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Dec. 13, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:50:30

1532 Sunday Show 13 December 2009

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	Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us.
	I guess this is one of the last lead-in to Christmas, the 13th of December 2009.
	And I hope you're all doing just wonderfully.
	I hope you had a great, great week.
	I had some very interesting conversations with some very smart and dedicated people.
	I had a chat with the head of the ACE study.
	And acestudy.org if you want to check it out.
	And I will be releasing that soon.
	Just trying to fix up some audio things.
	And I have a conversation with a very interesting filmmaker and another professor of psychology next week.
	So thanks to everybody who's giving me positive feedback on the interviews.
	I'm still trying to sort of get...
	The swing of it down, but I think it's going okay.
	I'm sure that they will continue to improve as time goes forward, but it takes a little bit of getting used to this kind of format.
	So thank you for your patience as I figure out the best way to do it.
	And thanks for everybody's kind words about how useful you have found these conversations to be.
	I know that I have as well.
	And I have an intro, but I don't want to take over or take out anybody's time who has A yearning, burning, if not a downright itching of a topic.
	So I'm just going to pause here.
	If you wanted to bring up a topic or a question or an issue, I would be more than happy to throw the shows directly into your lap.
	Just to remind you, you can call 315-876-9705.
	Just tell James P. in the chat room that you would like to do that, and he will throw you into the call.
	And I hope that you will use that if you don't have Skype.
	If you do have Skype, just whisper him your Skype ID and he will throw you in as well.
	So let me pause now in case we want to hear from any new or old friends in the exciting trenches of philosophy.
	If you have questions or comments, please, with the speaking.
	Somebody has asked me, have you seen HBO's In Treatment, the psychological drama?
	Yes, I did watch some portions of season one.
	And I did watch, I think, one or two shows of season two.
	There are so damn many of them.
	And I found it interesting.
	It was not particularly like my therapy.
	So I don't have that much to judge it by.
	I think the acting is fantastic.
	And I also think the writing is great.
	It's based, of course, I'm sure you know, on an Israeli drama.
	And so...
	I found it interesting.
	I did not find it particularly compelling and I found that this idea of the opaque therapist to be a little bit passive and I did not find his insights to be that powerful but I guess everyone has their particular tastes.
	I found him to be a little bit too remote and abstract and intellectual.
	I did not find that he got particularly into the meat of things with his patients so I didn't have a huge amount of sympathy and I also didn't see A lot of progress in his patients.
	Though I must say, Blair Underwood as the really scary Air Force pilot was very good.
	So it's worth looking at, for sure.
	I'm not sure the degree to which it accurately represents therapy as a whole.
	Of course, what do I know? But I thought it was interesting.
	Somebody asked, how is Christina?
	She's fantastic. And so she's great.
	And she sends her regards. She's sorry that she can't listen into the Sunday shows.
	But she is...
	Well, with the baby.
	Who, I mean, Isabella is just doing fantastically.
	She's been walking for, oh, I don't know, three weeks now?
	I guess her birthday is coming up very shortly.
	And so she's incredibly active.
	I mean, she's just a different kid from most of the other kids that we see, in a good way, I think.
	Although it is non-stop, I'm telling you.
	We took her out for dinner last night.
	There were a number of other kids in the restaurant for age sort of two months to about 16 months to two years.
	And they're all sort of sitting there fairly nicely.
	Isabella would not stay in her chair, wanted to walk around the restaurant.
	She's amazingly friendly.
	I mean, we are, I guess, too. But she walked around the restaurant and she waves hello at everybody and says hello to everybody.
	And it doesn't go to strangers at the moment.
	She's a little bit more averse to that, as is to be expected at this age than she used to be.
	But she is very friendly and very positive and definitely wants to go and do a lot of things.
	And they had this rotating Christmas tree with lights and of course she immediately wanted to dismantle and dismember that.
	So it was all very exciting.
	Am I planning on seeing Avatar?
	I don't know.
	I don't know. I saw the preview for it.
	The commercial.
	And it looks like just a whole bunch of empty-headed CGI. I didn't see a single plot element.
	I have no idea what the story is about.
	But I do see that a lot of things blow up.
	And I also saw that I think it was an elf was going to use a bow and arrow against a spaceship.
	So it looks all kinds of silly.
	But I don't know.
	I don't have much of a chance to see movies.
	But, you know, I know what you mean.
	Like, CGI is cool.
	But CGI can only take you so far.
	I mean, we all know that the last three Star Wars films...
	If not the last six Star Wars films had a lot of CGI. And oh dear God in heaven, did they ever suck.
	Yeah, and it just looks pretty...
	It just looks a pretty...
	It just looks pretty trashy.
	Pretty eye candy. And I just...
	I can't really...
	I can't really get into it. Yeah, the first three Star Wars films are good.
	Absolutely. I thought they were great, but...
	Oh man, they just sucked after that.
	I'm just talking like the years that they came out.
	I guess the first Star Wars films were 77 to 82 or something like that.
	Somebody's asking, which video games do I play?
	How did you talk about it in a random podcast?
	Well, not many these days.
	I used to play Unreal Tournament and I liked it because you could kind of dip in, play for 20 minutes and go to bed.
	It wasn't a huge time sink. And my wife and I did play Neverwinter Nights, which was fun.
	And I did play a little bit of Neverwinter Nights 2, but I couldn't really get into it.
	I'm currently making three minutes a day progress, or I guess three minutes every other day progress through Dragon Age Origins, which is quite good, interesting and engaging.
	And good acting, good characterization, but I don't really have much time to play these days.
	Though I'm sure that will change over time.
	I've always really enjoyed Video games.
	And I quite like the strategy of the sort of spells and stuff and how to defeat enemies and so on.
	So I'm sort of playing that at the moment in the odd moments that I get.
	I'm just reading questions.
	Feel free to speak up. I'm just reading questions from the chat room.
	Somebody has said, just a minor curiosity, in your interview with Dr.
	Mary Ruard, you stated that you believe socialized medicine will be put in place in the next 10 to 20 years in the U.S. U.S. government was going to run out of money within the next five, ten years.
	I wonder if your views about what will happen have changed.
	You don't have a crystal ball recent thoughts on this topic.
	Yeah, look, I mean, just because the U.S. government runs out of money doesn't mean that the entire U.S. system will collapse.
	I mean, Argentina ran out of money.
	Mexico ran out of money in the 90s, I think.
	Countries run out of money.
	I mean, if you look at hyperinflation within Germany, it wasn't like Germany then became a stateless society, of course, in the 20s after hyperinflation hit.
	But what it will involve is a radical reorganization of the US economic system.
	I've got some sort of notes about what I think will happen, which again is all just random guesswork.
	Hopefully not exactly random, but somewhat random guesswork on my part.
	So I may put, if people are interested enough, I can put some thoughts together on what I think the domino effect will be.
	But I do think that I have not seen a policy put forward In forever.
	That is to do with minimizing or reducing or eliminating government control over a particular area.
	Like, we have a problem, so we need less force.
	That is a cultural momentum that is not going to change anytime soon.
	And the more wedded people are to a particular addiction, the worse things have to get before they'll look at alternatives.
	So, that is a huge challenge in this area.
	I mean, the more people are addicted to the idea that violence will solve social problems...
	The tougher it's going to be, the worst things are going to have to get before they will change their minds.
	I mean, if you look at how bad things have to get for an alcoholic or a drug abuser before they change, and those people know that drinking too much And doing drugs is bad.
	Whereas people think that using the government to solve social problems, using force to solve...
	They think it's virtuous.
	They don't even know that it's wrong yet.
	They don't even know that it's bad yet.
	Of course it's going to take a huge amount of re-education in the form of quite a grisly period of history in order to change.
	Unless... Unless parenting can be improved in time.
	Unless we can get parents to stop using their authority based on size, strength and power.
	To, quote, instruct their children.
	Because if that's what you've been used to from day one, literally day one, then you won't be able to think of anything else.
	But if you've not been used to that, you know, enlightened parenting meeting, the historically entrenched statism based on bad parenting, will be a thrilling match to watch.
	And I hope to be ringside, if not umpiring.
	So we shall see.
	All right. Let me just...
	I'm just going to give a pause in case anybody has any questions or comments.
	You can put them in the chat window, you can call, you can be added to Skype, or you can speak up if you're on Skype.
	Don't be shy. Don't be shy.
	Seize the day, if not the microphone.
	Well, I can continue with a, yeah, if you want relationship questions, whatever, if this is your show, my friends, whatever is on your mind, I am happy to listen to it.
	Somebody has asked, where do you get your information from?
	Which news sites or newspapers do you read?
	To keep updated. Let's see.
	I mean, in general, I will have a look at...
	Because it's on my iPod, Huffington Post, a little bit of time, I get a weekly magazine called Maclean's, which is a Canadian magazine, which has some good aspects to it.
	I do get some good ideas from the radio from time to time.
	There's no particular...
	I'm a new site that I visit regularly because I'm topic-based.
	So when I have a particular topic that I want to look up, I will just Google and plow my way through the Google stuff.
	No, I don't look at the Drudge Report.
	I don't look at edge.org or antiwar.com, not on a regular basis.
	There's no site that I look at on a regular basis.
	I just don't have the time.
	I've been meaning to do these little blog articles, but it is really tough to carve out the time.
	What are my views on homeschooling?
	Well, I think it's great.
	I think it's great if people want to do that and can do that.
	I think it's wonderful. It's not my first choice because I do think that being a teacher, I think being a teacher takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of training and I think it's a pretty skilled thing to do.
	And I feel relatively comfortable being, you know, an instructor, if you want to put it that way, in the realm of philosophy because I've spent 25 plus years studying it and talking about it and trying to teach people about it.
	So I feel relatively experienced in that.
	Do I feel competent to teach a child through to any reasonable level of competence?
	8 or 10 or more subjects?
	No. So I think if people can do it and they have the broad enough knowledge, but I'm not even going to tell you at what grade my daughter would outstrip me in math, but it would not be double digits, I think.
	Yeah, most teachers are terrible, absolutely.
	I think sending your kid to public school, if there's any conceivable way that you can avoid that, I mean, I would absolutely rather homeschool my daughter than send her to public school.
	But I like to think that here, at least, there are other options, private schools that actually have some quite good ratings and rankings.
	Is it perfect that they're going to teach my kids stuff that I don't believe in?
	Well, of course, but...
	A, of course, no matter what, I mean, unless I lock her up, she's going to be exposed to opinions that I disagree with.
	The point is to have her be able to think about those opinions in an intelligent way.
