2208 Monkey Steals The Peach - Blocked!
Stefan Molyneux, Host of Freedomain Radio, responds to criticisms about his recent video 'But Isn't Martial Arts Just about Hitting People?
Stefan Molyneux, Host of Freedomain Radio, responds to criticisms about his recent video 'But Isn't Martial Arts Just about Hitting People?
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Hello, my fighting friends. | |
Mr. | |
Van Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio. | |
Just some responses to some comments about my comments about martial arts. | |
As I said, martial arts is a kind of boxing. | |
I don't get why you'd want to get involved in a sport with so much hitting. | |
And pointed out that a lot of people have experienced physical abuse as childhood. | |
If they haven't processed it, they will be likely to return to an environment where they attempt to master fighting, which of course is a way of covering up the symptoms rather than, you know, I didn't say everybody who's involved in it, I just said it's a tendency, it's a trend that could be there, and you don't solve problems of trauma by re-exposing yourself to trauma, although there is the drive to do that. | |
To re-experience, but anyway, that was my argument, so people said, I'm sorry, but anyone who can take this guy, that would be me, seriously after this should give up in life. | |
This is another example of a person who thinks they are highly philosophical and intelligent because they have a decent vocabulary. | |
Hey look, some praise! | |
The world is that bad and you need to wake up and smell the roses and stop living in the woods. | |
Actually, I think if you live in the woods, you're pretty much safe from other people. | |
Yeah, so, okay. | |
So, the feeling is, of course, that there's this big, dangerous world out there, and that's why we need martial arts. | |
And let's see here. | |
So, as far as actual violent crime goes, since 2000 to 2009, there's been a 40% decline in violent. | |
Crime in the U.S. Almost 60% decline in rape and sexual assault. | |
Almost a 20% decline in household burglary and so on. | |
And the victimization rate for violent crimes declined from 19.3 to 17.1 victimizations per 1,000 people just between 2008 and 2009. | |
So it's declined significantly. | |
And The women knew their offenders, right? | |
The people who attacked them knew their offenders and almost 70% of the violent crimes committed against them. | |
And males knew their offenders and 45% of the violent crimes committed against them. | |
So, if you take my advice and simply hang out with better people, three-quarters of the assaults against women and half the assaults against men, gone. | |
I think that's pretty good as far as preventing violence goes. | |
Of course, you can go for 10 years to a dojo and you can train and you can train thousands and thousands of hours and you can hope that, you know, almost a quarter of the assaults involved a weapon which, you know, Martial arts is a whole lot less good about, or useful in the face of. | |
So you can do thousands and thousands of hours, or you can let society's general improvements in these areas decline, let the violence decline for you, or you can just choose better companions, and immediately, for women, almost three-quarters, for men, almost half of these assaults will go away. | |
So that's really what I'm talking about. | |
But let's get on with these comments. | |
But so, yeah, this idea that I only sound smart because I have a good vocabulary and that the world is really bad. | |
You need to, you know, guys are going to jump you and so on. | |
Well, statistically, this is not the case. | |
And as I pointed out, there's tons of ways to avoid this. | |
So, you don't know how to argue, you don't know how to debate, you don't know how to think, right? | |
This is a little less time in the dojo, a little bit more time studying logic, I think, would serve your life a lot better. | |
This is the case, right? | |
Hey, you know, I mean, it's not evil, it's not immoral, it's all voluntary, I get all of that. | |
I get it, I really do. | |
I didn't say that it was evil. | |
But everything that is fundamentally of value in life arises out of self-knowledge. | |
The first commandment of Socrates, know thyself. | |
Once you know yourself, you know your blocks to reasoning and then you can study reasoning and actually be rational. | |
So I was scouring the comments on the videos looking for people who had gained self-knowledge, self-discipline, self-worth and all of this through Through martial arts, so let's see where we go. | |
So, Steph, your ability to adjust in an argument is fighting. | |
The struggle and growth are the best part of martial arts. | |
