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Feb. 6, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:59:59

1848 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show 6 Feb 2010

An update on Egypt, the limits of the MEcosystem, surviving marital abuse, and a delightful dream!

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	Hi, everybody. Hope you're doing very well.
	It's Stefan Molyneux of Free Domain Radio.
	Just a few updates on the Egypt situation for those who are interested.
	It's fascinating to me how you can really look at the language of what is being reported and understand a lot about a contemporary culture and its understanding of violence and the reality of statism.
	So, for instance, I remember reading on the Huffington Post that tanks – Government tanks had been riding down the streets, cornering protesters in an attempt to quell the violence.
	I mean, isn't that amazing when you think about it?
	Government tanks with live shells and ammunitions which can blow people into their component atoms at a whim.
	That the imposition of this kind of astounding level of violence is an attempt to quell violence.
	I mean, isn't that just amazing?
	The hammer fist of the government coming down on people who are protesting almost exclusively peacefully, that is an attempt to quell violence.
	The other thing that is really fascinating to see is the degree to which there's this ridiculous and idiotic attempt to personalize things.
	So what they'll say is, pro-Mubarak supporters did X. While anti-Mubarak or anti-government supporters did, why?
	And they're talking about like throwing rocks and pelting each other with broken bottles and stuff like that.
	I mean... I don't care how charismatic this 82-year-old guy is.
	I hope that I never ever become so charismatic, if I even am to begin with.
	I hope that I never become so charismatic and popular that people are willing just to keep me in biscuits and gravy, are willing to go out and get their heads split open by rocks.
	It has nothing to do with being pro-Mubarak or anti-government or anti-Mubarak.
	The people who are, quote, pro-Mubarak are simply the people who are profiting from the regime.
	In a rational system of reporting, which is far from what we've got, you would simply call these people henchmen or violence profiteers or – I don't know.
	There's not even a particularly good word for it, which is telling in and of itself.
	But they're not pro-Mubarak.
	They are pro whatever proceeds they're getting from the government.
	It's like saying that the KGB agents – We're pro-Khrushchev.
	It's like, no, no, no. They're pro-being KGB agents.
	And of course another thing, another reason why there's so many people out there protesting for the continuance of the state other than those who are simply dependent upon the state for their living are the people who are incredibly concerned and with damn good reason that if this tyranny falls, there's going to be people another reason why there's so many people out there protesting for the continuance of the state other than
	So all of the people who've been involved in the torture and the imprisonments and the quelling of protests and the kangaroo courts and all of the people who've been involved in that kind of stuff, well, that's a lot of people.
	And if the government falls, if the existing government falls and a freer government comes in, such as we can put it that way, then these people are going to face some consequences for their actions.
	People who've been tortured for 30 or 40 years have pretty good memories and there are a lot of people out there who want someone to pay for the death or the torture or the mutilation of their son, their daughter, their aunt, their uncle, their mother.
	Their father, their brother, their sister, their cousins, probably up until the eighth level.
	So the idea that this is sort of pro-Mubaric or anti-Mubaric means that it's just kind of an opinion.
	Well, I like the guy. Well, I don't like the guy.
	So let's break each other's heads open.
	No, it's ridiculous.
	It's much more fundamental and powerful than that.
	But you won't see that stuff reported much, of course, in the mainstream media because they're about turning everything...
	Into a red shirt, yellow shirt football game rather than looking at the moral realities of what is occurring.
	So I just wanted to mention that to start with.
	Let's get on with the Freedom Aid Radio Sunday show, which is, for those listening to this later, 2 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time every single Sunday.
	It's our church, brothers and sisters!
	And you can join it at fdrurl.com forward slash chat.
	We have a streamer. We have...
	We have oiled goats. We have bumper cars.
	We have philosophical chit-chittle channels.
	Everything your heart can desire goes on for two hours.
	You're welcome to come in and call, listen, type questions in the chat room, speak to the big chatty forehead himself.
	That would be me. And I hope that I'll see you one of these Sundays.
	It is absolutely a highlight of my week to speak to such brilliant listeners.
	With that having been said, let's turn it over to the brains of the outfit.
	You, sitting right there, speak now or I guess just call in next week if you don't want to.
	Thanks so much. I've got a quick question.
	Go for it. Can you hear me?
	I'm not quite sure. I'm on a laptop mic.
	It's pretty good, actually.
	Okay, cool. So, I had a question about Miko system stuff.
	I'm not sure. Do you do that on Sunday shows?
	I do whatever you want to talk about, and just for those who don't know, Mika system is something that I've shared with listeners.
	It's something that I found to be very powerful in my own therapy, which was the idea that we are not a single identity in terms of self-knowledge, in terms of how our minds work, but we are a multiplicity of identities.
	So if you think about it...
	You can probably imitate quite well a whole bunch of people in your life and I've done a whole bunch of role plays with people where this becomes very sometimes chillingly evident.
	And so every personality that we have any significant exposure to leaves an impression within us and in a sense a configuration within us, our parents, our teachers, our priests, brothers or whoever, right?
	And so because we are a multiplicity of personalities, we have to negotiate with ourselves.
	There's no single tyranny of the identity or the ego that can dominate all other aspects of ourselves, but we should be in negotiations with at least the more healthy aspects of our personalities.
	And that is something that I have found to be incredibly useful.
	And I did an interview with Dr.
	Richard Schwartz who has something called Family Systems Therapy, which I didn't know about until I think about a year ago.
	But he's the guy to go to for more information about this.
	So that's, you know, in terms of the Miko system, that's just a very, very brief overview for people who are just joining us.
	So, yeah, my question was concerning the negotiation aspect with specifically the voices that are not there to help you, to put it lightly, that are condemning.
	Did you say this was a quick question?
	Yeah. The voices that are condemning or mean or criticizing or anything like that, I find it contradictory that if these are internalized voices of abusers that have been in our past, why it is that we would negotiate with them when they're inside of our heads, but we wouldn't negotiate with them.
	We would defoo or leave if they were outside of our heads.
	Well, the first reality, of course, is that you cannot separate from an internal voice.
	I mean, there's no pill, there's no nail gun, there's no giant unabusing magnet that we can roll over our foreheads that is going to allow us to eliminate an inner critical voice.
	So, at least – and it's a great question.
	My approach has been to negotiate as much as possible.
	And that doesn't mean just sort of sit there and bat things back and forth, right?
	So, when an inner critic comes at me – What I do is I roll with that criticism.
	So an inner critic comes at me and says, you're doing X really wrong.
	It's like, okay, well, is this motivating or not?
	Is this going to encourage me or not?
	In other words, if you want to criticize me for doing things wrong, the first thing you have to be good at is criticizing.
	And if you're just being abusive, then you're not even being good at criticizing, which gives you no right whatsoever.
	To criticize me.
	Now, I have, in my own workings with my ecosystem, this has had two results for me.
	The first is, it pushes the inner bully back and says, well wait, yeah, I guess I can't use this heavy-handed thing, and we can try and work together.
	In terms of, hey, inner critics have some good things to say.
	They have some helpful things to say.
	They generally go at it all wrong, too heavy-handed, and this comes out of a fear of not being listened to.
	People who are terrified that they're never going to be listened to either don't say anything or yell.
	They don't speak reasonably because that's unnerving to people.
	And so there are inner critics within me that I can work with, that I can negotiate with.
	And those have been very helpful to enroll in my life.
	Because if I just get rid of all of the inner critics, then I create the grave danger or grave possibility of getting rid of self-criticism.
	And getting rid of self-criticism is not good, right?
	That's really not a good thing.
	Negotiating with self-abusers and turning them into critics is very helpful.
	But you don't want to sort of, in a sense, throw the baby out with the bathwater.
	So there's some aspects of my own inner critics...
	That I can work with.
	There's one that I can't.
	And maybe this is more along the lines of what you're talking about.
	Yeah, actually.
	I have one.
	Actually, I'm not sure if it's one or two.
	It's hard to differentiate sometimes.
	But I definitely have at least one that is just relentlessly negative, relentlessly trying to keep me down.
	And it's frustrating because I really like...
	This is going to sound weird.
	I like talking to myself.
	I like seeing what kind of ideas and advice can come out of that.
	But there's just this one voice that's always negative and always destructive, and it kind of revels in that whenever I try to negotiate with him.
	And I'm pretty sure it's my mom.
	It's just, yeah.
	Yeah. And I don't want to make this about me, but can I just share with you, because this is very recent for me, but can I share with you an experience I had with the MECO system?
	I think it's along the lines, and you can tell me if it fits with what you're talking about.
	So, this woman, this is in the real world, not in the MECO system world.
	A woman pinged me and told me a really disturbing story, and I get these sort of pings every now and then from people who are pretty nutty.
	She told me a very disturbing story, and...
	It was – I mean it just struck me as completely false what she was saying.
	But that's a trap, right? So if somebody tells you some disturbing story that just is false, then if you say, well, that's just not true, then that just invites rage and so on.
	But if you get sucked in, then you get into this world of impossibility and it's just really bad or whatever, right?
	So I was sort of thinking about this because then I dreamt about my mom that night.
	And so I thought, geez, you know, Mr.
	Lecturehead about everyone else to negotiate with their inner selves.
	When was the last time you sat down for an ecosystem conversation with your mom?
	And it's been a while. And I do like to practice what I preach when I remember to do it.
	So what I did was I sat down and I had an ecosystem conversation with my mom.
	I won't give you any of the particular details because they're not too important, but what came out of it was my mom said, Steph, if you want to understand what shaped me, you have to understand that I had to eat another child in the war in order to survive.
	And, I mean, that was just horrifying and chilling.
	Now, is it true or not?
	Who knows? I mean, if it were true, like if I found that out about my mom, right, because she was in the Second World War in Germany and it was just monstrous and starvation was epidemic and so she had to eat another child in order to survive.
	Well, that would, you know, what would that do in terms of my view of my mom if she went through something that absolutely horrifying or that absolutely horrible?
	Yeah. But then I thought, hold on, wait a second here.
	This is so disturbing and so horrifying that there's something that feels really wrong about it.
	And what felt really wrong about it was that this Mico system conversation was all about my mom having impact on me.
	There was no questions about me, no curiosity about me.
	It was just a mental vomit of an implausible but possible though completely, almost ultimately disturbing interaction or story about her history.
	And so I sort of sat and thought about it and I traced it back.
	It's like, oh, yeah. So I had this conversation with this crazy woman online that led to a dream about my mom, invited my mom back in for an ecosystem conversation.
	And she was the same as she was when I was five.
	And she was the same as I was when I was 10 and 20 and 30 and 40 and so on.
