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Jan. 17, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:45

1560 Sunday Show 17 January 2010 - Freedomain Radio

Dealing with gaps in your resume, two dreams broken down, family rules, and the ethics of tickling.

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	Well, thank you everybody so much for joining.
	I'm sorry that we didn't have a show last week.
	Once again, happy new decade to you and it is just after 4pm on the 17th of January 2010.
	So, I don't have any particularly lengthy intros to go for.
	I did take a short break and went to Mexico for a week.
	We got a great deal on a sort of last minute It was great.
	It was a lot of fun. I tell you, traveling with a baby is a pretty exhausting thing.
	To Izzy's credit, she was fantastic on the plane.
	That was where our biggest concern was.
	On the way down, we had a layover.
	It was like an eight-hour flight.
	We thought that was going to be pretty intense because she doesn't even like it when we sit on the couch with her.
	She's very active. But she was great, and she unfortunately did not take to the creaky gringo crib that they gave us down at the resort.
	Not a big fan of that, so that didn't work out so well.
	And she was very excited and got up very early in the morning, and so we kind of took some turns on that, getting some sleep and so on.
	But yeah, it's amazing just how different it is to vacation with a baby, because of course...
	Beforehand, we'd be going for walks, we'd be going to shows, we'd be going scuba diving and all that, but none of that occurs for the baby.
	You just sort of roll around and eat and then have her go and nap, and then you go to the beach, and half the day seems to be sunscreening and trying to get her to wear her hat and so on.
	I mean, it was fun, but it's not something that you would go to do to relax, but it was certainly worth it all just to see her excitement when Birds would land on the table when we were eating.
	She just went mental with excitement and got to name the birds fairly quickly.
	And her language is just fantastic.
	She's just going through this phase.
	She's literally learning a couple of words a day.
	Or rather, we're teaching her a couple of words a day.
	And she's really good at them.
	And it's amazing that when she says a word before, she would just sort of be practicing words and you wouldn't assume it related to anything in your environment.
	I mean, it could, but it might not.
	But that's not the case now.
	I took her to get some groceries and then I got a haircut.
	When we walked into the barber's, she said, airplane.
	Because of course we taught her airplane when we were on vacation.
	And I couldn't figure out why she was saying airplane, because we were inside.
	I turned around and thought maybe she saw one through the glass because we're not that far from an airport.
	And I couldn't figure it out. And normally I would just say, well she's just practicing the word.
	But then I saw that right at the back of the barber was a little postcard with a tiny picture of an airplane on it.
	And that's what she was pointing at.
	And I was like, wow, that's amazing.
	She's got this laser vision.
	And what's on the other side of the wall, boo-boo?
	So, yeah, it's just amazing to see how rapidly she is just able to integrate and process this language.
	She's under two-syllable words.
	She hasn't assembled any words yet, of course.
	She's not even 13 months.
	It's just an absolutely beautiful thing.
	It's like this supernova going on in this tiny and incredibly cute pink hit.
	It's just a beautiful thing to see.
	Anyway, thanks again to everyone who's interested in and joining us today and excited about philosophy.
	And I am all ears.
	If you have a question, then just give out a holler, and I would be more than happy to listen.
	Yes, definitely. Hello.
	Yes, Steph?
	Hello. Steph?
	Yes, hello. Yeah, this is Jeff.
	I was calling with a question.
	It's related to job interviewing.
	Sure. And my question is, is that over time, I have switched jobs a number of times.
	And... Some of it, well, I mean, first off, let me give you some background, is that I do mechanical design for a living.
	And over eight years, I've switched jobs like three, four, I don't know, maybe five times.
	I don't know, I'm not thinking straight right now.
	I don't have my resume in front of me.
	But I guess what I'm trying to say is that when I interview...
	I'm like not telling them actually that whether or not I was terminated from a position and mostly like when I've been terminated it's been because I've been well in a sense kind of a personnel problem and not so much one where I cost the company money or anything and so I guess my question is Is,
	like, maybe how I would bring that up or mention that in an interview because, I mean, really, I'd like to be able to just tell them, but...
	Hello? Yeah, go ahead.
	I would like to be able to tell them, but I also don't want it to end up into, like, a couch session either at the same time.
	I want to be able to tell them that...
	Yeah, I have shifted jobs.
	Right, right, right.
	But, you know, also be truthful and upfront and honest about it, and then still go on conveying value.
	I don't know if Like from a technical perspective, given your background as having been a CEO and having hired and fired people yourself, if you have any advice on that.
	Sure, and just to correct you, I was never a CEO, just a CTO, Chief Technical Officer, but that's not particularly relevant.
	I just wanted to mention that. Oh, okay.
	It's a great question, and it's a tough question.
	My general approach is don't explain.
	Unless asked. Don't explain unless asked.
	That would be my first thing, because if you preemptively attempt to explain your resume, there's no way that I know of to do that without sounding like you're coming across defensive, if that makes any sense.
	I think just give them your resume.
	And if, you know, it's like, here's my resume.
	And by the way, I changed jobs because of this.
	And here at this place, there was this problem.
	And here at that place, there was that problem.
	I think that you are showing a level of anxiety about your resume and That is going to...
	I don't think there's any way to avoid that coming across to the other person as being anxious and defensive.
	And so I would not, you know, I think hand over the resume and wait for questions to ask.
	Now, if somebody asks and says, you know, you've changed jobs a lot over the past eight years, could you tell me a little bit about the circumstances?
	I would keep it minimal, for sure.
	I mean, in general, during an interview...
	A short answer is best and wait for follow-up questions because it's very easy in an interview when, you know, we're all nervous in an interview and we all want to make a good impression but during an interview it's very easy to over-explain.
	To say something that in order to be comprehensible needs something else to be said in order for that to be comprehensible it needs something else to be said and you end up going on for a long period of time and then you don't know how to stop.
	At least I've certainly seen that and I think I've done that in an interview or two as well.
	You don't know how to gracefully exit this maze that you've entered of explanations.
	So I would try to keep the answers short.
	And my suggestion, and if this fits with your career goals, so much the better.
	But my suggestion would be that if somebody says, you know, you've changed jobs a lot, you know, what's up with that?
	I'd say, well, I really do want to settle into a place for the long term.
	But I've, you know, the places that I've looked at...
	I've either had not a great fit in terms of personalities, or I've not had a great fit in terms of the work and what I like to do.
	And I've certainly given it a shot in these positions and tried to negotiate for the right thing, but it hasn't worked out.
	And I thought it's best for me to continue to look for a place which is a really great fit, rather than to sort of slog away in something that is not a great fit, which I don't think is the best, either for me or, you know, frankly, for my employer.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	That makes perfect sense.
	And not only that, but with also knowing, too, because I know that going into interviews, too, that there is really no, I don't know, set standards, per se, because you cannot really know what's going through the mind of the other person on the other end, so you can't really sit there and, like you say, get into the two Drawn out of explanations.
	Do you think that would be pretty correct thinking on that?
	Oh, absolutely. Less is more when it comes to interviews.
	I've always tried to keep my responses minimal.
	And, you know, you could say that up front.
	I've done that in an interview or two where I say, look, I mean, my general approach to interviews, and you can tell me if you'd like me to change this, I will keep my answers pretty brief, but I'm perfectly happy to entertain more questions if you have them.
	But just for the sake of sanity and time management, I'm going to keep my answers brief, but feel free to ask more.
	And of course, at the end of an explanation, I think it's really important to check whether the question has been answered.
	So if somebody says, you've changed jobs a lot over the last eight years, can you tell me a little bit more about that?
	Give a short answer and then say, does that answer your question?
	Is there more that you would like to know?
	Is there anything else I could fill you in on?
	I think in interviews it's really important to verify that your answer actually meets the person's requirements.
	And I think that does two things.
	One, it shows that you actually care about communicating and whether it's been effective.
	And you don't assume that it's been effective, which is usually a good thing.
	And number two, it shows that you are proactively making sure that communication is effective.
	And if you ever have to deal with customers or even internally, That is a good thing.
	I always liked it when people did that in interviews, when they would ask me if their answer had actually answered my question and if there was anything else that I wanted to know, because it meant that they actually cared about the quality of our interaction.
	And I also felt that if that person were ever to be in front of a client, that they would verify the quality of the communication, which is really important.
	I see. I see.
	Well, I mean, really, you've answered my question.
	Thanks a lot, man.
	I appreciate it. No problem.
	The last thing that I will say, and this is about more than interviews, I mean, we know that society as a whole has no basis for its values, right?
	It's just tradition and government and gods and so on.
	Society has no basis for its values.
	The only thing that society What it will really do is it will judge you according to how you judge yourself.
	It will judge you according to how you judge yourself.
	So if you're uncomfortable and you feel that you've done something, quote, wrong by switching jobs a lot, people don't have any objective standard of value.
	So they'll just say, well, he feels bad about it, so there must be something wrong with it.
	Do you see what I mean? You bring up a very good point there.
	That's why I've been reading this one book, and it's kind of a good motivational book, too, but I think it describes corporate culture in general.
	I've been reading this book called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, and kind of hoping to draw some perspective from that, especially since he's a technical guy.
	That's a good place for me to go.
