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Dec. 21, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:30:37
1537 Social Isolation - A Listener Conversation

The childhood roots of the adult fetal position.

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Time Text
Hello. Hey, how's it going?
Good, how are you doing? I'm just fine.
Okay, that's great.
Can you hear me okay? Everything's just hunky-dory.
That's great. That's great.
Did you want to begin?
I mean, should we start the call, or is there other people?
No, James has kindly agreed to handle that, so I am all ears.
Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for I just want to ask if it's alright if I had people?
Yeah, I mean, if you can stream in the chat room, there's not going to be anybody who's going to talk.
It's just going to be Phil and I, so you might just want to tell people to listen to the stream.
Perfect. I'll do that. Thank you.
Yeah, well, thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me and at such short notice.
Thank you so much.
Oh, you're welcome. So, what's that?
Well, I guess I should just start by saying that yesterday evening when I sent you that email, I was feeling quite emotional just because I was feeling quite isolated and I just wanted to,
thankfully, in regards to the work situation, I actually had a performance review with my employers today and everything, it sort of put a lot of fears to rest, at least in Regards to any sort of threat to my employment.
So I was happy to hear that.
I'm very pleased. Cool.
But maybe I could just start by talking about what just made me feel so isolated last night.
Absolutely. I had gone to a Christmas party that was being hosted by the particular studio I have been working at for only about three weeks as a contractor.
And I kind of knew before going it was going to be a bad idea and what I mean by that is I just find a lot of the people at the studio I find it very difficult to relate to and to I guess enjoy their company or sort of I just find we don't have a lot in common and anyway I went to the party and All I felt was the distance between myself and everyone else.
And, you know, I had moments where I was looking at people and they were looking at me and I felt like I was starting to get sort of the paranoids where I feel like people are staring at me.
And I eventually just sort of had some food.
I sat at a table on my own by myself and Decided to leave shortly after and I felt really threatened by the whole experience and I guess that paints a bit of a picture.
But that was sort of what happened last night and if you like maybe I can talk just a bit more.
I don't want to rant for too long.
No, rant away. Take your time.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.
But this sort of theme of isolation, or at least that's kind of what I'm calling it.
I've been feeling isolated in other aspects of my life.
For example, I recently was fortunate enough to be accepted into The cast of a theatre, an improvisational theatre in Vancouver.
They perform improvisational theatre and every couple of weeks we meet to practice and it's kind of like a class.
I've been attending that for about two months now and I have been completely unable, except for one person, to Connect with anyone.
And I have now...
I'm at the point where I will be quitting the theatre because I just feel...
Well, just first off, it seems impossible to really perform or be vulnerable on stage with a group of people that I feel like make no effort to try to get to know me or to try and build trust.
And I've just felt like it's...
It's just not worth my time, and I'm not enjoying it, and it's not fun, and I've just got to find other avenues to explore that interest that are just more enjoyable.
And maybe what I should just say here is that there's another example of feeling isolated that I can bring up, but there just seem to be so many instances of this happening right now where I'm sort of voluntarily withdrawing From certain groups that I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm not being rational about it.
And maybe it's some sort of pattern of behavior that isn't healthy.
Right, right. If that makes sense.
But I should also note, and I posted about it on the board, but I've also recently chosen to Seize contact with my parents and my family overall.
But with the exception of my two siblings, because I feel like I do enjoy the relationship I have with them.
And I guess that's just something of note as well.
I realize some of it is true.
I am actually quite alone.
In some ways, because I am in a new city and I don't have a lot of friends out here, with the exception of some really great people I've met through Free Domain that I'll actually get to see tomorrow, which is great.
I made some notes and I'll just maybe read one thing here.
It's the last thing I wrote.
I feel like Perhaps that if this tendency to isolate is here and it is sort of a pattern of behavior, like I realized that it's probably some sort of defense I developed in my childhood to deal with the threat that may have existed then, but may not exist anymore.
And I think I know that threat was my mother, who was really overbearing and quite difficult, and it was Really, it's always about her.
It's never about anyone else.
And I mean, just kind of thinking about her in general, it sort of makes me immediately want to turn away from that thought and ignore it and dissociate and run.
Sorry, which thought? Oh, just the thought of my mother.
And what I mean by that is, I mean, maybe a more practical example is just when I was at home, when I was still living at home, Or when I would visit their home in previous years, I would be visiting with my siblings, and when she entered the room, all of us were conscious of it and all of us would try to ignore her and try to just sort of weather the storm until it went away.
Right.
If that makes sense.
So.
And the storm.
What is the storm? I mean, it's your mom and her behavior, but what specifically?
I think what comes up for me is just her...
It's a demanding storm.
Well, sorry. The storm is...
She's very demanding and she demands your attention.
And it's sort of regardless of what you're doing or engaged in.
And it's sort of...
It's this demand to fulfill her needs.
Rather than any sort of sincere curiosity about what you're doing or who you are, is the way I've looked at it.
But I think I had one other thing to say.
Well, I thought it'd be only fair to maybe just tell you what my expectations of the call would be, and I thought a bit about it.
I don't assume this is easy or realistic or anything, but one of the questions that's come up for me is just how do I determine if these perceptions or these feelings I have about people right now are rational and completely reasonable or if they're actually based in an irrational pattern of behavior that I've Completely reasonable.
That's a tall order.
Yeah. But I certainly do.
I think I know what you mean. Okay.
Okay. I wrote a few other things, but I don't know if...
Did you want to...
Is there anything else? Oh, it's up to you.
I'm happy to hear whatever you feel is relevant.
Okay. I'm just quickly looking at a couple of notes here.
Actually, I have another big question.
I guess I just wanted to say that I've had this tendency to isolate myself for quite some time.
I was just thinking, preparing for this call that I recollect probably one of my earliest memories, because mine don't go Far back, that early, as far as I can recall.
But anyway, at a friend's fifth birthday, I remember all of the kids were playing in the backyard, and I had chosen to retreat to sort of like this small, it's like a small hut built for kids, where you can just kind of go inside.
And I had just sort of I retreated to the inside of that hut and I just sort of sat there because I didn't want to participate.
And I remember the mother of the birthday boy came and was trying to coax me to come out.
And I just... I really rather stay inside.
Sorry, stay inside. I'm sorry, I just missed that.
Stay inside where? Oh, sorry.
It was almost like a small playhouse.
Right. It was outdoors in the backyard and I was just quite...
Content and just staying there.
And that sort of attitude, I mean, I was quite content to actually, I mean, when I say content, I shouldn't say I was happy with it.
But it was less stressful or preferable, right?
Yeah, that's right. And that's how I felt last night at the party when I realized that it's sort of a, it's kind of a statement to go and sit at a table on your own away from coworkers.
Sure. I mean, I know people see that, and I felt conscious of it, but I really...
I wasn't interested in the kind of conversation or just...
I mean, they were...
I mean, it was the kind of thing everyone's just excited to get completely wasted because it's an open bar.
And I just...
I knew I wasn't going to participate in that and just that kind of thing.
And there's just one other...
I'm just going to say for a moment that I believe I do have this tendency to isolate.
