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Dec. 12, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:17:22
1530 Life on a Rock - A Listener Conversation
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Time Text
Alright, well, thanks.
I appreciate this. I hope that we can be of some vague utility.
So, did you want to talk a little bit about what's going on?
Now, you don't have a very strong Newfoundland accent, right?
Like, we don't need subtitles for this.
Is that alright? No.
First, how am I for volume?
Volume is great. Oh, awesome.
Well, it's great to be here over the internets.
I know I'm familiar with a few of the people from the podcast.
Greg, I guess, but not so much everyone else.
But it's finally good to be talking to Steph and everyone who's contributed to this conversation.
It's amazing. I've been listening to Free Domain for about a year now.
Last October, actually.
It's been amazing.
And how did you find it to begin with?
YouTube actually.
Oh, cool. Basically, I was on your main page with your subscriptions, like videos I subscribe to, and they'll have recommended videos.
And they had, I think it was Statism is Dead Part 3.
Right. It was just random.
Just, hey, what's that?
That sounds interesting.
And it had the... The snapshot of, I guess it was the World Trade Center.
And I was into a lot of that at the time.
So I watched it and it was certainly different and very interesting.
So I watched the rest of that series and then I watched all the latest videos at the time.
And eventually went through all of the YouTube videos and it got me into the podcast.
Now I'm on number 800 close to actually.
Wow, cool beans.
Well, I'm very glad that you stuck it out.
Oh yeah, certainly.
I was hooked pretty much from the very beginning.
It's certainly given me a lot of clarity in what I believe and what makes sense in the world.
Should I start off with some just basic information?
Well, since I've I've started listening to Freedom Manium Radio.
Well, I've pretty much always been an atheist, a strong atheist.
So, and now I'm, I guess, anarcho-capitalist, so.
Go on.
Yeah, so I'm on almost number 800.
And as soon as I have some real money, I'm going to contribute for all of the podcasts I've listened to.
Oh yeah, I appreciate that.
Don't sweat about that right now, because I know times are tough on the rock, so no problem.
Yeah, and the novels, of course, too.
I'm planning on, I'd like to read off pretty much everything you have.
Well, that's great. I appreciate that.
So what prompted the request for a chat?
Well, pretty much ever since I started listening to the podcast and where you People would usually phone in and you'd help them out.
Especially last night, I was listening to whichever one it was.
It was a Sunday call-in show.
And just had the urge to really go down, sit down, write the email, and ask for some help.
Let's see. Well, as I said, it's basically work-related.
Having trouble, like I'm unemployed right now.
I've been unemployed for, well, I guess you could say all my life, kind of.
Like I'm 25. I haven't had a whole lot of work experience.
It's kind of difficult, like, getting out and finding something really, like, appropriate for me.
And I think that there's some real...
Psychological blocks to that.
I'm not afraid to do it, because I've recently just finished an 18-week pre-employment program, so that certainly gave me a lot of confidence, and certainly starting to listen to Free Domain has given me a lot of confidence too, but there's still some real problems.
Also, I'm a musician and a writer and it's affecting that too.
I've been working on things for quite a long time and it's just affected that.
I think it's the same root problem.
Just an inability to get out and Get to working on something.
Even though I'm fairly motivated, but it's like mood swings in almost a certain way.
What are your thoughts so far?
Well, I'm eager to hear more.
Please go on. Let's see.
Yeah, basically I've been unemployed for a while.
I moved in town in St.
John's two years ago.
And it's been pretty difficult.
I put out resumes and basically I think the problem is my spotty work history.
It certainly reflects bad on my resume.
Even though my resume is much better now than it was, which I learned a lot of skills from that program and it's really helped that.
And the reasons basically for that are, I guess, personal-related and familiar-related, school and stuff like that.
The reasons why I haven't really been able to get a whole lot of work experience, I guess it's been pretty personal in that way.
I'm starting to ramble a little bit.
Right, right. Well, do you want to keep talking?
Would you like me to ask questions?
How would you like to go? Sure, you can start asking.
There's a lot, but I'm just...
It's tough to filter, right?
Because it's like, how did your life end up with you where you are, the good and the bad?
And it's kind of tough to filter that down, right?
Yeah, well, I was born on this day, and this happened, and 20 years later...
Right, right. I was born...
I got a tan. Here I am.
Right, right. Okay.
Well, yeah, just, I mean, I know you've listened to a bunch of podcasts.
This is just, you know, the upfront clarification that you know this is just, you know, amateur guy on the internet, right?
I have no credentials or anything.
This is just my thoughts about things that might be used to you.
I just want to make that clear. I know you know, but I'm just saying because other people may dip in and listen.
So I just want to say that up front and then we shall go for it.
No problem. All right.
So... How have you been able to not work for 25 years?
It's no criticism.
It's no criticism at all.
I'm just curious about the technicalities of it.
Well, I lived at home, well, I guess when I was in school, when I was 15 or 16, until I, well, I'll say finished school when I was about 18.
I'm from Harbor Grace, which is a town about an hour outside St. John.
John's, about the equivalent of, say, Toronto, an hour outside Toronto, if you use the analogy.
And there's not a whole lot of opportunities out there.
I mean, the most that I really could have done would have been, you know, down a fish plant down on the waterfront.
And I always wanted to move in town.
I stayed when I was, you know, say when I was 18 and then I was still at home.
And then when I was 20, which was 2004, I believe, I moved to Ontario for a year, lived with my brothers.
That didn't quite work out.
I liked it, but it really, like, after three or four months, I was fairly homesick and I wanted to go home and But sorry, I'm still trying to understand, you know, just so you know, I've been sort of on my own since I was like 15, right?
So I always have a tough time understanding how people can eat and pay rent, right?
So you were 18 and then you were 20 and so you're telling me what you did but I'm still trying to understand what you lived on, right?
Because to me there's a basic kind of cash flow issue to life and so if I could just try and understand that, that would help me.
Yeah. Well, pretty much I was on social services for most of that time, and that's what I'm on now.
Oh, right in the pogey.
Yeah. Okay.
They call it social services now?
Yeah. Okay. They used to call it Lotto 1042.
I'm sure you've heard that phrase, right?
Like you work for 10 weeks of the year and then you're on pogey for 42 weeks.
Because for those who don't know, Newfoundland is like, imagine a small slice of Ireland that detached itself from Floated westward in a big screech-laced drinking party until it bumped up against the North American continent where it stayed and worked very hard and then didn't.
After it joined Confederation or after it joined Canada in 1949, things went to hell in a handbasket, in my opinion.
Lost that sort of work ethic and got seduced by the easy money of federal handouts.
And, of course, the entire joining of the Canadian Confederation was just a ridiculous set of bribes and corruption.
It was just hideous.
