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Oct. 24, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:17:42

1772 Sunday Call In Show, 24 October 2010

Overcoming unemployment, and analyzing nightmare within a dream...

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	Well, thank you everybody so much for joining us.
	It is the 24th of October 2010 and I'm back baby!
	We came back Thursday from Libertopia 2010 and wanted to thank everybody, everybody who's donated and supported and spread the word and done all those kinds of good things, who've had conversations and anybody, let's throw the net wide, anybody who's ever listened and changed anything.
	Because of that, because of this show.
	It is that kind of stuff which gets the money for us to go down to Libertopia.
	This is not something that I was paid for, but it's okay.
	Hey, you have to play clubs before you can play stadiums.
	And that's the way the ball bounces up the stairs.
	So I had a great time at Libertopia.
	It was really great to meet everybody.
	It was an actual anarchist gathering, not libertarian, not minarchist.
	It was an actual anarchist gathering.
	The first one In probably, well, certainly a large number of decades.
	And that was very encouraging.
	It was very exciting. And I hope that you will be able to make it to the next one.
	And it was great to do the speech.
	I really had a lot of fun. I took some risks.
	I did a little bit of stand-up at the beginning of the speech to warm up the crowd, which was fairly cheesy, but I think fairly well received about my trip down from Canada, which I guess you'll hear when the speech comes out.
	And it was great to see the other speakers.
	Lots of great information. I will say, though, that I think that the people who weren't academics gave generally more engaging speeches, which is kind of what you'd expect, right?
	Academics kind of have a guaranteed audience and do not have to win people over with the simple entertaining force of their rhetoric.
	And so I think that certainly the feedback that I got Was that the non-academics gave better speeches, and so I would throw that gauntlet down to the academics to find ways of doing more than sort of either read the PowerPoint or just make speeches that make people feel like they're back in college, which is not, at least from what people were talking to me about, not the best thing in the world to experience.
	But it was a great time.
	Izzy had a lot of fun. The weather The weather was staggeringly bad.
	I mean, just staggering.
	It's the worst weather I think I've ever been away.
	It was just a nice, cold, chilly drizzle of mist and fog and goo the whole time.
	And there was nothing around the hotel.
	We were out by Universal Studios, and we didn't end up taking Isabella there.
	It's like $150 to get in, and I don't think she would enjoy much.
	But there was a little... Not exactly a comic book convention, but like a pop culture convention that was going on at the same time and some sort of science fiction convention, at least judging by the number of people in Star Trek uniforms.
	And Izzy found a man in a giant green turtle suit and towed him all over the hotel, showing him things and demanding or asking that he fall down.
	Because he did fall down once and she really was quite excited by that and wanted them to do it repeatedly.
	And who can blame her for that?
	He was the most engaging, friendly and entertaining fellow.
	So she had a lot of fun doing that.
	And there is a little sort of place like Universal Walk, which is free, which we went to where there were toy stores and stuff like that.
	So she had a great time there.
	And she slept fairly well on vacation, which is good.
	Although it is just exhausting in general because of the time change.
	She was getting up like 5 a.m.
	kind of thing. And so that was a little rough.
	And I was pretty tired the whole time, except for one afternoon after I had a three-hour nap.
	And my speech went well.
	My speech went as I wanted it to.
	I think I hit the right notes.
	I think that I got the right message across.
	And then I did another speech on Sunday for a luncheon, which I'm also pleased with.
	So thank you everybody so much for helping me to get down there and I hope that I do you proud when I do these talks.
	And if there's anything that you think I can do better, I absolutely will.
	I also wanted to apologize for putting out the flippant comment in a recent podcast on fear about Dr.
	Atkins. I'm sorry that I passed along some half-digested scrap of information without any verification.
	It's a little challenging looking things up when I'm driving in the car, but I shouldn't have tossed it out talking about his obesity and death.
	I have been corrected by people who know More about it than I did, that he was not Particularly overweight.
	He did not die of obesity.
	He died from falling and slipping.
	He was not particularly overweight but he gained some staggering amount of weight in hospital when he was admitted unconscious before he died and it had nothing to do with the diet as far as I understand.
	So I'm sorry that I put that out there and thank you so much for the correction.
	If anybody wants to or remembers where it is in the podcast, please send the timecode to me And I will snip it out.
	It was not necessary for my argument, and I don't want it to distract people, and I certainly don't want to put information out there that is incorrect about something that important.
	So I will be happy to correct that, and if nobody does send that to me, I don't think I'll have time to go and look it up, but consider this my correction, and thank you to everybody who put that in.
	Alright. Yes, sorry, podcasts have not been uploaded for a while.
	I think things have gone out a little bit more recently than that.
	Let me just check the last time the podcast went out.
	Yeah, the Ernie Hancock show was the last one that went up.
	I'm sorry, I've been away for over a week.
	And I do have a version of my Philadelphia speech, which I was also quite pleased with.
	To go, I will put that up later this afternoon.
	And I did record a short podcast when I was in California.
	And just a reminder, a reminder that I am going to be a speaker on a Liberty Cruise, which is going on, I guess, a little over a year from now.
	But forward planning is important.
	It's going to be in November 2011.
	I will create a link, fdrurl.com forward slash cruise.
	And hopefully you can join.
	It's a cruise to the Barbados.
	It's very cheap. And I hope that you're able to join.
	Christina and Izzy and I will be there.
	We'll be speaking and chatting and rolling around and circulating.
	And I hope that you will be able to join us.
	And I think that's it for the news and the weather.
	I do have a couple of podcasts in the can.
	I did record yesterday my emails of the week, which I will post as well this afternoon.
	And that's it. Thank you for your patience.
	It's a massive, massive, massive amount of work.
	To prepare even an hour-long speech.
	So many practices, so many different ways of rearranging it.
	And so it's like 20 to 1 as far as podcast time goes.
	So one speech consumes 20 possible podcasts, but I think it's...
	I think it's worthwhile. I also wanted to mention that the high-quality, multi-camera, multimedia extravaganza version of my Porkfest speech is up on YouTube, and I hope that you will check it out.
	The sound is great, and I was looking at it last night, and I was like, yeah, that's a good speech too, so I'm pleased with that as well.
	Well, that's it for me.
	And I am now laying myself bare, wide and open to your questions.
	Hello, Seth. Hello.
	You need to stand back on your mic a little bit.
	You're breathing quite heavily into it.
	Oh, okay. How's this? That's much better.
	Thanks. Okay.
	I have a lot of trouble getting jobs.
	I didn't have much trouble when I was a teenager.
	I got a job at a fast food place and in an office and it wasn't that much trouble.
	But my father forced me into the military.
	So I was in the military for five years.
	That's how long my contract was.
	And then after I got out of the military, I went back home, right, and lived with my parents, and I had a lot of trouble getting a job then.
	Like, my father pressured me to get a job, so I got one at, like, a Starbucks there.
	And then, like, the military will move your stuff, right, for up to, like, six months after you get out.
	Like, they keep your stuff in storage.
	So, like, at the end of the six months, like, the last few days of it, I found a college in a different state and moved to it, and...
	I was in college for a few years after that, right?
	And then, like, I started listening to your podcast toward the end of those couple years, and I left my family and college in, like, short succession there, but ever since then, I've had a lot of trouble.
	I've, like, I won't be looking for jobs until, like, my money and my credit runs out, and then right when it's about to run out, I'll get a job, right?
	And that seems to be getting worse.
	Like, the last time I got a job, it was almost like I was planning on being homeless because I wasn't even able to get motivation at the last minute.
	But, like, I started a relationship about that time, and I don't know, that had something to do with my motivation, and I went and...
	I got a job then, but now it's the same thing.
	I've quit my job, I've moved to a city, and since I'm in a city instead of a college town, I can get something more than a minimum wage job, but I'm not even able to get a minimum wage job, let alone one of those.
	And I'm having the same sort of troubles as I've had before, and I was wondering if you could help me to figure out where the problem might be.
	I have some idea, but...
	And how I might go about getting a job so that I can get into therapy and start gaining self-knowledge and stuff like that related to this.
	Sure, I understand. Can you tell me a little bit about what you think the issues are?
	I noticed that before I went into the military, it was not too hard to get a job.
	I don't know if it's because my father wanted me to get a job then too, but it I don't know.
	It didn't seem like I had a lack of motivation then.
	But afterwards, every time it seems like I have a huge lack of motivation.
	Well, that's a description of the symptoms.
	What do you think the cause is? I know that one of the things that, like, I'll quit jobs for, like, it seems like there's been two consistent reasons.
	One is that I either, there's a bully there, right?
	Like, my boss is a bully or something like that, so I leave the job.
	Or, like, it goes well for a while.
	It's, like, kind of lax kind of rules, I guess you could call it.
	And then they start getting more and more strict or something, like somebody else who works in, like, not even the store that I'm at or whatever, but in a different store.
	The managers there don't run it well and they have stuff stolen and stuff like that so they crack down on all their stores and start instituting all these rules and stuff.
	And it kind of reminds me of how it was in the military and in public school even.
	And I think that's what I – a huge problem I have getting a job is that the rules are usually like that in jobs, I guess.
	That's what I'd say. I might be wrong.
	So you think it's a reaction to bullying?
	To bullying and to strict rules or something like that.
	It seems like petty rules almost.
	Instead of letting you do your job in a way that works for you, it's like micromanagement or something like that.
	Right, right, right.
	Now, do you think that's affecting you in terms of before you get the job?
	Do you think it's affecting you in the interview process?
	Well, I know that it affects me after I've been in a job for a while, but I don't know whether it does.
	I get this frustration when I go to write up a resume, I get a frustration when I'm looking for high-paying jobs, and I get frustration even when I'm looking for minimum wage jobs, and I've never really made any progress on figuring out why.
	Right, right, right.
	Okay. I mean, you're not giving me a huge amount to work on, which is a challenge, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible.
	It just means that it's a challenge.
	Let me ask you this.
	Why do you want a job? Well, I've been thinking about that recently, and if I get a decent paying job, like I'm running late on rent and stuff like that, and that's become a huge problem.
	So I would be able to actually pay that even with a minimum wage job, but I'd like to get a decent paying job, like an office job or a programming job or something like that.
	So that I can afford therapy every week or something like that.
	And I know the quality of my life would improve significantly if I got a decent paying job.
	Okay, so it's not the job itself that has any interest for you, is that right?
	I don't know. I'm thinking that I could get a job that interests me, but I guess I don't know.
	I don't know how to answer that.
	I might need help answering that.
	I don't know. Yeah, I mean, look, if the work itself is a have-to, then that's going to be a problem, right?
	I mean, if it's just, look, I hate going there, but I need to eat, then there's not going to be any kind of joy or fun or pleasure in it, right?
	It's just going to be, it's like going to the dentist.
	Nobody's like, yay. I mean, very few people, I guess, maybe a masochist or two, but very few people want to go to the dentist, right?
	Well, yeah, but I know the last job I was in, I was a cart pusher, which is not much of a job, but I got enthusiastic about it because I was able to do it.
	They left me alone to do it however I wanted, and I spent a lot of time changing the way I work to make it more efficient and stuff like that.
	I really liked doing that.
	Not that I'd want to be as a cart pusher forever.
	I'd like to get a better job than that.
	It seems like the job starts going downhill when I can't do it however I want as long as it works.
	It's like they start micromanaging or something like that.
	It really demotivates me if that helps.
	Sure, I understand. Now, have you looked into possibilities of work where you don't have a boss?
	I have, but I have the same sort of resistance or frustrated feeling in my head or whatever when I contemplate that, and it seems to be even worse than when I go look at regular jobs.
	You know, it's like I don't even know where to begin, and I can't figure out what Yeah, I mean, look, you can do some stuff where you work at home.
	I mean, I'm no expert in it, right?
	I guess I work from home or whatever, right?