	I mean, I don't have any problem with people being exposed to opinions that differ or oppose mine, because hopefully the ones that are valuable of mine aren't opinions, but are reasoned arguments from first principles, so I don't mind that she's going to be told about the government.
	Because she's going to need to think about that sort of stuff.
	And it's not like if I keep her home, she's never going to hear about it anyway.
	The news and the internet and so on, right?
	So she's going to go and she's going to learn stuff that I don't believe is true or valid.
	But the important thing is for her to be able to think about those things in a rational and empirical way.
	So we shall see.
	Yeah, I've said I don't know how she's going to sit down in school for eight hours a day.
	She's really energetic and constantly on the go.
	Like, it's like maybe five minutes a day she will sit, sort of put her head on my chest or sort of sit peaceably and play with my finger or something, but the rest of the time she's just go, go, go, go, go.
	Somebody's asked, how will I deal with a situation in which a teacher unfairly punishes Isabella for being too active?
	Well, I really don't know.
	I really don't know.
	Like a lot of things in life, it's like I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.
	I find that it is not a particularly good thing for me to try and sort of map out my life ahead like I'm writing a script through to the end of time.
	The idea of rehearsing in particular for the contingencies of the future, I think is...
	You know, the more that I over-rehearse or over-prepare for possible problems in the future, the more I'm saying that I'm not going to be able to deal with them in a real-time way in the moment.
	And I like to think that I have a fairly good ability to deal with conflicts and problems in a real-time way in the moment.
	So... If that comes up, I will sort of deal with it at the time in a way that is, you know, appropriate and positive and will either result in improved situation in the school or some other alternative.
	Yeah, I'm talking to...
	I just ordered a film.
	You might want to check it out. It's called The War on Kids and it is a documentary that is about how The people who build prisons also build schools and that schools have turned a huge amount of their curriculum and sort of environment and rules and so on turn on the prison model.
	And of course, he's familiar, this guy, I saw him interviewed on the Colbert Report.
	He's familiar with the idea that, the reality that public schools in North America and indeed in most of Western Europe came out of the Prussian model, which was designed to Build dumb, obedient, frightened, insecure factory workers so that it was never really designed to build self-actualized, intelligent, questioning citizens.
	So you might want to check that.
	Hey, Steph. Hello. Hello.
	My name is Chad. I'm a big fan.
	It's great to finally talk to you.
	I'm very pleased to hear from you.
	Thank you so much. What's on your mind, Mr.
	C? Well, I just got done with my breakfast tacos, and that's because I was up all night listening to your book, Real-Time Relationships.
	Oh, wow. Fantastic.
	That's fantastic. Yeah, I just finished it.
	I thought it was great. I thought it was excellent.
	Well, I'm glad. I wish I could...
	Honestly, I feel really bad that I couldn't just buy it, but I've got like $5 in my bank account right now.
	I'm like a poor 21-year-old who's...
	What? You've got no credit to donate?
	No, I'm kidding. Oh, don't worry about that.
	Yeah, no, seriously.
	I'll tell you, like just before you continue, and I do hear this a lot, like people sort of feel...
	And look, I respect and honor the feeling of reciprocity that you have.
	I really do, and I think it's great.
	But I gotta tell you, the idea...
	That what's happening here at Freedom Bain Radio is that we are putting, you know, the power of philosophy into the hands of people who don't have two nickels to rub together, I think is fantastic.
	Because you wouldn't normally have access to this book or to a whole, you know, realm of philosophical conversations if you had to sort of, if it were 50 cents a podcast or if it was something that you had to buy and order.
	You simply wouldn't have this stuff.
	So I'm enormously thrilled.
	That you're getting access to resources that you wouldn't be able to afford.
	Because I mean, I think obviously the resources are important and positive.
	And this is something that the people who donate can really take pride in, I think.
	That what we're doing is we're creating resources that would be otherwise unavailable to a huge number of people.
	And that's, so I'm really, the more people who tell me, I can't afford it, but I've utilized it.
	I mean, in a sense, I don't want that to be everyone because I got to eat, but I'm incredibly pleased because that really is the idea.
	Right. Well, you know, it was interesting.
	I was on here on the chat room.
	I don't think it was yesterday.
	It was like a day before that.
	And I met a really nice guy.
	He showed me kind of how to use the Skype stuff.
	And he actually – I talked with him about some of my family issues.
	He was kind enough to listen to me for a few hours actually.
	And he recommended that I read this book before talking to you.
	Uh, so I spent like all day yesterday and today just sort of downloading it into my head, you know, and of course it blew my mind.
	Did you read it or did you listen to the audio?
	I listened to your reading of it.
	Oh, right. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
	And, uh, I gotta tell you, I mean, I, I, when I first heard your podcast online, I mean, the original reason that I even like heard about you was I was just kind of stumbling through the Because I was already looking at stuff about Ron Paul and stuff like that, and I guess the stumble button on Firefox, you were kind of like, ooh, maybe he'll like this.
	And so I kept getting YouTube videos of you, and I kept saying, I like this, I like this.
	And you kept saying, doesn't he ever leave that goddamn room?
	Does he take his computer?
	What is actually going on?
	But sorry, go on. Right.
	And so then I kind of went to your website, and I started listening to your stuff, and then I really got into what you were saying.
	You've changed my mind about a whole lot of things.
	You know, I used to believe in kind of a little minimal government and stuff, but you've pretty much blown that out of the water for me.
	I mean, there's no question in my mind now that the whole thing is immoral.
	But I gotta say, what really threw me for a loop was when I got into your stuff about the family.
	And I gotta say, it was an intense emotional experience for me just listening to a few of your podcasts.
	I mean, my reaction eventually was like, I just got the chills and the sweats, and I just puked my guts out because I realized how bad that it actually had been.
	I'm so sorry. I know, and I just didn't even...
	I didn't even understand the level or at least I had suppressed you know a lot of what of how bad that actually a lot of my experience with my parents was and It's kind of it's a strange like what I did like immediately like I'm pretty much immediately because I'd also listen to your podcast about procrastination and about Foodcrastination.
	And before even listening to foodcrastination, I was like, I already see where this is going.
	I've just got to deal with this now.
	I kind of went through that stage of like, well, I don't really want to talk to them about it.
	It's kind of scary. I don't want to do this.
	But I was just like, no, there's no way.
	There's no going back now that I've heard this.
	I'm just going to have to go talk to them.
	And so I drove like three hours to where they live.
	And, you know, I was in a pretty intense emotional state.
	I mean, I called up one of my friends that I knew in the city, and, you know, I kind of psyched myself up with him, like, about doing it, you know, because I was, like, trying to tell him this theory.
	And I was like, you know, man, I'm really scared to try this, you know, I just, but I really think that it's, I mean, it really makes sense, you know, so...
	And sorry, the reason you drove is so that you could talk to your parents or your family, I guess, about your experiences and what you liked and didn't like, right?
	Yes. Yes, exactly.
	And I didn't really quite know how to go about it.
	I mean, I originally, like, eventually it got to a point where I was, I just, they didn't know I was in the city.
	Like, I just drove up there and I went to my friends and I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
	And so I left a message on my mom's phone and Pretty much describing the way that I felt that I had been treated.
	I mean, I don't remember exactly now.
	It was maybe a few months ago that I did this, and I remember saying something like, I feel like our relationship was that equivalent to that of a master and a slave, and that I feel like You abused me with a lot of your behavior and took out a lot of your own problems on me.
	I don't remember what else it was, but eventually it ended up being like, I don't ever want to talk to you or the rest of my family again.
	I'm gone. Don't contact me.
	Goodbye. Wow.
	You initially did this a couple of months ago, is that right?
	Yes. Right, right.
	Okay, and look, I mean, I don't want to interrupt your flow at all.
	No, go ahead, go ahead. But I do have some questions, but if you want to keep going, I can hold on with my questions, no problem.
	Yeah, no, go ahead. What's your question?
	Go ahead. All right, so what, I guess, what are the issues that you had with your family?
	Just, you know, you can go as much as little detail as you want, or you don't have to talk about it at all if you don't like, but what are the issues that you had, the complaints that you have?
	Well, it's kind of a weird situation.
	My parents got divorced a long time ago when I was in second grade, I think it was.
	And it was my mom divorced my dad.
	And it was somewhere along the line – because largely for most of the relationship – My dad was kind of the one that was into hanging out with the kids and stuff and my mom was sort of always the one with the job.
	Like my dad would kind of be in and out of work and he didn't have a lot of initiative and stuff like that and so that always bothered her and she eventually divorced him.
	Now at the same time She is just, I mean, she never physically beat me or my sister.
	I've got a little sister. She never hit us.
	I never got physical abuse from either of my parents.
	But my mom would, if something really set her off, she would go into the most ridiculous fits of rage.
	You know, I'm talking just screaming and just, she would just start insulting you or just, you know...
	I don't know. I don't know how...
	I mean, I don't think you have to explain it to me.
	I mean, sorry. I think I understand.
	You're welcome to keep talking about it, but I mean, my mom had these fits of rage as well, but...
	So, I mean, I understand, but feel free to keep talking about it.
	Yeah, so I just...
	I... I kind of...
	It kind of clicked for me.
	Like, that was really terrible to do to me as a little kid, and...
	And I remember throughout most of my life, especially when I became a teenager, our relationship eventually became me sort of fighting with her, just yelling back and forth.
	It was even worse with my sister.
	Now, with me, I was kind of...
	And I don't want to sound arrogant, but I feel like I kind of knew better than her a lot of this stuff.
	It was like I knew what was going on and she was being crazy.
	And so I would kind of avoid her when she would get into fits like that sometimes.
	I'd be like, okay, well, I'm leaving.
	Goodbye. But my sister, I remember just waking up in the morning and there would be some kind of fight going on.
	It was like every day.
	It would be like she would be fighting with my little sister.
	It would be vile stuff.
	Just like, oh, I hate you, Mom!
	Just like from the depths of hell or something.
	Now, you're doing the laughing thing, right?
	Oh, yeah. It's not a criticism, right?
	I'm just pointing it out that it's not...
	It's not funny, right? I mean, this is tragic.
	This is a family that's cracking up, right?
	Yes, it is.
	And just look, just two points about your sister, right?
	Because your sister may have had...
	You said she was more susceptible.
	There may be two things that your sister has as susceptibilities that you don't have.
	One is gender. Right?
	Your mom would have been much more of a psychological template for your sister than she would for you just because of the, you know, random distribution of the naughty bits, right?