And you all have been, you know, corrupted by pokey and massive government projects like Herbernia and so on, right?
So the entire ethic has completely decayed.
And I know a little bit, not a huge amount.
I've spent a couple of months in Newfoundland when I was 16.
I was a friend of my father's as a Marian biologist, and I stayed with him for a while.
And then I was back in Newfoundland for the Canadian debating finals in some time, which I think was A.D., not B.C., but so far back that doesn't really make any difference.
And so just so most people do seasonal work if they're not in a city or if they're not in St.
John's or whatever. They'll do seasonal work in the fisheries or on the oil rigs or whatever.
And they get paid a lot because it's seasonal work.
And then they stay on pokey for the rest of the year.
And again, I'm not characterizing everyone, of course, in Newfoundland this way, but I'm not too far off the mark, am I? No, especially now with Alberta, a lot of people will go up to Alberta for six months or a year, come back on unemployment, and then go up again.
And I've had those offers too.
Sure, you'll make lots of money, but what's the point if you're not happy?
Well, and I mean, what the hell do people do all the time, right?
I mean, the weather is not the best on the rock, although the summers can be quite lovely.
But, you know, what the hell do you do with your life?
I mean, you just go work for a while and then come back and, and what, watch soap operas?
And I mean, it's hard to know exactly what people do.
And I think there's that kind of low to great depression that comes out of Feeling like working hard for a living is kind of a fool's game, but at the same time, it's not really a very pride-based thing to do to live off other people's income through Pogi, right?
Yeah, I know. And especially since I've gotten into freedom on radio, I know the whole welfare system is, you know, I'm really trying to get off and to do something with myself because I just feel like I'm stuck in this situation.
Yeah, but it's, you know, and I really sympathize, right?
I mean, it's like trying to take a jumping start when you're standing in quicksand, right?
Because you don't have the example of the work ethic.
You don't have the resume if you'd started working younger.
And there's a lot of cultural, in a sense, anti-pressure, right?
Like, why would you do that, right?
Why would you, you know, you've got a nice relaxing gig here.
Why would you go kill yourself, right?
And there's a sort of mockery of the Anal, retentive, workaholic Torontonians who don't know how to kick back and have fun.
You know, there's all that kind of stuff.
So I really do sympathize.
There's a lot that is sort of leaning against your forward progress up this hill.
Yeah. I mean, I technically had my high school diploma, but I didn't finish high school.
I left in, well, I guess, grade 12.
Yeah. Wait, sorry, does it still go to grade 13?
Because they got rid of grade 12 here.
I don't know what it is out there.
They got rid of grade 13 here, so it's grade 12.
Does it still go to grade 13 in Newfoundland?
No, 12 is level 3, which is the highest.
Right, okay, so you have a...
I'm not sure what technically means when you say you finished high school or not.
Well, I was able to get a diploma from another course that I finished at Laker.
Right. Yeah.
But I left school for personal reasons, and I think that certainly affected the way my life has progressed.
Like, if I had finished and, say, done four years of university, I mean, what would have happened, right?
I would have been fine.
I would have had some kind of a job somewhere, like, stable.
Well, maybe. I mean, there's no magic bullet from university.
You might be... I mean, you might be in hock for $20,000 or $30,000 and not be able to find a job because there's a recession, right?
I mean, there's no guarantees as far as...
I mean, I graduated from university and I ended up weeding people's gardens and shit like that because it was a terrible time.
So there's no guarantee, although I think on balance, if you have the options, university is a good idea, but...
There's no, like, wow, if I'd taken that road, I'd be eating frog's legs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner right now.
It's not necessarily the case, in my opinion, and in my experience.
So I wouldn't necessarily look upon that road and say that was the road to milk and honey and being the suntan oil boy for the Hawaiian Tropical Princesses cruise or something, right?
So it may or it may not have.
It's not for certain.
Yeah, that certainly didn't happen to me.
Would you like More information about that?
No, I guess.
Tell me what it is that you're hoping to get out of the call, and then I'll know what...
I may have an idea of what questions to ask.
Yeah. Basically, I'm not afraid to go out and look for work, but...
I don't know.
I guess so, kind of.
Afraid of, like, if I have to start off at the bottom, well, of course, everyone does, but...
I'm afraid of going out and not so much failing, but going out and starting.
Not even at, say, KFC or somewhere, maybe somewhere higher up, but just having to start all over again, even at my age.
What do you mean? Sorry, when you say start all over again, what do you mean?
Well, not start all over again, but I guess start because, you know, most people...
Oh, so you'll be working with these 17-year-old kids and you'll be like the old guy or whatever?
Yeah, that's certainly a part of it.
Yeah, like Chandler in Those Later Friends, where he ends up working as a, right?
Have you ever seen that? He's in some ad agency working with these young kids, and all they do is mock his age.
Don't worry, I still go through that with my listeners.
But, okay, so you have some anxiety about, or some concern or fears about, you want a job that's a little bit more appropriate to your age, but you may not have the resume or skills to pull that off.
Is that right? Yeah.
Skill-wise, I guess, like, I'm, you know, safe, very intelligent, and I'm pretty computer savvy and stuff like that.
But resume, like, there's holes in it.
Like, I had an interview at the end of October with Lana McQuaid.
Oh, the music guys, right?
Yes. And, like, they were very interested in me.
I said all the right things. They shortlisted me.
But the red flags, the holes in my...
My resume is probably what deterred them from Right, right.
Yeah, you may or may not know what it is.
I mean, you don't know.
Like with hiring, again, it could just be like, oh, my brother's friend has a job, so we'll just hire him, right?
You never know, right?
It's hard to guess. It's like trying to figure out why someone doesn't want to go out with you.
You never know, right?
Because if you take a conclusion like, I have holes in my resume, then that's going to make you more anxious for the next job.
You can just say, I have no idea.
I have no idea. They may have gotten news that they can't hire someone from head office and they may have just pulled the whole thing, right?
I wouldn't come to a conclusion about why you didn't get the job until somebody actually tells you and then even that may be only specific to that one situation.
In general, you're such a young guy and it's not a good idea in my opinion To start drawing conclusions about an unknown like this.
Because you're going to carry those conclusions to your next job interview and your next job interview.
And if you don't get that job or the next job, and the likelihood is that you won't just because we mostly don't get the jobs that we go for in the same way that we don't end up marrying everyone we ask out.
But I wouldn't take that conclusion.
Free yourself from that conclusion and say, I don't know.
I don't know. And you can phone them and you can ask them or whatever.
You may still not get a clear answer, but...
It could be any, any number of things.
And I say that because I've been on the other side of that desk so many times where I'm actually hiring people.
And the reasons why I end up not hiring someone, you know, half the time it may have something to do with their resume, but the other half of the time it may just have something to do with something completely unrelated to them.