	But I see what you mean, though, too, because I have walked into, I don't know, different hornet's nest interviewing situations with that perspective and have just gotten annihilated.
	So, I mean, I know exactly what you mean there.
	Yeah, the best preparation, my friend, that you can do for an interview is to be at peace with any flaws that you perceive in your resume and to say, I'm okay with these.
	I'm happy with these. I'm comfortable with these.
	I haven't made any big mistakes.
	I haven't done any bad things.
	I'm content with what it is that I'm doing.
	I mean, I'll give you sort of a brief example and hopefully will make some sort of sense.
	I was watching TV the other night.
	No, I was on vacation and I was watching TV. Because, you know, that's what you do when you go to sunny Mexico.
	You watch some TV. And Bill Clinton was on.
	And he was talking about, you know, his foundation and all the work that they do and all the virtuous things that they're doing and all the good that they're doing.
	And I think it was David Letterman was just, you know, basically giving his shoes fellatio in terms of, you know, sucking up to Mr.
	Dewey-eyed Bubba Magic Joe.
	And to me, this is really quite astounding.
	I mean, Bill Clinton is a guy who ordered airstrikes that killed civilians, right?
	Bill Clinton is a guy who used a lowly personal assistant as his own geisha, right?
	This is a guy who, when he was supposed to meet with, I think, the King of Jordan, was jamming a cigar up an intern's hoo-hoo.
	You know, this is a guy who's had unbelievably sleazy, scummy affairs With just about anything that has lipstick and nipples.
	And who lied about this to a congressional hearing and was virtually impeached.
	I mean, this is a particularly virulent kind of scumbag.
	And the reality is, though, that Clinton has no problem with what he's done.
	Obviously, he's no problem with ordering airstrikes and pillaging the female citizenry of the White House and, you know, dragging...
	up to the shores of his pants whatever dragging a fifty dollar bill through a trailer park could hook and he has no problem with it and so since Clinton has no problem with what he did and there's no such thing as objective values nobody can have any problem with what Clinton did and so he's just a guy who goes and gets all of these great speaking fees and is considered to be a humanitarian and a great guy and a moral guy because that's his opinion of himself and without reference to objective values You just have to go along with it.
	And I'm not saying be like Clinton, right?
	This is not licensed to be a sociopath.
	But what I am saying is that people don't have any objective standards or values to judge you by.
	So whatever you're at peace with is going to be very acceptable to other people.
	And so the moment you go in and you start defending and explaining and so on, you're communicating that you think that something's wrong.
	And that's why I say people will then immediately say, well...
	There must be something wrong with what he did.
	But if you're at peace with it, other people, almost inevitably, will be at peace with it, too.
	Gotcha. And to me, the thing that really counts, well, at least for me on my resume, maybe I need to communicate it better, is what a person accomplishes in terms of absolute returns.
	To me, at the end of the day, that's the only thing that really counts is that, and that's it.
	You mean sort of the value that you've provided to your employer?
	Yeah, like in terms of products and things that I've done before.
	That's where I try to predicate my value when I'm talking with someone on the phone.
	But yeah, like my past interviews, I don't know, my past three or four, I haven't gotten any job offers.
	And of course, I know there's a lot of people out there looking.
	I'm actually back to work right now, but I've also been going about trying to troubleshoot and figure out where exactly I'm going wrong to, you know, at the very least, not get a job offer from an interview.
	Right. Right, and look, I mean, I know what a tough job market it is in the US, and I've certainly gone through my own trying to get jobs during a recession thing, and it is tough.
	It is tough. The jobs are out there, and what's, I think, important to remember is that job hunting becomes a marathon, and people drop off.
	So you will get the job.
	You'll just get the job if you hang in there and stay optimistic one second longer than the other 200 guys looking for the job.
	So you can get the job.
	You really have to go the distance in this kind of job market and just Be comfortable.
	Don't take it personally if you don't get job offers or return calls because it is a tough market.
	You just have to be persistent and positive and be the guy that people think like, doesn't he know there's a recession on?
	It's like, I really don't because I'm just going to be that more persistent and positive.
	And I think that's going to be like, did you just come in from no recession Mars or something on the shuttle that I'm not aware of?
	But that's, I think, where you need to be because people will get a lot of desperation.
	They will get a lot of You know, sweaty voice, please hire me.
	I'm, you know, about to eat my cat.
	And they will be drawn to the person who retains his optimism and confidence and self-comfort during that process.
	I think it is what gives you the best odds and gives you the chance to be persistent.
	I think it's important when looking for work not to let rejection escalate.
	In other words, you know, oh, I didn't get a callback.
	That's really bad. I didn't get two callbacks.
	That's even worse. I didn't get three callbacks.
	And so it escalates and it snowballs and then your confidence You know, takes a cannonball straight to the nads, right?
	And that's not what you want to do.
	I think you want to just say, hey, it's a tough job market.
	Increases of rejection do not mean increases in lowering of my self-regard.
	It's a cliche, but it's true.
	Every rejection is one step closer to the job that you're going to get.
	You've eliminated a job that's not a good fit for you, or a person who's not a good fit for you, or an environment that's not a good fit for you.
	You're just getting that one step closer to the job that you're going to get and to not let it escalate, to continue to be as positive and comfortable with yourself because as the recession continues...
	As the recession continues, the people who were able to maintain that are going to really, really stick out and they are going to snap up the jobs that are there.
	And the other thing you may want to think about if you're used to moving work, that may be a negative for A long-term career, but it may be considered a positive if you wanted to dip into the world of consultancy, because then switching jobs is actually a good thing.
	So if you wanted to try and do that, that would also be something that I would recommend.
	Become a consultant versus being a corporate direct hire?
	Oh yeah, for sure. Being a consultant is great on so many levels when you're looking for work.
	I mean, it gets your contacts up in the industries.
	You have reason to make phone calls, which aren't about do you have jobs.
	You can start up a website.
	You can get your name out there and you may pick up some work or you may not, but it keeps you in the groove of working because it's really tough to spend eight hours a day looking for work.
	But if you are consulting, then you are reminding yourself of your value.
	You're writing up all the stuff that you're good at and you're calling people for references and you can then Try and find ways to get work.
	Maybe you can pick up some work and that will help tide you over until you get something more full-time.
	Maybe you can get a job that turns into a full-time job.
	Certainly in a recession, one of the first places that a lot of people will turn to to hire people is the consultants that they have because they have a working relationship.
	They know who they are and so on.
	And so that's just an option.
	If you're finding it tough to find work, Then I think I would certainly turn towards the consultancy thing and try and milk existing contacts and get your name out in front of people as a consultant.
	And then that may help you in terms of getting a full-time gig, if that's what you want.
	Gotcha. Gotcha.
	Well, really, that's all I've got, man.
	And likewise, thanks a lot.
	And I've followed your show for, well, since your beginning.
	Whoa, dude. I really enjoy it.
	Fantastic. Well, thank you so much.
	I appreciate it. And do drop me a line if there's anything else I can do or if you do get a job, I'd certainly love to hear about it.
	And, you know, best of luck.
	You know, I hate the fact that it's so tough out there.
	I really do. But I think that with philosophy as your, you know, as your parachute, I think it is a softer landing.
	And I think you can hang in there to the point where you can get the job of your dreams even in a tough market.
	Oh, definitely. Absolutely.
	All right. Well, thanks, man, and keep me posted if you can.
	All right. Thanks, Steph.
	Okay. All right.
	Well, people were asking, how, oh, how do you speak on this show?
	You open your mouth, and right about now would be a good time.
	Hello. Hello. Hey, Steph.
	It's Stephen. Oh, hi.
	How's it going? Hey, it's going great, actually.
	Thank you. How are you? I'm just fine.
	Thank you. How would you feel about a dream interpretation?
	I would feel fine about it.
	Fantastic. I would be enthusiastic about it.
	Great, great. Okay, so this was a very, very frightening dream.
	I woke up just shivering and shaking.
	My heart was racing, and I was sweating profusely.
	And you want me just to go ahead and read what I wrote?
	Yes, please. Alrighty.
	I was walking down an aisle at some store with my mom and my dad.
	My mom was wearing denim and had a long ponytail which is very, very different from her actual style.
	I don't remember much of this scene but I remember I knew my dad was there but I can't remember actually seeing him.
	I don't remember the context but my parents had gotten a divorce but they were still together for some reason.
	I knew that my parents were leaving and that I wouldn't see them again.
	And I was desperately begging them to stay, and at least to talk things out with me.
	I don't remember her replies, but it was going nowhere, which really, really devastated me.
	Somehow we ended up outside.
	It was night, and my mom was about to get on a motorcycle, which is very unlike her in real life, and drive away.
	I assumed I would never see her again, and I was still begging her to talk to me.
	Eventually she gets on the motorcycle and starts to drive, but I grab the motorcycle and bring it to a halt.
	I said, just let me come with you for one day and I'll leave tomorrow.
	To which she responded, that makes sense.
	So I got on the back of the motorcycle and I don't know why this is so vivid in my memory, but I grabbed onto like a bar on the left hand side and it just stands out really vividly in my memory.
	And then my mom complained about how much harder it would be to drive with me on it.
	We're driving down a dark road in maybe a forest or a desert with some vegetation.
	And at one point we fall off the road.