I've taught bullied children how to use BJJ to defend themselves. | |
No amount of philosophy can help a child that is unable to defend themselves. | |
Bullies don't use martial arts. | |
They use science and aggression. | |
Internalized MA gives confidence and has transformed my students from kids who couldn't even look at me in the eyes to ones who walk around with bright smiles now. | |
Okay? | |
But to compare a debate with karate chops is not a valid comparison. | |
It's not a valid comparison. | |
So, sorry, again, this is not a rational comparison. | |
Saying that some children have benefited from martial arts, no? | |
Was it the exercise? | |
Was it the hitting? | |
Could I have got the same thing through another? | |
I mean, there's not a scientific study. | |
It's your opinion, which you're putting forward as a teacher, of course. | |
This is what you're going to say. | |
But again, you don't know how to make a case. | |
Again, I'm not criticizing. | |
I'm just pointing out a fact. | |
You don't know how to make a case. | |
Martial arts philosophy is about prevention of violence. | |
People who want to do violence to you will usually back off if they feel or think you can defend yourself. | |
Why are you in a situation where people want to do violence to you? | |
Oh, if you're trapped in public school, maybe. | |
Yeah, I mean, there's a situation where you're kind of trapped in violence. | |
But I never got into a fight in public school. | |
There's lots of other ways. | |
You can develop better social skills. | |
You can develop a greater wit. | |
You can, I mean, lots of things. | |
I was in a pretty rough neighborhood, too. | |
And so, anyway. | |
There are a few people on the net that I listen to more than Steph, but I really wished he would educate himself more on Eastern culture, philosophy, and religion. | |
This is definitely an area where he lacks credibility and knowledge. | |
He is pretty solid on Western culture, but quite the opposite on Eastern culture. | |
It seems to me that he bases all his Eastern knowledge on Western views. | |
Again, you don't know how to make a case. | |
If there's something that I have said that is incorrect, then you need to correct me on that. | |
If there's a case, if I provide evidence that is not correct or is contradicted by other evidence, then you need to provide that to me, and I will then provide it to the audience. | |
I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. | |
To prove me wrong is the greatest favor that anyone can do me, because the things that I'm right about aren't going to harm me in my life. | |
But the things that I'm wrong about are going to harm me in my life, because erroneous knowledge causes problems, right? | |
So, if I'm Eating a whole bunch of buffet food and you don't tell me about the stuff that hasn't gone off. | |
No, it's fine. | |
But I really want you to tell me about the shellfish that's going to kill me. | |
That's what I want you to tell. | |
The shellfish that's going to give me stomach cramps and make my eyeballs explode. | |
Tell me about that one. | |
That's what I really want to know about. | |
So there's no greater favor that you can do to me and to my audience than correcting me. | |
But saying that I don't know something and I need to know something better without providing any specifics about what I don't know or how I can improve, It's not how you make an argument. | |
It's not how you make a case. | |
It's not how you help someone. | |
You know, it's like, if I'm at that buffet and you know that the shellfish is really bad, and you don't say, oh, God, Steph, don't eat that shellfish. | |
But you rather say, in general, you know, I've heard that there are some foods that go off. | |
Isn't that interesting? | |
Okay. | |
Don't know how to make a case that's actually going to help someone. | |
Hmm. | |
I've got to say, I don't agree with most of what Steph is saying about martial arts. | |
He doesn't have any understanding of it. | |
Fantastic! | |
Okay, help me to understand. | |
It is probably one of the highest art forms. | |
I did not say that it wasn't complicated and took a huge amount of training and that it doesn't require a huge amount of dexterity and speed. | |
Plus, you can train yourself and get away from competitions and the other bad aspects. | |
I never said that you always have to go into competitions. | |
Strictly from a physical sense, you can't achieve the speed and accuracy of martial artists without the training and knowledge. | |
These physical traits help massively in real life. | |
I've never said that being strong and flexible and quick doesn't have any value in real life. | |
It's just that martial arts would involve hitting. | |
It's not the only way to get there. | |