So just try not to...
Because then you're going to have to, for your next job interview, be like, oh shit, well I better preemptively talk about the holes in my resume and then you'll point them out in a way that, you know what I mean?
Like just, you don't know.
Until you get some really solid feedback, I would just continue to be sort of positive and not sort of say, well I know what the problem is.
Because, you know, so far you don't, right?
Yeah, one of the recent podcasts I was listening to, you said that specifically.
You said, well what's the evidence, you know?
I don't know. That's it.
It could be any reason. But they didn't tell me back.
That's the only thing I know.
Right. Right. So that's all I would say.
Because otherwise we accumulate stuff, you know, like an elk walking through the woods gets all these burrs on its ass, right?
We just start accumulating these conclusions and it sort of weighs us down and the conclusions aren't based on anything other than things we think might be the case.
So I just, you know, refrain from that.
And I don't want to spend too much time on that, but I just want to mention that because I think that's something pretty practical.
But anyway, so what are your brothers doing in Ontario roughly?
I have four brothers and a sister and they all live up in Ontario now.
They're all working and stuff.
My family was from here and they moved up there in the 60s.
Had kids. I'm originally from Ontario but moved back when I was eight.
And I've lived here since then.
And they, my parents, two of my parents live in Newfoundland too, so.
Sorry, you said two of your parents live in Newfoundland too?
Yeah. You mean your mom and dad still live in Newfoundland?
Yes. Okay, okay.
And what do they do? They're retired.
And what did they do?
My mom, I don't think she did anything.
Like, I guess she was just a homemaker.
My dad... Trust me, as a dad who stays home, and that's with one kid, let alone four, that's quite a bit.
So, anyway, come on. My dad, I believe, was in construction, pretty much.
Sorry, you believe he was in construction?
What do you mean? Was he a double agent?
Did he, like, I can't tell you what I did today, son, but there's blood on my hands for good reason, trust me.
No, what do you mean? You're not sure what he did?
He was in construction. I don't know if he did anything else.
I guess he could have, but as far as I know, it was construction.
And when you say in construction, do you mean like a boss, foreman, worker, what?
I'm not sure. He might have been foreman, like at his highest point.
I guess he didn't talk that much about his day, right?
No, we didn't really communicate very well.
But your parents are together and you all live together, right?
They live together, yes. I live by myself right now.
No, sorry, I just meant when you were growing up.
Oh, yes.
Like intact family and all.
Okay. So is it fair to say, and this sounds like a criticism, I really, really don't mean it that way, but I just want to try and get a map.
So is it fair to say that you're the only one in your family who doesn't have a steady job or hasn't had a steady job?
Yes. Okay.
I think that's important.
And again, I really don't mean this in any way critically, though I know it may be a sensitive topic.
That's important. I'm not sure why yet.
You know, I hope I'll figure it out.
But I think that's important. So let's just keep on going.
So when you were growing up, what were the expectations of That you absorbed from your environment.
And your environment is immediate family, extended family, school, a church if that was part of your upbringing.
What were the expectations that you absorbed?
And we all get these and they can be positive, negative, in between.
What was your life?
What was the arc of your life? What was your life going to be like?
When you were growing up, did you get any sense?
Well, you must have got some kind of sense of how your life was supposed to be.
What was that? It's hard to, well, I guess hard to remember, hard to say, but I guess there was some expectation.
And sorry, just to clarify, expectation doesn't necessarily mean lofty.
You're going to be an astronaut, and then you're going to be the president, and then you're going to be the master of time-space dimension, and then you're going to move Paris.
I mean, it could be positive, or it could just be the expectation is, you know, go get a safe job someplace in the government where you can't get fired and, you know, work and get a pension.
And, you know, it can be high or low aspirations.
I just wanted to point that out.
Yeah. It could have been something just as simple as Live up, I guess you could say, live up to the family or be as successful as everyone else.
Because, like, one of my older brothers finished, like, high school in grade 10.
Like, he did double courses or something.
He was, like, 17.
But now he started to become an electrician.
And that's great, right?
But... Sorry, he finished high school at the age of 10 and then he became an electrician?
No, at the age of 17. At the age of 17.
Sorry. And then he became an electrician?
Yeah. Would you say that he's very smart?
Fairly intelligent. I guess most of my brothers are.
I guess that was kind of where some of the expectation came from.
Okay, so was the expectation that this sort of step up or the next step for the family would be to go into the trades?
Is that right? Plumber, electrician, carpenter, whatever?
I'm not sure. There wasn't really a whole lot of talk about where you would be.
Like, he's doing IT right now.
Okay, so were you I mean, see, you understand this is kind of vague.
And we all get messages about the future, whether it's implicit or explicit.
And I'll just talk about your parents, right?
But there are always messages about the future.
And those messages have to do with things like risk, right?
A lot of times.
There's no way to move up the financial ladder without taking risks.
I mean, there just isn't, as far as I've ever seen, heard, or can even imagine.
So, how are your parents with...
And this is, you know, not a criticism of your parents.
I'm just trying to explore, right?
But how are your parents with the idea of risk as a whole?
Risk... I'm not sure.
Well, my mom was very...
I guess, protective in a way.
Especially when I was younger and then, I guess, kind of grew out of it, but not really.
So, like, she was fairly protective of me, so...
In what way?
Um, hmm.
Um, like, not so much that if I ever wanted something I would get it, but like, I don't I guess I was somewhat spoiled when I was younger.
Well, I was the youngest child, so...
You know, trying to get information about your family is like trying to push two opposite magnets together.
It's like closer.
It's like... I don't know, right?
Okay, no problem.
I'll keep asking questions, right?
Yeah. Let me ask you this.
So you've been passionately interested in philosophy for the last, at least the last year, right?
Since you've listened to this show and whatever else you've been reading, whatever, right?
Yes. And have you talked about that with your family?
No. I am the guilty slutty secret at all times.
I really am. I should just put a negligee on my picture.
I should have like red curtains, you know, one of those rooms with like a four-poster bed and velour and stuff like that because I am the slutty secret in the back of the cupboard.
I think people would rather their parents find porn cookies than FDR cookies on their computer.
That's my theory, but we'll keep going.
Yeah. So, and again, no criticism, nothing negative.
I'm just curious, why?
Why haven't you talked about something that you care about?
Not to sort of say, ooh, you people have to believe this, but this is something that I'm very interested in.
Since I moved in town, I haven't really talked to them.
I don't talk to my dad as much, and I certainly won't now.
I've... Not realized, because I've already known some of the things that he's done, but taken a stance on it, so I'm not going to talk to him.
But my mom... What?
Sorry. What? Sorry, I just said there's two magnets again, right?
What was that about your dad?
Well, as I said, we don't talk much, and I've never really talked to him.