	Neither one of us is hurt, but my mom tries to drive a little more and it doesn't work.
	And she decides to pull over and work on the motorcycle.
	This is where it gets kind of weird.
	The area we're in reminds me of the vegetation from Donkey Kong Country, and we're on a thin vine fixing the bike.
	I'm sorry, Donkey Kong Country?
	Is that a place, or are we talking about the video?
	It's a game that I was just obsessed with as a kid that had these really cool jungle scenes.
	Is it like the original one where you're kind of going up the construction site and all that?
	No, it's like a knockoff.
	Well, it was like Donkey Kong's own game.
	It's just there's a lot of like big jungles and specific looking trees that it really looked like that in the dream.
	Alright, well if somebody knows the game and can post a screenshot in the chatroom, I'd appreciate it, but please go on.
	Okay. Weird.
	We're on the vine fixing a bike, and there was a very large, stupid-looking goose, which I think represented God, and another animal, which I think was a pig, and I believe it represented statism.
	And there was a jack, like a car jack, which was not under the bike, but under a large metallic ball.
	I remember thinking, why isn't the goose doing anything?
	It's supposed to be helping.
	When I saw it wouldn't, I walked over and cranked the jack myself.
	And I don't remember the transition, but we're riding again.
	And that's when I woke up.
	Like I said, my heart was racing.
	I was shivering. I felt really scared, not just in the dream, but actually when I woke up and I was just sweating profusely.
	And even now I still feel kind of nervous talking about it.
	Right, right. Now, but can you tell me what, I just want to make sure that I understand, what is it that was scary at the end?
	I think I was just still...
	Oh, I totally forgot to mention something.
	Sorry, I guess the car jack was not under the bike.
	There was a large metallic ball.
	You asked the goose, why weren't you helping?
	And then I'm sorry, maybe I missed a little bit as I was checking out the ultimate video graphic of Donkey Kong, which I think was originally Monkey Kong.
	They just switched the M and the D, but anyway.
	But, um, um, the, uh, well, I didn't actually ask the goose.
	I just thought to myself, well, why isn't the goose doing anything?
	Isn't it supposed to be helping?
	Right. And, um, and I forgot at the end, um, I was still just really worried that I wasn't going to be able to...
	I don't know. I was still worried about the situation with my parents.
	I don't remember specifically what was worrying me.
	And then I remember actually thinking...
	Well, I remember thinking because you said you don't actually defoo your parents.
	They defoo you. And I remember thinking that.
	And then somehow I thought, like, oh, maybe this is a dream.
	And then, oh, it is a dream.
	And then I woke up. And that's...
	Completely forgot about that.
	And when did the dream happen?
	About a week and a half ago.
	And do you recall what may have happened the day before that may have had some influence?
	I know I visited my parents, but I don't remember specific...
	I really don't remember what we talked about or anything.
	It was like a really brief visit.
	I think I was getting a grocery store gift card or something for food.
	And are your parents happy together?
	Um... Yes.
	Yeah, I think so, yes.
	Alright, and tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
	Well, I was raised in a...
	It was actually, in a lot of ways, extraordinarily empathetic.
	I was spanked a few times, about six times, and then eventually they realized that it wasn't really doing anything, so they stopped spanking me.
	And I always thought that was pretty impressive.
	I mean, it would have been better without the spanking at all, definitely, but as opposed to, oh, it's not working, so let's spank harder, you know.
	And I remember several occasions where I was, like, I stole a paperclip or something from a store and I felt really bad about it.
	And I told my mom, and she was like, well, how do you feel about it?
	And I was like, well, I feel really bad.
	And she actually asked me, like, what do you want to do about it?
	And not in a sarcastic way, but like actually curious.
	And I said, oh, I want to go in and return it and say I'm sorry.
	And she went with me and everything.
	And I had a lot of those situations like that where I think I really learned a lot of Empathy and being in touch with my emotions was always very important for my parents.
	That's great. Boy, that's fantastic.
	Good for that. Yeah. And so they're happy together, and so the idea in your dream that there's a divorce going on is not empirical, right?
	Well, they had that pseudo-divorce, but it only lasted for a night.
	I'm sorry, that's in real life?
	Yeah. Yeah. There was a big yell fest.
	I mean, our relationship started getting rocky when I became a teenager, and I started getting angry because they're Christians and Republicans.
	I started questioning that, and we started having yell fests and everything.
	And a couple months ago, there was this...
	I wanted to move back in and there was just...
	My mom wanted me to go to Thanksgiving with them, like have the dinner with them, and I already had plans with friends.
	And she just got extremely angry and just started yelling and eventually it just got...
	I kept saying, I mean, I'll be happy to split the day with you or whatever, but it's just I already have plans.
	We talked about this before, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Case for College podcast.
	Right, right, right. Okay. Right.
	Does that answer your question?
	Yeah, yeah. And what do you think the dream is about?
	Well, I've been having a lot of trouble with that, but I know that it's got to be some sort of desperation, because I know I feel just absolute desperation with Them leaving my life.
	There was one line that...
	You know, I'm having a lot of trouble.
	I think there's some emotional blockage or some logical blockage keeping me from getting to the emotional reasons behind it.
	All I know is that I... I felt, like, desperate with them leaving.
	So that must be saying that I, you know, I really don't feel comfortable saying.
	I really don't feel sure.
	Oh, I see, I see. Okay.
	All right. Yeah, I mean, it's not a lot to go on as far as the dream goes.
	But because we don't really know what the triggering incident was that may have occurred.
	And without that, it's tough to know what the dream is responding to.
	But we'll take a few swings.
	And we'll see what happens.
	Okay, why is your mom in denim and a ponytail?
	That's the first question. You said it's very unlike her dress, right?
	Yeah. It reminded me of this neighbor I used to have, but I don't know if that's related at all, but I guess that's kind of a tough look.
	Right. Right. Yeah, and the motorcycle sort of goes with that too, right?
	Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
	Do you have any family or personal associations with motorcycles?
	One, like, half-cousin who rides a motorcycle, but I only met him once and it really didn't have any major impact.
	Right, okay. I mean, that could be a metaphor for rebellion.
	What is your mom's relationship to risk?
	She doesn't like it.
	She doesn't tend to take it very much.
	She gets very angry when it comes to risk.
	Big risk, I guess.
	Not little things, but as far as...
	Like, if I want to make any large emotional, like, start talking about religion or politics, I guess those things would be considered risky.
	I don't know. I'm having trouble answering the question.
	Right, okay. And the reason I'm asking that is that in the dream, the mom dream, the dream mom, I guess, is pretty down with risk, right?
	She's driving off, you're grabbing her, you know, you grab onto a bar on the left-hand side, she says it's harder to drive with you in it, and then you kind of crash, right?
	Yeah. And she seems fine.
	She's not like, oh my god, this is the worst thing ever, and so on, right?
	Yeah. But that's not very much like her in real life.
	She would be devastating and blaming, and she was just kind of quiet that whole time, just fixing it to herself.
	Right, right.
	I'm just thinking for a sec here.
	Just looking at my notes. Alright, well, let me ask you this.
	Sure. What's going to happen if you push anarchism and atheism with your parents?
	They're not going to want to talk to me anymore.
	And I don't know if I would want to talk to them anymore.
	Right. And what are your thoughts and feelings about that?
	Well, I've...
	Kind of, like, the last few weeks, and I don't know, last night I started thinking about this more, and I don't think it's a very good thing to go on, but the last couple weeks I've kind of been looking at it as, like, if we can have an honest relationship, I don't mind not talking about religion and politics.
	And I don't think that's really healthy, because those are things I want to talk about.
	Okay, and let me make the case, For you not talking about them with your parents, which, you know, I'm just playing devil's advocate position here.
	Maybe this is the correct position, right?
	Because I don't know much about your family, but it certainly doesn't sound like your parents are any kind of bad people in terms of how they raised you.
	I mean, obviously you have differences and significant differences politically and philosophically, and those are not to be ignored.
	But, you know, they weren't like setting fire to you and, you know, strangling your kittens and so on, right?
	I mean, they were good parents for you.
	Uh, emotionally and, and you know, they, they recognize that hitting was bad and they stopped and, and so on.
	Right. So there's, there's some good things obviously to be said, significant good things to be said about your parents.
	So let me just play the devil's advocate position here, uh, because I think that this is what the dream is about.
	And, uh, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but that I think is, is, uh, uh, is where the, the best, uh, the best use of time goes.
	Sure. So, uh, let's just, Pretend that we can carve off religiosity and politics.
	And let's say that we can create a relationship with your parents, or a relationship can exist with your parents, that you just don't talk about those things.
	Is there other things that you enjoy talking to your parents about, or enjoy interacting with your parents about?
	Oh yes, they're very interested in psychology and neuroscience.
	I mean, they don't have a lot of knowledge in it, but they're very interested when I talk about it, and we've actually been trying to RTR, and we've been making a good amount of progress.
	Fantastic. Okay, well, I mean, that's great.
	Are there other things like hobbies or sports or movies?
	Yeah, we'll go see films and stuff like that.
	I bought an Alice Miller book and my mom actually said she wanted to borrow it after I was done and I hadn't even suggested it.
	That made me just really happy.
