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March 13, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:37:44

1870 Freedomain Radio Sunday Call In Show March 13 2011

A very public intervention, weeding out crazy dates, epigenetics, and where does the fear of physical ugliness come from?

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	Welcome to the Sunday Philosophy Call-In Show.
	It's the 13th of March 2011, just after 2pm in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time.
	And I hope you're doing very well.
	I have just started doing some solo casts again, which I've missed over the last...
	Oh boy, I can't even think how long it's been, but it's been quite a while.
	And I've done one on universally preferable behavior and implicit contracts, which I think is very interesting.
	And I'm starting an introduction to virtue because, you know, UBB is kind of a finger-wagging thou shalt not.
	And I wanted to talk more about the positive virtues that can really help, I think, make the world a peaceful and happier place.
	So I don't have a huge amount of stuff to talk about.
	I also have one topic I'd like to talk about, which is Charlie Sheen, because I don't want to be the only minor media mogul who's not talking about Charlie Sheen in the known universe.
	So enough of the intro.
	We'll make it very short. I think that we do have a caller on the line who has some issues or questions that they want to talk about.
	So I'm all ears.
	Okay. So, I had second thoughts the last time I intervened during a child abuse situation.
	I ended up witnessing child abuse again on Tuesday and I intervened and instead of thinking about what I could have or should have done I just felt very heroic so I wanted to thank you for helping me realize that it's not Like, what I say or how I say it, but that I just intervened.
	Well, what happened?
	Let's hear the story. Oh, okay.
	So, on Tuesday, I was at a department store, and I... I saw a woman yell at her child, or I heard it first.
	I was listening to one of your podcasts, actually.
	And so I heard her yelling and I looked over and I saw her pull her daughter back and then slap her really hard on the butt.
	So I walked over and she looked really uncomfortable that I was walking over.
	And I asked her, do you think that that's the best way to resolve conflict?
	And she threatened to hit me.
	She got really close to my face if I didn't shut up.
	And so she started walking away and I didn't want to just let it go because it was assault on a helpless person.
	How old was the girl? She was six.
	And so I started following her and trying to talk to her again.
	And she covered her child's ears and said that what I was saying was more damaging than the actual abuse, which is just insane.
	And so I tried to...
	Oh, and then she covered her child's ears.
	And I was...
	I'm really upset with that because I'm trying to send this child a message that she doesn't deserve this and her mother is not only attacking me but also covering her ears so she can't hear the message.
	I started following her around the store trying to talk to her and she ended up screaming that I was a psychopath and a stalker and everyone on the store started like cheering for her and telling me to mind my own business and I received like so many insults and attacks but And then the woman threatened to call the police on me.
	So I was like, okay, well, I'm going to call the police because you just hit your child.
	So I did that.
	And unfortunately...
	There's nothing they could really do about it, but it was documented.
	What was documented?
	That someone witnessed her spanking her child.
	When I was on the phone with the dispatcher, she was just like, Was it just a spank?
	And I was like, no, it was a physical attack.
	Like, the location doesn't matter.
	And what's happened then?
	They said they couldn't do much because I assume that where you are, spanking, as it's called, is legal, right?
	Right. The cop I spoke to said that they have jurisdiction over the parents, but the parents have jurisdiction over their children.
	So, yeah.
	Wow. And how do you feel about it?
	I feel brave, but I also felt really sad that That no one is trying to protect this child except for me.
	Right. Right.
	Go on. And I felt so sad when I got in the car and, like, the police told me I could leave.
	And so I got in my car and I was like...
	This little girl is gonna get in the car with her mom and she's just gonna go back to the abuse.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, I mean, it's tragic on so many levels, of course, but it's just so unnecessary.
	I mean, my daughter is very strong-willed, and she is very opinionated, for want of a better phrase.
	But she is, at the age of two, she's so open to negotiation.
	She's so open to reason.
	She's so open to accommodation that...
	There has never been a time where I have felt the need to raise my voice to her.
	I've never found a time where I felt the need to even imagine hitting this perfect little person.
	It's just so desperately, desperately tragic that The parent genuinely, it would seem, not only feels that it's the best she can do, but it's the best that should be done in terms of communicating with your child and parenting.
	And it is desperately, desperately sad, that situation.
	Yeah. I tried to explain to her that there are other ways of resolving conflict, but she was just hysterical and screaming at me.
	And the entire time, I was just focusing on the girl.
	I just wanted her to hear my message.
	Right, right.
	Well, I mean, I think that what you did was extremely brave.
	And I think that the persistence that you showed was extremely brave.
	I'm trying to think if there's any other approach that might have resulted in less of an escalation, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah. And look, please, I understand this is in no way a criticism.
	I mean, in no way, shape, or form.
	I mean, it's a really tough thing to do.
	You may have done entirely the right thing, but I'm just sort of racking my brain to think if there's any approach that could have had a better outcome, does that make any sense?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Um, like, uh, when she got the whole store to turn against me, um, I think that was, uh, her way of trying to get me to stop.
	Um, So in a way, like my calling the police was like trying to back my claim up.
	I don't know. And, I mean, it's not like we have responsibility for how people...
	Like, we certainly don't have sole responsibility for how people react to us or respond to us.
	But there may be ways in which you can approach the situation that may make the door of listening open even just a tiny bit, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I mean, in my mind, and this is just my categorization, I sort of, I put people into two categories.
	I mean, there's sort of three categories of people who are doing the right thing.
	And there are people who are doing the wrong thing because they lack the ability to do the right thing.
	In other words, they like to do the right thing, but they just don't know how.
	Yeah. But then there are people who are doing the wrong thing and like it.
	They're sadists or...
	I don't know about this woman because what do I know?
	So the first category of people are the people who call in and they want to do the right thing.
	People who research parenting or whatever situation you're in.
	And they try to do the right thing.
	And then the people who do the wrong thing, who are doing the wrong thing, Okay.
	Okay. And I don't know.
	I mean, it sure doesn't sound like this woman was in the second category, certainly not the first.
	I mean, I don't know.
	It's just sort of going with my gut here.
	Right. But...
	So yeah, there are people who don't want to hit their children, but they don't know how not to hit their children.
	She was not that type of person, no.
	Yeah, I sort of get that sense for sure.
	I sort of get that sense for sure.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I mean, when I've intervened, when I see people, you know, in their children's faces yelling, you know, I mean, I sense a kind of desperation, a kind of, you know, I only have this one card to play called aggression, and I don't know how to change it.
	Mm-hmm. And those people I will generally come up to and say, do you need a break?
	I don't think this is where you want this to go.
	This is obviously quite frightening for your child.
	And they tend to cool down a little bit from there.
	Okay. Uh, but I, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't sound like it was that kind of situation, but, but I would certainly, you might want to think about in that kind of situation, you know, check your feelings.
	If you can work to support the parent in the moment, then it may be just something that they need to make them able to listen a little more.
	Okay. Yeah.
	Um, Like there was a guy, he posted on the board about how he intervened in a situation of pretty savage child abuse, you know, by going up to a guy and saying, you know, does it make you feel like a big man to bully a three-year-old?
	Oh, I read that, yeah.
	And that's, I mean, again, lots of courage and so on, but it seems almost inconceivable that that could work out for the better, if that's the approach.
	Right. Yeah.
	So you may want to mull it over and say to yourself, okay, well, if I can't approach this in a positive way, then is it something I want to do at all?
	And look, nobody can tell you anything how to do in this sort of situation, but that's just some thoughts that I had.
	I feel like I have this duty to intervene.
	But I know I'm not obligated to.
	No, I hear what you're saying.
	I hear what you're saying. I really do.
	And I in no way am trying to have you look back and say that this wasn't the right thing to do.
	It may well have been. It may have been the perfect thing to do.
	I'm just trying to find a way to make it a little bit less traumatic for you.
	Yeah. And it's just something, again, I don't have any big answers.
	I mean, this is a very, very difficult thing to do, which is why so many people don't, and why so many people fall in line behind these kinds of bullies.
	I was really shocked by the other people in the department store, their reaction to it.
	Like, I knew that what I was saying was not the status quo, and that...
	That probably most of the people in the store have histories of being abused by their parents and probably abusing their own children.
	But I was not expecting...
	Like, they were out for blood the way they spoke to me and treated me.
	And... Yeah, it was just pretty frightening and I wouldn't want to be in that kind of situation again.
	Right, right. And I think that's important.
