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Jan. 16, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

04:51:47

2588.5 Sexual Pleasure, Punishment and Self-Protection - Wednesday Call In Show January 15th, 2014

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	Hey everyone, it's Mike from Freedom Aid Radio, not Steph.
	Steph is here, but hold on a second.
	We want to read off some upcoming speaking events that he's going to be appearing at.
	February 4th, the World Affairs Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
	March 6th, at the Texas Bitcoin Conference in Austin, Texas.
	April 11th through 13th, the Toronto Bitcoin Expo, also in Toronto.
	April 24th and 25th, the big one, the NextWeb Europe Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where there's going to be like...
	3,000 people there and Steph's going to be speaking like 40,000 live via stream, something crazy like that.
	That should be good.
	And July 26th, Capitalism and Morality 2014, Vancouver, British Columbia.
	So that's what we have on the docket right now for speaking dates.
	And also, Steph is going to be guest hosting the Peter Schiff Show this coming Monday, the 20th and 21st, Tuesday.
	We're going to be resuming guest hosting duties for Peter Schiff.
	And also on the 30th and 31st, which is Thursday and Friday as well, he's going to be guest hosting Peter Schiff.
	I'm also, sorry, I just wanted to mention as well, I'll also be guest CEO-ing Europe-Pacific Capital and investing entirely in Bitcoins.
	So, he's really trusting me in this highly sensitive area, for which I can only call him quite mad.
	All right.
	Caller-wise, up first today is Connor.
	Go ahead, Connor.
	Hello, hello.
	Hi.
	So, I wanted to get into some self-knowledge with you, if you don't mind.
	Let's do it.
	So, my parents are verbally abusive, and I just wanted to just get, I don't know, your take on how I can kind of improve my situation.
	So, my dad is kind of a yeller, and It's mostly based on petty, like if the kitchen isn't clean or something.
	Yeah.
	My mom is a bit more passive-aggressive.
	And...
	I don't know.
	Do you think you could just ask me some questions?
	Sure.
	And I know this is...
	Obviously, you know, stressful and alarming to be on this kind of show.
	If you could just try and speed up your speech a little bit.
	I'm known for my pinter pauses, but these you could drive trucks through just to keep the momentum going.
	Now, when did you first...
	Oh, first of all, I'm incredibly sorry to hear this.
	Verbal abuse is something...
	Often underrated when it comes to how we understand abuse and trauma.
	Sometimes the effects can measurably be worse than physical abuse.
	And it is my saving grace, perhaps, that my mother was not very verbally abusive, physically extremely violent, like life-threateningly dangerously violent, but really not much of a verbal abuser.
	She was crazy but not sadistic, if that makes any sense.
	And so that has, I think, been quite a boon to me because the people I've talked to, like yourself, who have the verbal abuse, physical abuse is like an asteroid hitting the Earth.
	You know, there's a huge amount of sound and fury.
	And then, you know, things calm down a little bit.
	And there's a visible crater, you know, like BAM! It blew up, the dinosaurs all fell over, mammals ruled the Earth.
	And you can still see the crater.
	And there's some ones in Arizona and so on.
	There's still hundreds of millions of years after the event.
	But verbal abuse seems to be more like a slow-drip poison that's really hard to get out of your system.
	There's usually not a visible wound.
	There's not a significant trauma.
	And it doesn't quite activate the fight-or-flight mechanism as much.
	And so you end up with anxiety.
	Rather than trauma.
	And anxiety can be tougher to battle in some ways.
	It's so insidious and it creeps into everything.
	And it's like you've got a gunshot wound but no hole in your body.
	And so I really, really wanted to sympathize with that.
	It's a terrible thing to have to go through.
	And it is...
	I like my bullies out in the open.
	The cowardly verbal guys.
	Just not my particular cup of tea.
	So when did you first notice that your father had this tendency?
	The earliest memory, I guess, I remember that he was eating a sausage and he gave me a bite and then I went and I took another one and then he just got really shitty and started just being, just yelling.
	So you had a second bite of sausage that was apparently verboten, not allowed.
	And this made your father very angry, is that right?
	Yes.
	Wow.
	You know, that's kind of a powerful metaphor, if that makes any sense.
	Go on.
	It sounds like you've thought of this before, but go ahead.
	No, I haven't.
	I actually never really thought.
	I've never talked about this memory before.
	But yeah, definitely phallic imagery.
	Yeah, I mean, you're trying to get some manhood and he's beating you up for it, right?
	I mean, he's eating a sausage, you try to get some sausage.
	It's a very competitive with the male kind of thing.
	And what sort of language was used against you when you were a kid?
	Do you mean like the tone or just the No, the words.
	I mean, the tone I get would be pretty ugly, but what were the words that were used?
	So what was the message?
	What were the words that were used?
	I don't know if I can remember that far back.
	I know it'll...
	Like Jesus Christ is one of them, is one that sticks out to me a lot.
	Like, what are you doing?
	Just a lot of insults that just didn't make any sense, I guess.
	Jesus Christ and what are you doing?
	Not, I mean, Not getting clear how the verbal abuses stand out.
	Again, I'm not saying it didn't happen or anything like that, but it wasn't things like, you idiot, or you're stupid, or you moron, or anything like that.
	Is that right?
	No.
	But I would get the kind of idea that he would come at that.
	He wouldn't say it directly, but he's saying, you know, you're not doing something right, or something like that.
	Well, I'm a little confused here.
	You're calling in because you're having something that's, I assume, quite difficult in your life, but it feels like you're minimizing it now.
	Okay.
	Like if somebody says, I don't think you're doing things quite right, that's not abusive, right?
	No.
	And again, I'm not saying it didn't happen, and I'm certainly not trying to deny your experience, but I'm trying to understand what your experience was.
	So was it very pressured speech, like, Jesus Christ!
	That kind of stuff?
	Yes, yes.
	So there's this tension, right?
	This explosive aggression?
	Yeah.
	Or, you're doing it wrong!
	Give that to me!
	Something like that, yes.
	Okay.
	Yeah, so verbal aggression and very much escalation, emotional intensity?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Right.
	And you said that you can't remember that far back, so when did it stop?
	Or has it?
	No, it hasn't stopped.
	I can't remember, like, really...
	I guess I'm trying...
	I'm thinking too...
	Okay, I can give you an example of...
	This was maybe a year ago.
	He would...
	Like, I left a...
	A barbecue lighter outside.
	And it got rained on.
	So it wasn't working anymore.
	And he came home and he wanted to cook something on the grill.
	And he threw it down the stairs and said, how the fuck am I supposed to cook with this?
	And he screamed it.
	Oh man, that's terrifying.
	I get it.
	I get it now.
	I want to make sure I understand where you're coming from.
	Before we go further?
	Yeah.
	I'm really sorry.
	Yeah, I get that.
	I get that.
	That's terrifying.
	And how often would this kind of stuff happen?
	Once a month, I'd say.
	On average.
	So on average, he would yell or scream once a month?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Now, what would it be like the rest of the time?
	We just talk about sports or something and not important things in the grand scheme of things.
	Right.
	And what effect do you think it's had on you as you've grown up?
	Definitely a lot of social anxiety.
	Because you're taught to be so passive, and so I don't know, like, if I'm taught that you solve problems by yelling and screaming, then how am I supposed to have any confidence in solving problems in the real world, right?
	Right.
	Well, I had a woman who was pretty aggressive.
	I had a relationship with a woman who was pretty aggressive once.
	Not that bad.
	And I used to, you know, fold and keep the peace.
	Fold and keep the peace.
	Why?
	Because I grew up without a dad and no one told me how to be a man.
	And so I just...
	I was really working on myself and really trying to get more confidence and all of that.
	And...
	So one day she just started, you know, getting bitchy and naggy at me, and I just got right back.
	She got in my face, I got right back in her face.
	And I was basically like, you know, fuck this, I'm not doing this anymore.
	I'm not folding to keep the peace, because it doesn't work.
	And it was not an abusive relationship and all that, but she had this, you know, you didn't do this, you didn't do that, and so on, right?
	And I pointed out some of the stuff that she hadn't done.
	She's like, oh, you didn't put all the small forks in the small fork area.
	How many times do I have to tell you blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	And I said, well, you haven't gotten a job, which is more important.
	I said, if we're going to go to this place where we're just going to grind on each other for the stuff that's unsatisfying...
	You know, I'm working 10, 12 hours a day.
	You're home looking for work.
	Why do I have to come back and help you with the laundry?
	You know, she was like, well, we're going to share the housework.
	And I was like, well, I'm paying all the bills, you know?
	I mean, how's that fair?
	And I wasn't screaming at her or anything like that, but I was just like, you know, okay, okay, I'm going to accept that this is what we do.
	That we just grab at each other for things that are dissatisfying.
	And she was kind of taken aback, and then, like most immature people, she just doubled down, right?
	And she started bringing all this other stuff, started bringing all this other stuff, started bringing all this other stuff.
	And, you know, you just, you open that closet, and it's like the elevator door opening in the shining.
	All the blood comes pouring out.
	And it really escalated, because I was not going to back down.
	Now, this was sort of a process that I needed to go through.
	I mean, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, except in this case, I might.
	But it was very healthy to me, very helpful for me.
	I didn't call her names.
	I didn't scream at her or anything like that.
	But I was sort of pointing out that since we'd been going out, I'd started the company, and she was still working as a secretary.
	Right.
	So, I wasn't sure where she was in a big position to criticize my life or to criticize me.
	You know, as I said at the time, I said, you've got to do more to nag more.
	You've got to achieve more to nag more.
	Like, I'm just not going to take it because I'm succeeding and you are a failure.
	So, if that, if you're going to, you know, and it started with something like the forks, but that's where it went to.
	And it was very soon after that I ended the relationship.
	Oh, actually, no.
	To be fair, she said, I want you out because I just was no longer bending over and taking it.
	She said, I want you out.
	I'm like, you know what?
	That is the smartest thing you've said all year.
	I grabbed a bag and I went to a hotel.
	She was like, I didn't mean it.
	Well, maybe you didn't mean it, but it was a great idea.
	She was right.
	She was right.
	Yeah, she's like, oh, you know, come back and we'll work it out.
	It's like, no, you know, I don't really...
	I don't really want to.
	And I've sort of experienced that in relationships, particularly with women, that when the truth comes out, the relationship is over.
	That's why I sort of counsel speaking your hearts and minds.
	Don't bottle things up in your relationships.
	And, you know, this particularly for the guys, don't be nagged.
	Just no.
	Just don't be nagged.
	Don't be nagged.
	Nagging...
	If continued, it's just a cancer that eats out the marrow of a relationship and it all falls over.
	A woman will never sleep with a man.
	She gets to nag in the long run.
	Nagging just kills sexual desire, at least on the part of the woman and of course on the part of the man as well.
	So that's sort of a long roundabout way of saying something like this, right?
