine this is the case for a lot of people, it just goes back to being enthusiastic as a kid.
Right. Now, when you're enthusiastic as a kid, who does it threaten?
Why would anyone be threatened by a child's enthusiasm?
I mean, I'll tell you this, I mean, Isabella is enthusiastic about breathing.
Literally. She plays with breathing through her teeth.
She plays breathing like going...
You know, she's excited by breathing.
She's excited by air.
She's excited by the wind.
You know, she's excited by airplanes.
She's enthusiastic about everything.
She's freaking incandescent that way.
And I think that's not unusual to her.
I think that's how we're all born.
I mean, every step in her world is like Disneyland to us because it's all so new and exciting.
If we go to a new restaurant, it would be like you and I going to Mars.
We'd be like, ah, I'm so excited because it's a new place.
She's never seen it before. Got different music, different people, different lighting, different food.
She is thrilled about everything.
And she just learned the word egg and knows what it is.
She points and we show her egg and she points.
Even if she sees the egg on the counter, she'll say, egg, egg, right?
She's excited about her word.
The idea of being offended by this is...
I mean, it's...
The more I have experienced the parent, the more incomprehensible my parents and so many parents are to me.
But why would people be upset by this?
Why would it be a threat?
Why would they feel this murderousness towards Enthusiastic people who are always portrayed as oblivious and shrill and...
Huh.
Right. Why would enthusiasm be so dangerous if it just comes from idiots?
Right. And also, why would...
It's only certain types of enthusiasm, right?
So, if you're enthusiastic about your country, you're almost never portrayed as an idiot, right?
Right. If you're patriotic, right?
If you're enthusiastic about your religion...
It's called a person of deep faith, right?
Right. So...
There are certain kinds of enthusiasm that are very popular and other kinds of enthusiasm that are hated and feared.
I mean, if you're enthusiastic about your fucking sports team, Nobody has any problems with that, right?
You don't see movies where sports fans get killed or humiliated or ridiculed, right?
Now, if you're enthusiastic about science, you get your own geeky sitcom called Big Bang Theory, right?
Right. As long as everybody who loves science on that show is a geeky Antisocial weirdo.
Yeah, they're allowed to be rational, but they have to be punished for it, right?
In the same way that house has to be punished for it, in the same way that monk has to be punished for it.
And we see this over and over again, that the people who are rational, who are skeptical, who are empirical, who are scientific, must always be punished, right?
Right.
Why is that?
It feels like it's on the tip of my brain.
I think it's an important question because, I mean, we are enthusiastic and we are terrified, right?
Yeah. And for good reason, right?
There's lots of stuff floating around the atmosphere that is indicating that we are not exactly loved for our enthusiasms, right?
Unless, again, we were enthusiastic about sports teams or wrestling or some shit like that, right?
right right right do you want me to throw a few and see see if it makes any sense Yeah, sure. I'm not really making any progress in my head.
I don't want to stress you out before surgery.
I'm actually feeling pretty good at the moment, so...
Will this be on the test?
Yeah, right. Well, enthusiasm is just a state of mind, and a state of mind can't hurt anyone, right?
It has to be translated into action.
I think the reason that enthusiasm is so dangerous to people is that enthusiasm leads inevitably to persistence.
Oh, yeah.
No, that makes sense. Tell me what you mean.
Oh, tell me what I mean. On the same page here, right?
No, I think so. I just want to check.
No, I think so. It took me a second, but it just means that what I think, and tell me if it means the same thing to you, if I'm enthusiastic, that is going to...
If I'm enthusiastic about philosophy, then when I come in being enthusiastic about philosophy, that doesn't go away.
And it becomes...
Other people continue to see that enthusiasm.
So I think that's what you meant by persistence?
Not quite. Although I think that's a good observation.
I mean, just think, if you're enthusiastic about a video game, what do you do?
Well, you keep playing it, yeah.
Yeah, right?
You keep playing. If you're enthusiastic about learning Chinese, you keep learning Chinese.
Enthusiasm is persistence, right?
Right, so...
Okay, so I see what you mean.
So, if you're enthusiastic about philosophy, then you keep doing philosophy.
You keep applying...
You keep asking questions of others.
Right, so you keep going back to applying it in your own life.
And the reason you do that is because it's really scary...
So when we're kids, and Isabella's going to hit this phase in, I guess, six months or so, it's going to be nothing but questions.
Questions, questions, questions.
Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly?
Why is the world round?
Why is there night?
What is the moon? Questions, questions, questions.
And the first questions are going to be pretty simple.
And the questions, because she's so enthusiastic, are going to get more complex, more challenging.
