All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 27, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
40:32
1596 You Are Not Conflicted - A Listener Conversation
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Ooh, hello, Steph.
Oh, hey, how's it going? Hard to say.
All right. Well, what can I do for you?
Oh, okay. Sort of a...
Okay, so I'm in the FDR chat talking about how angry I am at my dad, right?
And there's someone in there who's basically a Buddhist, Who says that the whole anger is inappropriate.
And he says that if I approach my dad angry instead of calm, he'll feel twice the emotions I feel.
And how bad that would be.
And I'm in this problem where I am passively, aggressively...
I'm sort of defrauding and taking money from my dad by basically having him pay my rent and having him pay all my utilities.
It's like $1,000 a month, right?
And it's kind of like, oh yeah, I'm looking for work.
Oh yeah. And I'm clearly not.
And I'm not...
It's a culture of extreme suppression.
I've never really told him how I felt.
And the fear of doing that is really keeping me locked in this damn cycle of passive aggression where I'm not moving on at all.
And he will be able to pay my rent in six days.
But I'm angry right now, and there's no money in my bank account, so I'm worried about the argument from effect here.
If I go to him emotionally honest right now, I might get screwed, and I'm not sure how to deal with this.
What should I do?
Those are tough questions.
Let's start with the Buddhist thing.
You obviously...
Have, and I think we all do because it's in the culture, you have a susceptibility to the Buddhist argument.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, yeah. I've actually made a post about it and it was mistaken.
Yeah, and so don't feel alone in that.
I mean, we all get this, in my view, toxic propaganda about the unhealthiness of anger.
So since you have susceptibility, as I would say generally we all do, to this argument, let's role play.
So you be your inner Buddhist argument.
And make the case to me that anger is bad.
Okay. Anger is immature.
And that's not to insult you or humiliate you.
It's just to give you a perspective that human beings aren't really, you know, we're not developed correctly for society.
Anger is this misperception that It solves problems.
That by being angry...
I think I'm trying to meditate right now.
I feel this, this, uh, I'm losing my role.
I feel this need to sort of go off on, uh, how I'm stuck in my perspective.
That's fine, but don't worry.
I'll take care of your perspective for the moment.
I'll argue your side, and I think I'll do it well.
I hope I'll do it well, otherwise I will have to change my podcast approach.
Just really get behind the perspective that anger is bad.
Just really make the case and then let me worry about the rebuttal.
So you said it's immature.
We're not developed for society because we got these fight-or-flight mechanisms and anger back when we were hunting saber-toothed tigers and being hunted by woolly mammoths or whatever, vice versa, whatever, right?
And so we have these overdeveloped fight-or-flight mechanisms and angers which are more appropriate to a hunter-gatherer society rather than a civilized urban society, blah, blah, blah.
Is that the kind of argument?
Right. It's that if your desired intent that you claim is to get along with people, then anger isn't helping you.
It's counterproductive.
Right. If your desired intent is to get along with everyone, then I quite agree with you that anger is going to be somewhat unhelpful in that situation.
So you said anger was immature.
Is that because anger is not understanding where the other person is coming from but taking a hardened and oppositional position?
If we empathize and understood where they were coming from, their hearts would melt, or at least it would be more likely that we would achieve our objectives, get along with people better, so rather than peeing in the water we actually have to drink from, we should approach people with calm and respect and empathy, and that will change the situation.
Is that the approach? Yes.
So the Buddhist obviously has a negative judgment towards people who are angry, right?
Well, let me think.
Yes. I mean, they would say no, but clearly they're attempting.
It's a determinist argument, right?
If you attempt to correct someone, you're saying that they're operating suboptimally, right?
I mean, if I attempt to stop a blind man from walking into traffic, it's because I don't think he should be, you know, walking into traffic is suboptimal, to say the least.
So the moment you correct someone...
You're saying that there's a preferential state and it's a negative state that you're attempting to correct.
Yes. Right? I mean, that can't be...
I mean, that can be fogged, but it can't be avoided or evaded fundamentally.
Yeah, in the role, I was about to fog you, so...
No, I know. And then it would be like, no, it's not a negative judgment.
It's just a slightly optimal tweak.