	So, you know, female to mom is much more intertwined than son to mom.
	So that's one aspect. And of course, being the youngest sibling as well has particular consequences in many ways when it comes to Feeling strong and independent and so on.
	So I just wanted to point those two things out.
	I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it's just something to think about when you think that maybe she was more susceptible.
	There might have been good reasons for it that were not personality-based, if that makes sense.
	I definitely think that's true. I definitely think that's true.
	My sister also, she's got a temper of her own.
	She really got the worst end of it.
	If you looked at the two of us and you saw just the way we were as far as socially and just anxiously, I've got a lot of anxiety, but my sister has a lot of anxiety.
	I don't know what the word is.
	She's just really unsure of herself.
	Like, if you met her, you would kind of know what I mean.
	Right, right. Right.
	Right. And how often did these eruptions, how often did they occur?
	Oh, man. I mean, for a while, at least, with my mom and sister, it was definitely, like, almost, from what I remember, almost every day when I was in high school.
	And what about with your mom to you?
	Um, to me, pretty often, but definitely less, uh, it seems, it seems like when we were, when we were little children, it did happen pretty, like when she was still married to my dad, it would happen a lot. And it would happen like every week, every month, every, like a couple of times.
	Oh man, every, every, At least every month, but maybe every week.
	It's kind of hard to remember.
	Right, right. Okay.
	And so this was like screechy, verbal blow-up and so on, right?
	Yeah, yeah. And how long would these episodes last?
	Like, as far as one argument, who knows?
	Who knows? A long time.
	My mom is just – she would go – when she would be turned into that state, when she'd get elevated to that state, she would stay like that for a while.
	The only way to avoid it was you just had to get away from her.
	Sometimes I would try, but then she would follow me into my room and just, there's still more I have to say to you, and then she'd start repeating herself.
	That was one of her favorite things.
	She would love to say the same thing Over and over.
	About how annoying I had been.
	Or something like that. Right.
	I'm so sorry. When she would...
	I mean, these explosions, they can't last forever.
	So she would come down at some point.
	Was there ever a sense that something amiss had occurred?
	That something untoward had happened?
	From her? What do you mean?
	I don't know. Well, I mean, sorry.
	That's a convoluted way of saying it.
	Did she ever say... Man, that was over the top.
	I'm sorry. Oh.
	Well, okay. That brings me to...
	I don't know. I guess that didn't happen a lot.
	I don't know. I'm trying to remember.
	I'm sure it did happen a few times.
	It definitely happened if she did it in front of my grandparents or something because they would call her out on it.
	And then it would kind of be like that.
	Okay, there's all sorts of tangents going on in my mind, but that kind of goes back to when I left that message for her on the phone.
	I actually eventually did go back to my house and talk to her.
	Sorry, your house? Yeah, her house.
	Her house, okay. Yes, yes.
	And she...
	She was just in tears.
	She was just like, wow.
	She sent me a message saying, I know you're mad at me.
	Please call me back.
	Not knowing I was in the city.
	So I went back there and she was really torn up about it.
	That I had said that.
	That I don't want to see you again.
	You won't ever see me again.
	She was just torn up.
	And I remember we went into my old bedroom.
	And she started to kind of talk, and she was like, wait, I want to let you talk.
	Tell me what it is that is up with you.
	And so I just kind of laid it out, and I was like, you were evil for what you did to me.
	And then I just sort of was like, there's a lot of anxiety that it caused me.
	Oh, sure. Throughout a lot of high school, I was pretty unsure of myself amongst my peers, and just all sorts of...
	Just a mess. She broke down crying and apologized.
	She said, I'm sorry that I did that stuff.
	She said, I know that I used to get really mad and that wasn't good for you guys.
	She also brought up for some reason The fact that like after my dad had gotten divorced she would have boyfriends right and they would come over and of course they would spend the night when I was there and like I don't you say of course right but that's not necessarily the case I mean it's not it's not inevitable right okay yeah right it's not inevitable that they yeah exactly but with her it's I guess what I say I would say of course but sorry go on um And she,
	you know, she was just, she apologized for all that stuff.
	And I didn't know really quite how to take that.
	I mean, I was kind of... Wait, wait, wait. Okay, so let's pause here because, I mean, this is, I mean, a lot, everything you're saying is significant, but this in particular is significant, right?
	So after you said that you didn't want to see her anymore, she called you and was, you know, I'm compressing a lot, but was tearful and apologetic.
	Is that right? Yes.
	And how did you feel...
	How did you feel when she was apologizing and when she was tearful?
	It was...
	Well, it's kind of hard to describe.
	First off, I remember the initial...
	After making the phone call...
	It was like a vacuum sucked into my head.
	Sorry, after making which phone call?
	After making the phone call telling her that I didn't want to see her again.
	Right, okay. So you had talked about your experiences and things had gone badly and I guess she lost her temper again and this happened a couple of times or a number of times and then you didn't want to see her and then after that you're saying that the emptiness kind of came into your head, is that right?
	Well, it was kind of like when I made the phone call that I wasn't going to see my family anymore.
	It was like...
	I just got this...
	It felt like my head cleared.
	I don't know how to describe it.
	It was just like... It was like a big blowout or something.
	And then when I went back to talk to her, it all kind of filled back in.
	You mean a kind of fog or a kind of distraction or...
	Like, just like tension.
	Tension, okay, right. Like the anxiety came back, you know, by going back and seeing her.
	Right. Whereas when I dismissed them, I kind of got this like temporary high of feeling really freed, right?
	It was like... Well, we don't know if it was temporary.
	We know it was temporary because you went back, but we don't know whether it was temporary, like temporary, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	And again, I don't know whether right or wrong to go back doesn't matter.
	I'm just saying that it may or may not have been temporary in terms of the long run.
	Right, yeah.
	And that was kind of the weird thing, too, is that I guess when she was crying and kind of feeling bad about it, like, I... I kind of like...
	And this is really tough to say because it makes me feel like a bad person to say this.
	But I kind of felt cold toward her.
	I kind of felt like you're just crying for yourself.
	I don't know. It doesn't make me feel good to say that about my mom, but I kind of was like, You know...
	Right.
	Listen, I get it.
	I mean, I really do get it.
	At least, I think I do.
	And I'll tell you why.
	I think I get it. And I think why what you felt makes perfect sense to me.
	And I think it's actually healthy. And then you can tell me if I'm, you know, full of amateur nonsense, right?
	If I've done something to harm something, to harm someone, right?
	There are the two R's.
	Apologies by themselves mean nothing.
	In the same way that saying I love you means nothing.
	It's just words, right?
	The words should be the tiny snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of months or years of consistent actions, where the words I love you or I'm sorry are simply a confirmation of behavior that has already changed.
	But they don't change the ship.
	You've got to turn the ship around and then you can say I'm heading south.
	You can't say I'm heading south, not touch the wheel and expect the ship to turn around.
	So I'm sorry, and I love you, and I did my best, and all of these things, they're just words.
	And they should reflect really powerful and deep actions.
	But most people just want to hang their hat on the hook of the words alone, right?
	Like the words are all...
	So there are two R's that at least come to my mind when I think about apologizing.
	And the first is restitution, and the second is rehabilitation.
	Uh-huh. Right? So...
	Restitution is, how can I make up the deficits that I have caused in you?
	And that requires that the person who's harmed you ask you weeks or months or sometimes even years worth of questions about what that harm has done to you so that they can understand what harm they have done to you so that they can understand How they might act in order to begin to repair that.
	And so that's the restitution.
	And the restitution rests on a lot of questions, right?
	So if you say, Mom, you did X, Y, and Z many, many times during her childhood that left me with enormous problems and deficits and anxieties and issues and so on, then somebody who is really concerned with you, first of all, you won't have to push it to the brink in order to get a change in behavior.
	Right? Because you brought these issues to your mom a number of times, and it just went really badly, according to what you've said.
	So you bringing these issues, it wasn't enough.
	Right? Now, when you pushed an ultimatum onto the relationship, and I know it wasn't an ultimatum like, do this or else, right?
	But it was like, I'm done. Then you get a change in behavior.
	But that's not because of you.
	Right. Because you already brought the issues to your mom, right?
	Right. Right. And she didn't react in a way that was positive.
	So she's already in a huge deficit when it comes to now that you've threatened to cut off the relationship, now I'm going to tell you that I'm sorry.
	But that's already a huge deficit to start from, right?
	Yeah, and I kind of knew she would do that.
	Bringing this stuff up wasn't enough for her to acknowledge.
	I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and I kind of like suspected that too.
	I was kind of like, yeah, you know, it's good for you to say that now, but I don't know, like you said, it's just like you're only apologizing because suddenly there's a consequence.
	I don't know. Well, I mean, it's possible.
	I don't know because I don't know your mom or whatever, but it's possible that she just doesn't like the consequences that will accrue to her if you don't see her.
	Yeah. Right? Like people saying, well, why isn't your son singing?
	Whatever, right? Who knows, right? The appearance of things suddenly looks bad, right?
	Right. Like the preacher who treats his wife badly, but then doesn't want her to divorce him because it will affect his income as the preacher, the minister, right?
	It's impossible, right? So the question of restitution is really important.
	Restitution is impossible, right?
	Because restitution is a gift that you give to someone after you've harmed them.
	It's a band-aid or a bandage that you put on someone you've wounded.
	But the wounds aren't visible.
	And so you have to ask the person, where does it hurt?
	You don't go to a doctor's office and say, I feel unwell and the doctor says, here's a vat of pills, grab some and go.
	He's got to ask a whole series of questions.
	You know, where does it hurt? When did it start?
	How long has it been going on?
	Is it persistent? Is it intermittent?
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? He's got to do x-rays.
	He might have to do urine tests.
	He's got to do a lot of investigating to find out where the harm is.
	And the harm that's in your body is much clearer than the harm that's in your mind, right?
	Yeah, that's my question is my friend.
	How many questions did your mother ask you about how what she had done?
	affected you I guess I guess not not that many if any I Well, no, take your time.
	We're trying to figure out why you felt cold.
	And I'm going to...
	I always side with the victim.
	And that doesn't mean that it's always perfect, but that's a good place to start.
	And so my question is, if it was about her concern for your pain, then shouldn't she at least do what an anonymous doctor does, which is ask you some questions about where it hurts and what the effects of her behavior are on you, That's how you know that it's not just about her, because she's actually asking you questions about your experience.
	Right. I'm just trying to think of this particular conversation, but I can't remember any questions.
	Right. Well, I mean, that's important.
	Then I would assume that there weren't any.