	So let's say your dad comes down and says, how the fuck am I supposed to cook with this?
	Throws it down, right?
	One possibility is scream up the stairs, Dad, how the fuck am I supposed to live?
	How the fuck am I supposed to get anything done in this life with you fucking screaming at me all the time?
	How the fuck am I supposed to negotiate in life?
	How the fuck are you preparing me for adulthood by screaming at me and having little fucking tantrums like a two-year-old?
	And what would happen then?
	Well, I haven't tried that before.
	I'm not suggesting it, don't get me wrong.
	I'm just curious what would happen then.
	Like, UPB is kind of a helpful thing in this way.
	Because people really can't complain when you treat them the way they treat you, right?
	Right.
	So, if this girlfriend I had at the time was nagging me over stupid, bitchy little stuff, well, then I can nag her.
	If she's pointing out my failings, okay, great.
	I can just point out her failings.
	Now, I get, like, this woman was not happy with her own life, was scared of my success and what it was going to do to our relationship, couldn't get her own life started, despite the fact that I was helping her out like crazy.
	And it was her own dissatisfactions with herself and, you know, bloody bloody, but who gives a shit fundamentally?
	Like, that...
	I might know why my car is broken.
	That doesn't mean that I'm happy paying $3,000 to get it fixed, right?
	So, one of the great things is that UPB says, okay, well, if somebody is screaming at you, you can scream at them back.
	I mean, I bet you got some anger about this.
	Yeah, that's kind of what I felt a lot of the time when I would...
	Like, I would just go to my room and just think, like, what are you even trying to do?
	Do you want to try roleplay, you be your dad?
	I don't feel comfortable being that loud where I am right now.
	Okay, can you just speak it and I'll pretend you're screaming it?
	Okay.
	Okay, so you say how the...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	It's hard for me to repeat what he says because it's just such a blur because when it happens, it's...
	Oh, trust me, it's in there.
	Trust me, it's in there.
	We can all play our parents.
	I mean, we've understudied for 20 years, right?
	And their voices are in their head.
	We've internalized them.
	We can all play our parents, right?
	Well, we'll try.
	Okay, so you say, you know, how the fuck, you say the thing where he's throwing the lighter down the stairs.
	Do I repeat what he said to me?
	Yeah, just say what he said and I'll be you.
	Okay, how the fuck am I supposed to cook with this?
	Throw it up the stairs, making sure not to hit anyone and say, how the fuck, Dad, am I supposed to grow up to be a functional human being with you screaming at me like a two-year-old half the time?
	See, I have no idea what he would say after that, though.
	Then I'll keep going.
	I mean, you're supposed to be the fucking adult in this relationship.
	And since I was a little kid, you have been screaming at me, you've been blowing up at me, you've been bullying me, you've been verbally aggressive.
	The fuck is wrong with you?
	I mean, who does that to a child?
	The hell is the matter with you?
	I mean, are you that immature that an inconvenience like...
	Something was left out in the rain is enough to make you scream and throw things?
	I mean, I'd say you're a two-year-old, but that's actually an insult to two-year-olds, some of whom are actually relatively mature compared to what you're doing.
	So what the fuck is going on with you?
	He might say something like, don't you talk like that to me, right?
	I'm your father.
	Right.
	At which point I would say, Dad...
	You can't model behavior to me for 20 years and then complain when it comes back to you.
	Right?
	That literally is like saying that big leafy thing in the backyard, that's a tree.
	That's a tree.
	You know what that is?
	That's a tree.
	Not a bush.
	Not a dragon.
	Not Merle Haggard.
	That is a tree.
	And you say that to me for 20 years and then I point at the backyard and say, hey look, a tree.
	And you hit me across the head and say, who the fuck taught you that?
	You don't get to model this kind of behavior to me for 20 years and then dare to complain when it comes back to you.
	You taught me this.
	You acted this.
	There is no conceivable way that you can even remotely legitimately say...
	Don't disrespect your father.
	How much have you taught me about how to respect family members?
	How much have you taught me how you respect me?
	How much have you shown me how you're capable of respect?
	No.
	Like a pouty little bitch, you get some inconvenience like, oh, you can't light the barbecue at the right time and in the right way.
	Oh, God, that's a catastrophe.
	Call 911.
	And you throw things and you scream?
	What the fuck is the matter with you?
	And then you dare complain that I do something even remotely similar?
	When this is what you've been modeling to me for 20 goddamn years?
	Are you kidding me?
	Where do you get off?
	What gives you the right to throw shit around like a two-year-old?
	Yeah, I've definitely had those thoughts for a long time.
	People like that, just for me...
	I can't tell you how much contempt I have for people like that.
	This may not be rational.
	I'm giving you my entire emotional prejudice laid bare.
	I have such contempt for hysterics.
	Because that's what this is.
	It's Blanche Dubois full-on Tennessee Williams moth figure hysteria.
	Ah!
	The lighter is wet!
	Ah!
	Like, oh my god!
	What the fuck is wrong with you?
	The lighter is wet!
	Well, lighter is wet!
	I mean, he might as well pick shit out of the toilet and throw it against the wall.
	Although that's actually an insult to apes.
	I have such contempt for people like that.
	Because they always and forever are only doing it to the dependents, to the kids, right?
	Did he ever do that to a waiter?
	No.
	Is he very assertive if a waiter gets his food order wrong?
	Does he say, oh, excuse me, listen, the food order's wrong.
	I'd like to send it back.
	No.
	What does he do?
	Just swallow, suck it up?
	Yep.
	Yeah, isn't that fucking great?
	Oh, what a magnificent specimen of shitty masculinity.
	Because, you know, it's really, really, really important to not bully waiters in your life.
	Because, you know, waiters rank way above your own goddamn children, right?
	Waiters, I mean, waiters, my God.
	I mean, they might find out where you live, and they might switch food in your fridge so you get the wrong order even at home.
	They might scoop shit out of one yogurt jar, put into another, and seal it in the middle of the night and leave, and then you get the wrong goddamn yogurt.
	You're not even at the restaurant.
	You've got to take care of the waiters in your life.
	They might bring you the wrong colored Jell-O on your deathbed, and then the last thing you taste is a Jell-O you don't even like!
	So yes, my God, you've got to be incredibly solicitous of the waiters.
	Your own kids, your own flesh and blood, fruit of your loins, product of your love.
	Oh, fuck them, scream, throw shit, whatever, who cares?
	But the waiters, shit, the waiters, they hold the real power in your life.
	End of rant, sorry.
	Go ahead.
	Another ironic thing is he's a teacher at a college.
	And if he talked to his students the way he talked to me, he would either be fired, well, probably not because he has tenure, or he'd be sent into anger management or something.
	Right.
	Yeah, you know, it's funny because when I talk about voluntary family relationships and you don't have to see your parents, your siblings, your half-sister, your Darth Vader's cousin's roommate, you don't have to see any of these people.
	People are like, oh, that's terrible!
	But...
	Try that.
	Try that shit at work.
	Try screaming at people and throwing things at them and see what happens.
	You get fired.
	I mean, tenure is just bullshit government stuff, right?
	But yeah, in any reasonable educational environment, if he did even one-tenth of what he does to you, he'd get his ass fired.
	And so he doesn't, right?
	Pardon?
	And so he doesn't do those things in school, does he?
	Because he faces negative consequences if he does those things, right?
	Right.
	And this is the whole point of voluntary family relationships, what is sometimes called the defu.
	This is the whole point.
	Most people make decisions based on positive or negative consequences.
	They don't have a fucking ethical principle to save their lives.
	And so because most people don't have ethical principles, they will rely on positive or negative consequences, right?
	So your father is scared of the waiter or something like that.
	He's scared of getting fired.
	And so he acts more reasonably in those situations, right?
	Right.
	Now, society, as far as I understand it, and what I was taught as a kid, is you rely on positive and negative results for people to do well.
	If you do well, you get to go to the next grade.
	If you do badly, you get stuck in a grade behind.
	If you don't listen to the teacher, you get detention.
	When I was a kid, if you didn't listen to the teacher, you got caned with a big-ass, ugly colonial Indian stick.
	And if you do well at your job, you get a paycheck.
	If you do badly at your job, you get fired.
	If you do well on your paper, you get an A. If you do bad on your paper, you get an F. If you spell the word correctly, you get 100%.
	If you spell the words incorrectly, you might get 0 or 1% or 10%.
	So if you obey the law, then you are at liberty, and if you disobey the law, then you go to jail.
	So I was taught my whole life That positive and negative results are necessary in society for right behavior.
	Hey, you do a good job, I'm going to give you a brownie.
	If you do a bad job or disobey me or displease me, I'm going to spank you.
	Positive and negative results.
	Now, if no one can ever leave their parents, the quality of parenting will remain dismal.
	Right?
	In the same way that if we made divorce illegal and no one could ever move out or leave their husbands or wives, the quality of marriage would deteriorate.
	In the same way that whenever you make something compulsory, the quality deteriorates.
	There's no competition and there's no negative consequences.
	Now, it's so funny to me, as parents are constantly talking and inflicting negative consequences on their children.
	If you leave the lighter out in the rain, I am going to scream at you and throw it down the stairs.
	Negative consequences.
	How the fuck am I supposed to cook with this goddamn thing, right?
	And so parents are constantly talking about and constantly inflicting negative consequences for bad behavior, right?
	And then the moment some adult says, you know what?
	I need you to act better or I'm not going to see you.
	Parents are shocked and appalled that such horrendous wrong should occur to them.
	I mean, nobody's talking about spanking the parents or putting the parents in a timeout or sending the parents to bed without dinner or screaming at the parents or throwing things at the parents.
	Yeah.
	Improve your behavior.
	Or, I will not want to see you.
	Or, I don't want to see you until your behavior improves.
	That is far kinder and more gentle than about 99.9% Of the negative consequences parents inflict on their own children.
	But suddenly, these masters of negative consequences, these masters of punishment, when a slight shred of accountability accrues to them for their own parenting, they are shocked and appalled that such a negative consequence might accrue to their own abusive practices.
	Now, I'm not saying see your dad or don't see your dad.
	This is all your choice.
	But I'll tell you this.
	This is the kind of personality, in my humble and amateur opinion, this is the kind of personality that will only change if there is a chance for change based on negative consequences.
	Based on negative consequences.
	If you don't have any power over him, he will treat you like garbage.
	And that is A tragic lesson to have to learn.
	Nobody should have to learn that lesson at all.
	I'm very sorry that you have to learn that lesson.
	But your father's job, as a father, I could say this with some mild authority, but your father's job was to keep you safe, was to keep you secure, was to teach you, was to encourage you, was to give you knowledge and wisdom and the principles of good judgment.
	And ready you for a life wherein you were as inoculated as humanly possible against being exploited.
	You do not prepare a child in that manner by screaming at said child.
	Right?
	Right.