We never really had a relationship when I was growing up.
And he was very authoritative and demanding, and...
He's done, you know, just basic psychological things.
And I've realized that ever since I started listening to FDR. And now I just, I mean, I don't feel like talking to him.
Well, what do you mean when you say he's done psychological things?
And I'm sorry, A, I'm sorry about this lack of relationship.
It's very tragic. But what is it specifically that you have issues with?
As I said, very authoritative.
Give me, you know, I'm Mr.
Empiricism, right? So that's an adjective.
Give me something specific that is problematic for you in his behavior, decisions, or parenting.
Prevented us from doing certain things or saying it was bad.
Well, like what things, right?
If it's jumping off a cliff, he's a good dad, right?
So what does that mean? Yeah.
Like, I'd be on the phone and he would be...
We'd be on for like an hour and then he'd demand for us to get off or something.
He'd think that we were talking about him to the other person on the phone and stuff revolving the TV and, you know, shows might be bad or good or...
Not letting friends stay over in the house very long.
I don't even know why.
Just because he didn't like them or thought they were bad or something.
So when you said you were on the phone and he would say get off the phone because he thought that you were talking about him to other people.
Is that what he felt?
Yes. And I'm assuming that wasn't the case.
Otherwise it wouldn't be strange, right?
No, I'd be talking to like...
Like say a female friend of mine and he would like basically barge open the door and just stand there like just waiting for me to get off and I'd just like be enraged at him.
Right. Okay.
That's one specific incident.
Actually that happened a few times while I was talking to her.
Right. So, is he a suspicious kind of guy?
Is he a little paranoid? Again, I'm just trying to understand your perspective on it.
Yeah, it would seem very paranoid.
Like I said, if you thought people were talking about him and it was like nothing to do with it.
And when you would explain that you weren't talking about him, what would happen?
Um... I don't think we actually or I actually said or like it would happen with my mom too like she'd be talking to people and he wouldn't let her on the phone any real length of time he'd be like demanding like you know how long you be on the phone and be on the phone all day and stuff like stuff like that right right okay okay um he wouldn't really have her let her or less but be very positive towards any I just want to extend my sympathy.
A father should be there to help and to guide and, you know, to set some reasonable limits after negotiation with the kids of an appropriate age.
But it sounds a little tense and not an easy guy to communicate with.
Yeah, I mean, as I said, I've never had any real relationship with him.
I don't think he's taught me anything that I can certainly...
Well, no, see, he's taught you stuff.
Oh, just bad stuff.
Well, no, I'm not saying just bad stuff.
I'm not just saying bad stuff.
I mean, my dad left when I was six months old, and he taught me a hell of a lot, unfortunately.
And I'm not saying the same is true of your dad, right?
But to think that he hasn't had a huge impact on your life, I think, is probably not true.
I mean, parents just do.
I mean, for a long time, I thought...
I was of this sort of theory with my own dad, you know, you can't miss what you never had.
And it's just not true.
I mean, it's amazing to me.
I just, by the by, just to talk about, you know, parental influence for a little bit or for a second or two.
I had to, when I had this call with Nathaniel Brandon, I completely screwed up the time change.
And so my wife was going to be out when I had this call the other week.
So I got a babysitter in and it's a woman who'd been here once before.
But when she'd been here before, my daughter was sleeping.
And so I was on this call and I was only on the call for about 25 minutes and maybe half an hour with sort of set up and shutting down.
And I was saying, oh, you know, my daughter never cries and she really doesn't.
And I went just before I came up to do the call.
I was downstairs with them and everything was fine.
She was playing on the ground with this woman who's a grandmom, a very nice woman.
Anyway, I had these padded headphones on when I'm on the call so I can't hear much else.
I took them off after my call.
Isabella was howling like a banshee monkey.
I went downstairs and she was on the ground and she was crying so hard.
It was because she missed me because she's going through the separation sort of anxiety thing which is perfectly natural for this age.
And, you know, it really struck me so hard, you know, because I thought, my God, I mean, this is 25 minutes or half an hour maybe that I was not in her sight.
And this is, you know, she's very, very, very upset.
It took like 20 minutes to soothe her, which is really unusual.
And I thought, my God, I mean, my dad left and I thought that it didn't affect me.
And he was gone my whole childhood.
And, you know, here it is half an hour.
And again, I know this is sort of me and my dad, but I just want to point out that, you know, that our parents just have an enormous influence on us, you know, for better or for worse and so on, right?
So I think if you say, I don't have a relationship or I don't have much of a relationship with my dad or he didn't teach me much of anything and so on, I think you may be underestimating the impact, right?
Yeah. Sorry, the reason, and I'm so sorry to interrupt, I'll just point one thing out, and then I'll let you continue, but it's possible that there may be a link between your father's anxiety, or as you say,
his mild paranoia, just use this term in an amateur sense, but there may be a link between his anxiety, or his fear that the worst is occurring, and your fear, which we talked about earlier, that That you come to a conclusion about why you didn't get the job at Long and McQuaid.
It's possible that you may have a sort of minor worst case scenario machine running away in your head, if that makes any sense.
And that would have, it may have been inherited from your dad's actions or perspectives.
Interesting. I meant specifically positive things, but yeah, you're right, you're right.
So you haven't talked about your newfound passion with your dad.
What about your mom? Oh yeah, getting back to that.
No, I don't, like I said, I don't talk to him.
And I talk to her, not really.
Like, she'll phone, and then, like, I won't really talk either.
But I'm certainly on much better terms with her than him.
I haven't talked to her about really much of anything that interests me, at least lately, at least since I moved in here.
Not about philosophy. Well, and it's not so much that you have to talk to, I mean, you don't have to talk to anyone about anything, but it's not so much that you would talk about philosophy with your mom.
She may not be that interested in it, of course, but it would be sharing your feelings or your thoughts about it.
Yeah. That's always the thing that's so surprising to me, just how little people seem to share within families.
Not all families, but a lot of families.
You know, they say, oh, you know, blood is thicker than water, family is everything, and those are lovely sentiments, but it seems to me that if you've had something that's been really interesting and exciting for you, and, you know, 800 podcasts, that's a lot of rewiring, I hope, right?
Or additional wiring, at least.
And to not be able to talk about that with people is sad.
Not because it's like, oh, you've got to listen to these podcasts and you've got to agree with what I like, or it's nothing like that.
It's just this, you know, I can talk about my love of a painter or my love of a particular piece of music or something, and other people don't have to love it the same way that I do, but I hope that they care that I care about it.
I hope that they care that I love it, even if they don't share that same feeling.
Yeah, like my best friend Steve, I talk to him a lot about FDR and you, and he's even watched some of the videos, and I guess he's listened to a few of the podcasts, and he's pretty interested too, and that's great, right? Right. I don't really talk to my brothers as much either.