	And I would assume that A, because you can't remember, and B, because you felt cold, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Now, when did this last conversation, just roughly, with your mom occurred, where she was tearful and apologetic?
	I'm sorry, when did it occur?
	Yeah. It was in August, I think.
	Okay, and sorry, since then, what has your mother done with this information that she did considerable harm to you, by your definition, and I have no reason to doubt it, right?
	Well, from what I get, she's just kind of regressed back to where we were before.
	You know, it was kind of like, I mean, I don't know, I guess she kind of assumes like, okay, well, glad that's over with.
	Kind of thing. So has she shown...
	Oh, man. Has she shown any curiosity about whether it is resolved for you?
	No. Well, Jesus, man.
	Well, no, I guess not.
	You think you feel like a bad person for feeling cold?
	Come on.
	Tell me how you're not supposed to feel cold in the face of this.
	You say I'm leaving.
	She says, I'm sorry.
	She doesn't ask you about how it's affected you in the conversation at all since.
	She's regressed back to her prior behavior.
	Yeah. Come on!
	I mean, yeah, it's like she just kind of assumes that we can just go back.
	Like, I don't know.
	Is she right?
	I mean, you're saying she's assuming that, but isn't it working?
	Oh, yeah. Well, you're right.
	Yeah, exactly. Okay, no, I agree.
	Okay, wait, wait. Here's another issue I wanted to bring up.
	No, no, no, no. No other issues.
	Let's stay on this one. No, wait.
	No, it has to do with this.
	I swear. I swear. Because, okay, I agree.
	I agree that it's not acceptable, and I don't really want to be around this woman, and I don't really want to have a relationship with this person.
	But like I said earlier about how poor I am, for example, right now I'm trying to get going with a new job to where I can get So you feel that you need money,
	right? Yeah, definitely.
	I mean, otherwise what?
	Am I going to default on my rent and my roommate here and stuff like that?
	Well, no, no.
	Look, the issue to me, I mean, finance is who knows, right?
	Because that's a whole other conversation.
	But the issue is not whether you need money or not, to me.
	The issue is not whether you stay in contact with your mother or not.
	You can do whatever the hell you want, right?
	I'm just some guy, some amateur guy on the internet, right?
	But here's what I do think.
	Here's what I do think. You need to be clear about why you're doing what you're doing, right?
	So if, maybe this is true and maybe this is not, right?
	If you're saying, look, I don't buy the apology, it was self-serving, it was kind of narcissistic, to use an amateur phrasing of the word, right?
	Like, it was all about her, it was just a maneuver, right?
	Like, once she got that I was going to leave her, she felt bad about that, and so she apologized and cranked out some tears so that I would stick around, and now everything's back to the way it was.
	She hasn't shown any curiosity about how her behavior affected me.
	She hasn't followed up the issue that for many years I was terrified of her temper.
	She hasn't followed it up. She hasn't asked me a single question.
	So clearly there's no change. Clearly it was just a maneuver.
	Definitely. So that's fine.
	If you say, well, I'm going to stick around because I need the money, that's fine.
	To me, hey, there's no rules.
	No God is going to punish you or reward you for good or bad behavior.
	There are no rules. The only thing that's really important to me, which doesn't mean that it has to be important to you, but the only thing that's really important to me, my friend, is be conscious of the decisions that you're making.
	Right. See, but I am conscious of that, but I still don't...
	Something feels slimy about that, right?
	You mean like hanging around somebody you don't like to take money?
	Yeah, exactly.
	And it's my mom, and it's like, I know that's just sort of like...
	Look, first of all, you are still fuzzy about it.
	Because otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up.
	Right. Oh, definitely.
	And you wouldn't say, I feel like a bad person for feeling cold.
	So, you know, accept, hopefully accept an objective view that you are not clear about it yet.
	Right. Right.
	And secondly, let me ask...
	Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and that's the thing.
	Like, I... I know, rationally, that it's clear to me, rationally, pretty much.
	But, I mean, I still feel guilty, right?
	Like, I still, like, when I think, like, I just imagine in my mind, like, what'll go on in the rest of my family and stuff like that, it still makes me feel like, aw, like, I don't want to hurt them, you know, I don't want to do that.
	And I know it's... That's not a reason for why.
	That's not a good reason for why.
	Well, let me ask you this. How many of your family members knew about your mother's temper?
	You already mentioned your grandparents, right?
	How many of your family members knew about your temper, your mom's temper?
	Yeah. Okay. That's an interesting question.
	Hold on a sec. Sorry. That's an interesting question because, okay, my...
	My grandma and grandpa, who don't live with us, my grandma is a psychologist, right?
	And she's had a long, deep-seated relationship with my mom since before I was around.
	And my grandma has always kind of been there, like a bug in my ear when I was younger.
	Kind of just...
	Telling me who my mom is, right?
	So I was kind of being let in at an early age.
	Sorry, let in, what do you mean?
	She would tell me about your mom has really...
	I mean, she used terms like narcissistic personality disorder and stuff like that.
	And sorry, this is her mom or your dad's mom?
	Okay, this is her stepmom.
	My grandpa divorced my biological grandma way back, and he remarried a younger wife.
	And she and my mom have always kind of clashed.
	They've always kind of had a pretty rough relationship together getting along.
	Sorry, let me just make sure I understand this.
	So your step-grandmother on your father's side...
	On my mother's side. On your mother's side.
	Sorry, your step-grandmother on your mother's side is a psychologist who described your mother as having a narcissistic personality disorder.
	Yes. To you.
	Yes. And how old were you when she told this to you?
	Um... You...
	It was...
	I mean, I was probably...
	Just roughly. For some reason, 13 pops in my head.
	I don't know why. 13.
	13. I gotta tell you, you know, I'm no psychologist, I'm no professional in this field at all, but that seems to me wildly inappropriate.
	I agree.
	No, seriously, what the fuck is a 13-year-old supposed to do with that information?
	I agree. I agree.
	She was really just like, ah!
	She was just afraid so much of what she was seeing as far as the way my mom was raising me and my sister that she desperately latched herself onto me and tried to protect me by letting me in on all this psychobabble stuff.
	So I'm having to process all this shit when I'm a little kid.
	And I'm watching my mom and I'm like, oh!
	You know, like, I remember, like, she really did, like, you know, just, yeah, yeah.
	Like, I, you know, I became kind of exposed to how bad my situation was pretty young.
	And did she confront your mother on this or work with your mother in this area at all?
	Yeah, she did a lot, but my mom would always fight with her.
	I mean, my mom always hated that she would kind of try and probe her, right?
	She always kind of hated dealing with her because she would kind of psychologize her and kind of...
	That kind of stuff.
	They still fight to this day.
	Right. So, I mean, the psychologist is engaging, right?
	She's fighting with the narcissist, as she describes her.
	Yeah. I don't know, again, what do I know, but that doesn't seem to me like particularly the right therapeutic approach to argue with somebody that you've already defined as being incapable of having a rational discussion.
	Right. No, I agree with you.
	Yeah. That's kind of an issue in my mind, too.
	See, and that's another question I kind of wanted to also get into.
	I mean, it's because we've, like, for example, we've spent all this time talking about just my mom, but I also kind of have questions about my grandparents.
	Yeah, look, I mean, we may have other callers, so I don't want to overdo this, so I'm going to just give you a couple of principles, which, trust me, what we've talked about is enough for you to chew on for quite some time, and hopefully you can get to talk to a therapist at some point, but...
	In terms of your compassion for other people, I mean, I respect and applaud that to some degree.
	I think that it's important to have compassion and it's important to have curiosity.
	But here's the thing.
	I don't think that it is wise or prudent to say the least to have compassion and sympathy in relationships where it is not reciprocated.
	Right. That just seems to me to be a complete recipe Right.
	Well, I mean, how much reciprocity should be expected, right?
	Because, for example, my dad, I mean, we never got to my dad, but...
	I confronted him when all this stuff went on too.
	And I said, you know, I'm mad at you too, Dad.
	Like, even though you were never mean.
	And my dad was, you know, my dad is just like a really patient, really nice person.
	But it's like nice to a fault, right?
	He's like really passive-aggressive and just like afraid of conflict.
	But that's kind of what I'm talking about.
	Nice to a fault is providing.
	Like, you don't show up to work and not get paid and say, hey, no problem.
	I'm just happy to be here, right?
	You expect reciprocity.
	You don't work for a fucking Big Mac.
	Hand over four bucks, and they just give you a Big Mac package, and you say, no, that's good.
	I don't need reciprocity in this relationship, right?
	Yeah, definitely. With the relationships that are flesh and blood, that are family, that are the closest to us, can we at least bring the same standards that we bring to ordering a goddamn Big Mac in terms of reciprocity?
	Can we at least have the standards of reciprocity that we have to anonymous economic interactions?
	Right, but I guess they probably thought the whole time that they were giving that reciprocity, right?
	Who knows what they thought? It doesn't matter fundamentally what they thought.
	It's just what I experienced.
	It matters what they did, and it matters how you feel.
	Wondering what other people thought.
	See, anyone can say anything about what they thought.
	What did I think 10 years ago?
	Well, I thought this, that, and the other, right?
	That's completely non-empirical.
	It's like I had a dream about an elephant last night.
	It's completely non-empirical.
	Anyone can make up anything that they want.
	It's like intentions. Well, I had the best intentions.
	Who knows? There's no way to prove that whatsoever.
	And that's why people get involved in these debates with family and with others about things like intentions and thoughts that were there that are unprovable many years ago.
	Forget all of that because it leads nowhere.
	Because it's so open to being manipulated and lied about and misinterpreted and reinterpreted.
	People can manipulate...
	The unproven, the unprovable, like religion, right?
	But people cannot manipulate reality.
	People can tell you anything that they want you to think about their intentions, but they can't manipulate what they actually did.
	Right. But that's why I asked, when I was asking about your mom and other people, I ask about empirical facts, not what do you think your mom's intentions were, because who knows?
	It's immaterial. Because it's unproven.
	So you just go round and round in circles.
	It's like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
	Does Adam have a belly button because he was made in God's image, but God doesn't have a belly button?
	It's all just made up nonsense.
	How far is it from the Shire to Mordor?
	Doesn't matter. It's all made up nonsense.
	You can only really function in relationships by looking at the facts.
	Because I tell you this, your feelings...
	Your deepest emotions, they are looking at the facts.
	They are not looking at the propaganda.
	They're not looking at the stories.
	They're not looking at the interpretations.
	They're not looking at what people are saying.
	Your deepest feelings are only looking at what people do.
