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Jan. 20, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:18:34
1833 Dating Against the Odds - A Listener Conversation

How to find love in an un-philosophical world.

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Well, so, yeah, I've been working on this, trying to figure this out quite a bit recently, and it seems like I've sort of reasoned myself into a cul-de-sac, and I just keep going in circles.
So, hoping you could help me untangle myself.
It's almost a possibility.
Let's give it a shot. All right.
So, how should I start? Absolutely.
Up to you. Well, I guess the general outline of the thing is that I'm frustrated in a lot of interactions with people because it seems like I'm more conscious of I feel pressure to move quickly in relationships and I think it comes in part from the idea that life is short to some extent and therefore there's limited time and you're only going to be 22 once and you need to try to take advantage of that time.
And it seems like I don't know a lot of people outside of FDR who seem to be aware of that.
And everyone knows those country songs that are like, you know, live while you're dying or live like you're dying or whatever.
And, you know, it's like I'm the guy who's like, hey, let's actually do that.
You know, that sounds like a good idea.
Let's do that.
And then people don't seem to want to so much or don't seem to be able to or something.
Right. It's like a kind of impatience.
I'm like, why can't you guys see this?
Come on, let's go. Time's passing.
Let's go. Every day, every day, every day.
Right. It seems to be technically correct.
The idea that we organize our lives to some extent with the end in mind and that that helps us to prioritize.
I've spent the last few years Prioritizing my time so that I have the capacity to reorganize my schedule when I want to and do the things that I want to do.
But then it's like there's no one to do those things with then because other people haven't taken the time to Can you give me, I'm just trying to make sure I understand that in the sort of here and now sense, what sort of specific examples do you mean?
So, I mean, I guess a precipitating event that is...
I mean, this seems to happen repeatedly, so it's like any event could do it, but the one that's on my mind this week is there's a girl I'm interested in, potentially, and so we've gone on a couple of dates, and then when, I guess on Monday...
We were going to do something, go to dinner or something.
And she canceled on me.
And it turned out it was because she was feeling overwhelmed because of something else that was going on with some clubs that she's trying to organize.
And she's like an RA, too.
So something else came up with her job that she has.
And so, I mean, that's okay, because things happen.
All that kind of stuff. But then it happened again, I guess, yesterday.
And I don't know why it happened yesterday yet.
Because we were like, okay, Monday didn't work, so let's try it for tomorrow.
And then tomorrow, which was yesterday, didn't work either.
But I looked at it and I'm like, well, I'm...
I've made my schedule flexible so that I don't have things that come up very often to prevent me from following through on things that I want to do.
But it seems like, you know, I mean, she's obviously hasn't done that.
And so, you know, she wants to do something or says she does.
And then something comes up and it stops her.
And then I'm sort of impatient, like, but, you know, I don't want to waste time because I feel like it's wasting time to not...
I don't know, get together at the right time or something like that.
Right. Okay. So you feel that there's some serious potential in the relationship and you'd like to sort of move it forward, but she's busy, so to speak.
Yeah. Yeah. Like there's some potential and I'd like to find out how much potential there is.
And there's that part of me that's like, you know, time is short, time is short.
You know, time is short. And really, as far as Raleigh is concerned, time is short because once I graduate, I don't plan to stick around.
I mean, unless I have some kind of job opportunity that fits with what I want to do.
Long term, I plan to move to Philadelphia.
So, like, you know, the time period in which I could sort of test and see if I can find more people that I'm compatible with in Raleigh is short.
It's like four and a half months or five months.
Oh boy, right, right. Do you know where she's going?
Because then you're done for the semester.
Do you know where she's going at that point?
Well, she's going to still be here for another year.
Maybe not for the summer, right?
She may be going home or somewhere else for the summer.
Right. So if it did turn out that we wanted to keep going with this, then it would definitely change my plans.
At least for the next year, right?
So then you would stay to pursue the relationship.
Right. Right.
So there is, you know, in that example, there really is a kind of limited time to sort of see if it works.
Right. And is she aware of this from you?
Yeah. Yeah.
That's actually something we talked about pretty early.
I told her about, you know, my plan to move Philadelphia and why I was moving there, you know, to pursue the kind of relationships that I wanted long term.
And, you know, I talked about how I don't feel that I have time for...
To spend time with people who don't seem to have potential, indicated that I wanted to spend time with her because there were things I liked about her and I wanted to explore that further.
And have you guys, I mean, are you romantically involved at the moment or would this be a first date?
Would what be a first date?
Like when you got together? When we got together on...
I guess we went for lunch on Friday, and I guess that was the first date, and then we went for dinner on Sunday.
Right. And this is all before school started, so there's more free time.
School started on Monday, and it starts tomorrow for me.
So that'll obviously...
That was before school started.
Right, right, right. Okay.
And can you tell me a little bit about the woman in question?
Yeah, so she's...
I guess what I've noticed about her and what draws me to her is...
The first thing that I noticed about her, like when we first met in December, we were talking about some of the traveling that we had done.
And, you know, she was telling me about places that she'd been.
And I was talking about, you know, going to India and that kind of thing.
What I noticed and what was interesting was that she was enthusiastic about what she was doing.
I really like that in people to see that enthusiasm and the passion for what they're doing and the interest of what they're doing.
I definitely wanted to find out more about that and then hear more of her stories about going to Egypt and this kind of stuff.
So we arranged to get together on Friday.
It was great because she was interested in things that I was saying.
I was interested in things that she was saying.
It was funny, the things that would come up...
Emotionally, I talked about this idea of moving to Philadelphia to pursue relationships and she seemed to think that was really interesting because the idea that I'm placing such a huge importance on achieving these real relationships.
She expressed some frustration with friends that she had who didn't put the importance on it and indicated that she wanted to That she'd be interested in trying to find, you know, those kind of relationships too.
And so I went on to more detail about what it is that I meant by that.
And I guess that was something else that I thought was interesting about her was that even though she hadn't necessarily heard a lot of this kind of stuff before, she seemed to take to a lot of it pretty quickly.
You know, about the importance of honesty and not just saying it, but actually doing it and what that might look like and that kind of thing.
Right, right.
All right. All of that is not what I'm asking, which you would have no way of knowing, but though it certainly is interesting information.
So let me be a bit more specific.
You have now spent...
At least as far as I remember, three to four years in heavy pursuit of self-knowledge and goal orientation and direction, right?
So that's pretty advanced, right?
Yeah, and she hasn't done that.
See, that was going to be my next question.
And where am I going with this?
Oh, you know so well.
Well, I know. And so part of me is like, you know, I know where you're going with this and I'm kind of embarrassed that No, no, you could be completely right.
These are just questions I have.
These are just cautions that I would have.
I mean, you could be, hey, maybe she's exactly the right woman.
This is just, you know, this is sort of where I want to ask, right?