But that's all nonsense.
You're negatively judging anger.
The moment you call it immature, the moment you call it maladaptive, the moment you call it destructive or toxic or...
You're negatively judging anger.
That's a fine perspective.
I have no problem with that.
But then we bring out the strafing B-52 gunners of UPP. Which is, if anger is wrong, then those who are more angry are more wrong.
And if anger is wrong, then those who have the greatest power and abuse Their victims through anger are all the more wrong, right?
That stands to reason, right?
Yeah. And if human beings are innately angry, and angry is always immaturity, then how is it the case that some human beings grow up to be far less angry, and some human beings grow up to be far more angry?
Surely the difference is how they are parented.
I mean, the major difference, at least the one that would be most open to questions or criticisms, right?
Right.
So if angry people result from being angrily parented or abusively parented, and if a disparity of power, anger in the service of a disparity of power is all the more wrong, and surely those who initiate anger are anger in the service of a disparity of power is all the more wrong, and surely those who Right.
Then surely it's okay to negatively judge parents who are initiating with an extreme disparity of power and with the result of chronic anger.
That surely is something that we can at least judge negatively, right?
Those parents or caregivers or teachers or priests or whoever, right?
Those in authority. That would be a fair response?
Yeah. Yeah, they would be responsible for cultivating the anger in the first place.
Right. It's like saying that violence is bad and self-defense is exactly the same as the initiation of force, right?
And therefore, it's like you come across an adult beating up a child and you say to the child that anger and violence is bad.
But it's a sheer, rank, vile, disgusting, base cowardice to focus on a conflict between a child and a parent and to focus only on the actions of the child, right?
That is colluding with the parent.
That is ignoring the aggression of the parent.
That is siding with the parent.
And that is basically holding the kid down so the parent can hit him hotter.
Right. Right. Does that make any sense at all?
Yeah, yeah. These are just the intellectuals who side with those in power to keep the slaves from getting angry.
Because when the slaves get angry, the hierarchy of power tends to get questioned if not overturned, right?
Yeah, I mean, look at Nepal.
I mean, the whole Dalai Lama thing is this brutal, brutal monk class that reigns over this just incredibly enslaved populace that is entirely Buddhist.
And they starve to death, and it's awful.
It's the whole justification. Yeah, and of course, I mean, the master race definitely has a class of intellectuals who teach the slave race that anger is always bad, except you have to always ignore the master's anger.
You only have to focus on defusing the slave's anger.
That's how the hierarchy is perpetuated, which is why Buddhism and the hostility towards slave anger tends to come from intensely rigid and hierarchical, if not caste-based societies.
It's a fundamental way that you keep the slaves down, right?
Yes. Right.
Right. And when you put all of these things together, then a healthy self-awareness and expression, though not acting out an infliction of anger on the part of the victim, is essential to breaking the cycle of violence.
But of course, these people aren't interested in breaking the cycle of violence.
They're interested in siding with the abusers and crippling the emotional expression and therefore salvation of the slaves.
Does that make any sense?
I mean, a lot of this stuff comes out of India, and India is most rigidly Restrictive and caste-based society that only now is beginning to undo itself.
So the very least that you would expect from people – from the cultures that talk about this kind of opposition to anger is that they should come from free and open and liberal and democratic at least or capitalistic societies which value individualism and opposition to violence.
Good heavens. I mean in India, child – I mean wife burning and child beating and abuse of wives is endemic.
And so how can this culture claim that they've solved the problem of anger?
I mean, it's insane. Right.
So I think we can put that kind of nonsense aside.
And all that person is doing is saying, I am not comfortable with anger, and they're acting it out against other people.
It's got nothing to do with you.
It's all to do with their own histories and their own messed up avoidances.
But it's certainly no virtue to avoid anger.
It is, I believe, not right To, you know, go find some kid who bullied you as a kid and go punch him as an adult.
I'm not saying that's right, but that's also not what healthy self-expression of anger leads to.
That's what repression of anger leads to.
And the association of anger with guilt and immorality and immaturity and all that, that's what leads to the acting out.
So I hope that we can at least put that argument aside because that is, in my view, not at all a healthy way to deal with one's feelings.