I think it's true.
This is something I wrote down.
I worry at times that the philosophy I've come to embrace at Free Domain Radio, including the ideas in regards to traditional morality, The views on child abuse that society holds, religion, widespread irrationality, statism, etc.
I wonder if it may give me at times sort of a logical justification for isolating myself from others.
Like you have a predisposition to avoidance and you have a philosophy that coincides with that.
I think I understand, yeah.
Yeah, that was just something I've sort of thought about as well.
So I guess I've been trying to see if I can distinguish what's me and what's real and what's, I don't know, what's rational and what's irrational in regards to this.
And that's, I guess, for now, I guess that's all I had kind of written down.
Is it time for the peppering of questions, or how do you want to go from here?
Yeah, I'm ready to be seasoned.
Okay. But get the HP source.
That's a high philosophy.
Yeah. All right.
Well, can you remember a time when you did enjoy and pursue social problems?
Company engagements, whatever.
I mean, engagements as a kid sounds all kinds of fruity, but you know what I mean?
Like, did you enjoy playing with other kids or have you, as long as you can remember, had this not quite as impressed with your fellow carbon-based life forms as you could be?
Right, so you're asking about sort of like in my childhood, like, right.
Yeah, no, I remember, well, I think I've always had a tendency to Yes, to be a bit more of a loner.
But it didn't stop me from...
I had a best friend and I had some friends.
And you enjoyed...
You sought that person out.
You enjoyed his or her company.
I did. I did.
I mean, the one thing that...
I guess I see it as a milestone for me in regards to...
Isolation. But when I was in grade 8, I'll make it quick.
But it was basically, you know how you kind of get seated each year.
You end up in a seat and you don't know who you're going to be sitting beside.
And I would always sort of make friends with whoever I was sitting beside in that grade.
And it just so happened that year that I ended up making friends with somebody I was actually not such a nice person.
I didn't really know that. So it was the first time that this has happened to me really where I didn't want to be friends with somebody anymore and I kind of withdrew and the follow-up from that was that he attacked me behind my back and just told all kinds of rumors and I felt really very uneasy and I sort of after that chose to stop.
I just kind of withdrew from school and In general, in terms of socializing and throughout high school.
That was in junior high, throughout high school.
I didn't have any friends in my school at all.
I just kind of showed up for class and went home and that was that.
Right, right. Okay.
And you said it was a pivotal time, so that was something which you remember as being...
There's sort of sharks in the water, so I better be a little more careful where I swim.
Yeah, that's right. Okay, okay, so I think that's very interesting.
Sorry, that all sounds so clinical.
Very interesting specimen, right?
But the thought that popped into my mind is that, I mean, so you sat next to some kid in school, and you make friends, and the kid turns out to be a pretty nasty piece of work, let's say.
And you have this turnabout, right?
He turns on you, right? So, who did you talk to about this?
I don't remember talking to anyone about it.
But, do you get that's kind of...
Yeah, I do.
Well, tell me, because that's what struck me.
Like, you should be talking to your parents, they should be helping you through it, helping you to understand and process and whatever, right?
But you're like, Isolation child, you know?
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.
I absolutely agree. I mean, that's a very good observation.
I guess I've just come to assume that...
I mean, this is part of the reason that I just sort of decided to...
Be out in the open about how I feel about my relationship with my parents lately and that I don't want it because I kind of feel like it's never really existed, at least to a degree that was helpful.
And certainly, maybe I'm running off on a tangent here, but I guess I've just never seen them as a source of support.
Okay, now, I don't know, you're probably not aware of the language that you're using.
The language that you're using I'm not going to quote these phrases back exactly and tell me if I'm being unfair.
But you're saying, you know, I decided, it seems to me, my perception is, and so on, right?
Like it's a universe of you and you get to just make decisions about the relationships.
And this is no criticism.
I'm simply pointing it out.
Because you say, well, it seems to me that, you know, I don't have a relationship or, you know, my perspective is that or, you know, I decided that this was not going to be a good thing, right?
Yeah. That, again, is a universe of one.
Right. Right.
Because how are they behaving?
Right. It's not your decision, right?
We don't just make decisions about our relationships.
We absorb and we negotiate and we try as best we can, if we can, to improve them.
But there's no one else acting.
And the reason that I ask people, I mean, the reason I ask you in particular about your childhood was I really wanted to understand What your perspective was of the people around you, right?
So if you said, oh, man, this kid turned on me, and I went home, and I told my parents, and we sat up all night talking about it, and my dad shared about a friend who turned on him, and how painful it was, and we talked about it, about the best ways to approach it, and blah, blah, blah, right?
That's... I mean, I knew that wasn't going to be, you know, what you were going to say, obviously, right?
But I wanted to know how you were going to talk about it.
Like... You're going to say, well, I really wanted to bring this up with my parents, but I brought it up before, or I tried to bring it up with my parents and I didn't get any response, but you didn't even mention anybody else, right?
And then afterwards, you're talking about just your solitary decisions about, like, it's one way, you know?
Like, I'm trying to decide if I want a painting or not.
Yeah, I decided I didn't want that painting because it didn't go with my decor, or I don't like, you know, Elvis clowns or something, whatever it is, right?
But it's not relational, if that makes sense.
Please, I'm not criticizing.
I'm just observing something that I think is very important.
Right. No, I think I understand.
And yet, at the same time, I still feel like I should be doing something differently.
See, you're back to you.
Yes, yes. You're back to you.
So, why is it That your conversation about your primary relationships only includes you.
And again, this is not a criticism at all in any way, shape or form.
I'm just, what's your theory as to why you didn't mention anybody else in this time period, which was very challenging, right?
And particularly like junior high school grader.
I mean, you're kind of out of the marbles and Xbox games of childhood and you're moving into adolescence and you have much more complicated things.
People have hormones. There's a latency period from five to seven to teenage years or whatever.
When people hit teenage years, if they've suffered in their families, it's going to start to play out as it obviously did with this other guy who betrayed you and so on.
You really need your parents to help you navigate those tricky shoals of teenage social lives.
If you don't get that, it's impossible.
It's functionally impossible.
It's like trying to teach yourself language.
But you can't. You have to be taught language, and you have to be taught a social language.
Because the sense that I get from you, Phil, to some degree, is of muteness, if that makes any sense.
Like you don't know how to speak this language of social interactions.
Uh, yeah.
I'm just, uh, yeah.
And look, obviously you can always, I'm just an amateur on the internet, so you can always tell me when I'm off base.
You don't ever have to be mute with me because I could be off-base, but that's just a sense that I get.
Like a distance, like you're looking at these things and saying, well, I'm going to make this decision about this relationship and so on, but I really get a strong sense of muteness.
I think you've Given a label, there's something that I think is...
I just haven't been able to really...
Well, I agree with you.
Good. Well, so I'm agreeing with you, in a sense, right?
Which is sort of trying to pick out what you're saying.
The language of social interaction...
It's really complex.
It's really complex.
There's the language, right?
We all like English, right?
Or whatever you speak, right? There's the language.
And the language is bloody complicated enough, we know.