Yeah, so I mean, the caution is, you know, it's like, well, she hasn't gone through the work.
And so, like, even if she turned out to be the kind of person who did want to go through the work, you know, it would be...
You know, a while before...
Well, it ain't gonna be four months, right?
Right, right. And so, like, there's a pretty...
I'm sorry, I also wanted to mention that you were also in the extremely fortunate position of having a dad, at least, who was, you know, involved and keen, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, which...
That's not common, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, and I know that...
Next question!
What do you know about her family?
I don't know about her family.
So, her family...
Well...
I mean, this sounds also Victorian.
What kind of income does her father have?
Does he have land? Is he titled?
These are questions that we need to ask, right?
So, one thing that I know about her family, about her mom, is that Her mom spent a lot of time during their childhood restarting her career and going back to school and being really, really busy. Now that I say that out loud, it's kind of like, oh, okay.
It makes sense.
She does that with her schedule.
She has filled up her schedule with lots of busyness working toward a career plan.
Yeah. But anyway, so her mom did that.
And I remember like, you know, her talk, the girl I'm interested in talking about the ages, like the age at which she, you know, the age she was when her mom was doing certain things.
So it was like, you know, her mom finished, I guess, finished her degree, her second, you know, her new degree, I guess, when this girl was eight.
Right. So I guess a lot of that early time, those early years, I mean, her mom was around She said that she did spend time with them during the day, but she was gone at night doing night classes and even working a part-time job during a lot of that time.
So her mom was home during the day, is that right?
Yeah, at least part of the day.
So who raised her outside of her mom?
I'm not really sure.
I didn't ask about...
Look, I'm just curious. Again, this is not like cross-examination time for her or you.
I'm just curious. These are sort of important things.
I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
Right, right. But she does have other siblings, and particularly a sister who's pretty close in age, like a year older.
Okay, so there's... Not wanting to sound overly critical, but to have two kids and then go back to school, not the best planning in the world, right?
And so the question to me is always not so much what happened in the family, but what is the awareness of what happened in the family, right?
So does she talk about her mom like, oh yeah, my mom was a real go-getter.
She worked really hard and blah, blah, blah.
Or it was like, yeah, you know, my mom...
Had kids and then decided to go back to school, which was, you know, tough.
I can maybe understand why she did it, but I don't think it was the right sequence or, you know, or anywhere in between.
Yeah, it's more toward the end of the first one, more toward, like, you know, my mom was really hard and she, you know, she sort of overthrew her first career and changed it to something that she liked better and, you know, now she's really successful and whatever.
And that means that the mom...
Hasn't necessarily said, hey, you know, I'm sorry that I was gone for so long.
I realized after you guys were born that I wanted to switch careers and, you know, that must have been tough for you and tell me, you know, what that was like and all that kind of stuff.
If that makes any sense. Yeah, definitely.
Now, was this before she went to school?
Before the girl went to school?
Yeah. She was very young.
Well, I mean, so the mom finished the second degree when she was eight or nine, which would have been like third grade.
She would have been in school, at least by the time the degree was finished.
I didn't...
I'm sorry, did she take two degrees since after her kids were born?
No, I think it was just like, I'm going to go back to school now and get a different degree so that I can do this new thing.
I don't think it was like, I finished a degree and then I'm going to go back and get another degree.
I think it was just the second degree that happened after the kids were born.
Okay, so if she was eight, then it's possible that her mom was home for the first couple of years and then did a degree...
After her daughter went to school?
Yeah, and because the second career is a little higher profile, like she's working for a drug company in some kind of organizational manner now.
So what that means is that the daughter then would be in school during the day and then would not see her mom at night, right?
Yeah, but she did say that her mom was there to, like, was there with them at some point during the day.
So it may have been that she was, like, working in the morning and then was, like, there in the afternoon for a few hours and then went to night classes.
She did say she was there. You mean after the girl came home from school?
She didn't say what time of day, but she did say that she was there during the day.
Maybe lunch. Maybe she came home for lunch and her mom was there.
I don't know if everybody does that, though.
Like, at my school, we never came home for lunch.
I did, but at least when I wasn't in boarding school.
But I live pretty close to the school, but...
Alright. Okay. And what else do you know about her?
What's the story with her dad? I don't know a whole lot about her dad other than that he's also kind of busy working and that kind of thing.
But I do think that he was more...
Probably less emotionally available.
I'm not sure why I think that.
I'm not sure if she said that or if I just got that impression from talking to her.
I'm sure you're right.
That's a good thing about a whole bunch of self-work is you just get to be prejudicial and right.
I don't know why I think that, but I think that's the case.
What do you think about what we're talking about?
What's your experience of what we're talking about?
Is it useful? I mean, it's useful in terms of organizing my thoughts and helping me be conscious about this particular event and this particular experience with this particular person.
But I don't know how it's going to help yet with the overall pattern because it's like a pattern of interaction.
With her or in general?
With people in general.
Right. Right.
And it may help, which is, you know, so I'm perfectly content to go along with it because, you know, it's, I mean, I don't know how to solve this.
So, you know, I'm willing to try anything.
And you don't mind a little bit of profanity in my next story, do you?
Do it. All right.
This is my highly instructive fuck my ass story.
And so I will tell you the fuck my ass story and you'll see if it makes any sense.
So I was...
I can't even remember where.
I was out somewhere with some friends.
We were doing a tour of some kind.
I think it was a museum or something like that.
And there was this woman and she was attractive and she was sort of my age and...
She was... We'll call her Beth.
I don't remember her name, but I'm sure that wasn't it.
So Beth was...
And she was pretty funny.
Like, she was a wisecracker, I guess you could say, right?
So the group was starting to disperse, and she was like, come on, everybody, hold on to the rope, hold on to the rope.
Like, you know, when you're in kindergarten or whatever, and you have to hold on to the rope when you're all going along the street, which I thought was pretty funny.
So I chatted with her for a bit, and I got her number, and we arranged to go out for dinner.
And because she was funny, and I associate that with intelligence, I associate that with, you know, a good humor and so on and all, right?
But, I mean, I didn't know anything about this woman other than that she was funny, and this is, I'm pretty sure, yeah, this was before therapy and before, you know, the big mad plunge into self-knowledge.
And so we go out for dinner, and it was not exactly a spectacular disaster, but it wasn't far short of that.
The only thing that made it not a spectacular disaster was I got a good principle out of it, which I'm going to, you know, share.
And this is not to indicate that this woman you're talking about is anything like Beth in any substantial way.
But anyway, so we sort of start sitting down and she has good humor and she's ebullient and all that kind of stuff.
But, you know, she starts telling me about her ex-husband who...
He played Dungeons& Dragons on doors that he took.
He took the doors off the hinges in the house and he put it down for his Warhammer and Dungeons& Dragons games.
And he smoked pot all the time and she couldn't even go down there because her eyes would water and so on.
And at one point I made some comment about this...