I agree. Now, as far as the – I mean, obviously, I can't give you any advice on what to do with your family situation.
I never can. But what I can say is I think that it's really, really important to understand that your relationship with your family is going to come out of your relationship with yourself.
The practical consequences of how you're going to deal with your family situation I think comes out of a clarity of self-knowledge.
And obviously you're torn, right? I mean you have problems with your dad but you're taking money from your dad.
Now, that may seem like a contradictory situation, but it also may not be that contradictory deep down, if that makes any sense.
I think what I find most confusing about it is the framing of the moral viewpoint on it, if that makes sense.
Whether I'm doing it out of fraud and spite and petty revenge, or if it's...
Sorry, doing what? Taking the money, you mean?
Taking the money, yeah. But I don't think that your anger at your father is unrelated to you taking money from your father.
Oh, no, it's not. Right.
And what I mean by that is you could be the most angry at your father for raising you to be such a human being that you ended up taking money from your father.
Oh. To leave you so unprepared, so non-independent, so unready for an adult life of self-sustained independence that taking the money and being angry at your dad for ending up as a human being who takes money from his father and is dependent upon his father beyond what I think most people would be considered ideal is I think those two things are not oppositional.
I think fundamentally they're the same because you don't want to be taking money from your dad.
It's humiliating. It's frustrating.
But fundamentally, I think you have every right to be angry at your father because you've ended up in this position.
And it's only processing that anger and refusing.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
What's that? You have to refuse to think that there's some contradiction because what happens then is we go round and round in our head and we don't actually end up with any clear path of action because you say, well, I want to be independent.
I'm mad at my dad. Wow, but I'm taking money from my dad.
Therefore, I can't really be that mad at him.
And if I express any anger at him, then I'll lose the money, but I don't want the money, but at the same time, I don't have all...
Like, it just goes round and round, doesn't it?
Exactly, yeah. Well, that's what it's designed to do.
And I'm not saying designed consciously or anything like that, but...
When you can get people – I mean, you understand that this is what the government does.
It's not different. Right.
People say, well, but the government builds the roads and the government educates the children and the government takes care of the poor.
But at the same time, I hate paying my taxes, so I feel guilty about it.
But at the same time, I don't feel like an adult because I'm forced to do all these things.
But the government helps out people in Haiti.
People just go round and round and round.
It's a tiny little revolving door that people's mental processes get stuck in.
And I know because not only did it happen, but it continues to happen to me on a regular basis.
And whenever you get stuck in that little mental loop, you know, as Rand used to say, check your premises.
What is the fundamental premise that is incorrect that's putting you in this tiny loop?
So what did your dad or your parents or your caregivers or your teachers, what did they do or not do that ended up with you in the situation where you are in your life?
Well, that's a complicated question.
I mean...
Well, my mom was...
Man, how should I answer that?
I mean, they abused the shit out of me.
Well, I know that the impulse is to laugh, but I mean, I'm very, very sorry.
Right. Right. And how old are you?
I'm 23. Right.
So, I mean, look, you're young.
You've got time, right?
You're not 43 or 33.
You have time. But this is what I would do.
This is my suggestion. This is what I would do in your shoes, right?
You can take it or leave it, of course, as you see fit.
But this is my suggestion.
Forget about the practicalities of the decision-making, right?
Continue to take the money and But focus on your feelings.
Focus on your feelings. Focus on improving your relationship with yourself.
And give yourself the freedom to feel and express whatever, quote, negative emotion you're experiencing.
Anger, hatred, jealousy, rage.
Even self attack. You sort of ride it out.
Because the decision around what is going to happen, unless you're facing something totally imminent, the decision is going to come out of, as I said at the beginning, a better relationship.
I would not worry about taking the money.
I would not worry about the practical concerns about next month or the month after or the month after that.
I would simply focus on journaling, do any therapy you can get a hold of, read books, talk to people who are psychologically aware or have some perceptive knowledge of themselves or of others, and just really work on improving your relationship with yourself.
Don't get distracted by The small decisions or even not so small decisions of the everyday because the right decisions in life, in my experience and opinion, the right decisions in life come out of a great relationship with yourself or at least a better relationship with yourself.