And I think what a lot of parents and teachers feel is that children are advancing upon them with spears and they are backing them up towards a cliff edge that they don't want to go called, I don't fucking know what goodness is, why honesty is a value, why we should be good.
I don't know why you shouldn't hit anyone.
I don't know why I tell you to do stuff that I don't do myself.
I don't know why I hold up values that I don't follow myself.
And I don't want you to know that, right?
I don't want to know that.
I mean in the conversations that I've had with listeners who have family issues or other kinds of issues that are relational my suggestion has always been be persistent go talk to people and be persistent
Right? And what happens when people are persistent?
what happened when you were persistent.
It got real nasty.
Yeah, two words. Ka-boom.
Right? Yeah.
I mean...
I didn't pursue my parents in that way, but I did my brother, and he just got nasty.
Yeah, persistence, right?
Now, persistence in that which serves the powers that be is always praised, right?
So being persistently or enthusiastically patriotic is praised by the government, right?
You stand up, you sing the Star-Spangled Banner, you salute the flag, you whatever, right?
Support the troops, right?
That is praise because it's useful to those in power.
Persistence in the question of what is citizenship and why do I have to follow a social contract and how come these people get to use violence to achieve their ends and nobody else does?
That kind of persistence does not serve those in power at all, right?
Right. Now when a parent says to you, I love you, and you say, What does that mean?
What is love to you? Then I hope, you know, that they will have good answers.
But if they're just using the phrase to bully or control or, you know, appease or manipulate you in some way, then when you ask the question, they're not happy, right?
Right. People with good currency are happy when you have a counterfeit detection machine, because it means their currency is worth more.
People with fake currency are not happy when you have the counterfeit detection machine, right?
Right. And philosophy is the counterfeit detection machine.
And the degree to which people fear persistent questioning is exactly the degree that bad currency is floating around in society, which is to say, a shitload, right?
Yeah, there's been a lot of inflation.
Yeah, and this is the same as it was in the days of Socrates, in many ways, in terms of the proportion of people who are claiming to have or act on values that they don't actually have or act on or even understand, right?
And so this phase, when kids go through this questioning, right?
This is what the God of Atheists is all about, right?
What happens when the kids just keep questioning?
What happens if they don't give up?
If they don't get bullied into silence, right?
How many times have you heard parents say something along the lines of, oh my god, it was like 20 questions an hour.
I just told them to stop.
Yeah, no, I've...
I know I've experienced that, and I know other people have experienced that, and I've heard it countless times.
I don't...
It does not serve the immoral or the powers that be, whether they're in the family or in the church or in the state.
It does not serve. Persistence and enthusiasm in the realm of ideas does not serve these people at all.
In fact, it strikes at the root of their unjust power, right?
And so, When it comes to being enthusiastic, you and, look, me too.
I didn't escape all of this.
When it comes to being enthusiastic, you know, we're a heavily mined harbor, right?
Enthusiasm is a heavily mined harbor.
We have to sail very carefully, right?
There's a lot of self-attack around enthusiasm.
That has been internalized from the attacks that we've seen constantly played out in society, right?
How do people feel about the kid at the front of the class with his hand in the air?
Fucking keener, teacher's pet, right?
Yeah, yeah. How do they feel about the kid who likes reading books?
Geek, nerd. Yeah, geek, four eyes nerd.
Spaz, whatever, right? Now, if the kid likes ramming his body into other kids in pursuit of a pigskin sphere or ball or ballish shape, then that's good, right?
Then he's a jock, he's a man, he's whatever, right?
Because that doesn't do any harm.
Pursuit of sports as a preparation for a martial life is good for the state.
It's good for the powers that be.
It's good for the school, right?
Right. But if you are interested in the pursuit of truth, If you're interested in the pursuit of knowledge, if you're interested in philosophy, or even science, to a large degree, well then you have to be punished, because you're dangerous, right?
You have to be discredited, you have to be excluded, you have to be isolated, you have to be alienated, you have to be driven down into the underground of Nerdville, right?
And your intelligence must be portrayed by As a reactionary scar tissue defense to your lack of abilities in things that, quote, really matter, right?
Right. Well, these guys are nerds.
They can't get girls, right?
They can't be sports people.
And so their full position is to be mathletes, right?
Yeah. Right, right.
It's plan B, right?
Or plan X or Z, it's more like, right?
They didn't have any other options.
Yeah, you'd never see a film where you end up becoming the football captain because you're not very good at math.
You laugh because that would be like a comedy plot, right?
No, right. No, I was just thinking about it's always the other way around.
Always the other way around. Always the other way around.
And sometimes it's even...
I just was thinking of this one particular...
I haven't watched the series, but this one show called Glee where the one teacher basically ropes the jock into being in the Glee Club, right?
Basically through Crook. And he has to face all this ridicule from...