I mean, they're all up away and busy and working.
I mean, that's an advantage, but I suppose if I mention it to them, I suppose my Brother John, who's only a few years older than me, he's actually coming home tomorrow for holidays, like, I don't know, Christmas. He's pretty rational, and I think he'd be interested in it too.
At least he'd respect it, I respect it.
That's good. But family, I don't know, they're the typical, my parents are the typical older, you know, How can I explain this?
Old ways and, you know, the children are into the new things.
Right, so they may be a little stuck in their ways and they're old school, to say the least, right?
Yeah. Like my mom, like if I were to say what she would say about it, I don't know.
She probably would respect that I like it, but I can't see her ever really getting into it.
Right, right. Okay, um...
I mean, I have more questions about that, but I don't want to spend too much more time on it because I kind of want to get to the future, right?
Because, I mean, this is the real essence, right?
So I think I have somewhat of a map.
So tell me then, my friend, what is it that you want to do with your life?
If you had a magic wand, right?
Yeah. A leprechaun.
Let's do something culturally specific.
A leprechaun, you see, comes along, jumps out of your cereal box and says, you can do anything.
You can be anything. You can have any job, any career, anything.
What do you want? Well, as I mentioned, I'm a musician, or at least I'm getting better at musician, and a writer as well.
Sorry, do you mean a writer of music, or...?
No, well, that too, but novels.
Oh, okay, okay. Well, that's cool.
And I've been working on that for, as I said, for years.
I've always been interested in reading and writing ever since I was very young.
I read Lord of the Rings when I was in grade six, and everyone else was into hockey.
It's like, yeah, it's this book.
It's about Elves and hobbits.
But I really want to get that worked on and I guess I could maybe, I don't know, not be a professional author.
Maybe. I'd like to get it published and just get the ideas out there and let people enjoy them.
Music? Well, I don't think I could be a professional musician.
Go on tour over, you know, Canada and the States.
That'd be That'd be cool, but I don't think that's really going to work.
What do I want to do?
Well, you've just given two, right?
Yeah. I mean, if anything, the writing and just being an author and getting stuff out there.
And you can combine that with music and stuff, too.
Right. Well, okay.
Let me ask you this then.
So, have you shared these aspirations with friends and family?
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't have.
I'm just asking. I'm just curious.
My mom always knew that I was always running, and my brothers, to a certain extent.
So, yes, in that sense.
A lot of people, well, pretty much everyone knows that I'm into music, and I play guitar.
They know that much. They don't as much know about my writing, though.
All right. Sorry, go ahead.
And it's not that I would not bring it up, but certainly some of my friends would kind of respect it and they might be interested in it.
And if you were to share, if you were to just, you know, say to friends and family...
I want to be a writer.
What would they say?
I think they'd be pretty positive about it.
Alright, well that's good. So they'd say, you know, go for it and what can we do to help and so on, right?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure about that.
I think so. Yes, I'm pretty sure.
Then it seems surprising that you haven't done that.
Yes. Like, and as I said with the block about getting out and getting work, I think it's related in the same way to my block about writing, and I can never really just sit down and work on it.
Like, I've been working on backstory and character development and stuff, but I haven't actually written any dialogue or scenes in a long time.
I could probably do it right now, but I'd And I really want to.
It'll go and stops and starts.
Yeah, this idea. This is what it's all about in my head.
But you can't do it alone.
The myth of the isolated artist is a myth.
You can't do it alone.
You need people...
Who are going to read your stuff, who are going to give you feedback, who are going to be enthusiastic, or who are going to give you the brutal truth if you suck, right?
Unless you try something really different, I don't think this is the right thing.
You need to be in a community.
You need to be in a conversation with people about your aspirations.
Otherwise, you really are.
You can hit the gas, but your wheels are stuck in mud.
Yeah. And so that's sort of why I'm asking.
And the tougher, the thing is that you want to do, like you don't necessarily need a big community to get a paper route, you know, because it's not that hard to get a paper route, I guess, right?
Or get a job at McDonald's.
But if you're going to try and do something that's really challenging, you need a community of people.
You need a network. You need conversation.
You need feedback.
You need people to be on your team.
You need to be on other people's teams.
Right? You can't do it alone.
You can't do it alone.
Yeah. That would certainly be a big thing about it because, well, since I've gotten into freedom on radio and looking at people and kind of realizing how some people, well, frankly, how corrupt they are, that would be not difficult, but...
That would affect how I would do that.
But you're certainly right.
You need a network and people and back and forth.
Yeah, you need to look at other people's writing and be challenged or enthusiastic or offended or horrified by it.
Then you come up with your own stuff.
And so, you know, if you can get it from friends and family, fantastic.
If not, you know, join a writing group.
Take a writing class.
If, you know, you got some cash for it, take a writing class, even if it's online, but you can at least talk with other people or share some work.
You know, get involved in a group of people who are doing something similar.
It is really essential because we can't judge what we're doing alone and there's no deadlines and there's, you know, it's really hard to write a book.
I mean, I love the research.
I love the initial planning.
I absolutely love the first draft.
Everything after that sucks like a vacuum.
Oh, it's horrible, right? But it's necessary, right?
So like half the work is fun and half the work is not, which is actually a pretty good proportion.
Probably the same is true for free debate radio, but you need to be part of a group.
You can't achieve, I think, particularly challenging things artistically or aspirationally.
You just can't do it alone.
And so that's why I think it's important for you to reach out now.
I mean, maybe not to your dad.
I mean, it's completely up to you if you feel that's going to, you know, drive your aspirations further back or in the ground.
But if you want to do these things, I would say, do it.
Do it with caution, right?
Because you can waste a lot of time, you know, with the dream of I'm going to be a rock star or whatever.
If you're not going to go, you know, balls to the walls, full tilt, boogie, play 12 hours a day, write a song every day until you get it right.
You can sort of daydream, right?
So it's important not to waste time unless you're going to go balls to the wall.
But the best way to get that stuff moving is to get into a group, get into a community of people who are doing similar things and just show your work to them.
You know, rip out your guts, spread them out on the table and see who is interested in looking at more guts or whatever, right?
I think that's... I think that's really important.
Otherwise, you know, Fritter and Waste and Daydream and, you know, the line from Dark Side of the Moon, right?
The only thing I've got to show for the last 10 years is half a page of scribbled lines.
And I'm not saying that's you, right?
So I would really, really suggest getting into community.
The other thing that I would suggest, and I will shut up in a sec, but the other thing that I would suggest, my friend, is to notice that That, at the moment, it would seem that you're being left behind.
Yeah. What do you mean?
Well, sorry, what do you think I mean by that?
Because it may be the same, it may not be.
I was going to ask, by what, who, but...