	Your deepest feelings are fundamentally empirical.
	And it's in our head that we get all of this propagandistic round and round and round.
	What about empathy for those who showed less empathy for me?
	And what about... Your feelings are fundamentally empirical.
	Definitely. I agree, yeah.
	And, I mean, again, I don't want to...
	I know you've got a lot to talk about, and I respect and understand that, but, you know, there's things that you can do that, you know, prior to seeing a therapist, which obviously would be a great idea, There's things that you can do, right?
	You can buy workbooks on the family from John Bradshaw, from Nathaniel Brandon and so on.
	There are sentence completion exercises.
	You can keep a journal. You can keep a dream journal and think about what your dreams mean.
	You can talk to people. But really, really, really trust your feelings.
	Trust your feelings, your deepest instincts, not as final proof of everything in reality, but as the very, very best place to start with.
	Because if you talk yourself out of your feelings, what are you left with?
	You're left with stories, propaganda, froth and nonsense.
	Right, right. So you say, I felt cold.
	RTR, right? Real-time relationships, fundamentally is with you, not with other people.
	Fundamentally is with you. So you say, I felt cold.
	I'm not going to judge that.
	I'm curious why.
	Clearly I was not moved by this apology.
	Well, what would have moved me?
	What do you think would have been different?
	What was it in the apology and in the months since?
	Since August you said, That would cause me to feel cold.
	Did I know at the time that this was just a manipulation?
	Which it seems to be, after the fact, based on what you've said.
	So be curious about your own feelings.
	Don't judge, oh, this makes me a bad person.
	Oh, I should have sympathy for these people.
	Oh, I shouldn't feel this. Oh, I should feel that.
	Oh, that's good. Forget that.
	That's just propagandistic.
	Pushing pins around a table.
	It's nothing. It's like pushing tanks around a map and thinking you're actually doing something like fighting a war.
	You're not. It's just mental manipulation, to use a word that is similar to the word I was thinking of.
	Right? So, you work with your deepest feelings, be curious with your deepest feelings, in my opinion, and accept them as valid until proven otherwise.
	Right.
	OK.
	Certainly a lot to boil over.
	Thank you. You're welcome.
	And, you know, if you want to take money, you know...
	I mean, what the hell do you care about my opinions?
	Whatever is useful to you, take and the rest just toss aside.
	Integrity is not a formula.
	You can't achieve integrity by not taking money from people you don't like until you know why you don't like them.
	The integrity is to the feelings, not to the actions.
	The actions will come out of the integrity that you have to accept.
	Your emotions to explore, to be curious about yourself, to accept things.
	That will give you the path to integrity.
	It's not a formula, like a cutout that you sort of fold yourself into.
	It is something that comes from within, from self-acceptance, from self-curiosity.
	That will give you the go inwards, go deep.
	That will give you the path to integrity, not, well, it's me taking this money that's a lack of integrity.
	But then saying, but I feel like a bad person for feeling cold.
	You understand? That would be the form and appearance of integrity without the content.
	And without the content, it's just another kind of manipulation.
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you've been saying.
	Yay!
	That must be right.
	Well, then, you know, Mulledover, of course, right?
	But, you know, see if you can get to a therapist, but at the very least, do some of the workbook exercises, because all I can do is give you some philosophical perspectives on what's going on.
	I, you know, I don't do therapy, can't do therapy, but I think it's a really, really important thing for you to get into a better relationship with yourself.
	And the reason that you don't have a, you know, that kind of relationship with yourself is entirely understandable, and I feel a great deal of sympathy.
	For, you know, for why this has occurred and what this has done to you.
	I mean, I really want to end up by expressing that.
	I think it's terribly wrong.
	I got to tell you, I mean, I've never even thought of raising my voice at my child.
	Never thought of it. Can't imagine why.
	Children can't do anything wrong.
	Children can't do anything wrong.
	And it is very traumatic.
	To have gone through this level of aggression and verbal abuse.
	It is really a terrifying thing, and it has very significant impacts on your development.
	You can go to acestudy.org.
	I just had a chat with this guy.
	Ah, mind-blowing.
	So sad. You know, the number of adverse childhood experiences that people report has not diminished over the 20th century.
	From a time when we had no electricity to electricity, we still haven't been able to improve parenting that way.
	So it's something that I'm obviously very dedicated to because I want the world to be better in the future for my daughter to live in.
	And that means taking this issue head on for better or for worse.
	And so I really do sympathize with what happened.
	And I can promise you that if you do the work, you will come out stronger.
	And more certain and more at peace and more rooted in yourself, more capable of love, more capable of giving love, more capable of living with a kind of joyful integrity, more capable of spreading light and beauty and truth in the world than you can imagine now.
	But you have to do the work.
	Right. Alright, so what was the thing you wanted me to fill out?
	Can you give me the link real quick? I'll look it up.
	I can't give you the link, but you can look at John Bradshaw is a pretty good guy.
	He's got books on the family, which have, you can get them from the library even if you want to just do that.
	He's got questionnaires that you can fill out there.
	Just look for John Bradshaw workbooks.
	Nathaniel Brandon has some, I think, good workbooks on self-esteem and around self-acceptance and curiosity around one's own feelings and integrity.
	And please, I don't want you to get out of this conversation that I think you're acting without integrity.
	I think you're acting with incredible, admirable, enormous integrity for even taking on these issues, which very few people do.
	So, you know, my praise for you, Kant, you know, would fill up.
	It's been sleepless nights, let me tell you.
	I hear you. It's been a head trip.
	It is a hard thing to haul yourself out of that kind of history.
	So I really, really compliment and applaud you for that.
	And you work on those things.
	It's stuff that I did back in the day, and I found it to just be enormously helpful.
	This was before I went into therapy.
	And if you do this kind of work beforehand, you can save a lot of money.
	You know, on therapy.
	Just do this kind of work to prepare beforehand, and then you won't be staring googly-eyed at your therapist when she asks you some basic questions, because you'll have that lay of the land already.
	It's very, very efficient economically.
	Okay, great. Well, great.
	Thanks so much, Steph. You're welcome, and keep us posted if you can.
	And, you know, massive kudos, massive sympathies, and please accept my very best wishes.
	All right, awesome. I hope to talk to you again.
	All right, thanks, man. I'll see you.
	All right. Sorry, that was a lengthy call for those who are I'm interested in talking further, so without any further ado, if you are interested in talking further or have a question, I would be more than happy to hear.
	Hey, Steph. Hello.
	Would you be interested in doing a dream interpretation?
	I am absolutely keen.
	If that's something you want to do, it's your show, man.
	Cool, cool. This is Tom.
	By the way, I sent you an email about it.
	Yes, yes, I remember.
	Okay. How would you like to start this?
	Well, just read the dream.
	Okay. Okay.
	Here goes. It was a beautiful summer night.
	The moon was full, so bright one could see as if it was day.
	My younger brother and I are laying on the ground in our PJs just off the side of one of the large oak trees in the front yard.
	We are looking up into the sky, watching the different shapes, the slow-moving clouds that the slow-moving clouds are making.
	I point up at the sky to show my brother a shape I see being formed when a gargoyle reaches down out of the oak tree and grabs my arm and pulls me up into the tree and then flings me past him over his shoulder.
	I remember flying through trees, the leaves and the branches, till I hit the ground.
	I see my glasses come off my face and land three feet from me.
	I play as if I'm dead, not moving or breathing with my eyes open, hoping the gargoyle will leave me and not kill me.
	Some time passes and I feel it's safe now to get up and see what has happened.
	And I see that the kitchen table has been moved to the side of the front yard Off the side of the farmhouse.
	There at the table, gargoyles are feasting on my family.
	They are big, over seven feet tall.
	I hear them chewing and grunting as they clean their plates.
	I sneak up, but I know that they know that I am there watching, and they pay no attention to me.
	All have been eaten.
	Three brothers, mom, dad.
	There's only one less.
	My sister, who is laid out on the table with all the trimmings on a platter with an apple in her mouth.
	I think she's still alive and just plain dead like I did.
	I hope she can get away.
	That's pretty much the dream.
	Right, right. That's a terrifying dream.
	Yeah, for an eight-year-old, this dream's been with me.
	Since then, I'm going to be 42 in January, and I've remembered this dream visibly.
	Dammit, one day I will have a caller who's older than me, but that day is not today.
	Anyway, okay. So you had this dream when you were eight, and when you say it's been with you, does that mean you've had the dream again?
	No, I haven't had the dream again.
	I've just never forgotten it.
	Right, right. You know, like, some dreams you have, and you just, you know, they fade away, and you forget you've had them, and this one I've never forgotten.
	Can you tell me about your family's history and experience with religion?
	Strong, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.
	It went from bad to worse.
	We started out Catholic.
	We had, actually, when I was really young, I remember my dad broke away from the Catholic Church.
	He had, one of his best friends was a Jesuit priest.
	And he would actually, we used to live in Chicago, he moved, my dad moved us to a farm in Wisconsin.
	And this Jesuit priest would come to our farmhouse and have mass in our front room.
	And sorry, is the farmhouse the location of your dream?
	Yes, yes. Right.
	Right. All right.
	Sorry, go on. A lot of bad things happen.
	Typical, well I'm not going to say typical, but common brutality.
	My father, when I was 11, my mom packed this up without my father knowing and left him at the farm by himself.
	He had a heart attack previously and within a month my father had died.
	After your mom had left him?
	Yes. And why did your mom leave him?
	Because she's a bitch.
	You people with the laughter.
	It's not funny. No, you're right.
	You're right. She's sadistic.
	Why did she leave him?
	Because he was vulnerable and weak.
	And she left him at his weakest point.
	That's all I can really...
	I mean, there's more to it than that.
	I mean, God, and how old were you when your mother left?
	And I guess what you said, within a month your father died?
	Yeah, I was just turned 11.
	Right, right, okay.
	Not too long after that, about a year or two after that, our family converted to Bible Bank and Baptists.
	Right. Yeah, and it's just, I know you're familiar with that religion.
	Yeah, well, somewhat, but I get it.
	It's pretty fundamentalist and fairly nutty.
	Yeah. Most of my family is still fundamentally Baptist.
	I have broken away since age 26, and just within the past, I'd say, three years, I became an atheist.
	Deep food from my family.
	And they know it. I mean, they know I'm an atheist.
	And I think it scares the hell out of them because I was probably one of the most heartfelt religious people in the family.
	And when someone like me can walk away like that, I think it really rocks them all to the core.