	One complicated factor in this is that I'm kind of financially dependent on my parents right now.
	Mm-hmm.
	I'm in my first year before your program at school.
	Yeah.
	And you understand, I am not saying don't see your parents.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm not saying that at all.
	I am saying that, again, in my opinion, I guess you're in your late teens, early 20s, something like that?
	20, yeah.
	20.
	Oh, I thought that was right.
	So you've had 20 years and the behavior hasn't changed, right?
	The behavior has changed recently because I've been compliant.
	I notice the pattern is that if the kitchen is messy for maybe a couple days, it'll kind of get shitty.
	And I know it's not a good way to deal with it.
	And you know it has nothing to do with the kitchen, right?
	Right.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean...
	No, no, no.
	Trust me.
	It has nothing to do with the kitchen.
	But it does if I... No, no.
	Tell me.
	You disagree with me.
	That's fine.
	I'm just telling you what I think, but disagree with me if I'm wrong.
	Well, it has gotten better as I've gotten older.
	Not better, but like the instances of verbal abuse have decreased.
	Mainly because I've interpreted his patterns.
	Oh, so you've found yourself it's easier to comply, right?
	And because you comply, because you appease, there's less volatility, right?
	Right, yeah.
	I mean, I'll tell you something.
	And I'll tell you about the kitchen thing just so you can see if I'm full of shit, right?
	Again, I give you my own sort of personal...
	There are two women in my life who constantly bitched at me about tidiness.
	One was my mom, and the other one was this girlfriend that I mentioned before.
	Constantly bitching me about, oh, this is a mess, oh, you've got to keep things tidy, or this is your left behind, or whatever, right?
	Constantly bitching at me about keeping things tidy.
	Now, my mom, I don't know what, It's been like 12 years or 13 years since I've seen her.
	And unfortunately, that was 47 years minus 13.
	Too few.
	But, I mean, her place was a complete pigsty.
	All the time, the place is a mess!
	And then when she didn't have kids around to mess her place up, her place turned into a complete pigsty.
	Like a literally dangerous pigsty.
	We'd have to go in there sometimes to clean it up.
	Ugh, disgusting.
	Like botulism style, disgusting.
	And so the idea that she was all into cleanliness and the kids were messing the place up, complete nonsense.
	That woman too, nagging me about keeping the place clean and tidy, clean and tidy, clean and tidy.
	And after I moved out, I had to go back six or eight months later to pick something up.
	And the place where we used to live, where she lived now with a roommate, her room was a complete pigsty.
	Clothes all over the floor, coffee cups all over the windowsill, you know, just with those white...
	Ugh, just disgusting.
	Like something I could never even remotely imagine living in.
	And so these are just two examples where people, women, bitching at me and bitching at me about keep things tidy.
	And then when I was no longer in their lives...
	They lived like rodents in the sewer.
	And that's when I, you know, it was a big lesson for me, right?
	That it was just an excuse to bully.
	People, I don't know if you ever had this with your dad, with my mom.
	She'd come home and something would have gone wrong with her day.
	She'd be in a shitty mood.
	And I could see her, she'd be like stalking around the house.
	Like this skinny, vicious, demon-eyed giraffe.
	And she'd be like looking for something that she could be angry about.
	And then she started asking me, where's that flashlight that you used a month ago?
	I need it.
	Right?
	So she'd hoped that I couldn't find it.
	So that she could then say, she could then discharge Her bad day onto me to vomit it up all over me.
	And did you ever have that where your dad would come home and you'd know he was in a bad mood and he'd be like, well, what's his excuse going to be this time?
	Maybe it wasn't that conscious, but...
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	I can tell when he's in a bad mood.
	And you know it's going to come out in some way, right?
	He's going to find something that you've done wrong or something that someone's done wrong and then just fucking unload, right?
	Right.
	And that's what I mean when I say it doesn't matter whether the place is messy or tidy fundamentally at all.
	You know, my mom would get angry at something and say, you're grounded for a week!
	And the next day she'd be like, hey, let's go see a movie.
	It only had to do with the mood.
	there were some hooks on the outside that they'd use but well it's fundamental it's sociopathy isn't it I I don't know.
	That's a pretty technical term reserved for psychologists.
	I don't even know if it's that useful a term.
	You know, bad-tempered nasty shit is fine for me.
	Do you know anything about your dad's childhood?
	Not a whole lot.
	One thing I do, a story I do remember is that his mom would clean his mouth out with soap.
	If he would say it, he would swear or something.
	Yeah, that's pretty common practice, I guess back in the 50s or 60s or whatever, right?
	Actually, you're 20, so...
	Yeah, 60s, I guess.
	But...
	Is there anything that you think I can be helpful in this with you?
	I hope I'm giving you some recognition or some empathy and some sympathy, some outrage, which I genuinely feel.
	I can hear it in your voice, the degree to which this has depressed your energy, right?
	I just, it's just so hard to, like, just, I don't know, how am I supposed to make my situation better?
	I just don't...
	You can't.
	No, no, you can't.
	You're the child.
	You can't change your parents.
	You can't...
	You know, you might have some influence over friends.
	Siblings, maybe.
	Although the birth order is pretty ironclad.
	But as far as fixing your parents, I would not hold out any hope for that.
	Now, you can be honest with them.
	So you can only control yourself, right?
	So you can say, Dad, look, this is some pretty bad behavior.
	I'm really upset.
	I'm angry.
	I'm frustrated.
	I'm scared.
	You know, what I call the real-time relationship stuff where you tell people what you're thinking and feeling in the moment without making it that they have to change or they have to do anything.
	And you can be honest with that.
	But if your dad veers between abuse and being really boring, then there's not a lot of probably empathy there to hook into.
	So, let me ask you that.
	Can you remember a time of tenderness and empathy from your father throughout your life?
	I just...
	He would always be around, I guess.
	That's not a...
	Well, I mean, we...
	Him coaching my hockey team and all my sports teams.
	No, that doesn't count.
	I mean, trust me, coaches and verbal abuse are not exactly opposite sides of the planet, right?
	No.
	Right, and trust me, if there had been, some they would stick out.
	Like, you wouldn't need to really think about them.
	Like, you know, if your dad had once spoken to a waiter in fluent Japanese, you wouldn't forget that, right?
	Hey, remember that one time he chatted about philosophy with that Japanese waiter?
	I didn't even know he could speak Japanese.
	I'm like, whoa, I remember that, right?
	So you'd remember if there was something, right?
	So this might mean that he lacks empathy.
	It might mean, I don't know.
	But if he's never demonstrated empathy, that's a pretty good indicator, right?
	And one of the things I think that's abuse 101 is that abusers are only concerned with their own feelings.
	Obviously, right?
	Because to abuse someone is to make them feel like shit, right?
	To make them feel scared, to make them feel angry, to dislocate their centeredness and rootedness in reality.
	And to hack at the bond's In families and for the person within himself and to infect and inculcate an abusive voice within the mind, particularly of the child, right?
	Those are such fundamentally destructive actions that you simply could not do them if you cared for the other person.
	I really, really want to make this point clear.
	I'm not talking about you stub your toe and your daughter is asking for something and you snap at her and then you say, oh, I'm so sorry.
	You know, that was rude or whatever, right?
	I'm talking about like consistent bullying, terrorizing, emotional, verbal, physical, sexual abuse.
	You can't do that if you care about the other person.
	Like, the selfishness has to come first.
	Only being concerned with your own feelings.
	You know, like, you're having a shitty day, you go home, and you vomit up on your family, and you're like, whoa, that's good.
	I feel better.
	Now, they're all sobbing on the floor, but you're like, oh, man, that really worked the kinks out.
	I feel great.
	And you go and have a beer.
	You have to not care about other people in order to abuse them.
	That's so kind of obvious that it scarcely even needs to be defined except that it's something that is kind of slippery in the mind, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Now, I feel, just based on this mm-hmm, that we're not connecting at all on this topic, which is fine.
	I'm just pointing out that this is sort of my experience.
	Yeah, sorry.
	I'm just kind of...
	No, no need to apologize.
	I mean, it's not a fault.
	It's just something I'm noticing.
	I feel like I'm feeling everything.
	And you're not feeling anything, really?
	Yeah, I just feel like I've had to cut myself off from those feelings.
	Well, yes, but you called into this show.
	Yeah.
	Look, tell me, how many times have you talked like this with someone before?
	A couple.
	And how have those conversations gone?
	Really well.
	So it's rare in your life to be able to talk about stuff.
	I just met a new friend that I can share these things with.
	Okay, good.
	So this is new and this is rare.
	And this is what I have a little trouble understanding, which is why you wouldn't dive into this topic as open-heartedly as possible.
	Right.
	As emotionally open as possible, I guess.
	I'm not criticizing.
	I'm just sort of asking.
	I guess I can think through these topics a lot and then it's hard for me to put them into words.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry.
	I just don't...
	I think...
	I don't know where to go from here.
	Well, I mean, I would suggest if you're in college, you could probably get to therapy.
	My concern is that you don't have the empathy for yourself.
	Like, I'm really siding with you here, right?
	I'm not saying, well, you know, being a parent is stressful, and, you know, there may have been money problems, and your dad had a bad childhood, you've got to forgive him.
	Like, I'm not doing any of that, right?
	I think I'm really siding with you here.
	Well, I appreciate it.
	But you're the one with your trauma, and I'm the only one feeling anything, and my concern is, do you think that you have empathy for yourself?
	I don't think I have enough of it.
	Okay.
	On a scale of 1 to 100, how much do you think you're displaying in the conversation here?
	A bit more than 1.
	A bit more than 1 in a fraction?
	You wouldn't be studying math or accounting by any chance, would you?
	No.
	Okay.
	Well, okay, so...
	When I talk to you about, you know, the outrage that I feel or whatever it is, what is your emotional experience of that, if any?
	I just feel kind of numb.
	And is it because you don't care about the topic?
	Is it because you don't care about your experiences?
	Why numb?
	I do care about the topic or else I wouldn't be calling the show.
	Then why don't you care about the topic in the conversation, right?
	You're very closed off.
	And again, I'm not trying to bag on you.
	I'm not trying to criticize you.
	I'm simply telling you what my experience is.
	It doesn't mean I'm right.
	But you're very unreachable emotionally.
	I would assume that's to yourself.
	I mean, I assume you're not feeling a whole bunch of things and, you know, biting on the heel of your hand or your fist in your mouth or something like that, right?
	Right.
	So is it that you're not feeling anything yourself?
	I'm not.
	Right.
	Well, then why did you call in if you're not giving yourself permission to feel anything about such an important topic?
	I guess I need to go into therapy.
	Thank you.
	No, that's not what I asked.
	I know.
	Why did you call in?
	I'm going to be annoying here.
	I apologize for that.
	But this I care about.
	I mean, I care about you as a caller, as a listener.