You know, that he must have been somewhat low motivated or whatever.
And she just laughed and she said, fuck my ass he was.
Something like that, right?
And look, I mean, I don't mind crudity.
I don't mind profanity.
I certainly do that Viking dip from time to time.
But on a first date, that may not be a phrase that you lead with.
I mean, this was within sort of 10-15 minutes of sitting down.
And, you know, when you try not to have your eyes widen, I don't know if you've ever had to do that.
You know, if you get a lowball or a highball offer at a job or something like that, you try to keep your poker face.
Well, I was really trying to keep my poker face.
And the reason that that story came to mind was that I said to myself, look, I'm not going to take one characteristic of someone and blow it up into a personality.
Like, she was witty and she was good-natured and she was verbally...
Very fast. But I said to myself, look, I'm not going to take one aspect of a personality and blow it up into a whole character and come to conclusions.
I've got to try and get a sense of the whole person and all that kind of stuff.
And the reason that that popped into my mind, I think, was because you said that the girl was enthusiastic.
That was it. As far as the positives went.
And look, I'm not trying to catch you, and of course I know that there are more or anything like that, but...
Enthusiastic, to me, is funny to this girl, this Beth, in that I guess I would be concerned the degree to which you're trying to look at the whole picture rather than looking at one aspect of the personality and say, well, that's a sign of something really positive and there must be a lot more that's really positive too.
Yeah, I mean, I guess the reason it makes sense to me is because I mean, I don't...
When I meet most people, they're not that way.
Like, they're not enthusiastic about what they're doing, and they are sort of bored with their lives and not aware that they're bored with their lives consciously, you know?
Right, and they want to make other people bored with their lives, too.
Yeah, yeah. When you show enthusiasm, they get cynical or eye-rolly or distant or whatever, right?
Right, right. So meeting her, as far as a first impression goes, it's like, okay, so this is good, you know?
This is at least a good minimum place to start, for sure.
Well, I don't know that it's a minimum place to start or a good place to start.
I'm not saying it's an unattractive quality.
Enthusiasm can be a good quality.
It can be a bad quality, and some people can be very enthusiastic for things that are very bad, right?
You know, like religion or whatever.
But yeah, I'm sure that you're completely right that it's a good quality.
My concern, and this is where I'm going to stop talking, you could do more of the talking, but I guess my question is sort of fundamentally, how do you view the effects of the self-work that you've done over the past couple of years?
Like, how do you think that that places you, or where does that place you?
In this sort of continuum of human knowledge and wisdom and experience and virtue and all that kind of stuff.
I mean, I won't ask any more leading questions.
I'm just sort of asking where you think there's that.
Where does that put you? Well, I mean, frankly, I'm ambivalent about it in times like this because it seems like Part of me really likes the work that I've done and thinks that it sets me in a unique place as far as people go and puts me in a unique position to achieve my values in the way I want to.
It doesn't seem that it's given me the results that I want yet.
I don't know if it's not working.
Let's go with the negative because we usually don't have to worry about ambivalence, the positive, the light side of the yin yang.
So tell me about the effects that it hasn't had for you yet.
Just like finding I mean, as far as finding community where I am and being able to connect with people and, like, I mean, specifically, like, finding a girlfriend or making friends who are consistent.
And you could look at it as either it hasn't helped me find those people or it hasn't helped me, like...
Notice that I'm not doing the right thing to find those people or something.
And so there's still this existential impatience that is there that seems to put me at a disadvantage rather than an advantage in terms of finding what I want relationship-wise.
Right, right.
And even...
Even getting better at honesty with people.
It seems like sometimes those tools of being honest aren't helping me because it scares people.
Sure. Even people who may...
If somebody had come along and been as honest with me six years ago as I sometimes am with people the first time I meet them, I don't know if I would have been scared away.
I don't know if it's like by loading up the truth guns really early in the relationship, I'm scaring people away before they get a chance to see the bigger picture.
If all they notice is this one thing that I say because it's so powerful or frightening to them.
Right. Right.
Well, I think that's endearingly insane.
In a very, very positive way.
I'd love for you to disperse me of the delusion.
Yeah, I mean, and I completely understand it, and I fall into it too, but this is sort of, right, so there's a fundamental question when you grow, and you want, obviously, to find like-minded people, of course.
We're tribal, we're communal, we want people around who share and reflect good values and I've done the work and speak the same language, right?
I mean, if you move to China and it's impossible for you to learn Mandarin, then you better find somebody who speaks English, right?
Because otherwise you're just not going to connect with anyone.
So the question is sort of like this.
So are we looking for a house in the outskirts of a city or are we looking for a house in In a complete wilderness, right?
So if you're looking for a house in the outskirts of a city where houses may be few and far between, sort of farmland or whatever, and then you can keep looking and eventually you'll find a house and you can buy it or whatever, right?
But if you're really out in the wilderness, like dozens of miles from anywhere and you're on foot around looking for a house, then you're not going to find one, right?
Now, if you say, well, I'd rather buy a house than build a house, Then it makes perfect sense to look for a house if there are houses around, even if there are few and far between.
If there are no houses around, then it doesn't make any sense to look for them.
You might as well just accept and build a house, right?
So I think your question is, well, how many of these damn houses are there around, if any?
Because if there aren't any around, then I need to take a different approach than looking for them.
And if there are, why is it that I'm not seeing them?
Right, and so my worry is that I'm not looking for people in the right way, and that maybe there are people here, and I'm not finding them because I'm not looking in the right way.
Well, I don't think you think that, because I know that you're a staggeringly intelligent fellow, and You've been on the message boards for years, and you have the empirical evidence of thousands of people, or at least hundreds, who've spent significant amounts of time looking for philosophers, or people with good self-knowledge and so on.
And what's the evidence?
That is super rare.
Well, it's so rare, in fact, that people have to move to, God help them, Philadelphia, right?
Yeah. And in Philadelphia, there are, what, eight or ten people?
Yeah. Out of, what, a quarter million listeners over the years?
Mm-hmm. So, we have a...
A sample, let's say, of a quarter million listeners over the years.
It's probably more, but let's just go with that.
And of those quarter million people, how many do you feel have dug in for years in a concerted effort towards self-knowledge and living philosophical values and all that?
Maybe 30?
Yeah. My view is a little bit higher because I get emails from people who aren't on the message board.
But even if we say that it's 250, then it's one out of a thousand, right?
Who've listened to the show.
And the population of America is a couple of hundred million.
Of which.00 whatever it is, 1% have had any exposure to free-domain radio and maybe a couple of times that philosophy as a whole that's sort of actionable and so on.
And so I think that we can safely say that, you know, how many people do you know at the campus?
Like that you know at least to the point where you'd have some sort of interaction, some possibility of seeing if they're like-minded.
Or just minded.
Yeah, I mean, maybe 400 or 500.
No, but that you know, that you have some conversational access to.