	But there are a number of people who are listeners who do writing for people, and you still have to deal with customers.
	There's always a boss, right?
	I mean, there's no completely independent thing.
	Other than going to live on a desert island, I guess.
	But, I mean, I have a boss, and you are my boss, right?
	I mean, the listeners are the boss, right?
	And I'm subject to their authority.
	And so that is a challenge for me.
	So there's no such thing as escaping authority in this world.
	Everybody has a boss.
	My dentist is the boss of my teeth.
	My doctor is the boss of my health.
	And I'm married.
	And Isabella is my boss, so to speak, because she has needs that can't be deferred or postponed.
	And so...
	So there's no escaping from impositions.
	There's no escaping from authority, right?
	So when we were coming back from Los Angeles last week, Isabella wouldn't go down.
	She just wants to be in my arms the whole time.
	And so for like an hour and a half as we were going through customs and we were going through security and we were walking around the airport, she would not go down.
	So I try and put her down and she clamps, you know, like.
	Like a howler monkey on a banana.
	She clamps onto my waist and my legs with her legs and she just, she won't go down.
	And listen, that gets tiring.
	I mean, that is some tiring stuff.
	So, I mean, this is just a minor example that there is always an external, always in life, there are external impositions that you'd rather not be there.
	I would rather she'd have gone down for a little while, but she didn't.
	And so that's, you know, I'd rather not have to go through security.
	I'd rather not have to do all this customs nonsense.
	I'd rather, I mean, just rather not.
	And there are always these impositions in life.
	And so there's no escape from it, at least as far as I know.
	There's no escape from it.
	So I think the first thing to do is to accept that that's a reality.
	Because if you have in your head that it shouldn't be this way when it is this way, that is a really not good attitude to have.
	And sorry, a bad attitude just sounds like such a, you have a bad attitude.
	I don't mean it like that. I don't mean it like that.
	It's like, It's like getting mad at aging or something.
	It's just going to happen, or getting mad if your girlfriend has a period.
	It's like, hey, it's going to happen.
	I think that it's really important to make sure that you're looking at these impositions in the perspective of life itself as a whole.
	It wasn't fun when I started losing my hair, but it's like, hey, that's what happens.
	I've got no complaints about physical health and no complaints about all of that.
	It's just something that happens.
	I think it's important to recognize that just about anywhere you go, You're going to have an external authority that you're going to have to answer to who's going to have power over you.
	Even if you're self-employed and you're writing for a living from home, you have clients.
	Those clients will be jerks sometimes and they won't pay you and they will be demanding and they will change specs on you and the same thing will happen if you're a computer programmer.
	The same thing will happen if you're a salesman.
	The same thing will happen if you're a waiter.
	You get those people who order something and then say they didn't order it or it's too hot and then it's too cold.
	Then you have some boss who switches shifts on you and there's always going to be that situation.
	Now, that's not the same as the army and it's not the same as being at home in a sort of tyrannical or abusive situation.
	It's important not to jam all these two things together and say that a boss who's not good Drill Sergeant is the same as my dad.
	They're not. They're not.
	And the reality is that there's a getting to economic or financial security when you come from a dysfunctional or really underprivileged, let's say in every sense of the word, underprivileged household.
	It's like being born underwater and having to break through thick ice to get to the land.
	And the thick ice that you have to break through is bad bosses.
	Because if you're a good boss, you're not in charge of entry-level people.
	Really sit and understand this.
	This is very, very important. Because I talked about this with another guy a month or two ago.
	But it's really important to understand that if you're a really good boss, Then you are going to be put in charge of high-functioning people.
	Bill Gates is not going to run a Burger King.
	Steve Jobs is not going to run a Taco Bell because they're too good.
	They should be managing people who make a million dollars a year.
	Alan Greenspan, whatever you think of him as a statist, obviously did a good job of running the Fed in the eyes of the people because he was on the job for 13 years and so on.
	So he's not going to run a little hardware store in a small town.
	Sure. So the bosses that you get when you're starting out are bad bosses.
	I mean, you might get the miracle good boss who's like a really great boss on his way up and you just happen to have all started at the same time.
	But that never happened to me.
	I think that's really important.
	I had a lot of bad bosses in my day.
	A lot of bad bosses in my day.
	And that's just a reality of, and I think, I mean, maybe that'll be different in the future if we get the world that we need.
	But the reality now is that you're just going to hit bad bosses in your entry-level positions, and you have to outgrow them, and you have to move up beyond them to where you get great bosses.
	But the problem is, is you have to go through the bad bosses to get the great bosses, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah. I think that Nietzsche is right when he says, give a man a why and he can bear almost any how.
	So if you enter into a job and you feel bullied and harassed like you did at home and like you did in the army, then your motivation is just going to go futz, right?
	I completely understand that.
	But if you say, look, this is not the army.
	I'm choosing to be here.
	It's a means to an end.
	And the end is, I'm going to outgrow these bosses and get to some better position.
	But there's no way to pole vault over these people.
	You have to go through. Like, you have to break through the ice to get to the air.
	You have to go through the bad bosses to get to the better jobs.
	Okay. So I'll give you just another tiny example, right?
	I mean, the amount of preparation and travel that we all had to do, like Christina and myself, that we all had to do, for one...
	50-minute speech in California was ridiculous.
	It was ridiculous. We had, like, three suitcases full of stuff.
	And we were staying an extra couple of days, which was not, in hindsight, the best decision in the world.
	But you can't predict the weather.
	But, I mean, it was crazy.
	We had to, like, start packing, like, a week before we left.
	We had to get up early in the morning.
	We lost sleep for, like, a week.
	I mean, all of that for what?
	For one 50-minute speech, more or less?
	I mean, it's nutty. But it's a means to an end, right?
	Which is keep doing speeches, keep getting more exposure, bring these ideas to more and more people, right?
	That's the means to the end.
	But, you know, 90% of everything is crap.
	I mean, it's true, right?
	I mean, I wouldn't say that's true of my marriage, but 90% of what I do at FDR is not having great podcasts and giving great speeches.
	It's, you know... It's fucking around with difficult hardware.
	It's answering endless emails.
	I'm working at the moment on creating an FAQ because I simply can't keep up with the emails.
	It's writing thank you notes. And I'm certainly appreciative of the thank you notes for the donations.
	But it's not a huge amount of fun.
	But it's not striding a stage making people laugh and punching philosophy holes in their big walls of defenses.
	That's not what it's all about.
	That happens. But that's not what it's all about, right?
	I mean, it took Queen three weeks to record Killer Queen, which is a three-minute song.
	So 95% of that was not spontaneously playing your instruments and having fun.
	It was, oh my god, the tracks are out of sync.
	Oh my god, they spent three weeks on the guitar dubs just for that song.
	Right? So, now because of that, what happens is we then get to see people at their finest, right?
	So, I mean, I'll just use Queen for whatever, right?
	So then we get to see a concert footage of Queen.
	And we're like, damn, that's a, you know, their life is great because every time I see them, they're playing music, they're being interviewed, they're laughing, they're having fun.
	But you don't see the 90% of, you know, kind of dull stuff that has to be there, right?
	Sure. I'm not convincing you about anything.
	I can tell that. So what am I missing here?
	Oh, well, I know my father, like, this actually brought up something.
	Like, my father, he was very, whenever, like, you said it better than I'm going to say it, and I can't remember how you put it, but it was like, whenever a service person or something, like a cashier or something, would, like, make him mad or something, he'd, like, go off on him, right?
	He was very sensitive or whatever, maybe that's not the right word, to...
	Sleights, I guess you could say.
	And I think I might be...
	I remember when I was a kid, I would say something like, in my head, like, why...
	I mean, this isn't that big a deal.
	I mean, we can go somewhere else or something like that, you know?
	I didn't say that to him, obviously, because he was very ready to go off the handle all the time.
	But... It seems like I've started to do that or something like that in some way.
	I think that might be some of what the problem is.
	I'm not sure. But I think what you were saying was helping me.
	I think it might be helping me to get back into that old mindset.
	I'm not sure. I don't think so.
	So remind me what you were saying about your dad, that he was very sensitive.
	And can you just give me that scenario again, make sure I understand it?
	I remember going through a toll booth with him as an adult.
	I was riding in the car with him.
	I guess he didn't have change, so he had to give it to the guy that worked there or something.
	I guess the guy took too long or something, and my dad starts talking about how, oh, I guess you like having power over people or something like that.
	I forget exactly how he put it, but it was something like that.
	And, like, in stores as a kid, he would, like, get into a rage and stuff like that.
	I remember one time, like, somebody was turning in front of him, like, way ahead, and he, like, sped up to, like, he was pretty insane.
	Like, he sped up to, like, scare the guy or whatever, right?
	Like, he was sociopathic or whatever.
	But, like, I always...
	Back then, I looked at it, and it was like, why...
	This doesn't make any sense.
	It's like... Why not let it go and find some place that will serve you better or something, you know?
	Sorry. Right, right.
	I understand. That came up.
	I don't know how relevant it is, but it came to my mind.
	I think it's relevant. I think it's relevant.
	I think it's relevant. Now, sit back comfortably because I'm going to give you a bit of speech.
	Okay. So get comfortable.
	You might even want to mute.
	Okay. One of the grave difficulties with growth in society is outgrowing our parents.
	Outgrowing our parents.
	There is a saying that I think is quite true, that nothing has a greater impact on us than the unlived life of our parents.
	In other words, the things that they know they should have done, but didn't do.
	And whether that's treating us better or fulfilling their own ambitions or being more open-hearted or being more generous or being more virtuous or being more courageous or anything like that.
	If our parents had standards that they inflicted on their children but did not live up to themselves, or if they had dreams that That they failed to pursue and either succeed or fail at.
	You can't fail at your dreams if you pursue them.
	Because if you don't achieve them, it wasn't right for you as a circumstance, and at least you've tried.
	The only failure in life is not trying.
	It's a cliche, but it's very true.
	So... Outgrowing our parents creates a great anxiety.
	There is a ceiling on human potential called the unlived lives of those who came before us.
	Or, to put it more bluntly, hypocrisy is our barrier to growth.
	The hypocrisy of those who came before us.
	Because they don't want to see their own hypocrisy.
	So, if you outgrow being bullied, if you outgrow bullying as a whole, and I know you have a slightly bullying side, which is perfectly natural and inevitable, but if you outgrow bullying as a whole, that completely activates your inner dad.
	Because if you can outgrow bullying either being bullied or being a bully then what you're doing is you're proving in a very empirical and substantial way you are proving to your father that it's possible to outgrow bullying to recognize it to say it's there to deal with it when you have to but to not have it be part of your life fundamentally now if You show to your dad,
	whether you're in the relationship with him or not, it doesn't matter because it's in your head either way.
	If you show to your dad, if you outgrow bullying, let's say you were still in a relationship with your dad, if you were to outgrow bullying, not rise to it, be above it, be bigger than bullying, leave it behind, and gather all the success of That comes to those who outgrow the ceilings of their parents, let's say, limitations.
	If you outgrew bullying, how would your dad react?
	Does your dad want you to outgrow bullying?
	Oh no, he was all about how it was necessary.
	Necessary. Fantastic. So at least he's conscious of it.
	Beautiful. Beautiful.
	Okay, so if you were to prove to him that far greater success in life is available to people who aren't bullies, to people who aren't abusive, who aren't aggressive in that way, how would he feel?
	How would his life show up for him if you proved him wrong on this most essential matter?
	Or he'd be humiliated.
	He would be very angry as well.
	I would be afraid of being attacked, I think.
	Go on. Like, I've seen...
	Hey, you need to move back to your microphone.
	When you breathe through your nose, I'm getting a big rumble in my ear.
	Sorry, go on. Okay.