	And I don't imagine that a lot of these conversations are going to come along in your life.
	Right?
	Most people just dance around and talk about nothing until they're dead, right?
	Right.
	And then they go to an afterlife, which is a sports stadium, and then a veterans parade, and that's their paradise because they don't ever have to talk about anything.
	But in this particular conversation, I really am going to be annoying because I'm concerned that when you call in about such an emotional topic and don't allow yourself to feel anything, that there's kind of like a bit of cruelty in there.
	Because you are trying to have power, in a sense, in this conversation by being unavailable.
	Right?
	By talking about terrible things and having no emotional connection or reaction to them.
	That's you having power.
	That's you having control.
	Right?
	Right.
	Well, I feel like I've been betrayed.
	Go on.
	Because I would never treat someone the way that my parents treat me.
	Go on.
	And I don't want to take it anymore.
	And I want to take control of my life.
	It's like you're reading cue cards.
	I'm sorry, there's just still no connection at all, right?
	It's like you've just got a bunch of fortune cookies, you're picking them up randomly and whatever.
	And again, I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just simply pointing it out.
	I believe, I genuinely believe that these calls are like a once in a lifetime opportunity.
	Not that you can't ever have great conversations again in the future, but I think that if you don't get something that is connected out of this conversation, I think it may change your future.
	I believe that.
	I think the stakes are very high in this conversation.
	If you've not had a history of talking about this stuff, then the choices you make in this conversation are important.
	Because there's no do-over, right?
	When your dad throws the lighter down the stairs and screams at you, what do you feel?
	I feel anger and fear.
	And what is the anger saying?
	If you could stand in front of your dad, he's bound and gagged or whatever allows him to not react or respond, what would you say to him about what he's done?
	You should never treat a child that way.
	That's abstract.
	There's no a child.
	There's you.
	So personalize it.
	Dad, you never should have treated me that way.
	Just try it.
	Humor me.
	You never should have treated me that way.
	And it's morally and ethically wrong.
	Okay.
	Abstract, not feeling based.
	Go ahead.
	Try it again.
	Because I feel...
	Because I feel terrified.
	And like, there's nothing I can do.
	Go on.
	This is 20 years of stuff you want to say to your dad, right?
	I'm sorry.
	Are you saying you're sorry to your dad or to me?
	To you, because I just can't.
	I mean, do you get that you're reproducing your relationship with your father, with me in this conversation, right?
	Right.
	I feel upset, I feel angry, and I can't do anything with you.
	Do you get how it's reproducing itself because it's so unconscious?
	I'm not saying you're your dad.
	Obviously, I'm not putting you in the same category.
	But that dynamic, right?
	Of helplessness.
	I feel helpless.
	I feel sad.
	I feel heartbroken.
	Because I know how important this topic is to you.
	I know that I believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime defining conversation.
	And I feel helpless.
	To connect.
	I feel helpless as well.
	Right.
	And you feel helpless because you can't feel anything.
	Right.
	Okay, so basically I'm not talking to your dad, I'm talking to your mom, right?
	Right.
	Right?
	Because your mom was helpless, as you said, in this situation.
	So when we talk about confronting your dad, you become your mom.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So what would your mom say?
	Can you be your mom for a second?
	I'd say, Mom, I really want to go and talk to Dad about this screaming and throwing stuff throughout my childhood.
	What would she say?
	Well, you know, he...
	He cooks a lot, and he cleans, and he did a lot of things for you, so you should do those things back.
	Okay, so you're saying that if he works, he gets to earn the right to be abusive.
	So if I cook and clean more, then I can scream and throw things.
	Is that right?
	Well, do as I say, not as I do.
	Is that what she would say?
	Yes.
	Why should I do that?
	Why should I do as you say and not as you do?
	I mean, if you don't think the values are good enough for you, then why the fuck should I follow them?
	Because I'm your mother.
	No, that's not an answer.
	That's not an answer.
	Are you saying everyone who becomes a mother is automatically correct?
	So some retarded 13-year-old who gets raped, who gives birth, is automatically a fount of wisdom, equivalent to Socrates?
	All mothers are immediately incorrect?
	Come on.
	If Hitler had had a baby with Eva Braun, are you saying that that baby would then have to respect Hitler's mistress because she's his mother?
	So try again.
	Why are you telling me stuff like Dad has earned the right to abuse you because he does the dishes?
	Does that sound reasonable to you?
	No.
	Okay, so let's try it again.
	I want to go and talk to Dad and I'm now talking to you because my childhood had some pretty shitty shadows cast over it by Dad's verbal abuse and you're sitting by and letting him do that to me.
	Why did you let him do that?
	It's your job to protect me, right?
	So why did you let him do that?
	Well, I feel like I have a lot to think about.
	I guess that's the end of the conversation for you, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, thank you for hanging in there.
	I really appreciate it.
	And I certainly wish you the very best.
	I think that therapy would be useful.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	All right.
	And who's next?
	All right, Jack.
	You're up next, Jack.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, Steph.
	Hello, Jack.
	How are you?
	I'm doing pretty well.
	Let me just sit down real quick.
	So I wanted to call in to talk about a recent experience that I've had with love.
	First, actually.
	Some people say that it's actually a very important space.
	Jack, if you're moving around, can you stay still?
	Get comfortable, stay still, get in a hammock, stop moving.
	I don't know why people put on snap, crackle, pot helmets and then do fucking gymnastics.
	But anyway, not your fault.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry about that.
	It's so hard to remember.
	But is that better now?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Go ahead.
	All right.
	So before I get into that, I heard a couple months ago on a show that you wanted to – or one of your listeners suggested that you do a history of philosophy course, not necessarily like an overview of the concepts, but an overview of – The people.
	Yeah, the people.
	Yeah.
	If you would allow and desire, I've listened to all of his shows, or all of his podcasts, and Stephen West is very, very good at going over in detail the different philosophers, how they relate to each other, and their own beliefs, their own musings.
	If I could recommend that show, would that be appropriate?
	Sure, go for it.
	I appreciate that.
	Stephen West, right?
	Yeah, it's stephenwestshow.net.
	It's the Stephen that's spelled S-T-E-P-H-E-N, not Stefan.
	Westshow.net.
	And he's helped me out quite a lot.
	So, on to me.
	I had a...
	Very interesting experience with the more kinky side of masturbation, I suppose.
	I was experimenting on a forum for people who want to do that kind of thing.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Don't talk around the subject.
	You're bringing up kinky masturbation.
	I'm all ears.
	So doing what kind of thing?
	Hopefully it's not any Michael Hutchins auto-asphyxiation exit strategy.
	Goodness, no.
	I was more curious than active, but I just didn't want to bring that up.
	I mean, this is a public show, you know what I mean?
	So if you're comfortable with me going into that, being explicit, then is that okay?
	Yeah.
	Look, if the guy who did the Kony video is comfortable with public masturbation, I'm comfortable with public masturbation talk.
	So, yeah, go for it.
	All right.
	I was never into pain or any BDSM, master-of-slave relationship.
	Nothing about that appealed to me.
	But I certainly was interested in Skype sex.
	And I sort of went around the forum asking various people if they wanted to do that kind of thing or...
	And what is Skype sex?
	I assume it's not putting the webcam someplace unmentionable.
	Oh, God, no.
	Because I think that's more of a doctor's job, but go ahead.
	That's what we're doing right now.
	It's basically just two people, two computers, in a distance that's not practical for, like, physical relationships, so you get on cam and masturbate for each other.
	Oh, so, like, you know, show me your boobs and I'll show you mine, and then it's released to YouTube and your life is ruined.
	Okay, got it.
	Hopefully I don't have boobs to show them.
	Yeah.
	So I had one experience with a girl I met on Chat Roulette, and that sort of turned me to the idea of Skype sex, and I was seeking...
	What is Chat Roulette?
	Just what it sounds like?
	You mean just get random people to chat with?
	Yeah, exactly.
	People don't usually put on webcam, but they have the option for webcam and everything like that.
	So I sort of picked one up, I suppose, and that was interesting.
	So I was eager for more, and I found one more person who was willing to do it.
	And then I found Katrina, and she changed my life, changed who I am really.
	Well, she wasn't the only thing that changed it, but before I met her, I didn't know what love was.
	And afterwards, I sort of had the full experience from loving as much as I understand how to, to being completely heartbroken.
	Yeah, you know, my alarm bells are going off like you can't hear them, right?
	But in my hand, it sounds like a snippet out of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
	But yeah, so you met this woman, Katrina.
	I met her on the forum.
	I messaged her and then we went to Skype.
	A forum for what?
	For kinky people.
	People who like to do kinky things.
	What does that mean?
	Kinky how?
	Sexually explicit for more than that, obviously.
	The site focuses on BDSM, which is the master-slave relationships.
	So bondage, domination, citizen, masochism?
	Yeah, okay.
	Sadism.
	I was never into that kind of thing.
	I was just exploring.
	It's a curious type of thing.
	But of course, I was using this site entirely to search for people who might be interested in Skype sex.
	So I found Hirsch using basically that method.
	And when we started talking, we connected very quickly.
	Okay, sorry.
	Before we get into the effects, let's perhaps talk about a possible cause.
	What was your childhood relationship to an experience of sexuality?
	Yeah.
	Did not expect to go into this, but I suppose...
	Really?
	Come on, you've listened to this show before, I assume.
	Of course.
	I expected to talk to my parents, not my experiences with sex.
	So I'm pretty sure, from what I remember and from what I've catalogued in my...
	Musings in my own head.
	Like, not everything comes to my memory immediately, but I can sort of remember what I've remembered.
	Oh, come on.
	Just get to the story.
	I'm sorry.
	Oh my god, enough expostulation.
	That's my job.
	Okay, what was your first sexual thought or experience as a child?
	My babysitter's pretty hot.
	I was probably like two or three when she did that type of thing.
	I honestly don't remember what happened, but I remember being naked around her.
	I don't know how my mom reacted when she found out.
	I really don't remember that type of thing.
	Sorry, you're very scattered here.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	So you had a babysitter when you were two or three?
	Yes.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Now, don't tell me she was hot.
	Like, I really need you to be serious here.
	You're kind of glib, right?
	Sorry.
	But this is a serious topic, because we may be talking about inappropriate sexuality when you were a toddler, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, you had a babysitter.
	You wouldn't have any idea whether she was hot or not, I assume, when you were two or three.
	And you were naked with the babysitter, is that correct?
	Yes.
	And I don't know exactly what happened, but from what my mom tells me, nothing actually happened, I suppose.
	But it was a relationship that was not acceptable, normal, socially acceptable, that kind of thing.
	So she may have been touching your penis or allowing you to touch some of her genitalia or breasts or something like that when you were that young?
	I don't remember touching her, but I think there was touching of me.
	I'm honestly not sure, but that's the impression I get.
	Okay, and I assume that the babysitter did not return to your life?