	And... What I realized was that I don't think that I can find any productive way to have an ecosystem negotiation with somebody that destructive.
	Because just as when I was a kid, it's horrifying stories that elicit a kind of sick sympathy, but it's all about her, and it's a bottomless hole, and I haven't had one since.
	And I don't know that I can.
	So to me, there are some limitations to what is possible within the Miko system.
	I'm not saying that's a final decision.
	Lord knows it's a work in progress, as any of these sorts of ideas are.
	But that was sort of my experience, and I have just not found a way to have...
	productive or reconciliatory or healing ecosystem conversations with my mom.
	Does that make any sense at all?
	That does, and I definitely sympathize with that.
	I had a very abusive mom, though not as abusive as yours.
	And she pops up every now and then, especially when it has to do with some specific interaction with a woman occurs.
	I get all kinds of negative self-talk.
	It's frustrating.
	Yeah. I think I am sort of on the cusp of a conclusion that goes something along the line of there's no negotiation possible.
	It's going to have to be just a sort of fierce kind of self-love that's going to get me through this.
	And it's not a terrible trial.
	It's just kind of an annoyance every now and then.
	But I think it's...
	I'm not sure if this is the right way to put it, but I just have to be that much bigger rather than trying to continuously negotiate with a voice who just doesn't care.
	Right, right, right.
	No, and I think that is...
	I really want to...
	This is a big topic that I'm still working out in terms of a podcast series on, but this is in relation to the recent conversations about nonviolent communication and this idea that nobody's bad, they're just misunderstood and they just have needs that aren't fulfilled and so on.
	I love that idea.
	That idea is so, so tempting to me.
	And because it's so tempting to me, I have to be really, really careful about it.
	I have to be really, really careful.
	Whatever tempts us is dangerous.
	And I don't mean we have to be aesthetics or constantly on guard.
	But when we have an idea that our hearts rush towards with the sweet stampede of relief, I have to be really careful.
	Because the confirmation bias can be very, very strong.
	And... I remember – I think it was one of the guys I was talking to later told me about how Rosenberg has a story about these tribes in Africa that he got to talk to each other instead of killing each other.
	And they said, boy, if we only would know how to talk to each other, we wouldn't have to kill each other.
	And he considered this a big breakthrough.
	And as soon as he left, they went back to killing each other again.
	And he has then revised – He has revised his opinion, as far as I understand it, to say something along the lines of, yeah, it's a multi-generational change because you can surprise people into better behavior in the short run in the same way that you can pay a smoker a million dollars to not smoke today, but that's not the same as dealing with the core issues and the core problems that have brought these behaviors into being.
	You can force compliance or even...
	Love, quote, love compliance in the short run or change of behavior, but it's not...
	It's not the case that that produces long-term change.
	Like a series of benevolent conversations doesn't undo years of brain damage from child abuse.
	So I would love for it to be true.
	I would really love for it to be true.
	My experience has been that it is not true, that it is a delicious and delightful fantasy that allows people to take a fantasy magical responsibility for the quality of their relationships.
	But I have found there's only been one, I mean I have a tough time doing ecosystem conversations with my dad because I never really knew him.
	I mean he was gone before like I was six months old but I don't have any memories of him and I certainly met him afterwards but not obviously to the same degree as my mom.
	So there are, yeah, some, at least one, you know, completely narcissistic, cold-hearted witch with a capital B in me that I can't negotiate with because it's just traumatic and it's all about her and I can't get that to change.
	So I am declining to have that conversation for the time being and indefinite future.
	You know, just one last quick point, and then I'll jump off the call.
	While you were talking, I just had this epiphany, kind of.
	Maybe it is a loving action to leave.
	Maybe what they're trying to do by being so belligerent and being so uncompromising is to get you to leave in this kind of, like, leave me behind, I'm not going to make it sort of way.
	Well, it... I wouldn't even say that so much.
	I mean, not to say that you're wrong.
	You could be completely right.
	But I think you're right.
	I've thought about this a lot as well.
	Unfortunately, I'm way behind in my solo cast because, you know, anyway, it doesn't matter.
	But I think that if somebody can't behave well around you, it is the most humane thing to do to not be around them.
	Right. Right. So if I had some sister who – let's talk theoretically.
	If I had some sister who was just a complete bitch when I was around and couldn't help herself from putting me down and undercutting me and undermining me and whatever, then to allow people to treat you badly is of course bad for you.
	But it is also very bad for them.
	And I genuinely believe that the people – To whom I evoke cruelty based on history and being the youngest and all of that and the helpless one and so on and perhaps more sensitive or whatever.
	But the people who can't be around me without behaving badly are better people because I'm not around.
	Because they just can't resist that temptation.
	And we understand this.
	Cruelty is a drug.
	Cruelty is a drug.
	And we understand that if you want to quit cocaine, you can't go to cocaine parties.
	Yeah. Right? And so if people around me are addicted to cruelty towards me, then I have to take that cocaine away from them if I care anything about them.
	I mean, it's a win-win, right, I think?
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	That's a really good way of putting it.
	Thank you. Yeah, it is a drug.
	It is a drug. And anger and rage and hatred, those are all drugs.
	And that's the drug that my mom gets when I'm around.
	And to do the loving thing is to get rid of the drug, which is me, in a sense.
	Well, it's certainly proximity to you.
	You're not the drug, right?
	But you are the catalyst or the stimulus.
	And the other thing too is that if there is to be a chance for the people who've done us evil in our life to get better, then the first thing we have to do is by whatever means necessary, prevent them from continuing to do wrong.
	That's the very, very first thing that has to be done.
	You know, like you come across some guy who's bleeding from some cut to his femoral artery in his thigh.
	You don't ask him about his dietary history, right?
	The first thing you do is put a tourniquet on his leg, right?
	That's the very first thing, to stop the bleeding.
	Because if that doesn't happen, nothing else matters.
	So the first thing, if we want bad people or people who've done really evil things to have any chance of any kind of peace, the first thing that needs to happen is they have to stop doing bad things.
	And if out of habit… We are the cigarette commercial to a chain smoker who's trying to quit.
	I remember when I – I didn't find it too hard to quit smoking.
	I mean I tried a number of times but it was just a matter of therapy and I was never a big smoker.
	But I remember when I was trying to quit a couple of times just thinking, oh man, could they not – they have these warnings.
	This material is not suitable for minors.
	This movie is not suitable for smokers because there are lots of people really enjoying smoking 20-foot-long cigarettes in this movie and you are going to have your fingertips tingled with nicotine lust.
	I would like to have had those.
	I guess if you're an alcoholic, I don't know, maybe leaving Las Vegas works both ways for you that it makes drinking look fun and yet seriously not fun.
	But you have to stop people from doing bad things.
	We have to tourniquet the bleeding first and foremost because every time somebody does a bad thing, every time somebody acts in a cruel or destructive manner, it reinforces that behavior and it creates further guilt which they then drown out by continuing to act in a destructive and immoral manner. it reinforces that behavior and it creates further guilt which
	So we have to diminish the amount of guilt that is accumulating in the people who have done bad things and the only way to do that, if you can't negotiate a cessation to the aggression, the only way to do that is to stop waving your red flag in front of their inner bull.
	And then they have that possibility of achieving some cessation of destructive actions with a diminishment of guilt which in time should result in the capacity, if not the inevitability, the capacity for being able to deal with this stuff better.
	Yeah.
	Okay. Cool.
	Thank you so much for your thoughts.
	I'll jump off the line now.
	Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome.
	And let me know how it goes if you like.
	That's very, very interesting stuff.
	And I'm sorry about talking about – if this has confused people and if it's any consolation, it has confused me as well.
	I do apologize for talking about negotiation.
	Everybody that I was negotiating with within myself was open to reason.
	But – and it was completely unconscious of this.
	I hadn't negotiated with my mom in donkey's years and when I did try to – Really, really didn't work.
	So I do want to apologize if that's been hurtful or harmful to anybody.
	It's not out of any...
	I wasn't withholding anything.
	It simply hadn't occurred to me and it hadn't really...
	It hadn't come up for me.
	I hadn't dreamt about my mom. I hadn't really thought about her in a long, long, long, long time.
	So when it did come up and I tried that, that was my experience.
	Maybe it's not the final answer, but it certainly is where I am now.
	I wanted to sort of put that out.
	So I was hoping that I could...
	Ask you about maybe getting some help with...
	Sorry, I'm a little nervous, but...
	So I've been doing therapy, and I've been trying to work through some issues I have with my mom.
	Is that...
	Is that...
	You can talk about whatever you like.
	It's your show, man. Okay, so...
	I was in therapy last Wednesday and when I was talking about my mom, I was telling my therapist that I was feeling like I had to please her a lot and that I didn't know why that was exactly.
	But then when I said it to her, I felt really creepy, really grossed out.
	I was hoping maybe you could help me look into that aspect of it.
	Yeah, certainly. And I just wanted to remind you that your therapist is the expert and I'm the idiot non-credentialed amateur on the internet.
	But I'm certainly happy to take a swing at it and see if we can connect.
	So you said that you felt the need to please your mom.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	She's kind of the person who, like I always felt, was really...
	Emotionally fragile, so I was really sensitive to that and wanted to manage our emotions, basically.
	Okay. All right.
	Can you give me an example that...
	I mean, I understand the abstract.
	I just want to make sure I understand the concrete, because I work better with rocks.
	But can you give me an example of where that may have occurred?
	And it doesn't have to be specific, just the kind of thing.
	Okay. I don't know if this is exactly the line, but my sister had moved out of the house when I was still living in the house, and my mother had started crying.
	I'm sorry, I kind of don't feel like I'm answering the question.
	No problem. Listen, if the answer came fluidly to you, there'd be no point talking about it.
	So that's perfectly good, I think.
	I mean, if we're driving over terrain you know, you can go fast.
	If you're driving over terrain you don't know, you should go slow.
	So I think that's perfectly fine.
	Do you want to take another run? Do you want to take a minute to think about it?
	We can edit out the silence.
	I don't care about that. Could you ask the question again?
	Sure. Can you give me a concrete example of when you felt the need to manage your mom's emotions?
	Okay. So there was one time when she came out to visit me and we were having this Mother's Day thing and we had to keep her away from Going upstairs where people were putting up streamers and stuff.
	And so I was staying with her, trying to keep her happy and...
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	Does that kind of answer the question?
	It doesn't even come close to answering the question, but that's no problem at all.
	And I think you know that, right?
	I was downstairs with my mom.
	Does that help? Okay, let me – I'll sort of talk about what I mean, if that makes sort of sense.
	So my mom used to – Let's say date a lot.