	Yeah, I know I've talked to a lot of people online, like debates and stuff like that, and they have a lot of trouble saying things, and I know right before I... After I left him, my dad called me up or whatever, and I had a conversation with him, and I couldn't get anything through.
	I said I was afraid of him, and he was like, no you weren't, because you didn't do what I said, essentially.
	So, I don't know. So, I don't think he'd be able to accept it.
	Okay, you need to not think about this stuff and analyze it because this is in your gut.
	Okay. Right?
	So, if you were to show to your dad that he was completely wrong about bullying, what happens to his view of his life?
	How does he feel? Sad, I think?
	Well, this is why you can't, I think, overcome it, is you're not in touch with this stuff.
	This is not a criticism, right?
	I'm just pointing it out.
	Because for your dad, bullying is a necessary part of having strength and competence in this world, right?
	Right. Because if you don't bully, you get taken advantage of, right?
	Or something like that, right?
	So for him, it's a virtue.
	I mean, it's a utilitarian virtue, probably largely due to other people only responding to bullying, right?
	It's because the world is cruel and resistant that you have to be a bully, right?
	So, in a sense, it's other people's fault, right?
	Okay. Wait, that's sort of what I'm trying to get from your dad's perspective.
	I'm having a lot of trouble accessing that.
	Okay, well, why... Why does your dad believe that bullying is good and necessary?
	Well, he's told me about his time growing up.
	When he was a kid, he told me a story.
	He went to the toughest kid in the school or whatever.
	And he said he grew up in a bad neighborhood.
	So he went to the toughest kid in the school and beat him up or whatever.
	And then he was a mess with, I guess.
	I know his father...
	He was a drunk and he was absolutely extremely abusive with my father.
	He learned that abusiveness is power.
	This is probably more theoretical abstract stuff, but he learned that abusiveness was power and he used that in his social dealings as a kid, I know, because he's told me about it.
	Like he was a bully with other kids because that's how you get respect, right?
	Yes, yes. Otherwise, you get picked on, you get your lunch money taken away, you get humiliated, so you have to, you know, it's like when you go to prison, right?
	You beat up the biggest guy in prison and then you're okay for the next year or 10 years or whatever, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Right, right.
	And was your father ever open to the possibility that may not be correct?
	I don't think he was. I never really talked to him about it.
	I only really talked to him semi-genuinely at our last conversation, which I told him I was afraid.
	And I never really went into how his philosophy might be incorrect.
	It kind of got sidetracked on religion and stuff like that.
	Right. Right.
	Right. Right.
	Okay. So he's never sort of said, you know, this is what I do.
	I have doubts about it.
	I don't know if it's the best. It's the only thing that I know how to do, but I don't know if it's the best thing to do.
	Like, I don't know if you really should go and just beat up on the biggest kid in school to get respect.
	I mean, I don't know if that's the right approach.
	I don't know if, I just don't.
	Like, so he didn't have any doubt about it, if I understand what you're saying.
	Well, one thing that he did was he got drunk at one of my uncle's parties one time.
	He didn't usually get very drunk, but this time he did.
	And he really, I guess, humiliated himself.
	And after that, he said he wasn't going to beat me anymore, I guess.
	Well, I guess. He said he wasn't going to beat me anymore, which lasted for like about five years, actually.
	So I think he did have reservations about it, but he was never able to overcome them, and he was very resistant to any kind of empathy with me as far as my fear.
	Right, right, okay.
	Right, so if you believe that bullying and aggression is the way to go, then you kind of have to put yourself in...
	Bullying and aggressive situations like the military, right?
	Because that does work in the military, or at least in the government military, right?
	So if you were to outgrow bullying in terms of your susceptibility to it and to doing it, then in your father's eyes, which you always carry with you, in your father's eyes, It would be revealing that his bullying was not a necessary virtue, but a cowardly vice.
	And how would he react to that?
	Probably with rage.
	I know you said earlier about the cut, but I'm having a lot of...
	Dude, stop. You've got to stop with these probabilities.
	Okay. I mean, you either know or you don't.
	Because if we're having a theoretical conversation about someone you don't know, we can't have the conversation.
	You know your dad.
	You lived with him for decades.
	You would have some idea of how he would react.
	Every time you say anything, it's probably and maybe and this and that, right?
	Okay. I'm not trying to force you to say one thing or the other.
	Sure. But you're talking about, like, somebody you don't know.
	Right. I see that.
	So if I were to stand in front of your dad and say your bullying was not as necessary vice, was not a necessary virtue, it was not strength, but cowardly weakness, how would he react?
	He'd probably assault you.
	And what did you just say?
	I'm sorry, probably.
	How would he react emotionally?
	Not what would he do, how would he react emotionally?
	With rage. And why would he react with rage?
	I'm having a block here.
	I think I might need a minute.
	He hates it when people contradict him.
	He uses force to...
	He's not into debating he'll use that, but it's ultimately about force.
	Yeah, threats and intimidation and all that, right?
	Yeah, like he can meld reality, or that's not the right word.
	He can change reality based on what he says and what he forces other people to do.
	Or he can change social reality, at least.
	Right. Right.
	So he's got this cause and effect, which is something like this.
	I need to bully because people don't listen.
	I need to bully because people disagree with me and they're wrong.
	Right. And this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
	It really does become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
	And this is what I'm most concerned about with you.
	With you. Mm-hmm.
	It's too late for your dad, but you, you have a chance.
	If you stay in the world of bullying, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because you say, well, I have to bully because people are this way.
	Right. But then what happens is you found your self-esteem and your sense of power on intimidating people, and you base your sense of self and sense of security also on being intimidated, which is what you're on the edge of wanting to change, right? Right. But what that means is you can't ever get away from bullies and cowards.
	You can't ever get away from them.
	In the same way that if you go and live in China and there's a group of 100 people around who speak English in your apartment building and you never learn Chinese, you will never be able to socialize with anyone outside of those 100 people because you don't speak Chinese or Mandarin or whatever,
	right? Right. So if you speak the language called bullying and fear of bullying and intimidation and so on, that is a language that you speak and you will only ever be able to live in the world where people speak that language.
	You will never, after a while, be able to step outside.
	That world, outside the world of hierarchies and bullies and conformity and cowardice and retaliation and frustration and anger and thwartedness, if that's the language that you were taught and that's the language you keep speaking, you will never be able to break out of it eventually.
	You simply can't speak any other language.
	And what happens then is if you are a bully or if you have not processed being bullied, then in a Simon the Box of Fashion, you will continue to have to live in a bullying world, in a bullying hierarchy where you can't negotiate You either intimidate other people and get them to conform to your irrationality, or other people intimidate you and you conform to their irrationality.
	But there is no negotiation.
	There is no confrontation of the irrationality.
	A bully is always completely terrified of bullets becoming invisible, of shooting at someone and realizing that he has no power, that he's only shooting blanks.
	Bullies, I mean, other than people who kidnap you and lock you in a van or whatever, but people who are just verbally aggressive, they're just shooting blanks.
	You have to pretend that they're hitting you.
	They're just shooting blanks.
	You're the one who has to say, ah, you got me, and pretend to be hit.
	I see. Yeah, I've seen that.
	Right, so when somebody tries, that's why a bully will never try and bully somebody.
	Who's not afraid? Because they then realize how powerless they are, and then they realize that they're stuck in a world that is not the whole world.
	It's just their sad, crappy little dungeon part of the world where they have to hang around with other broken and malignant people and all pretend that that's just the whole world.
	Right. It's not the whole world.
	It's just their sad, broken-down little corner of it.
	I see. And so when you overcome bullying...
	You are revealing to people who are bullies the sad little self-fulfilling limitations of their own little prisons and they hate you for it because they think that what has made them strong sorry, they think that bullying has made them strong and bullying has simply trapped them in this dungeon-like little underworld of bomb-in-the-brain hierarchies.
	It has not Fed them.
	It has eaten them.
	Now, how does this help you in a job interview?
	Well, I don't know. I don't know.
	But I do think that you need to comb over this bullying thing and say, look, do I want to live in this dungeon forever?
	And what is the price of me escaping being bullied?
	I don't mean by not Being around.
	I mean, there are always going to be people.
	But they sense in you.
	Bullies will sense in you.
	If you're susceptible to it or not.
	Right. I mean, you've seen this happen a million times.
	Even in this show, right?
	Yes. People are all kinds of tough talking on the board.
	And I say, hey, call in on the Sunday show.
	I'd love to hear. Let's have this debate.
	They vanish, right? Right.
	They don't call in. Oh, Steph, he's wrong about this.
	He's wrong about this. He doesn't understand that.
	He doesn't understand this. It's like, hey, I got a call-in show every Sunday.
	People are welcome to call in, and they never, ever do.
	Right? Right.
	Because they know that I'm not afraid of them.
	And so they don't want to have their own Weaknesses exposed.
	Because they need so desperately to believe that it's strength.
	And it was not easy for me to overcome bullying.
	It really was not easy for me to overcome bullying.
	But it just comes from stepping out of the apartment building and learning another language.
	Mixing with the natives of a higher world.
	And when you do that, everybody who's stuck back in this dungeon hates you and fears you for getting out.
	Growth brings attack.
	Growth brings attack.
	Because growth shatters the irrational absolutes of cowardice, of people who refuse to grow.
	Growth brings attack.
	You see this all the time.
	Even on the forums of people who've outgrown relationships, who've tried to fix them, who won't stay small, who won't stay bullied, who won't stay subjugated, and they outgrow those relationships.
	People attack. You think of two drunks in a third-year marriage.
	One of them decides to quit drinking.
	The other one reacts in fear and hatred.
	Have you ever seen the movie Good Will Hunting?
	Yes. Okay, so in Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, of course, is a genius, and Ben Affleck's character is the non-genius.
	And he says to this guy, look, you know, if you show up to work Monday morning, when you have all this potential, I'm going to beat the shit out of you.
	I'm doomed to this life.
	You're not. Right.
	How often do you think that happens in the real world?
	Never. Well, maybe not never, but it's really, really, really fucking rare.
	Other people say, look, I'm tragically limited.
	You have great potential.
	Let me give you a boost up to the next world.
	Leave me behind. I can't make it.
	No! Everybody grabs and pulls you down.
	Grabs that and pulls you down because if you stand up, if you climb up, if you get out, then it's not the world anymore for them.
	It's a prison of their own devising.
	And they're not adapting to a necessary reality.
	They're recoiling from a possible growth.
	And people do not like you for that.
	I think that's relevant to something that really affected me, and it's gone away somewhat, but I used to be really paranoid.
	I would put tinfoil on the windows and stuff so people couldn't see in, even if the blinds were messed up or whatever.
	I was really paranoid, and that started to heal after I started listening to FDR and stuff like that, and I got away from my family.
	But I am still afraid of my father.
	He is still physically bigger than me and stuff like that.
	It's like the 10,000 hour theory or whatever about gaining skills.
	He's had 10,000 hours, I'm sure, of fighting.
	He's had significantly more time than I have fighting.
	I've not really been in a fight before.
	Do you mean a physical fight?
	Yes, yes. What the hell are you talking about a physical fight for?
	Because I'm afraid of him physically attacking me.
	No, no, no. Look, you don't see him anymore, right?
	That's true, but I'm somewhat afraid that he will find me, if that makes sense.
	Dude, he's already found you.
	He's in your head.
	Yes, that's true. It's not bumping into him on the street that's limiting you.
	Right. He's in your head.
	But you don't know him very well in your head, and that's the dad that you need to get to know.
	Okay. You don't like that too much.
	I almost can tell when you don't like it because you go, okay.
	But no, because I would ask you, look, you know, you've heard me do role plays with people with their dads, right?
	Yes. And they get how their dad's going to react, right?
	Yes. But you keep your dad mentally at an extreme distance, right?
	I do. Which is why he shows up unconsciously in paranoia and paralysis.
	You're bullying. I see.