They don't come out of going around that tiny little revolving door of yes but, yes but, well this, yes but, yes but.
That never is going to lead you to a good decision and I think that's part of your frustration.
What is going to lead you to a good decision is becoming really centered and rooted and aware of Of what it is that you think and feel without censorship, without acting out, but without self-censorship.
And if you take that road, then you really do, I think, end up knowing how to move forward in the best way.
Because you don't want to move forward prematurely and then say, well, I'm going to do X. Stop taking money in and move out.
And if you're not ready emotionally, if you haven't processed stuff emotionally, the likelihood, in my opinion, is that you're just going to fail.
And that's going to be even more frustrating.
It's going to add more weight to To your parents' evidence that you can't make it without them and so on, right?
You just want to go in, go deep, go self-knowledge, go self-expression, go no self-censorship, self-knowledge, self-understanding.
Out of that process comes the best decisions which are going to be sustainable.
And you're right about that.
I've actually...
It's a pattern I've been in for a long time.
I've moved out and moved back and moved out and moved back.
When I listen to your podcast, I've been around here on FDR for about a year now listening non-stop.
When I listen to things about the state and when I listen to things about religion and everything like that, I understand the whole point is that it's all Internal emotional suppression, right?
That's the entire state, is the crappy, authoritarian way we treat ourselves through suppression and repression and all that.
Yeah, no, I mean, I appreciate that, I understand the thesis, but it's also important to remember that a year is not very long.
In terms of changing yourself, changing your life, a year is kind of like a drop in the bucket.
Yeah, it took you 25 or something.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I hope that you've asked me for other people now with these resources that are available, but it's not long, right?
I hope that you're not doing this for a year.
How come I'm not X, Y, and Z, right?
It's not that long, but I think that you could probably hit the gas more in terms of forgetting about the day-to-day decisions that And focusing on the inward journey.
Right. I mean, it's weird.
It's like we've got a chasm to cross.
And what we want to do is just take a big running jump.
We just jump across that chasm.
But the weird thing that seems to me very true is that you have to burrow under it.
I mean, that's the only way that I've been...
When you just fall, like Nero, right?
In the Matrix, trying to jump across that chasm.
You just fall. But if you go deep, if you burrow, then you actually bypass the canyon completely and you come to a very different place.
But if you keep trying to jump that canyon and you keep falling, then my suggestion is it's really important to take a different approach and get out of that little revolving door of yes but this and yes but that, yes but this and yes but that.
All that represents to me, when this happens to me, and it happens to me sadly quite consistently because that's what I mean to say, the year is not that long.
It does, but there's a way out.
And the way out is to say, if I'm stuck in this loop, it is in order to avoid a more fundamental question, a more fundamental issue.
And so you just say, okay, well, if I don't let myself go down this road of getting into this tiny little revolving door, what happens?
And then feelings comes up, usually anxieties or sometimes sadness comes up, which is the real issue.
That sort of surface Hamlet yes-but stuff is kind of designed to help keep us helicoptered above.
Rather than going into.
So that would be my suggestion.
Because it's quite stressful.
This revolving door is quite stressful and it does keep you, I would say, detached from your own deepest experiences.
Yeah, definitely. Because fundamentally it's not about your parents.
It's not about the money. It's not about the future.
It's not about the state or God or teachers or priests or any of those sorts of things.
Fundamentally, it's about yourself, your relationship with yourself.
Everything flows out of that, right?
All the ecosystem, conversations and negotiations and acceptances.
Life moves forward when we go inward.
The only engine that we have is deep within ourselves.
There's no There's no paddling.
We can paddle, I guess, but you get about as far as if you're paddling from the middle of the ocean.
You just don't get very far. But there's a motorboat that's inside us, right?
right?
But you really have to, I think, go inwards to get a hold of that mode of power.
I try that off and on, and it I don't know. I get really stuck in it.
I get really stuck in the revolving door of looking at external without recognizing that it's all about because I'm not well allied with myself.
I don't. I can't move forward, you know.
Sure, absolutely. It's what Gabor Matei was saying that, you know, he thinks about the need to meditate every day.
We all do that.