Steph is equating all martial arts with violence, which is false. | |
I did not do that. | |
I talked about Tai Chi, which I have done, which is not a violent form of, I don't know if you'd call it martial arts, but anyway. | |
I think Steph's experience of violence and abuse has blinded him to what the process of martial arts is and what it produces. | |
Martial arts is a Western interpretation of Kung Fu, which is better understood as work and man. | |
Origins of Kung Fu, which all martial arts come under, was developed as exercises for monks. | |
I'm talking about the martial arts that people join, that people do right now, the martial arts as it was practiced 500 years ago in some foreign countries, not particularly relevant to a current conversation about martial arts. | |
And there just seemed to be a lot of hitting and a lot of choking and a lot of strangling and a lot of so on, right, that is in martial arts. | |
I've done, you know, I took a lot of aerobics when I was younger too, a lot of dance, and we didn't actually generally roundhouse people with our feet. | |
Steph's experience and knowledge of martial arts has come from movies, not from direct experience. | |
And it shows in this podcast. | |
Again, you're just saying something around what I'm saying. | |
You're not giving me any specifics. | |
So, in what way have I not understood martial arts? | |
Give me something specific. | |
Give me something that I can use. | |
Give me something that I can help to correct my perspective. | |
Not, well, you know, this perspective comes from movies and therefore it's incorrect. | |
Well, first of all, you haven't proved that it comes from movies. | |
And even if you have, you haven't proved how it's actually factually incorrect. | |
I practice kung fu, and it's part philosophy and part physical discipline. | |
You learn to be flexible, and the forms do involve motions of striking. | |
However, I would say that where I study, it's about doing forms, no contact, and in the case of physical confrontation, it's up to you to use your abilities for self-defense. | |
Fighting is not taught. | |
Well, then I think it's stretching. | |
I don't think it's kung fu. | |
I mean, I don't know what to say about that. | |
Martial art by martial means war, right? | |
Martial means combat, war, hurting other people. | |
That's what the word means. | |
So if you're doing something that doesn't involve that, then it's some derivative or some change of that. | |
It's like, you know, I do boxing, but I never hit anyone. | |
Well, then it's not boxing. | |
It's something else. | |
Although you may be really good at hitting people, you would also be good at defending yourself. | |
Steph's right. | |
I felt a strong urge to learn to fight for a long, long time, and it does feel like everywhere I go, someone might try to start a fight with me. | |
Now there, I believe, is the real glimmerings of self-knowledge coming into being. | |
Fantastic, wonderful. | |
Have to ask yourself that question. | |
Why is it that everywhere you go, Fights show up. | |
People start to want to have fights with you. | |
What signals are you putting out? | |
What history is not being processed, that it's transferring unconsciously to other people and provoking their aggression? | |
That's the beginning. | |
That's fantastic. | |
If you live in the inner cities of any Western city, then knowing how to defend yourself will, without doubt, be useful to you at some other point in your life. | |
I cannot understand how one can be both anti-martial arts and pro-gun ownership. | |
How is it any different? | |
It's a fine question. | |
So, people say, well, I'm not pro-gun ownership. | |
I accept that there's no possible way to oppose gun ownership without contradicting a universal philosophy of rights. | |
Because you would have to use guns to prevent people from having guns, which means guns are both valuable and banned at the same time. | |
You can't sustain it. | |
So yeah, gun ownership is fine. | |
But gun ownership is quite different from martial arts for a wide variety of reasons. | |
First of all, you can have gun ownership for hunting. | |
I don't know a lot of people who attempt to roundhouse deer in the woods. | |
Maybe they do, but not really heard much about it. | |
Gun ownership, of course, if you're using it for self-defense, then you get the gun, you take some courses, you learn how to use it and so on. | |
Maybe you take a refresher once every year or two, but you basically just leave it in a drawer. | |
It's not a hobby. | |
It's just something that you have around the house to defend yourself if there's a home invasion or something like that, which I think is fine and great and dandy. | |