Well, you're 25 years old.
You've never had any kind of real job, right?
And I don't think that's an unfair way of saying back to you what you said.
And your brothers and sisters are moving on with their lives.
Yes, if anything, the rest of my friends are moving on.
Most of them are in university and they're doing something.
I feel like I really can do something I want to.
Oh, I guarantee you, you can do something.
You can do something great.
Even if you think, like some people think I'm the biggest windbag on the planet, that's totally fine.
But 800 challenging, stimulating, annoying podcasts is quite a coif you've got there, and clearly you've got a lot of intellectual energy and curiosity.
You can do some great things.
I have no doubt about it whatsoever.
But I think you need to see that nobody is circling back for you to say, you know, You haven't started yet, and you're a quarter century into the game, and you haven't started yet.
What's going on?
What's wrong? How can we help?
How can I help? Yeah, certainly.
Not really a lot of people have ever really asked that, especially in school.
Sorry, when you say not a lot of people have asked that, how many people have asked that?
Um... Well, I guess some have.
Like, they would say, you know, what are you working at?
What are you doing? But nothing really, like, why?
But do they sit down with you?
And I'm just pointing this out as something that's missing.
Do they sit down with you and say, you know, this obviously isn't going to make you happy.
This isn't, you know, you've got a lot of talent, you've got a lot of intelligence, you've got a lot of potential, and you seem to be kind of stuck.
So... You know, let's all sit down as a family.
Let's see if we can figure out what's going on.
Let's see if we can help or just as a friend or just as an individual.
Not in passing, hey, what have you been up to lately?
I'm on my way to catch a plane or whatever.
But somebody who's going to actually take the time to sit down with you, you know, man to man, woman to man, sit across from the table, eye contact, and just, you know, so you don't feel like someone's just asking you in passing, but it's a very real basic question.
Like, What's going on?
I mean, it seems like you're having trouble getting started.
Tell me what's going on.
I've got all day to listen.
Actually, a friend of mine asked me about that with music a few weeks ago.
But my family hasn't really asked that now.
Sorry, but you said they haven't really asked it.
I'm just trying to de-swiss your language here, right?
Because I'm getting a lot of terms that I can't quite follow.
When you say you haven't, I mean, we want to be fair, right?
If they have asked, then they have asked.
If they haven't asked, then they haven't.
But I'm not sure what they haven't really asked means.
Well, they haven't asked. Okay, and I'm not trying to catch them out.
Let's be precise about it.
Let's be factual about it, right?
So they haven't asked. Your brothers, your sisters, your parents, they have not asked why your obviously considerable intellect is lying a tad fallow with no particular signs of moving to wherever you want to move next, right?
Why aren't they asking you that?
I don't know. Yes, you do.
Yes, you do. I can't believe you listened to 800 podcasts.
You thought you'd get away with that? No, you didn't really think you were going to get away with that, did you?
Like my brother who's coming to visit next week, I guess.
He'll probably ask, what am I doing?
But that's not what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah. What are you doing is kind of...
It's not quite the same as...
Because they know that you're not doing as much as you could, right?
They know that you're not moving.
Oh, I know. They completely know, right?
Right. So when they ask you what you're doing, they already know the answer, which is that you're not doing what you could or should be doing to make yourself happy in terms of ambition and progress and whatever, right?
So they already know that.
So it's sort of like seeing someone who's got their foot nailed to the floor and saying, why aren't you running?
It's like, well, you already know, right?
So let's deal with the foot nailed to the floor and not ask pointless questions, right?
Yeah. I mean, if anyone ever really asked, they would have been very sarcastic and saying, you know, well, why aren't you doing something?
Not my family, necessarily, but other people I know.
So why aren't they asking?
He's hoping I forgot the question.
Why aren't they asking? I guess the obvious reason would be that they don't care, because otherwise they would ask.
I don't know. Well, I'm not going to take a theory because you know your family, right?
Yeah. What would it cost them to ask?
Because, I mean, you all get together at Christmas, I assume.
You all have birthdays.
You call each other, right? So the fact that, I mean, Marines will go back for a dead body under fucking gunfire for a guy that they didn't grow up with, right?
And it doesn't seem like anyone's circling back to pick up you.
And we're talking about strangers in Baghdad will go back under shell fire to get a dead guy, right?
And so what would it cost them to show you sympathy and curiosity about your life and your future?
Well, I don't really see them.
Well, my family in Ontario, I don't really see them at all unless one of them comes back.
And now that I live in town, I guess it might be easier.
But you can do it by phone too, right?
Yeah, I don't usually talk to them though.
I understand that. I'm not asking about you, I'm asking about them.
What would it cost them for them to call each other and say, hey, you know, little brother is kind of stuck and we should really do something to figure out what the issue is because we're family.
I don't know. Yeah.
And if strangers can risk death to go back and get a body, surely we can spend an hour or two on the phone for a week or two or three or ten to help this guy get over whatever's in his way.
Our brother, our flesh and blood, right?
Yeah, and I mean, this has been going on for, let's say, well, since I was, say, 20 or so.
Yeah, half a decade, right?
Ever since I was, like, of high school age.
Why aren't they circling back?
I don't know. I mean, I don't consciously know.
I'm trying to think. They don't want to deal with...
Okay. They don't want to accept that they didn't do anything previously.
Yeah, but that's circular, right?
I'm sorry to interrupt. That's a circular argument, right?
They're not coming back because they didn't come back.
And I agree with you that it gets harder if you let half a decade go by, but still they didn't do it initially, right?
Yeah. I'm not sure.
I don't know. I mean, I just want to point out the strangeness of it.
And I don't mean the strangeness.
I mean, your family may not be worse than the average.
I don't know, right? But it's so weird when you think about it.
Like some old woman falls in the snow.
I bet you every single one of your family members would go back to help her up, right?
Yeah. Some stranger.
It's so bizarre. I mean, in here, in Toronto or Mississauga or I'm sure in St.
John's too, if you see someone who's driving a car and they can't get out of a parking spot because the snow is too deep, I've seen...
60-year-old guys just get behind and push that car.
I mean, everybody stops to help, right?
Yeah. And in your podcast, you've mentioned a lot, well, I guess with your life too, no one knew.
Teachers didn't know, didn't ask, didn't care.
Oh, they all knew. Knowing is not the hard part, it's acting, right?
Yeah, especially with me in high school.
Sorry, go ahead. It must cost them something.
But that's what I want to point out, the strangeness of it.
That I've had a wallet returned to me and some people, they've gone to considerable effort.
People are like, oh, you know, I'll call, I'll drop it by them, it's very nice, and I'll give them a little reward or whatever.
People will help.
You know, you see some kid lost in a mall, almost everyone will take care of that kid and, you know, take them to the information and get the name broadcast or whatever.