	Certainly, I don't think you want to turn into an emotionally bruised caped crusader who, you know, every time you leave the house is like, I have to avert my eyes from any kinds of parents just in case, right?
	I mean, I think that would be a pretty rough way to live.
	And I think that would lead to burnout and I think just too much stress.
	And that may be a reinfliction of something from your own history.
	Right. It's very early in the process of looking at Children as people.
	It's very early in that process.
	I used to think it was further along in that process.
	But obviously, if you saw a man slap a woman, everybody would be pretty shocked and outraged and say, this guy shouldn't do that.
	But we have a very, very tough time seeing children as people in society.
	It's very tough for us to do that.
	They are non-people until they're 18 or 16 for driving or whatever.
	But We have a very, very hard time.
	And this used to be the case for women.
	Personhood was not extended to women.
	It used to be the case for the poor, like serfs in the Middle Ages.
	It used to be the case, of course, for blacks and other kinds of slaves that they were just not seen as people.
	And the extension of personhood to children is a very very tough barrier because it goes right up against people's own histories of not being treated as people when they were children And I mean, even if they had good parents, I mean, they probably went to some school where they weren't treated as people, as individuals themselves.
	So, you know, it's hard.
	It's early on in this process of extending personhood to children.
	And I sympathize with that.
	but I think it's important to recognize where it is as far as that process goes.
	So I would, you know, you need to take care of yourself as well.
	And I would say that wait.
	My advice, you know, I know, again, no one can tell you what to do or what the right thing to do is because it's so specific to the situation.
	But I would suggest to wait until, at least for a little while, until you can approach a parent with positivity.
	Yeah. Okay.
	And encouragement, if that makes sense.
	Okay. Yeah, like, it never even occurred to me to do that.
	Because my gut feeling, like, right when I see it, is like, oh my god, this person's so evil.
	So, yeah.
	Right, and you may be entirely right.
	You may have been entirely right about that.
	I'm certainly not going to tell you you were wrong, because you were there and your instincts were processing the whole situation.
	And of course, you know, there is, and I feel sort of very sad talking about this, and I think this is sort of what you were thinking about, which is that once you see this kind of interaction and you really get what the parent is up to, I mean, you're right. You can think now about this girl's next 12 years, right?
	Yeah. It's hard to forget that.
	It's hard to not think about that, what she's going to go through.
	And that is what a lot of people are avoiding, of course.
	Well, thank you so much for talking to me.
	Amen.
	Yeah, and listen, I mean, congratulations on taking the stand.
	It is through these kinds of individual heroisms, I think, that the world is going to become a better place.
	And people, I think, will see that.
	And some people will think about what it means to treat children as full individuals, as full people, with all of the rights.
	In fact, more of the rights.
	than adults have children are super people right because they have more rights than adults they have the right to have food given to them by others they have the right for to quote free health care they don't have to have jobs they they are people plus in terms of rights
	and it is it is a hard thing is a very painful thing to to extend this concept of personhood to children to toddlers to babies and to negotiate with children at 18 months and two years and and all the way forward it's It's hard to treat their preferences and their needs as equal to everyone else's needs in the family.
	And, in many ways, the needs of children Are greater and have more importance than the needs of adults because children can't achieve their own goals.
	They can't achieve their own needs.
	And so they rely on adults.
	You know, so if I want to sit down and watch video, I can do that.
	But Isabella needs to ask for it.
	She can't do it herself yet.
	Yeah. And so her needs actually take precedence over everybody else's in the family.
	That's what I mean by, like, they're super people.
	Little caped crusaders.
	They're super people. Because they're all the rights of adults, plus a massive amount, but with none of the obligations, really, and many other rights that adults don't have, fundamentally, like, you know, healthcare and food and so on.
	And the other thing that I would like to sort of mention here is that, you know, I've mentioned this sort of in passing, but I'll tell you, I just sort of share with you an experience that I had where I felt guilty as a parent.
	And it was pretty minor.
	I think maybe four or five weeks ago, I was, I made myself a coffee and then I sort of set it out and then Isabella grabbed my finger and towed me over and we did some letters and we drew some, you know, she likes spiders and bells and clocks and also we drew a whole bunch of stuff and we did some letters and But sort of 20 minutes later, I was like, hey, I forgot my coffee.
	And because I am a caffeine-based life form, I said to Isabella, you know, hang tight.
	I will be right back. And I went into the kitchen.
	We were sort of in the living room. And I went into the kitchen to go and get my coffee.
	And Isabella had grabbed her markers.
	We were using markers to draw.
	And she had come into the kitchen to follow me when I went to get my coffee.
	And she was holding her markers against her chest.
	And the markers had left all these little marks.
	On her nice white top.
	And I said, oh, Isabella, you made a big mess.
	And I took away the markers because I didn't want her to mark her up.
	And she wasn't upset by it, you know, and I grabbed my coffee, we went back and we drew some more.
	But then as I was drawing, I just sort of realized, I thought, well, wait a sec, Steph.
	You just took Isabella's crayon, you took her markers away.
	But it wasn't her fault.
	That she put these little marks on her top.
	It was your fault. Because you were the one, Steph, who left to go and get your coffee.
	And all she wanted to do was to come and be with you.
	Yeah. Now, I mean, please understand.
	I mean, I didn't raise my voice.
	I wasn't punitive. It was just I needed to take them away because she was marking up her top and didn't want it to get any more dirty.
	But I just realized, you know, all she wanted to do was to come into the kitchen to be with me while I got my coffee.
	And I took her crayons away.
	And I felt bad about it.
	And so I talked to her about it, of course, and I explained what I did, and I apologized for what I had done.
	And she was fine, and we had a great day.
	But I've thought about that since off and on, and I felt bad about it, because I had processed that she was mocking up her top when it was me who'd set the events in motion that resulted in that.
	Now, again, this is not a major, major issue, but I felt bad about it.
	And that's pretty minor relative to what some parents are doing.
	And so the guilt and the shame and the horror of what some parents are doing is a very, very powerful force.
	And it has a very big effect on the world, I think, the shame of parents or the guilt of parents about what they've done or haven't done.
	So that's just another thing I just wanted to throw out to mention, just in terms of processing where the world is and how it runs.
	Okay. I mean, I can't imagine there are a lot of parents who want to go and have kids so that they can yell at them and hit them.
	I just don't think that that's their goal.
	I mean, some parents, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's some parents who just, you know, their whole goal is to just be mean and control and bully, but I don't think that's common, if ever.
	I just think that, you know, you make bad decisions, you make bad decisions, you don't stop, you don't put the brakes on, you don't turn around, you don't connect with what you're doing, and then you just end up In the situation where you're yelling and bullying and, you know, maybe hitting a lot.
	And it's a step-by-step process, I think.
	I don't think it's, you know, plotted and planned evil.
	You know, it's not like Hitler planning the evasion of Poland, you know.
	I think it's just something that ends up that way.
	For a lot. I'm not saying for all, but for a lot of parents who end up in that kind of dysfunctional state.
	And it's really hard to turn around once you're down that path.
	So I just sort of wanted to pass that out as well.
	Okay.
	Yeah, like...
	Tell me what?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Like I had all this sympathy for the child, but I didn't have any sympathy at the time for the woman.
	But what you just said does make me feel like I have more compassion, I guess.
	So in the future, I'll try to internalize that and...
	And yeah, if I see child abuse again, I will try to not only be sympathetic to the child's needs, but also the parents.
	Yeah, well, I think in particular because the kid is so very young, right?
	I mean, it's different if you're talking to a 25-year-old who has a history of child abuse because they have many more choices and options than a child does.
	So again, it's just something to toss out there for whatever it's worth, with no sense of criticism or anything like that.
	Okay.
	Thank you so much.
	Oh, thank you.
	I really appreciate that.
	And again, focus on you.
	That is very hard and very brave.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	All right. If we have another question or comment, you can type them in the chat room.
	You can talk to James the pea in the chat room to be called on Skype or on a telephone.
	Hey, can you hear me? Sure can.
	All right. First off, thank you for taking my question.
	And secondly, I'm a little bit nervous.
	This is my first call, and I understand your brain is in high demand, so I hope I'm not wasting your time with this question.
	I can't imagine you won't be. So I was basically looking for some strategies for how you might go around probing to see if somebody's a thinker without coming off pretentious or like you're trying to belittle them.
	If you go out with a date and the girl, you know, she's Christian, how do you go about figuring out if she's a thinking Christian or not?
	Because I'm under the assumption that Christina was a Christian when you guys first met.