That's not the same as spending five hours a week practicing hitting other people. | |
That would be like not having a gun in the drawer or locked up or whatever you do with it. | |
That would be like you are engaging in duels on a regular basis. | |
And maybe you're using blanks or whatever it is. | |
But if you're spending five hours a week engaging in duels, that's quite different from Just having a gun around the house that you know how to use. | |
So, no, it's not the same thing at all. | |
And again, it's not hard to... | |
Steph's position does fall into the rapidly insane and incoherent category. | |
Rapidly insane and incoherent. | |
Again, that's kind of strong medicine for a series of arguments that I put forward. | |
And again, telling me that I'm wrong without showing me that I'm wrong is an act of great cruelty. | |
It's an act of a great lack of compassion for helping me to improve my thinking. | |
Just screaming at me that I'm wrong without showing me how I'm wrong and how to improve It doesn't exactly show the maturity, the wisdom, the desire to help, the desire to avoid conflict, and the maturity that people claim martial arts will give you. | |
Just because I understand the appeal of martial arts doesn't mean I don't also understand the reasons why the reasons for pursuing them aren't really valid. | |
I know why I like martial arts, and I used to push the self-defense, self-growth lines, but really deep down, it's because I had some bullying as a child. | |
Fantastic. | |
You know, the beginning of knowledge. | |
Wonderful. | |
Steph, I'm surprised with your background in philosophy that you do disdainful of martial arts when there is a rich philosophical history that intertwines with martial arts. | |
Philosophy is not windy notions about the meaning of life. | |
Philosophy is not poetic exhortations to self-discipline and maturity and wisdom and doing the right thing. | |
That's not philosophy. | |
I mean, those are fortune cookies. | |
Philosophy is a very rigorous discipline where you start with first principles, you build your knowledge, you rely on evidence. | |
Eastern philosophy is largely crap. | |
I mean, Western philosophy is largely crap as well. | |
We've had some shining breakthrough moments, but, you know, Eastern philosophy kind of produced the crazy emperor You had a crazy feudal system in China, which was followed by a murderous dictatorship. | |
You know, the horrible principalities of India. | |
I mean, you name it. | |
There's just nothing but mess out there. | |
And it's because they haven't had their Socrates. | |
They haven't had their rational approach. | |
They haven't had, you know, this is not people who developed the modern scientific method. | |
This is not cultures who developed the free market. | |
This is not cultures who developed equality for women. | |
This is not cultures who freed their serfs. | |
It's not cultures who ended slavery. | |
So, sorry, I got to give props to the West where props is due. | |
What goes on in the East is It's kind of the sad-eyed acceptance crap that goes when you are unable to throw over a feudal dictatorship, which is what most of these countries lived under for most of their history until Western philosophy came along. | |
So, you know, again, I know there's Lao Tse and so on and all that kind of stuff, but those are aphorisms. | |
This is like Nietzsche coming off a LSD trip. | |
The aphorisms are fine and they're thought-stimulating and great. | |
It's not philosophy. | |
It's not philosophy. | |
Any more than a bag of numbers is mathematics. | |
Sparring is hitting with an agreement made beforehand. | |
Martial arts is also used for self-defense, which is not the initiation of force. | |
It is the response to it. | |
Yeah, see, I mean... | |
This is the trouble that I have with a lot of YouTube comments and other comments that I get. | |
If people don't... | |
Like, if you genuinely think that I'm so stupid... | |
That I don't know that self-defense is not the initiation of force, then you should not be debating with me, because I'm a complete moron. | |
Self-defense by its very nature is not the initiation of force, but a response to it. | |
So if you feel the need to lecture me or whatever on that, then you need to check what it is that you're doing. | |
Because if I don't know that, after studying philosophy for 30 years, if I don't know that, then I'm a complete con or a complete fool. | |
Either way, getting involved with me in a debate is, you know, it's like shouting taste good to a pile of dung. | |
And so, or you're using some other rhetorical trick, but again, it's just a lack of self-reflection, a lack of self-knowledge. | |
Steph doesn't like martial arts because he would do poorly at it. | |