Oh, I mean, probably if I saw anywhere, probably, yeah, there's probably 400 people that I could talk to.
It's a little bit of a unique case because I've done some stuff with the scholarship that I have, so I at least know the names of and could talk to if I wanted to, just about everybody who has the scholarship, which is like 250 people, lots of other people I've met.
Okay, so a couple of hundred people, right?
Yeah, yeah. And so the odds are statistically that, of course, none of them have had anything to do with free-domain radio.
But even if they had, even if you did find somebody who'd listened to free-domain radio, the...
And I just use this as a proxy for whatever, you know, that they may be into in terms of self-knowledge.
Obviously, I think it's the best resource, but other people have different opinions.
But statistically, like, if you just run the numbers, it's zero, right?
And statistically, we are in a wilderness without houses, wherever we are.
Yeah, and I'd really rather that not be true.
Oh, hey, I hear you.
I absolutely hear you.
Think if you lived in a city of 10 million people, then maybe...
A thousand or so may have had some exposure to free domain radio.
And of those, maybe 10 would have gone full-tilt boogie in terms of self-knowledge.
And how do you find 10 people in a city of 10 million who may or may not be on the message boards, who may or may not be that way inclined, and of course who were on Different levels of the journey.
So some will have been around from the beginning, some are going to go the distance but are just starting out, and some may be taking a break from the whole thing, as people sometimes do.
So these are the numbers we're talking about.
And I know it sucks, but you wouldn't want to, again, be looking for a house in a wilderness and feeling frustrated because you can't find it.
Right. And look, tell me if you think this is wrong or too pessimistic or if there's something I'm missing in the number crunching.
Well, I don't think there's anything missing in the number crunching, but I guess one of the scenarios that I think of is like, One filter would be to find the rare needle in the A-stack if there were to happen to be somebody around.
My idea is that there could be people around who would be open to self-knowledge or could be doing some kind of work on their own and then to inspire them to use a certain resource or to inspire them to know that they're supported or have people around who You know, who could help them or challenge them or whatever.
And then doing that could be good.
And one way to do that would be to be honest with people as quickly as possible so that they either can see it and want it or not.
But it's just, then there's the cultural bias about, you know, if you say too much too quickly to new people who you meet, then that's weird.
And like, you know, you're needy or whatever because you're You have no boundaries.
Yeah, you have the boundaries, right. That's exactly, I mean, I've gotten that before.
Sure. And then there's part of me that thinks it may be true and, you know, maybe that all of this philosophy and self-knowledge that I'm into is really just a way to manage my own deficiencies of boundaries or something.
And a way to justify, like, exercise or justify, you know, tendencies that I have that are not good in any way.
Yeah, I mean, that's always worth thinking about.
I don't I get that impression, but I do think that it's easy to forget how early it is in philosophy.
I mean, because it's been a discipline that's been around for a long time, but never quite in the way that we're talking about it.
So my concern, again, to use another metaphor, so if you are from Wales and you come to New York and you only speak some Weird, freaky ass dialect of Gaelic or something or whatever they speak in Wales.
Let's just say Gaelic. I think that's Irish.
So you speak Gaelic, right?
And it's almost like you're saying, well, I don't speak English.
I only speak a dialect of Gaelic that like 200 other people in the world speak.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to find a nice girl and I'm going to start teaching her Gaelic so that we can have a relationship.
Right?
And the reason that I'm saying Gaelic is because, again, to stretch the metaphor, like if you went to China and you needed to teach a girl English so that you could have a relationship with her, she at least would be interested in learning English because there's some value in China.
Yeah, you can still use it anyway, even if you don't use it.
Yeah, there's an upside. Whereas if it's like, here's a Gaelic language that only 200 other people speak, I need you to spend five years learning it so we can have a relationship.
And most people are going to say, you know, I don't care how sexy you are, I'm not spending five years learning a dialect of Gaelic, right?
And I think that's an important thing to remember, is the degree to which...
Closeness to the truth is distance from society, because society is so ridiculously false in so many ways, right?
Right. And so you are, and everybody I think gets this unconsciously, right?
So that's a huge problem, right?
Yeah. I bet you this woman gets it completely, because everybody's a genius and everyone's a philosopher, and she's like, okay, so you're here for another four months, and if you enlighten me, I can't go back to being unenlightened.
You are going to be gone.
I still have to hang around with people.
I still have to go talk to my family.
so where's the upside for me?
Right.
So how could I, how could I, like this thing I mentioned earlier about, you know, what if the problem is with me and all of this philosophy that I'm doing is just to justify Well, Ben, it would be just your experience and everybody else would have no problem setting up these communities and reaching these people and finding like-minded souls and so on, right?
Then it would be specific to you.
But it's not. Okay.
Yeah. I guess that makes sense.
I mean, that's not proof.
Maybe we all have the same problem, but that doesn't seem very likely.
So... And if we did, and there were really awesome and caring people in the world, then they would be reaching out to us in a really nice way and trying to help us.
Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing is you haven't said, I'm waiting for someone to find me, right?
So you know that, I mean, this is your answer.
That would be really incredible.
I'm not going to put around for it.
Right? But that's interesting.
So what you're saying is that nobody's going to come and find you.
At least that's not what you're thinking, right?
Well, I'm not going to put my eggs in that basket.
Right, right, right.
But that is a way of accepting the rarity, right?
And so here we come to the dark secret of philosophy, right?
Which I guess we could talk about now.
I was going to do a podcast on it in the spring, but we can talk about it now, right?
And the dark secret of philosophy is that once you become a philosopher, it's leadership or solitude.
There's nothing else. Yeah, that's what it seems to be coming down to.
That's not the exact words that I would have put it in, but that's really close.
You may have a better phrasing, which I'm always happy to hear.
I've been thinking more about the idea of taking leadership and what that means and what that would look like.
I've been talking to Greg a couple times and he's trying to step up and take more of a leadership role in Philadelphia because He talked to you about that, right?
Yeah, yeah. And so people are beginning to understand that.
And of course, we, a lot of us, come from these bone-crushing histories where leadership is a fairly foreign concept.
That certainly was the case for me.
But the show only exists fundamentally.
Freedom Aid Radio only exists fundamentally because of that choice of leadership or solitude.
And I was going to say, I'll be damned if I'm going to live with solitude.
Yeah, so I've been thinking about this a little bit, and then there's the question of whether, because I've been thinking in terms of meeting a leader and what that might look like and what kind of things I would have to offer.
And then there's that other voice in my head that's like, but what if this desire to be a leader is just a grandiose, like, Way to compensate for feeling weak because I don't have good relationships.
Right. Okay, so where's it coming from?
I don't know. I'm sure you do.
I mean, it seems like it's coming from, I mean, just like I've heard enough, you know, other people seem like, you know, we think we're motivated by one thing and we're motivated by another thing.