I mean, you learn another language and it takes years and years and there's all these annoying rules and exceptions and this and that, right?
I before E, except after C. What about the word ceiling?
Well, that's an exception, right? To learn English, we understand, is a very challenging thing.
And if you were raised in a family that did not teach you how to speak a language and you emerged as an adolescent, as a wolf child or whatever, we would all understand that it would take a long time for you to learn that language and you'd really have to focus on it and so on.
Obviously, your English skills are fantastic, but there's a whole other layer, in fact, an even more important layer or level to communication, right?
So if you're going to learn Japanese, there are like I don't know, 10 or 15 different levels of familiarity.
And that's just one tiny example, right?
When do you use the formal in German and when do you use the informal?
When do you use the colloquial and when don't you use the colloquial?
And so learning the words is like a tiny part in a sense of actual social interactions.
And you obviously learn the words.
But the nuance of when to stand up for yourself, like when someone is making fun of you, when do you laugh with them?
Or when do you get offended if they go too far?
And how do you deal with that?
And how do you approach it so that you don't look like you're being a prude, but you also don't look like you're just hammering back because you got upset?
All of the delicate, really delicate and powerful Interplays of emotion and meaning and offense and curiosity and passion and boredom and how do you communicate honestly?
Like now that I have these words, like somebody gave me a sword, how do I use it in a way that I don't end up lopping my arm off or the arm of a friend, right?
And I think, my guess would be since the first thing you brought up was someone who betrayed you, which of course is a very complex and challenging thing, To deal with and you didn't get any help, it sounds to me like you didn't get that second layer of language, which really is the bedrock of language, because that's kind of what language is for, right?
It's this complex social interplay of thoughts and emotions and feelings and so on to influence people and to be influenced in return and when to stand up and when to sit down and when to charge and when to retreat.
It's all really complex and it takes a lot of conversing.
And the reason this is on my mind, and I hope I'm not just sort of injecting it into you, is that, you know, Isabella is now around other children, and sometimes those other children can be really intrusive, right?
And how am I going to explain chaotic or disturbed children to her?
I'm going to have to, but how am I going to explain it to her, right?
I don't know yet.
I have no idea.
I mean, I don't even know how the hell to explain them to myself in some ways, but I'm going to need to work on it because she's going to have to deal in this very complex language of emotional interaction.
Like, I'll give you a silly example, and then I'll let you, you know, not let you talk, but I'll give you a silly little example, right?
So, when I was...
I don't know, God, 12 or so or whatever, right?
I still didn't really understand my tour of the colonies too well.
So I was in Canada and I was lining up to go into the skating arena that was in Don Mills at the time.
I think it's since, as long as it's gone.
And some girl was making fun of my accent.
Now, in hindsight...
She probably thought it was cute.
She was probably being, in her own way, in her own 12-year-old way or whatever, kind of flirty, right?
But I thought she was mocking me or making fun of me, right?
Because I hadn't been taught this language.
And so I got upset.
And also, of course, I grew up being teased and so on by my brother, so I was more sensitive to it and so on, right?
I didn't get that this was a time for good nature joking back, right?
Yeah, yeah. Like putting the word A at the end of all of my tough sentences or something, right?
But, so I, this is so embarrassing to talk about, but I turned to her and I sort of drew myself up to my 12 year old semi-height, right?
And I said, I must say that I pity you.
I mean, what a thing to say.
Maybe if you're, I don't know, Lord Acton or something, you can say something like that, right?
And, I mean, she obviously was completely startled because it was like I just burst into fluent operatic Esperanto or something.
And she turned to her friends and she said, did you hear what he said?
He just said, I have pity on you.
What a What?
And then I was really stuck because I wanted to correct her.
No, I didn't say, I have pity on you.
I said, I pity you.
Oh my god, little Lord Fauntleroy rides into battle and gets decapitated.
And it wasn't even a battle.
And that's just one tiny example of just how confused about social interactions I was.
I didn't know when people were flirting.
I kind of knew when they were angry, although that wasn't too common.
I didn't know when they liked me or when they were just pretending to like me because they wanted something from me.
I didn't know when somebody was being friendly to me because they wanted me to be friends with them so that they could talk trash about someone else.
It's all really mind-bogglingly complex, right?
The second language.
Right, that's an interesting term, second language.
Sorry, what you said, so many things have come to mind.
So you end up not saying, because it's like, you know, I have to pretend that I speak this language, but I don't speak this language, so I'm just going to smile and nod vaguely, right?
Oh yeah, I mean, if I can just...
I share my own embarrassing moment.
Oh, that's it for me. I just wanted to, I mean, you're not alone in this at all.
Yeah, no, I just, just because it's, I mean, I just, it's something, just a memory came to mind, and it must be relevant in some way, but where it was also sort of a situation where I didn't quite know how to deal with something.
And it was, you know, it was, I just, it's just a short thing.
I was walking to school, and I think I was probably 17 at the time, and Some girl that I just walked by through the park said, hey, and I turned around and she's like, nice ass!
And I really didn't know what to do with that.
I was really quite uncomfortable.
Hey, you should see my donkey. Yeah, that's right.
Oh, wait, sorry, I may have presented a slightly less hairy.
That's right. That's right. Like, just run away.
Yeah, what do you say? What do you say?
And I spent my whole life...
A good portion of my life, I literally felt like a space alien dropped in like a spy in human society.
I didn't know what the fuck made people tick, why they said what they said, the easy jokes that could suddenly turn, the joshing, the play fighting, all that sort of shit.
I was just like, I'm just going to fucking hide under the table with a book and when this Lord of the Flies nightmare is over, I'm going to come out and find some sane people.
I mean, it was just overwhelming.
When I first came to Canada, the first place I lived was Whitby and I was in grade 8.
Then I came to Toronto and for a couple of not messed up reasons, I ended up two grades back, which was more appropriate to my age and so on.
So I went to grade 6 and the first recess, the little Canadian boys were chasing down the girls and punching them in the groin.
I mean, it's like, this is insane!
I was not going to chase down girls and bunch them in the groin.
I mean, you couldn't force me to do that.
So I ended up finding some other kid of, you know, foreign parents that we ended up chatting.
He actually died, tragically, very young.
He was only 14 or 15.
He had a heart problem. But we would just sort of walk around the edges of this Lord of the Flies demolition derby that was going on in the playground, and we would just talk about books we'd read, or places we'd been, or whatever.
It was just orbiting way out from this colossal clusterfrak of crazy interactions, as it seemed to me at the time.
I didn't even want to learn that language.
If I can't speak about something meaningful with someone, I find it really kind of tough to have a conversation because I feel like I'm back in that sort of, I am a robot spy sent from planet Aldebaran to scout out this locale and I hope I don't get caught.
Yeah. No, I totally relate.
And I always remember a story that I heard about when I was a kid.
I heard a story about a spy, a German spy, because in the Battle of Britain or early on in the war they were parachuting these Germans in.
And these Germans spoke perfect English and they had studied British culture and so on, right?
And they were supposed to blend in and find out the morale and what people thought and if there was any way the propaganda could work against the British.
And one guy was caught Because he studied the accent of Yorkshiremen.