	I can imagine, right? It sounds like there's a lot of quality stuff in your relationship with your parents outside of atheism and anarchism, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so obviously for you, it would be better if they became atheists and anarchists, right?
	And I don't think that'll happen.
	Yeah, okay. So if it doesn't happen, let's say that a relationship of perfect value compatibility is 100%.
	If you don't do the atheism and anarchism with your parents, what percentage should you add?
	75. 75%, okay.
	There's a lot of shared history and a lot of mutual respect, obviously.
	And there's a lot of...
	I mean, the shared history that is embedded in families is a very powerful thing.
	And that automatically ups, I think, the intimacy capacity of families beyond zero.
	When you meet someone new, it's kind of like zero, right?
	But you've had decades with your parents and you know each other very well.
	So you automatically are pretty high.
	And 75% is pretty good, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Now the other thing is that if you want to get somebody to give up on God, taking the approach of self-knowledge is a very powerful approach.
	Because you can take one of two approaches.
	You can either do the rigorous logical and empirical arguing, and that's certainly a valid approach.
	Or what you can do is you can encourage the pursuit of self-knowledge in the person.
	Because when somebody pursues self-knowledge rigorously and indefatigably, what will end up happening is that they will end up recognizing that God is a projection.
	So the route of them going inwards and learning more about themselves, and I don't mean to say that they haven't done this, I don't know, but going further down that path will liberate them, because they will see that the big man in the sky...
	is the little man in their heads.
	And that may also occur with the state.
	Because we lose the capacity to invest emotionally In external nonsense when we become more fully and deeply and richly who we actually are.
	I said this in a podcast years ago that to me the pursuit of self-knowledge is about the withdrawal of emotional projections into the outside world.
	So it's hard to find an anarchist who really gives a shit about his sports team, right?
	Or a philosopher who gives a shit about a sports team because It's a projection, right?
	There's no we in the sports team, and there's no we in the state, and there is no God in the sky.
	And if your parents are not going to be particularly pursued, what you can either do is you can disabuse somebody of the notion of God, and what that does is it causes their emotional projections into the universe to collapse back into themselves, and then they can deal with Their belief or their faith as a psychological issue that needs to be dealt with, right? Like anxiety or depression or whatever, right?
	And so you can either cut the cord to God, the cord goes whiplashing back into the person and they can deal with that snake in the inner, so to speak.
	You know, it's like you pull the cord on a lawnmower and it goes back in.
	That's sort of what happens when you cut the logical cord to God.
	But the other approach is to have it reel in more slowly, right?
	Which is just, you know, learn about yourself, learn about yourself, learn about yourself.
	And then at some point, you will get that God is not out there, but is a fantasy that is within you.
	And that is another way of doing it.
	And if your parents are very interested in the pursuit of self-knowledge and reading Alice Miller or whoever else that is that is going to help them down that path or help accelerate that path...
	I think that it's entirely possible, in fact, it might be considered probable, that if you lay off the intellectual arguments but simply pursue the self-knowledge and the honesty, that God will evaporate from their perception as something that is outside of themselves.
	Does that make any sense at all?
	That makes so much sense.
	I mean, that's wonderful.
	That's really wonderful. And, I mean, I'm just glad that I can...
	Even try to do the RTR stuff with them, and they seem very interested.
	That's fantastic.
	And the same thing could be true of politics, in my opinion.
	And they're already very like, oh, well, we know the state is just dumb and silly and all that.
	I guess I'd like to be more curious about that and see where they actually are at, just to know.
	Yeah, for sure. Just be curious about their beliefs and, you know, encourage them down the pursuit of self-knowledge.
	I mean, I could have stopped this show after, like, show 50, right?
	Because, I mean, 100 maybe, because that's where the arguments about the state and religion had all been encapsulated.
	But the reason that I kept going is I just hate shutting up.
	And also because having the intellectual arguments will only take you so far.
	And the intellectual arguments are hard to replicate in others, as we all know.
	But where people cannot reason by logic, they reason by empiricism, right?
	And empirical reasoning, which is, I can catch a ball even though I don't know the physics of why it's flying.
	I don't know the equations of gravity and momentum and air resistance and so on, but I can still catch the ball.
	The reason that I've kept going and continued to encourage people towards the pursuit of self-knowledge is that that which you cannot reject rationally for whatever emotional block, you will end up being able to say goodbye to emotionally through the pursuit of self-knowledge.
	And I think if your family is involved in that process, if you continue to aim at self-knowledge, I believe that you will all end up in a great place.
	Not that you're not in a good place now, but you will end up in a place Where reason has kind of snuck up on you rather than, you know, sort of fall on you like a house of bricks.
	Yeah, yeah. You know, thank you so much.
	That was one of the hypotheses I had for the dream.
	I mean, I just don't want them to leave without...
	I mean, I didn't want it to end like it seemed like it was going to end, you know, out of just, I think, rebellion more than anything.
	I want to thank you so much for all that you've been helping me with.
	I showed them the Case for College podcast and that's really when we started really making progress in my opinion.
	I think that's fantastic.
	I'm incredibly thrilled.
	I do pass along my intense regard and congratulations.
	To your parents. And to a degree, right?
	I mean, and this is going to sound a little funny, but I do believe that there is...
	You can have some respect for them for holding on to a position that they still believe to be valid.
	Like if they sort of caved and said, okay, we're anarchists and we're atheists because they were frightened of you or because whatever, right?
	But they really are holding on to their beliefs.
	And, you know, that means that if they change their beliefs to something more rational...
	Then it'll really stick. But I think we can have some admiration for that and some respect for that.
	There is a kind of integrity to that, that if that's what you believe, then you stick with it, right?
	I agree. I really do think that the dream at the very end says, you know, the large dumb-looking goose or God is not helping.
	They say, not going to be able to help my parents.
	Well, yeah, God isn't going to be able to help your parents because God is not out there, but in Your parents are unconscious, and so I would just have them keep unearthing, and they'll come across the tomb of the greatest deities, and I believe that the religious belief falls away from that, but that's the approach that I would take.
	All right, thank you so much. My dad is calling me now, so I better...
	All right, well say hi to them for me, and do let me know how it goes.
	Definitely, definitely, definitely. I'll keep you posted.
	Thank you. Bye. Hello?
	Hello. Hey, Steph.
	How's it going? It's going just great.
	How are you doing? Very well.
	This is a question about one of the videos you put up a month or two ago about the adverse childhood experiences.
	Yes. And in that video, it was interesting to me because you said that it's possible that those experiences will manifest themselves in hypersensitivity to external stimuli or even hyposensitivity.
	And I kind of noticed that there might be a manifestation of that that is pretty widespread that most people don't know about.
	And it's actually tickling.
	Because I have a few friends who were tickled a lot as children.
	And I have a muscle massager, muscle stimulator or whatever.
	And a lot of them can't even handle it touching them.
	Possibly because their brain is trained to engage the flight or fight response when someone is tickling their muscles or whatever.
	So I was wondering if that could have any possible roots.
	I guess it would be a really mild form of abuse, but it seems like most of the times when people are tickling someone else, They always say stop before the person stops.
	So I was wondering if that has any legitimacy in being a mild form of abuse.
	That's very interesting.
	I was actually just thinking about this yesterday.
	No, two days ago, coincidentally enough.
	My daughter, of course, is almost 13 months old.
	And she's now of the age where she's beginning to really enjoy what, I don't know, what I call roughhousing.
	But other people may have different terms for it.
	Which is, you know, basically rolling around and being sort of held up in the air, lifted up suddenly.
	And then, you know, I'll sort of cup her and cuddle her, kiss her, and then we'll roll around.
	And she comes back and then I'll sort of, she'll jump on my chest and I'll sort of flip her over and then place her sort of gently on the ground.
	So she's really enjoying that sort of carnival ride of roughhousing.
	And a little bit of the roughhousing is tickling.
	And I said to Christina just the other day that the one thing that I remember from being a kid was that generally roughhousing would continue until somebody got hurt.
	Like, you know that phrase, it always ends in tears.
	And that's something that I remember very distinctly as a kid.
	That, you know, you went into roughhousing kind of knowing that it was going to be a lot of fun.
	But, you know, it's like you're riding on the roller coaster until it throws you against a wall and you bruise or hurt yourself.
	Because... That's what always seemed to happen and I can feel that impulse to escalate within me and I'm very very careful and very conscious to even though my daughter is very enthusiastic about this interaction and has a great deal of fun to not escalate to make sure that I keep it at a very gentle and even and slow keel and that if I tickle her and she laughs There is a temptation,
	and you say, well, if I tickle her more, she's going to laugh more.
	But I think we've all experienced that, where tickling is fun and then becomes not fun, even though you can't stop laughing.
	So I very consciously said to myself, I will not tickle her for more than one or two seconds because I do not want it to overwhelm her.
	And when I say roughhousing, just so you understand, I'm sure you know, It's all very gentle and it's all very safe and she's never hurt herself and it's all very careful and very controlled and so on.
	But I really was thinking about that, about how it does tend to escalate.
	I think that tickling is, it can be fun if it's in very, very short bursts, but I certainly know, and remember this as a kid, that it was definitely a form of dominance behavior among children, right?
	Someone could just jump on you and start tickling you and wouldn't get off.