Okay, well, again, amateur psychologizing is, I mean, there's still no arguments, right? | |
And again, all I'm saying is, you know, maybe take a step away from the mat and the stretching and the hitting and the blocking and all that and go and read a book on logic. | |
Go and read a book on the scientific method. | |
Go and read a book on how to argue and how to debate. | |
I mean, you wouldn't like if I entered at the top level in your dojo with having had no training, no experience and not knowing what I was doing. | |
I mean, I would look like a complete fool in your world if I had no training, no knowledge, no understanding and came running in, you know, screaming with sparklers tied to my nipples saying, let's fight. | |
But this is how you look at my world. | |
I spent 30 years studying this stuff. | |
I'm a great and deep expert. | |
It certainly doesn't mean that I'm perfect, but I have, you know, the biggest philosophy show in the world, greatest conversation in history, smartest listeners, I think. | |
I've been studying it for 30 years. | |
I get asked to speak all over the world. | |
When you come running in not knowing what you're doing, and you don't know that you don't know what you're doing, then I really do doubt the degree to which humility is part of your capacities as a martial artist. | |
He says painting is hitting a canvas, tennis is hitting a ball. | |
Yes, and you can rape a watermelon, I guess, too, but it's not likely to press charges. | |
The world is not that dangerous. | |
Wow. | |
I've had my house broken into by a mentally ill person when I was eight. | |
Fortunately, my dad had a gun. | |
I've had a drunken, crazy break down my door and try to kill my roommate with a knife. | |
Fortunately, I took wrestling and was able to slam him to the ground and disable him. | |
The number of times my friends or myself have been attacked is too many to count. | |
I'm very sorry about your history. | |
I'm very sorry about your childhood. | |
That's incredibly traumatic, incredibly disturbing, and I'm really just awful all around. | |
But you need to ask yourself why you keep getting into these violent situations. | |
You need to ask that of yourself. | |
And the fact that you're not asking that of yourself, but rather going out and trying to defend yourself against a world that was genuinely terrifying when you were a child, now that you're an adult, is not the wisest way to approach it. | |
In my experience, those who are disciplined in martial arts, such as boxing and wrestling, do not start fights. | |
I did both, and I have never punched someone in a fight, nor have I provoked a fight. | |
I have defended myself many times though from would-be attackers. | |
It's not good to be vulnerable to criminals. | |
Nobody here is saying, why am I being attacked so many times? | |
Well, I don't start fights. | |
I just end them. | |
But you keep putting yourself in situations where you get attacked and you're not changing your behavior, so you're not getting attacked anymore. | |
It's quite easy to go through life without being attacked by other private citizens. | |
I've done it. | |
I don't know a single friend of mine who's ever been in a fight. | |
It's quite easy to not get attacked. | |
So if you keep getting attacked, And you're not changing your behavior, you are having a repetition compulsion from an abused childhood, I would say for sure. | |
Stefan, sometimes you say some clever and insightful things, and other times you say the dumbest things I've heard in a while. | |
Again, this is just, it's an appeal to insecurity, and it's so transparently obvious to me. | |
People who say, well, Stefan, you're just so wrong, and then don't tell me. | |
It's called a bluff, right? | |
It's talking tough without having anything to back it up. | |
In Texas, they'd say, you're all hat and no cattle. | |
And it's a fundamentally unkind thing to do. | |
Obviously, it's an appeal to insecurity, which is not going to work on me. | |
I am quite a master in these things, and if you rush at me without having any clue what you're doing, I'm not going to have much difficulty parrying what it is that you're doing or having the basic self-defense of saying, if somebody tells me that I'm wrong but is not willing to show me how, Then they don't know what they're doing and they have a very primitive and immature personality. | |
They lack self-knowledge. | |
They lack processing of their history. | |
This is how they would talk to as children. | |
These are the kind of emotional, petty, ridiculous tricks that worked on them as children because they were in a subjugated position with abusive authorities and so on. | |
It's also completely obvious. | |