He studied the accent and he passed through whatever.
And he walked into a pub at 11 o'clock in the morning and he ordered a beer.
And he was arrested.
And why was he arrested?
Because in Yorkshire it's illegal to sell a drink to someone before noon.
And you couldn't know that if you had only studied the accent and some of the general history or even, right?
You wouldn't know that little local detail that in that neighborhood you couldn't, right?
And since he came in and ordered it with a Yorkshire accent but didn't know that you couldn't have a drink at that time and it had been that way for centuries, they arrested him and found out who he was.
That's how I felt.
Like, holy shit. I better not order a fucking drink or I'm going to get arrested.
So, you know, I'll just...
I'll just drink my own sweat or something.
I'm not going to put a foot wrong because if you put a foot wrong, I'm revealed as a space alien victim of child abuse and therefore I'm just going to clam up.
Right. Right.
Right. Yeah.
Well, tell me what you're feeling, because I think, it seems to me, and I know your breath, right, but it seems to me that you're feeling some stuff, and it's new, and what is it that you're feeling?
I think when you were just relating those stories, it was sort of taking me back to some of these, some similar experiences when I was younger, and I think I felt really scared.
Yeah, I was very scared of other people.
I can really relate to that still to this day, although I certainly feel much more confident in navigating my way through social circles.
But I just remember being in those places where I didn't really get...
I'd be tagging along with teenage friends I just kind of didn't get what we were doing, but these were the only friends I had.
I was usually regarded as the quiet one because I didn't really say anything.
I was probably too scared and just didn't really...
I guess there's a lot of things. It's quite self-conscious as well.
I guess that goes hand in hand.
Well, the self-consciousness comes from, like, if you're the German spy in the Yorkshire village, of course you're going to be self-conscious, right?
You're going to have to have to split because you're going to have to appear comfortable while at the same time knowing that you're in enemy territory.
It's really going to split you up, right?
Yeah, it's very interesting when you put it that way.
Enemy territory. I'm not saying everybody's your enemy, of course, right?
Hey, you've got problems with paranoia, let me help reinforce it, right?
But what I'm trying to say is that, and here's when I start asking questions, because I think I've talked enough about my silly, embarrassing space alien moments, of which there are still some coming out.
Okay, so let's say you had attempted to join in And if you ever really want to see this in action, watch the first half of a pretty funny film called The Party with Peter Sellers.
The second half is really stupid, but the first half is very funny about a guy trying to fit in.
You know, like there's a bunch of people laughing at a party and he just comes over and starts laughing with them, having no idea what they're laughing about, right?
I think, does he play an Indian?
Yeah, yeah. I think I saw it a while back.
Yeah, it might be worth re-watching just because there is that kind of just soul-crushing awkwardness and desire to fit in, which I think we've all experienced.
And the reason why I use the phrase enemy territory is not because everybody's automatically an enemy, but because if you display...
The awkwardness that comes from not having had instruction in this second language.
If you display the awkwardness or if you just basically say, listen, I have no idea fundamentally how to interact with people.
How would your friends have reacted?
If I had said that to them?
Yeah. I think with hostility.
They would have reacted with hostility.
And certainly not curiosity.
Right, right.
And why, again, I don't think it's automatic, but why would they react like a bunch of lions looking at a trembling gazelle just separated from the herd?
Why would they react that way?
I have answers, but I don't feel confident about it.
Well, what's the first thing that popped into your head?
The first thing that popped into my head was that I was fulfilling a role for that person and that for me to address the relationship, I guess I just felt like it was maybe based on a relationship where we weren't going to talk about how we actually felt about each other or about the relationship.
Right. That's the first thing that came to mind.
No, and I think there's some real truth in that.
I mean, of course, what I think about your friendships from a decade or more ago, it doesn't matter.
But I think there's truth in that.
But the, you know, okay, I'll sort of give you again, since the story seemed to be helpful, I'll sort of give you another story that.
Sure. When I went to China for business, I ended up being driven outside of Beijing to a research facility for a variety of boring technical things that I won't get into here.
And it was very interesting because this was a place kind of in the middle of nowhere and they actually just had holes in the ground for you to take a dump in.
And given that it was my first exposure to authentic Chinese food, I was taking A fair number of dumps.
It's like a 52 overdressed.
Anyway, but during a break in the meeting, they invited me to come and play table tennis, ping pong, right?
And I'm not a bad ping pong player.
I mean, I'm more of tennis and squash, but I'm not too, too bad, right?
So I thought, it's stupid. I didn't even think, right?
I'm in China, right? So I just went to go and play some ping pong.
So they gave me some ping pong, a ping pong paddle, and I went down and started to play, right?
And, you know, of course, what happened?
I barely saw the ball, right?
I mean, they were just like, they were doing back flips.
They were serving while hanging off the chandelier.
They were, you know, like doing those matrix moves, except not in slow motion, but triple speed, you know, like black floats flapping.
And then I basically got one ping pong where one of my testicles used to be, right?
So they were playing this incredibly hyperkinetic terminator table tennis.
And I was just looking like an idiot, right?
And they were, you know, they were kind of superior about it.
And they were laughing, like they were not bad guys or anything, but they were kind of superior about it, right?
And, of course, they grew up playing table tennis.
And I didn't, right?
So, of course, they're going to be better.
But if they've got a lot of vanity about playing table tennis, they don't want to think that they just happened to grow up in a culture where that was something you did.
So if somebody is free and easy with this second language, then they're going to think, quite likely, if they don't have a lot of empathy, they're going to think, hey, I'm just smooth and confident.
I've got it going on, baby.
I'm a player. They're just going to think that they're confident.
They're not just going to think, hey, I just happen to have socially conscious parents who He taught me this second language.
And this guy didn't.
Like, Steph didn't grow up playing ping pong, so he can't do these matrix moves.
So it doesn't make me a better person or a worse person.
It just means that I had exposure to something that somebody else didn't.
And if you have that kind of humanity, then you will reach out with compassion and concern to somebody who didn't learn the second language.
But if you have vanity about it, and if you don't want to see that you were just lucky with your parenting, then you're going to not want to see that.
Something just came to mind.
Something I felt about some of the groups that I've been in and around, and I just wanted to share it.
I trust you'll call me if maybe it's just missing the point.
But you mentioned empathy.
And that's kind of...
I feel like I've been...
I haven't been encountering much of that when it comes to the theater I was participating in and my workplace.
I kind of feel like...
And I've developed this sense, I guess, from living in a few cities over the last four or five years that sometimes it seems like you enter a place, Maybe it's a business or like a business environment or perhaps, I don't know, a community.
It just, they seem, they feel like they're all sewn up already.
The people already have their teams, but there's no real empathy or curiosity for an outsider.
And I've really tried to bridge that distance.
And I feel like I've come to the point, I mean, in the past, I think I would have done it to a fault, where I start to blame myself for the lack of success in developing any sort of relationship with other people.
But now I can recognize that I've made the effort and it's just not being reciprocated.
So why am I trying anymore?
Right. And that just sort of came to mind.
I just... I don't know.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm seeing barriers when they're not there, but...