I mean, I've had issues that I've had for 20 or 30 years that I finally sit down to figure out one day.
I spend an hour or two sitting in a dark room just thinking.
And it's like, damn, I should have done this years ago.
What's the matter with me? You know, but, you know, we have to live as well as introspect.
So I hope that you'll be patient with that back and forth.
Yeah, I hope so, too.
It's just a matter of it knocks me unconscious, and it's really hard to regain that.
Wait, wait. It is.
I completely agree with you.
It is really, really hard to regain that.
It is a very complex skill to remain self-aware and everybody who does it regularly tells you that it's It's on again and off again.
As you practice, it gets more on than off, or at least you begin to notice when you're off, right?
Because that's the challenge.
When we're really unconscious, we don't even know that we're really...
I mean, that's the challenge, right? Right.
But eventually, we don't even notice when we're drunk.
That's sort of the unconscious thing. But eventually, you will notice when you're drunk.
And then you'll notice, oh, I took those drinks.
And then you'll notice, oh, I took those drinks under these circumstances.
And then you'll say, oh...
These circumstances are coming up.
I better not take these drinks, right?
I mean, it just is a matter of practice and like any skill, I mean, self-knowledge is concert piano, right?
It takes a long time and it takes dedication and it takes focus.
The payoff, I think, is enormous and incredibly valuable not just for yourself but for your kids, for your future wife, for the future of the world.
But you would never expect to be a concert pianist in a year, right?
And you would know that you would have to practice.
But I'm so smart.
I know.
It's like, oh, I have absorbed the principles, therefore I understand, right?
I mean, I read The Fountainhead when I was 16.
It took me 20 years to actually not living it.
I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, how much we can absorb intellectually before we start living spiritually or emotionally.
It is. And it doesn't really matter.
In fact, the more smart you are, the easier it is to convince yourself that you understand something because you've read it and you can repeat it and you can instruct other people on it, right?
Right, right. I mean, but you have to do, you have to do, you have to do.
And if you had been practicing indifferently for a year, you wouldn't say, well, how come I'm not playing Carnegie Hall, right?
Right, right. There's that old joke, you know, some guy goes to a New Yorker and says, can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?
And the New Yorker says, practice, practice, practice!
Right? And what we do as philosophers so often is we say, well, here are the directions to Carnegie Hall, right?
Because we think people are saying, how do you get there?
Go north here, go left here, two blocks here, and then whatever, right?
But the reality is, it is.
How do you get to self-knowledge?
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
And we think that we look at Google Maps, we say, well, I know how to get there, and therefore I can do it.
But that's not how it works in reality, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Whatever. You know, people are saying, damn, I wish there was a red pill.
That would be so much easier, right?
yeah there is no pill what about oxytocin Okay, that's true.
That's true. And then what happens is Carnegie Hall, an imaginary Carnegie Hall arises around you and you think you're playing, but you're not really.
Mm-hmm. And look, I'm sorry that there's no better answer.
There really isn't. Other than to say, don't sweat.
Don't sweat the everyday decisions.
Philosophy can't help you with that.
You know, philosophy can't say, take the money, don't take the money, do this, do that.
Because it is around self-knowledge.
And even if philosophy could tell you that, if you don't really get why it all is, then it won't matter if you make a decision.
Like you could say, well, I'm 23.
My father shouldn't be paying me for this.
It is a kind of exploitation on my part.
And if I find exploitation wrong, I should stop and this and that.
And then you'll will yourself to stop taking money.
But that's just dealing with the symptom, not the cause, right?
Right. Because that's just the use of force anyways.
Yeah, it's like someone's got weak bones in their legs and you give them a brace and a crutch.
Well, can they get around? Sure.
But not only is it not solving the problem, it's actually making the underlying problem worse.
Because instead of giving them physiotherapy to strengthen their bones, you're actually taking more weight off their bones, which makes their bones even weaker in the future.
Right? Philosophy is not about dealing with symptoms.
Philosophy is about first causes.
And we know this because philosophy doesn't sort of say, like, the Ten Commandments, do this, do that.
Philosophy says, reason from first principles with reference to empirical evidence.