	And she would go to these dances and she would come home and she would, you know, I'd be sort of in my room reading or doing something on the computer and she'd come and she'd sit down and she'd smoke like a chimney and she'd tell me about every little thing that occurred at the dance.
	Like, oh, this guy went over here but then I really thought he was thinking about me because he went to get his drink but then he gave me a look and he went to talk to some other woman but that was just so that I'd really notice and then I, you know, that I would feel jealous and like everything became this highly...
	Massively complicated soap opera of, I think, pure imagination, but whatever, right?
	And my mom had this, you know, it was like really desperate.
	I kind of trapped I hate to say Lagaria because at the number of podcasts I have, I might be accused of the same thing.
	But it was – I felt really cornered and trapped.
	And I remember actually – I was just talking about this the other day with Christina.
	I remember a video game that I used to play on the old Atari 800 called Way Out where you were in this maze.
	It was like the first 3D game I'd ever played.
	It was like a really tiny – you just go out through this – try to find your way out through this maze or whatever.
	And I remember pausing that game when I was trapped in the maze and then sitting there for hour after hour while my mom filled my room with smoke and gave me all of this completely dissociating, bewildering levels of imaginary detail about these ridiculously complicated and fantastical interactions she'd had with some guy she was interested in or not had with him or whatever.
	And that was sort of, I'm trapped in this maze, there's no way out at the moment or whatever.
	And what I felt was that I couldn't say, Mom, I'm 12 for God's sakes.
	I'm not interested. It's crazy.
	I don't want to hear. I don't want to know.
	I couldn't be honest because I had to manage her.
	In other words, if I were honest, then what would happen is there would be rage.
	Rage would come out of it.
	And so it's better to get the drip of crazy than the full water can into the face of crazy, right?
	So this was a manageable amount and I just didn't want to put my face up to the water can of crazy and risk losing an eye or whatever.
	And so that was an example for me of managing my mom through just being passive.
	You know, roll over, let her talk until she runs out of cigarettes or oxygen or time, and that's manageable.
	And that to me was an example of managing my mom's emotions rather than being self-expressed.
	Does that sort of make any sense?
	Oh yeah, totally.
	That really strikes a chord with me and my relationship with my mom.
	I have to get off the phone, but thank you so much for that.
	You have to get off the phone?
	What do you mean you have to get off the phone?
	Is your mom there? Yeah.
	Okay, no problem. No problem at all.
	I'll talk a little further. You can listen to this later, but yeah, you might want to turn off the computer for now.
	Yeah, so look, the creepiness is – I think comes out of – I don't know, right?
	Just guessing. But the creepiness comes out of the one-sidedness of it.
	Anything which is non-UPB but is enforced or inflicted is creepy because it's a fundamental manipulation, right?
	So I – My mom was allowed to be bored with me, right?
	So if I was showing her something I did on the computer, she was allowed to say, I don't – I'm not that interested or I'm bored.
	I would just wander off or get exasperated and impatient to the point where I knew that if I continued to show her whatever I programmed or whatever I did.
	That she would get upset.
	And so she was allowed to be bored, but I wasn't allowed to be bored.
	I wasn't allowed to express boredom.
	That kind of stuff is always creepy because it's a one-sided set of rules, right?
	So only for them, never for you.
	Only for you, never for them.
	And that is...
	That is really important. And what happens is when you confront people about this, right?
	So if you say, well, I find your boredom rude, then they will say to you, well, I find you boring me rude.
	Or, what, I'm not allowed to be honest about being bored?
	I'm not supposed to be self-expressed?
	I just have to conform to whatever you want?
	Right? So you'll get those set of rules inflicted upon you wherein expressing your boredom is being honest.
	And boring somebody is rude, right?
	So that's that set of moral rules.
	Aha! But...
	When you flip it around, flip it around, flip it around now, what happens is when you're bored by what they're doing and you say, I'm bored, I don't want to do this anymore, then you're being not supportive.
	You're not caring about them.
	You're being rude for being bored.
	It's almost but not quite hard to blame people for this because this is just what people do.
	Whatever is happening in the moment, whatever they're experiencing in the moment, They will extrapolate to a moral rule in order to have weight and power in the moment.
	So if I was doing something to bored my mom, then it was the rule of honesty about being bored that was the rule, and that's what should happen.
	But if I was bored by something my mom was doing, then I should really try to be supportive and be there for her, and that's the right thing to do.
	And not be rude and just walk off because I didn't happen to like things in the moment.
	And that's something that you will hear.
	You will hear this a lot with people who are verbally abusive, right?
	So they'll be verbally abusive and you will say, I don't want to submit to this.
	I'm not going to be part of this conversation.
	And then what they say is, oh, why don't you just run away like you always do?
	You can't handle a challenge. You just run away, cowardly, right?
	In other words, not submitting to abuse is cowardly.
	And this is just what people do.
	And once you see it, you really won't be able to see anything else in the way that people interact with and communicate.
	Look at any drama. It's them attempting to hook their immediate emotional preference into some sort of universal ideal in order to crush and bully the other person.
	Because that's what morals were invented for.
	It's a massive club to swing over the sensitive in order to get them to conform to the brute wishes of the brutal.
	So to this gentleman who couldn't listen anymore because I guess his mom didn't want him to, I think it's really, really important to look for this principle.
	And the moment that you try and universalize this principle – this is the interesting too, right?
	So if you point out the contradiction in this principle, right?
	So if my mom – my mom can express boredom because it's honest.
	I can't express boredom because I'm not being supportive.
	The moment that you point out the contradiction, then you're being nitpicky.
	Then you're just lawyering someone.
	You're just being difficult for the sake of being difficult.
	And so even then looking for consistency.
	So consistency is used to shore up the moral position, but then the moment you look for genuine consistency between moments, you're being called nitpicky.
	So this is just what people do.
	They just use these absolutes to gain power and control.
	And it's really, really, really important to see this.
	I actually had a question.
	Who's his? Mariah.
	Oh hey, how's it going? Good.
	I'm actually very new to your site.
	I was introduced to it by a friend who you've spoken to before.
	And is that person still a friend?
	Okay, good. That red bastard.
	And now I got this philosophy in my head and I can't sleep.
	I'm loving it. It's been a long time since I've been able to delve into some of this stuff.
	Oh gosh, where to start?
	I grew up in an abusive home.
	My father was an alcoholic, very abusive.
	Alcoholism is a completely horrifying plague.
	I just wanted to point out, alcoholism is a peculiarly horrifying situation to go through, and I just really wanted to express my sympathy, but please go on.
	So I grew up in a home with that.
	He used to take airplane propellers and beat us with those because they go through the air better, belts, etc.
	Sorry, I don't mean to gloss over your agony.
	What the fuck? Airplane propellers?
	Yeah, he used to build...
	Okay, so let me just make sure I understand this, right?
	So they're off the propeller, it's just the blade itself, right?
	And you can swing it, because it's designed to slice through the air, so you can swing it more effectively?
	Yes. So you would be hit, sorry, you'd be hit with the flat or the edge end?
	Either depending on how it went through the air at the time.
	Sweet mother of God, that is just unholy.
	I mean, that is savage. That is like life-threatening assault.
	Anyway, go on, go on.
	Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I just want to make sure I understood because that's just like, wow.
	Anyway, go on. So, grew up in that home.
	Finally escaped from it.
	Have been on my own for a while.
	My brother started abusing me just this past year.
	Even at Christmas time, he gave me a bloody lip.
	And my husband now...
	He's in the army and things were great right before we got married.
	We got married and shortly after he started getting more physical with me to the point where he threw me into a coffee table and I stopped breathing for a while and he wouldn't call the ambulance because he was afraid.
	Sorry, does this mean because you got a blow to the head and you were unconscious?
	Is that... It was something with my spine, the way I hit it.
	It's kind of a blur, but I just remember not being able to breathe very well.
	And it was a very, very scary time.
	And he has been in Iraq now for the past year.
	Right before he left, things had kind of calmed down as far as physically.
	But during this entire year, he's been getting very manipulative, very controlling, has to know exactly what I'm doing every second of every day.
	Like this hour, I had to tell him that I'm taking a bath or something because I need to cover what I'm doing at every second.
	He watches every penny that comes in and out.
	And he started removing a lot of my friends.
	Yes, I do need some help.
	But I'm reaching a point now in my life where I don't want to put up with it anymore.
	I come from a religious home.
	No, that doesn't surprise me.
	Sorry, go on. Yeah, zoverse has always been very taboo to me and, well, not to me so much, but to my family.
	And I'm also getting to the point now where I'm wondering, am I just fun to abuse because I seem to attract this or...
	Because I'm genuinely a good person.
	I believe the best in everyone and maybe that's part of where I'm running into this.
	It's just because I see the good in everyone.
	Right. Yeah.
	Well, I mean, the answer is I don't know because I'm not you, but I can tell you a few of the thoughts that I have about what you're saying and you can see if it makes any sense.
	I mean, I go into this in more detail.
	I got a free book on my website called Real-Time Relationships, and you can do a search in there for Simon the Boxer.
	It's a metaphor. I'll just go over it very briefly here, and maybe it will be of some use to you.
	It's my belief that when we are terrorized...
	As children, we are fundamentally terrorized because we have no control over the situation.
	You obviously, desperately did not want to be hit with belts and propellers.
	I mean, clearly, and that was completely terrifying because you don't know...
	When it's going to stop. You don't know if you're going to survive.
	You don't know if you're going to catch some god-awful belt buckle in the eye or something, right?
	You don't know where.
	So it's completely overwhelming.
	You have no control over the situation.
	And so what we tend to do...
	We tend to try to gain control over our feelings, over our emotions.
	I can't control being abused.
	I can control the emotions that come up in me about the abuse.
	That's the only thing that I can control is my own emotional reaction.
	All human beings need some sense of control.
	If you have no sense of control, I think we just lie down and die in some very significant way, if not physical, at least spiritual.
	If this theory has any truth, I think it does.
	I really think it does. It's not proven, I understand.
	This is just my theory. If this theory has any kind of validity, then it does explain why you're in this relationship.
	Because if the only sense of control that you have is control over your reactions to abuse, then you need an abuser in order to experience those feelings of control over being abused.
	I know that's kind of convoluted.
	I don't want to over-explain it, but I don't want to under-explain it.
	Does that make any sense at all?
	Yes. So if you had some nice guy, and there are nice guys out there, and you should not settle, obviously.
	I don't even need to tell you. You should not settle for anything like this.
	Not even in a million miles like this.
	There's no room for raised voices in relationships, let alone headings, pushings, coffee tables, unconscious, not breathing.
	This is no place in a relationship in any way, shape, or form.