Well, yeah, but these aren't people who spent six years in self-knowledge, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's true.
So where does the voice of...
It seems to me that the voice that you hear is, you think it's for virtue, but it's for vanity.
And it's like compensating for the fact that I've had this like, well, if I can't get what I want, then I'll be grandiose and whatever.
- Right, so where's that voice coming from?
I mean, there's two places, right?
Yeah, no, there's two places to look first, right?
The first, of course, is your personal history.
In other words, was there an association between leadership and grandiosity from your mom or your dad, or was it sort of embedded in your history?
That's one place. I don't suspect it's coming from there because of the amount of self-work that you've done, but it certainly is possible.
So was there someone around, an authority figure around when you were growing up Who equated leadership with grandiosity?
Not who equated leadership with grandiosity.
I mean, there were teachers who were grandiose.
Yeah, I think we all know those.
And of course, the priests would be those in particular.
But was there anyone who made that association that comes to mind or comes into your heart when you think about The words that you're using to describe your own desire for leadership?
I don't think so.
Nothing's coming to mind. Yeah, I don't think so either.
So, we're either both right or we're both wrong, so let's just pretend that we're right, because I have no problem with that, whether we find that or not.
right um so the other place to look is the unconscious of those around you in the present yeah and uh does that uh
i mean if because i mean if they're if the people around me are resistant and afraid of of what it is that i'm trying to offer then you know i mean it would be then they're going to try and infect you with snout down yeah exactly They're going to try and paralyze your growing muscles of philosophy.
They're going to try and paralyze those.
By making yourself conscious, right?
By having you look at yourself with a jaundiced, cynical eye and to equate to that which is the best within you to false self vanity and so on, right?
Now, if, and, you know, again, these things are always possible, but the probability diminishes every day that you pursue self-knowledge.
Maybe, just maybe, you do have some insane, grandiose aspect of yourself that wants to conquer the world through leadership and exploitation and so on, right?
But I think you can pretty much trust that you've known some pretty wise and perceptive people over the years, and I think people would have Grandiosity is a pretty big and fundamental character flaw.
It's pretty hard to miss.
It comes with a whole host of associated defenses like Incredible touchiness and invasiveness and intrusiveness and dissociation for others around you and aggression and bullying.
It comes with a whole host of pathologies.
It's not just like, oh, look, my little finger is grandiose and the rest of me is perfectly healthy, right?
Grandiosity is just one aspect of a seriously disturbed personality.
And I think you can at least trust that since I've met you a number of times and we've talked a number of times and I'm pretty good at Getting a handle on people, I would have seen it and I would have either mentioned something or dissociated.
So you don't think that the...
Because you mentioned intrusiveness and that sounded to me kind of similar to the accusation of lacking boundaries.
No, intrusiveness is when you demand that people believe something that is clearly crazy.
And if they express any doubt, you verbally abuse them.
That's what I mean in terms of intrusiveness.
So people who say the Pope is a lizard man.
Right, okay, right, right.
And then if you say you start to express doubt or whatever, and you see this with the truth or other kind, they just get aggressive, right?
and I mean that's not you yeah I mean, the very fact that you'd be thinking about the possibility of grandiosity means that there's almost no possibility of grandiose people.
Right, right, right. I guess that's, yeah.
So unless I'm like some kind of stealth genius when it comes to grandiosity, I'm probably not.
Well, unless you're the only person in the world who has grandiosity that is neatly tucked away and has no effect on the entire rest of the personality...
But that's sort of like saying, well, what if I had a third arm floating behind me that vanishes every time I turn around?
I mean, it's like we have to start dealing with probabilities here, right?
Now, so the difference, and this is an excellent point to bring up, right?
The difference between the intrusiveness that I'm talking about, which is you need to belligerently believe this, like I'm going to belligerently force this crazy stuff on you, and if you express doubt or hesitation, I'm going to verbally abuse you.
That's different from what other people feel as intrusive, which is My beliefs are mostly false.
And if you bring true and rational and empirical arguments to my beliefs, they're all going to fall down.
And so you overwhelm me and I experience you as extremely intrusive because it's like a bull in a china shop or like a strong wind on a house of cards or even a soft wind on a house of cards.
I am very fragile and I don't want to look at the irrationality of my beliefs.
But if you bring rationality, I'm going to have to do that, and therefore I experience you as intrusive.
That's very different, right?
Yeah, and intimidating and overwhelming.
Right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and sow this seed in you of you having a problem when I am in fact the one who has the problem, right?
In other words, in order to defend my false self, I'm going to attempt to inflate your false self.
Because if I can get you all tangled up in your false self, you'll stop coming after, quote, coming after my false self, right?
Yeah. And that's a great trap.
And, I mean, we all fall into that trap from time to time.
And we all need to be conscious of that trap.
That other people, when their false self is threatened, almost the very first instinctive defense that they come up with is to stimulate our false self and attempt to tangle us up in self-doubt.
And not rational self-doubt, just argument by adjective self-doubt, right?
So if somebody says, well, you lack boundaries, my first question is, well, you must be an expert then, so tell me what boundaries means, tell me how they should be respected, and tell me how I'm not fulfilling that ideal, and give me specific examples by which you're coming to this conclusion, right? Ask for evidence.
It's always the rational thing to do when criticized, right?
And of course, Almost nobody will have anything to say at that point, right?
Other than rolling their eyes, getting frustrated, and intimating that you just should know.
And if you don't know, you're crazy.
Yeah, that's more of it if you're crazy.
Yeah, yeah. And that, of course, is what happens.
When you confront the false self, it intimates that it's false self for you to even confront the false self because you damn well know and you're pretending not to and it's all just a game and a manipulation.
I mean, this is all just the nonsense that people do when they get the static of being asked to back up their accusations.
Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting how much of...
You know, like if I actually...
I'm not even sure that any of these things are even coming from her.
Because it's all internal to me.
Nothing that she said that leads to any of this necessarily.
It's all interpretations that I'm putting on it in terms of this interaction.
It's all these interpretations. Well, see, now you're going back to the false self thing again, right?
Which is that it's your interpretations.
Which is, well, let's examine the possibility that it's not.
Well, I mean, like, it's interpretations that I'm putting on it based on stuff that I've gotten from, like, people over the years.
Not something that I'm making out, but something that, like, that I've accumulated from...
Well, interpretation is in itself a self-doubting statement.
Yeah, yeah. Right? So, and look, I'm not saying never doubt yourself, but I very much believe in innocent until proven guilty.
So I don't jump to, well, I'm misinterpreting, I'm projecting, I'm grandiose, I'm this, I'm that.
I mean, hey, I'm open to it, although, of course, I become less open to it as time goes along.
Because, you know, the effects would have shown up at some point, right?
You know, like, if somebody says, I don't know, when you're 20, oh, you're going to be bald by the time you're 30, right?
Somebody says that to you, right?
You've got a great head of hair, right?