	Well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to point out that it is often the most religious, the most sincerely religious, who end up escaping from this delusion, right?
	The fundamental RTR that religious people need to have is with themselves and with God.
	Because when you RTR with God and with yourself, you recognize that it's the same thing, that God is simply an aspect of yourself and it's not an external thing that...
	So it's the people who are the most devoted, the most ardent.
	It's the people who kind of are out on the fringes, never really ask questions, never really go into what it means to be religious.
	I mean, I was an incredibly religious kid when I was very, very young.
	I really genuinely believed there was the eye in the sky.
	I genuinely believed that we, you know, the world swam in the embrace of the deity.
	I was really, really religious until about the age of four or five.
	And I just... God, I was not talking to anybody but myself.
	That it wasn't out. Because I would ask God questions that I wouldn't know the answer to.
	And I never got anything back that I didn't know the answer to.
	Right. But whenever I'd ask God a question that I could have the answer to, I would get an answer back and realize that I already knew that.
	But to ask God a question that I did not have the answer to is to test about whether I'm talking to anybody outside myself, right?
	Right. So anyway, I just wanted to point out that it is the people who really accept it as true and who really go into it, Full Tilt Boogie, who get out, right?
	Yeah, yeah. I would definitely agree with that.
	Definitely. The ones that stay in it, I have an older brother who has six boys and a wife, and he's a brutal, sadistic, he's a psychopath, he's a maniac.
	And I see, and he's a deacon in church, and goes to church, you know, three times a week, and, you know, he's out street preaching, and, I mean, he's just full-blown psychotic.
	And to him, I see it as a cover.
	He uses it as a cover, because I think, I know, deep down inside, he knows he is a vile individual, just A sick person.
	I can't stand the sight of him.
	Sure. I really can't.
	I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for his kids as well.
	Yikes. Alright, but listen, let's get to the dream, right?
	So do you know why I asked you about religion up front?
	I mean, I don't know anything about your religious history, but that was my very first guess.
	Right, well, Gargoyles being back with architecture and that being a part of...
	The architecture on a lot of old Catholic churches in Europe and here in the States, too.
	Okay, go ahead with that.
	Yeah, I mean, the Geigal was definitely a clue, but it was the external presence within your family that is mythological.
	That is feasting upon your family.
	That was sort of what led me to religion, and that's why I thought that would be a good place to start.
	So let's go through the dream in a little more detail, and we'll see if, you know, again, my rank amateur opinions are of any use to you.
	Now, the fact that your dream starts off with a beautiful summer night is really, really important, I think.
	I had a feeling it would be.
	Yeah, I mean, the dream is not, you don't start off in hell with a gargoyle, you start off in a beautiful place.
	Oh, it was. It was so serene in my dream.
	It was, like, crystal clear and just the perfect summer night.
	Right, right.
	You know, I mean, we're laying out in the grass, looking up into the clouds and the stars.
	And, yeah, it was just so peaceful and just, I mean, so much internal peace at that moment in that dream.
	Right. And that's you and your brother, but that's you and the world, right?
	That's just you and the material world, right?
	There's no angels floating overhead.
	There's no, you know, there's no devils in the form of sharks swimming through the river.
	I mean, it is just you and the world, and it's very peaceful.
	Exactly, yes. Right.
	Now, I think it's very interesting when, because you are talking about the moon and the clouds with your brother, and you're about to point out a shape in a cloud, right?
	Yeah, it was like, you know how kids are, you know, when you're young, you would notice things.
	Yeah, I see a horse or whatever, right?
	Yeah, it was kind of like that.
	We were just doing that.
	Right. But it's very interesting to me that that's what occurs right before the gargoyle grabs you.
	Why is that? Well, isn't that, in a sense, the essence of religion?
	I am projecting a human interpretation on a random natural event.
	I see a shape in a cloud.
	I see a horse in a cloud.
	Oh, wow. Because it's just a cloud, right?
	It's not a horse. And I can still remember the shapes of clouds.
	I still very vividly remember a night on horseback from when I was like five or six years old, right?
	That That we look at a cloud, which is just a cloud, and of course, if we were looking at it from the other side, it wouldn't look anything like a horse and a rider.
	I know you don't say what shape it is, but we look at the world, and we see patterns based on our own projection that have nothing to do with the world.
	It's not like there is a horse at night in the cloud.
	It's just what we see, right?
	But we project that shape, that human interpretation, onto completely natural events, right?
	Right. Oh, definitely.
	And then... When you, just before you're about to point it out, a geigol reaches out of the oak tree.
	Yeah, that was...
	Terrifying. Total, yeah, heart sinking.
	I'm going to die right now.
	I mean, I just see this gray, muscular, clawed-fingered arm just snatch my arm and jerk me up into the tree.
	Right. That was, yeah.
	I think, again, this is all just my opinions, whatever they're worth, I think that the dream is telling you something important about the susceptibility of children to religion.
	There's a reason why stupid-ass religious nonsense is always inflicted upon children in general, or if it's inflicted upon adults, as in conversion from the, you know, in Africa in the 18th century, it's with sword and fire, right?
	And so, children...
	They anthropomorphize everything, you know, from my experience.
	So, you know, they take everything as personal.
	They don't have a strong separation of ego and world.
	Like, they kind of sit within their own ego and they can't imagine something happening that is not personal, right?
	So, to take an example, right?
	A kid will trip over a block and will pick the block up and throw it against the wall, right?
	Like, he's angry at the block.
	Right. And this is common.
	You see this in daycare all the time.
	And that's because he's taking it personally.
	The block tripped him up.
	The block is bad, must be punished.
	Right. And so children don't have...
	I mean, it's nothing deficient about children.
	It's actually quite charming, I think.
	But they don't have the distinguishing maturity of self and world.
	Like, I am a human being, but the world is not a human being.
	And you see this all the time in children's books, right?
	How many times have you popped up in a children's book...
	And you've seen the children looking at the moon, and the moon has a face.
	Right. Because to children, the world is a person.
	That's why animals can talk.
	That's why trees can talk.
	Right? That's why there are mermaids.
	That's why there are horses in the foam of falling waves.
	The world is alive.
	They don't have the distinction between their perspective As organic thinking beings and a dead material world out there that's completely the opposite.
	I mean, they don't. How could they, right?
	I mean, this is part of a charming phase that's quite lovely in childhood.
	Right. And so, the gargoyle strikes when you're just about to name a cloud like it's a person or like it's not just a cloud, right?
	And that, I think, speaks to the susceptibility of children based on, you know, poorly developed or, sorry, not poorly, but immaturely developed brains, physical brains.
	They don't have the ego strength to see the difference between the two.
	And so, because you have this, I think, quite charming relationship with, look, that cloud looks like a horse or whatever, that is how the gargoyle of religion gets you, if that makes any sense.
	And I'm not saying that you invited this.
	This is, you know, this is how religion is inflicted upon children, because children don't have the ego strength, and they can't understand.
	Religion is essentially a child's view of the world turned sinister from sadism.
	But anyway, we don't have to get into that right now, but...
	No, just real quick, I remember probably when I was about seven, starting out, my second oldest brother, my mom would make him do our catechism at the kitchen table.
	Sorry, I don't want to spend the rest of the day just on the first sentence, so let me just keep going in, right?
	Oh, yeah, go ahead.
	So you're ripped through the tree, and you fly through the air, The glasses come off your face, and of course, what does that mean?
	That's a clear metaphor, right?
	It's got to be. Yeah, so what does it mean?
	I don't mean in terms of the whole dream as a whole, but when your glasses go off your face, what happens to your vision?
	Well, see, that's the thing.
	I don't wear glasses anymore.
	I've never had any kind of surgeries or anything like that.
	I really didn't need them.
	Oh, so you wear glasses as a kid?
	You were almost like exploited on me by my mom.
	What's that? Sorry, the glasses were forced on you by your mom?
	Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I got one bad eye from birth or possibly from my mother's brutal beatings that I can't focus with it.
	But my other eye, I got 20 vision in one eye.
	I mean, I'm fine. I don't wear glasses.
	And I didn't need them then.
	But I was forced to wear them.
	But in the dream, when I hit the ground, my glasses...
	It came off my face, and I seen them bounce on the ground, and I'm staring at my glasses, laying in the grass.
	Right. Okay, that's even better, right?
	Sorry, better and worse, right?
	So that which is inflicted upon you by your mother, which is actually negative to your eyesight, to the clarity of your vision, could also be a metaphor for religion, right?
	Sure. Oh yeah, most definitely.
	And I think it's hard for people to remember What it's like to be a child and to learn about gods and Jesus dying for you and devils and blood and crucifix and confession and hell and all these sorts of things.
	It's really hard for people to remember what that's like as a kid.
	It's fucking terrifying stuff.
	I mean, it really turns the world into a pretty evil morality play where you're pretty much doomed no matter what you do.
	It sets you at war against yourself.
	You never have any privacy.
	Right? That battle.
	Oh, that battle I have fought.
	Oh, it's crazy.
	Oh my God, if I masturbate, I'm bad.
	If I have a bad thought, I'm bad.
	If I think, if I doubt, I'm bad.
	I mean, you're just constantly at war with yourself.
	Oh man, it's brutal.
	I'm surprised people can live as long as they do.
	Well, that's just they become afraid of dying, I think, because they feel they're lost.
	Yeah, right. One ticket going down.
	Alright, so it's interesting because it's not an angel that takes you for a flight, right?
	Which would be, I think, a really even more terrifying dream, because it would mean that you had gone crazy, in my opinion, with religion.
	But you look at this and you say, well, this is...
	The moment I try to anthropomorphize a cloud, the hideousness of religion is...
	Revealed to me, right?
	That which is inflicted upon me.
	My glasses come off and I can actually see better.
	And I see this ugliness.
	And you have to play dead.
	Yeah, I just, at that moment, when I hit the ground and my glasses bounced off, my instinct was, at that very moment, was to just play dead.
	And do you realize that's a terrifying thing because you can't help your brother?
	No, nobody. Nobody.
	Right, so the separation between the siblings is really chilling here, right?
	I mean, obviously in the real world, if there was a little kid and you could do anything, you'd leap up, you'd face the gargoyle and so on.
	But in this dream, your brother's there for a reason, right?
	Because you could have easily have been alone, right?
	But your brother's there for a reason. The dream is saying, when this gargoyle, if it's religion, I think it is, once the gargoyle of religion gets you, you're on your own.
	You are separate from others.
	They can't help you and you can't help them.
	Because if you were to go and try and help your brother, you'd be going, I'm here to protect you from the gargoyle.