No, no. Look, I mean, I think that you're right about the lack of empathy.
I think you're completely right about the lack of empathy.
I think that empathy is tragically missing from...
Most people's lives and interactions.
Tragically missing. I mean, I can tell you something that I got out of an interview that I haven't published yet, if you like, which is going to back this up.
I'd like to do that just so that you get some sense of how much it's missing so that you don't feel like it's your fault.
I'd be happy to hear it.
Alright, so I did an interview with Dr.
Felitti, the head of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, the stuff that was in True News that I did recently, and he said that when researchers asked people, these were not therapists, these were not psychiatrists or psychologists or anything like that, just, you know, the average people who give you questionnaires, and when somebody scored high on the Adverse Childhood Experiences, So, significant trauma in their childhoods.
And they said, I'm sorry to hear that.
How do you think that that has affected your life since?
And these people would talk for just a couple of minutes.
Just a couple of minutes. And then they would move on.
They found that in the year following this few minutes of absolutely non-professional Q&A, A few minutes of people in their 50s, their late 50s, were most of these participants.
There was like a 25% drop in doctor office visits.
A 25% drop in doctor office visits.
I mean, this is the nonsense of homeopathy, right?
It's a kindly ear.
It's somebody who has some compassion.
It is tragically, I mean, these people had lived in their late 50s without anyone, it would seem, saying to them, oh, I'm sorry about your childhood, how do you think that's affected you in the years since?
These people had sailed through their whole lives with a huge fucking anvil on their bleeding backs, and no one had ever said, that anvil is really heavy, I'm so sorry.
I can remember very specific instances.
Like, I remember two teachers in my whole 25-odd-year career as a student, two teachers who, at two various, very brief instances, displayed some sort of compassion and empathy, but only two.
And only two instances it wasn't even consistent out of the 25 years that I was in the educational system.
20, 25 years.
No, about 20, 25 years.
It's the same thing in business.
It's really been the same thing among friends very often, or now ex-friends.
Right? I mean, you haven't...
I mean, you're in your 20s, is that right?
Late 20s? No, I'm early 30s.
Early 30s, okay. And I don't think...
It doesn't sound to me like you've had a conversation or many conversations with people, or perhaps any prior to your time at FDR, where people have said, Oh, that's really rough.
I empathize. You know, tell me more.
We are empiricists, first and foremost, right?
There's virtually no evidence for empathy.
Right? Sorry, my dog is barking.
Oh, no, don't worry about that. That's totally fine.
The dog is welcome to join in.
The dog has empathy.
I was trying to mute myself.
No, don't worry. I don't care.
Don't worry about the mute. The marking doesn't bother me at all, so don't worry about it.
But the lack of empathy is something which is...
I mean, it's universal, isn't it?
Could someone with empathy genuinely tell a child that Jesus died for his sins and he's stained with original sin and that the greatest human being of the universe died because he was bad?
Could a human being with empathy inflict terrifying superstitions like that upon a child?
No. Could human beings who have empathy put their children Into public schools?
Could human beings who have empathy go to war?
Could human beings who have empathy pursue a war on drugs?
Fairly innocent psychoactive substances throw people into jails?
Could human beings who have empathy yell and hit their children?
Humanity is cursed!
With a vacuum of empathy, which is always filled by self-righteousness and vanity and palposity and aggression and all of the ugly, shallow, stupid aspects of the false self.
But no, I think you knew that you had to hide your lack of learning of this second language because you would be maybe mocked and attacked or put down or rejected for that which was not your fault.
For the sake of elevating other people's opinions of themselves who just happen to be taught the second language in the same way my Chinese host happened to grow up with apparently 44 hours of ping pong practice a day.
Right, right.
I know we haven't solved anything.
I mean, hey, now I can go out and be smooth.
No, I know we haven't solved anything, but what I hope...
It's that this gives you a way of looking at yourself in relation to people.
And so rather than fearing them because you're afraid that their strength or confidence or brashness is going to expose your deficiency or crime or foolishness or shame or shyness or whatever, rather than feeling That they are strong and we are vulnerable and weak.
I think I was actually onto something when I was 12 in my very confused, prepubescent way.
Which is that, hey, I can learn the second language.
You can. You can learn it.
You're a smart guy. I think you need to identify that this is what the deficiency is and you need to sort of learn it and I think there's ways to do that which we can talk about if you like.
You can Learn that which you are deficient in.
You can almost never give up that which you base your vanity on.
So you have the chance to learn this second language.
But they don't have the chance to learn empathy.
And just to touch on what you were talking earlier about groups.
I mean, I don't know if you're this way, I'm this way.
Like, if I see someone at a At a party and most people know each other and this person has arrived and doesn't know anyone, a kind of standing there awkwardly not knowing what the hell to do.
Look, I'm the guy who goes over and says hello and come join us and tries to make them feel...
I mean, this may be a British thing, it may just be more me or whatever, maybe because I've been in that situation having moved around a lot as a kid.
But I don't expect for somebody to do the icebreaker of charging into a conversation and, you know, with people who've known each other for a long time.
I think it's Basic decency and common courtesy to say to that person, hey, you know, fundamentally I get that you're in a tough situation, it's kind of weird and awkward, so let me help get you into a conversation, make some jokes, put you at ease, make you feel welcome.
To me, that's just basic human courtesy and decency, but it's really pretty rare.
I'm finding that.
I mean, I completely agree, and I completely feel the same way.
I mean, I don't host parties, but, you know, when I'm somewhere and...
I mean, if I find...
That sounds weird, but if I find somebody who's alone, I'll definitely be...
It's like, oh, my goodness, someone I can...
Hey, you know, like, you know, just we can kind of support each other or just because I can identify.
I can identify. And like you said, I mean, Someone coming in and...
Sorry, that's what baffles me.
I just think about these various environments that I've started to become part of.
It's not baffling, though. It's only baffling if you think that people have empathy but aren't exercising it.
If you get that most people don't seem to have empathy...
Then it's not baffling because all they're thinking about is themselves and their own status and so on.
The idea of disengaging from some conversation that's momentarily enjoyable to them to help some stranger is incomprehensible.
It'd be like me saying to you, listen, you need to drop this phone call.
You need to fly to Ethiopia and give a piece of bread to a hungry person.
Right. I'm not going to do that.
It's not that I don't care.
It's just I'm not going to do it.
That's what it is to them.
It's that big a deal.
Whereas you and I feel the awkwardness of the other person, and we also put ourselves in their position and say, well, what would I like if I were in that?
But it's the basic empathy stuff, you know, what would I like if I were in that position, and blah blah blah, right?
Yeah, yeah. But it's, you know, and now you think, I hope you don't think it's your fault.
I mean, the fact that people lack empathy means that they haven't spoke, they haven't learned the third language, right?
right?
The third language is empathy, sympathy, right?
I don't think it's my fault.
I mean, what I just wanted to say was that I feel quite confident and resolute in my views of the people in these environments and the judgments that have come to.
But I mean, I think last night I was just...
I think it was just one of those moments where you realize there's not many people in your corner.