So somebody says that to you, you know, maybe you'll think, well, I guess it could happen, I guess.
Who knows, right? But if you're 28 or 29 and your hair is still as thick as ever...
Then, by the time you pass 30, you know, and if you haven't lost any hair by the time you're 40 or 50, it's like, you're just not going to go, like, it just becomes less likely every single year or every single day that passes and nothing changes, right?
So, people can say to me, oh, Steph, you have these massive character flaws and problems, and it's like, well, but it's the good thing about being in my 40s.
It's like, yeah, I would have shown up by now.
You know, I wouldn't have a stable and happy relationship.
I wouldn't be such a good dad.
I'm just not going to have magic spells cast on me called dysfunction without any evidence.
In fact, people who cast that spell without evidence are themselves dysfunctional because they're being verbally abusive, right?
To call somebody characterologically problem or dysfunctional without providing evidence is abusive, right?
So, what if, right?
I just go with, I'm right, but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.
And that's not just a willed thing.
I mean, I have respect for my own instincts, and of course, running a show like this for five years has certainly helped me gain additional self-respect as far as all of that goes, this crazy navigational thing that has been going on.
So, again, I just invite you into the world called, I'm right, but I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
And so what that means is, When you think about why this self-attack, really, because it is self-doubt without evidence, it's just self-attack, right?
Yeah. If that makes sense, right?
I mean, even that phrase came to mind earlier, that that's what was going on, but then it slipped away again, right?
Which is part of the deal, I guess.
Right. So, your authenticity and your honesty and your self-knowledge, are they...
Rationally and objectively threatening to the illusions of those around you.
Yes. Right.
Do those people know that this is occurring?
Consciously. Do they know that what's occurring?
That this threat, this experience of threat is occurring.
Well, they don't sit there and think, you know, I'm being threatened by his honesty and therefore I'm going to run away.
So I guess no. Right.
So if they are unconscious of it, Then you need to be extra conscious of it.
Because their unconscious stuff is going to handshake with your unconscious stuff.
Or is going to attempt to recreate itself.
See, unconsciousness is a virus.
It's always trying to spread.
Because by unconsciousness, I just mean errors that people aren't consciously aware of that are pretty fundamental.
Right? Those errors are always trying to reproduce because if they reproduce enough, they are no longer perceived as errors or can't really be perceived as errors, right?
So this is the social metaphysician stuff, right?
So if I believe that, I don't know, Krishna is my lord and savior, if I can get enough other people to believe that, then it's pretty much the same as true.
And I'm also safe in that delusion because people aren't going to come along who are skeptical of that and ask me for evidence.
So, error is a virus that is always trying to replicate, but it can't replicate consciously, because the moment the error becomes conscious, massive anxiety and a collapse of the false self and all that occurs, right?
So it needs to be split, it needs to be divided up, it needs to be kept at arm's length, it needs to remain unconscious.
So when you come at people with honesty and authenticity, And they freak out.
They can't know that they're freaking out.
They can't say to you, I'm freaking out.
They can't say to you in that RTR way, I feel anxiety in your very presence and I don't know why.
What they need to do is to use your honesty and your self-criticism, which is what self-knowledge is, I think, in a healthy way about, to stall you.
To disconnect your engine, to power you down, right?
Some guy's running at me with a chainsaw.
I'm going to try and shoot him in the foot, right?
I don't want to blow him away, but I'm going to shoot him in the foot.
So he stops coming at me with a chainsaw.
And the false self of those around you experiences philosophy as the chainsaw, because it is a chainsaw to the false self.
And not just their false selves, but the false selves of everyone around them.
It's a ripple effect, right? So if you enlighten this woman, then she's going to experience what you're experiencing with everyone else around her.
I guess it's just hard to overcome that kind of, that conditioning that, you know, I'm surrounded by people who are afraid of me and what that should, you know, under normal circumstances, what that would tell me is like, there's something wrong with me.
You know, if everyone's afraid of me, there's something wrong with me, but...
Well, first of all, they're not afraid of you.
Well, they're not afraid of me, and yeah, it's...
And they're not afraid of the truth.
And they're not afraid of philosophy.
And they're not afraid of honesty.
And they're not afraid of virtue.
And they're not afraid of openness.
And they're not afraid of vulnerability.
They're not afraid of any of those things.
I guarantee that.
Because those things are all positive.
And we're not irrationally afraid of positive things.
Right? You don't give someone a million dollars and they say, oh my god, I'm terrified.
Right? What they're afraid of is...
The attack of those around them that those values will provoke.
Right? So the girl, let's just, you know, pick on this girl for no particular reason.
This girl, this woman, is not afraid of you, and she's not afraid of the truth or anything like that.
What she's afraid of and what she absolutely knows is going to occur is that if she accepts and absorbs the truth, then she's going to be set upon by those around her.
And she doesn't want to experience that.
She doesn't want to see that. Going against the tribe is pretty counterintuitive for human beings, right?
Yeah, so how are we supposed to inspire people to come along on this journey if it's got all these huge and obvious downsides?
Well, you've got to minimize the downsides, first of all, by not making up ones, right?
By not inventing them where they don't exist in the form of this kind of self-attack, right?
Right, so there's a test, right?
You know, in most mythologies, there's this love test, right?
Like, so to get the girl, you've got to kill the dragon, or, you know, go and get the golden fleece, or whatever it is.
There's always a love test that occurs, right?
Well, when you come at people Look, this is all just my opinion, but I think it's really borne out by experience.
When you come at people and say, grow, change, think, right?
What they want to know is, are you full of shit or not?
Are you living this stuff or not?
And so what they do is they throw a whole bunch of psychological projection down your throat.
And they see if you can handle it.
Now, if you can't handle it, then they're like, well, fuck, I'm not listening to this guy, right?
Because he's telling me to peel away from the tribe, but he can't handle me throwing a little bit of dust in his grill, right?
Okay, so looking at the tribulation as a positive, as like, to be expected, and yeah, just like, huh.
Yeah, like imagine in some free society, someone comes along with a new currency.
You're not just going to switch.
You can be like, what the fuck is this backed up by?
Right? Paperclips, your word, your dog.
I mean, you know, I need, I'm not gonna, right?
If someone wants to get you to switch cell phones, I mean, there better be something behind it.
There better be some, right? So if someone comes along and says, you should go against the tribal delusions.
They better have enough gravy and biscuits over there that you're willing to take the leap, right?
Right. Yeah, I mean, looking at it that way, like looking at it as a test to be expected and as like...
And it's rational!
Yeah, and it's also like much more empowering than like, oh no, here's another person throwing shit at me, but just like, yep, here's the shit, okay, we knew that was going to happen, so...
And it should, right? Society should not go charging around after everyone who comes along with new ideas.
There should be a very high barrier to social change.
There has to be. Otherwise, we'd just be inventing new social systems every day and we'd all starve to death, right?