	And that, of course, is very invasive and it's very horrible because you're not having fun but you're involuntarily laughing.
	And it is very invasive because it is somebody else taking over your nervous system.
	So I agree with you that I think tickling is something that can be a lot of fun but needs to be very, very short.
	And not ever to the point where the person feels overwhelmed or intruded upon, but it's sort of a very, very short burst of something that's stimulating and giggly.
	So does that make any sense to you?
	Yeah, sort of, because like you said, they're involuntarily laughing, so it almost gives off the impression that they're enjoying that while they're saying stop.
	I mean, it's hard to...
	Yeah, it's hard to know. And I think that there is a feeling of aggression among certain people that, you know, I'm just going to keep tickling because it's fun for the other person even if the other person is saying no.
	And I have a vague memory of someone in boarding school being tickled until they peed themselves.
	And, of course, that is completely abusive, right?
	Even though the kid was saying stops.
	And that, I think, was much more of an extreme example.
	But I think that it can be...
	To me, tickling crosses the line into something that is negative.
	The moment that the person cannot get away from the tickler, that to me is not good.
	So if I tickle Isabella, she can always twist away.
	I don't sit on her and tickle her or whatever.
	Obviously, she's too small for that, and I wouldn't do that no matter how small or large she was.
	To me, tickling is okay as long as the person can put their arms down or can roll away or can just move away from that which is overstimulating.
	Because I certainly remember the old position where you sit on a kid's chest and you put your knees on their arms and then you tickle their armpits or their sides.
	That's horrible because you can't control it.
	Tickling is such an overwhelming experience when you're a kid that you need to have the ability to manage that stimuli and if you are in any way physically controlled during the tickle or physically restrained during the tickle, then to me that's just not good in any way shape or form because you don't have the choice anymore.
	I've also noticed that a lot of times the people say they can't tickle themselves.
	So it kind of shows that the fear or the response to it is not just from the physical feeling, it's from the feeling of being dominated.
	So I think that's definitely something most people have maybe not thought of in terms of things to do with your children that are fun but not harmful.
	Yeah, I mean, and it really is around the restraint, the minimal amount of tickling, and always with the child having the ability to control the stimuli.
	And always, the moment somebody says stop, this is true for anything, you just stop.
	I mean, the safe word for everyone is stop, right?
	And I think that there are some people, I certainly remember these kids prowled around when I was a kid, they just would, you know, jump and tickle and stop, wouldn't matter, and that to me was just another form of control and bullying, and I thought it was a A nasty thing to do, even at the time.
	So I think you're right, and I think it's an excellent point to bring up.
	Well, I think that's it.
	I mean, I would have thought I would have had a lot of questions calling to the show, but surprisingly, this is the first one seemingly a minor topic that I thought of, but I'm sure I'll call again at some point.
	No, and I don't think it's a minor topic.
	I mean, I think that we've all experienced the tickling as a kid, and I think it is something that people should be aware of.
	What a challenge it can be.
	So I really appreciate you bringing it up.
	I think it was a great topic.
	Yeah, well, thanks for your time so much and just keep doing what you're doing.
	I mean, your videos are so valuable for showing people in my family just the empirical arguments behind just everything, everything that you talk about.
	Well, thank you so much.
	I certainly, the plan is to keep going.
	I'm not doing this in order to get into waitering.
	So it definitely is the plan to keep going.
	So thank you so much. I appreciate that.
	Okay. Thanks, Steph.
	Bye. I think we have a few other people who are keen to go.
	I think I just heard one. Yes?
	Can you hear me? I sure can.
	Okay. Hi, Steph. I'm Brian.
	I was reading real-time relationships last night and went to bed and had a nightmare about my family.
	It was the first one in a while.
	So I was wondering if you were interested in doing another dream interpretation?
	Absolutely. I'm all ears.
	Okay. So this is a dream where I'm in a car with my parents and we're driving through Chicago, seeing kind of the skyscrapers around me.
	So my dad is telling me certain things while he's driving.
	In my dream, I don't really know what he's saying, although I know that some of the things that he's saying is irritating to me.
	And I feel these kind of twitches in my mind, just irritations at some of the things that he says that I think are kind of irrational.
	He notices that I'm not totally listening to him.
	He begins to get upset.
	My mom is beside him and she is getting quite upset.
	She says something kind of absurd.
	Brian, you have to fulfill all of your dad's desires.
	This is all kind of making me kind of numb.
	And I'm just looking out the side windows of the car I'm in, looking at the skyscrapers.
	And then I look to the front of the window, to the front windshield.
	And then suddenly, it looks to me as though we're just driving on air, and below us is Lake Michigan.
	And for a few moments, I'm just kind of stunned.
	I look at my parents, my dad's just continuing to talk.
	Both my parents look like nothing's going on.
	And then as I begin to like kind of squint my eyes a little bit, I'm seeing the, I begin to see that I'm actually on a road, that we're actually on a road, but it's almost like being in a fog where you only see the front of the road and everything else is not the fog, but the water of the lake.
	And so I'm thinking to myself at this time, maybe I'm not looking at things properly.
	Maybe my vision's a little blurred.
	And then suddenly, this foggy road just starts to become...
	I suddenly see that it's just going directly into the water.
	And then at that moment, my parents also realized that We're headed straight to the water, and my dad tries to hit the brakes.
	He does not do it in time.
	We crash into the water.
	My instant reaction was, I should have known this was happening.
	I should have known, like, there was water.
	And then, as this happens, and before I could even think about action, the water begins to come into the car, takes over both my parents, and it takes over my My throat, my ears, my nose, and my instantaneous reaction is to try to open the car up and get the seatbelt off of me.
	But as I'm doing that, I realize it's going to be a struggle to do that.
	And then my instantaneous processing is, can I save myself?
	Then I ask myself, can I save my family?
	And then I just, I'm like, this must be a dream.
	And then instantaneously I woke up.
	Right, okay. I just missed the bit You should have known this was happening.
	So the water comes in and there was something that was a struggle.
	It was getting your seatbelt off. Is that right?
	Yeah. It was just more like when...
	I mean, I instantaneously know I've got to get my seatbelt off and the water is...
	Because the water is coming in, I've got to open the door.
	But then just because of the resistance of the water while it's all coming up makes it more difficult than I would anticipate.
	Yeah. And I really can't explain why I had the feeling like I should have known this was happening.
	It's just like, suddenly, it's almost like a reaction of, oh, oh yeah.
	But then, like, I can't rationalize what that was.
	Oh yeah, I think I understand.
	I think I understand that, but...
	Okay.
	Alright, so we'll just talk about your dream family, right?
	I just want to try talking about the dream itself, if that makes any sense.
	Okay. Okay, so your dad is talking and your mom is there and your dad is saying irritating and irrational things and Your mom notices and your dad notices that you're upset.
	And then your mom says you have to fulfill all of your dad's desires.
	In other words, pretend that what he's saying is enjoyable and interesting to you and don't have a negative response to his irrational statements.
	Is that fair to say, right?
	Yeah, I think I can interpret that, what my mom says, a little bit better.
	So my mom is a schizophrenic.
	Oh, boy. I'm so sorry.
	My God, how terrifying. I think in our family situation, I don't know if this is rational or not, but this is just the way it is.
	I think she's achieved most of her stability in her life by perceiving my dad as a moral superiority.
	And recently, I mean, I've been listening to a lot of your podcasts, like, since around Christmas time and reading.
	I read Universal Preferred Behavior during that time and...
	I started to have kind of a conversation with my dad more about my relationship with him and what I used to think as a kid in terms of when he would say things and I would sort of act kind of passive-aggressively.
	I kind of talked to him about what was going through my mind.
	And while I was having that conversation, I was also in a car with both my parents.
	And then I noticed my dad was getting...
	Irritated. I don't know if our conversation really progressed that well, but I do remember from that conversation, my mom really started to get distressed.
	And then she said the exact same thing to me.
	You have to fulfill your desires.
	So her saying that had actually happened in real life.
	Yeah, no, I got that it wasn't a metaphor.
	Yeah. So it was just she was saying it again.
	And that has really bothered me.
	Especially knowing that if I do have structural, rational disagreements with my dad and she notices that he's not in full control, that her own world can come crumbling down.
	Now, sorry, when you say that your mom is a schizophrenic, do you mean that she's like a diagnosed and on medication schizophrenic?
	Yes, medications, yeah.
	And given that this obviously is a difficult thing for a child to experience, what was your family's plan for ensuring or at least trying to give you the mental health and support?
	Did they get you into therapy?
	Did they spend a lot of time explaining to you about your mom's mental illness and so on?
	No. And I'm somewhat bitter about that.
	I knew that she had problems ever since I was a kid.
	I knew that she didn't think of things properly.
	She would cry over absurd things.
	She would make absurd statements.
	And this might sound really absurd.
	I'm actually a medical student right now in Milwaukee.
	I only noticed, when I started to learn about schizophrenia itself, that's actually, while I was in medical school, that was actually the only time I really got a grasp of what she actually had.
	And that was only after that I actually confronted my parents about, or my dad, about what she had.
	I think people were telling me more about my family that she had some sort of depression, mental illness, but didn't go beyond that.
	Sorry, but are you saying that you're, sorry, let me just make sure I understand.