	And so I'm wondering how you kind of went around figuring out if she was a thinker.
	Yeah, she was raised a Christian just as I was, but she wasn't a Christian when we met, but she wasn't an atheist.
	That's a good question.
	I mean, how do you ask somebody whether they can think without being condescending?
	That's a good question. Because I'd like to waste as little of time of both.
	If there's somebody that really believes in whatever the Bible says is the truth, that's fine because there's plenty of people that can meet out there that have a similar belief.
	But I'd like to not waste both of our time, you know what I mean?
	Without being rude.
	Right, right. Yeah, because we're not looking for people who agree with us.
	We're looking for people who can think.
	Yeah. I mean, that's the challenge, right?
	Because if we say... If we say, well, I just want somebody who agrees with me, then you're saying, well, I would be saying, like, I have all the answers, and somebody better conform to them, and I have nothing to learn from them, right?
	Yeah. And obviously, that's not a very good approach to that.
	So, yeah, how do you know if someone can think?
	Okay, I'll tell you what I think about that.
	Please. In the video series that I've done, which you can see at fdrurl.com forward slash B-I-B, called The Bombing Brain, the argument is made, I think, very compellingly by scientists and psychologists and so on, that barriers to thinking Generally composed of unprocessed early trauma, right?
	So if you went through some sort of early trauma and It's not processed then you end up with a kind of rigid ideology rather than the ability to actually reason from first principles so you are you saying that like essentially the The less of a thinker is somebody is the more likely it is that they had experienced trauma in the past because the naturally were rational thinkers Oh yeah, but without a doubt, we are naturally rational thinkers.
	I have absolutely no doubt about that.
	I mean, Isabella is a fantastic debater and a fantastic reasoner, and she's like 26 months, so I have no doubt whatsoever.
	I was actually student taught at a preschool Head Start program, and I student teach, and I'm not going to go into education, I've come to that decision after I graduate, but I get to see these children very innocently, and they are thinkers in the way they go about exploring the world.
	Right, right. And so it's not the experience of trauma that results in difficulty thinking.
	It is unprocessed trauma, right?
	So if you break your leg, it doesn't mean that you can never be a runner.
	But it does mean if you don't get a cast and go to rehab, you're probably not going to be a runner, right?
	Yeah, that's right. So it's not the injury.
	It's what's done with the injury that I think is the difference.
	I guess, how do I go about figuring out if somebody's willing to put in the effort to rehabilitate their leg without coming off pretentious or saying, you know, you're lazy?
	You know what I mean? It's just tough for me.
	Well, you can't...
	Well, yeah, so the first thing that I think is useful is to...
	You can ask the person about his or her.
	Should we go with her? I don't want to be overly...
	We'll go with her. No, yes, yes, yes.
	I'll go with her. Okay, so you could ask the woman about her childhood.
	Hmm, interesting.
	So you'd say, what was your experience growing up with your family?
	It seems like a very interesting question.
	What was your childhood like? What effects do you think it had on you, positive and negative?
	All that kind of stuff. During your first interactions?
	Well, you want to be efficient, don't you?
	Touche, yes. Agreed.
	I mean, I'm not saying it's the be-all and end-all, but, you know, if somebody says, I mean, let's take a ridiculous extreme, right?
	So let's say that somebody says, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and I couldn't have had a better childhood.
	Yeah. That may be a little bit on the far side of where philosophy would ideally be, to put it as nicely as I can think of, right?
	Got you. And, you know, but if somebody says, you know, well, I was raised Christian and, you know, I had some doubts about it when I was a kid.
	And I sat down and I talked with my parents about it and they listened and we had great conversations about it.
	And, you know, they agreed that I didn't have to pursue religion from, you know, I didn't have to have religion inflicted on me if I had these doubts.
	And I learned a lot about my parents' history.
	And, you know, like if they just talk like that, then it's like, wow, that's pretty cool, right?
	And I learned a lot about my parents' history.
	Getting a bit of an echo here.
	Yeah. So that's one way to do it, for sure.
	Now, the other thing is, you know, you can, of course, ask about if they're interested in current events, or, you know, what's going on, or what do you think of this, that, and the other.
	And, of course, what you're looking for is not, I would say, not libertarian or anarchist or even philosophical stuff, but just stuff that shows...
	It's not regurgitated.
	I just want somebody to hold, um, empiricism and reason as their filter for knowledge.
	Right. And so, um, yeah, so, you know, you can ask someone if they, if they know about, I don't know, Wisconsin, the, the, the, the budget crisis in Wisconsin or whatever's going on there.
	And they can say, aha, uh, well, I've thought this and that, or, you know, I can see this side of things.
	I can see that side of things.
	Uh, or they can say, I don't know.
	I don't really follow politics, which of course is perfectly fine as well.
	Uh, And you can, of course, ask them about religion.
	You can ask them about God.
	You can ask them about patriotism and so on.
	And you can ask them if they, you know, have immediate family members who are in the military or in the police force and then ask them what they think about that and all that kind of stuff.
	I mean, these are all questions that I think are reasonable to ask and can be useful in helping to find somebody who has the capacity To think and also to instruct.
	I think the best relationships are those where there's mutual learning and growth.
	Because otherwise it tends to be sort of a guru-apprentice kind of relationship, and I don't think those are particularly sustainable in the long run, because everybody wants to feel equal in the relationship.
	So find someone, you know, it doesn't have to be your area of study or the stuff that you're interested in.
	They may have some interest in biology that you don't, but they can teach you about all that kind of stuff.
	And so I think just looking for that.
	I also think that there's... I don't know how to put this without sounding all kinds of fruity and flaky, so I probably shouldn't even try to not sound that way.
	But I would also say that there seems to be a kind of spontaneous happiness around people who can think originally.
	And I don't know whether the happiness comes out of being able to think originally or being able to think originally produces it or whatever, right?
	But I think that just seems to be a kind of spontaneity, right?
	Does the person laugh? Do they throw their head back in that full-on, you know, check for cavities, Julia Roberts, yawning, giggle or whatever, right?
	I think that kind of stuff is important, you know, without it seeming kind of all kinds of fake in that.
	So I think those kinds of things...
	I think would be important.
	And if you don't want to go philosophical, you can say, you know, well, are you interested in having kids?
	And if you do want to have kids, why?
	And if it's to bring them to Jesus, that may be something you want to pit the paws on.
	Yeah. And then a little bit more to say.
	I feel like the Christian argument is a little bit...
	What really gets me are the agnostics, because they're like, I feel like, because I've gone on dates with girls that are agnostics, and you don't want to say, kind of, I think that's a cop-out, which I think it is, because again, that's kind of the more offensive style and the more pretentious, but I found that most agnostics that I meet seem to be partway there, almost, if that makes sense. Sure, absolutely, absolutely.
	So how do you go about, you know, kind of, Talking about that because a lot of people get offended when you say, oh, so you think you know, huh?
	You think you know the answers? Well, I'm claiming that I don't know.
	Like, I can't believe you think you know type thing.
	And this is worst case scenario, I suppose.
	No, no, but see, my suggestion would be, you know, ask questions, ask questions, ask questions.
	All right. Okay. Right? So if someone's an agnostic, say, oh, well, were you raised religious?
	So what was that transition like?
	And how did that go? And how do your parents feel about it?
	And, you know, did you have any trouble with your friends when you kind of crossed over to this way of thinking?
	You know, just ask questions.
	See, if you ask questions when you're dating, you get two great benefits.
	One is that you get answers to questions, which is very useful.
	The second thing that you get is you get to find out whether they ask you questions back.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	That's really important. Don't underestimate that, right?
	So, I mean, I remember going on a date once with a woman, you know, we had coffee and I'd asked her questions for about an hour and hadn't had a single question back.
	So it was like, okay, well, I think we're done here.
	Yeah. Well, that offers me some really good, concise information.
	I think that'll help, especially when you kind of called me on the being efficient.
	Well, do you want to be efficient or not?
	You can be efficient without being offensive.
	Yeah, I know. And look, I think somebody who really thinks knows how rare it is and should never be offended by a basic question called, can you think?
	Yeah, I guess they may appreciate that because they've probably gone through exactly the same thing that you're going through and will appreciate the efficiency switch.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	All right. Yeah, I guess it's just kind of hard because I guess a lot of the majority of people, and I guess I shouldn't be put off if they get offended by it because they're looking for compatibility.
	And if they get offended by it, I guess that's a good thing in some respect because let's move on.
	But I guess it's always just kind of a bummer when you kind of ask questions like that and people get shocked or like that's a little too personal.