	You need to, right?
	I mean, keep your friends close, but you're...
	Anyway, he's closer.
	Yeah. So the people who've done you great harm, they're in your head.
	You need to get to know them.
	I have learned more about my mother in the past two years than I did in the previous 40, because I've become a parent.
	And so she's showing up for me in my head.
	Okay. And I need to not reject how she's showing up in my head.
	I need to embrace that she's showing up in my head and I need to get to know every dark and ooky nook and cranny of her personality in my head now that I'm a parent.
	Because if I don't, she's going to run things under the table.
	So you need to get to know your dad in your head.
	Hey, look, once you've conquered your dad in your head, your dad in the world will be far less scary.
	The world as a whole will be far less scary.
	Because if you hold your inner dad at arm's length, he shows up in the world as a whole.
	And then you confuse the world for your dad, your bosses for your dad, your girlfriend for your dad.
	Right? When you bring him close and you open him up and you get to know him in your head, the dad in your head, then he stays where he is, which is in your head.
	He doesn't get projected out into the world as a way of getting breathing space that turns into a suffocation chamber.
	But have conversations with the dad in your head.
	Learn about the dad in your head.
	Try to understand the dad in your head.
	That doesn't mean think, oh, poor guy, he was abused, everything's fine.
	I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about study your limitations.
	Limitations is the dad in your head.
	If your dad was a bully, if your dad was abusive, then he's an enemy to your growth.
	He was in the past, and he is now.
	And we study our enemies.
	Otherwise, they win.
	That's why I keep bugging libertarians.
	Study politicians.
	Study politicians. Study politicians.
	Because they are working.
	And they're winning. And if your life is stalled and you can't break through the ice to the next layer, then in my opinion, Your dad is winning and he's winning because you don't know him well enough in your head.
	Now there are books by John Bradshaw, there are books by Nathaniel Brandon that actually have like exercises that you can write down, that you can start to open up this knowledge about what's going on in there.
	Because he's there and he speaks and he moves And he doesn't want you to outgrow the bullying.
	Right. And so he's going to project his face onto your bosses and your job interviewers and your girlfriend and your friends and the world so that he stays in control of you.
	Okay, that makes sense.
	And that's, I mean, I don't have, there's no quick fixes, but I think that once you've gotten to know that, you'll be a lot freer in your interactions with other people.
	Because then if somebody bullies you at work, they're just a little bully at work.
	They're not your dad, the world, existential, reality, existence.
	It's not everywhere. It's not all pervasive.
	You're not five again. It's just some dipshit bullying you at work.
	You can see something for what it is without the projection of unprocessed history.
	Right. Yeah, I'm starting to see some of the ways that I've done that.
	No, no, no, no.
	Not that you've done that, that he's done that.
	I mean, I know I'm talking about he and you, but I mean, that didn't just pop into your head for no reason.
	That was the result of years of this kind of terrorizing.
	Right, right. Our abusive parents want us to think that they are the world.
	Because if they are the world, then they're adapting to reality.
	The way that you and I adapt to reality, like we don't jump off a bridge, we go down the stairs, because there's gravity.
	Right? So people who are abusive, they want their abuse to become reality.
	Like gravity, like sunshine, like you put sunscreen on, so you don't get a sunburn.
	That's adapting to reality.
	They want abusive interactions to be the only possible, only valid human interactions.
	Anything else is wrong, is ridiculous, is embarrassing, is weak, is stupid, is a sucker's game.
	They really need the abuse to be like gravity.
	And denormalizing that and saying, it is not physics, it's just fucked, is tough.
	Yeah, I've been attracted for quite a while in looking at stories about North Korea and stuff.
	I've been interested in reading about that, and I think that really resonates with what you said.
	I think that's why.
	He has a personality cult and extremely strict control so that it seems like it is reality, and that makes a lot of sense.
	Right. And I mean, this is how politics and parenting reinforce each other, right?
	Because if you're some person in North Korea who's growing up in that kind of environment, in a sense, it would be really dangerous to teach your kids freedom.
	Right. Picked up by the secret police, tortured and killed, right?
	So then you have to bring your kids up harshly and in a controlling way, which only just reinforces what goes on.
	Also, Richard Schultz's Internal Family Systems Therapy is a good book.
	He talks a lot about parental voices and altered egos in one's head.
	Of course, the Mass and the Psychohistory site has a lot of that stuff as well.
	Okay. I think I have access to that, so I'll take a look at that.
	Fantastic. All right.
	And let me know how it goes. And I hope that this was on point for you.
	I know it was a tough thing to Yes, it'll be very helpful.
	Thank you. All right.
	Thanks, man. All the best. Same to you.
	Sorry. All right.
	Yeah, growth anxiety. Demas has a lot of growth anxiety that's really, really worth looking at.
	All right. I believe we have someone.
	Hi, Steph. Hello.
	Can you hear me all right? Not too well.
	I'm just going to try taking out my mic and see what that does.
	Can you hear me better? Try again.
	Can you hear me better now?
	That's not too bad, yeah. Okay.
	I just had a dream. I was wondering if you'd want to analyze.
	Oh, love to. I haven't done a dream in a while.
	Let's do it. Okay.
	I just got a post on the board.
	I'll read it to you. Can you put the link in the chat window or Skype?
	Yeah. It's the inner show today, ladies and gentlemen.
	It's all right. We had the outer show at Libertopia.
	Okay, so I guess I'll just start reading it.
	This is a dream I had on October 9th after having a Skype conversation with two board members here where we were exploring particularly difficult subjects for at least two of us, particularly that of low self-esteem.
	Before I describe the dream, I just want to preface by stating that since there was dreaming within the dream going on, that I'm going to refer to two levels of dream.
	The first being the dream I'm having, and the second being the dream of my dream self.
	The dream, level one, began in a room with a door located at the center of one wall.
	If one were to stand in the doorway facing the room, one could see a window straight across the room at the middle of the far wall.
	A table was beneath the window.
	A bed was on either side of the window against the wall.
	A bed for me was against the wall to the right.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	Just because this is fairly lengthy and your sound is not that great, would you mind terribly if I read the dream?
	No, go ahead. Thanks.
	It's just because it'll be a little hard for people to hear.
	So we'll start again. The dream level one began in a room with a door located at the center of one wall.
	If one were to stand in the doorway facing the room, one could see a window straight across the room at the middle of the far wall.
	The table was beneath the window.
	A bed was on either side of the window against the wall.
	A bed for me was against the wall to the right, still from the perspective of one looking on from the door.
	And a bed It was on the left for one of my two brothers who was two years younger than me.
	There was also all sorts of clothing strewn around the floor of the room.
	I was in the bed in the beginning of the dream.
	I was on a cell phone in the beginning of the dream doing some sort of self-knowledge talking.
	I finished talking on the phone and then decided to go to sleep.
	I then start having dreams within the dream.
	The first of the second layer dreams is one in which I'm having this feeling of being violated and needing to wake up to attend to myself.
	The feeling was that I was being groped in the crotch.
	I'm fearful of waking up to see it, but I'm fighting and fighting to wake up, but I can't wake up.
	And I'm going, oh, I'm being attacked.
	I'm in danger. At some point, I wake up and my brother is on me and feeling me up.
	And then I'm fighting him off and pushing him, but he keeps coming back onto me.
	Eventually, I get him off me.
	Then he's in my bed and I tell him to get out of my bed and he says no and exposes himself to me.
	Somehow I get him off the bed.
	I don't know if I knock him out or he just falls back asleep, but he ends up on the other bed unconscious.
	And then I start digging around in the laundry on the floor trying to find my phone.
	I find it and grab it and call 911.
	I get them on the phone, but then I freeze up and struggle a bunch to say what happened, like I had trouble saying the words that had been sexually molested in my sleep.
	So after that, I must have fallen back asleep in the bed because I have another second level dream.
	Here, where I was the main character in a Legend of Zelda-like Game Boy game.
	I was with these people on top of a cliff, and they told me something like, show me the beginning, or how do you get your skills?
	So I leapt off the cliff edge and fell into a hole in the top of a cave.
	In the cave, I noticed the problem that I have a shield, but that I do not yet have a sword.
	In one area of the cave, some monsters came at me, but I had to run away from them because I did not have the means to take them down.
	So I've run away from them to another room in the cave that has a ton of bats in it, which are massing about this huge boss bat sitting in the center of the room.
	I attempt to go to the long way around the room.
	Sorry, I attempt to go the long way around the room to the other of the two openings in the walls of the room.
	But the bats fire a bunch of lasers at me and kill me before I get across the room.
	In video game fashion, I am reborn at the entrance of the room.
	Sorry. And instead go the other shorter way to get to the other opening in the room.
	Making it through before the bats hit me with any lasers.
	And this second layer dream ends and I am back in the bed, in the room, sleeping.
	I'm back to the feeling of the thing on me and wanting to wake up and get it off me.
	And having these overwhelming feelings of terror, dread, and disgust, I then have a second-layer dream where I am in an emptied-out church and have a chalice filled with what I assume was white.
	I toss it on the floor violently, staining the carpet.
	Then I am overcome by a fear of being caught and punished for this transgression, and so leave.
	Then I'm back to being awake in the first level dream, but I have been transported away from the room and am now located in this seedy-looking area of some town.
	And I see these red and blue lights flashing, and I get hope that I'm about to be found, but I can't quite see where the lights are coming from.
	So I call 911 again, but the guy on the line can't hear me and thinks I'm a prank caller or something.
	I tried reading the building signs to tell me where I was, but it was hard.
	Things were almost shifting, so I couldn't read.
	So that doesn't go anywhere, and then I'm overcome by this fear that, oh no, they're not coming for me, and I don't know where I am.
	I don't really know where I was when I was in the room, but now I really don't know where I am.
	There were people around also, and I was getting worried about the people, so I start to run.
	And next, there were a bunch of trains around, and a bunch of confusion goes on where the trains are moving, and I see the red and blue lights still.
	I get on a train car.
	Then somehow the whole scene changes, and I'm transported to this sort of wet living cave with pinkish walls.
	So there are three corridors I can go down, one to the left, one across from me, and one to the right.
	While a corridor was behind me, which I apparently came from, I'm extremely afraid of the corridor to the left.
	It's pretty much pitch black down.
	The others were comparatively well lit, but this ominous one called to me.
	Felt that that's the one.
	That's the one I have to go through to get out of this.
	So I started running, plunging, full speed into it.
	I get this massive fear that grows the deeper I get into it.
	I get to a certain point where it's no longer a body experience where I'm running into this cave.
	It's now that I'm plunging bodilessly into deep, dark recesses of my mind.
	And finally, I approach this image formed out of something like electricity that appears to be the face of myself as a young boy.
	I feel as I approach I'm really getting to the core of myself, and I'm on the brink of revealing some huge locked secret of my past, but when I reach the image, I wake up.
	And she then wrote, After I worked for the dream, I found myself going to YouTube and typing bloodbath into the search bar.
	Band name came up. A list of songs popped up.
	You chose the one titled Cry My Name and listen to it.
	I used to listen to death and black metal a lot a few years ago.
	As I listened, I found myself welling up with sadness and let go sobs and tears at the lines.
	And when you seek forgiveness, you will see there is no God.
	Somehow I feel that my selection of this song to listen to after this dream was through my unconscious and relates to the dream somehow.
	All right. So tell me what you've thought of.
	Actually, no, no, sorry. Tell me again a bit about the conversation that happened right before the dream.
	We were talking about one guy's low self-esteem issues.
	He's kind of, I guess, got this arrogance that he has, but we were talking about how it might cover up low self-esteem.
	I'm kind of foggy about what exactly we talked about.
	I'm sorry, how was he covering up low self-esteem?
	By like kind of puffing himself up with arrogance.
	Right. And tell me a little bit about your childhood experiences.
	Like what exactly?