	If the gargoyle is religion, you're basically trying to protect your brother from religion, which you can't do because it's being inflicted by the parents.
	Yeah. And now they're inflicting it on themselves.
	I mean, we're all so much older now.
	And I've tried. It's like...
	I go back, and I mean, I do food for my family, but I went back for a funeral a month ago, and I tried talking to my younger brother, and yeah, I can't help these people.
	I can't. I've realized that.
	You're right. Right.
	From their responses, it's just, I can't help them.
	They're lost. I mean, lost.
	Right. Right.
	Well, I mean, it's...
	I mean, to me, it's a kind of brain damage, right?
	I mean, religiosity. That level of superstition and fear and self-attack, it just craps up your brain in a terrible way.
	Yeah. Okay, so I want to make sure we get through this, right?
	So I'm sorry to keep interrupting.
	Okay, so you then head home.
	And the interesting thing, why do you think you don't check for your brother in this dream?
	You mean at that moment where I'm playing dead?
	No, after you have decided that the gargoyle has gone or it's safe to get up, you don't look to see what happened to your brother.
	And this is not a criticism, I'm just curious why that wouldn't have happened.
	I'm figuring, in the dream, I landed about 20 feet from where I was originally laying before the gargoyle grabbed me.
	Because I went up in the air through the tree and came down in the yard on the other side.
	I just, that's a good question.
	I don't know the answer.
	It's worth thinking about because, I mean, you're a caring guy.
	You went to the funeral and you tried talking with your brothers and so you're a caring and affectionate fellow and obviously you care about your younger brother because you're having a really nice time with him.
	The dream doesn't start with you fighting with your younger brother.
	Everything in a dream is significant in my opinion.
	The dream doesn't start with you fighting with your younger brother but with you guys having a really nice time, a beautiful time, a wonderful time.
	And, of course, that's what brothers should be doing, families should be doing, but you don't check for your brother.
	I just, when I stood up, got up off the ground and I looked, that's when I noticed the kitchen table being moved out to the side of the farmhouse, just off the front yard.
	And I just, as I walked up, I mean, I knew, it's kind of like at that moment, as soon as I seen all the gargoyles at the table eating, and my sister on a platter, Now, sorry, you said feasting on your family.
	Does that mean that they're actually eating the bodies of your family?
	Well, I don't see their bodies being eaten.
	I mean, there's things on plates, but I don't really focus on exactly what...
	I mean, I don't see arms and legs and eyeballs.
	You know what I mean? It's not like that.
	They're eating, and I know what they're eating, but I don't really see what they're eating.
	I just have more of a feeling I know what's happening.
	Right, so it's like they've been ground up into what kind of paste and the gargoyle is eating that and you can't see any particular characteristics, right?
	Correct. Right, right.
	Now, your sister, is she alive or dead?
	Sorry, you think she's still alive, just playing dead?
	I think she is. I think I have this feeling that she's playing dead, like I did, to survive so that the gargoyles would not kill me.
	And... Yeah, so I'm thinking, you know, she's got this apple in her mouth, she's laid out, but man, it's just something tells me that she's playing dead so that they don't eat her.
	But she's on the table, so, you know, as I'm walking around this thing, around this table, you know, my eyes are kind of on her.
	And you have no chance to save her, right?
	Oh, hell no. I mean, you're a little kid, and these gargoyles are seven feet tall, and they've just obviously killed your whole family or eaten your whole family, and so there's nothing you can do, right?
	Absolutely nothing. I mean, the gargoyles are there.
	They know I'm there, and they just don't really pay.
	It's like they're not concerned with me.
	Now, tell me, this is the fascinating thing about you remembering this dream from the age of eight to the age of 43, right?
	I mean, that's fascinating to me.
	It's 35 years ago.
	Tell me... What part of this dream, if the guy calls her religion, what part of this dream did not come true?
	What part of the dream did not come true?
	Right. My sister's surviving.
	No, no, because, sorry, in the dream, your sister is not eaten.
	This is true. Everyone else is eaten.
	Sorry, tell me what happened to your sister in the real world.
	Well, I tried speaking to her on the phone a couple times, and there were some issues going on that she was dealing with concerning my brother's funeral.
	She became the executor of the estate, and she was very stressed trying to deal with this, and she called me for advice, and I'm like, listen, you already have the answers.
	No, sorry, let's go back a bit.
	You're talking about last week and I'm talking about 35 years ago.
	And no problem, I wasn't clear.
	Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	What happened with her and the family, with her and religion, with her and integrity and all that sort of stuff?
	Oh, no, she's Bible-banging Baptist and hardcore, wearing skirts and going to church.
	No, she's full-on.
	Okay, so she didn't get away.
	Oh, no, no.
	Okay. Okay.
	And in the dream, you don't try and save her because you can't.
	No, I can't.
	Right. So what I'm saying is that you don't get eaten in the dream.
	You survive the attack from the gargoyle, right?
	See, the gargoyles are fully capable of eating human beings because they're eating your family.
	But you survive the gargoyles.
	And in the real world, you survived religion, but your family did not.
	Yeah. And that's the fascinating thing, what we know at the age of eight.
	Doesn't that blow your mind?
	It does. That's just, holy shit.
	Like you knew exactly how it was going to play out at the age of eight.
	Of eight. You know, and when I emailed you, I said, you know what, I feel like this dream is still playing out.
	And it's, yeah.
	Wow. Wow. I knew.
	Oh my cow, at the age of eight.
	Dale was a smart little punk.
	Hey, you know, if we could all be as intelligent as we were at eight, I'm still looking to be as smart as my daughter is at 11 months.
	So if we could all just be as intelligent and perceptive as we were at eight, this world would be a much better place.
	Yeah. Wow.
	Oh, wow. That's just, yeah, that's mind-blowing.
	Right. Because in the dream, is your sister younger?
	She's about three, four years older than me.
	Older than you. So in the dream, your sister will be eaten.
	Yeah. Right?
	So you could have been picking up...
	So in the dream, your sister will be eaten.
	And of course, in real life, as you say, she was not able to...
	Escape the superstitions of religious indoctrination.
	And so, yeah, it really is.
	I mean, I think it's a beautiful dream.
	I think it's a terrible, terrifying dream.
	But I think it's a very accurate dream.
	Yeah, it is. I think it's very, because it's not a very long dream.
	It's quick, hardcore, and to the point.
	Yeah, and it's, you know, the incredible thing, and I'm so grateful that you brought this dream up, the incredible thing is that it had a prognostication that has incredible resonance and accuracy 35 years after the fact.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Because you're not on the plate.
	You escaped. There would be no reason why the dream would not have had the guy girl in the tree eating you.
	Yeah. Right.
	He just tossed me aside.
	It was like I was more like I was in a way or...
	It was kind of like a wake-up call.
	Why did he even bother to grab me?
	Oh, yes, yes.
	Sorry to interrupt, but this is...
	You know why you got away?
	Because you love the world.
	I do. And the dream says that very clearly.
	It starts out with you loving the beauty of the world.
	Yeah. Wow.
	And the interesting thing, and again, you could do this all day, so I don't want to go too far into it, but the moon is reflected light.
	Reflected light is a synonym for wisdom, right?
	It's a reflection that brings light.
	You said it's as light as day because of the reflection of the moon.
	It's reflection and self-knowledge that brings freedom from error and illusion.
	So again, everything in the dream, you could write books about this dream, I think, and still have more to work with.
	Everything about the dream, it seems to me, is very, very precise.
	The moon is a symbol of wisdom in a way that the sun is not, right?
	The sun is a symbol of sort of fertility and so on.
	But the moon is a symbol of wisdom because it's peaceful.
	It's nighttime where if people are awake at night, they're reflecting.
	And it's a really, I think it's your love of the world that was the savior.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.
	Wow, you did an excellent job.
	Well, thanks, and I'm really glad.
	That's an incredible example of how much we know.
	That's why, you know, when people say to me about their families in particular, I don't know, and it's like, come on, you knew at eight, you knew at five, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	Man, I remember, I knew I hated my mom because of the way she treated me when I was probably three years old.
	Oh, I have no doubt of that.
	I mean, if you were treated badly, you're a three-year-old, but no better than your 30 or 40-year-old.
	I had a dream.
	The very first dream that I remember having, probably the age of two and a half or so, was getting lost in a scary wood and deciding to dig and discovering an enormous and glittering and beautiful cave of treasure, of raw treasure, like not finished treasure, like rings, but gold.
	And I think there were diamonds, but in particular gold and expending a lot of energy, building a ladder and expending a lot of energy, bringing the gold to the forest where it was illuminated like a disco ball.
	It illuminated the forest.
	And what is that but a premonition of FDR?
	I mean, it's, you know, we know what we're capable of so very early on that it is nothing we don't know, I think, fundamentally about our relationships.
	That's amazing.
	Wow.
	Well, listen, I'll let you mull it over, and I really do appreciate your persistence in bringing the dream up, and I'm very glad that you called in to talk, because I think it proves a lot.
	I appreciate you taking the time to do this for me.
	And thanks. If you do come up with anything else, feel free to post it on the board, because certainly the comments we've been getting is that it's a really fascinating dream that you had, and I think it's a wonderful thing to bring up.
	Awesome. Yeah, I do have a couple more, so I'll definitely post them.
	Cool. Thanks. Thanks, Jeff.
	All right, man. Take care. And congratulations on getting out.
	Thank you. All right, man.
	Take care. Bye.
	Also interesting to hear the difference in the fellow's tone before and after, right?
	I mean, the warmth and curiosity and intimacy really goes up when we talk about, I think, these very important and fundamental issues.
	So thank you. Thank you so much.
	I do believe that we have time for one brief, dare we say, question letter.
	Oh, I also wanted to mention for anybody who's coming up for Christmas.
	Oh, it's a white Christmas, my friends.
	And it really is quite glittery and beautiful up here.
	And oh, so darn festive.
	It will make you weep.
	Weep, crystal tears of ice.
	But there it is. All right.
	So, sprecken Sie up if you have comment or question.
	Yeah, just while we're waiting, if you do have early dreams, just write them down and really, really think about them.
	Talk about them with others. You know, call in here.
	I mean, I'm a huge fan of dreams as ways of unlocking metaphorical wisdom from particularly early in life.
	But if you have dreams that you had when you were a kid that you can remember, there's a reason you can remember them.
	And I really, really recommend that you...
	Write them down, think about them, what was going on in your life, what has played out since that might be related.
	So the question, I'll just read some bits of it.
	Oh, my question, my stance on civil disobedience, that's your question?