You know, the other jocks and, you know, this disbelief from all the people in the Glee and that sort of thing.
Right, right, right.
Right, so I know it may sound like we're sort of far off topic.
I don't really think we are, but I think we, all of us, have this template that we Wisdom is the punishment for a lack of idiot success.
Right, okay.
And again, you always see this like the geeky kid who has the hard-on for the cheerleader, right?
Right, sure. Which is a total Simon the Boxer, right?
And of course it is a punishment, right?
Right, right.
Because it's...
It's supposed to be impossible, right?
But then he's just, he's destined to torture himself, right?
Right, right.
And, I mean, you and I, as the kids who like to read and who like to think and so on, it's not, you know, we face a lot of criticism and condemnation for Being enthusiastic about things that made people uncomfortable,
right? Like, we all understand that if the jocks try to get the geeky kid to try out for the football team, the jocks are going to laugh and the geeky kid is going to slink away, right?
Right, right.
But if the geeky kids tried to get the football guy to do math problems, what happens?
You mean in the culture myth?
Yeah, in the culture myth, right?
Yeah, yeah. He has all this trouble, and he is almost ready to give up, but then he gets a rousing speech from some teacher or a chick, and then he perseveres, and then he wins the day.
And it's a football pylon, except with geeks.
Well... I've seen that maybe in one or two, but mostly what I see is that he gets explosively angry.
Oh. So back up, what was the example again?
Sorry, I just maybe misunderstood.
If for some reason the math guy, sorry, if for some reason the football jock has to get good at math and he goes and joins the math geeks to get, right, and they try to explain to him how math works, right? Doesn't he just get angry?
Yeah, yeah. Frustrated and angry and, you know, his ego can't stand it, right?
Right, that's definitely, um...
That would definitely be, like, the first half or the first three quarters of the movie, right?
Yeah, I think in The Last Freaks and Geeks, the tough kid ends up playing Dungeons and Dragons with them or something like that.
It's not particularly believable, but...
But the geeky kid can survive non-success in the social realm, right?
Because by definition he has.
But the jock cannot survive his weaknesses in the intellectual realms.
Now, if the jock, as you say with glee, right?
If the jock ends up liking something, In the geeky realms, then it is his guilty secret.
He can't talk about it because he's going to be savagely attacked and rejected by his peer group, right?
Right, right. And the reason that I'm saying all of this is because it is a huge barrier to overcome to be enthusiastic.
I can tell you that myself because I think I'm pretty enthusiastic, right?
And not to talk about me too much, but I mean, I think that's what messes some people up, is I kind of break the template, right?
If you look at a lot of the guys on YouTube who talk about this kind of stuff, you know, they are kind of...
Can you hear me at all?
Oh, now I can hear it, yeah.
Okay, great. Yeah, the jock can't survive this...
Facing the limitations of his intellectual abilities, but the math geek can survive...
The limitations of his physical and social abilities.
And I think it sort of messes up people because I guess I have certainly my insecurities, but I'm fairly confident and presentable and relatively skilled individual in a variety of fields.
And so I really don't fit the mold of some of the people who talk about freedom or anarchism or whatever on YouTube.
They look a tad freaky, right?
Yeah, I was listening to something by Hoppy.
I think it was a comparison of Marxism and something else.
I don't remember exactly. I got through the first one, but I was falling asleep.
And I started the second one, but didn't finish it.
I just couldn't commit to finishing through.
The subject was interesting, but I just couldn't do it.
Yeah, I was thinking more along just some of the people who do their own YouTube videos and so on.
You really do get a sense that a lot of them have not really...
I don't know exactly how to put it, right?
But the fact that I'm sort of clean-cut, presentable, and have had some success in other spheres in life is a bit frustrating.
It's a bit weirding out for people, right?
Because I'm confident and...
I'm enthusiastic and I'm, you know, I guess relatively funny at times and so on.
And I'm not accepting any punishment for having these kinds of persistent questions, right?
I'm not going to self-alienate because society ascribes a role to me as a questioner that I must be punished in some manner.
I mean, of course, the media tried, I suppose, right?
But enthusiasm in the realm of ideas creates a lot of anxiety in people.
Because they know that they don't have any real basis for what they say.
Deep down they know it, probably unconsciously, but they don't feel that that's ever going to be exposed unless somebody keeps asking those persistent questions.
And the reason I say that is so that you recognize the degree to which it's not any kind of personal cowardice or anything like that that would cause you to be hesitant in this area.
We're well trained to stay in these little boxes, right?
We get constant propaganda.
Enthusiasm equals death.
Either social or physical, right?
Or romantic. The enthusiastic, the persistent in the realm of ideas Must die, right?