I was feeling a little overwhelmed.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
It does make sense. Now, if you have time, there's one additional thing that I would like to pile on your brain, if that's all right.
Please do. We have to be taught ping pong, right?
We have to be taught soccer.
We have to be taught chess. We're not just going to figure these things out on our own, right?
It's my belief.
It's my belief. And that belief is getting stronger all the time for a variety of reasons we don't have to get into now.
But it's my very strong belief that we naturally speak all of these languages.
We are born to speak all of these languages.
Right? I mean, my daughter was feeding me back at six months of age.
She got that. She enjoyed food.
She enjoyed the taste of it.
I have a mouth. I'm sure I would enjoy having something put in it that's tasty, right?
And I didn't teach her that.
I didn't take her hand and say, you must now feed daddy or whatever, right?
I didn't, she just, that was just the natural thing, right?
Because we showed her a lot of empathy and sympathy.
She grew into reciprocating it as surely as she grew into, you know, or grew out of everything that she wore in her first three months.
She just grew into it, right? It's natural.
It's like puberty. It's just, you just grow into it.
So, in terms of empathy and sympathy and speaking the second language of the complexities of social interactions, it's my belief that these are not things that we need to be taught or we don't have them.
You know, like, what is the word for plant or leaf?
Well, it's not inscribed anywhere in the plant and leaf.
You have to be taught that. You're never going to come up with that word on your own.
But I did not have to teach my daughter The basics of empathy.
I had to be empathetic, but I did not teach her to be empathetic in the way that I teach her the word for garbage or whatever, right?
So, I think it's important to recognize that in your family, if this theory is true, in your family, the natural and inevitable and healthy development Of your social poise and confidence was prevented, was opposed, was attacked, was crushed.
Because you wouldn't have grown into it normally, right?
Like you know how anorexic women can, if they start early enough, they can miss puberty completely.
Or even adult anorexic women can get so starved that their body stops having a menstrual cycle.
Right? So it's natural to grow into puberty unless you're getting like 800 calories a day and then you're not going to hit puberty, right?
It's prevented. And to me, social poise, empathy, you know, all of the good natural ease of interactions, that is natural.
It has to be blocked, prevented, attacked, minimized, humiliated, attacked, whatever, in order to not come about.
So it's not like you weren't taught a language, it's like you had a language taken away.
Um... I should just mention now that I'm feeling pretty tense.
I'm kind of doubled over.
Right. Well, because I think we're coming back to your mom, right?
Yeah. Her needs, right?
No reciprocity, no back and forth, no exchange.
Her needs, her needs, her needs, right?
Yeah. Attention-seeking, overwhelming, dominating, intrusive, invasive, no boundaries.
Stop me if I'm getting warm.
No. I mean, yeah.
Right? So, because you weren't, because reciprocity was not permitted in that relationship, as, you know, according to what you say, then you could not, like, you had to repress the development of Empathy and a free exchange of opposing or complementary or parallel ideas or preferences or perspectives because that would have been threatening to that,
right? To her. Yeah.
Yes. And it's not just you and her, it's you and her and any other members of the close or extended family who happen to have any inkling of the situation at all, right?
Yeah. I'm just trying to keep myself from talking about...
Well, I just want to say that I do feel guilty sometimes, and I don't mean to start a whole other subject, but I do feel guilty sometimes because I didn't get the worst of it.
That's part of the reason that I wish to maintain a relationship with my siblings is because I feel that they need support.
And is that support mutual?
Or are you serving someone else's needs again?
I've recently come to the realization that it has been almost a surrogate parent role and I've tried to...
I've tried to not...
do that.
Didn't quite answer my question.
Though I appreciate the emotionality and I'm sensitive to it, but...
Could you repeat the question?
Sure, sure. I said, and is that support mutual?
Or are you catering to other people's needs again, as you did with your mom?
It's not mutual.
Right. So you're not actually teaching them, by catering to their needs, you're not actually catering to their true needs, which is reciprocity, right?
Yes.
I've...
Yes.
Right.
So is there anyone who looks out for your needs other than you?
Well, if I have to think about it...
Yeah, that's usually not a good sign, right?
Yeah. I think that's an important realization, that you're trained to be a provider, that you're trained to prop up other people's crumbling buildings, right?
Yeah. And, you know, if I'm having a heart attack and someone's giving me CPR... I don't ask them how they're doing.
Maybe for your mom, maybe that's what it's like.
They're going through such stress and anxiety at all times.
I'm going to talk about your mom, what do I know?
But my own mom, I think that she was going through such stress, anxiety, and terror, and extremity at all times.
It was like she was constantly experiencing a heart attack.
So she simply could never focus on anybody else.
It was all just about like, you know, I've got a huge gash in my leg.
I'm just going to grab your belt from around your waist and bind up my leg.
And I'm not going to ask you if it's okay because I desperately need it because I'm bleeding to fucking death.
Like I think that was what it was like for my mom all the time.
Just grab whatever you can to stuff whatever you can into every wound that opens up in your body.
And wounds opened up on my mom's body like Ripples expanding from raindrops hitting a pond, right?
They just seemed to be constantly opening and she just grabbed or did whatever to just get through the next 30 seconds and survive and she could not focus on anybody else because she was just a bottomless hole of need, anxiety, panic and extremity all the time.
Yeah. And so since nobody ever inquired as to my preferences or my needs, I mean, Jesus, we moved from England to Canada.
Nobody ever asked me if I wanted.
And I remember sitting so clearly, like I was 11.
I just turned 11.
And I was sitting on the carpet.
We had this window.
It was beautiful. It had a beautiful view of London.
It was sort of a floor-to-ceiling window in the apartment we had.
And I was just sitting there and the boxes were all around and the movers were coming to take them to the plane or whatever.
And I just remember sitting there thinking, well, this is the last time I'm ever looking out over this view.
This is the last time I'm in this flat apartment.
And I felt nothing.
I felt nothing like it wasn't good.
It wasn't bad. It wasn't right.
It wasn't wrong. It was just like idly turning the pages of a magazine 12 years old.
You're bored.
You're in the doctor's room. They've got nothing newer.
You're just turning. It's like, okay, so this is the next page.
I don't I'm just killing time.
And to me, it took me a long time to figure out why that was.
And it was because there's no point having preferences when you get attacked for having preferences.
I mean, in fact, it's bad to have preferences if you get attacked for being preferences.
And so if my mom was like, oh, I've got this huge gash in my leg, just, you know, I'm going to grab your belt.
If I say, hey, I need this belt, I like this belt, she'd be like, don't be so selfish, I'm dying here.
I mean, I think that was genuinely her perspective.
I'm not saying it was all conscious or anything.
Yeah. So for me to have a preference, like, I don't want to stuff your gaping wounds, right?
It would be to just, you know, she was in such a constant state of panicking anxiety that it would have just caused explosive rage.
Like, what do you mean you're not giving me your belt?
I'm bleeding to death here.
Come on, right? Right.
Right. And so needs just bring attacks.
So you're silent and you're compliant and you fill the room like a pleasant smell.
invisible and inoffensive as best as you can be. - Safe. - Well, the safest you can get, right?