	So you're saying that you're Your father or nobody in your extended family explained to you about your mother's mental illness when you were younger.
	Yeah, not to the precision of saying it's schizophrenia, she hears voices and things like that.
	They said she has mental...
	I mean, I was under the impression she had mental illness, said she had some depression.
	But the precision of saying, like, she hears voices, she has paranoid ideations, that's stuff that I really didn't understand.
	One of the reasons I really recognized it was because I know that with her medications, she has a lot of Parkinsonian-type symptoms where her hands are kind of twitching.
	And that's a side effect of some anti-schizophrenic medications.
	And then after I heard about that in lecture and noticed that with my mom, then I started to get the picture.
	And then I confronted my dad about it.
	But sorry, so they did explain that your mom had mental illness, that it's frightening, that it's nothing to do with you, that it's not your fault, that you're not bringing on this behavior, that...
	Yeah. Sorry, yes, they did explain all that to you.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely that. Okay, that's good, right?
	So, and did they regularly check in with you and ask you what your experience was like of having her as a mother, given that, of course, mental illness is very difficult for children, right?
	Um... You're asking if they kind of looked at my perspective of it?
	Well, yeah. I don't know if anyone really asks me, or anyone really asks me as much as people kind of tell me, or my dad used to kind of tell me, like, you know, this is your mom.
	You have to deal with her.
	You have to know that she can't think things through properly.
	And sometimes she's going to act obnoxious.
	Right, so are you saying that you don't recall people asking you about your experience as a child of your family?
	Yeah. I don't think people really ask me about it, what my perceptions was, as much as Like, my dad kind of said...
	I guess I would...
	I'm sorry?
	Sorry, go ahead. I guess I would sometimes confront my dad about my feelings.
	I don't know if he necessarily would come up to me.
	But then he would...
	But yeah, he would say...
	I mean, the things I said, like, this is your mom, this is what she's going through.
	This is what... I mean, you have to be able to deal with it.
	You can't expect her to rationally understand everything.
	That you tell her. Or that anybody else tells her.
	Right. And the question that I'm asking you, is it a surprising question?
	It doesn't sound like you've thought of it before.
	I could be wrong. What, that the...
	If anybody asks me, you mean?
	Yeah. How I feel? Yeah, if anyone asks you how you feel.
	I think it's been becoming more of a surprise now that I'm...
	Going through your podcast and going through some of your books, it's coming clear to me that this is something that people should be asking me when I was young.
	But I'm getting up, it did seem natural.
	Oh yeah, I know. I understand that.
	And I only say that because, of course, I ask people in my family all the time how...
	How things are going. And I certainly plan on asking Isabella when she can speak.
	Although she's very strong-willed and she tells me exactly what she wants and what she likes and what she doesn't like.
	And most of the times I will accommodate her.
	In fact, I'll always accommodate her where it's possible and safe.
	But I plan on asking her, you know, what's your experience with the family?
	Is there something that we could be doing better?
	What do you like? What do you not like?
	And I plan on doing that in particular because she's not here by choice, right?
	I'm here by choice. My wife's here, but she's not here by choice.
	So it's very important for me to understand her experience of the family and to make sure that she's getting as good a set of family experiences as she can, right?
	As I've said before, a restaurant will do that.
	I was on the Best Buy website researching something today and Best Buy bugged me to take a survey about how I enjoyed the Best Buy website.
	You know, like if Best Buy can do it to some anonymous person on the internet to ask for their feedback on their experience of a website, should it not also be the case that we as family members, and particularly as parents, ask our children what their experience of the family is and what they would like and what they would not like and what they prefer and what they don't prefer.
	And to not do that, to me, is not good parenting.
	It doesn't mean that everybody who doesn't do it is a bad parent, but it's not good parenting to me.
	To not ask your children for feedback because what happens then is that your children's compliance becomes sort of taken for granted and what happens is then your children become the variable and everything else becomes the constant, right?
	So your mother's craziness was a constant and you were the variable.
	You had to adjust to it and your preferences could not be accommodated because you had to adjust to your mom, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, that kind of does.
	Yeah, I mean, that's really been, like, kind of a theme.
	When I look at it, it's kind of a theme growing up.
	It's having to adjust to some of the issues that other people have, most notably my mom.
	And even as a medical student, like, trying to interpret, like, I mean, we're supposed to be knowing more about psychiatry and the issues, but, like, I can tell you it's still...
	What I know about schizophrenia is still so vague.
	It's not a disease that's really objectively understood as with a lot of psychiatric illnesses.
	Right. You may want to listen to, I think it was the Greg Siegel interview I did recently.
	If you haven't listened to that or watched it, he talks about schizophrenia actually is responding to talk therapy, which I'd never heard of.
	You might want to research more about that.
	Okay, do you mind if we take a swing at the dream?
	I have a basic framework, and you can tell me if it makes any sense.
	Okay. Alright, so just, you know, my normal caveats.
	I'm going to use terms around self-knowledge.
	This is just my amateur opinion.
	Take it for what it's worth. It's just some guy on the internet.
	But I'll tell you what I think it's about, and then you can tell me if it makes any sense.
	Okay. Now, in dreams, I believe that the air represents dissociation.
	The Earth represents reality, and the sea represents the unconscious.
	Because we stand on the ground, but we can't live in the clouds, and we can't live underwater.
	To me, when you're standing on the ground in a dream, it means you're in reality.
	You see things for what they are.
	When you're up in the clouds, it means that you're dissociated, which means you're distracted, you don't feel you're in your body, you don't have any emotions really, or strong emotions, and you're just kind of living in your own head.
	And when you're underwater, you're acting out.
	There's an unconscious, you're in the grip of the unconscious.
	That's my amateur nonsense framework, but I found it to be very, very helpful.
	My own dreams around water, particularly powerful water, like tsunamis and so on, they all involve the unconscious.
	So that's what I developed and maybe it's of use to this.
	Now, you're driving through Chicago, so you're on the ground, and the reality is that your dad is saying irritating stuff, and you're irritated, and nobody takes any interest in your feelings.
	They just tell you to conform to the preferences of those around you, right?
	Yeah, that's what was going on.
	Right, and that's why I asked if anybody, as a kid, and I knew the answer, right, but I just wanted to confirm, but that's why I asked when you were a kid if people asked you what your preferences were, and what you liked, and what you didn't, right?
	Yeah, it's not for the most part, no.
	Now, you're kind of swissing me here a little, right?
	you're giving me the neutral language of fog because you're saying kind of, sort of, right?
	I don't think people...
	I'm not saying you're right or wrong.
	I just want to understand. People either did or they didn't, right?
	Yeah. I think people don't ask me I think sometimes I go out of my way to make my own interests clear, and then some people might get a little bit of insight of what I want.
	But generally speaking, I don't think my parents necessarily would be pretty direct in looking at what my interests were as much as they would.
	But if I ever did speak up a little bit, which I didn't always do, then they would They would know a little bit about what I wanted.
	Well, your dream parents certainly don't do that, right?
	No, they don't. Not in the dream.
	Right, so you're continuing to be unhappy, right?
	And your dad just continues to talk like nothing happened, right?
	No, he...
	I guess maybe I didn't make it clear.
	He did hear...
	He did notice that I was getting irritated, and then he got a little bit more irritated.
	Right, but what I've got here as a note, and maybe I got it down wrong, is that you look out the side and you see cars.
	You look to the front of the window and you're driving in the air above Michigan, right?
	And your dad just discontinued to talk, right?
	Yeah. Sorry, you're saying, yeah, like, that's not what happened.
	Please correct me if I got it wrong.
	No, no, no, that was right.
	We're going, he's talking, and I'm just looking out the window, the side windows, and then I suddenly look to the front window, and then we're just driving over Lake Michigan in midair.
	Right, so that's obviously physically impossible, right?
	It's an indication that something is quite awry.
	And you're the only one who notices it, right?
	Yes. Yes. And that's important, right?
	That you're the only one who notices it and you don't say anything.
	Yeah, my instantaneous reaction when I noticed it is that I must be seeing something weird.
	It was like an instantaneous sight and then it's like, whoa, what?
	And I'm like, I need to twitch.
	It's almost like I need to squint my eyes to look at what's really going on.
	That was sort of, I guess, my reaction.
	Right, but the typical thing to do when, if you and I were driving in a car and I saw something weird, the first thing I would do is turn to you and say, I see X, do you see it?
	Or do you see that? What do you see when you're looking at that or whatever, right?
	We would verify, right?
	Yeah. Right, like at the end of A Beautiful Mind, someone comes up to Nash and starts talking to him and he turns to the person next to him and says, do you see this person?
	Because, right, he's...
	He's crazy, right? Or at least he hallucinates.
	So the first thing he does is verify and ask if somebody else can see that person, right?
	Yeah. But you don't do that in the dream.
	Yeah, I don't do that and nobody else seems to notice that we're floating in the air.
	And your dad is just continuing to call, right?
	Yeah. And it's important that you don't say anything.
	Because at the end of the dream, you said, I should have known this was happening.
	It was almost...
	When I say, like, I should have known this was happening, it was almost like that we were driving into the water.
	No, no, I got that. We were going to hit the water.
	But you don't...
	As far as I understand it, you don't say anything throughout the whole dream, right?