So in order to change people, to change the world, to change society, there really ought to be a hugely high barrier to whoever wants to come along and change it.
Yeah, because I've been looking at it like, oh no, this person's doing it too.
But really it's like, yep, here's this again, you know, okay, we'll just do this, you know.
Yeah, look, I mean, if you come along to people and say, you need to change your diet, and you need to change how you live, and you need to change how you dress, let's just say diet, right?
If you come along to people and say, you better change your diet, the first thing they're going to say is, well, are you fat?
Are you healthy? Right?
That's the first thing we do, is we look for the empirical evidence before we evaluate any of the content.
Someone comes along to me and says, I have a magic formula to regrow your head hair.
First thing I'm going to ask is, are you bald?
Right? And it would be great because we don't have time to evaluate everybody, the content of everyone's claims, right?
The only thing we can evaluate is, like the only thing we have time to evaluate is, you know, how's it working for you?
And so if people throw up resistance to you and you fold, then they're saying, okay, so the bridge over to Nashland is really fucking rickety.
So the resistance that I think I seem to be most vulnerable to is not any kind of confrontation.
It's this kind of soft withdrawal.
So, like, what do I do with that?
Like, how do I... I mean, I don't know how to counter that.
Well, sure you do. Reason and evidence.
There's no plan B for solutions in philosophy.
There's no, well, you consult the magic chicken egg and read the entrails of this, and there's reason and evidence, right?
So if you experience somebody as perceiving you as grandiose, as vain, as whatever, right?
Then... You can say to yourself or you can say to the other person, well, what's the reason and evidence?
But what if all they're doing is just withdrawing?
From you? Yeah. Well, then you have a story or you have an interpretation about why they're withdrawing, right?
Mm-hmm. And usually it's to do with, I feel overwhelmed, you are too much, tone it down, back off, set up some boundaries, whatever, some disapproval of your behavior on part of the other person who's withdrawing, right?
And so you say, okay, well, what is the evidence that I'm being destructive and intrusive?
It's not just the other person's perception that counts, right?
It's the evidence. Well, it is their perception in the, like, if I'm trying to communicate with them, their perception does matter.
Matter, what do you mean by matter?
Well, because, like, if they're, if they perceive, if they have a story about why they're withdrawing from me, then, and like, that's allowing them to keep doing it, you know, without being conscious of why they're really doing it, then that perception is part of what's then preventing the connection from being made.
Right, but it's not your job to manage the communications of other people, right?
So if you come on honest and open, and I know you, you're not an overbearing, grab them by the lapels, pant in their face, and, you know, shove four DVDs up their ass, right?
I know that you're not doing any of that, right?
So if they withdraw, then the evidence is that they lack self-knowledge.
They lack the ability to communicate honestly.
Because they're not saying to you, okay, like if you were being intrusive, let's say, then I would say something like, okay, I experienced a certain amount of anxiety and fear at this point when you were talking.
So when you were telling me about, you know, your great love of philosophy, you said this phrase, and I was like, oh, wow, that really makes me feel alarmed.
we can't puzzle it out.
Right?
Yeah.
So that would be like, if they had the self-knowledge, if they'd been doing the self-work, they would do that for sure.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Whereas if I just kind of tensed up, froze, and made up some excuse and left, right?
Then the hope of that is that you're then going to self-attack.
Right? That's the hope.
The hope is that you've offended them, that you've upset them, that you've come on too strong, that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right? But all it means, frankly, is that they're being manipulative dicks.
And that doesn't mean that they're bad, nasty people.
But that particular thing is just...
It's bullshit. That's not how you communicate with another human being that you care about.
You don't just withdraw and let the other person stew and wonder about what's going on.
That is irresponsible and destructive and manipulative.
Now, you have the choice if you want, right?
You can walk after the person and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, what just happened here, right?
Why are you leaving? And if they attack you or they intimate or they, you know, well, you know, or you were just coming on too strong, it's like, well, wait a sec.
First of all, that's a judgment. There's no such thing as coming on too strong.
There are feelings and there are emotions and there's what people say and do, right?
But coming on too strong is just a label.
It's just an attack label.
It doesn't mean anything, right? You don't have any boundaries.
Well, if that's true, And the other person has really good boundaries, then why is the other person only exercising boundary control by leaving?
That's not exercising boundaries.
Exercising boundaries is putting limits on the conversation.
Or pushing back and saying, wait a sec, something happened here that I'm not too comfortable with.
Walking away is not establishing boundaries, it's punishing.
Through ostracism, right?
And then launching a label at me would be like...
And then launching a label, right?
Exactly. Exactly. So somebody who's really good at communicating, hey, people have the right to criticize me.
Absolutely. And they have the right to say, well, Steph, you could be a better...
Like, you know, these nonviolent communication guys, right?
They tell me sometimes, oh, Steph, you're too aggressive or whatever it is, right?
And, you know, I'm still waiting for one of them to show me a better way or to interact with me in such a way that shows me how much better it is rather than just launching a bunch of labels at me, which without evidence, and then sending me to a bunch of videos that are supposed to explain everything.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
If you want to sell me a nonviolence communication, you need to sell me on your skill in it, right?
Yeah. There's some videos out there which I'm supposed to watch and then realize the sins, the errors of my way.
That's not being friendly and helpful to someone.
That's not acting out of Love or respect or admiration or anything like that.
That's just saying, well, I'm going to try and get Steph to feel that he's a bad communicator and I'm going to give him a whole bunch of videos that I hope will close the case.
But I'm not going to tell him anything and I'm certainly not going to demonstrate my deep knowledge.
Yeah, I mean, they're definitely not doing it.
I mean, I read that book and if they're just sending you links to videos and complaining about your communication style, they're definitely not using it.
Yeah, look, I mean, I'm a damn good communicator.
I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm, you know, my entire show is about communication.
I'm a very good communicator.
And if somebody wants to tell me that I'm communicating badly, I would at least expect that they would have some very good skills in communication themselves, right?
Like if I'm a pretty good, if I've got a black belt and someone comes along and says my technique is really bad, it's fundamentally flawed, I would hope that they would have at least a black belt and then could show me how to improve.
But they don't do that, right?
Now, that doesn't mean that I can't improve and that doesn't mean that maybe nonviolent communication is perfect and wonderful.
But I don't have time to evaluate every theory that comes my way.
I mean, I get 200 emails a day with people telling me what to do and what to do better and how to whatever, right?
Yeah. I simply don't have time to evaluate everybody's email to me, so all I do is I look at the form of what they're doing.
If I'm looking up and down the bookshelf for a diet book, all I do is look for the guy on the cover who's not fat.
That's the book I'm going to open.
That doesn't mean all the other diets suck.
It just means, given the shortness of time, I'm not going to do the work of other people for them.
If they want to convince me about something, then show me.
That comes from theater.