	Well, what was it like?
	crappy.
	I guess my parents are really critical.
	And like if say they were punishing me about something and say it was something that I didn't do, they would like never believe.
	They would just want to have their way that, yeah, I did whatever and need to be punished for it.
	Or their punishments if I did do something that was like...
	I don't know, like I ate a cookie or something that I wasn't supposed to.
	It would just be way out of proportion to whatever I did.
	And what sort of punishments would you receive?
	Like for something like talking back, I would get slapped in the mouth.
	Or... Maybe some kind of long lecture where they're kind of raging a bit and just out of control with it.
	Or sent to my room or not allowed to go outside to play or something for a while.
	Right. And do you have brothers?
	Yeah, two. They're both younger than me.
	In the dream, are you the same age as you are now, or are you a different age?
	Same age that I am now.
	Alright, so let's...
	A room with a door, okay.
	Now, the room that you're in, is it any room that you've seen in the real world, or is it more just a room that is in your dream?
	No, just a room in a dream.
	Are there any...
	Do you know what time of day it is?
	Like, is it the lights on, it's nighttime, or is it daytime?
	I think it was nighttime.
	And do you remember what there was outside the window?
	Were there any lights or was it just pitch black?
	No, I don't really remember seeing anything outside the window.
	When you were a child, did you sleep in the same room as one or two of your brothers?
	Yeah. My brother, he's just two years younger than me.
	We always slept in the same room.
	And then the youngest brother, he's like eight years younger than me.
	He always had his own room.
	Actually, he did. Actually, at one time, we were actually all in the same room.
	And how old were you when that was going on?
	I was in my teenage years.
	Even for a little bit after I graduated from high school and was still living at home going to college.
	That was a pretty small and cramped room.
	Sorry, when you rented, there's all sorts of clothing strewn around the floor of the room.
	Is that how your floor was when you lived there?
	I mean, were there clothes on the floor?
	No. It was always kept pretty neat.
	I think my mom would go in and clean up stuff that was strewn about.
	Maybe it wouldn't even get that way.
	We would always just have it clean or something.
	I know when I was younger, I was more of neat and kind of Um, just sticking to doing kind of what my parents would want me to do and stuff.
	And then my younger brother, Charlie, he was more of the one who would like, um, just like not get up in the morning for school or something or would be messy.
	All right. Yeah. If you just remember to hold off on names, that would be good.
	Oh, sorry. No problem.
	Um, so tell me a little bit about the adult life of your A brother who's two years younger.
	He had a kid with this awful girl who's a lot like my mom.
	When I first started getting into FDR, I tried to get him excited about it.
	I kind of did it for a while.
	Last spring I actually just I got this feeling where it was like I just didn't really want to see him anymore and I was just like I gotta like test where this is at or whatever so I kind of just went to him with this more vulnerable kind of way of acting like man you know I'm like I'm just anxious about seeing you and scared about like I don't know hanging out with you or something and um and all this kind of stuff and he just reacted with this like really like oh you just think you're better and everything and all that kind of stuff and just like basically just totally said like I'm siding with our parents and that's that.
	I'm sorry to hear that. And do you remember a time With your brother, when you were younger, that he was, I guess, less hardened or more vulnerable?
	Or more honest or open?
	Yeah. When he was in high school still, and I was living there going to college, he had this period where he was really rebellious and he'd want to be out drinking with friends or smoking pot or something.
	And he would Like, after a while, he just started, like, just leaving and just kind of disappearing for a few days and stuff.
	And, yeah, and then my parents even got, like, the cops involved and things.
	Actually, this one time, he, like, ran off and I, like, chased him.
	And I was a runner at the time, so there was, like, No way he was really gonna get away from me or anything.
	So we get into this forest and he just kind of stops and then we're just like at this stalemate for a while.
	Just waiting, trying to see what's gonna happen.
	Then eventually, well actually while we were there, I was kind of like saying this stuff to him like, Like, what are you doing?
	Like, I didn't understand. Like, I was so...
	I don't know, dissociated or whatever that I didn't even...
	I was like, what the heck is this?
	What is he doing? What is all this stuff about?
	So I was, like, maybe talking a little crap to him.
	And then eventually I just...
	It was cold out and I... It was, like, wet in the forest and my feet were getting cold.
	So I just, like, ran back to the house and...
	Then he like went to this grocery store and they saw him there and the cops eventually got him and they like...
	So eventually he was like put in this kind of like institution place for like troubled kids or something and just like exiled from the family and stuff for a while.
	And I was just during the whole time I was...
	Like I maybe saw him twice when he was there.
	I'm sorry, where was he again?
	This kind of like institution place for troubled kids, I guess.
	Like one of those boot campy things?
	No, it was...
	I mean, I think I was just wondering.
	Okay, so I think I know. It's a place where parents send their kids who they consider unmanageable or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Like, he would actually cut his arms a bunch.
	Like, he's got really bad scars on one arm.
	And he'd, like, make self-made tattoos.
	Yeah, just all kinds of stuff.
	So he's a pretty wild child, to say the least, right?
	Yeah. Oh, poor kid.
	Okay. And how old was he when he had his kid?
	He was...
	I think he was 19.
	Yeah. Jesus.
	Poor fucking kid.
	And it was his girlfriend that he had the kid with?
	Yeah. And did they get married?
	I mean, is he involved in the parenting?
	How does that work? It was pretty rocky.
	I don't think they're together anymore as far as I know.
	At least the last that I heard anything. - And do you know if your brother's still involved in parenting?
	No, I don't know anymore.
	When you did know him, did you know if he ever took any parenting classes or anything like that?
	No. Right.
	I don't know if this is true at all, but actually I think what his girlfriend told me at one time was that He actually let his kid just sit in this soiled diaper for a whole day or something.
	But I don't know how true that is.
	Do you know what happened to your brother that made him a self-cutter and giving himself his own tattoos and all that kind of stuff?
	I mean, you aren't born that way, right?
	When people aren't born wanting to hack their own skin, right?
	Just kind of maybe a different kind of abuse than what I had or just a different way of responding to the abuse or something.
	Am I right in assuming that you've not been a self-cutter?
	After I dropped out of college after a while and I was living with my brother and we were like, We really got into drugs and stuff and I would kind of like say I was smoking pot I'd like take a bowl that I was using and like heat it up and put it on my arm or like take a take like a spoon where they've got that kind of like flowery design on the end or something I'd like brand that into my arm or something so I've got a few like five or six brand scars and Like maybe two cuts on my arm,
	but I never got to the level that he went with it.
	And what about your younger brother?
	I never really knew him too much.
	He... He...
	He's just really shy and quiet, I guess.
	He doesn't... Do you think that the dream is...
	I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, I think my littlest brother, that my parents, I don't know, kind of like treated him better than they did me and my oldest younger brother.
	Because they were both youngest children, and so I don't know.
	Maybe they're trying to make their lives better through their youngest kid or something.
	I don't know. Right.
	Well, their lives won't get better by behaving better, except by attempting restitution with the wrongs they've done.
	Alright, so let's go on to your dream, unless there's more that you want to add.
	And of course, I mean, it really needs to be said that I just have huge, huge sympathy for what you all experienced.
	I mean, that's some seriously messed up symptoms, which doesn't mean that you and your brother are messed up.
	It just means that some bad stuff had to happen, in my opinion.
	For this to manifest, that level of self-cutting, and also the drug use, right?
	I mean, I don't know if you've seen the bomb of the brain stuff, but drug use is highly correlated with childhood abuse, and I'm so sorry.
	Like, while I was using the drugs, I would be really, like, I guess, out of touch with things.
	Like, last summer, I stopped with, like, all the The more psychedelic stuff I was doing and then I just kind of stuck with pot for a while.
	And then I stopped with pot finally and just like I felt like anxious all the time and so I was definitely masking.
	Masking stuff with that.
	Alright, so is there more you want to talk about with that?
	Should we take a look at the dream? Yeah, let's go to the dream.
	Alright, so I'm just looking at the second paragraph.
	You're on a cell phone doing some sort of self-knowledge talking.
	That's very important. The first action in a dream, rather than just the landscape, in my opinion, this is all just my opinion, right?
	There's no science behind any of this.
	We're just, you know, we're just talking about silly opinions about dreams, right?
	So this may or may not be true.
	I just don't want to put that up front.
	But the way that I start with my own dreams is, okay, the landscape is important because the landscape tells me a time frame.
	Because dreams, they're about the past, they're about the present, or they're about the future.
	It's, you know, one of the three, right?
	This dream would seem to be about the past because it is specifically referencing a time in your life when you were staying in the same bedroom as your brother or brothers, right?
	Yeah. And yet it's not the bedroom that you recognize, right?
	Nope. So, again, the dream to me is telling me that this is your history, but you don't know it.
	Because if you did know it, it would look exactly like you remembered it, right?
	Yeah. Now, if I'm not being clear, just tell me, Steph.
	Yeah, you're clear. I guess I don't see it yet.
	No, no. Wait.
	Don't see what? I guess seeing how what you're saying is right or whatever.
	Oh, listen. This is not about right or wrong.
	This is the way I would approach a dream like this.
	So if I have a dream about...
	When I was six, and I completely vividly remember my bedroom when I was six.
	If I have a dream about when I was six, and it's in the bedroom that I was in, then it's about something very specific that happened when I was six.
	But if I dream about being six, and I'm in the same bed that I was in when I was six, but I'm on a space station, then it's saying that there's something I don't know about when I was six.
	Because if I did know it, it would be just...
	It would be the same environment.
	There would be nothing surprising in it, right?
	But the fact that you're in this environment that you were in in the past, but you don't recognize it, means that there's something that you don't know or recognize about your history.
	Okay. Does that make sense?
	Yeah. Because your dream could completely reproduce.
	Like, if you close your eyes and you picture your bedroom when you were 16 or whatever, you can do that, right?
	You may not know every detail, but you know what was in your bedroom.
	So if the dream is giving you the situation but in a different environment, it's saying here's something you don't know.
	Now, did you have a cell phone when you were a teenager?
	No, I didn't get one until after I was an adult.
	Okay, so the cell phone, I would bet, is a reference to the Skype call.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Right? And it's saying that the Skype call that you had is going to reveal to you something about your history that you don't know yet, because it takes you back in time but puts you in an unfamiliar environment, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	So you finish talking on the phone and then decide to go to sleep.
	Yeah. Now, to help you understand, this sentence I had a little trouble with.
	So you say, the first of the second layer dreams is one in which I'm having this feeling of being violated and needing to wake up to attend to myself.
	I didn't quite understand that language.
	I just want to make sure it's an unusual way of putting it.
	Because, you know, it might be like, fight off my attacker or get away or something, but wake up to attend to myself.
	What does that mean? I don't know.
	Just, like, take care of myself, basically.
	Wake up and... That's not...
	I mean, sorry. That's not...
	There's something that, to me, is a little off about that.
	Like, if I brush my teeth, I'm taking care of myself.
	If I shower or I go to the gym, I'm taking care of myself.
	None of those are specific to being attacked, right?
	Yeah. So help me to understand what you mean when you say that.
	It's an unusual way to put it, which I think is important.
	I guess, like...
	Something to do with like paying attention.
	Like I have to be awake and like have attention of whatever's going on or something.
	Like if I'm sleeping, I'm not paying attention to what's going on or something.
	Okay, so you need to become sort of alert and aware to your surroundings.
	Yeah. And you're trying to wake up, but you can't wake up.
	Did you receive a religious instruction when you were a child?
	Yeah, I was raised a Catholic.
	Right. I'm sorry to ask this bluntly, but did you have a fierce concern or guilt about masturbation when you were young?
	Yes. I would do it and I'd be sitting on the toilet and I'd have this thought of, I don't know if God is watching me do this or something.
	Right. The Virgin Mary is weeping as I flog the bishop.