People are incredibly kind To strangers.
Like, dear God in heaven, if we could only get flesh and blood and married partners to treat each other as well as we treat anonymous strangers, this world would be a paradise that language could not describe.
Indeed. So there's something that is not working, in my opinion, in your relationships if you're falling behind and everyone's marching on, as you say, And people aren't circling back.
I think it's really important for you to get that that's not happening.
Now, of course, it's not their job to circle back.
They don't have to do it.
But it's important that they're not doing it, right?
They're not responsible for fixing your life.
I totally understand that.
But I also believe that if people claim to love you, then they should circle back if you're stuck.
Because what the hell does it mean?
People say they love you. And you sit there for half a decade stuck with something you can't solve and they're all moving on.
And, like, if I were to ask them for help or something specific, like, they'd probably help out, right?
But, yeah, they haven't really been asking.
Right, right. I mean, they got jobs, right?
So they could say, listen, you're clearly stuck getting a job.
Let me share what's helped with me.
Yeah, and one of my, well, maybe a few of my brothers, but one of my brothers has gone with that.
He's helped me before, when I was in Ontario.
But I haven't asked them either, right?
Well, look, that's true.
Look, I'm not putting all the blame on them.
As I said, it's not their responsibility to fix your life.
And you may be one of these annoying people who's tough to help.
I don't know. Maybe.
Maybe, because you are a little vague in your responses and so on.
I'm not saying that it's true, but it may be the case.
That you're a tough person to help, but isn't that what family and friends are for?
I mean, if we were always easy to deal with, nobody would ever need to love us in that way, right?
Because there are times when we're difficult to deal with, and that's sort of where the love, I think, should come in, right?
Yeah. Before, I would I'd say my mom would try to lead me to myself and let me do what I want because before I've had to get myself to stand up because my dad and stuff like that.
So she would leave me alone and let me go my own way.
Alright, let me ask you some very pointed questions here.
If that's alright, just because I know it's late for you and I want to take you up your entire evening.
So I'm going to ask some very direct questions.
I don't know whether any of this is true or not, but I'm going to be asking pretty direct questions.
Is the way that you're being treated now at the age of 25 substantially different than the way that you were treated at the age of 5 or 10 or 15 by your family?
In other words, when you're the youngest, right, there's two ways that things can go with siblings and with parents, but particularly with siblings when you're the youngest.
They can...
Recognize, well, you know, he's smaller, he's younger, he's weaker because of the accident of birth order or whatever.
And so we're going to do everything that we can to make sure that he feels included and strengthened and equal and so on because he is going to be frustrated because he's smaller and he's weaker.
So he's going to feel less strong, less powerful, less efficacious because he's accidentally smaller and weaker.
That's the one way. The other way that it can go Is people, siblings, feel stronger because they are magically stronger than somebody who's inevitably and accidentally and biologically smaller and weaker, right? So it can kind of go one of both ways.
I don't think it can go much of another way.
So when you were accidentally the smallest and the weakest in your family, how were you treated?
Usually as the smallest and the weakest.
I would be the...
Well, I didn't really grow up with my other brothers.
Only one brother who lived with me until he was like 20-something and he moved away.
But he would...
When I was younger, when he was younger, he would usually, you know, usual older brother stuff and pick on me a little and...
Basically, and I would look up to him too, but...
But was he, so he wasn't particularly invested in trying to help you feel, to overcome the inevitable accidental properties of being smaller and weaker?
No, certainly not at first.
Like, when I became older and I was like, you know, a teenager and stuff, it was more, I was more unequal with him, I guess you could say.
Yeah, but you grew up, right?
I'm talking about the psychological attitudes of the people in your life.
So can you remember anybody?
Because being the smallest and the youngest is tough, right?
I mean, because you constantly feel like your legs are too short and you've got to go to bed earlier and you don't get as much allowance and you feel diminished because you're just not the same size and strength as everyone else, right?
So could you remember in your childhood any time where somebody encouraged you or explained to you that it wasn't, you know, it's just accident, you know, you're just the same as everybody else, but you just happen to be the youngest or helped to strengthen you or made you feel more powerful or more capable or stronger?
I don't think so.
Yeah, I think you would remember if it's...
It would either be so common that you could give me a hundred instances, or it would be so rare that you would remember it clearly, right?
Yeah. And even now, if, say, we were all to get together, of course, I would be the youngest, and I would be the lowest on the chain, probably.
Guys, stop giving me all of these weasel words, man!
You're killing me here!
Sorry. Stop giving me all these probabilities and maybes and a little and this and that.
Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
That's kind of frustrating. And I've given you like 15 corrections on this already so far.
And I only give you these corrections because...
I'm not trying to give you... I'm not trying to make you make absolute statements where they don't exist.
Yeah. But you can't be kind of lower on the totem pole.
You either are or you aren't.
That's true. So which is it?
Well, I would be. Okay, you would be.
Thank you. Because otherwise, there's nothing...
You're trying to reproduce the same quicksand for me that you're standing in, right?
That's not going to help either of us.
Yeah, I'm sorry, sorry. No, that's okay, it's okay.
Yeah. Okay, so what happens if you were to challenge that in your family and say, you know, so I'm the smallest and the youngest.
It could have happened to any of you guys.
It's just, it's accidental.
Like, why is it that I'm still at the age of 25?
Like, come on. What's wrong with this family that we need this pecking order?
What's wrong with you guys that you need to climb up on some little kid's body and feel a little bit taller because you happen to be born sooner?
What would happen if I said that?
Or something like...
I wouldn't have any problem saying it now.
Well, yes you would. Come on, don't give me tough guy routine.
This is siblings, right? Nobody's tough with siblings.
It's always scary. Yeah.
They probably wouldn't take it very...
Like, they'd probably be sarcastic.
I think they would be sarcastic, yes.
Right, so they would try to put you down for attempting to become equal or to point out that it's...
A, it was pretty...
And to me, it's really pathetic.
It's really pathetic to attempt to feel stronger than...
A younger sibling. To feel that you're more powerful or better because someone happened to be born later.
I mean, that's really sad, right?
I mean, that's really sad.
Of all the ways to gain some sort of sense of power and self-esteem, stepping on the back of a little kid to get a little extra height, the job of older siblings, the job of parents is to protect and nurture the Strength of the younger siblings and you know because they are frustrated for being smaller and younger right?
Yeah the weird part is they would usually like not look up to me but like you know I was the bright child then the younger one coming up and they would encourage me in that way but then they still never figured out well something's not right what's going on they never sat down and asked right?
Right, so there may be, there may be, there may be, this is all just rank theory from a guy in his room, right?
But this is a possibility that you should mull over.
There may be a family structure where a lot of people's self-esteem are invested upon you being the smallest and the weakest.