UPP is not a list of instructions, but a methodology for evaluating propositions, right?
Right. Science is not a conclusion, but a process.
And as a process, it relies on first principles.
And so, the same thing is true when it comes to making wise and sustainable decisions in our life.
It has to do with a deep self-knowledge and not a surface manipulation of effect, if that makes any sense.
Yeah. So, yeah, to go forward, go inward, to make better decisions or to make decisions that are sustainable, Self-knowledge and self-expression is the key.
And talking to your parents, of course, right?
I mean, talk openly and honestly with your parents.
Because through that process, you'll get closure one way or the other, right?
Either you'll break through and there will be a possibility of a different relationship.
Or, as empirically more likely, they're not absolute.
You will get tired of beating your head against the wall and then your decision will become clear.
It's... Crazy with my dad.
I don't talk to my mom.
Crazy narcissist, right?
But my dad has the whole co-narcissism thing where he's just kind of an enabler in that sense.
But he's read everyday anarchy.
He's read practical anarchy.
He watched the procrastination video, but then he doesn't even comment on the entire thesis that procrastination comes because your parents treat you like a slave.
He didn't even comment on that.
I'm at this point.
He actually did comment on it.
Yeah. That's what I don't know how to articulate properly.
I'm trying to avoid that reality over and over again.
I don't know how to articulate why.
The myth of the good parent is stuck.
Like, oh, he was...
Does that make sense? But it's so important to differentiate your perspective from his perspective.
Right? So he would have a very strong incentive for you not to objectively evaluate his parenting.
Right? So it's the dad in your head who is, my guess would be, it's the dad in your head who is moving strongly to intervene to prevent you from examining his Actions as a parent, right? Right.
Right, so it's so important to figure out what are your feelings and what are his feelings, right?
And not to confuse his feelings for your feelings, right?
So when you start to have a strong feeling about your father, let's just say a negative judgment or a negative feeling about your father, then your inner dad intervenes because that's what happened in the real world and says, no, no, no, you've got it wrong.
Anger is immature, yeah.
Anger is immature or whatever, right?
Right. And that's what I mean.
And again, Dr.
Gabor-Mate spoke about this very well.
We don't have toxic relationships with others.
Fundamentally, we have a toxic relationship with ourselves.
Right? So, it's not your outer dad that you need to really deal with.
It's your inner dad. Now, I don't think the two have to go...
Like, you have to have completely separate paths to dealing with these things.
I think that the two are very important to work on together.
But... It's the old thing, right?
Like if you're a shopkeeper and someone gives you a bill and you have a counterfeit detection machine, the guy who's giving you the counterfeit bill really, really, really doesn't want you to hold that bill up to your detection machine, right?
Right. He'll distract you.
He'll laugh. He'll junk.
He'll say, oh, I'm so offended.
I can't believe it. And it's no need to, and don't worry about it, and this bill is good, I just had it checked yesterday.
He will experience extreme anxiety when you start to move that bill towards the detection machine, right?
Yeah. And if the shopkeeper says, I am internally torn, part of me wants to put the bill up to the detection machine, and part of me really doesn't want to, I'm so conflicted, if he mistakes...
The counterfeiter's emotion for his own feeling, he's going to feel conflicted, but he's not fundamentally conflicted.
He's just absorbed the other person's horror at the exposure.
And because he owns that as himself, he says, oh my god, I'm so contradicted, right?
Yeah, yeah.
To take another silly example, right?
I mean, that's really important. If I'm trying to walk forward and someone has tied a rope around my waist that prevents me from tying it to a big honking log and I just can't move forward, right?
Am I going to say, I'm really conflicted.
Part of me wants to go forward and part of me wants to stay right here.
No. I just got tied to a log, right?
Yeah. I'm not conflicted, right?
Yeah. I'm just restrained.
A criminal in the jail doesn't say, well, part of me wants to walk to freedom, but part of me really wants to stay in this jail cell.
I'm conflicted, right?
Yeah. He's like, I really want to walk to freedom, but I'm prevented by this jail cell, which someone locked me in.
But he's not conflicted.
He's thwarted. He's restrained.
He's encased.
He's incarcerated, but he's not conflicted.
Right?