Must be punished. And in a way, there's kind of a truth in it, right?
Because in a way, people who retain their enthusiasm in the face of all of this cultural hostility to enthusiasm, cultural murderousness towards enthusiasm, they are kind of insane, right?
Yeah, suicidal would be the word that comes to mind.
Yeah, and so I think that's really important.
You're allowed to be enthusiastic about fashion, or TV, or movies, or a movie star.
You're allowed to be enthusiastic about celebrities, but just not the realm of ideas, because society hangs by a thread over a precipice.
It's a house of cards, and any breath of wind brings it down.
People who are enthusiastic, they're portrayed as idiotic, and that seems kind of true, because it is kind of true, right?
People who are just enthusiastic without recognizing the degree of hostility that people have towards enthusiasm, they are a little out of it, right?
I mean, it is something that we need to recognize and process and be alert and be aware of, right?
Yeah, the...
So all the kinds of approved enthusiasms that we've been talking about, or you've been talking about, is really, they're all vapid and kind of idiotic and...
Well, they're useful to the ruling classes, I would say.
Well, yeah. I'm not saying they're not useful, but they're certainly...
They're not useful to...
Well, back up.
They're not...
I think I lost what I was going to say.
I was going to say, they don't have permanence.
They don't have a body.
Yeah, I think the way I would put it, and this may be right or wrong versus your meaning, I think what you might be saying is that they don't have truth.
They don't have substance. Substance, yes, yes.
Yeah, like, I mean, you're allowed to be enthusiastic about the Jonas Brothers, right?
I mean, and when I say you, I mean just you.
Only you are allowed. But no, you're allowed to be enthusiastic about, you know, Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers, right?
That's okay. That's okay, right?
You're allowed to... Pick up your Teen Tiger beat or whatever the hell it's called, and you're allowed to be enthusiastic about all the dreamy boys on TV or whatever, or in music.
You're allowed to be enthusiastic about bands.
You're just not allowed to be enthusiastic about the truth.
Because, yeah, right, all of that stuff is vapid and stupid and, you know.
What was it on the Big Bang Theory?
I just watched it tonight. And the guy says...
To his girlfriend, he says, his girlfriend's not intellectual at all, right?
He says, it's weird, you know, like, you sit and watch your sports team and you say, we won, right?
But my friends and I don't watch the Star Wars movies and say, we defeated the Empire, right?
Because we just watched it, right?
And she just gives him this long look.
Now, to me, that's actually a very intelligent thing to say, right?
I think that's intelligent.
I think that's perceptive.
But she just looks at him, you know, like, whatever.
Like, what a weird thing to say.
Like, how weird, right?
What's the matter with you, right?
And it's like, but no, that's a very intelligent thing to say.
But only the people who are punished are allowed to say it.
Only the people who are diminished, who are called little, who are called geeky, who are, you know, punished by some sort of ostracism or social exclusion, right?
This is how I know that anarchism will work, because all of this stuff is so powerful, right?
That it's just everybody gets in line.
I know how powerful all this stuff is.
That's how I know that mere social ostracism will be more powerful than any military or any police or any law in the long run.
Because we all fall in line behind this and it's a struggle to get out.
Yeah, for sure.
And so if you know the challenges around enthusiasm, then you can begin to dismantle it within yourself, the barriers to being enthusiastic.
And I think it's a goal that you want, because I don't know any other way to break the isolation.
Enthusiasm is very powerful.
It's very, I mean, as I mentioned before, right, the first time that I met Christina, I had just received word that, you know, my book was going to be published, right?
And I was wildly enthusiastic and over the moon and all that, right?
And that was very exciting to her.
And, of course, my enthusiasm for philosophy is at least to some degree behind philosophy.
The success of what we're doing here, it is kind of infectious, and it is kind of bewildering, in a way, to people.
And frustrating, I'm sure, to some, but it's kind of irresistible, right?
The rarer something is, the more irresistible it is when it comes along and is confident, right?
Particularly something that's, you know, socially frowned upon, like enthusiasm for ideas, without self-attack, right?
Like, you're allowed to sell the truth as long as you're bitter, right?
Like, as long as you're like Louis Black, you can tell the truth, right?
As long as you're bitter and angry, you can tell the truth.
But you can't be happy and confident and secure and happily married and, you know, successful in other...
You can't do that, right?
You can't have all... That says too much.
That promotes too much...
That provokes too much anxiety in people, right?
Right, right. But I think you need to have that enthusiasm as a goal.
Not my enthusiasm, because everybody's different, right?
But I think you need to have that as a goal.
So the philosophy becomes more than your own personal self work.
Right. And so that you can break out of the loneliness, right?
When you make philosophy about other people, you break out of the loneliness, right?
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