	But if you were with some nice guy, It is my belief that it would produce a lot of anxiety in you because you wouldn't have those feelings of terror and fear and rage to manage.
	And so you wouldn't have any sense of control.
	It's like if I become addicted to recovering, wobbling from someone pushing me over.
	I mean, just take a silly example, right?
	So I'm standing in a room and if somebody pushes me, so I almost fall over and then I have to sort of go back up.
	If I become addicted to that, the just standing still isn't going to do anything for me.
	I'm going to need someone to keep pushing me over so that I can wobble back up.
	And so becoming...
	I use the term addicted very colloquially, right?
	But becoming addicted to managing feelings of fear and rage and humiliation and all of that, if that's what we're used to, if that's what...
	The grooves are in our brain, if that's where the train tracks are in our brain, then in a kind of very real way, we can't live without those feelings.
	We can't live without those feelings because that's what we need to manage.
	That's all we know how to control.
	That's all we know how to process.
	And so we need people in our lives to provoke those feelings so that we can once again do all that we know how to do, which is to control and manage and deal with those feelings.
	Without those feelings, we're lost.
	We're disoriented. Again, tell me if I'm way off the mark.
	Sorry. First of all, I mean this could be complete bullshit.
	I just want to caution you about that.
	This is just my feelings, my thoughts, my experience.
	I mean I've obviously talked with a lot of people about these kinds of issues and so I'm not new to the block but certainly don't take what I'm saying as any kind of truth because the reality is your experience and your truth, not – You know, my theory is at a distance.
	I really want to point that out.
	Don't say, oh, well, this guy on the internet said it, therefore it must be true because, Lord knows, lots of people say lots of stuff on the internet.
	I just really wanted to remind you, but does that give you any sense about why you may have gone from this abusive dad to this abusive husband?
	And no worries on the – just taking your word for what it is.
	I have always questioned everyone all my life.
	Oh, good, good. Okay. I say that not so much for you but for anyone else who might listen to this.
	I don't mean to insult your intelligence or independence.
	I just wanted to point that out. A lot of people, once they find somebody that they agree with on a few levels, they think that this person knows everything.
	But I'm not one of those.
	I do agree with you on many levels and some I do question.
	I have the same relationship with myself, so that's quite reasonable.
	But tell me what you think about this idea that managing these feelings may be very important to you at some level, and this is why you may be trapped in this cycle.
	I'm not sure if that's exactly...
	I don't know how I would look at it either because I've had really good relationships in my past.
	I have some amazing good friends who, you know, there's a lot of good influences in my life and I appreciate them and I love them immensely.
	So I don't think it's that I'm drawn to it or addicted to it or feel like I'm a better person for living.
	Sorry to interrupt. Let me just ask a skeptical question here.
	Maybe right, maybe wrong.
	Let's call your husband Bob.
	Okay. So what did your friends think of Bob before you got married?
	Everyone liked him.
	He played the role very well.
	You know what? I know what you're saying, but I'm telling you, once you get why you're with him, you will see these guys a mile off.
	They're not that hard to...
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	What was Bob's childhood like?
	His father left when he was very young, kind of just abandoned them, which should have been a red flag.
	But I also grew up in an abusive home, but I was able to...
	I think it made me a better person in the long run, and I dealt with those things.
	No, again, I have to give you the skeptical feedback, right?
	And you're pausing, you know what I'm going to say, right?
	Yeah. Because you're pausing even while you're saying it, right?
	So you're having trouble building this bridge yourself, right?
	Well, because of the circumstance I'm in now, it doesn't look like I dealt with my past because I walked right into a future that is parallel to my past on a different level.
	Right. So, again, I'm not criticizing in any way, shape, or form.
	I'm just pointing out that the adjectives don't match the actions, right?
	So, what else?
	I mean, look, just having a dad who wasn't around does not, in my mind at least, is enough of an ingredient to produce an abuser.
	So, what else happened in Bob's past?
	Was he himself...
	Sorry, go ahead. What were you going to ask?
	No, no, you go ahead. I don't want to...
	You're the one who should be talking here, not me.
	All right. His father walked out on him when he was very young, started a new family, completely ignored him, and then died a few years later.
	And then his mother was very...
	Well, she's very depressed.
	Always was just scraping by...
	He was kind of her world and because of it she put a lot of pressures on him.
	So that's like the gist of his childhood.
	Was he physically aggressed against as a child?
	No. Not even spanked?
	Not as far as I know.
	I don't think his mother ever really believed in that.
	She wasn't around very much.
	He kind of raised himself.
	Does he have siblings?
	No. Right.
	What's his circle of friends like?
	A lot of military and jocks and very just guy guys, like into sports and Get together, have a few beers, watch the game type of stuff.
	And what was the first thing that you remember of significance that he said to you when you met?
	I'm not sure off the top of my head right now.
	No problem. Everything's been so clouded with the past week and just the anxiety of him returning soon and trying to do what's best for me.
	Right. Yeah.
	Right. Okay.
	Well, again, I know I have to keep repeating this, but it's worth repeating.
	I'm certainly no expert. I think that...
	Most people who are physically abusive were themselves physically abused.
	And that's not to say that everybody who's physically abused becomes physically abusive.
	That's a different equation.
	But just about everyone that I've ever heard of or read about who is physically abusive were themselves physically abused.
	And that's an important conversation to have.
	Again, no one can tell you what you can do, what you should do.
	Nobody can tell you what you should do as far as your marriage goes.
	But I will say that I don't think that you have the right to subject yourself to this kind of abuse.
	So, I mean, you're just the brain.
	You have a whole body. You have a reproductive system.
	You have future children that you might have.
	You know, one wrong blow to the stomach and you could be infertile, right?
	Which is stripping from your future self the right to have children.
	I don't think you have the right to strip from your future self the right to have children.
	I don't think that you have the right to inflict on your inner child a repetition of the abuse that your inner child and you, of course, have already.
	I don't think you have that right.
	I know that's a weird way of putting it, but I feel very strongly about that, that you don't have the right to subject yourself to this kind of abuse.
	You certainly should not.
	Don't receive abuse in any of your relationships.
	This should be not something that you tolerate, not something that happens once a month or once a year or once a decade.
	This should not be something that you accept in your relationships in any way, shape or form.
	If your husband aggressed against you in this kind of way and did not Go to get professional help.
	Because there are ways of dealing.
	There's anger management classes.
	There's ways of dealing with these kinds of issues that will do a lot to prevent recurrence.
	And there's things that you can do that will be most likely to prevent recurrence.
	I can give you my advice and all I can do is give you my advice.
	And you can obviously do whatever you want.
	But my advice would be to get yourself into therapy.
	Not tomorrow, but today.
	You know, look people up on the yellow pages, look people up online who are close to you, and find...
	I'm a big fan of cognitive-based therapy, CBT it's called.
	Oh, sorry, cognitive behavioral therapy.
	And get yourself into therapy.
	My personal belief is that it is not safe...
	For you to be in the house with your husband, especially because he's coming back from war, right?
	So if he had anger issues before, if he had self-control issues and impulse control issues before, I don't think they get better in a war zone.
	In fact… Oh, but he seems to think they do.
	That's another reason why I would not exactly be a big fan of the safety of the situation.
	If he thinks, well, the cure for being angry is war, I think that he's not in the right ballpark.
	And if he was angry before he went to war or if he had rage problems before he went to war, Going to war doesn't help those things.
	In fact, I strongly believe that they make them worse.
	And then coming back to a civilian environment and all of those kinds of adjustments furthermore is going to be – so rage tends to increase under stress and war is very stressful and coming back and adjusting to civilian life is very stressful.
	And I tell you, I tell you my lady, without significant intervention, without significant commitment to change, behavior repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats.
	Without significant professional intervention and a significant commitment to change, by far the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
	And it tends to get worse.
	So if your husband were 500 pounds and he denied that he was overweight and said you were the one with the problem, what likelihood would there be that he would lose weight?
	None. Yeah, there would be none.
	There would be none. And so if your husband does not think that he has a problem with anger or thinks that war has made it better or is simply making promises to change without getting to the root causes of this kind of abuse...
	It is a near mathematical certainty that it is going to continue and it is going to escalate.
	And something I have done in my free time since I've been on your site, I have, you know, I made a list of the good qualities in myself because that's something he's been stripping of me.
	I have called the national hotline.
	I've gotten in touch with my state one.
	I have, you know, I've already been to two sessions of counseling with someone there.
	The thing I'm struggling with most at this point is just accepting that this is...
	I know this is what I need to do for myself, but accepting it is why I've been...
	I just need...
	I don't know.
	I just need to understand that I am right in what I'm doing.
	Well, tell me what accepting it means.
	Because I sense a lot of heartbreak in your voice.
	And I completely sympathize and understand that.
	But tell me where the sadness is.
	Because, I mean, that's what I get.
	Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I think I can hear in you.
	The sadness isn't so much in losing him as it is in I had made a vow to him.
	Right. And that's not something I take lightly.
	Right, right. What part of the vow is the hardest for you to let go of?
	Or is it the whole thing?
	For better or for worse.
	Right. Right.
	Go on. Um...
	What does it mean? So if you say, okay, in a sense, I'm bailing when it gets to worse, does that mean, what does that say about you in your mind?
	About your integrity and your commitment and your honor?
	It feels like I can't keep my word and I've always been a person of my word.
	Right. And that's something I love about myself, but at the same time, I cannot stand there and let him destroy everything I am.
	No. Because of my word.
	Right. Right.
	I think I see a key to the door that gets you out of this paralysis.
	I'll tell you if you like.
	I'd love it. Okay.
	Look, first of all, I sympathize, sympathize, sympathize.
	I completely respect that.
	Your desire to keep your word.
	I completely respect your honor and your integrity.
	I think that's magnificent.
	I think that is an incredibly honorable and beautiful thing.
	But that's not what for better or for worse means.
	For better or for worse in a marriage means stuff that's coming from outside the marriage.
	So, for better or for worse means, I'm not going to leave you if you stub your toe.
	I'm not going to leave you if you break your leg.
	I'm not going to leave you if you get sick.
	I'm not going to leave you if you're grumpy.
	I'm not going to leave you if you get depressed when your mom dies.
	Because that is all stuff that is coming from outside the relationship.
	I'm not going to leave you if you get fired.
	Or if you get laid off, right?
	I'm not going to leave you if you try to get work and you're unemployed for a while.
	That's what for better or for worse means, right?
	It means we're on this journey together and there's going to be storms and there's going to be lightning and there's going to be beautiful sunny days of calm sailing and we are going to be on this boat together weathering the storms for better or for worse, right? But if you take a fucking cherry bomb and blow a hole in the bottom of the boat, that's a little different.