	But I guess there's my answer right there when I ask the question.
	Yes, look, I mean, getting offended is...
	The immature way of saying, I'm frightened.
	I'm confused. I don't know.
	You're scaring me.
	Yeah. And I think that's really, really important.
	Offense is a very lazy way of rebutting a question or an argument.
	I mean, it's not that there are things to be offended about in this world, I think.
	But I think questions about beliefs and the reasons behind those beliefs are not things that mature people get offended by.
	Yeah. And I also would suggest, if somebody asks you, you know, well, what are your religious beliefs, right?
	I think that, take that as an opportunity not to give yourself a label, because labels mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, right?
	So when somebody who is an agnostic hears the word atheist, they think aggressive, combative...
	Stalin! Sorry?
	Stalin! It's usually the first thing I get.
	Oh, Stalin! Yeah, absolutely. It could be any number of those things.
	And so I say, you know, you can sort of say, well, it's a process and it's a journey.
	I've sort of gone through a number of different phases.
	I mean, I certainly can talk about that with great honesty.
	I went through a number of different phases in religiosity to atheism.
	thinking behind it rather than the label that concludes it because labels end the conversation generally whereas uh the the process uh you know you're never going to end up in a long-term relationship with a label because if you're in a long-term relationship with someone it's going to be a process where you're both going to learn you're both going to grow you're both going to question you're both going to criticize you're both going to abandon cherished beliefs that turn out to be false that you never thought you would abandon you're And you're both going to be surprised by new ideas that take you by storm.
	And so labels simply don't work with any of those things.
	And so I think it's important to recognize or explore the degree to which somebody's in the process of thinking rather than they have a compatible label.
	Yeah, I've had a lot of...
	I've thought about that and I've experienced that empirically.
	I've seen when I say atheist, the look in people's eyes and whatnot.
	And so I try to avoid what I really...
	Honestly, because there's such a...
	In the general culture, when you say atheist, somebody just looks at you like you just ran over a box of kittens or something.
	And backed over them.
	Yeah, exactly. You really felt the squish of their skulls.
	But what I've found beneficial is when I say stuff, I guess really is empiricism and reason are really what I run by, and that's kind of my filter.
	I don't really want to put a label on it, so if it passes through those two things and it makes sense to me, then that works.
	Right, right, right.
	And, you know, the other thing, of course, which I've suggested before is to look beyond looks, right?
	I mean, to look beyond the immediacy of how the person, how the woman looks, which, of course, I'm not saying it's irrelevant or it's unimportant, but that is, you know, you can really widen your net to some very quality people if you go a little bit outside the, you know, the shapely silhouette of mainstream culture.
	Well, thank you so much for letting me pick your brain.
	I appreciate it. I was a little bit nervous.
	It's starting to feel a little bit better. So just thank you for that.
	Fantastic. Well, listen, anytime and keep me posted.
	If it goes well, I would certainly like to hear about it.
	And if it goes badly, I would certainly like to revise what it is that I'm saying.
	Yeah. All right. Definitely.
	Well, thank you so much. I'll be listening.
	You're very welcome.
	Best of luck.
	All right.
	Remember, we must breed.
	Hello?
	Hey, how's it going? It's going well.
	How are you doing? Doing just fine, thanks.
	Can you hear me all right? Beautifully.
	Cool. So yeah, I have a question.
	It's not necessarily an issue that's specific to right now for me.
	It's more of a general issue that is always there for me and it spikes up from now and then, from time to time.
	And it recently spiked up and it felt really, really, really bad for me.
	And that's looks-based insecurities.
	Do you mean insecurities about your own looks?
	Oh yeah, definitely.
	And that's... I can't remember a time that I've ever felt even okay with my looks.
	Very fleetingly, I will feel like, okay, I'm not ugly, right?
	But it's a big challenge, and I'm just curious if you have any perspectives on working through that kind of insecurity.
	It's been a recurring theme for me.
	I've talked about it with my therapist, and I've come to at least coping.
	If it becomes debilitatingly sad for me or anxiety-provoking for me, I can cope in the moment.
	But I was curious on a general level what your perspectives are on that.
	What aspects of your looks do you find most problematic?
	For me, it's...
	It comes most often around my facial features.
	Hello? Yeah?
	Can you hear me? Yes.
	Hello? Okay. For me, it's most often around my facial features, although it's also around my body, areas of my body I will either not feel...
	I'm lean, and you know my body type, but I'll feel like I'm too scrawny, or I don't have enough muscle mass.
	That's less common, though, than facial feature insecurity.
	And even when I'll hear people say in passing, like, you're attractive.
	Like, I was on a date a few weeks ago, and the girl just kind of paused, and she was like, you know, your profile pictures on the online dating side really don't Do you justice.
	I appreciated it, and that was very kind of her, but I also didn't – it was kind of like, no, that's not true.
	Stop it. And when you have said – like you once said at your house in a conversation with me, you were listing off things about me that – One of them was good-looking or handsome or whatever.
	Even still, it's like, okay, Steph got seven out of the eight traits about me right.
	I'll discount when people say things like that.
	For me, it's a very, very core insecurity, and it manifests itself in a sadness.
	I was feeling it pretty intensely a couple of weeks ago, and so I stayed in rather than went out with my friends.
	Not because I was ashamed or hiding or anything like that.
	I just wanted to journal and I kind of reflect on it, and I knew that it was going to be preoccupying my mind.
	Right. And it's not something I talk about a lot, and I wanted to bring it up because I keep coming to dead ends with this topic.
	It just keeps spiking up, and it's really difficult for me.
	Look, I mean, first of all, I understand.
	And I don't think that there's an honest person alive who hasn't gone through to some degree what you're going through.
	I certainly have. So, you know, I think kudos to you for bringing up a very important topic that just strikes at the core.
	Of who we are.
	I went with Izzy to the pool today, and I was just reminded of being in summer camp when I was 13 or whatever.
	I was a swimmer, and so I was pretty lean and pretty muscular and all that.
	I remember being standing by the pool and being wolf-whistled at by a bunch of girls when I was, I don't know, 13 or 14 or whatever.
	I remember that as clearly as yesterday.
	I hadn't thought of it in years, but I just remembered it when I was going there.
	And I also remember being... I was in a play called Our Town by Thornton Wilder when I was in high school.
	And at the cast party, lots of people got drunk.
	And I took one girl back to her place, I mean, in a purely honorable way.
	And we were in the cab, and she was drunk.
	And she was so drunk, she said, Ah, Steph, you're gorgeous, but you flirt with everybody.
	And that was true.
	I was a big flirt back then.
	These are the things that I remember.
	And you hang on to these things like it's the answer.
	You know, like, oh, well, I guess I am good-looking.
	Or maybe I'm not good-looking.
	Or here's a picture where I look good.
	Here's a picture where I don't look good.
	Here's a picture where you can see my jawline.
	Here's a picture where you can't.
	You know, I'm getting older.
	I'm bolder. You know, you get these things.
	Have I gained any weight?
	Am I muffin topping my Speedos?
	So much time can get just drained out of your brain, as you know.
	Buy this kind of stuff.
	And there's no solution to it.
	Right. Right. Now, I'll tell you why.
	Because let's say that you are incredibly good looking.
	Well, then you feel that you need to do something with those looks, right?
	So maybe you become a model, right?
	Right. And all that happens is you've raised the bar, right?
	Right. So now, if you get a pimple, it's not the end of the world, but now if you're a model and you get a pimple, maybe you can't work for a week.
	Right, right. You know, you gain two pounds, who cares, right?
	If you're doing swimsuit things, they might kick you right off.
	I mean, I remember talking to a guy who was a Calvin Klein model.
	Talk about looking in the mirror.
	Anyway, I was talking to a guy who was a Calvin Klein model, and he was saying, oh yeah, I had to do this photo shoot, and I had to not drink any liquids for two days beforehand, and I was so cold, and I was dying, because he needed to get that really lean, ripped look.
	And so that's the reality of it.
	I mean, if you're really pretty or really handsome, then you get all the difficulties of people hitting on you all the time and having to say no and developing a shell and wanting to be attractive to attract the guy you want but not wanting to attract all the other guys who come along with that.
	So we think, oh, if I were better looking or whatever, then my life would be easier or better.
	But I think that just comes with a whole host of other difficulties.
	Right, right. Where your looks become expected based on your profession.
	So let's say you're really good looking and you go and become an actor.
	Well, now you have to worry about...