	Yeah, I don't think I... Yeah, I don't think I said a word in the dream.
	I think I was just thinking to myself.
	Right, so you're with your family and you're not talking.
	Yeah, I'm not talking in this dream.
	Right. And you end up in a disaster, right?
	Yeah. And you kind of end up in a disaster where it's like you were them, right?
	Like, I can save myself.
	I don't think I can save them.
	It's all an emergency and a disaster, right?
	Yeah, that was how it ended, like with that kind of thinking.
	Right, and to me, dissociation results in disaster.
	That's my opinion. Dissociation, being not in connection with yourself, not in connection with your feelings, not self-expressed, right?
	Wherever we can't speak honestly, and we are in a situation where we regularly or perpetually cannot speak honestly, we end up dissociated from ourselves.
	Because all we do is manage ourselves and have conversations with ourselves and shut ourselves up and say we can't say this and we should say that and that person's going to get upset if we say this.
	We have no particular relationship with herself.
	No honest, spontaneous, authentic, open, communicative experience of herself.
	All we do is we're managing other people by controlling and suppressing our own honesty and self-expression, right?
	Yeah. And so, I don't believe that that is a relationship.
	I don't believe that if you are in your dream car, and you're irritated, and then you're frightened, and then you're startled, and then you're annoyed, and then you're...
	And all of this is occurring for you, and you don't open your mouth and speak once, that, to me, is not having a relationship, clearly, right?
	Yeah, I think that, you know, alright, so...
	I guess the issue that kind of underlies this is that when I tried to talk back to things that I don't like, even in a rational manner, the conversation escalates in terms of hostility.
	I understand. I understand.
	And you can do whatever you want, of course, in your life.
	I will tell you, though, from my perspective, I will not surrender honesty to anybody's prejudice.
	I will not surrender my commitment to honesty to other people's prejudices or upsets.
	And that, to me, is just a matter of my integrity and my commitment to virtue and to values.
	And I'm not saying it's completely immoral.
	If you don't, I'm just...
	My commitment to honesty because other people get annoyed or upset.
	That, to me, is letting the worst behavior overpower the better behavior.
	And the other thing that's true...
	I'm sorry, go ahead. The thing that...
	That's something that I'm trying to wrestle with.
	I recognize that as something that I need to do.
	But the thing I guess I'm starting to wrestle with now is, like I mentioned before with my mom, it's I feel like if I begin to start to answer, to respond honestly,
	and with a great deal of rationality to some of the arguments that I might have with my dad, I think my mom will, because she sees the moral superiority concept that she has of my dad, once she sees that kind of crumble, I think that will crumble her mind.
	Right, so let me just make sure I understand.
	So the downside or the risk factor is that if you're honest, your dad's moral weaknesses may be exposed, and as a result, your mother's faith in your father will take a hit, which could cause her mind to go haywire or something, right?
	Yeah, that sounds about right.
	Alright. That's a fear I have.
	And let's say that happens.
	What then? I don't know.
	Let go. My whole family structure could come crumbling down.
	Let's say that happens. What then?
	I think I'd feel...
	I think I would feel a bit of guilt.
	I'm sure you'd feel more than a bit, right?
	I mean, I... Yeah. Yeah, I'd feel quite a bit of guilt.
	And I know people like my sister and whatnot would...
	And maybe some distant relatives will...
	Make it clear to me that I'm responsible for this.
	I don't know how my dad would take it.
	I think sometimes my dad is a pretty rational person and I think sometimes he's extremely irrational.
	I guess that's something I haven't thought too much about in terms of like Like, how bad it can get?
	Oh, trust me, you've thought about it.
	You have thought about it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had this dream.
	And otherwise, you wouldn't be avoiding honesty with your family in this way.
	You have thought about it.
	I guarantee you've thought about it for years.
	At some level. You have to have.
	I might have. Like, you understand, if you've never thought about the downside of being honest with your family, you would already have been honest with your family, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I think, like, I mean, just thinking about myself while reading some of your books, I think what could have possibly happened is I could have had these kind of...
	I could have thought about it when I was quite young and powerless, and more powerless than I am now.
	And, uh... And now that I'm older, I guess I might not have been consciously thinking about it.
	Right, no, I understand. I'm going to give you my advice, right?
	And I mean, I assume that's what you called in for, right?
	I mean, I certainly appreciate you sharing this.
	And look, I mean, first of all, I want to say I completely feel for your situation.
	And I completely understand that there are no easy answers to this, right?
	I mean, I really get it.
	That there are no easy answers and no one, of course, can tell you what to do.
	What I can do is I can tell you what I would do and I can tell you why I would do it and the principles that I would refer to when I was doing it.
	And then you can tell me if it makes any sense or it's something that is completely insane for you to do and, you know, just hang up or whatever, right?
	Does that sound okay?
	Yeah, that sounds okay. All right.
	I'm a big one for implicit bias.
	And this is very important, not just for you, Brian, but for everyone in every situation.
	I'm a big one for, I don't like implicit rules.
	I do not like at all implicit rules.
	I like rules, if there are going to be rules, I like rules to be right out there on the table.
	So that I know what I'm supposed to navigate by and what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not allowed to do.
	I like rules to be very explicit.
	I don't like them to be implicit because then they become manipulative and fear-based and bullying.
	Right? So what I would do is I would sit down with everyone in your family except your mom.
	And I would say something like this, and I'm going to paraphrase and I'm probably going to get a bunch of stuff wrong, but this is the approach that I would take.
	I'd sit down and say, okay, I don't feel that I can be who I am and honest and self-expressed in this family as it stands.
	And I feel, or I believe, or I experience that there are lots of hidden rules in this family, and I would like to have those rules brought to the surface so that I know what I'm dealing with in terms of what I'm allowed or not allowed to do or say in this relationship.
	So there's a rule called Don't upset mom, right?
	So I need to sort of understand what that means.
	Does that mean that we can't do anything that would ever upset mom?
	Should mom never ever be upset?
	In what ways are we allowed to?
	Like if I say something, if I'm genuinely thinking and feeling something, and if saying it might upset mom, am I allowed or not allowed to say it?
	And then go around.
	Like what about you, sister? If I'm feeling or thinking something that might upset you if I say it, am I allowed to say it or not say it?
	Like what are the rules here?
	Right? What are the rules of this family?
	What are the rules of this relationship?
	I think that's so important.
	Because that's all I'm doing with anarchism in the state, is saying, okay, so if I don't give you money, you take a gun to my head and kidnap me.
	That's the rule, right?
	And I'm not going to deal with this implicit stuff like there's a social contract and you love it or leave it.
	That's all bullshit. What I want are the rules to float up to the surface so that I can navigate by some black and white things.
	I'm not just going to pound around in my boat through the fog, hoping not to hit a rock.
	Because that's just paralyzing.
	I need the rules to be clear.
	I want sonar, I want depth finders, I want I want magnetic compasses.
	I want GPS. I want satellites.
	I want the rules to be clear in this family.
	And I would just go through all of the inhibitions, and I feel like if I say things critical of the family, am I allowed to say things critical of the family?
	I want these rules to be explicit.
	Am I allowed to have feelings or thoughts that cause other people upset?
	Other people are allowed to have feelings or thoughts that cause me upset.
	Are we to ask each other How we're doing.
	Is that something that we're going to do as a family or we're not going to do as a family?
	Because it doesn't happen to me.
	Nobody sits and asks me how I'm doing.
	Nobody proactively asks me what my life's like or how I'm doing.
	So is that something that we don't do or is that something that we're going to start doing?
	What are the rules?
	What are the rules? Don't let there be implicit rules in your relationship.
	Bring the rules up to the surface.
	Bring the rules up to reality.
	Bring the rules into the light so that we can actually see what we're working with.
	And that would be my approach to this because I would not want to be in a situation where I felt inhibited from speaking because somebody might get upset.
	But if that is the rule, if people are going to say, oh yes, we're not going to ask each other how we're doing, and you're not allowed to say anything that might be upsetting to other people, and this and that and the other, then at least it's on the table.
	And you can make a decision about whether you want that kind of relationship.
	I don't think that would be a relationship, but whether you want to be part of that system or not.
	But I think the rules really have to be up front.
	And that's what I did with my own relationships.
	I'd say, okay, so So we're not going to do this, but we are going to do this.
	Wait, is this allowed or is this not allowed?
	What is the constitution of us?
	What is the legality of us?
	What are the rules of we?
	I think that's really, really, really important because if the rules are good and fair and just and right and empathetic and flexible and intimate and open and honest, then people should have no problem Explicating those rules front and center with the searchlight on, broadcast for all the world to see.
	You can put them on the web as your family rules if the rules are fair and just.
	If the rules are exploitive and one-sided and negative and destructive and so on, then people will not want to make them clear.
	They will not want to turn the light on.
	To have these hidden rules seen because these rules will be destructive and exploitive and so on.
	So I think turning the lights on, grabbing a pen, a big sheet of paper and say, what is the constitution of us?
	Right? What is the legality of this family?
	That's really important.
	And I would really work on trying to explicate that so that you're not stuck in the back of your dream car, not able to say anything until you hit the water.
	I think I can work to that.
	At the same time, I fear...
	I think in a rational setting that it's possible that these rules can be set up.