	No, I have no idea really who she is.
	And what about your father?
	Was your father around?
	He works in the city about an hour's drive away, so he's out almost all the time.
	I don't talk to him that much, because my mom's the one that's always home.
	I live on a farm, so mom's taking care of the horses, and dad's out in the city.
	Wait, wait, sorry, hang on, hang on, slow down.
	So your father would drive for an hour or so to get to work?
	Okay, so he leaves at 8 in the morning.
	He comes home at 6 at night.
	How is that not being around?
	Well, I didn't have...
	He wasn't around the whole day.
	Like, if I come home from school, like, I don't know, midday, and Mom's there for most of the time, and Dad's there maybe for dinner, and maybe just a little tiny bit after that, and then I'm off to bed.
	And did...
	What was the next sexual experience or thought that you had after that?
	Oh, I went from that to sort of I don't know exactly how to describe it.
	I sort of had a coalition or a group of friends that I would do sexual things with.
	So like, show me your peepee, I'll show you mine type of thing.
	It went as far as touching.
	I remember once one of my friends suggested using oral type of thing.
	I was sort of disgusted by that.
	So I know I didn't do any oral, but I know there was touching.
	Of course, I didn't understand any of it at the time.
	Just don't know exactly how I felt about it.
	And how old were you at this time?
	I went from, oh gosh, must have gone from like kindergarten, maybe a little before kindergarten to about third grade maybe?
	Okay, so kindergarten, you were four or so?
	I suppose so.
	I'm not clear on the ages.
	I only remember the grades.
	That's me.
	Okay, so from four or five until six or seven, you were engaged in sex play with other children?
	Yeah.
	And did your mother know about this?
	I don't really know what she knew.
	I thought that she might have evidence to believe that, but I suppose maybe she didn't pursue it.
	At any rate, she and Dad found out.
	I suppose I had been careless in my dealings.
	They ended up finding out and I stopped after that because they sat me down and talked me through it.
	And Dad got involved, I suppose.
	I'm sorry.
	If I stutter, I'm sort of shaking, like my entire body is shaking right now.
	I'm not sure why.
	Why do you think your entire body is shaking?
	I don't mean in a negative way.
	I'm just curious why you think that is.
	I don't know.
	I know this has happened before.
	I just cannot remember any correlation or what was going on at the time.
	Any correlation between what?
	The times that this has happened where my body will shake almost uncontrollably.
	And now, any correlation between what I was talking about then and what I'm talking about now.
	I'm trying to draw similarities and I can't.
	Do you mind if I tell you why I think your body is shaking?
	Please do.
	Because You are speaking about this with a superficial glibness and a humor.
	You've giggled a few times while talking about this stuff, but I would assume that your body knows differently, right?
	It's not the same experience, right?
	Your body has a memory of something that is disturbed or perhaps disturbing.
	But intellectually, you're kind of glib about it.
	And I'm not criticizing you at all.
	I hope you understand that.
	But I would imagine that your body is hoping for more of a connection between your mind and your experience and the way in which you describe it.
	But let's keep moving, if you don't mind.
	And if you can tell me what happened after the age of six or seven.
	I didn't do anything like that.
	I'm trying to remember from about that age until like middle school.
	It's kind of hard for me to remember.
	Because I went to a Christian school from like I suppose birth until like whenever you go into preschool, kindergarten up until about the middle fifth grade.
	Then I went to a public school until magnet school for middle school and now I'm not in magnet school but like a school for people who are much like slightly above the average.
	It's the leading school in my county I suppose.
	So that's my progression.
	When I was in the Christian school, it was a very tight social group.
	So I don't remember exactly what happened.
	I don't have a very good memory of my childhood.
	I remember sort of flourishing or becoming self-aware, I suppose, in about...
	Okay, you're filibustering, if you don't mind me saying so.
	You're a very fast talker, right?
	And do you know why you talk so fast?
	Because I can't say when people talk slow?
	Is that your answer?
	I like to communicate more than to sort of stutter and not know what to say.
	No, honestly, you're not communicating at all.
	I'm very sorry for that.
	No, no, don't apologize.
	I'm just telling you.
	I mean, you listen back to this and you're talking to me about how good your school was and how you don't remember this and how, right?
	I mean, this is not communication because I asked you a question about your sexual thoughts or experiences after that.
	Oh.
	And you went on a, and no, no, just hang on before you go charging off again, right?
	Go on, go on.
	Well, you are running away from your feelings, right?
	Okay, I'm willing to accept that.
	Yeah, I mean, this is a difficult topic, right?
	Especially since I don't know how I feel about it emotionally.
	Well, I get that you don't know how you feel about it emotionally, but you're not going to find out how you feel about it emotionally by talking a mile a minute about tangents, right?
	Right.
	So my suggestion is, you know, take a deep breath and physically relax as much as you can.
	Because that signals to your body that you're in a safe place and there's not that much to be afraid of and so on.
	Because I would imagine that you've Shaking and tense and hyperverbal because you want to skate over something and get to the sexy, crazy, dangerous story of Katrina the Hurricane or whatever, right?
	But this is, I think, the more important stuff and we can certainly talk about this stuff.
	But just, yeah, slow down a little bit and listen to the questions, take deep breaths and try and physically relax as much as possible.
	Possible.
	Easy for me.
	I had a nice long workout before the show.
	I'm doing that now.
	Thank you.
	Okay, great.
	I appreciate that.
	I appreciate that.
	And, you know, when we try to keep control of ourselves, we lose control of the conversation.
	So I just really wanted to sort of mention that.
	So when you passed the age of seven or so, when your father and your mother intervened about the asexual games that you were Pursuing with your friends.
	What happened then as far as sexual thoughts or feelings?
	If you can take another run at that.
	I appreciate that.
	I appreciate your candor on this.
	I know it's a challenge.
	I don't know.
	My first instinct is to say that nothing showed up.
	Nothing happened sexually.
	I don't remember doing anything physical And that's about it.
	Oh, in sixth grade, I sort of jumped to sixth grade, if that's okay.
	Sure.
	That's sort of when I started to hit puberty.
	Sorry.
	Good job.
	Keep that breathing going.
	That's great.
	In sixth grade, mom would be outside with the horses and I would be inside ostensibly doing my homework.
	And what I was really doing, of course, was experimenting online.
	Just the typical, like, what is a vagina?
	Like, does the penis go in the vagina?
	Like, what's going on there?
	And I didn't, of course, have any masturbatory tendencies then.
	I didn't have any idea what it was.
	I didn't know.
	From sixth grade, I was basically tame until, I don't know, maybe late, mid-seventh grade.
	Sorry, it's hard to control.
	Don't control.
	It's not a conversation for control, but for honesty, which is usually a lack of control.
	Right, but go ahead.
	It's kind of hard to understand me if I'm shaking.
	Or at least hard to think, hard to understand myself.
	Don't think.
	Don't think.
	Thinking in this case is a defense, in my opinion.
	But go ahead.
	So in sixth grade, I think you were what, 11, 12?
	Yeah, 11.
	11 is when my parents caught me looking at...
	Looking at porn on the computer.
	That was the first time.
	And I remember...
	I sort of skip in my mind to eighth grade.
	I remember...
	Well, hang on.
	What happened when your parents found you looking at porn on the computer?
	Oh, they...
	They went to the typical, I suppose.
	It's...
	Sorry.
	It's lust.
	You're not supposed to do that.
	It's a sin.
	Yes, precisely.
	Yeah.
	How about Christian?
	Yep.
	They told me not to do it.
	Sorry, what were your thoughts about that?
	Did you believe them?
	Did you disagree with them?
	I don't know.
	I suppose I... I'm so sorry.
	It's really hard for me to talk when I'm shaking so much like this.
	No problem.
	When they said it, I did not have any opinion about it.
	Jesus, this is ridiculous.
	It's not ridiculous.
	It's not ridiculous at all.
	It's perfectly natural, perfectly understandable, and I hugely sympathize, so don't worry about that at all.
	This is not Sunday tea with the vicar.
	I suppose I sort of took them at their word, and I accepted the punishment.
	I suppose I wanted to be good in their eyes.
	What was the punishment?
	Nothing physical, just to run half a mile.
	We have a lot of property, so I'd run this far every day.
	They sent you for a run for masturbating, really?
	It was more of a...
	They tried to make it a personal...
	It was more like, speaking of my dad here, I want to be able to trust you that you won't do this type of thing again.
	I mean, you get that the first time that you were looking at pornography, this was followed by punishment, right?
	Yeah, it was definitely, they saw it as a bad thing.
	Do you think that is relevant to your later interest in this stuff?
	Oh, not directly, but I can see definitely how it would have an effect.
	I had a sort of relationship with someone...
	Sorry, just for the others, right?
	Yep.
	So if you were sort of pursuing a BDSM forum and your first experience of sexuality was looking at vaginas and then being punished, we are incredibly, and I talked about this in a show recently, we are very imprinted sexually.
	Like every culture has different sexual practices, different sexual preferences.
	And our first experience of sexuality, which is virtual for a lot of people these days, what happens is we are imprinted.
	What is considered to be sexual practice is imprinted.
	So if you punish your children the first time that they are showing interest in pornography or sexuality, you will associate sexuality with punishment.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	Yeah, sexuality with being a sin, a bad thing.
	Something that's morally low.
	Which you need to be punished for.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I think that's disgusting.
	It's terrible.
	Look, I mean, there are moral challenges with pornography.
	I'm not going to skirt around that.
	I mean, most of the people there are in abuse, but I think the same thing is true for pro-wrestling too, right?
	But the fact that looking at sexual material is sexually exciting is not a sin.
	I mean, that's natural.
	Look, we're cousins of chimpanzees, for God's sakes.
	I mean, we are programmed that if sex is around there, we want to get aroused because we might want to spread our seed.
	So whenever we look at sexuality, sexually explicit behavior, or even just read sexual stories or whatever, it's going to be sexually exciting.
	I mean, it's not weird.
	It's not bad.
	It's not a sin.
	I mean, if you put a hungry man in front of a buffet, his mouth waters.
	That's not a sin either.
	Anyway, I just want to sort of mention that.
	Stephan, I feel like your comments earlier about the...
	Well, just everything.
	I feel like we're making a lot of progress.
	I want to thank you for that.
	Oh, yeah.
	No problem.
	No problem at all.
	Okay, so...
	But real quick...
	No, go ahead.
	What sort of alarm bells are going off my head.
	When you say that I was on a forum for BDSM, I was not turned on by or sexually...
	I know.
	You said that you went into that.
	No, I get that.
	I do get that, and we'll get to that part of the story.
	You said that a few times, and I don't want to pretend that I... I don't want you to think I ignored that.
	I'm trying to shoehorn your experience into some theory.
	You did say many times that you went into that, that you weren't excited by that, and so on.
	But I just will get down there, because there's lots of ways of punishing yourself for sex.