	I saw some picture of Matt Damon, who's a pretty lean guy, and he was putting on like 20 or 30 pounds when he wasn't making a movie because he hates working out and he hates dieting.
	But then when they have to go make a movie, or see a picture of Harrison Ford when he's not making a movie.
	I mean, he's like hand donut.
	But... So, if you are really good looking, that just moves you into a different category where you're that much more concerned because you're competing with other good looking people either for modeling jobs or acting jobs or even good looking people or whatever, right?
	And there's a separation, I think, that comes from you when you're really good looking, right?
	A really gorgeous person walks into a party and everybody sort of reacts.
	There's a ripple. They sort of react to all of that.
	And you're sort of distant, right?
	You can't be seen through your look, so to speak.
	So we think, well, if I were more attractive or taller, I had hair or whatever, that life would be better.
	But there really doesn't seem to be Any clear answers to that?
	I mean, Charlie Sheen's a good-looking guy.
	Look at his life. Marilyn Monroe was considered to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet.
	She was talented. She was rich.
	She was famous. Princess Diana had a miserable life, and she was considered beautiful, and Princess Grace of Monaco.
	I mean, all of these, again, you can find beautiful people who seem to be happy as well, but there certainly doesn't seem to be the answer that, you know, if you're It's like winning the lottery.
	People who win the lottery a year later are usually more miserable than before they won the lottery.
	We think these things are going to make us happy.
	We think if I was beautiful, if I was rich, if I was famous, if I was more talented, if I was whatever, that that would solve The problem of insecurity, but it doesn't.
	It just moves you into a different category where the insecurities remain.
	I think the fundamental thing that concern overlooks is masking is a lack of love in our early life, a lack of acceptance in our early life, a need to perform, a need to be cute, a need to be The source of external validation for some other person, usually a parent.
	I think that if I had been loved as a baby, as a little boy, for who I was, rather than as someone who could bring my mom vain pleasures, as being cute and precocious and all this kind of stuff, if I had been loved for who I was, then I can't imagine...
	That I would have had to wrestle with the question or the problems of physical attractiveness as much as I did.
	Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, my mother has a lot of physical vanity or had, at least when I saw her, I'm sure it's the same.
	A lot of physical vanity. And that is a temptation.
	You know, I can answer the question of self-worth if I'm physically attractive enough.
	If I have a six-pack, if I have muscles enough, if I'm tall enough, if I have whatever, right?
	If I have high cheekbones, if I have those sort of Cameron Diaz, Camaro high-beam eyes or whatever, right?
	I can answer the question of self-worth if other people find me physically attractive enough.
	But it doesn't work because you have to worry about maintaining it.
	You're competing with a different category of people and it's going to fade anyway.
	Right, right. And what makes love work?
	I mean, I'm not saying grooming is unimportant and I think we should try and stay healthy and so on, so I want to be clear about that.
	But in my experience, what really makes love work, having been in relationships where there was no love, negative love, and been in a marriage now of enormous love, what makes love work is the personhood, it's not the flesh.
	There is so much that is necessary for love to really work in the trials and traumas and tribulations and excitements and joys of life.
	You know, what good do high cheekbones do in your girlfriend or your wife when your baby's throwing up for the third time that night?
	Right, right, right.
	You know, that's the kind of quality that you really need in someone to be patient and comforting of a child in that kind of distress.
	Right, right.
	When you have done something...
	When you've made a mistake that you shouldn't have, that was dumb, that was whatever, right?
	How is the person going to respond to you in that situation?
	If you get injured, if you break your toe and have to be in a cast for five weeks or whatever, how is that person going to react to the inconvenience in your lives?
	That's the kind of quality that you need.
	That's the soul that you need in your life.
	And it doesn't have anything to do with worrying about whether you're five pounds overweight or not.
	Right, right, right.
	Does that sort of make any sense?
	When your child is saying no for the 50th time in an hour, which is actually quite low, right?
	When your child is saying no, I don't want to.
	For the 50th time, that hour, how does your husband or your wife react to that?
	Are they patient? Are they calm?
	Are they reasonable? Right.
	I mean, when you were saying that, when you said that it comes from a lack of love in early life, I felt really sad and really somber when you said that, because that was, especially when you said performing well or being cute or being funny, I mean, that was definitely all three of those things being, I mean, with...
	Music was a big thing for me that was a me plus my music.
	And then I also had to be cute or I had to be kind of witty or funny or whatever to make the adults laugh.
	And for me, that really resonated with me.
	And I never felt content to just be Greg around my parents.
	Like that just being me was enough.
	Right, right. And that's, I mean, Isabella has no idea how good-looking she is, I don't think.
	And I think that's good.
	You know, I don't want that to be.
	Look, I can understand, and there is a physical side to attractiveness that is not unimportant, right?
	So again, I don't want to sort of say we should be brains in a tank and not give any sense...
	Right, I'm not saying that, because that's an unrealistic standard that would just be self-punitive, I think.
	Right, right. Yeah, so I mean, it's not, you know, I get asked this question all the time, physical attractiveness, so what you're saying is completely unimportant.
	But no, of course it's not completely, we can't, you know, we can't escape the biological and neither should we try, because that's why we are who we are.
	You know, natural selection has been working for a couple of billion years to produce the kinds of people that we are.
	And so I don't think we should just say, well, that's all bad.
	And, you know, we should just connect soul to soul through some sort of spiritual ethernet or something.
	So it has some importance.
	And, you know, grooming has some importance.
	If you show up unshowered to a date, are you still the same person?
	Well, you're somebody who thinks it's okay to show up unshowered to a date.
	So, you know, that tells us.
	So there is a certain amount of Communication, that is important.
	You know, if you're going for a job as an executive, you should show up in a suit.
	You know, you just should. If you show up in sandals and flip-flops, you know, well, that tells you something.
	It certainly tells the employer something.
	So I'm not saying that grooming is completely unimportant, and I'm not saying that...
	You know, whether you're overweight or, you know, not.
	I mean, I see those guys.
	I remember years ago when I was in California on business, I went to Muscle Beach and, you know, the steroid-driven man mountains were very kind at pulling most of the weights off the weights so that I could do some when I went down to Muscle Beach to do some weights.
	But I was looking at those guys thinking like, holy crap, you know, like how much muscle do you have to drape over that early trauma to make yourself feel okay?
	Right, right. Right.
	When you sort of understand that, what drives personality that way, you see that all the time in people.
	You know, like the stereotype of the middle-aged guy with the convertible.
	You know, it's like, well, you know, how much do you feel that you didn't live your youth that you need to do this now and not processing it?
	So anyway, I mean, there's no sort of particularly easy answers other than to say...
	That you're not going to be able to get any time back that you spend worrying about this stuff.
	It's not going to make it better because you worry about it.
	Certainly facial features, right?
	So if you were, I mean, I know you're not, but if you were like 50 pounds overweight, that's something you could do something about.
	But facial features, you know, unless you want to go under the knife, which to me is insane.
	It's just at the pharmacy the other day, and there was this huge sign covering half the wall, right over the cosmetics counter, which said, be yourself.
	I mean, that's just so insane that people would put a sign up over a cosmetics counter saying, be yourself.
	Because cosmetics is all about not looking like how you actually look.
	Oh, sorry. That was not an ironic sign.
	No, no. It was a sign.
	Be yourself. Oh, my God. I thought, oh, wow.
	But that's what...
	You know, and you see this all the time, right?
	So you see these things on Cosmo or Oprah magazine or whatever, right?
	You know, be yourself and all that kind of stuff.
	And it's like, but none of these pictures in here about anything to do with what real people look like.
	Right, right. Right, yeah, yeah.
	So, yeah, I mean, so, I mean, I wish I sort of had any answers, but I would definitely look at, you know, early acceptance and early love for who you are and whether you had to be an outside-in entertainment or vanity bot for somebody else, because if you did, that temptation is going to continue and it's going to take you down a path of true emptiness and loneliness in the long run.
	Yeah, yeah. I think it really does run, and I was aware of this before, but what you said about the early love really hit me.
	It's amazing to me how deep it runs, because I will just debate with my makeup system about this, and I'll have a discussion about it, and try to figure out what's going on.
	One of the voices will come, like, I'll say, all right, but the right woman, the good woman, will not be, looks will not be high on the list of things that are important.
	And then another voice will jump in and say, but you are such a little homunculus of a man that you will repel even the really good women.
	And then I have to get into a debate about that, right?
	Right.
	I am Gollum.