Yeah. And that's why they're not circling back because they need you where you are.
I see. Makes them feel superior?
Well, it's just a possibility, right?
Like, if there's a family structure around, I'm stronger than the youngest, I'm the oldest brother, I'm the middle brother, I'm not the youngest, the youngest is the baby of the family, and blah blah blah, then it would kind of, like, your family's kind of an inverted pyramid.
I see. Right, resting on you, not...
Moving forward. And that's the nicest thing that I could think of.
The nicest thing that I can think of is that there is an investment that people have had, which may have come down from your dad or your mom or granddad or grandmom or culture or teachers or priests.
I don't know, but it doesn't really matter.
But people may be invested in you're the baby of the family.
You're the smart one who's...
Got these characteristics, whatever they are, small, weak, clumsy, I don't know, whatever it is.
But they're diminishments.
And people have invested themselves in their birth order.
And you yourself have invested yourself in your birth order, though the one who's the youngest has no say in it, obviously.
You just have to make do with what there is, right?
And... I speak, you know, I just want to, you know, just be full disclosure.
I mean, this is something that I've had to work in a lot, work with a lot within my own family.
So it may apply to yours, it may not.
This is all to do with you, you know, figuring this out.
But, I mean, I found it ridiculous that my brother would still treat me as a younger brother into my 30s.
I mean, it was ridiculous. We were working, we were getting the same paycheck, we were working as equals in business, in a business we co-founded.
And he was still treating me like a little kid.
And I just... I couldn't...
I couldn't stand it anymore.
And I tried talking to him about it a whole bunch of times.
But unfortunately, he was just...
His ego was too heavily invested in this older brother thing.
And I thought, well, Jesus, so the rest of my goddamn life, I'm gonna have to be less than this guy?
That he's invested not in building me up, but in...
Keeping me to be lesser?
And it becomes progressively more ridiculous because we're two and a half years apart.
So when you get into your 30s, it's not exactly like he's twice my age anymore, two and a half and five or whatever, right?
So I had to look at my family structure almost like an anthropologist, like from the outside, and I had to say, okay, what the fuck is really going on here?
Either these people just don't care about me at all, or They're locked into a pattern that was forged decades ago, which nobody chose.
It just happened, birth order or whatever.
And they're too rigid, and they will always try and put me back into this box of, I'm the youngest.
I'm the baby of the family or whatever, right?
And I had to look at that and say, well...
I mean, this is just my personal, right?
So this is not anything to do with what you should or shouldn't do.
This is just my personal story to give you some clarity about where I'm coming from so you can take what I'm saying with as much salt as you want.
But I had to kind of look at that, my friend.
I had to say, well, if they're not going to change, if they're constantly going to try and put me back in this box called baby, the family, little brother, you know, a dreamer, clumsy, impractical...
You know, too emotional, whatever it is.
And they had, you know, we could all write down the labels that our family has put on us for better or for worse for days, right?
So I had all these labels, these boxes on me, and I thought, well, I can't get them to change their minds about who I am because they've already decided who I am.
And the decision wasn't based on who I actually am, but on some inconsequential things like birth order or, you know, a sort of philosophical bent or whatever.
And I thought, well, if I can't get them to change their perception of who I am, which is false, which is incorrect, then one of two things is going to happen.
Either I'm going to go into the box that they have for me every time I'm with them, right?
So when I'm with my family, I have to go into the box called the abstract, clumsy, entertaining, dreamy, Little brother, the baby of the family, the whatever, right?
I have to go into that box to be with them.
Which is kind of not being with them.
Because being with them, like, I'm still two and a half, which is ridiculous, right?
So I have to go into this box, or I have to fight this box.
I have to consistently bring up that it's a ridiculous thing to do, that it's...
It's ancient history.
Let's be equals.
It's ridiculous to go on with these stereotypes and so on.
And, you know, it indicates a kind of rigidity that is, I don't think, particularly healthy.
So I'm either going to conform to this box or I'm going to fight this box.
Now, I decided not to conform to the box.
I decided to fight the box.
And I drew a line and said, look, I have to be more than your stereotypes of me.
I have to be. Because that's not me.
That's not me. I mean, it's as ridiculous for me to show up in my 30s as the little brother as it would be for me to show up wearing a fucking diaper.
I mean, come on.
And I knew that that was a real brinksmanship issue.
Because I was either going to Break out of that stereotype with regards to other people, or they were just going to keep pushing me back in until I didn't want to go back anymore.
But I knew that I could not remain in that box with these people, because that box followed me when I left.
Right? So I would leave from seeing my family, and I would still feel for days afterwards that box.
And I couldn't live like that anymore.
I had to get out of that box.
My hope, of course, was that I could get out of that box without losing any relationships.
But that didn't turn out to be the case for me.
It may not be an issue for you, may not be the issue for you, or you may be able to resolve it without the negative consequences that I had.
But that's the nicest thing that I could think of as to why people aren't really circling back, sitting down with you and saying, you know, we're family, we're flesh and blood.
I'm concerned about you and I want to help.
Are you back? Yeah, I'm back.
Oh yeah, so sorry about that.
I just gave a big speech, which apparently some people stayed on for and some people dropped off from, so I won't repeat it, but you'll get to listen to it when I send you a recording of this.
And I'm sorry that I won't have a chance to have you respond to that.
But maybe when you can shoot me an email when you've had a chance to listen to it.
But that was sort of my summation of, you know, sort of a weird thing to talk about after you've dropped off.
But you'll have to circle back and catch it on the recording.
That's fine. That's fine. All right.
So I certainly do appreciate that.
Listen, and I really hope that I've expressed a sufficient amount of sympathy for where you are.
It is a very, very difficult position to be in.
You obviously have a huge amount to offer, and I hope the call has been of some use to you, and I hope that my amateur analysis of it at the end is of some utility.
But I would always say, as I generally do, that this kind of thing is usually great to bring up with a therapist.
Whether you can get one through a government agency, I think would be worth exploring.
You might be able to get one counseling or whatever.
And see if you can explore that option.
But definitely don't be satisfied with where you are.
You have the capacities for so much more.
And if you have to start at the bottom, you have to start at the bottom.
The only thing worse than starting at the bottom is not starting at all, right?
Yeah, absolutely. When I get working in some real cash in May, I'm really thinking about therapy and, of course, donating and stuff like that.
Yeah, do therapy before donating, I would say.
Don't worry about the donating. Definitely spend the money on a therapist first and foremost.
So let me send you this recording and you can let me know what you think.
I think it would be useful for other people, but you can have a listen and let me know what you think.
Sure. Alright, thanks, man.
And keep me posted about what happens, alright?
I shall. Thank you, everyone, for joining and for listening.
Thanks a lot, Steph. All right, man.
Take care. You too.
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