	If you start steering both of us towards rocks and hit the motor to boot and set fire to the boat, that's a little different.
	For better or for worse is us getting through the storms of life together as a team in love, arm in arm, heart to heart, supporting each other as best friends in an uncertain and unpredictable and sometimes dangerous world.
	That is what for better or for worse means.
	Not if you knock me out by pushing me into a coffee table.
	That is not you both facing the world together, united as friends, as lovers, as companions.
	As husband and wife.
	That is him turning on you.
	That is not something coming from outside the marriage.
	The for better or for worse is us facing the world, not you attacking me.
	Let me give you another example.
	And it's a ridiculous one, but I'll give it anyway.
	So I'm on eBay and I'm going to sell you An iPhone.
	And you say, okay, you send me the iPhone and I'll send you 500 bucks or whatever, right?
	I don't know how much an iPhone goes for, right?
	And I send you and you say, well, I honor my contracts.
	So you send me this and I will pay you because that's our contract.
	And then I ship you a box of poo-poo.
	I say this because I've been watching Shaun the Sheep with my daughter, and the pigs give them a box of poo-poo instead of apples, and she's very excited by that.
	So this is what's coming to my mind.
	I'm sorry, the metaphors are very childish, but that's where my imagination is these days.
	Now, if I ship you a box of prime-grade caca, are you going to sit there and say, well, I've got to send him 500 bucks because I'm a woman of my word?
	No, that's an injustice.
	There's no... Right.
	Right. Did you make a vow to love each other?
	Yes. To honor each other?
	Yes. Is he keeping his vow?
	No. No.
	Do not have higher moral standards than those around you.
	That is a recipe for exploitation.
	Do not have higher moral values than those around you.
	don't send 500 bucks to a guy who ships you a box of shit because that just means you're going to get exploited it.
	Thank you.
	Right? Treat people the best you can when you meet them and after that treat them the way they treat you.
	Well, look, it's a healthy way to do things.
	It's a healthy way to do things because there are bad people in the world who will do things to exploit and hurt you because of their own crap and because maybe they're just bad people for reasons that we don't know or maybe you never know but it doesn't really matter.
	So if somebody ships you a box of crap, you don't have to pay them their 500 bucks because they've just broken their contract with you and you cannot keep a contract with someone who's broken their contract with you without being, I hate to say it this baldly, a sucker. So forget about your vows to him for now.
	Though I completely, I want to reiterate, I completely respect your desire.
	To fulfill those vows.
	And I hope to the heavens above that you can do that in your life.
	But what you need to do is not focus on whether you should pay the 500 bucks, but what the guy actually shipped to you.
	Focus on his vows, not yours.
	because it's his vows that are the question, not yours, right?
	I just needed some reasoning behind everything, and that's definitely helped me look at it the way and that's definitely helped me look at it the way I needed to.
	Yeah. Look, you show up for work and the guy is going to pay you at the end of the week.
	If he doesn't pay you at the end of the week, do you show up the next week and the next week and the next week and say, well, I made a commitment to show up for work?
	No. If the guy doesn't pay you, you stop going to work if he's not going to pay you, right?
	And that doesn't mean that you're a quitter.
	It means that you're sane.
	And you have standards.
	Does that – again, I hate to use these crass financial metaphors, but we all understand that's what we would do, right?
	Yes.
	You have the right to be loved, to be cherished, to be honored, to be respected, and to be obeyed.
	I'll do just about anything my wife says because she has so much trust and credibility with me.
	Hell, I'll do 90% of what my daughter says because her decisions as a two-year-old are often better than mine.
	I don't know why. It's just the way it is because she's a woman.
	I don't know. But you have that right.
	And you should settle for nothing less.
	And every contract we enter into has as high a standard for the other person as it does for us.
	And we should not have higher standards than the other person.
	We should not hold ourselves to a higher standard than those around us.
	I know that you hear a lot, oh, take the high road and so on.
	You know, I think that that is not healthy.
	That is not healthy.
	He needs to treat you right.
	You need to keep yourself safe.
	You both need help. And whether that help means that there's a way for the marriage to continue or not, who knows?
	But you both need help.
	And fortunately, I'm sure you can get some help through his coverage.
	But you both need help.
	Whether that help is a way of coming to an understanding of why the marriage can't work or whether there's a way of finding the way for the marriage to work, I mean, who knows?
	I mean, that's between you and your therapist and you and your husband.
	But please, please, please don't just cross your fingers and think that roses are going to fall off cactus plants.
	There is no magic in the world.
	There is no light that fills people up and turns them into different people.
	There is no Jesus who comes down and turns water into wine and makes more loaves than fishes.
	There is a grimly predictable cycle of human behavior that occurs without significant intervention, almost always with heavy and professional help.
	But please, please, please do not cross your fingers.
	Do not hope for the best. Do not say one more day.
	Do not put it off. Do not think that something is going to happen that is going to turn around.
	That's not the way that people work.
	That's not the way that relationships work.
	That's not the way that life works.
	We have to work to become free.
	We have to work to give love.
	We have to work to earn love.
	And where you're heading now is a very dangerous place without getting the help that you and your husband need.
	Agreed. Alright.
	Is there anything ridiculously cheery and jokey that I can leave you with?
	I don't know. Something your little girl did recently because she's adorable.
	Oh my god, is she ever adorable.
	I'm sure she did something.
	I'll tell you, what did she do?
	Oh, I mean, she just does these things that are incredibly cute to me.
	She's just learning three-syllable words.
	And when we play, she likes to play in the dark in the study, like in the room where I do the shows, the red room.
	And we sometimes can, she's very active, as you know, she's two, right?
	But sometimes she'll lie there very still.
	And she just laid there the other day, and there's a little wireless router under my desk, and it has these little blue lights that light up, of course, whenever there's data passing through.
	And she said, Dada!
	Dada! The blue light under the table is flickering-ing.
	I thought, flickering-ing, that is a much better word than flickering.
	Much better! Flickering-ing is like, I don't know if I'm going to teach her how to speak or if she's just going to liberate me from all forms of traditional syntax, but that is just a fantastically better word.
	She's really, really starting to engage with other kids.
	We were at the mall the other day, and she found this five-year-old girl whose parents were talking to a clerk for like half an hour, and she's like, girl, come play hide-and-seek!
	I'm still trying to tell her that sometimes it's okay to phrase these things as a question, that it might be somewhat more inviting.
	She's still working on that to some degree.
	And yeah, so then Christina was shopping for something and myself and Isabella and this girl, we played hide-and-seek in the store for like 20 minutes.
	Yeah. I love the way that she brings that fun and engagement.
	I mean, this girl was pretty sad and moping around because she was bored and Isabella just came storming in with this great sense of play and energy and fun and really got this girl up and running and squealing with happiness and all that.
	I love that. This incandescence that she brings into the world to the degree to which she just touches things and they burst into light.
	That's sort of my experience of her and I think that's just completely delightful and I hope that that continues.
	I'm sure that it will. I hope that that continues as she moves forward in life to just bring that.
	There's this great compressed joyful energy to things that she interacts with and touches.
	That is wonderful. I mean that is a beautiful, wonderful thing and I have high hopes for her sense of joy and sharing of joy in the future.
	So we just have to keep that protected and help her to – of course she will go up to a bunch of kids and she will try to engage them and they will get really shy and some of them will run away and she will yell, girl, come back!
	Sorry, I don't want to make her sound like some sort of Nazi general or something.
	It sounds a little harsher, you know, but I am trying to keep the general...
	Yeah, that's right. That's right.
	I need to teach her German so that she can match the tone with the language, you know.
	But Schweinhund! Something like that.
	But yeah, she's just really great and really smart and just a real joy to spend time with.
	So I guess that's what I'll leave you with.
	But I really appreciate you sharing.
	I appreciate... The vulnerability that it took to talk about this and I certainly wish you the very best and I hope that you will avail my ridiculous advice and get the help that you need to free yourself from this in one way or another.
	Certainly, and I have been.
	I actually have already started reading your real-time relationships and have been thoroughly enjoying it.
	And, you know, I mean, Alice Miller, Nathaniel Brandon, there's a bunch of other people who it's really, really obviously a bunch of other people like I'm first and foremost.
	But, I mean, these are the real experts and I would definitely pursue their stuff.
	But thanks so much for the call. I really appreciate it.
	And I don't know if you're in the chat room, but I just wanted to pass along the, I guess, nearly 100 people in the chat room, almost all of whom are wishing you the very best and big hugs and best wishes for success and peace in your life.
	So I just wanted to pass that along as well.
	Yes. I'm in chat, and I actually have been ignoring it this whole time, so I'll scroll back through and respond to some of the people, but thank you.
	All right. Very, very good. All right.
	Do we have somebody else on the line, or is it time for more chit-chats from the BCF? Hello, Steph.
	It's Steph. Jeff, how are you, my friend?
	I'm fine. Yourself?
	I am very well.
	I'm still full of concern for the previous caller, but I will reorient and focus on you.
	So go ahead. Or should we just speak fluently in French so that I can pretend that I understand?
	But sorry, go on. Oh, right, right.
	Well, would you be up to do a dream analysis?
	I'm always happy to do those.
	I find those very, very exciting and challenging.
	I've been trying to get this listener who had a dream about me where, puristically enough, I was closed.
	I don't understand that at all, but I'm trying to get him to give me the dream so we can talk about it.
	I'd love to do a dream with me in it, but that would just blow my mind.
	It's like the cheap podcast version of Inception.
	First of all, let's hear about what you think may have triggered the dream, like stuff that may have happened the day before or whatever, and then we will talk about the dream.
	The day before, I'm not really sure.
	I don't have anything special in mind.
	In the dream, I'm visiting my old elementary school, which I did about a month before I had the dream.
	So maybe that's related, but that's the best I can come up with.
	So I'm going to...
	You have it written down.
	Do you mind putting it in the chat window just so I can refer to it?
	Okay, I'll give it a shot. I was visiting my old elementary school.
	Outside, there were three groups of kids talking to each other.
	They had lost track of time because one girl realized they were supposed to be in class at least 70 minutes ago.
	I wondered why no one came to warn them.
	I thought, if they were only five minutes late, they wouldn't have to be punished.
	But they would be if they skipped the whole class, like they were about to do, even if it was accidental.
	After that, I went inside.
	The school was very different from what I remembered.
	It was completely repainted in bright colors, yellow, blue, red, orange, etc.
	In reality, like many schools, mine looks like a prison.
	Grey, black, beige.
	In the classrooms, there were no desks.
	Children would sit directly on the floor.
	I was walking around observing.
	I started looking for the stairs leading to the basement.
	That's where the kindergarten is.