	It doesn't have to be like hot wax on the nipples and some sort of cock ring or something.
	You can punish yourself for sex by getting involved with crazy people, having sex, and then getting your heart broken.
	There's lots of different ways to punish yourself for sexual thoughts and feelings.
	So, again, it may pan out, it may not.
	I just wanted to sort of point that out.
	So, okay, so after you went for your anti-sex jog, or whatever it was, and what was the sex life of your parents like?
	I don't know.
	I presume they were not, like, they're pretty old, like 50s now, I think.
	Yeah, but they weren't when you were younger, right?
	And look, old doesn't mean no sex.
	I mean, people report the best sex of their lives in their In their 60s.
	But were your parents physically affectionate around you?
	Or did you see them hug and kiss?
	And not humping on the table or anything.
	I'm sure you saw enough of that in the barnyard.
	But were they physically affectionate?
	I mean, does that make sense?
	Yeah, they kissed like a peck on the cheek when Dad would come home and hug, definitely.
	They always have been affectionate.
	Like, they're happily married, I suppose.
	So, how would that be relevant?
	I mean, I'm trying to...
	How would that be relevant?
	Their sexual practices.
	I'm not saying, like, how dare you ask of that.
	Well, so, I mean, for instance, I mean, your parents communicate about sexuality in indirect ways, right?
	So, if your parents sleep in separate bedrooms and never touch, that's going to give you a message about Sexuality, right?
	Right.
	Uh, if your parents are constantly wearing, you know, tight, uncomfortable clothes and putting you into tight, uncomfortable clothes to go to Sunday school or whatever, then that is going to give you a message about sensuality and physical comfort and, you know, all that kind of cool stuff, right?
	Yeah, I do notice, uh, my friend, uh, people that I notice as school friends, they're much more, uh, huggable or open to hugs, uh, So, like, holding hands, that type of thing.
	I noticed that I'm not, I'm sort of stiff in that area, I suppose.
	Yeah, I mean, again, if you don't see it, then, so, okay, so let's move on.
	What happened then?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Before, I want to move on from middle school because during middle school, I had a friend that I had been friends with for quite a while, probably like fourth or maybe fifth grade.
	I'm not sure.
	And he – video games and I suppose soccer, baseball.
	He and I – It had been reasonably close for a good portion of our lives, and that turned sort of sexual, that went as far as oral.
	I didn't feel anything like emotionally, I didn't love him, but it was just like an experimentation I suppose.
	I was really curious.
	So when you say it went oral, does that mean you on him, him on you, or both?
	Both, yeah.
	Okay, okay.
	And how old were you then?
	That was 7th grade, so again, I'm not good on ages.
	Maybe 13, 14?
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	Well, if 6th grade was 11 or 12, then we're sort of 12 or 13.
	Yeah.
	And that was your first direct sexual experience, is that right?
	Yeah, that I remember.
	I don't know exactly what happened with the babysitter, but that's...
	Yeah, I would definitely consider that.
	And did you orgasm?
	Once very late in the relationship, but he had already basically decided...
	That he wasn't going to do it anymore.
	So I was sort of manipulated.
	Like, at the very last time, I remember reasonably well, he was very much against doing it anymore, and of course I didn't want to give it up.
	He was a heavily Christian, I was more...
	Oh, so for him it was a sin, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Like, he would actually...
	I mean, double sin, right?
	Sex outside of marriage plus with a dude, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	He would actually try to, like, hold in the semen when you would orgasm, and that was...
	Oh, he tried holding it in?
	Yeah, kill the babies or whatever.
	That's a curious combination of, like, tantric sex and Christian repression.
	I'm sorry for me to laugh, but it's like, clench!
	Okay, I'm not gay.
	Exactly, exactly.
	I mean, the stuff we make up, eh, when we're in crazy belief systems.
	For sure.
	Also, as I understand it, that's very, very bad, like, could lead to infections.
	It's very dangerous.
	It's like saying, if I don't have a shit, I didn't eat Indian food.
	I just think that's kind of funny, right?
	If I don't open my eyes, I'm not in the movie.
	By the way, that ended after that encounter.
	Sorry, after which encounter?
	The Orgasm?
	Yeah, he was blowing me.
	I sort of jacked myself off, I suppose.
	Anyways, so he...
	Did not feel comfortable doing that.
	And I sort of manipulated.
	I was trying to feel him up, trying to get him to do it.
	And that was not, I suppose, obviously, that was not a very pleasant experience for him.
	So we didn't do it after that at all.
	And that was the last time that we did anything sexual.
	We actually sort of had a chasm in our friendship for, I think, a year or two, maybe three.
	You think?
	And did you think that you were gay or bisexual or, you know, flesh is flesh kind of thing?
	That's very strange because I was a homophobe, anti-gay, until about mid-ninth grade when my rational teacher sort of flushed that out of me.
	I'm sorry, are you saying that you were anti-gay but that you yourself were having homosexual experiences?
	Yes.
	Because I'm sure that you're the first religious person that that has ever happened to, ever.
	Because you never hear of that any other place, you know, like the raging anti-gay people end up having homosexual experiences.
	Anyway, I just wanted to point out that.
	I never really swallowed the Christian thing.
	I never really felt anything, obviously.
	And by probably like, I want to say sixth grade, but...
	I'm sorry, just based on the context, I have to mention that using the phrase, I never really swallowed the Christian thing.
	Given that you were blowing a Christian, I just really wanted to point out.
	I think if you don't swallow, you're still having sex.
	But anyway, I just wanted to point that out.
	No, no, no.
	I never swallowed.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I spit out the evil, the Satan seed.
	Anyway.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So after that, if I may go on, I'm not sure if you have any questions.
	You may go on.
	Okay.
	There was a girl, I obviously don't feel too comfortable going about telling this, but it's all anonymous anyway, hopefully.
	Yeah, just keep it anonymous, so maybe they don't know who you are.
	Yeah, so girl number one, I suppose.
	She was a cutter, and she was a girlfriend of my best friend, and we sort of had a, we talked a lot late at night, and I'm not sure if you've heard of the Romeo and Juliet clause, the danger clause.
	What?
	If you're in danger, if there's two people...
	A safety word.
	Safety word?
	Like a safety word for BDSM or something like that?
	Oh, no, no.
	But basically what happened is, my opinion obviously, not the genuine truth, but my opinion is that because I was in so much danger, taking so much risk talking to her so late at night, so often, and I got such an emotional response back from her...
	That prompted a much deeper connection with her than with anyone else, and it took me a long time to get over her.
	Okay, so wait, wait.
	So the danger clause is if you're in a relationship that is illicit, then it's sexually exciting?
	It wasn't really sexual.
	It was really not that sexual.
	I was masturbating at the time, and obviously my parents didn't stop doing that.
	Wait, wait.
	At the time sounds like a pretty broad phrase.
	Do you mean when you were talking with her on the phone?
	Oh, no.
	I was much more respectful than that.
	So from about seventh grade till now, I suppose, I had been masturbating like my parents didn't stop me from masturbating.
	So that's just what I meant by that.
	And I, of course, did fantasize about her.
	But the conversation was never sexual with her.
	It was...
	I don't really remember that much of it.
	But it was a lot about her problems, and I was just soaking it up, I suppose.
	I don't really remember the conversations very much.
	So you wanted to have sex with her, but you didn't.
	I mean, if you were masturbating about her, I assume that you had sexual desire for her, right?
	I presume so, but I didn't really take that.
	Well, I mean, that's not going out on much of a limb there, right?
	I mean...
	I don't usually masturbate to thoughts of oak trees because I'm more of a knotty pine man myself, but, you know, if you're masturbating to someone, I assume that there's some level of sexual desire, right?
	Yeah, there's sexual desire, but...
	Not a lot of pin-ups of, like, Margaret Thatcher in a thong, I guess, except for masochists, but go ahead.
	But there was never any desire to actually, like, go forward with a plan to try to get her in bed.
	Okay, yeah, yeah.
	So I was still pretty young.
	Okay.
	Um...
	I'm trying to look through other situations.
	I mean, from then on, it became sort of like, I look back on my high school years, and it's more like the situations that I was in were of moral consequence, not so much sexual consequence.
	And that's what really bugs me.
	I mean, it's not so much sexual.
	Are you still there?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm just not sure what that means.
	A moral what?
	Since I've obviously gotten into your show, I've been looking into philosophy and morality, and my experiences with Katrina have really brought this into question.
	It really got me to test...
	Okay, wait, wait.
	So when did you actually have sex?
	I mean, that wasn't like unfinished...
	Guilty, speed-sitting, half-blowjob nonsense, right?
	When did you actually have sex?
	We've already gone over that Skype sex.
	I've never had sex, like penises with Diana, no.
	Oh, you've never had sex?
	No, I've never had sexual interaction with a female.
	What about with a male, other than this thing?
	Besides the stuff when I was younger.
	There's guilt-ridden blowjobs that apparently were done with, like, ball bearings and sandpaper in the mouth, because it's pretty hard to not make a guy come by blowing him, but I guess you guys managed to do it.
	I think, honestly, I think we weren't, like, fully through puberty.
	Like, we had basically no hair down there.
	Oh, okay, okay, okay, got it.
	All right, okay, so you've not had intercourse with a male or a female?
	No, no.
	All right, okay, okay.
	I've also basically never had a girlfriend, except for Katrina.
	So I've been distant emotionally from basically everything for almost my whole life.
	Or at least...
	Yeah, no, I get that.
	And that's why your body's shaking, right?
	Okay, so then tell me a bit about Katrina.
	After we...
	We started talking on Skype after I contacted her on that kinky form.
	And we...
	What I really enjoy, I actually said this not quite as a joke, but I prefer to talk about economics, philosophy, and intellectual discussion.
	I almost prefer that to sex.
	It's really, really big for me.
	I really enjoy it.
	And she was really good at it.
	She enjoyed it with me.
	You mean the economics stuff?
	Yeah.
	Skype sucks too, but economics definitely.
	She was a Keynesian at the time.
	And I think I've convinced her, at least to some degree.
	Needless to say, our conversations have not been economics-centered for quite a while.
	And We connected very well.
	I feel like she thinks, not necessarily like me, but we have a very good time conversing.
	There's never any anger.
	Sorry, let me take that back.
	There's never any yelling.
	It's very easy to communicate with her.
	The shaking stopped for quite a while, but now I suppose it's almost back.
	Not as bad.
	Not nearly as bad.
	So when...
	When we first got to have Skype sex, we had already built up a reasonably good relationship.
	I considered her a very good friend at that time.
	I still wasn't in love with her.
	I didn't understand what love was then.
	But shortly after we had Skype sex for the first time, I fell in love with her.
	And as I understand, there's biochemical reasons for that.
	All right.
	I'm not sure if that's actually the same as having sex with someone, but I suppose the effects would be there to some extent.