	They are sunlight. Right, right.
	So even like a really good woman will just like, oh, him, right?
	So I know on an intellectual level, that's not true.
	But I think emotionally, it runs really deep.
	And I think the clear message there in that little, like, you're so ugly, you're going to repel even good women.
	I think that's just...
	Well, but look, let me give you a possible way of looking at that.
	And I don't obviously know if this is true.
	But this is sort of what popped into my mind.
	And I've done some work on this myself.
	So hopefully it's of some use.
	I think that when a baby comes into the world, and let's pick on the moms for the sake of statistical relevance, when the baby comes into the world, the baby doesn't care how good looking you are.
	The baby doesn't care how much money you make.
	The baby doesn't care if you're bald or hairy or tall or short.
	The baby doesn't care about any of those things.
	So all of the false self markers that we have, and it's not like, you know, all income is false self or whatever, but all of the things that we take pride in, sometimes legitimately and sometimes not as adults, none of those things mean anything to a baby.
	They don't care. They don't know if you're pretty or not.
	They don't know if you're rich or not.
	They don't know if you're, right?
	They really only care about one thing.
	They only care how big is your heart.
	That's the only thing that they care about.
	How tenderly am I going to be loved?
	How well am I going to be taken care of?
	How deep is the comfort I need going to be?
	How patient are my caregivers going to be?
	How passionate are they going to be about me?
	How much do they love me?
	How big are their hearts?
	That's the only thing that a baby cares about.
	Now, if your heart as a mom is not open, if it's closed, if it's empty, if it's absent, if it's traumatized, if it's nothing but a big moon crater of unprocessed scar tissue, then I think the baby exposes a deficiency that most of society tries very hard to cover up.
	Because if you're empty inside, if you're hollow inside, if you're emotionally unavailable, to use a cliched phrase, then you can become good at a bunch of things, and you can become pretty, and you can stay thin, and you become rich, or you can become good at golf, or you can hang out with people who are like you, and it kind of never really shows up, right?
	It's there, but it just never quite shows up.
	But when you have a baby who doesn't care about any of those things and only cares about reaching through your chest into your heart to hold you, to be held by you, all of that deficiency, all of that emptiness comes roaring back.
	And so I think there is a kind of horror for empty people with babies.
	And I think it's important not to internalize that as the baby.
	Oh, right.
	The baby is revealing something in me that is missing.
	Right. That I have designed my life to avoid missing it, if that makes sense.
	Right. And so I think there is a kind of horror.
	And I think children, I think babies, I think even babies sense that.
	Yeah. But we don't want to internalize that.
	Right? Because you're saying even the best woman would reject me.
	Right. Right.
	Now, the best, the only woman when we're young is our moms.
	Right, right. And that rejection is so easy to internalize as there was something wrong with me and therefore I wasn't loved as a baby.
	There's nothing ever wrong with babies.
	That was a really perceptive catch.
	Yeah, I think that's spot on.
	So if I'm cute enough, my mom will love me.
	If I'm rich enough, my mom will love me.
	If I'm handsome enough, if I do enough sit-ups, if I have a cool enough car, if I know this dance move, if I become really good at this sport, if I win this trophy, if I, you know, it goes on and on.
	How much of human achievement, however blessed it may be to the rest of us, is driven chasing the empty helium balloon of an absent mother's heart that will never be attained, that will never be achieved, and the growing emptiness of which is doused with drugs and excess and wealth and alcohol and sex and all of that stuff.
	It's never, ever, ever, ever, ever enough.
	There is no external solution to the problem or the pain or the trauma of rejection.
	Thank you.
	Right. And there is no ownership of the rejection on the part of the child.
	The child cannot own the rejection.
	Right, because it wasn't to do with me.
	Well, yeah, I mean, it was to do with your needs, but it was not caused by your needs.
	Right, right. Right.
	Yeah. Well, thank you so much.
	That really, really resonates.
	and that gives me, I think, some stuff to grip on and to work on.
	Yeah, look, I mean...
	I don't know why this popped into my head, but I'll just sort of mention it.
	Maybe it has some relevance. We've been teaching Isabella that Daddy was a little boy, and Mama was a little girl, and Isabella was a baby.
	And she says it. She says it. She just said it out of nowhere.
	She'll just be sitting there in the backseat of the car, or just sitting there playing, and she'll just suddenly stand up and say, Dada was a little boy.
	And Mama was a little girl.
	And Isabella was a little tiny baby.
	And the reason that I want to teach her that is so that she understands that we are not these giant godlike authorities.
	That we were once like her.
	Right.
	And she's going to grow up to be like us.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think that's important.
	You know, that we're fallible, that we're people just like her, that...
	And of course, you know, she's learning how to say when she's angry.
	And, you know, so she knows, you know, when she's angry and will say when she's angry and will ask what's wrong and what happened and how can we make it better.
	And, you know, that she's still worshipped, loved and adored and treasured when she's angry or when she's, quote, difficult, when she's saying no all the time and all of that, that she's still...
	You know, there is no escape from being loved no matter what she does.
	Right. But if we have to perform, if it's handed out in rations, right, affection, if we have to conform, if we have to obey, if we have to be good, if we have to be quiet, if we have to be appropriate, if we have to not be the brawling multiplicity of who we are from the very beginning, then I think intimacy and self-love is a trembling,
	cautionary tale rather than something that we just are and have. cautionary tale rather than something that we just are and Right.
	And so I, you know, I mean, I've certainly spent some time thinking about that early rejection of that early sense of I am approved of if X, Y, and Z.
	I will gain affection if X, Y, and Z.
	Y, and Z. That is a very difficult place to start in life.
	It's a very, very hard place to start from.
	Because it leads to excessive self-monitoring, excessive anxiety, excessive focus on the approval or disapproval of others.
	Not excessive relative to the stimuli, but excessive relative to, I think, what's ideal.
	And, yeah, it almost immunizes us to natural love.
	doesn't make it impossible but it almost immunizes us to natural love alright but what was missing for you for you in your childhood is not your responsibility, is not your fault, and damn well should not condition your response to yourself for the rest of time.
	Right.
	Well, that's powerful.
	And I can't thank you enough for taking my call and for giving me your perspective on it.
	It was more than I had even bargained for.
	So thank you so, so much.
	You're very welcome. And let me know how it goes.
	And yeah, happy to talk about it again.
	Everybody struggles with it.
	I think everybody who's honest. Yeah, I'll definitely touch base with you and let you know what I come up with.
	All right. Thanks, man. Take care.
	I got another caller or two. So let's move on.
	Take care, man. Bye. It just occurred to me when I was listening to you read that email,
	how much even I kind of focus on ways of gauging children in ways that are measurable, like doing this good with math, this good with reading.
	The more I thought about it, the benefit that I've gotten from this This style of parenting has been more from, you know, he's just such an, I don't know, like an analytical-minded kid, you know? He has so much empathy.
	And this is something I've also heard from, you know, like teachers and whatnot, you know, like while the other kids are fighting over toys and, you know, doing normal kid stuff, he's the kid that's, you know, if one of the kids is sad, you know, he'll go over and, you know, try to make them feel better if one of them is struggling.
	I mean, even at just five years old, which just blows my mind, because I remember when I was five and, you know, I was all about, like, G.I. Joe and, you know, just toys.
	Sorry, you were all about what? Like, G.I. Joe toys and, you know, I didn't really think too much about, like, other people, if that makes any sense.
	Oh, yeah, no, I was drawing planes and dropping bombs on civilians.
	That was my, you know, when I was five, that was my deal.
	So, yeah, people were there just, you know, as targets.
	Right. Yeah, and I mean, don't get me wrong.
	I mean, he loves toys.
	But yeah, I just wanted to point that out because that really struck me when I actually heard what I wrote read out loud.
	It was kind of interesting the different perspective you get on your own thoughts put down on paper when they're spoken by someone else.
	But yeah, I just wanted to kind of throw that out there.
	Yeah. And Nancy, have you had any thoughts on that?
	Yeah, look, I... Welcome to my shallow side.
	Well, one of them anyway.
	Look, it's... I think it's natural and inevitable for parents to compare their children to other children.
	And I think that's...
	I mean, I don't think that's unhealthy.
	I think that, you know, it's hard to gauge where kids should be sometimes.
	Kids accelerate in different areas at different times and so on.
	So I think it's inevitable that we're going to compare our children to other children.
	And, you know, that's fine.
	I think that's okay.
	I think obviously we don't want to make it into a vanity.