	Then a woman saw me. I didn't recognize her in the dream.
	But now that I think about it, she looked like my second grade teacher.
	She asked,''Who's your boss?'' I replied,''No one.'' She seemed surprised by it.
	I added,''I'm only visiting.
	It won't be long. Is there still a basement here?'' She replied,''Yes, but it's only used occasionally.''''You haven't touched anything, have you?'' I showed her my hands and said,''I've got gloves anyway.'' I opened a door to a dark blue room.
	All that was inside were a few children running around, a microwave, and a clock.
	I looked at the clock. It was five past noon.
	I thought I needed to eat soon, as if I needed to get back to class at 1.15.
	I woke up after that.
	Interesting. Yeah.
	And I certainly have no issues with why you want to talk about it, but why do you want to talk about it?
	I bought a little journal to write my dreams down and that's the first dream that I wrote down and I was really glad I had.
	When I woke up, I was like, oh, I just have to write this down.
	It's really resonated for some reason.
	Yeah, no, it is a very resonant dream for sure.
	For sure. Okay, so the first thing that I would do in looking at this dream, and you know, this is not exactly science, but this is the way that I would start at it, is...
	To say what is different between this dream and my experience, right?
	So if the dream is similar to your experience, then it's usually something in the past you haven't processed.
	But if the dream is different from what you experienced in the past, particularly if it's better, then it means progress.
	It means resolution. It means a liberation from prison, right?
	So the thing that noticed is the colors, right?
	It's very bright colors, right?
	What happened to the kids?
	Did they actually go inside or not?
	I can't remember.
	The kids outside, I don't think so.
	I think I just went inside.
	When they were talking to each other, did they appear fearful?
	No, not really.
	Yeah, I didn't get that sense.
	So that's really good, right?
	It means the kids are free, in a sense, to not go to class.
	Yeah. And they don't fear punishment.
	They're not like, oh shit, we're going to get detention, we're going to get spanked, we're going to call my parents, oh my god, right?
	They're like, oh shit, we completely lost track of time.
	I guess we missed class, right?
	But there's no fear, right?
	Yeah. And that's very different from your experience of your childhood, right?
	Right. But actually, now that you mention it… No, no, no.
	You can't contradict my theory.
	Sorry, go ahead. I'm just kidding.
	Go ahead. Right.
	I did skip class for a few days in elementary school, and I didn't get punished for it.
	I just got a warning.
	Right. So I don't know if that's really it.
	Maybe it is. No, it is.
	Basically, I remember because my home was too chaotic to study in occasionally.
	Like occasionally when I had a test, what I would do is I would not go to school and I would spend the day studying and then I would take the test the next time I was in the class.
	Because that was really the only way that I could study.
	Because, you know, my mom and my brother would be away during the day.
	So I would not, you know, I'd pretend to go to school or I'd pretend to be sick or whatever.
	And then I'd just come home or stay home and I'd study and then I'd take the test.
	And I, you know, didn't feel any guilt about it at the time.
	And I certainly think it was a great strategy.
	It's not fair to compete with kids who get to study at home when I didn't, right?
	So, and I remember they called me up once and they said...
	You know, why are you home?
	Oh, I'm not well. Does your mother know you're home?
	And I thought, are you kidding me?
	Did my mom actually call the school?
	I don't think she even knows the number. She never went to a parent-teacher thing.
	I mean, she never – she didn't even know.
	I mean, I'd bring paperwork home to fill her.
	She wouldn't even know what grade I was in.
	And I just remember being terrified, like, oh my god, the worst thing.
	Terrible and blah, blah, blah. And there was no actual punishment.
	So I sort of – my experience was sort of similar to yours, that there's a lot of threat, but there's not quite as much punishment as that, so – Yeah, right.
	Okay, so let's get back to your dream.
	Sorry, go ahead. Sure, sure.
	Okay, so they're not afraid.
	They've broken the rules, and they're not afraid, and there's no punishment, right?
	Right. Why do you want to see the basement?
	That's a good question.
	At least once a show, I like to ask one good question, so go on.
	Right. Well, I've thought about it afterwards.
	In the dream, I only remember I was looking for the basement.
	In retrospect, I thought that was kind of a metaphor for the unconscious, what's in the basement.
	Yeah, for sure.
	For sure.
	Now, sorry, you said your second grade teacher, do you have any memories of your second grade teacher that might be relevant to the dream, like of your real second grade teacher?
	How can I say that?
	She wasn't a good teacher, that's for sure.
	So, she's totally in character in the dream.
	But sorry, I don't get any sense of threat from her in the dream.
	No. Other than when she says, you haven't touched anything, have you?
	But she's not like, get out of here, or what the hell are you doing here, or get lost, or she's not aggressive or abusive, right?
	No, but only before I... Because I was...
	That's how I felt.
	I was... I'm preemptively addressing these and saying, you know, I'm only visiting, it won't be long, I'll be out, you know, that kind of stuff.
	I was worried about...
	Oh, so you're worried that she's going to be upset with you or attack you, right?
	Yeah, because I knew I wasn't supposed to be here, you know.
	Ah, yes, but the dream doesn't tell you that.
	The dream doesn't say that you're not supposed to be there.
	In fact, the dream tells you, you don't even know where this is.
	But you know it's not where you were.
	So your unconscious may be saying that you're bringing more fear to your interactions than is empirically required.
	Because here, this is saying, look, the kids aren't afraid.
	It's bright. It's fun.
	There are no desks.
	The kids are sitting on the floor, which is usually associated with playtime or storytime or stuff that's more fun, right?
	And this woman comes to seize you, and there's no indication of threat.
	In fact, there's every indication that you're in a benevolent place, right?
	Right. But you're like, oh shit, I've got to be defensive, right?
	Hey, that's true. I didn't think about that.
	Is there any situation in your life at the moment where it's possible that you may be experiencing more anxiety or experience of attack than maybe empirically there?
	Hmm. Well...
	Other than this call!
	No, sorry, go ahead. This call.
	Well... Well, yeah, especially with the people at FDR, I'm really nervous to talk to them, to those people. I have them on Skype or on the board, on Facebook.
	I'm always really, really nervous about talking to them, even though I know that there's no threat there.
	Right. Right. Right.
	And I think that's an important insight, and I think the dream helps you get there.
	Basement, being the unconscious, being depth, being the true self, being whatever, right?
	Yeah. You say it's only used exceptionally, but I think you mean occasionally, right?
	That's right. That was just a...
	Look, and this is a question everybody needs to ask this question every day.
	How much genuine contact am I getting today?
	We're like walking along with a big sack of gold coins on our back and there's a hole in the bottom called time and every one of our days is dropping out like gold coins behind us into the mud, never to be recovered as we march forward.
	The sack is emptier and emptier.
	So every time a gold coin drops from your sack, how well did I spend it?
	How well did I spend it? How much connection did I get?
	How many risks did I take?
	How much of myself did I put out there?
	How much of my heart did I wear upon my sleeve in a safe and productive way?
	How much was I honest today?
	How much did I connect with people today?
	How much did I get out of my comfort zone today?
	How much of my today was distraction?
	How much of my day was emptiness?
	How much of my day was wasted?
	And look, wastage is necessary.
	Wastage is important. I'm not saying stare into each other's eyes and murmur sweet nothings all day and never watch a TV show.
	I'm not saying anything like that.
	Because there's no right answer to this.
	There's only knowledge. This is aesthetics.
	This is not ethics. There's no right answer.
	You can spend your whole life hiding from people if you wanted.
	You can spend your whole life never saying an honest thing to anyone.
	I'm not saying this is you. But you just need to know what you're doing so that it's a choice, not an avoidance.
	So, let's put that question on you.
	Over the last week, over the last month, over the last year, what percentage of your time has been connecting with people?
	Very, very little.
	Right. So we have this basement, we have this depth, we have this truth, but it's only used very occasionally, right?
	Yeah. I mean...
	And then, she says, you haven't touched anything, have you?
	Touched. Connection.
	Touch is the connection. And you say, what do you say?
	I got gloves.
	I got gloves! I got gloves!
	And do you know what glove is?
	It's love with a G. In cold weather, a hand needs a glove.
	In times like these, a lonely man like me needs love.
	So, I got gloves.
	Don't worry. I'm safe.
	I'm protected. I got gloves.
	I don't need gloves because I'm inside.
	But I'm not going to touch anything when I go to the basement.
	Don't worry. I'm sanitary.
	I'm clean. I'm in my bio suit of isolation.
	No contact will occur.
	Oh, wow. Oh, that's great.
	Somebody has said, what is the microwave important?
	I bet you it is.
	Can I tell you why I think it is? Always look at the words in a dream.
	Is it true that...
	I say, Your Honor, is it true?
	Is it true that you make little gestures to connect with people, but they're not reciprocated or you don't follow through?
	Like you'll ping them a little and say, how's it going, or whatever?
	Or do you just not contact anyone, ever?
	I'd say the pings are on occasion.
	I mean, the Facebook comments, for example, but that's it pretty much.
	Right, so when you make a little gesture to contact someone, what could we call that?
	A micro wave.
	A little wave.
	A little wave.
	Hi! That's brilliant.
	It's your brain, man.
	And what else is in the basement, my friend?
	You got children running around.
	Beautiful. You got a microwave.
	It's your little hellos.
	And what else? A clock.
	Which means what? Time is ticking.
	Time is running out.
	You are mortal.
	You're going to die.
	And every day you spend not connected is a day that it's slightly easier to spend not connected tomorrow.
	Everything we do is a habit that accumulates and becomes an identity.
	Oh. And what's...
	You know, when you ask me, you know, what happened before I had the dream, well, I've been thinking about that a lot, so...
	That pretty much confirms it.
	And I'll tell you what the end of the dream is, again, in my opinion.
	So your boss says to you, sorry, the teacher says to you, who's your boss?
	And you say, I don't have one, right?
	Right. Right.
	And then when you're down in the basement, which is where you want to go, with your gloves on, right?
	The first thing you say to yourself is, well, shit, I've got to get back to class, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	But the whole dream is set up that you don't have to get back to class because you're not a kid.
	It's not your school.
	You didn't recognize her as your teacher.
	You're an adult. You don't even have to be there.
	Yeah. So the dream is telling you you have no boss except you.
	You are the only bully in your life that's left.
	You're the only one who's making up these rules now.
	You're the one who's saying, I got to get back to class.
	I can't stay down here in the basement.
	I sure as hell can't take my gloves off and reveal my love.
	I can't go from a microwave to a macro hug because I got to get back to class.
	It's like, nope, nope. The dream is telling you that is an entirely made-up constraint.
	That is entirely self-inflicted.