	I mean, pornography wouldn't work if our bodies could differentiate fantasy from reality.
	Yeah, good point.
	So we had Skype sex probably like 10 times maybe before she finally told me.
	When I told her I loved her, like, hey, let's be virtual boyfriend and girlfriend.
	And at that time, when I asked her out, I said, let's be virtual boyfriend and girlfriend.
	And she said yes.
	And at that time, shortly after I asked her out, I said, I love you.
	And at that time, I didn't...
	I was sort of playing the role of boyfriend is how I put it.
	I was saying things that boyfriends are supposed to say.
	But it very quickly...
	I don't know what that means.
	Like...
	I don't know.
	When...
	It's very strange.
	There's a girl in middle school, Jessica, and she...
	I didn't like her that much, but she was always there, and she was obsessed with me.
	And I was sort of morally cowardice at the time, and I never tried to communicate to her that I didn't like her that much.
	So when she asked me to ask her out, I said yes.
	And during that time, I... Sorry, when who asked you to ask her out?
	A girl, Jessica, in my middle school years, she was obsessed with me.
	Oh, asked you to ask out this girl that you weren't that into, but who was into you, right?
	Right.
	She, Jessica, the girl that was into me, I wasn't into her.
	Jessica asked me to ask her out.
	So I said yes.
	I asked her out.
	And who's Jessica?
	Jessica's just a friend?
	Yeah, she hung out with my social group for quite a while.
	Okay, so then she...
	Sorry, I just wanted to check.
	So she asked you to ask this other girl there, and you did?
	No, no, no.
	She asked me to ask herself out.
	That's kind of inconsequential.
	I asked her out because she wanted to go out.
	But she said, I want to go on a date with you.
	Ask me out.
	Basically, yes.
	We didn't go on a day.
	Isn't that just asking you out?
	Maybe I'm sort of missing something.
	It's not very important.
	It's just how I remember.
	But anyways, the reason I bring that up...
	It's important in that it tells you that this is someone who is a bit convoluted, right?
	Yeah, she's not very good at confrontation, I suppose.
	Well, just self-expression, assertion, telling you what she wants, that kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	I don't see her as being a very big part of my life.
	Okay, then let's not talk about her.
	So let's talk about the one who was a big part of your life.
	Well, the reason I bring her up is to explain what I mean by the role of boyfriend.
	Once I asked her out, if I would call her, I would say, hey, beautiful.
	The things that boys are supposed to say to girls when they're going out, I observed and repeated.
	But I didn't understand them.
	They didn't go through and process like, hey, this girl I think is beautiful, so I'm going to call her beautiful.
	It's just that I'm going out with this girl, therefore I should call her beautiful.
	Does that make sense?
	It does.
	So you have a role or a script called Good Boyfriend and you follow it without any spontaneous emotional self-expression on your part.
	Yes, and that's how it was with Katrina at first, but it very quickly turned from that to being full on.
	I was absolutely obsessed with her.
	And the problem there, of course, is that she was not in love with me.
	She pretended to be, and she understood that I was deeply in love with her about maybe a couple weeks into the—I don't know the timeline exactly, but after I said I love you the first time, it turned into— Me being deeply in love with her, I made her an audio recording talk about our future.
	I know, crazy, I know.
	But then she understood and she continued to say I love you because she wanted the Skype sex.
	And it took a couple months for her to finally fess up.
	Initially, she tried to break up with me by saying, oh, we're just not meant for each other, the distance and the time and we're going to school.
	I can't afford to have a boyfriend, kind of stuff like that.
	And I sort of logicked her out of that by saying, well, if you love me, then why can't we just take time Only less often.
	So she sort of weaseled out of that one, and for a short time she continued to pretend.
	And then she finally told me the truth.
	But right before she told me the truth, I fell out of love with her.
	I feel like this is my subconscious picking up on the signs, perhaps.
	Yeah, you using the word love may not be the best use of the word, but we can get to that in a sec.
	Oh, well, if love is something more than I experienced, then I can't wait.
	Because, like, honestly, I did fall in love with her.
	I could not stop thinking about her, and she was my entire world.
	Yeah, but no, no, listen, I mean, I get that you said obsession, right?
	And obsession and love are not the same thing at all.
	Yeah, that's true.
	I'm no expert, but again, this is sort of my opinion, that obsession arises when, after a life of interstellar loneliness and isolation, we get our first connection.
	all of the thwarted attachments that were denied to us when we were younger come rushing out and like these giant moonscape tentacles wrap around the other person and all of the hunger that we've had for connection our whole life which has been denied to us rushes out and attaches to this person and it's a desperate attempt to avoid feeling just how isolated we've been and it like all things which are an avoidance of pain it increases pain yes
	And so, this is the second time where you've wanted the person more than they've wanted you, which was this case with the boy when you were 13 or 14?
	No, I don't call that emotional at all.
	It was purely sexual desire.
	No, but I didn't say emotional.
	I just said you wanted.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	You had a desire for...
	In that case, it was sexual.
	In this case, it was probably intimate.
	Yeah.
	But when...
	It's like you've been living on 800 calories your whole life and then you finally get a great meal and you're like, God, I didn't even know how hungry I was.
	I thought that was just life.
	I thought you were supposed to have this ache in your belly and this shaking hands your whole life.
	I thought that was just called being alive.
	Yes.
	And suddenly you realize that you've been hungry your whole life and your entire being becomes obsessed with getting that satiation again because you suddenly realize just how hungry you've been.
	That makes sense.
	Yeah, that's not...
	Love.
	It's not bad in some ways, right?
	I mean, at least you've had a connection.
	But the reason why it becomes dangerous, and I'm not saying you, but why some people become stalky and dangerous is because it becomes a way of avoiding dealing with the pain of a lack of connection in your past.
	So what happens is, let's take the stereotypical, right?
	So A guy who's been lonely his whole life and who hasn't had anyone to talk to, anyone to connect with, finally connects with a woman.
	And he then feels that that connection erases his whole history, all the pain of his history.
	But it doesn't, of course, right?
	It's a symptom of the pain of his history.
	It does not erase the pain of his history.
	Absolutely.
	And so what happens is he comes on very strong, he makes all these plans, and he's running ahead, not even, in a sense, turning around to see if she's catching up or she's with him, right?
	Right.
	And then what happens is she begins to sort of freak out because he's changing his whole life.
	He's making all these plans.
	He's moving too fast and he's doing that to avoid the pain of his history, right?
	And just going too fast, right?
	That's what I was sort of saying in your conversation earlier is going too fast, right?
	Right.
	The woman begins to withdraw.
	And then the man goes from the bliss of his first connection right back to his early infancy rejection from his caregivers, from his mother.
	And so he genuinely feels that she's torturing him.
	And if he has a cruel streak in his personality, then she must pay for the pain that she's causing him.
	And this is where stalky stuff and all that happens.
	That's not the same as love.
	It doesn't mean that she was a bad person or you're a bad person.
	It doesn't mean that at all.
	But when we first get eternally unmet needs satisfied, it's a very heady and exciting and exhilarating experience.
	It's like people who are chronically depressed try cocaine for the first time and actually feel what it's like to be a happy, normal human being.
	Right.
	Their misery, which before was just chronic and therefore less painful to them, becomes vivid.
	And that's why they become addicted and want to get more of the drug and so on.
	But if the drug is a person, the person has a choice that the drug doesn't.
	And so I would imagine that it was extremely painful for you when she withdrew.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	The most pain I've ever felt.
	And I've crashed quite a few device.
	And you've what?
	I've crashed quite a few dirt bikes.
	It's the most pain I've ever felt.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, no, I got it.
	It is because it's a very early pain, right?
	And it's a very unmanaged...
	And you desperately and genuinely feel that if this person...
	Like, you really can't continue.
	You can't get to the next thing in life until this person...
	Gives you your heart back, right?
	I mean, it really feels like you were fine.
	You met this person.
	You fell in love.
	This person has rejected you.
	And, like, you can't get out of bed.
	You can't get anything done until that is resolved.
	And that, of course, is because the problem started a long time before the connection gave you relief from it.
	You're absolutely right.
	Where to go from here?
	It's just...
	Huh?
	To a therapist?
	How to pay for one.
	No, no, listen.
	Look, you might be able to get some through school.
	I mean, these are things to just mull about.
	You can talk to your doctor and just ask and that kind of stuff.
	But, look, you're obviously a very smart guy.
	I mean, of that, there's no question.
	You've got a fine set of horses between your ears.
	So, good for you.
	I mean, incredibly verbal and all of that.
	I'm sure some of that has arisen to cover up a lack of emotional connection as...
	Is the case with some intellectualizing, but you know, that's not bad.
	Still, the muscles have been exercised and that's good.
	But as far as self-protection goes, you're a little short of the mark.
	I say this sort of man-to-man, that you're a little short of the mark.
	I think that online meeting, Skype sex and stuff like that, I think that's a bit risky.
	I think that's a bit risky.
	Oh, okay.
	I see what you're saying.
	Like, she could have taken pictures of me and posted them wherever.
	Yeah, I mean, this is risky stuff.
	And you're young, and so you have the joy of not worrying too much about consequences.
	But I, you know, with my ancient, gnarly raptor brain, I will mention that there can be consequences that can be pretty negative.
	And that's why I've committed to never do it again.
	Yeah, yeah, I know, and I appreciate that, and I think that's good.
	People who are cutters, women who are cutters, are deeply disturbed.
	I'm sure you're aware of that now.
	It may not have been the case before, but it's called fusion, and you can sort of look this up.
	But fusion is when you're yourself and you're fine, and then you meet someone, you just kind of blend together, like mixing two paint colors into water.
	You just kind of merge all together, right?
	And so that is a...
	That is a challenging thing because it's very addictive and it really feels like it relieves a kind of ache that you don't even know you have until it's gone.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	So I think that you need to find a way to have a more relaxed relationship with yourself and also your relationship with sexuality is not catastrophic.
	It's a bit challenging for sure.
	And is it way off the mark for what a lot of other people have experienced?
	I don't think so.
	Shaming over masturbation and stuff like that is, you know, it's stupid.
	I mean, it's ridiculous.
	But it's depressingly common.
	And, you know, the fact that you're like, does the penis go in the vagina when you're 11 or 12?
	I mean, these are questions that if you had a better relationship with your parents, you'd be going to them.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, I'd be going to them and asking them, hey, mom, what is this?
	As opposed to, you know, here are your spiky Satan gloves.
	We're going to stitch them on your hands so you don't touch yourself until they can get unlocked by the Virgin Mary on your wedding night with a blinding flash of light.
	So that's not particularly helpful, right?
	So I am very sorry for all of that.
	I'm very sorry that the babysitter did whatever the babysitter did.
	That's not a great introduction to stuff like that.
	It's so exploitive.
	It's ridiculous.
	And I am...