	Right, right. I understand. Right.
	Because, I mean, the funny thing is that it's almost like to attend to myself would be a very polite way of talking about masturbation.
	I mean, I'm just, it's a possibility, right?
	Because it's such an odd way to put it.
	Because you can't wake up, it could be possible, possible, that you're talking about, that your experience is that if you woke up, you might see that you were groping yourself in the crotch, if that makes any sense.
	Okay, um... I guess that could make sense with, like, um...
	Like, I still masturbate to porn and stuff, and I'm like...
	I'll kind of do these things where I'll try, like, for a while to, like, not.
	And then, like, I'll just get overcome with this, like...
	Lust. Yeah, like, this burning that I just need to get off or something.
	And then I'll just go back to it.
	Yeah, look, there's no doubt that pornography is visually, sexually exciting, and I talked about this before, but my belief is that when we lived in a primitive tribal society, if we saw sex, it would be stimulating to us, and I would imagine there wasn't a lot of privacy in your average Stone Age cave or whatever, so if we saw sex, then we would want to have sex, and that would be sort of biologically programmed into us, that if it's around, we want some, because that's how we replicate our DNA and blah blah blah, right?
	And so to me, I think that human beings are hardwired to respond in a sexually charged way to depictions of sexuality.
	I don't think it's evil or creepy or anything like that.
	I just think that's how we're wired.
	And it may be the case that men are wired more that way than women for various reasons to do with number of eggs versus number of sperm and so on.
	Uh, so I just sort of wanted to, uh, to, to point that out.
	And the reason that I try and like get away from it is like, um, with like what you and, uh, Daniel Mackler have said about just like, if you understand what the people have been through to get on your screen, that like, if you understand what the people have been through to get on your screen, that like, there's no way that you And, um,
	Sorry, I sort of understand what you're saying, but to give an analogy that I think is probably true is that if you're starving and you're standing in front of a buffet, even if you know the buffet has been prepared by slaves, your mouth is still going to water.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
	So I just sort of wanted to point that out because I certainly think that guilt about pornography is not a healthy way to approach it.
	It's like the new Catholicism.
	I think it's more complex and it's more challenging and there's much more...
	Guilt does not provide self-knowledge, right?
	Guilt just weighs you down.
	And I think that to continue to pursue self-knowledge is The worthwhile goal rather than just dropping this big heavy log called guilt on it and thinking that you solved something.
	All right. So anyway, I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	But so then, so you say, at some point I wake up and my brother is on me and feeling me up.
	Now, do you sort of mean that he's groping your genitals through your pajamas or something like that?
	I actually don't know.
	Like, Like how it was or whatever, like if we were naked or anything like that.
	Just that that's what was happening.
	Right, right. Generally.
	So then you finally get him off your bed and he exposes his genitals to you, right?
	Yeah. And then you call 911, but you can't say anything, right?
	Yeah. Now, do you know the statistics...
	Of sexual abuse for kids, just the rough.
	No, I seem to remember you said something like 1 in 10 for boys or something one time.
	Yeah, I mean, this is what I've heard.
	Again, I don't know the degree to which it's all scientifically verified, but it seems to be fairly consistent that it's 1 in 5 for girls and 1 in 10 for men.
	And what is deeply shocking about that is that that is not the major topic of conversation in the world.
	I mean, I can't imagine a more important topic.
	Can you imagine this?
	Imagine if one in five women in the workforce had been raped at work.
	Imagine what would happen to the world if that were revealed.
	There would be no other topic of conversation.
	You would hear about nothing else.
	People would be marching in the streets.
	They would be up in arms. They would be burning effigies.
	They would be rioting. I mean, Jesus.
	Clarence Thomas makes a joke to Anita Hill about a pubic hair in a can of Coke, and everybody goes insane.
	If one in five workers were raped on the job, who were women, and one in ten men were raped on the job.
	Now, I know that childhood sexual molestation does not only mean rape, so that's That's an extreme way of putting it, but you can see how insane our society is that that is not a huge topic, but it's something that you kind of have to look to find.
	And you never hear this on the news.
	You never hear it in mainstream shows.
	60 Minutes is too busy following around the victims of abuse as they go blow people up in Afghanistan and wet dreaming all over them to actually deal with the real issues in society.
	Childhood sexual abuse is staggering.
	We don't like what it says about our society.
	We don't like what it says about our contemporaries.
	We don't like what it says about the adults around us.
	It's a massive conspiracy of silence.
	Because there is something deeply fucking wrong with the culture that molests 20% of its girls and 10% of its boys.
	There is something so deeply messed up.
	And not just about the people who are doing the molestation, but the people who allow it to happen.
	And the people who are silent about it happening.
	That is the core evils of culture.
	Of lies. If it were happening to adults.
	That's what I always think about. If it were happening to adults.
	What if a boss didn't like the report that his female employee wrote for him and in the middle of a board meeting He pulled her down on his knee, ripped up her dress, ripped off her panties, and spanked her.
	Can you imagine what would happen to this man if he did that to an adult?
	But if it happens to children, it's called discipline.
	If it happens to an adult who is far, far more independent than a child is, that would be criminal behavior.
	So I'm simply pointing that out to say that it is not outside the statistical bounds of possibility that what you're dreaming about is real.
	I mean, I don't know if it is or if it isn't.
	If it was one in a million, we'd say, okay, it's a metaphor, right?
	If it's one in ten, and I say that the likelihood goes up even higher than that, because that's one in ten in average.
	Right? You already come from a dysfunctional home.
	That raises the odds. Because the one in ten includes non-dysfunctional homes, or at least far less dysfunctional homes.
	If you add to that The reality that your brother has self-mutilation and drug addiction, promiscuity, a lack of capacity to process the effects of his actions, i.e.
	getting a girl pregnant when he's 19.
	This all looks pretty fucking grim in terms of his adverse childhood experience score, his ACE score.
	I don't know if you're familiar with that or not.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	So, according to those symptoms, right?
	Some seriously bad shit happened to this guy as a kid.
	Yeah. And so, I would not immediately discount this as metaphorical.
	I don't know. I don't know.
	Obviously, I don't think you know.
	Your brother may know. I don't know if you can ask him or not.
	Might be worthwhile to ask him if you can.
	And say, look, I had this dream.
	Did this ever happen to you?
	And then you call 911 and you can't talk about it, right?
	Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, think of all of these fucking priests who molest these children.
	This goes on for decades.
	Do you think the parents don't notice that there's a change in the children?
	Do you think that there's just not this general awareness?
	You know, people...
	They've done studies, and Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in Blink, they've done studies where they play 15 seconds of a garbled professor's voice to people.
	They don't even know what he's saying.
	It's only 15 seconds.
	And they can tell whether he's a good or bad professor, just based on that.
	They can tell If they just play 10 or 15 seconds of a garbled doctor's voice, people can predict how often he's going to be sued for malpractice just based on that.
	People can process things so incredibly quickly and incredibly deeply, and the unconscious has been fairly well established to have 7,000 times the processing power of the conscious mind.
	And little, little children, Can tell the levels of racism within their parents just by looking at a few seconds of body language when that parent is exposed to a picture of somebody from another race.
	90 to 95% of communication is nonverbal.
	Everything is going on at the unconscious.
	Do you think people don't know?
	Of course they know. Of course they know.
	So the fact that you want to call 911 or 911 and you can't talk about it, I think that accords fairly well with the evidence.
	Yeah, like, one time when I was younger, I was sleeping over at a best friend at the Times place, and, like, earlier he had told me how, like, he was gay, and he had told me that, like, one way that, like, gay people will, I don't know, like, try and figure out if someone else is gay is to, like, kind of grope them or something and, like, see where it goes.
	Right. He did that while we were sleeping.
	He slowly crept his hand across my body closer to my crotch.
	When he got right almost there, I couldn't stand the uncomfortableness anymore.
	Then I just moved to signify that I was awake or something and didn't want him to do it.
	Then he stopped and I guess we went to sleep.
	So, like, in that moment I couldn't just be like, hey, what the fuck's going on here?
	Like, I was scared to even, like, assert my preference that he not do this.
	Right. And the fact that you felt uncomfortable asserting sexual boundaries may also be important.
	Yeah. Alright, so let's, again, there's no answer to this other than I think you just need to think about it.
	And if you can talk to your brother or any other family member about any family history of this kind of stuff or anybody who knows anything, again, the odds of getting the truth are not very high, but it may be worth, you may get a lot just from asking the question.
	So I've never played Zelda, and I don't have a Game Boy, but I think I sort of under Psycho Dungeons and Dragons cartoon game, right?
	Yeah, something like that.
	Show me the beginning.
	Hmm, okay, that's interesting.
	So people say, how do you get your skills?
	So they're saying, show me how good you are at this video game, is that right?
	Something like that, yeah.
	I'm not sure exactly what they meant by it.
	But you're trying to show them something, right?
	Because you leap off the cliff and fall into a hole, right?
	Yeah. So you have a shield, do not yet have a sword.
	Shield, but do not yet have a sword.
	Look, this is just what comes into my mind, right?
	So this is, again, nothing about this is true.
	This is just what comes into my mind.
	In my mind, having a shield but not a sword is like being a victim of child abuse.
	You can do stuff to protect yourself, but counterattack, so to speak, is not possible.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	Because you say the monsters come, but you have to run away from them because you don't have the means to take them down.
	And that, to me, is being a kid who's dependent and you're in a situation of abuse or whatever, you can do some stuff to protect yourself, but you can't fight back.
	Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the things that I kind of feel that I have going on right now is I kind of expose more of this stuff.
	I just have these shields that are They don't really work anymore.
	Somebody has just pointed out in the chat room, you start off as a child in Zelda, if that's of any importance.
	Yeah. What are your associations with bats?
	None that I know of.
	Because the interesting thing is that a bat is also, I mean, the unconscious uses language in many ways, and a bat is almost like a weapon, right?
	It's something that is both attacking you, but it's also another word for what you lack, which is a weapon or a sword, right?
	Like a baseball bat. Yeah.
	Just sort of noticing that.
	Bats that fire lasers.
	I mean, that sounds like something out of Austin Powers, you know, sharks with laser beams, bats with freaking lasers, right?
	Yeah. And this is the kind of thing where you say in video game fashion, you're reborn, right?
	Yeah. And the fact that you're going down a hole into a cave, to me, this is about introspection.
	This is about knowing yourself.
	A cave, to me, is a metaphor for the inner world.
	You know, because it's like your brain is in a cave, and the cave is called the skull, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	And, you know, what's interesting is you fall in a hole into your brain or into your skull, and this came after a conversation, right?
	Now, in conversations, you speak using a hole called your mouth, and you hear using a hole called your ears, right?
	So the fact that you fall through a hole into your mind is, I think, fitting because it's conversation that gets us to self-knowledge, conversation with ourselves, conversation with others.
	And the reason that I say it's not the real world, but rather your mind, is because when you die, you get reborn, right?
	Yeah.
	So it's clearly not the real world.
	So it's like a dream about what's going on in your mind, which is really kind of trippy.
	We're definitely doing some sort of Leonardo DiCaprio movie here, right?
	But I think that's interesting.
	And of course, we also know it's not the world because your unconscious is perfectly aware that bats don't fire lasers, right?
	Yeah. So I think what your unconscious is saying here is, look, introspection will not get you killed.
	It may feel like you're dying, but you won't die.
	Introspection is different from what happened in the real world.
	Whoa. Wow.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, that's cool.
	Like, you know how the movies...
	Sorry, you know how in movies like Inception and The Matrix, they always have this problem, which is like if it's just a dream, there's nothing at stake, right?
	Yeah. Like if you get killed in the dream or you get killed in the video game, everybody knows you don't die in real life.
	If you dream that you're dying, you don't die in real life, right?
	So they always have this problem in movies where they are using dream states, which is, well, how is it real?