So you're taking the bill called parents and you're holding it up, the currency called parents, and you're holding up to the counterfeit detection machine, which of course is philosophy.
And your parents really don't want you to...
But don't internalize that conflict.
They don't want you to, and you want to.
You're not conflicted.
You're just opposed. And of course we internalize what our caregivers want.
That's how we survive, particularly in abusive situations such as What you're talking about.
We internalize what our parents want just as we internalize what our teachers want because that's what we're trained to do biologically, evolutionarily.
That's what we have to do to survive, right?
But we are not conflicted.
We're just afraid of retaliation.
We just empathize Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Does that help at all?
Like the conflict?
That's where we go round and round.
All we're doing is having an internal debate with our inner shopkeeper and our inner counterfeiter, right?
Yeah.
But the shopkeeper's self-interest is clear.
Don't take fake currency.
And the counterfeiter's self-interest is clear.
Don't get my money put on that detection machine.
Right? Right.
But each individual is not conflicted.
And you, as the child of, as you describe abusive parents, are not conflicted.
Get the truth, right?
Get the truth. Get the truth.
That's what you need. You need the truth.
Your parents don't want you to go for the truth, right?
And you've internalized that, and it feels like part of yourself, but fundamentally it's not, because it's counter to your self-interest as a human being.
To live in evasion and lies and immorality and a history of abuse that is unresolved, right?
Right. So your self-interest is to get to the truth, to keep asking questions, to keep being vulnerable, to keep opening your heart until you get resolution one way or the other.
That's your self-interest, right?
Just take the money and put it in front of the counterfeit detection machine.
Their self-interest is to avoid you doing that, which is pretty telling, right?
Yeah. But you're not conflicted, right?
You're just inhabited, right?
Yeah, and I wonder if that's the inability to process the sort of humiliation of that.
Like, they got me so bad that I can't even tell myself from them.
Well, no, I don't.
Maybe, maybe. But I think it's just an adaptive survival mechanism.
But again, I wouldn't even assume the humiliation is yours.
Right? Because if...
If you expose the counterfeit detection, if you expose the counterfeiter, it was humiliated.
Oh, yeah, because it wouldn't even...
Yeah, it wouldn't be mine.
It would be... Were you in the call last night?
Do you remember? I think you were.
Oh, I wasn't. I wanted to get in.
I'm sorry. I think I saw you just near the end.
But anyway, when it gets released, it's called Rear View Canoe.
I listen to Convo. When it gets released, we talk about this.
I won't go into more detail here.
I'm sure it will be released. And if it's not released, I'll at least ask the woman if you can have a listen to this Convo.
But I would not even assume that the humiliation is yours, because the humiliation now is going to accrue to your parents if your theories and your understanding of your history is correct.
Right, that wouldn't make any sense.
No, why would you be humiliated?
A, you were a victim, and B, you're acting honorably now by trying to get to the truth.
So you're not going to be humiliated, but they will be.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Just focus on the emotional aspects that are entirely to your self-interest.
I believe those are your organic feelings and everything else is an inhabitation, a possession, an infliction, a scar tissue, which is not to say just reject it and abandon it because it has kind of become part of your experience, but don't assume that it's organic to you.
Right.
That's going to be hard.
It is hard. It is hard.
And that's the challenge, right?
But it's impossible unless you get the rational clarity on the situation.
Like it's moved from impossible to hard, which I think is a huge step forward.
Yeah. Well, I'm very sensitive of your time, so... I think you've given me what I need, right?
I certainly will, and I will send you a copy of this.
I certainly think you're not, I promise you, you're not alone in dealing with this, so maybe you'll see fit to, we haven't used any names or anything, you'll see fit to have other people listen, but have a listen first and let me know what you...
Can I throw something in real quick?
Did you catch in the chat last night, I put a link in...
There's a psychologist named Scott D. Miller who did a meta-analysis of like 40 years of psychological studies.
And it's basically about how therapy works and what actually works in it.
If you could send me an email, I would love to chat with him.
Sure, sure. Can do.
I really appreciate that and it sounds very interesting.
Alright, well, thank you very much, Seth.
You're very welcome, man. Take care.
▲
Export Selection