The map lays out before me in lights To say that martial arts is just about hitting is quite naive and rather ignorant. | |
What else can it provide? | |
Art for art's sake, fitness competition, fun, the list is endless. | |
Again, this is somebody who's got a significant incapacity to listen to what it is that I'm saying. | |
I didn't say that it was only about hitting. | |
I said there's strength, there's exercise, there's flexibility and fitness and all that. | |
I accepted all of that. | |
But it is differentiated from other things by hitting. | |
Like boxing is differentiated from dancing by hitting. | |
And for the people who say, well, it's about you learn how to block. | |
Yes, but you learn how to block people hitting you. | |
The hitting is still involved. | |
Like you can say, well, boxing isn't just about hitting. | |
It's about dodging. | |
Well, of course it is. | |
But what are you dodging? | |
Other people hitting you. | |
The hitting is still involved. | |
Just so you know, Steph, much of martial art technique and forth is about blocking and avoiding. | |
It's not all about hitting. | |
Again. | |
Bah, bah, bah. | |
Almost all of Steph's views come from subscribers and people sharing his videos on libertarian networks. | |
If thousands of principled libertarians think he's way off base, it doesn't disprove his argument, but it's damn good evidence that he might have rushed into his opinion. | |
He's done the same thing talking about nutrition in the past, as has Adam Kokesh. | |
People make mistakes, especially when they're under pressure to produce new content constantly to earn their bread. | |
Again, these are all just a bunch of words. | |
It's like you're throwing a bunch of startled doves at me and thinking that you've landed a punch. | |
I mean, this is just a bunch of words that, I mean, tell me where I'm wrong. | |
Tell me where I'm incorrect. | |
Tell me the logical, factual, or empirical error that I have made, and I will correct. | |
And I'm absolutely eager to correct. | |
I've done entire shows where I've corrected myself for mistakes that I've made. | |
Help me improve. | |
Help me improve. | |
Like, if you were a teacher of martial arts and somebody was doing something just really wrong, would you just yell at them and say, well, you're wrong. | |
They wouldn't know what to do, what to change. | |
Was it how I was breathing? | |
Was it how I was moving? | |
Should I, whatever, right? | |
Should I take the sparklers off my nipples? | |
Never! | |
It's not helpful, right? | |
You have to correct someone with detail. | |
And if you don't have detail and you feel the urge to correct, that's because it's provoking an insecurity in you. | |
And then somebody was saying, oh, jujitsu is not about hitting. | |
Okay, so fine. | |
The guy says, we'll call it joint manipulation, snapping limbs or choking instead of hitting. | |
And I've trained in jujitsu. | |
Judo is aggressive throwing that can safely be called violent movements. | |
So, yeah, I mean, just coming up with, oh, there's non-violent martial arts. | |
Be like water, my friend. | |
It's obvious Stefan has never been punched in the face. | |
All it takes is one encounter with violence to learn how important defending yourself really is. | |
Well, as I mentioned in the video, I have experienced significant violence as a child. | |
I was punched in the face. | |
My head was smashed up against doors. | |
I screamed, I was thrown at. | |
And so, Yes, of course I've experienced this, and martial arts wouldn't have helped me. | |
There's two situations where martial arts can't help you, and they're by far the most prevalent situations of violence in the world. | |
One is against the state, you can't throw a monkey gets fruit at a SWAT team, and the other is from parental or other kinds of adult physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. | |
This is the most prevalent, and children really can't use martial arts in those situations. | |
How are you going to use the non-aggression principle fully if you have no method of defending yourself? | |
If someone initiates force against you, are you just supposed to shake your finger at them and say you are a bad person while you're being stabbed or something? | |
I know that most people will not be a victim of violent crime, but it is out there and people should be prepared. | |
Plus, true martial arts teaching is about balancing between everything mind and body, the concept of yin and yang. | |
I mean, I don't even know what to say, really, about this. | |
I have a method of defending myself. | |
It's called not getting into violent situations, and so I'm good with that. | |
I think prevention is much better than cure. | |
Stephan is an idiotic tool. | |