	There is nothing in the environment that requires that.
	You're doing that to yourself.
	Oh, wow.
	And that's the liberation that you're being invited to.
	Yeah.
	Hi, thanks a lot. - Pff.
	Hey, I'm glad that was helpful.
	That's a great dream. And look at that.
	It didn't even take nine hours. Well, yeah, listen.
	If you get a ping from this fine fella, give him a big ping back.
	That's all I'm saying. And talk.
	Yeah, talk. Talk, talk.
	Connect. Open up. I mean, people are often only here because I've opened up, right?
	So let's UPB that motherfucker, right?
	That's right. UPB that mofo.
	That's got to be my new mug.
	Yeah, right. All right.
	Okay, I think we had somebody else who wanted a question just before we end up, but thank you so much.
	That was great.
	Thanks for you. Thanks, man.
	Do love me a good Dreamfest.
	feast.
	Yum, yum, yum.
	James, if we have somebody else, I think somebody else is looking, unless I missed a question in the chat room.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Oh, there was a question a bit back.
	If anyone on the call wants to speak up, feel free.
	Yeah, we've got a few minutes. You've got a little bit.
	Otherwise, I forget a good easy story.
	Interesting, easy parenting story.
	Hello, Stefan. Hello.
	Hi. I'm actually pretty new to your information, I guess you would call it.
	I actually discovered you through the...
	The Ron Paul movement.
	I came to some logical inconsistencies with libertarianism in general.
	Basically, I discovered Murray Rothbard and his book on ethics.
	And I thought, if you apply this logic, which I couldn't find any major flaws in his logic, then even libertarianism, constitutionalism and all of that, That's really essentially the same problem that libertarians have with socialism and big government and all of that.
	Someone actually linked me to your video, I believe it was, Sunset of the State.
	That's how I discovered you maybe four or five months ago, so I'm still kind of working through all of this new paradigm.
	One argument that I've been coming up against a lot lately for some reason, it's an argument that a philosopher named, I believe his name is pronounced Prudan, came up with called, Property is Theft.
	And it's basically this argument that by owning property, you're somehow committing violence against all of society.
	And usually when I find someone with a dissenting opinion, I can kind of put myself in their shoes and kind of break down where they're coming from and respond from there.
	But this is one that I just can't wrap my mind around.
	So I was wondering if you could kind of, if you're familiar with this concept, kind of, you know, go into some detail about it, you know, maybe some ways to respond to it, because like I said, honestly, it's just such, I mean, I just, it's like if someone were to say, well, the sky is orange, it's like, How do you respond to that?
	You know what I mean? Right, right.
	Look, I mean, I think the first thing to recognize is that you cannot respond philosophically to an assertion.
	A very, very important principle to understand.
	If somebody says to me, property is theft, that is not an argument.
	That is an assertion.
	Right. It's equivalent of me saying, I am right.
	Well, that's not an argument. That's just an assertion.
	So property is theft is not an argument.
	And so the first thing that I would do in face with that is I would do a little bit of probing to find out if somebody read that somewhere, those three words, and then found them emotionally appealing for some reason, which would have to do with the stuff I've talked about in the Bomb and the Brain series.
	FDRURL.com forward slash BIB. If there's only one thing you watch, watch that.
	So I would ask and say, well, do you have any knowledge of what Prudhomme was talking about and what context he was coming from and what he actually meant?
	He didn't mean that private property in a free market is theft.
	That wasn't his argument. So I would ask if somebody knew, and if they didn't, that's fine.
	I would just get a sense of whether they're talking with any historical knowledge or whether they just like those three words.
	Well, when I asked for a breakdown of the logical steps that led to this conclusion, It comes down to really, you know, the tragedy of the commons.
	You know, there's only so many resources.
	So if you're exerting exclusive control over those resources, then you're limiting them from everyone else.
	So if you're saying, hey, this is mine and I'm going to violently defend it, then you're essentially stealing the possibility of using those resources from the rest of society.
	And like I said to me, if what you're saying is that Everyone is allowed access to those resources.
	So I'm not allowed to use them, but then I have an equal claim as everyone else has.
	And I mean, like I said, it's just such an out there way of looking at things.
	Well, no, it's not. It's not out there.
	This is very commonplace.
	I like to, you know, I used to have the coma test.
	I'm evolving that to what I call the Vajayjay principle.
	And the Vajayjay principle is very simple.
	Does this argument apply to a vagina?
	I know that sounds silly, but it's actually a very good argument, right?
	So a woman who doesn't want to have sex with every guy obviously has a resource called a vagina which she is exclusively bestowing upon one guy at the exclusion of everyone else.
	Is that wrong? Right.
	Well, I guess they would say that no, it's not moral, but I would say that it is.
	They would say that it's not moral for a woman to either not have sex with everyone or have sex with only one guy.
	They'd say that's immoral. Well, if we apply that logic, yeah, I guess so.
	I think where these arguments come from is people seem to… No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	Let's not psychologize.
	Let's stay with the argument, at least.
	We can psychologize if we want in a sec, but let's just stay with the argument, right?
	Sure. I would also say to the person, so while you're having this debate with me, you are a resource, obviously, because we are not separate from the rest of matter.
	So at the moment, you are having an exclusive debate with me and not simultaneously debating with everyone else.
	Is that immoral? Well, that's a good point.
	Yeah. I'm going to throw that out there and see what they can come at.
	You are holding on to your kidney.
	When there are lots of people in this damn world who need what you have to of.
	Sure, some guy needs a testicle in Argentina.
	I'm sure some guy needs a lung in Uruguay.
	I'm sure some guy needs an eyeball in Paraguay.
	And I'm sure there's lots of people who need a kidney in New Delhi.
	I actually made that argument because my understanding of the nature of property rights is if I own myself and I invest my labor, which means I'm investing essentially my life force into creating something, Then, essentially, I've put a part of myself into this product that I've created.
	So, if you're saying I don't have a right to this property, what you're saying is I don't have a right to myself.
	So, you know, take my hand.
	I own my hand. If you say that society needs my hands more than I do, Then what they're saying is they can take my hands away from me.
	No, no, no. I'm sorry to be annoying.
	I wouldn't go that far. Don't ever look at the content of someone's argument first.
	Always look at the form. And Lord knows, I'm not saying I do this every time, but I always try to remember to, right?
	So if somebody says to you, and I've made this argument before, I'll just touch on it briefly here.
	If somebody says to you, self-ownership is invalid...
	Well, clearly they're exercising exclusive use of their own body and vocal cords and typing fingers or whatever to make that argument, right?
	Right. So it's a self-detonating argument because they're exercising exclusive self-ownership to say it's wrong to exercise exclusive self-ownership, right?
	Right, exactly. And so either as somebody – like that – I tell you, but be aware of the emotional volatility of that because when you take someone's argument – And turn it back to what they're doing.
	It clarifies things in such a shocking way that they get very upset.
	Because people want to waffle back and forth and baffle gab and quote statistics and go to Google and go round and round and make – by far the vast majority of people who are interested in ethical issues are interested in avoiding ethical issues.
	So they don't actually have to make a decision and act on ethics.
	They want to obscure it. They want to baffle it.
	They want to make it confusing. They want to make it relative.
	They want to make it impossible. They want to make it self-contradictory.
	So that they don't actually have to just do some basic damn ethical things in their life, right?
	And this is as true of libertarians as it is for anyone else.
	It's as true of anarchists as it is of anyone else and it's true of atheists as it is of anyone else.
	Yeah, the response I get quite often is when you try to break something down to a simple form logically, if it's not something that complies with their current view of the world, the response I usually get is, well, you just see everything black and white.
	You know, you're just taking this extreme view and you're just breaking everything down.
	Life is more complex than that.
	Well, and what I would say to somebody who said, Steph, you just see things in black and white, is like, didn't you just describe me in black and white terms?
	That's true. No, seriously.
	Forget about the content.
	It's the form that matters.
	Right. I mean, there's so many people who email me or, you're just too aggressive and it's all caps with 14 exclamation marks.
	It's like, well, if non-aggression is so great, why are you being – you know what I mean?
	And if somebody says, oh, Steph, you just see things in black and white terms, it's like, well, didn't you just reduce my entire philosophy into I just see things in black and white terms?
	Aren't you doing exactly what you're criticizing?
	Right. And you can either see that and then say, oh shit, I guess I did.
	I'm sorry. Or you can't, in which case, you have no credibility with me, right?
	Right, exactly. There was one other thing I just wanted to mention real quick, just based on that caller a couple calls ago.
	I haven't really gotten into your more psychological content too much, but I watched your video, I think it was the video on the tiger mother, and I actually, I was going through some of my old papers looking for something, and I found my mom created for me,
	it's called a baby book, and what it is, you know, it has pictures of when you're born, and it has a journal in there she can write, and she actually kept that pretty updated for quite a while, and one thing I noticed, I was reading through it, and, you know, at first it's, you know, you're such a happy kid, and You know, you're so into everything and you want to know about everything.
	And then she talks about getting divorced.
	And she says, you know, I think it's the right decision for all of us, blah, blah, blah.
	And after that, she starts writing it.
	I don't really remember this.
	I'm sorry, I just missed that.
	You just cut out for a sec. What was the right decision for everyone?
	Her getting divorced from my father.
	Was the right decision for everyone?
	Right, for, you know, for the family.
	At least for me and my brother.
	Which was her main concern, at least the way that she wrote it.
	How old were you when they got divorced?
	I was maybe three years old, three, four years old, not very old.
	I mean, obviously, I didn't really understand it at the time.
	But I noticed that after that event, she started writing about how I was going through periods of depression.
	I would get very depressed and I would get very angry and I would kind of Go into those modes and then I would come out of it and be like I used to be and go into it and come out of it.
	So I was just wondering, you know, that kind of struck me because I remember you, I'm not sure if that was the video, but I remember you talking about the huge impact divorce has on children.
	And I never really thought about it.
	I've read through that thing quite a few times, but I never really made that connection that right after she writes about getting divorced, she writes about me going in and out of these really dark moods when I was a kid.
	Right. Yeah, divorce is catastrophic for children.
	I certainly believe that divorce in cases of physical abuse is beyond essential, but of course then children need to get It's interesting.
	So how does she know that it was the best thing for you?
	And was it the best of all possible alternatives?
	Well, unfortunately, my mom passed away a couple years, so I can't really talk about it.
	No, but you know. You know what she would have said, because we know what people...
	We can have those kinds of conversations even with the dead, right?
	Right. So if you were to say to your mom, like, well...
	A, how do you know it was the best of all possible solutions?
	And B, wouldn't the best of all possible solutions for you and dad to not have the kind of relationship where divorce became the end point?