	I'm not saying you would, right?
	But we don't want to make it into a vanity exercise wherein your child then must progress in order to make you feel better as a person, which I know is not your situation.
	But I do think that a child absorbs what the parents do much more than what the parents say.
	I think that's a truism, but I think that children are much more empirical than they are language-based.
	And I think that the empathy that your child is showing is obviously the result of an empathy that he's experienced at home, which I think is a beautiful and wonderful gift and a treasure.
	We do want to take delight in our children's achievements, of course.
	I mean, not that we should or shouldn't, but I think we just do, right?
	So Isabella's in the process of starting to use the washroom for something other than flushing her toys.
	And we're all quite thrilled.
	We're happy.
	We're jumping up and down and clapping.
	And she's got this wonderful habit of throwing her hands up in the air and saying, I did it, which we want to encourage.
	I think it's great.
	Sometimes it's about things that aren't quite so spectacular.
	But it's still a good inner voice to have in the ecosystem, the I did it voice.
	So we do want to take pleasure in what our children are achieving, but we don't want our children to feel that they only have value because of their achievements, if that makes any sense.
	And that's a fine line.
	I mean, you know, and I think it really doesn't come down to anything manipulative.
	It just comes down to basic honesty.
	Which is, you know, we are thrilled.
	I don't pretend that I'm thrilled when I'm not.
	But, you know, she gets lots of random positive feedback and kisses and hugs throughout the day, regardless of whether she's achieving or not, so that she knows that she has value and is loved, regardless of, you know, an achievement in the moment.
	So I think it's good to celebrate those achievements.
	I think it's also good, of course, to rain down love and affection on the child no matter what.
	So, yeah, I understand it.
	I think it's a very powerful thing that you're seeing, which is the degree to which sensitivity and empathy and personhood for a child extends through that child to others.
	You know, it's like the cover of Dark Side of the Moon, right?
	It's got that prism, it's got that light that then breaks up into all these other lights, right?
	Quote, injecting empathy into a child spreads it worldwide in so many different ways throughout that child's life that it's not going to take everyone to do it in order for it to triumph.
	Right. Yeah, and I have to say before...
	I'm sorry, I have no idea if that answered anything to do with what you were asking.
	Just let me know. Well, you know, I didn't have really a specific question.
	It was just something that kind of struck me when I was doing that.
	And I think back to before I had a child of my own, you know, hearing people talk about kids, you know, didn't really seem that important to me.
	You know, I didn't really understand how important children were.
	So just, you know, to anyone that may be listening...
	Um, you know, like you said, bringing him up in an empathic, uh, or, you know, I don't know if that's the right word, in a house, you know, with lots of empathy resulting in a child that has empathy.
	Um, I don't, I don't think a lot of people realize just how much the way they treat their kids is going to reflect on, you know, how they develop.
	And I've, I've watched it happen for the first time and it still just, just completely amazes me to watch him, uh, But watch the way that he responds to even just basic things on a day-to-day basis.
	I was also kind of wondering where you stood on kind of the nature versus nurture discussion.
	I mean, I heard you say in your Bomb and the Brain series that we kind of have this false dichotomy of if something is physical, then it can't be mental.
	And I think it might be kind of the same thing with the nature versus nurture discussion.
	You know, it's either nature or nurture is the way a lot of people look at it.
	I would assume it's kind of probably a little bit of both, but I just kind of want to get your thoughts on that as well.
	Well, I mean, I certainly think that the personality is...
	The personality takes full flight in a peaceful and positive environment.
	And that, I think, is the natural self.
	The self that is not constrained by fear, by aggression, by bullying, and so on.
	So that's sort of my basic approach to that.
	90% of...
	The personality, according to some measures, appears to be environmental.
	But of course, nature versus nurture is sort of an old way of putting it because of this...
	This relatively new science or this relatively new approach to an old science, which is the degree to which environment turns off and turns on specific genes, right?
	So the old way of looking at nature versus nurture is something like, okay, so he was born aggressive and we've been able to temper his aggression with our peaceful parenting or he was born shy, but we've brought him out of his shell through our sort of parenting or whatever.
	In other words, that you have a personality and then you have an environment.
	And the environment shapes the initial personality.
	But that's not how things seem to work in the real world.
	I mean, there's some aspect of that.
	But children who are exposed to particular traumas, for instance, will get particular genes turned on that then becomes part of their personality, becomes part of who they are.
	It becomes genetic through their personality.
	Environment. Right, you understand?
	It becomes genetic through their environment.
	It's not the genes hit the environment, but the environment turns on and off specific genes that then stay permanent in the personality.
	So, yeah, there does seem to be that aspect of things, and that is very complex, of course.
	So, for instance, some...
	Some boys who were exposed to physical abuse who had a particular genetic potential, almost all of them ended up with hyper-aggression and criminal tendencies and so on.
	When you look at a kid who's 10 and you say, well, this gene is on and this gene is on and this gene is on, well, there's no guarantee that those genes were on when the child was born, but the genes may have been turned on or off, depending on the environment.
	That the child was exposed to.
	And I think that's really, really important.
	So I think that nature versus nurture is too limited.
	That's interesting. I've noticed...
	It's called epigenetics.
	Sorry, epigenetics.
	E-P-I-G-E-N-E-T-I-C-S. You can find lots and lots of stuff on it.
	Environmental factors basically alter the way our genes are expressed.
	Even identical twins.
	They used to be identical twins.
	They have the same DNA. They have the same genetic structure.
	They're the same. But it's not true because depending on The environment that those twins are exposed to, and that can be specific to each one, they could end up with different genetics based on one gets turned on and one gets turned off after birth based upon experience.
	So I just sort of wanted to mention that.
	Gotcha. Yeah, I'll have to look that up later.
	I just wanted to say that a lot of discussion in the chat seems to be around how to reach other people with this kind of, you know, way of looking at things, you know, non-violence, etc.
	And for me...
	Maybe it's just my age range, but a lot of my friends have started having kids too, and I found that a really good way to kind of introduce them to, you know, to this just generally, you know, UPV kind of way of looking at things, is to start with their kids and, you know, the way they treat their kids.
	And I found that to be a really good opener, so I just wanted to kind of throw that out for people.
	I've had a lot of success with that, and your Bomb and the Brain series is really...
	It's really a useful tool for that, from what I've found.
	So that was really it.
	I know there's a couple other people waiting to talk, so I'll jump off.
	All right. But thank you for your time.
	Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that.
	And, you know, just remember, if you can, to appeal to the greed of parents, right, that, you know, it's going to make the teenage years a lot less difficult if you learn to negotiate peacefully with your children from a very early age.
	Yeah. All right.
	All right, well, thank you.
	And I think we have time for another caller, maybe caller and point two.
	Going once.
	Hello?
	Hey, I had a few questions.
	I wanted to tell you first a little bit about something I've been doing.
	After I went to the barbecue last year, it kind of lit a fire under me to do something of my own.
	And I ended up starting a meetup group, which has been pretty successful.
	A couple of misses, but a couple of hits too.
	So that's been great.
	I wanted to thank you for that. You're welcome.
	And we're having another meet-up this week, and I wondered maybe some of your thoughts on some of the directions I should take it.
	The topic is metaphysics, and I just wondered if maybe you had some advice, some words of wisdom for some of the directions I can take it.
	Just want some advice on that.
	Right, well, assuming Olivia Newton-John is there, you can start off with a rousing rendition of Let's Get Metaphysical.
	All right, let's move on to something serious.
	Well, yeah, metaphysics is a very, very powerful and fundamental discipline to philosophy or to reality or to consciousness, whatever you want to call it.
	And I think it was Wittgenstein who said that metaphysics is not a problem to be solved, but a disease to be cured.
	Metaphysics is, of course, the nature of reality, of what it is to be outside our own skull, of what it is to be outside the deep folds of our own brains.
	And there has been a lot of challenging obfuscations in the realm of metaphysics throughout history, fundamentally for the two great ogres that squat on the chest of humanity, gods and governments.
	So, metaphysics has been warped to allow for, or to imagine that it allows for, the existence of gods, which is why the simple realm of the senses and reason and evidence is never considered sufficient by people who are religious or superstitious, because it eliminates imaginary entities like gods and so on.
	And so, in order to maintain the exploitation, particularly the young, financial exploitation, and unfortunately sometimes sexual exploitation of the young, imaginary realms have had to be invented, like heaven and hell, and new aminal realms, and platonic world of pure forms, and so on, where concepts can have an existence.