I'm going to unsubscribe. | |
I think that is a very wise and very good idea. | |
Pruning this channel of people who are offended by rational arguments and can't counter them And instead of storm off in a half, eliminating listenership is as important to me as gaining listenership, so I think you're very wise. | |
Please enjoy your piano playing cats. | |
Very poor video compared to most of your others. | |
Again, you have to tell me how, you have to tell me why, or I can just dismiss whatever you're saying as the rantings of an insecure person. | |
Balancing, okay, balance again. | |
And different people need different activities to achieve balance. | |
Some may be like dancing and some may need martial arts, which is a large subject. | |
Well, okay, so again, I'm not saying that martial arts doesn't teach you how to balance, and it may not have some beneficial aspects and so on, but it still is about fighting. | |
There's lots of other ways to achieve it. | |
Here's a great question. | |
I've heard you mention a few times that you suffered violence in your childhood. | |
Could you explain how you dealt with this? | |
As it seems to me, you are now a confident, intelligent, and thoughtful human being with an aversion to violence and would use it only as a last resort to protect yourself or family, and that's true. | |
Great question. | |
I've said this before. | |
I will say it again. | |
Self-knowledge, journaling, the works of Nathaniel Brandon, the works of Jordan Bradshaw. | |
They have journals, which you can write down things, sentence completion exercises, personal exercises, essays. | |
You sit down and you work through that stuff. | |
And if you put a tenth of the energy into working through that stuff, as you do in working through martial arts, it will save you a lot of time, money, and energy in the long run, and I will argue will make you a wiser and stronger person in the long run. | |
I am also a huge fan of talk therapy, in particular cognitive behavioral therapy, although I had a kind of Jungian therapist for a couple of years. | |
I went for three hours a week for a couple of years. | |
I journaled for at least another five to ten hours a week during that process. | |
I threw myself heart, body and soul into the process. | |
And it is the most powerful. | |
I shunned meds. | |
I shunned all of that stuff. | |
I just went through that whole process, oh gosh, maybe about 10 years ago. | |
And it changed my life. | |
I have a wonderful marriage. | |
I have the most exciting and amazing career that can be conceived of. | |
I have an incredibly great relationship. | |
With my daughter, I have never yelled at her, I have never hit her, I have never threatened her. | |
We've, we had maybe two or three punishments when she was younger, and now those have completely gone. | |
I live in a completely non-aggressive and peaceful household, and I did not beat my way using kung fu into achieving that. | |
I feel that whatever you have done to come to terms with your childhood experience may be of benefit to others. | |
Oh yeah, sorry, I hope this helps. | |
Okay, so this show is the shittiest Stephen has ever done. | |
He's saying that ki or chai doesn't exist, which is false. | |
Chai exists, or at least his effects on the human body. | |
Then please send me the scientific studies which prove that Qi or Chai exists. | |
I mean, please let me know if I've missed something completely obvious in this incredible validation of Eastern philosophy. | |
Send me the scientific double-blind experiments which show me that this exists. | |
Otherwise, stop making claims that you can't back up. | |
Okay. | |
Anyway, so I think we sort of got the point here, but of course I can make mistakes. | |
I may have said things that are... | |
I listened to the show again. | |
I may have said that I didn't find things that I said were egregiously false. | |
I certainly didn't claim that it was the final answer. | |
I said this was my opinions, and I put some evidence behind them. | |
But please, people, self-knowledge is key. | |
Reason is key. | |
I believe that psychotherapy is incredibly essential. | |
To me, you can't become a great person without having some exposure to a great therapist, in the same way that you can't become a great athlete without having some exposure to a great coach. | |
If you want to achieve more than the mediocrity, which we're all aimed and doomed for from the church and the schools, then you have to set your sights higher. | |
If you set your sights higher, then you have to train. | |
First thing you need to train is not your muscles, your tendons, your reflexes, but your brains. | |
So please, please, drop the nanchucks. | |
Pick up a book on logic. | |
Pursue self-knowledge. |