It's not exactly safe, but it's as safe as you can get.
And so in this way, I did not want to learn my mom's language.
I can tell you that.
I did not want to learn that kind of interaction.
But I was never allowed to learn any other kind of interaction.
So if the only place you can be is where people are overwhelming, stressful, demanding, and using you up like an old Kleenex, I'd rather be alone.
I mean, what sane human being would?
But then my desire to be alone got attacked as well because that was considered to be an implied criticism of the family.
Right, right.
So then it's just like, this is when I just, I give up.
I give up. I'm not even going to have a preference to be alone because then I'm considered to be solitary and aloof and, you know, I'm treating this place like a hotel and, like, it's just, I give up.
I give up. I can't exist in this environment.
I just have to be A ghost with good grace.
That's it.
Yeah.
That sheds, I mean, you've really helped me sort of, I think, I mean, you've really helped me sort of, I think, get a broader understanding of what measures I had to take.
As a child.
and And does it help?
I mean, our experiences are never identical, of course, but whatever there is that helps.
Does it help see how it affects your present day?
Yeah, it does.
It does. I mean, yes, I would definitely, because it's something that, well,
I just wanted to say that I felt quite foggy about it, and I feel like I have, you're helping me give a clearer picture of why I might feel so intensely about it, and why, you know, it is helpful.
Yeah. But not revelatory as yet.
And that's fine. I'm just pointing it out.
Yeah. I guess no.
But I don't mean to say...
Perhaps I just haven't picked up on...
No, don't blame yourself.
I haven't said... You're not doing me any favors by blaming yourself for a conversation that I'm supposed to be managing, right?
So don't blame yourself.
I'm just pointing out that I'm aware, right?
Because some people get those, oh my God, right?
And you're, I think, getting some useful stuff out of it and some good perspectives.
But I don't think there's been any big kabangas, right?
Well, sorry, I just feel so unappreciative if I say it.
No, no, just be unappreciative.
Tell me that it's not hitting the mark, right?
Please, have needs with me, for heaven's sakes.
Otherwise, it has no utility at all, right?
That's a very good point.
Right, absolutely. Tell me, yes.
You know, be honest. Tell me, yes, this is not hitting the mark for me.
It's useful, you know, and I can see some feathers around the bullseye, but there's nothing that's really hitting the mark just yet, right?
No, it is very useful, uh, But I guess I haven't had that revelatory moment.
Well, the revelatory moment that may be of utility would be something like this, that the world is just enough like your mom that you're skittish.
It's not exactly like your mom, otherwise you wouldn't interact with anyone.
But it's just enough like your mom to keep you in the null zone.
To keep trying, like, you're not trying anymore with your mom.
You said you want to take a break, right?
And usual, see a therapist, blah, blah, blah.
You know all this stuff because we've talked before.
But if the world was exactly like, if everybody was exactly like your mom, you'd just go live in the woods, right?
Yes. I mean, in one way or any, you'd work from home or whatever.
You'd just go live in the woods, right?
Yeah. And if the world wasn't anything like your mom, then...
You would have been taught the second language.
People would have given you this empathy.
They would have given you the sympathy.
They would have understood that their ease of interaction was simply the accident of their upbringing.
And then you would not be in this null zone, right?
True. So, you know, again, I just use these as an amateur, right?
These phrases. Empathy and narcissism are like a continuum, right?
It's like a long line, right?
I have no capacity to diagnose anyone in any way, shape, or form, but in the colloquial sense, if your mom is narcissistic, then she's at the extreme end of selfishness, self-involvement, whatever you want to call it.
That sort of I, me, me, I. Other people are tools to serve your own needs.
They don't have equal needs of their own.
There's no empathy.
In fact, empathy is attacked.
If your mom is on the narcissistic end of the spectrum, And you have, as a result, and I think to a great deal of pride, retained your sense of empathy for yourself and for others, then you're sort of on the other end.
The world is somewhere in between, right?
So let's say your mom is 100 and you're a zero, right?
We just make up a scale, right?
Your mom is 100 in terms of narcissism and you're a zero.
Where's the world? Just tell me what you think.
What's the number? Zero to 100.
The world in general.
The world in general. What's the number of the first parts in your mind?
Don't think about it too much. 60.
60. That's very generous.
Okay, 60. Now, what's the bell curve of the world, roughly?
Right? So, are most people around 60, or is 60 the average, like, and it's really widely scattered?
60 is not the average.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
Are most people clustered around 60, or is it more broad?
Is it a really vertical bell curve, like looking at a shark fin straight on, like a dorsal fin, or is it like a broad thing, like a gentle hill?
I think that...
Okay, I'm gonna bring you with questions, because I don't think you gave me an honest answer there, and I'm gonna tell you, and I don't mean you're being dishonest, I just don't think you gave me an honest answer, and I'll tell you why.
Okay. Okay, so, your mom, 100, right?
Again, this is a completely made-up scale, it means nothing, but just for the sake of the math, right?
So, your mom is 100.
Clearly, everybody else in your family has got to be pretty close to that, right?
Otherwise, they would have intervened.
Yeah. Right? So that's your family, 100, right?
Or close, damn close to it, right?
Your friends growing up, where were they?
Your friends that you couldn't even say, I feel awkward, and you just had to clam up for fear of being attacked?
They'd be, gotta be at least 99.
Okay, alright, fantastic.
The people in your theater group, where are they on this continuum who don't seem to open up and let you into the conversation or show much care for you?
Sorry, it's feeling a little lonely right now, down at zero, but...
That's why I think 60 was a big load of optimistic bullshit, but that's okay.
I'm just looking for the evidence here, right?
So where is the computer group?
Well, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, I mean...
It's because I'm looking for the people who draw the average down.
That's what I'm looking for, right?
How the hell are you getting it down to 60?
Where's this big fucking planet of empathetic people that drags down everyone that you grew up with to 60?
What's the number based on your empirical evidence?
Well, on my empirical evidence, it's like high 90s.
I mean, I would agree with you on your empirical evidence that that would be the number.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're right.
That 60 is just some hopeful somewhere.
Yeah, that was just like, what would be a nice answer, right?
I knew that wasn't empirical, right?
Because you just basically told me that just about everyone that you meet, right?
Now, of course, you have something to do with that in a very small way in terms of, you know, you don't get those hundreds out of your life as quickly as you should because you don't express your own needs, right?
But that doesn't change who they are, right?
It just means that they're in your life a little bit more than they, or a lot more than they would be otherwise.
But nonetheless, that is the pattern, right?
And that pattern did not come out of nowhere.
It came out of your mom plus everyone else you met, right?
And your other family, other parental units, whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah.
You're right. So that's the continuum, right?
Right. Your mom's 100.
The world is the high 90s.
So when you say, I feel lonely, it's like, yeah, you do, right?
Like, oh shit, you do, right?
Okay, that's very helpful.
It's not because you're broken or deficient or, you know, in my opinion, it's because that's the fucking math, right?
Yeah. And I agree with you about the math.
And I think most of the people, if you're in the chat room listening to this, tell us whether you agree with this math or not.