Show me, don't tell me. So this is the thing, right?
So if people withdraw from you, they're confessing that their communication skills suck like an interplanetary vacuum.
They have no idea how to manage They have no idea how to bring up issues.
They have no idea how to communicate in a way that is positive and helpful.
And the only thing that they can do is withdraw, perhaps throw a label or two your way, either in their body language or verbally, in the hopes that you're going to self-attack and blame yourself for what happened.
And that is a terrible way to communicate with another human being.
Criticism should never be attack.
I mean, one-on-one criticism.
I mean, I obviously criticize pretty heavily third parties and so on.
But if I want to give you feedback that's critical, right, like in this conversation, right, to suggest better ways of doing things, I don't sit there by saying, well, you know, you're just an insecure jerk who, you know, is tripping all over himself rather than helping the world.
I mean, how on earth would that help you?
It would only tear you down, right?
So just judge, you know, people who claim to be experts, who claim to know more than you do, right?
People are saying, you've been studying Mandarin for six years straight, but your Mandarin is terrible.
That's quite a claim to make, isn't it?
Yeah, and they're telling me in English or something.
And they're what? They're like telling me in English too.
Yeah, they're telling you in English.
They're telling you in English, I don't understand your Mandarin.
It's like, well, of course you don't, because you're replying in English.
And I don't, first of all, I don't see how you can study something for six years and suck it in, if you've got any brains at all and you have more than your fair share, right?
So you can't study self-knowledge for six years and philosophy for six years and not be pretty damn good at it.
And look, that's fine.
So maybe there's stuff that you need to learn.
So maybe somebody studied for 10 years and can give you a couple of pointers.
Fantastic. But not through bullshit manipulation like withdrawal and provoking self-attacks in others and manipulating and huffing and rolling eyes and whatever, right?
I mean, that's somebody who has studied nothing.
And the tragedy, of course, is that people only grow because of self-doubt.
But when you grow, especially, I mean, six years is a hell of a long time.
You're no longer learning Mandarin.
You're speaking Mandarin. That doesn't mean you can't ever improve or learn new words.
Hell, we learn new words in English even now, right?
But I don't sit there and say, well, I'm still learning English.
That's one of the clues that I have.
I've tried to make, and I guess this conversation shows you another area where I was trying to make the problem be with me.
If only the problem with my interaction with other people was me, then I could fix it.
You are not trying to make the problem be with you.
Other people are trying to make the problem be with you.
Now, sorry, let me be annoying and just retract that a little bit.
There is some advantage in you, as you say, right?
You don't have to face the despair of leadership or loneliness, right?
So, yeah, there is a part of you that wants to agree with them so that you can change something and keep that illusion at bay.
So, sorry, you're right. It's both.
It's both. But the initiation comes from them, I would say.
Even thinking it's coming from me is doing it, though.
Right. Right, right.
Yeah, so, you know, like, it would be nice if it was me so that I could fix it, but...
Right.
Like you said, that's the despair of that choice between, you know, well, it's either that loneliness or leadership, right?
Yeah, yeah. I think that's the reality.
And this is the great challenge, and I talked about this with James a little bit recently, that this is the great challenge, that, you know, we don't necessarily want to be leaders, but we kind of have to be.
The next generation won't have to be leaders because there'll be enough people.
But if we don't do it, nobody's going to do it.
Because there's no one out there who's ahead of us, right?
We're not catching up with other people, right?
We're the icebreakers, right? Yeah, yeah.
And that's one of the things that helps me, like...
Helps me to realize that the deficiency is with other people because when there is that self-attack, like, you know, oh, I'm just bad at communicating or oh, whatever, whatever, then it's like, well, wait a minute, though.
When I'm around other people who I admire for their honesty and communication skills, like, I have no problem interacting with them.
Like, I'm not having any problem communicating with you right now.
You're understanding what I'm saying.
You're not withdrawing. You're giving me good feedback.
And when I talk to people in Philadelphia, when I talk to Greg, when I talk to Corey, it's no problem.
Everyone who speaks Mandarin understands me perfectly and says my Mandarin is great.
Everybody who doesn't speak Mandarin says my Mandarin sucks.
It's like, wait a minute. This is now working, right?
And I think that this is something that's going on Not just for you, but in the community as a whole, right?
Which is this challenge of dragging ourselves up for leadership, right?
Yeah. And so, yeah, I think it's interesting how it's kind of coming all together at once, but it's very interesting.
Yeah, Greg was saying that last time I talked to him.
He's like, yeah, it seems like this is kind of emerging as a thing.
And I think that's quite right.
I mean, so it's like the growth thing is, you know, first of all, it's about...
You then it's about those around you in terms of their impact on you from a negative standpoint and then it's about your impact on others from a positive standpoint and we sort of emerge from the navel gazing which is necessary in terms of self-knowledge to assume leadership in moving the species forward and I think that's highly appropriate and I think you don't want to rush that process but you don't want to delay it when you're ready.
Yeah. I guess the word that Greg used was outreach.
Trying to spread the word and up the game.
It really is that difference between loneliness and leadership because it's like, well, there's nobody else around so I guess I'll do some outreach because that's The only way to step up and turn my light on brighter.
Right. And avoid the self-attack from people without credibility.
That's very important.
Look, we are also well-known enough now as a community that if there were some people who were ahead of us, they would have found us, right?
It's not like there's just you and me and three other guys in a basement hiding out, right?
I mean, this show's been pretty damn public for quite a long time now.
And nobody's come by to say, hey, good to see you catching up.
And of course, we would have heard about them too, right?
I mean, we're all over this stuff, right?
Yeah, yeah. And the evidence for that for me is when I do find something that's similar, I'm all over that trying to find out if there's anything really going on there.
You know, like if I read a book, you know, the book on nonviolent communication, I'm like, you know, great.
Are there like clubs? Are there people doing this?
You know, are there people practicing this?
And then like I look around and there's kind of like no one practicing it.
And so I'm like, well, there's not a big group doing this, so we're not missing them.
But like I look for them.
And so I would assume if there was some group doing something like what we're doing, they'd be looking for us the same way I'm looking for them.
Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
So again, the evidence is that there's nothing out there.
We are ahead of the game and there's no shortcuts.
And if it's not us, it's nobody.
And that's exciting.
I mean, it sucks a little, but it's also very exciting because that is a very great honor, I think, to be at the ground level of this kind of change that's so desperately needed and so essential for the world.
I mean, what a cool thing to be involved in. - Yeah, well, I feel less like I'm going in circles.
I'm a little bit more encouraged now about this whole process.
Good. All right.
I've got one more call before Izzy wakes up, so I'm going to jump off here.
I'll send you a copy of this. I think it's a fantastic, fantastic conversation.
I hope that you'll consider it popping out, but you can have a listen, of course, as usual first.
All right. Thanks so much for making comments at short notice, too.
It's my pleasure, man. Take care.
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