	I fear that in moments of irrationality or anger, Other people in my family might break those rules.
	Yeah, no, I understand that.
	Sorry to interrupt you.
	I understand that because also we need to have rules for dispute resolution.
	Because the reason we have rules is nobody's perfect, right?
	We don't need to write down a law book of gravity because gravity is perfect.
	It always works without error, right?
	But people make mistakes, right?
	So you write down all the rules and then you're going to say, okay, what's going to happen when we break these rules?
	Because we're going to, right?
	And the reason that we do this, right?
	Like, I had a relationship many, many years ago with a woman who was a bit of a yeller.
	And, you know, I would say to her, listen, we can't yell at each other.
	Like, I don't want you raising your voice at me.
	That's not productive, right?
	And I could not get her to agree to that as a rule, right?
	And the reason that you need to have these rules...
	So that if somebody does something to break the rules, you can say, no, no, wait, we have these rules that we've agreed to, so you can't do that, right?
	So if a rule is like, no raising your voice, no yelling at each other, right?
	Then if somebody starts to yell, then you say, no, that's not part of the rule set, right?
	And the person then has to obey the rule set.
	I mean, this is basic civilized behavior in any relationship, whether it's with your grocer or with your spouse or your parents or your children or whatever.
	You have to have these rules, and you have to have ways...
	of resolving these disputes.
	If we have a dispute, we have to return to the rules.
	Otherwise, it just devolves into personal bullying, where generally the most primitive and destructive personalities end up ruling the system.
	It's devolution.
	Without rules, we just have devolution.
	Without rules that are abstract, that are referable to, that help resolve disputes in relationships, we just end up with the most manipulative and negative and destructive running everything.
	And the rules are specifically designed in opposition to that.
	And so I would really, you know, with the rules comes the dispute resolution.
	And the rules also have to be agreed to, right?
	So if everyone agrees to the rules, then it's like, okay, so if we do anything in opposition to those rules, the first thing we're going to do is call each other on it, and that behavior is then going to stop, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, it's...
	Setting up those rules sounds like quite a challenge.
	But you negotiate them, and they're actually not that complicated, right?
	It's not like you have to have a rule for every situation.
	But you first of all start with your honesty about the restrictions that you feel in the relationship.
	Like, I don't feel like I can do this, and I don't feel like I can say that, and I don't feel this and that and the other.
	So you start with the stuff that you feel restricted on and say, are these rules, or am I just incorrect in my understanding, right?
	And if people say, no, you're incorrect, you're perfectly free to say something, then act like that's true.
	So I'm perfectly free to say stuff even if it bothers other people.
	And then, okay, then keep going.
	And then if somebody says, well, that bothers me, it's like, okay, yeah, but it's okay for me to do that.
	We already agreed with that, right? Because otherwise you're in the worst kind of anarchy, so to speak, right?
	The negative kind where it's like the stereotype of anarchy, right?
	Statism. I agree with you, it is a difficult thing to have that conversation, and you don't have to do it.
	You can stay silent in the back of the car until you hit the water, so to speak.
	But what I'm telling you is that, in my nonsense opinion, if you don't do this, your relationship with your family will not go well at all.
	Yeah, it seems like, yeah, hitting the water thing is like a...
	Like, where the direction I'm headed in now without...
	Well, that's what... The dream says very clearly, this is what's going to happen if you don't speak up, Brian.
	If you don't speak up, this is what's going to happen.
	Yeah. Yeah, so this is a...
	I guess it's kind of setting up these rules and trying to rid myself of...
	Of implicit rules and rid myself of living in kind of or acting in a dissociative fashion is kind of the starting point.
	I guess the first thing is to stop acting and stop dissociating myself from the situation.
	And then the second rule is to look at, I guess the second thing is to look at what implicit rules I've developed, get rid of those, And then talk honestly with the people I expect to be rational in my family and set up some ground rules so that we can talk honestly and be able to do the best thing for my mom as well.
	Right, right.
	I mean, it is a strange thing to think about that I buy a $9 piece of software.
	I have to read five pages of an end-user license agreement in order to install it so that I know what's allowable and what's not allowable and what's permissible and what's not and blah blah blah.
	So I have rules with a $9 piece of software that I have to adhere to.
	Now those are more legal rules and I'm not talking about legal rules.
	Somebody just asked, well isn't this the opposite of anarchism to have rules?
	No, of course not. It is the embodiment of anarchism to have rules.
	It is the embodiment of statism to have no rules.
	There are no rules in statism.
	There is only force. An edict.
	So no, negotiated rules, negotiated standards within relationship is the essence of anarchism.
	This is just being a DRO within your own family.
	So if I have to have standards of behavior for a $9 piece of software, why can't I have standards of behavior with the relationships that are supposed to be the most deep and warm and long-lasting and intimate relationships that I have, which is my family?
	I think that rules are absolutely essential.
	Why am I supposed to have rules for my own behavior, i.e., not rules, but certainly guidelines that I try to live by, like be honest and act with courage and try to treat people with the old dignity and respect and all that?
	Why would I have those standards for myself, but not for other people?
	Why would I have philosophy and ideals And standards of behavior for myself, but not for anybody else.
	That wouldn't make any sense.
	That's a violation of UPB, for them only to be applicable to me, but not to others, right?
	That's to say, I've come up with a physics theory that only applies to me and not to other people.
	That doesn't make any sense, right?
	Yeah. Alright.
	I'm sorry to have dumped this on.
	You sound about as enthusiastic as if I just left a dead horse in your bed.
	No, no, no.
	This was very helpful.
	I just have to...
	I mean, this is something that I gotta take this...
	I'm just processing this in terms of my family situation, how people react.
	I think...
	Yeah, I mean, the right thing to do is not always the easy thing to do.
	I guess that might be my lack of...
	I know, and listen, my strong advice, don't do this without a therapist, right?
	You're in school, right?
	So you can get free or heavily subsidized therapy just by being in school.
	I mean, I would not do this without someone to help you process it, right?
	Yeah, that is good advice.
	I just was talking to a friend of a therapist.
	Right, like philosophy is a map and a therapist is a driver, right?
	So I'm sort of giving you a vague map.
	Or maybe even a not-so-vague Mac.
	But to actually get there, you need not a philosopher, but a therapist.
	And that would be my strong advice, to not attempt it without a therapist.
	That sounds like a good idea.
	I think I'll...
	Yeah, that actually helps a lot.
	Yeah. All right.
	Yeah, I think that's what I needed. All right.
	Thank you, Steph. Thanks.
	Listen, keep me posted if you can.
	And... Use the message board as a resource if you're having trouble.
	It's lots of really smart people who are very, very happy to help.
	So thank you so much for bringing this up.
	And I just wanted to really, really express my condolences and sympathies.
	Growing up with this kind of mental illness in the family is a very, very difficult thing.
	And unless it's very openly and explicitly dealt with, which it doesn't sound like it was overly much in your family, it produces significant distortions in relations.
	So I really applaud you.
	For having the courage to start to bring this stuff up with your family and I just again my deepest, deepest sympathies for the challenges that this kind of environment had for you as a kid.
	Okay, yeah, thank you.
	Yeah, I will, yeah, I haven't been really posting on the board but I'm looking at it and it's something I am definitely telling myself I want to get more involved in.
	Or, not telling myself, but I know that I... Ordering yourself, like the Gestapo.
	Absolutely. Well, alright, so thanks very much.
	We do have time for a split-second, tiny more question.
	I know some people have been hanging on for quite a while, and I'm sorry, but I really do appreciate your patience.
	So, if you wanted to speak up, we'd certainly have a little bit more time.
	Going once. Going.
	Hey, Steph. Hello.
	I'll go ahead and jump in.
	I've been keeping track of something that I've tried to comment after the...
	After the Siegel interview that I'll go ahead and post right now, there is a psychotherapist named Danny Mackler out of New York who has a documentary on treating schizophrenia with talk therapy.
	Oh, yeah. You posted that in the chat, right?
	Yeah. He has that along with a critique of Alice Miller that you might enjoy.
	Oh, very much so.
	Yeah, thanks. Can you give the title of the post so people can search for it?
	Yeah, I think it's...
	I actually just posted the link in the chat, but it is...
	I think it's called, I'd love to see Steph interview this guy.
	Okay, fantastic.
	Fantastic. All right, well, I hope that's helpful.
	I don't have much else to comment on.
	No, I appreciate that. Thank you.
	Thank you so much. Yeah, I think I've seen a video from this guy.
	He's a therapist who practices in New York, I think.
	I'm really happy to chat with him.
	This is in general. If you think that there would be a fun thing, somebody who would be interesting for me to chat with, please feel free to let me know and I will get in touch with the person.
	I'm always eager to find interesting new people to chat with.
	So please do let me know.
	Thank you for your patience again for the paucity of Wendy, I guess, of second decade of the 21st century podcast on the Sunday.
	And thank you so much for, I guess, a pretty record number of people who've joined us today, which I really do appreciate.
	And have yourselves an absolutely fantastic, fantastic week.
	And I've got a couple of good podcasts on deck, which I will dribble out this weekend.
	I hope that you will enjoy them.
	And thanks again for all of your support and your continued interest in this philosophical conversation.

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