The guy I was talking to, the head of the ACE study, yeah, he would agree with that math as well.
These people were in their late 50s.
No one had asked them how their childhood had affected their life.
Sorry to be Mr. Swearing Guy.
How the fuck do you know anybody?
Without asking, without asking that person, how has your childhood shaped who you are?
You can't know someone without asking that question.
You can't even pretend to know someone without asking that question.
And yet most people go through life never hearing that question.
Hey, how's your childhood?
How do you think it's affected your adult life for better or for worse?
So the whole world is full of people avoiding intimacy, maneuvering for dominance, playing petty games, wasting their precious life in stupid one-upmanship, empty-headed, vain nonsense.
Does my butt look too big?
Oh, I have a pimple.
Oh, I wonder if I'm going to get that job.
Oh, I'd really like to get that promotion.
That would really show them, hey, there's a new car out.
I'd really like to get that new car.
Right? Right.
Fuck. Right.
My daughter has more depth than most people I'll ever meet.
And she's one tomorrow.
Actually, she's one year old in one minute.
Oh, my goodness. Wow.
Yeah, somebody says you are not your fucking cockies, right?
That's the...
There's some good bits.
I mean, it's a horribly nihilistic film, but there's some fantastic bits.
It's one of the few...
You are not your wallet.
You are not your bank account. You are not the contents of your pockets, right?
Mm-hmm. Well...
That was...
Yeah.
Very... Helpful.
Very helpful. Yeah, know your environment.
You're not crazy. Yeah.
You're not paranoid. It's a cold fucking planet out there.
Wow, that really feels good to be told that I'm not crazy.
You're not crazy. And I'll give you one more, and I'll mention it because it was just on my mind the other day.
Right, you remember this media stuff that went down, I don't know what it was, a year or more ago.
Around FDR, these critical articles and all, right?
Well, literally tens of thousands of people downloaded the podcast where this guy, right, the young man was weeping about the suffering at the hands of his family, right?
Right, so hundreds of thousands of people read these articles, tens of thousands of people downloaded this, right?
And how many people, and lots of people blogged about it and wrote about it and this and that, right?
And how many people do you think, and I tracked this stuff because obviously it was on my mind, right?
Yeah. How many people do you think I found who wrote sympathetically towards this young man?
Even if they were critical of me, which, you know, certainly everybody's right if they want, right?
But how many people do you think said, you know, hey, maybe Steph was being an asshole, but I mean, this poor kid, right?
He obviously was really hurt, really suffering.
How many people do you think, out of the tens of thousands of people, Who downloaded it, the hundreds of thousands of people who read the articles, and I don't even know how many people wrote about it online.
How many people do you think expressed even one bit of sympathy for this young man?
Well, based on the range of empathy we were discussing earlier, I would guess one.
Well, I can tell you that outside of free-domain radio, zero.
Right. Zero.
Right. I mean, that's to be expected, though I was foolishly thinking that it was going to be better than that.
But then I thought about it later and I thought, well, I mean, people heard me getting beaten up every single, well, every second or third night in my childhood and did nothing.
So when you can hear it through the walls, is it any different than if you can hear it through a podcast?
People still want, right?
Act with empathy. Right.
Right. Let me just say that I think you've helped me in many ways with this conversation.
I just wanted to say something else had come to mind.
Feeling in the workplace, attacked and isolated, I started to think that maybe If I worked in the right environment, I would find the right people, people with more empathy.
No, that's to take ownership for the world.
To say, I need to find this place of deep empathy.
Because that's like, for some reason, I just keep ending up.
Now, I'm not saying that you have no responsibility in the matter in an abstract way.
In my opinion, you do, because you just become aware of these things, these patterns, right?
So there's things that you can do.
But, I mean, starting 10 years ago, I made the decision to just get people out of my life who didn't have empathy.
Mm-hmm. And I'm left with my wife.
No, seriously. I'm pretty social, right?
I'm pretty convincing. I'm pretty engaging.
I'm pretty charismatic. I'm pretty entertaining, right?
I mean, Lord knows I have my flaws, but I'm, you know, I'm pretty outgoing.
I'm pretty gregarious and so on.
And I'm left.
I mean, I'm talking in real life.
I mean, not talking about FDR. I have one person.
My daughter, but, you know.
But I had lots of friends.
I really did. I had lots of friends and family.
And I went through the process, right?
And I really wanted to find this.
And I'm just saying that my numbers match your numbers.
I understand.
And I... I do feel the same way.
I do take pride in the fact that I have come to a place now where, just referencing what you said, I know it's not about me.
I'm pretty awesome.
I know there's these patterns of behavior.
I am seeing a therapist on a regular basis.
Okay, so sorry about saying that you're just becoming aware.
I apologize. I'm sure you are aware, but maybe not in just sort of stark, dark way, right?
But yeah, I think you're a great guy.
I think I've always enjoyed my interactions with you, and I've always found you to be sort of wise and deep and witty, right?
So yeah, I think you're a great guy.
So I wouldn't, you know, we can't own the coldness of the world.
We didn't make it.
It's not our fault, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I just...
Yeah, yeah.
I get caught up sometimes just wondering why...
I'm not wondering it now, but just wondering why people can't see it.
It's like... Well, there's a lot of propaganda, right?
There's a lot of propaganda.
I mean, look at every sitcom, right?
The parents are always touching and caring and it's all the Cosby show and it's all...
Family ties. Again, sorry.
I know you're not too young for that stuff.
But look at the sitcom.
You never see parents yelling at their children.
You never see parents spanking their children.
You see this constant propaganda of kids are cute and precocious and parents are patient and wise.
And commercials, baby commercials, the kids are always being cuddled and never yelled at or shaken.
So there's this constant, constant A wave of self-congratulatory propaganda about, you know, what a caring society we are, right?
What an empathetic society we are, what a caring society we are.
So it's not surprising that you feel that there's something wrong with you because everybody's yelling at you how fucking empathetic they are, damn it.
All the time, right?
Right, right.
Right.
No, you're right.
But we just, you know, we don't listen to the propaganda.
We look at the facts, right?
Thank you.
We don't look at the makeup, we look at the brain scan, right?
We don't care about the words, we look at the actions.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Well, I just wanted to say, I don't know if it's coming across in how I'm speaking, but I do feel like a significant...
I feel significantly lighter in that I don't feel as...
I feel like something has been significantly relieved from this conversation.
Good. And that's what I mean.
That's why I wanted to keep going until you got that because I knew that that's possible.
And I wanted to make sure that you got that.
And you have to, of course, re-listen to this and think about it, right?
It's going to go away because it always does, right?
We fall back into, oh my God, the propaganda.
I'm a bad person and nobody likes me and everyone else is wonderful.
The inevitable backslide, right?
But I definitely wanted to, because I know that you were feeling pretty down and I wanted to get you to that place where at least there's some perspective which you can refer to.
Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.
I've really enjoyed this.
I'm very pleased. And I'll, of course, send it to you to have a listen.
Oh, that's great.
That's great. Thank you.
You're very welcome. And keep us all posted about how things go, man.
You bet. Stay strong. Good night. Bye.
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