	And where concepts can dominate and be superior to, right?
	There's no point having it to the material realm.
	There's no point having a spiritual realm that is smaller, pettier, and less significant than the material realm, because then it can't house a god, right?
	It has to be bigger and more powerful and superior to the material realm in order to house an all-perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing god.
	So metaphysics has been heavily skewed because of the need to maintain the fantasy that there's an adequate of dimensionality that God squats in and draws his weird little diagrams on the dust on the floor.
	So it's one aspect in which metaphysics has been messed up and that may be something worth exploring.
	Metaphysics has also been messed up because of countries, right?
	Of patriotism to symbols and the idea that the country has a kind of life of its own, a moral character of its own, a virtue of its own that people should swear allegiance to.
	Countries and gods are fundamentally indistinguishable.
	In that it's just matter, but it is elevated to some sort of emotional ideal that, of course, is fundamentally based upon parents and our primitive responses to parents.
	So I think it's, you know, if you're going to talk about metaphysics, it's actually a very simple topic, right?
	Reason and evidence, science and all that.
	It's a very simple topic.
	Nothing exists but what is.
	And what is is that which can be physically measured or at least logically validated makes it potential and physically measured in some way makes it actual.
	So that's what is. It's really not very complicated.
	But metaphysics has been incredibly complicated by the need to justify metaphysics.
	Or pretend to justify a place where these non-existent entities can not only exist, but can exist in a superior and more powerful way than the instances, right?
	So the concepts of called country has to exist in a way that is greater than a mere aggregation of individuals.
	And gods have to exist in a realm that is greater than a mere aggregation of delusional belief.
	And so I would say that it's very, very...
	Before getting into the topic of metaphysics, I think it's important to say, well, what went wrong with metaphysics?
	What do the need for people to believe in imaginary entities...
	What effect does that have on people's perceptions of reality?
	I mean, if you are a Christian, or if you are a Muslim, or if you are Jewish and religious, and you believe...
	That there is a realm where gods exist and devils exist, where they're far more powerful, infinitely more powerful, infinitely wiser or more evil than human beings.
	What effect does that have?
	On your perception of reality, and what effect is that going to have on your explication of basic and essential philosophy?
	How much muck are you going to have to throw in the clear stream of reason and evidence in order to create a realm for these imaginary things to not only exist, but to exist in a vastly superior way to any material instances in the real world?
	I think that's a...
	I think that's a very, very important thing.
	And the other thing, yeah, so James just mentioned, my country guard family right or wrong.
	That's very true as well, right?
	So a family is another fictional entity in that, I mean, you can't take a picture of a family without people in it.
	And virtue is attached to the concept called family.
	In other words, you know, blood is thick in the water, my family right or wrong.
	Virtue is affixed to parents or to families, which is separate from the actions of individuals, right?
	So it's the old comeback. You know, you've got some, I don't know, some brother who's just all kinds of bad news for you, and people say, ah, but he's your brother.
	Like, that's some sort of magic word that changes everything.
	And so there are these magic spells.
	God said so. It's a law.
	But he's your mother.
	But he's your father, or she's your mother, or he's your brother, or she's your sister.
	And I think that kind of stuff really messes up philosophy, and it needs to be really cast aside, and we need to start going back to, you know, the basic simplicity of common sense metaphysics, you know?
	We all know a door's open because we walk through it rather than into it.
	And I think that's where I would start, is, you know, what has weird beliefs done to basic metaphysics in philosophy?
	Thank you very much for that advice.
	It's been really useful for me to have this group.
	Because I occasionally go to other groups, but they're not quite there yet in one aspect or another.
	And so that whole bit you mentioned about the leadership or solitude definitely has a...
	It hits home.
	So leadership...
	Yeah, I hugely...
	I mean, I appreciate and I applaud you for...
	Attempting to, and sound successfully so, you know, creating a community of people who can reason.
	I think it's very essential and I really, really strongly urge people to, you know, put down the keyboard and pick up the phone or Skype or whatever, but, you know, talk to people, meet with people.
	Philosophy is social.
	It's not a guy in an ivory tower.
	It is a social endeavor. A question from the chat.
	Do I believe in 100% gold monetary system?
	Yep. Do I believe in 100% gold monetary system?
	I certainly believe that it's possible, and it may very well be the very best solution, but I certainly wouldn't imagine that I would have anything to say about the ideal monetary system 100 years from now.
	I do know that it shouldn't be inflicted through force.
	It shouldn't be maintained through coercion.
	So whatever the free market comes up with, I would get right behind and be very happy with, I'm sure.
	What's the new book about? Has Izzy shown any more examples of UPB? No, I haven't really been looking for them, but none have come to mind just now, but I'll keep looking for them.
	My kid just hit a ball through the window.
	Oh dear. No, no, Izzy, what you say is, my kid is so accurate that he hit the window he was aiming for.
	That's... The way to look at it.
	An anarchist grooming guide.
	That's right. There was another question I think I might have missed.
	Does Steph have any suggestions for identifying how for a person that a fork in the road of their life might...
	Sorry, I just skipped that.
	...might identify the heroic choice.
	A person at the fork of their life might identify the heroic choice.
	Well, I think just trying to make the choices as simple as possible, the choices as clear as possible, and to appeal to that person's greed.
	I think it's very important to try and sell people on how they want their life to look in 10 years or 20 years, or how they want to look back on their life when it's near its end.
	And those, I think, are good ways of helping people identify the more heroic choices.
	Because we have a susceptibility, naturally, of trying to choose short-term gains over long-term gains.
	But life is long enough that all we're left with in the end is long-term gains, not short-term gains.
	And so my suggestion would be to try and reorient that person to the long-term gains.
	Was the Atlas Shrugged interview a step towards producing your own script?
	Well, I'm still chatting about people with that, but it's a pretty big job.
	And I'm not sure when I will get a chance to work on that more solidly.
	Alright, if we don't have any more questions, we can stop a little early for today, which would not be beyond the end of the world.
	Last call. Steph, did I always have the notion that no higher realms exist?
	No, absolutely not.
	When I was very young, I remember, as I've mentioned before, I was three years old.
	I was in an attic playing or exploring.
	I think it was at my aunt's place.
	And somewhere in the house, a radio was playing a Cliff Richard song called Power to All Our Friends, I think it was called.
	And I had a very strong sense of a cold, Sauron-like eye watching me.
	And that it disapproved of me liking that song, because that song was merely material, and it was an affront to the abstract higher realm of godhood that was watching me.
	So no, I absolutely did not ever start off with the sense, or perhaps when I was very, very young, but my earliest memory is not of...
	Of believing in higher realms.
	And my second memory in life is of dreaming of digging in a dark and deep and green wood, a forest, digging and finding gold at the base of a huge tree, and waking up and being heartbroken that it wasn't true.
	so I didn't have that strong a differentiation back then it was a difficult thing to give up for sure Thank you.
	And it's probably not the last difficult thing I'll have to give up in my life.
	Sure, I would be very happy to open a 10 question.
	Ask me anything. What's my next vid?
	Oh, you'll see.
	You'll see.
	All right.
	Well, I think we're done with Core.
	I think we're done with questions.
	Am I investing in precious metals?
	I'm investing in mining stocks, if that helps.
	Someone would like to see me talk about the philosophy of government with Peter Schiff.
	I'm sure that would be fun for me.
	I'm not sure what Peter Schiff would get out of it.
	Feel free to suggest it to him.
	I'm certainly always happy to chat with intelligent people, the most intelligent of which are my listeners.
	Ooh, lick, lick, lick. Slaver, slaver, slaver.
	Thank you to the donators.
	Please remember, this does require your participation and your support.
	If you can go to freedomainradio.com forward slash donate and subscribe or donate, that would be great.
	FDR donation plugin, we will look at it.
	A less costly alternative to therapy.
	Well, I do believe that there are a number of self-help books out there with exercises that you can work through.
	Nathaniel Brandon has some and another guy whose name I can't quite remember at the moment has some, but you can find them in the self-help section of the bookstore or maybe even of the, you can photocopy some, a few of those pages at the library if that's legal in your neck of the woods.
	and And you can do a fair amount of self-work.
	I still think it's worth investing in therapy at all times, no matter what, assuming you can still eat.
	But I would strongly suggest working through those self-help books.
	I certainly did a number of them before I went into therapy, and it certainly did accelerate things from there.
	So I thank you, everybody, so much for your support, for the continued success of the show.
	We have doubled our site visits over the last year, which I think is fantastic.

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