	Yeah. And so what they do in The Matrix is they say, well, if you get shot in the dream and die, then you die in real life, right?
	And same thing with Inception, right?
	Your body thinks that you're dead and so it dies, right?
	But the reality is that confronting inner fears only feels like the outside world, but it's completely not.
	I mean, if I am looking at a picture of a lion running at me, like a video, I may feel that it's real, but it's not real.
	There's no chance that the movie of the lion is going to eat me.
	So I'm merely experiencing the emotions, but there are no physiological direct violent consequences to those emotions, right?
	Like if you look at a picture of somebody who harmed you in the past, you may feel fear or anger or disgust or hatred or whatever.
	But there's no chance that that picture is going to come to life and do the same thing to you again, right?
	Yeah. Like introspection can't get you killed.
	It just feels that way, right?
	Sometimes. Yeah, that makes sense to me because I do have a fear of certain areas or something with introspection.
	And that makes perfect sense because if you didn't have those fears, right?
	I mean, to tell you sort of like a funny little story, when I was working up north for this mining company, we used to, a friend of mine and I, we worked up there, we were in the bush for months at a time, and we would take the snowmobile and we would drive these huge drills around, we'd drill down to get the core samples from right above the bedrock and all this, and it was fun, exciting, exhausting work.
	And he was driving the motor, sorry, he was driving the snowmobile one day, and I was sitting on the back with all the drill bits, and I was looking up At the sky.
	And we must have been on this thing for like 45 minutes.
	He was driving along. He was driving along.
	And I just started, for funsies, I just started to mess around with my perspective.
	Because, you know, I was a little bored. It was just, you know, just driving through the snowy woods.
	And it was a beautiful blue sky day.
	And I sort of messed around with my perspective.
	And I started to think, well, what if...
	What if we were actually driving along the underside of some world?
	And these weren't tree branches.
	These were tree roots that were coming down from the bottom of the world.
	And we were actually upside down.
	And I started to freak myself out a little bit.
	I really did. Because it felt like I'm going to fall.
	Because I'm not looking up.
	I'm looking down. And these are tree roots, not tree branches.
	And I was doing okay. It was kind of fun to mess around with my perspective that way.
	I was doing okay. And then we drove onto a lake, a frozen lake, and all the trees vanished.
	And I literally felt like we were about to fall into the sky.
	And I gripped I gripped the bars, the drill bits or the drill rods.
	I gripped them so hard, I cramped my hands.
	I think I broke a nail. Because I genuinely felt that I was about to fall into the sky.
	I used to do this a little bit when I was younger.
	You know, you look up at a cloudy sky and you see stars.
	I'd sort of think about like I was on the underside of a space station and I was looking down and seeing cities on the earth, not looking up and seeing stars in the sky.
	Now, of course, I wasn't about to fall, but it genuinely had messed up with my perspective so much that I genuinely felt that I was about to fall right off the bottom of the world into the sky forever.
	But that's sort of like introspection, right?
	It feels like it, but it's not real.
	And that's what it means to confront your fears.
	And that's what they do with progressive exposure, right?
	So if you're afraid of spiders, then you look at pictures of spiders and, you know, you just sort of go slowly to progress to the point where you're actually handling spiders.
	But you don't handle a black widow, right?
	Because a black widow can bite you and kill you.
	You handle harmless spiders so that you recognize that your fear is not empirical, if that makes sense.
	Did I completely lose you or does that make sense?
	No, that all makes sense.
	Alright, alright, okay. So, I think that's what your unconscious is telling you.
	Look, there are bats with lasers, there's some scary shit in your head, but it's not real.
	It's not real in the way that it was.
	The fears were real in the past, but confronting them now won't get you killed.
	Does that sort of make any sense?
	Yeah. Um...
	So after you wake up from that second dream within a dream, you say, then I'm overcome by fear of being caught and punished for this transgression.
	This is because you're in an emptied out church.
	You have a chalice filled with what I assume was wine, and you toss it on the floor violently, staining the carpet.
	Now, if you're Catholic, of course, it's not wine, is it?
	According to the superstition, right?
	No. It's blood, right?
	And it's no more real Than the bats and lasers in the video game, right?
	Yeah. And so here, I think your dream is telling you, your unconscious is telling you, that you are not afraid of the world, but the people in it.
	You're not afraid of a lion...
	You're afraid of people putting you in the lion cage.
	Because you say very clearly, I'm overcome by fear of being caught and punished for this, quote, transgression, right?
	So you spill some wine, and you're not afraid of God.
	You're not afraid of going to hell.
	You're not afraid of divine punishment or retribution or the archangel Gabriel coming down and bitch-slapping you all over the cathedral.
	You're afraid of being caught and punished by people, I would assume.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	So, I mean, I've always said God is the fear of other people, right?
	People say they believe in God because they're just afraid of being punished if they admit that they don't believe in all this nonsense, right?
	So this is, I think, saying that the source of your anxiety and your fear is the fear of punishment for things that you don't believe in.
	Because this is not internalized.
	You don't say to yourself, I have done something wrong by my own standards of value.
	I have transgressed my own virtues.
	You say, shit, I'm going to get caught and punished.
	That's not a moral argument.
	That's just a consequences argument, right?
	Yeah. You know, like if you...
	If every time a rat goes left in a maze, you hit it with a taser, it's not going to go left anymore, right?
	But that's not because the rat says it's immoral to go left.
	It's like, shit, left means taser, right?
	So it's saying that the values that you had as a child were inflicted and enforced.
	They weren't moral, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, it does. I mean, there was never any empirical evidence provided to you for Jesus and God and the angels and Mary and that masturbation is bad and like there was never any of this was ever given to you, right?
	I mean, it's all just asserted through fear of punishment, whether that punishment is eternity in hell or rejection and attack by the crazy culty social circle called religiosity.
	It's not a moral argument.
	It's just an argument from punishment and bribery through heaven, right?
	Alright, so let's see if we can finish up just as we end up the show.
	How are you doing with this conversation?
	Is this useful? Yeah, it's really useful.
	Like myself, I just didn't want to look at the dream and think about it.
	Well, that's not entirely true because you posted it and called in, so you kind of didn't do it, right?
	You want to, but maybe other people in your head don't, right?
	Yeah. Alright, so you're awake in the first level dream, and that's so you're no longer in the room.
	You're now located in the seedy-looking area of some town.
	Is it daytime or nighttime? Maybe in between.
	Like sort of dusk, I assume, right?
	Yeah, it wasn't like in between night and day.
	It would have been between day and night.
	So these red and blue lights flashing, that's police, right?
	Yeah. And you get hope that you're about to be found, but you can't quite see...
	Where the lights are coming from. And when you say found, are you being found because you stained the carpet with the blood of Buddy Jesus, or is it something else?
	Oh, I didn't think about that.
	I was thinking in the dream about found and, I guess, helped from this earlier call that I made about the molestation.
	Oh, right, right. Okay.
	So... So you want to be found here because you think the cops are going to come and question you about the molestation, right?
	Yeah. All right.
	So you call 911, but the guy can't hear you.
	I tried reading the building signs to tell them where I was, but it was hard.
	What was hard about it? They were blurry or they were written in a strange language?
	They were blurry, but also, I don't know how to explain the shift thing, but it was like, I don't know, it was just weird.
	Like, I don't know how to explain it.
	Are you an anarchist?
	Yeah. No, I mean, it's a good question.
	Not everyone who calls it is, right?
	I just want to make sure. Yeah, yeah.
	Because an anarchist would not be particularly surprised if a government agency did not help, right?
	Yeah, true. But this is, again, I think we're talking about a time when you were younger, right?
	So, okay, this is interesting.
	Look at this juxtaposition, right?
	So, in this juxtaposition, You fear immediate punishment from authority when you spill some crappy wine on a carpet, right?
	But then when you really need help from authority, which is the two times you call 911, you don't get help.
	Yeah. Now, this I'm quite passionate about, so give me just two seconds to talk about this, because this is something that really pissed me off when I was a kid, that any time I did something that the adults disagreed with, I'd just get punished.
	I'd get caned in boarding school.
	I'd get spanked or beaten up at home.
	I would get punished in school.
	We'd get detentions.
	We would get all of these crazy things.
	If you did anything that the adults found displeasing or threatening, they'd just punish the shit out of you.
	On the other hand, if you ever needed the adults to do something moral and virtuous for you, well, no fucking help, right?
	I remember hiking in the woods with a friend of mine once when I was about, I don't know, 12 or 13 or whatever, and some kids, older kids, they were sort of 17 or 18, they trapped us and they threatened us, they hit my friend, and I said to the guy back when I was young and foolish, I said, Something like, I just said, why don't you pick on someone your own size?
	Because it was really, my friend was like 12 and this guy was like 17 and a giant, right?
	He hit my friend and then he punched me in the stomach.
	And they must have kept us there for, I don't know, it's hard to say, an hour or two or whatever, right?
	And we were terrified. And...
	When we came back at school on Monday, one of the guys passed me in the hallways because I went to the same school, and he sort of laughed at me and said, hey, how was your weekend?
	You know, because they knew that they'd scared the crap out of us before letting us go.
	And I absolutely knew for sure that there was no way to go to adults for help.
	No way to go to adults for help.
	That all was going to happen was that something would happen which would make my situation worse.
	In other words, that adults were perfectly happy.
	To pour all the shit slide of punishment on me when I did something wrong, but they would do nothing to help or protect me.
	And I think a lot of people who go through bullying experience the same thing.
	Nothing to help or protect me.
	If I actually needed some help from authority, not authority punishing me for stupid, inconsequential shit that didn't matter.
	Like climbing over the wrong wall in border school got me caned.
	Didn't matter. I was perfectly able to climb over that wall.
	It's just that wasn't allowed. Right?
	So authority was just this big punishment machine, but the moment you needed something from authority, suddenly they were nowhere to be found in terms of helpfulness.
	And that's one of the things I think that made me quite skeptical about authority when I was younger.
	Right? So you're afraid of being punished for something that's not even wrong, but then when you actually need help to deal with molestation, there's nobody around, right?
	Yeah. They think they're a prank caller, they won't reply, and so on, right?
	And you say there's also people around you who you decide not to tell about the molestation dream or the molestation experience, I guess it would be for you in this case, right?
	Because you didn't know that it was a dream in the dream, right?
	Yeah. And now you say there are people around.
	I was getting worried about the people, so I start to run.
	What were you getting worried about with the people?
	They were like coming after me or something.
	Okay. Okay. Right.
	So if you try to get help, then people will come after you.
	The reality is, and again, I use the word conspiracy here very loosely, but there is a huge conspiracy of people who mistreat children in this world.
	A huge conspiracy, which is why people don't like to confront abusive parents.
	A huge conspiracy of people who abuse children.
	I don't just mean child molesters, but lots of other people.
	A huge conspiracy of silence.
	So when you actually start trying to talk about child abuse or molestation or whatever in the dream, You feel that everyone's going to start coming after you.
	And this is the reality of the supposedly moral world that we live in.
	Which is that the victims get blamed, right?
	It's the whistleblowers who get thrown in jail.
	And so, you victim, in your dream of a mollusk, you're trying to call for help.
	And that brings people against you.
	You start to become frightened of them.
	This is not unknown to me as well.
	That if you try to help children, people know like you, right?
	Because there's just so many of them who do wrong by children.
	All right, so did Holstein change as you transported to this sort of wet living cave with pinkish walls?
	Womb or brain? Let's find out.
	So there are three corridors I can go down.
	One to the left, one across from me, one to the right.
	The corridor was behind me, which apparently it came from.
	Pitch black down it.
	This ominous one caused me to feel that that's the one.
	Well, this is very clear, right?
	So this is you going into your own mind, right?
	Yeah. So, I mean, a wet living cave with pinkish walls, that's your brain, right?