	Right. You would have preferred that your parents get along and be happy and be in love, but that would be your preferred solution, right?
	Well, like I said, it was so long ago that the idea of my parents being together, I don't really have any memories of them ever being together.
	The thing about it that really sticks out in my mind is eventually my mom, she had some psychological issues and her psychologist eventually advised her that she would be better off giving up custody because at the time she had custody of myself and my brother.
	I think it was around the time I was in first grade.
	You know, all of a sudden, you know, we have to go live with our dad.
	And I think I always felt like, I still remember the car ride because he moved, you know, a couple hours away.
	So I remember that car ride feeling like, you know, no matter how much she kind of rationalized it and tried to explain it to us, I always had that feeling that, you know, she was kind of, you know, just didn't want us anymore.
	But other than that, I don't really have any memories of my parents being together.
	But whenever she would talk about it, when she would rationalize it, it was, you know, she just had issues with my father.
	You know, he was never around.
	He was never helping her.
	And it really...
	Most of it was a financial thing.
	He never really helped us out.
	We were basically living on our own as it was, so she decided to get divorced.
	So her issue with your father was that he was never around, and then she gave up custody of you.
	Right, exactly. That's a bit circular, isn't it?
	Yeah. Well, like I said, she was diagnosed with manic depressive disorder.
	For which there's no medical evidence, right?
	Yeah. Right. And I honestly, looking back, I don't really remember any evidence of her being manic depressive.
	I think she just got kind of, I mean, she definitely had some issues that could have been worked through.
	But I don't think that she was unfit as a parent.
	At least not enough to justify, you know, the trauma that would be caused by, you know, having her give up her children.
	Did you see your dad between when your parents got divorced?
	Did you see him very often before going to live with him?
	Yeah, he... I mean, he's a very caring guy.
	He was always real into me and my brother.
	And, you know, when there's a You know, a split like that, when custody gets set up, the other parent always gets visitation rights.
	And he, you know, as much as he could see us, he always did.
	Sometimes, you know, he would come by the daycare and pick us up when he really shouldn't have.
	You know, so he would actually see us more than he was technically supposed to.
	So I definitely had, you know, a relationship with my father.
	That's great. Do you have any insight as to why your dad ended up with someone like your mom?
	Honestly, I have no idea.
	They were really kind of night and day.
	My mom was, you know, kind of the 60s hippie type, you know, flower power, peace and love.
	Sorry to interrupt. Can I ask the obvious?
	Was your mom very pretty?
	Yeah. You know, from talking to her, it sounded like she, you know, she got...
	Quite a lot of attention.
	She never really had a problem dating guys and that sort of thing.
	She definitely wasn't ugly.
	It's kind of hard to say, yeah, my mom was hot, but Well, no.
	I mean, look, we can all look at pictures of her moms when they were, like, 20 or 25 and say, you know, would I date that?
	No, I'm kidding. I mean, no, but, you know, we'd say, would I hit that?
	No, but you'd say, like, I mean, is this a pretty woman, right?
	I mean, it's not like they suddenly become some alien because they're a mom, right?
	They had youths and they had, you know, their attractiveness and so on, right?
	I mean, I don't know the answer.
	I'm just sort of curious the degree to which.
	Like, because, you know, loving guys...
	Warm guys and all that.
	It's not terribly common that they would end up with women like that.
	I think that's a kind of equivalency factor that goes on in relationships.
	It's not just my opinion. Self-esteem attracts self-esteem.
	Like attracts like. That's a pretty well-established principle in psychology as far as I understand it.
	And so if your mom had these issues, it seems almost incomprehensible that your dad wouldn't have at least some level of similar issues somewhere along the line.
	Is your dad still alive?
	Yes, he is.
	Yeah, I mean, I think this would be a fruitful conversation to have with your dad.
	He's actually being treated for depression.
	I'm sorry, you're cutting out, but you're saying he's being, sorry, you just cut out.
	You said he's being treated for depression, is that right?
	Right, that's correct. There is – sorry to give you just a tiny speech, and I'm sorry to be so intrusive, but there is a level of maturity I think that is necessary when we become fully adult.
	And the level of maturity, which I'm not saying you don't have, but I just want to get this point out there for others.
	The level of maturity is when we see our parents as young people starting out.
	There is a kind of level of maturity where we can completely envision them as kids, as teenagers, as young people long before we were around.
	And that gives us a lot of liberty.
	There's a lot of freedom. In imagining that all of these decisions that they made long before we came along that had a significant impact on how they related to us or didn't relate to us when we came along, right?
	There's a lot of freedom.
	So I think that if you have the chance, it's really helpful and important to talk to your parents about their childhoods and about their teenage years and about their 20s, about things they think they did well, about things that they regretted.
	I think those are really, really important because it takes the weight It's not a good way of putting it.
	It illuminates patterns that take the weight of responsibility off us.
	That we're just, you know, the end of the whip.
	You know, you flick a whip like Indiana Jones.
	The whole thing goes really fast and then there's this bit at the end that goes...
	Well, you know, we as kids, we're the end of that.
	There's a whole arm movement and a whole whip flying through the air before that whip crack of us actually coming into existence.
	And seeing that arc... That led up to us is really important.
	So if your dad's alive, which is great, I would strongly suggest, you know, sit down and have conversations.
	Like, you know, what attracted you to mom?
	And when did you decide to get married?
	And, you know, were there any signs about the problems that showed up later?
	And don't be satisfied with glib answers, you know, if he's not used to talking about this stuff.
	But really, you know, just dig in and try to get this stuff.
	Right. Yeah, that's definitely something I'll consider.
	I've thought about doing that.
	I've never really had that kind of open relationship with my father for whatever reason.
	I mean, he's a great guy, but as far as his relationship with myself and my brother, he's been more like another kid than a father figure, if that makes any sense.
	He never really took that authority role or that kind of Kind of, you know, setting example role.
	He was always more like a friend than, you know, than a parent.
	And growing up with him, once he got custody, wherever we moved, you know, there was always family nearby.
	And whoever that family was, that's really who watched us.
	So, you know, for a while we lived near my grandfather.
	And so my grandfather, you know, he would be the one that made dinner, you know, he would be the one that kind of handled all the responsibility aspects.
	And my dad was just kind of, you know, I mean, he was very caring in his way, but he never really stepped up to the plate, if that makes sense.
	Right, right. That's very interesting and I think it will do you an enormous amount of good and I genuinely believe it will do your dad an enormous amount of good to figure out why.
	Obviously, there was stuff in your dad's childhood and his youth that pushed him in that direction or gave that – Impetus, that momentum to avoid those kinds of responsibilities and maturities.
	To know those things is fantastic.
	You know, when we can see our parents complete and whole and with all of the influences that they had, we can see them independent of ourselves, which means we are not responsible.
	It's not just us.
	They had their whole history that came before and it puts, you know...
	The key thing about life, in my opinion, the key thing to maintaining happiness is for life to have a kind of shape, for life to have a kind of pattern that's recognizable.
	So things don't just look random.
	Well, he was like this and she was just that way and you know your mother, she's just like this, she's just like that.
	Things get sort of explained away at a very shallow level that leave no depth, no understanding, no pattern of recognition, no possibility of predictability.
	You know, they do say that those who forget their history or never learn it are doomed to repeat it.
	I think that... I mean, I'm guessing...
	I don't know your dad, obviously. I don't even know you.
	But I'm guessing that if your dad had some understanding...
	Or some greater understanding as to why he made the choices that he made in his life, his depression would be lessened.
	Because depression to me is a synonym for incomprehensibility.
	I don't know. I don't know.
	I don't know why my life is the way it is.
	I don't know why my life turned out the way it turned out.
	I don't know why the messes that happened happened.
	And if you don't know...
	Then you tend to get paralyzed because we all have to keep moving forward in life.
	We all have to keep making decisions in life.
	And if we don't know what went wrong, then we can't fix it and we can't prevent it and it's going to happen again.
	And if we really don't want it to happen again, whatever bad things happened, and we don't know why they happened in the past, we get paralyzed.
	And that paralysis to me is another way of saying depression.
	Again, it's just my theory, right?
	I'm not saying it's proven, but...
	But if you're able to get some shape in your mind to your dad's life so that the causes and effects make sense, I'm not saying determined or perfectly predictive, but even in hindsight, we can look at the stuff and say, well, that makes sense.
	And once we get that, you know, like these financial crises that's going on in the United States, I mean, if people genuinely understand what's going on, Right?
	That there's an excess of coercion and fiat currency and increased size and power of government that's causing all these problems, then they can fix them.
	But if they don't know what the hell's going on, then they just get kind of paralyzed or keep doing more of the same, which makes them feel worse and worse.
	So I think if you can sit down with your dad and have a conversation, and it may be a whole series of conversations, but I'm telling you, there's almost nothing better that you can do in your life Then to get the true histories of those around you, it is such a relief and it is such a clarification.
	And there's so much self-knowledge that is involved in the true histories of everyone else around you, particularly those who had such significant impact on you.
	You almost can't spend your time better.
	So I know it can be uncomfortable moving this topic into this kind of conversation, but if it's not part of your history with your dad, but it's – I'm telling you, it's worth giving it your best shot.
	Yeah, and he's a very approachable guy.
	You know, I'm sure he'd be willing to at least, you know, speak with me about it.
	And the reason it's become so important for me now is, you know, now I have a child of my own.
	And the last thing I want to do is, you know, kind of repeat this pattern.
	Because from what he's told me about the way that he grew up, you know, he's kind of mirroring his father, you know, the way he kind of reacted with myself and my brother.
	That's kind of the way that he grew up.
	And so the last thing I want to do is, you know, keep passing this pattern along, you know, and I never really understood the significance until I had a child of my own, but, you know, kids are just so, to sound cliche, they're so innocent, and to kind of, you know, indoctrinate a child into something like that, you know, it's definitely something that's very important for me to avoid, so I'll definitely have that conversation with him as soon as I can.
	I really appreciate that and I also really appreciate dad to dad that it is a very – it can be a very damning or very liberating thing to have kids and it can be very damning if you repeat the mistakes but it can be very liberating if you use that as an impetus to avoid those mistakes and I just hugely applaud you for your commitment to the future health, mental health of your kids. I think that's just fantastic and they're very lucky to have you as a dad for what it's worth and kudos and massive props to you.
	Thank you. You're very welcome.
	Well, I'm sorry we didn't have time to get to the easy stories, but no problemo.
	We will get to those. I had a very interesting conflict with her this last week that was very illuminating, but we will get to that, hopefully this week, or perhaps even on the next Sunday show, because I'm sure I shall remember it.
	And thank you everybody so much.
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