	Yep. Alright, well I will tell you my stance on it for what it's worth.
	I certainly would never use force to prevent anybody from deploying civil disobedience or using it as a strategy if they felt that that was something they wanted to do.
	I'm not going to do it, and that may be right or wrong.
	I'll tell you why, and you can see if it makes any sense.
	What is the opposite of coercion?
	I mean, fundamentally, the philosophical question of the age isn't one that I'm particularly focused on here.
	What is the opposite of coercion?
	Of violence. And I don't believe that the opposite of violence is civil disobedience because that actually will increase the amount of violence in the world.
	The amount of explicit violence, though I understand the implicit violence.
	And explicit violence is not the end of the world.
	It's not the end of the world to bring it to people's attention, right?
	People who aren't able to see it unless it's shown to them.
	But I don't believe that the opposite of violence...
	is self-sacrifice.
	I don't believe that the opposite of violence is provocation of aggressors.
	I believe that the opposite of violence is knowledge.
	The opposite of violence is wisdom in an abstract sense.
	And in a practical sense, the opposite of violence is tangible, actionable compassion, particularly towards children and the young in essence.
	But the opposite of Violence is wisdom.
	Now, my issue around civil disobedience is this.
	I don't think it moves freedom forward.
	I think that it moves freedom backwards.
	And I'll tell you why. Let's say it's not paying your taxes.
	The Browns. Well, people fall into two categories.
	They either understand why the Browns did what they did.
	Not pay their taxes. In which case, the example is sort of pointless.
	So there are people who understand and accept that taxation is violence.
	And they will look at the Browns as an example of that and saying, well, aha, they're just proving what I already know.
	So it does not spread knowledge or wisdom to perform acts of civil disobedience.
	It's like going and smoking pot in front of the church.
	The courthouse steps, right?
	So you get arrested. Well, the people who understand what you're doing are not learning anything new because you're only confirming what they already know.
	That smoking pot is a non-violent action that is responded to with the initiation of force by the state and blah, blah, blah.
	So you're not spreading any new knowledge among people who already know.
	But people who don't know, I don't think that you spread any new knowledge about them either.
	And that's actually quite...
	They're verifiable, right?
	All you have to do is, without prejudicing people, talk to people, strangers, anywhere.
	Talk to them on the bus, on the streets, on a plane, wherever you are.
	Talk to them and say, did you hear about the Browns?
	Or whatever, right? Whatever is going on with their civil disobedience.
	And what do you think?
	They say, I don't know. It was some weird thing about, like, they didn't pay their taxes, so they got arrested.
	They won't have learned anything new through witnessing or hearing about civil disobedience.
	It comes through the filter of the media, and the media is always going to portray these people as lone nutjobs who are just making a pointless stand for some irrational reason.
	The filtering is going to be so extensive that it's not going to change anyone's mind.
	Obviously, there are significant negative consequences to civil disobedience.
	You get arrested. You may have to pay legal fees.
	It may go on your permanent record, which particularly in the US can be significantly problematic in terms of getting jobs and having a career and so on and other kinds of things.
	So I think there's clearly a very high cost to it.
	And I don't think that it spreads knowledge.
	I think that the only way that you can spread knowledge about voluntarism and pacifism and so on Is through sometimes impassioned and persistent and rational arguments.
	I think that is the only way that you're going to spread wisdom.
	Not through the example of getting arrested.
	Which, as I said, is only going to confirm the beliefs of those in the know and alienate the perspectives of those who don't understand.
	Because getting arrested is not an argument.
	Right? That the Browns hold up in their house with FBI helicopters floating over their heads is not an argument.
	It's not an argument. It's simply an example.
	And if people had the capacity to extrapolate arguments from examples, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
	So that would be my particular perspective on that.
	So it's not how I choose to spread wisdom in the world as best I can.
	I'm not going to say that what I'm saying is any kind of definitive or clincher, but this is my perspective on why I don't and why I focus on You know, crazy things like dreams about gargoyles rather than smoking pot on the courthouse steps and spending the night in jail.
	Step? Yes, sir.
	The other thing, thank you, was basically I've been really tempted nowadays because it seems like the libertarian candidate here in Costa Rica is actually getting a lot of points.
	And I know usually I don't waste my time, but you know we're bombarded with the media and some of that leaks to me and...
	And I've been wondering, because I know that I don't believe in the majority rule for one thing, I don't think that that defines ethics, but do you see the historical change of the fall of state towards anarchy not happening until a majority of people within an enclosed geographical region basically become aware of these ideas?
	With libertarians increasingly getting voted in, would be a progression into it, because it's really had me torn the last couple weeks, you know, the whole Ron Paul sort of revolution type thing, only here within my geographical area.
	That's my other question.
	Thank you. Sure.
	No, it's a great question. No, you don't need a majority of people, for sure.
	You don't need a majority of people to change the world at all.
	Otherwise, the world would never change.
	The majority of people are busy with their lives, not with philosophy, and so then they're inert and intellectually uncurious.
	If you needed a majority of the world, it would never change.
	So the question is, how do you best leverage a minority of people?
	Well, you best leverage a minority of people by having reality on your side.
	The human mind, as we can see in the progress of knowledge from science versus religion, or the free market versus statism, The human mind, when coupled with reality, which is through philosophy, through science, through reasonable principles,
	rational principles, and empiricism, the human mind, when hooked up to the massive engine of reality, is unconquerable and can do unbelievably astounding things, like go to the moon and back, right, to use as the latest example, right? But We can do absolutely astounding things, but we need to be aligned with reality.
	When human beings are aligned with reality, you don't need a majority because you have reality on your side.
	So if you have consistent, logical, rational, empirical principles that you fight for happily, excitedly, positively, enthusiastically, and sometimes angrily, because anger is, I think, very healthy when you're fighting for virtue, truth, and peace and freedom, then You're unconquerable because you have reality on your side.
	You align yourself with reality and you will win.
	It will take time, but you will win.
	Now, unfortunately, libertarianism does not align itself with reality because it says violence is good and violence is bad.
	Right? The initiation of force is good.
	Oh, wait, no. The initiation of force is bad.
	The initiation of force, up to 5% or 10% of GDP is really virtuous.
	But once you get to 11%, dear God, the initiation of force becomes...
	An immorality that can scarcely be countenanced by any moral human being.
	So, that's not really aligning yourself with consistency and with reality.
	In the long run, and it can be considerably long run, but we're moving it forward as best we can.
	In the long run, the most consistent argument wins.
	Consistent with itself, consistent with reason, consistent with the evidence.
	There is nothing...
	That a small band of determined realists cannot achieve in this world.
	There is nothing, as the old quote says, that a small band of dedicated people cannot achieve in this world.
	Indeed, it is the only group that ever has achieved anything in this world.
	And so, to me, political action is a false flag conflict, so to speak.
	Either the initiation of force is good, or the initiation of force is Is bad.
	It's as simple as that.
	And of course, there's a huge amount of coin and nonsense and donations, political donations in pretending that it's not as simple as that.
	It's more complicated than that.
	Some force is good, some force is bad.
	Some initiation of violence is good as long as it diminishes out of their initiations of violence elsewhere.
	But that's just a stupid fucking quagmire that no sane human being ever escapes.
	It is religiosity.
	Religion is, faith is good, superstition is bad.
	Libertarianism is, government is good, government is bad.
	So... I'm gonna put my lot, my light, my energy behind the most consistent and rational arguments that I can muster and coordinate, communicate and have conversations with others about.
	Because then I'm with reality.
	I'm on the side of reality.
	That's where I want to be because that's the only place Where change is going to come from that is going to be lasting, valuable, permanent, moral, honest, and have integrity.
	Human beings aligned with reality are unstoppable.
	Human beings in opposition to reality fragment like an old canoe before a supertanker in time.
	Though it's very illusory and very seductive to take that approach.
	It simply doesn't work.
	I was... I sent a video by someone the other day, and I can't even remember who it was, right?
	But it's some, I don't know, some turnip head in the States is starting a libertarian campaign and this and that and the other, right?
	And he's been running it for a couple of months, right?
	The guy's raised $1.8 million.
	$1.8 million.
	Can you imagine, with my speaking abilities and language skills and so on, debating skills, can you imagine if I had taken the political route just how much money I would be sitting on right now?
	It is a staggering thing to do, to think about how much money there is.
	$1.8 million.
	$1.8 million in a couple of months.
	That's a little more than I raise in donations, but it is a...
	It is a staggering temptation for people to say, wow, that's $1.8 million.
	We can get a hell of a lot more done than voluntary donations to a podcast somewhere in Canada, right?
	That's a lot of money we can advertise.
	Yes, but what are you advertising?
	What are you communicating?
	You're communicating some violence is good, but too much violence is bad.
	Some rape is good, more rape is bad.
	Some theft is good, more theft is bad.
	Well, You've just conceded the whole point.
	You've just conceded the whole goddamn principle.
	Oh, listen, when I was, somebody just said, I've never thought of me as a politician.
	Holy crap. I used to, man, I used to write speeches.
	I literally used to write speeches that I was going to make as a politician when I was in my 20s.
	I had entire platforms and programs worked out and how I was going to argue it.
	I'm not saying that I was on the verge, but I definitely was thinking of it because I knew I had great speaking abilities and good abilities to convince and great passion and so on, right?
	So, yeah, there's a lot of coin in politics that there isn't in straight-up philosophy, but, you know, I can eat and I got a roof over my head and I'm doing the right thing and I'm doing the necessary thing.
	And I'm doing the essential thing.
	And it is the only thing that will help and change, in my opinion, in the long run.
	So, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
	And I would not want to go in the wrong direction at a faster pace.
	I would not want to buy 1.8 million dollars worth of plane tickets to destinations I don't even want to go to.
	I will plot along on my handouts in the right direction with your help.
	Anyway, thank you so much.
	If you do get a chance, now that we're at the end of the show, an FDR Christmas gift would be most appreciated if you have a few extra shekels hanging around your pockets, hanging against your short and curlies.
	I would really appreciate it if you would brush off the short and curlies and send them to freedomainradio.com forward slash donate dot html.
	I would really appreciate that and thank you everybody so much.
	For your continued enthusiasm, support and participation in this most amazing conversation I think the world has ever seen.
	And I'm thrilled, honored and truly blessed in the secular sense to be a part of this conversation with you absolutely amazing people.
	So thank you so much for your trust.
	Thank you so much for your honesty, your curiosity, your strength and most magnificently your courage and integrity in pursuing the truth in your own life and with those around you.

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