	Yeah. Are you left-handed by chance?
	No. Yeah, so it's no longer you're going into the deep dark recesses of my mind.
	Now, I will sort of end with this comment and then of course ask if you have any questions, right?
	I would first of all propose that it is not the deep dark recesses of your own mind that you're going into, but you are actually trying to empathize with an abuser you have internalized. but you are actually trying to empathize with an abuser A good man, and by that I don't mean a perfect man, but a good man has nothing to fear from introspection.
	I don't fear introspection.
	And that doesn't mean that I don't ever get afraid when I introspect.
	I certainly do. But I don't fear introspection.
	Because I have not done wrong to children.
	Or stood by when wrong is being done to children whenever I've had the capacity to act.
	So my conscience is clear.
	And I've done a lot of work and I continue to do a lot of work to keep my conscience clear.
	That doesn't mean I'm perfect.
	Lord knows. The perfect is the enemy of the good, right?
	Perfection is the enemy of virtue.
	But am I right in assuming that you do not have a lot of bad actions on your conscience?
	Not a lot, but, like, I was the oldest, and so I had some not good things that I would do to my brothers.
	So there's a fair amount.
	Like when my youngest brother was like a toddler or something, I don't know, do you know those trolls that like have a pointy hair on top of their heads?
	The little pencil ones?
	Yeah. With the pink hair, right?
	Yeah, but they also have like bigger doll type ones too.
	And so we had some of them around the house and so they would just scare the crap out of my little brother.
	My other brother and me, we'd hold it in front of his face and freak him out.
	And there's other things, too, that we'd do.
	In playing video games with my oldest, younger brother, we'd play this game where it was a one-player game.
	There was this kind of minor character that you could play, but the game would focus on the main character.
	My brother would either, he'd have to play the secondary character or he'd have to play the non-player characters.
	We're not exactly talking like savage kinds of abuse or anything like that, right?
	No, no.
	So then my question would be, if your conscience is relatively clear, right?
	I'm not saying that nobody's perfect, but if your conscience is relatively clear, there's no such thing as perfect health.
	There's always some part of you that's got some minor problem, even if you don't know it, right?
	But if your conscience is relatively clear, then what is this black hole that you're falling down into?
	Right? Because... The brain can be thought of as a series of tubes, much like the internet.
	But I think of the brain sort of like, let's use a religious reference, since that's familiar to you, right?
	So you know the organs in the backs of churches.
	They've got these big triangles of organs, and they have these big vertical pipes with these flutes in them, right?
	They're sort of bronze, or they can be silver or whatever.
	You know those kinds of pipes, right?
	Yeah. Well, this is how I view the mind, that I have a whole series of pipes within me, and the aggregation of them all is my entire identity.
	A lot of the pipes are people that I've internalized for various reasons.
	I think everybody we have any kind of interaction with, we internalize.
	This is why it's very important to manage who you spend time with, because everybody gets transplanted inwards.
	Everybody beams into the mothership.
	Everybody beams into the mothership who's around, which is why it's very important to...
	To manage who you're with, right?
	It's like when I'm at the library, I don't touch the kids with the snotty nose.
	I don't touch the kids in general, but I don't touch the toys they played with.
	I make sure that I wash my hands because I don't want to spread a cold.
	Even if I've already had it and don't get it, my daughter hasn't and will.
	So, these vertical pipes in the mind, when you're falling down a black hole, it may not be you.
	It may be somebody else that you're falling down, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah. I guess that freaks me out.
	Go on. Like, sometimes the things that my parents have done to me, like, in the middle of the night, because...
	My brother and I were talking when we were supposed to be going to sleep.
	They'd like have us come out and stand in the corner for like an hour or two.
	And like recently I tried doing that myself for 45 minutes and it was just awful, just like a torture.
	And that was me as an adult.
	Sorry, is it because you guys weren't going to sleep when you should have been going to sleep?
	Yeah. And, like, so I try to wrap my mind around just, like, what kind of person would do that to a kid?
	And I'm just trying to imagine myself doing that.
	I just couldn't do it.
	It was, like, I just got all weird feeling and, like, disgusted.
	And I just didn't want to go to that.
	Well, you know, I hate to say it, but I think it's, I mean, I think it's an important thing to examine.
	I mean, this is the theme.
	It's the same thing that the last guy I was talking about with regards to his dad.
	Right? My idiot amateur opinion is that, and this is not just my opinion, you can read this in Jung and Freud and other people, that you have to explore the dark side.
	Now people say that every human being has a dark side.
	I think that's bullshit. That's like saying everybody has cancer.
	No. Not every human being has a dark side.
	But the problem is, the dark sides we are exposed to are infectious.
	Right? So we have no choice.
	If I'm tortured, the torturer passes into my mind and stays, takes up residence.
	Everybody is a squatter in our minds.
	Everybody. We adapt, we internalize, we replicate.
	We get alter egos.
	I don't think that's going to be the case in the future, but I do notice that this is the case even with my daughter.
	Who at the age of one year was reaching for something and told herself no.
	In other words, reaching something she shouldn't have and told herself no.
	And then took her hand back. So she'd internalized me saying, no, please don't do that.
	And so she told herself that.
	So she internalized me without me even saying so.
	Like she actually spoke the word?
	Yeah. No.
	And then, so she was being me, telling herself no.
	And then she took her hand back.
	And that's good. I think that's healthy.
	There are some restrictions on her behavior, obviously.
	I'd rather she internalize, but she internalizes good things too, right?
	So when she successfully does something, she'll jump up and down, clap her hands and say, good job, Ibiya.
	Which is exactly what Christina and I did.
	Yay, good job!
	She'll cheer herself. I think that's great.
	I want her to have an entire cheering section of daddy's in a tutu jumping up and down.
	Sorry for that mental image, but hey, trauma continues.
	So the black hole that you're going down, we tend to, one of the things that happens to us when we're victimized as children is we tend to think that everything is us.
	We tend to internalize everything.
	But I think it's really, really important to break apart that which is us and that which is inflicted on us.
	So if some guy stabs me in the side, I have a wound, but the wound is not mine.
	The wound belongs to the guy who stabbed me.
	I have to deal with the wound.
	I have to live with the wound. I have to work with the wound.
	But the wound is not mine.
	I didn't stab myself. And it's more true of mental wounds than it is physical wounds.
	My mother owns my cortisol levels.
	They're her doing. I have to live with them.
	I have to manage with them. I have to Make sure that I keep them.
	But the stress levels, these are the things that were inflicted upon me.
	I don't own them.
	I mean, I have a responsibility for them now as an adult.
	If some guy breaks my leg with a baseball bat, I have to go to rehab to get it strong again.
	But it's not like I broke my own leg.
	I don't own that injury.
	I'm responsible for taking care of it.
	I don't own it. And the things that were done to you, you don't own them.
	They're in you. You have to deal with them.
	But they're not yours.
	So the black holes that you're falling down, I wouldn't personalize them like you have this big, massive dark side or whatever.
	Maybe it's true. I don't know.
	I don't know you, but I wouldn't start with that.
	I would start with externalizing.
	So one of the things that gets abused children's wires crossed is we internalize what we should externalize, and we externalize what we should internalize.
	That's how the wires get crossed, and this is how so many people never escape the cycle of abuse.
	So we internalize the dark side of the people who abused us.
	Like, we have a dark side.
	My mind is black holes and bottomless pits and so on.
	No, no, no, no, that comes from outside.
	And then we externalize what we should internalize.
	We project out into the world, as we were talking about with the guy whose father was a bully, we project out into the world that stuff which is actually internal, which is people within our own minds.
	We then try and project that out onto the world just to get them away from us, get some relief for a moment.
	But I would not assume that you have a big black hole that is your doing and your making and your personality alone.
	It may be something that's just transplanted in you from somebody else who genuinely has a black hole in their own minds of guilt and self-hatred and shame and rage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	That's where I'd look first.
	Not in just you, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, that does. One of the things that I've had is this, like, I don't know, thinking of...
	Like, I'll question if I'm, like, a sociopath or psychopath or a narcissist or something.
	Like, I'll think I have this bad side.
	Sure. So it totally makes sense.
	Yeah, I mean, I would not look there first.
	I wrote in... In my therapy journal, I still remember it, gosh, more than a decade later.
	I wrote, I mean, it's mildly graphic, but I wrote, I fell out of the hole of my mother, which was a reference to me being born.
	I fell out of the hole of my mother, and then I fell into the hole of my mother, which was her emptiness.
	And so I understand what that is, but that's not something that's innate to me, that is native to me.
	me.
	That's just something I had to internalize to survive.
	I'll just leave you with one metaphor and then we'll stop if that works.
	And I used this in my recent speech.
	In law, and I think it's a good law, if I go into a convenience store and I pretend to have a gun in my pocket and I say to the guy behind the cashier, the cashier, I say, give me all the money.
	And he pulls out a gun and tries to shoot me.
	And I dodge and the gun bounces off a pipe and then a paint can and then kills some innocent bystander.
	He pulled the trigger. He pointed the gun.
	He pulled the trigger. Does he get charged with manslaughter?
	No. No.
	Who gets charged with manslaughter?
	You would. Yeah.
	Even though I didn't even have a gun, I didn't have any bullets, I didn't pull a trigger, I didn't pull out a gun, I didn't point a gun, I am responsible for the murder because I set the events in motion that resulted in the murder.
	So the person who is reacting to the aggression is not morally responsible for the result.
	The child is not morally responsible for what happens as a result of trying to deal with aggression on the part of a parent or other caregiver.
	That's what I mean when we say we don't own it.
	I don't own it. It was done to me.
	I don't own it. It's not my moral responsibility.
	It is my moral responsibility to not reproduce it.
	Right? It's not my moral responsibility that all this shit was done to me as a kid and that everybody stood by and cheered or looked away or pretended that nothing happened.
	That's their moral responsibility.
	I won't take a shred of it.
	That's their shit to deal with.
	And they can try and project that into me if they want, but it's just not mine.
	And that's what I would focus on, that you have to stand In a corner for an hour or two.
	I think that's called a stress position torture in Guantanamo Bay, particularly so for a child.
	You had to survive that and it has consequences for you.
	But that is not your responsibility.
	That is 150% your parents doing.
	That black hole is their conscience, not your soul.
	Thank you.
	So I wouldn't say to yourself, I might be a sociopath, I might be a psychopath, I might be any of these things.
	It's not where I would look first.
	Because that's not where the evidence points.
	You didn't force your brothers to stand in a corner for two hours, did you?
	No. Right.
	So we deal with the facts. We deal with the evidence.
	We don't deal with the possibilities.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	And I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
	What a horrible thing to have to go through.
	When my daughter won't go to bed at night, when she's crying in her crib, or she's upset, or she's awake, we go and get her.
	And we cuddle with her, and we ask her if there's anything we can do, and we give her some more milk if she's hungry, or we change her diaper, or we'll watch Toy Story, or we'll make her feel better.
	I can stand in a goddamn corner for an hour.
	That's crazy. And I'm sorry that you had to go through that.
	I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.
	And I'm so sorry about whatever happened to your brother to turn him that way.
	Thanks for saying that.
	I'm so sorry that your unconscious is having to paint these stories, but this is not a darkness that you have to fear is coming from you.
	And I hope that you will continue with the introspection.
	And, uh, I hope that this, I hope this has been helpful.
	Dream analyses are, they're tricky and there's nothing particularly true about them, but I think that there's some, some useful stuff in what we talked about.
	Yeah, I think you were pretty spot on with All of it.
	I'm glad. It's definitely helpful.
	Fantastic. All right. Well, I should probably get back to being a good parent rather than talking about good parenting.
	So thanks, everybody, so much for all of your support.
	And to the two callers today, I really appreciate that.
	I know they were long calls, but I really appreciate that occurring.

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