	Sorry that the idea of punishment and sexuality are associated.
	You just, you have to examine that.
	I mean, you know that that's not true.
	I mean, people who damn sexuality damn life.
	I mean, boners are the only reason we're here.
	You know, I mean, like, you know, Jesus didn't breathe, didn't snort life into pieces of clay, right?
	I mean, we're here because of sex and screwing and ejaculation and wet spots on the bed.
	And, you know, that's why we're here.
	There's a great line I mentioned a little while back ago on the show.
	You know, you're standing in front of a summer glade and the dandelions or fluffs are drifting by on the breeze and the birds are singing and it's beautiful sunlight dappling across the grass and all that.
	And you're standing there looking at all the movements and listening to all the delightful sounds of every tree and flower and insect and bird and animal all trying to get laid.
	And that's...
	That's what it is.
	Every time you look at nature, it's like, don't eat me, have sex with me.
	Don't eat me, are you food?
	Have sex with me.
	Screw you, eat you, don't get eaten by you.
	I mean, that's what it's all about, and that's why we're here.
	And that fierce competition for resources to, you know, have sex, eat stuff, don't get eaten.
	Don't have a rock fall on your head.
	At least not before you come.
	That's life, right?
	That's why we're here.
	And so this damning of sex, this shaming of sex, I mean, it is a weird desire for non-existence.
	And it's something that religion has always been at war with.
	Because Life is messy.
	Life is earthy.
	You know, being present for the birth of my daughter, I can understand why people thought that it was a whole lot nicer to have someone sneeze life into a piece of clay.
	Because that's some ugly, scary, primal shit, right?
	And life is earthy.
	Life is messy.
	Life is physical.
	Life is biological.
	You know, we...
	I once was doing a presentation to a whole bunch of people and wet farted in my pants and walked around like I had an ice skating rink between my cheeks for 20 minutes.
	And it happens.
	It happens.
	You just keep going, right?
	And blame someone in the front row.
	But anyway, life is messy.
	Life is messy.
	In the film The City of God, Patrick Swayze was doing a scene with a baby.
	The baby peed in his face.
	He says, oh, he's going to be a fireman.
	That was an ad-lib line.
	Anyway, life is messy.
	Life is not glowing, abstract, souls dancing in a celestial symphony with the unseeing, all-knowing, immaterial one.
	There is this recoiling from the base physicality that occurs.
	And of course, a lot of human history is rife with sexual abuse.
	Rife with sexual abuse.
	And religion and sexual abuse have, in some ways, gone hand in hand, so to speak, in all of the communities that I've ever looked at, including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and of course the gang rapes going on in India are just wretched.
	I think there was a Danish woman who just got gang raped and so on.
	This is all sexual abuse writ large.
	And of course, because there was sexual abuse throughout history and because priests had access to children, there is a hatred of sexuality, right?
	First and foremost, it's to help people feel comfortable giving their children to the care of priests because the priest is anti-sexual so they feel safer.
	So it's partly camouflage for the priests.
	And the reason it's able to be sold to the congregations in such a wide range And deep way is because a lot of the congregations have experienced sexual abuse and have a fear and hatred of sexuality as a result, right?
	And so the fact that religion is anti-sexual, I mean, it arises because the soul is more important than the body and, you know, that the ideal is immateriality and so on, right?
	Right.
	I mean, labor and childbirth are the curse that Adam and Eve got for disobeying a god and eating the wrong piece of fruit.
	Not in the way that you did.
	So I think that understanding that there's a lot of cultural problems that societies have about sexuality, particularly when they're still struggling their way out of superstition, it is a significant challenge.
	And the idea of earthly pleasure is really a challenge to religion as a whole.
	Great sex beats any sermon.
	Sorry.
	Bad sex beats any sermon.
	There's no such thing as bad sex.
	It's tough to compete with an orgasm.
	It's tough to compete with that sort of stuff.
	Religion has to turn earthly pleasures into guilt.
	Right, because the stuff that it's got in terms of, it's a pretty weak source, you know?
	Well, after you're dead, you get a harp.
	Really?
	That's the deal?
	Really?
	That's what you got told now?
	Okay, well, the other place you get, you know, scalding lava, shove it up your ass or something, right?
	For eternity.
	For eternity, right.
	And...
	So what religion has to offer is kind of weak sauce.
	And so the way that like in terms of happiness, right?
	And so what they have to do is they have to make you unhappy with the stuff that normally would make you happy.
	Right?
	Good food.
	Oh, it's gluttony.
	Right?
	You've made some money.
	Oh, you're the sin of wealth, says the Pope on his gold throne, right?
	And sex, oh, that's bad.
	And ambition, oh, that's pride.
	That's a fall.
	Pride goes before a fall.
	So all the stuff that actually makes you happy in this world, they have to make unhappy so that the stupid here's a harp stuff seems better in relation.
	And a fundamental thing that they have to do is turn you against their sexuality.
	And that's, you know, I mean, I just think it's ridiculous.
	People who are anti-sexuality are like the people who are anti-natalist, like don't be born.
	It's like, well, there's a great way to remedy that.
	It's called the Brooklyn Bridge.
	And, you know, why are you talking to me?
	Go solve your problem called life, you know?
	It's pretty easy.
	And to be anti-sexual is to be anti-life.
	And you can, you know, if you feel that your parents having sex was a great sin and its products were evil, well, you can solve that and go get your harp.
	You know, I mean, that's easy peasy, right?
	Well, ponder me this.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Is it a good idea?
	Personally, I don't feel comfortable having sex with anyone except the person that I like.
	If what you say is true, that I was infatuated and not in love with Katrina, then I don't have very much trouble believing that.
	And I expect that love will be even better.
	So with that in mind, it's even more motivation for me to abstain from all sex with anyone until I'm extremely certain that I'll be with them for the rest of my life.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, I certainly would say that sex is not a great idea until you get a clearer understanding of your own sexual history.
	And until you get a better sense of self-protection...
	Look, I mean, there's statistics.
	I've got this, I think it's called the cycle of violence.
	And in it, there's some pretty shocking statistics about, you know, like a third of women will lie about having an STD and stuff like that.
	Until you can really judge some of people's characters, sex is not safe.
	Absolutely.
	And that's interesting.
	Until you say, oh, she's a cutter, so I should not get involved.
	Maybe I can help her get into therapy or something.
	It's not like she's a bad person.
	Right.
	Right.
	Oh, she's willing to have Skype sex from her parents' house.
	That's not a particularly safe person.
	That's not a person who has good judgment.
	And you don't have good judgment, with all due respect to your intelligence, if you're doing that kind of stuff.
	I agree.
	And so, until you can really judge people's character, then sex is really kind of risky.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, are they actually on the pill?
	Did they put a hole in your condom?
	Are they going to sue you for child support for the next 20 years?
	Absolutely.
	Who knows?
	But I would say you really need to work on...
	And you'll do it quick because you're such a smart guy, right?
	And you're having this conversation, which is good for you.
	But I would really strongly suggest that if you can get to therapy...
	And you can say to your parents, say, I'm wrestling with feelings of sausage worship.
	Get me to a priest who's a therapist or whatever.
	No, but you can say to your parents, look, I got some...
	I really want to make better decisions.
	I'm still troubled by thoughts of pornography.
	Maybe you can send me to a therapist.
	They might go for that.
	I don't know if I want to rely on my parents.
	I have enough training.
	You're absolutely right.
	I'm very smart and I'm capable of perhaps paying for that, but not immediately.
	I want to make sure I can...
	Regardless of how I do it, there is one more thing that's troubling me, or that I think might be enlightening.
	I'm still talking to Katrina.
	Do we have time for this?
	I mean, I can call in another time.
	I don't think we do, but what I will say is that if you want to learn how to evaluate people more quickly, you need to ask them about their childhoods.
	What do you know about the kind of questions that I was asking you in this call?
	What do you know?
	about Katrina in that manner.
	Not a huge amount.
	I mean, she says she has a very good relationship with both her parents, better with her dad than with her mom.
	Honestly, though, I don't know how to interpret that.
	Hang on.
	See, here's self-protection 101.
	If somebody says, I have a great relationship with my parents, but they're having Skype sex against their parents' wishes in the room next door, that's a clue right there.
	Absolutely.
	The relationship might not be as good.
	Do you see what I mean?
	But you told me this like it was like, okay, well, right?
	That occurred to me.
	But I don't know exactly how to approach that.
	I know we should probably end this, but I don't know how to approach that with her because I don't want to seem like I'm the know-it-all.
	No, no, don't correct them.
	Just keep asking questions.
	I mean, if you're thinking of having Skype sex with someone, ask them, what was your first thought and experience about sex and all that?
	And if it was like, well...
	Something weird and creepy and unprocessed and so on, then no, there's not a safe person.
	Right.
	Wow.
	The way I was going about it is, are they moral?
	It's a lot deeper than that.
	No, no, but you see, moral is still important, right?
	And morality and love go hand in hand, in my opinion.
	Actually, I think that's more than my opinion.
	I think you've made a pretty good case for it.
	Yeah.
	But this is how you find out if people are moral.
	You cannot be moral without self-knowledge, right?
	Yes.
	You cannot be moral without self-knowledge.
	I mean, the first caller did not have the capacity to have feelings about something that was very important to him.
	Now, he wasn't being dishonest, but he could not be honest.
	With himself.
	Right?
	Or with me as a result, right?
	And I'm not saying he was lying.
	This is a tricky distinction, right?
	But I'd say, how are you feeling?
	We both know he's feeling something, but he can't tell me because he can't feel it.
	Well, if he can't feel it and he is feeling something, what?
	But no, because it's important enough for him to call in.
	Oh, right, right.
	But he can't tell me what he's feeling.
	So he can't be honest with me.
	Not because he's a bad guy or a dishonest guy.
	So can he be honest about something very important to him?
	No.
	Is he someone you want to date?
	No.
	Until that's sorted out.
	Right.
	So when you ask someone, oh, well, tell me about your sexual...
	If the relationship is heading that way...
	You know, tell me about your sexual history.
	It's not a weird thing to ask from someone who you're thinking of having sex with, right?
	Absolutely.
	I think it's a very...
	I mean, you ask for a resume before...
	I mean, you have to put up your fucking resume before you get a job at McDonald's, for God's sakes, right?
	And this is more important than McDonald's.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're going to jam some Benoit balls up my ass, maybe it's a little bit more important than whether you've had experience with a fucking fry cooker, you know?
	Okay.
	Sorry.
	No, no.
	It's like, oh, how do you guess?
	I just could tell by the way the chair was creaking.
	Anyway.
	Oh!
	Yeah, go ahead.
	No, that's more than I expected.
	Thank you very much, Stefan.
	Also, last thing, you know, if you're looking for people who have good self-knowledge about their own sexual history, a comfortable relationship with their own bodies and so on, You're probably not going to find them on a BDSM forum on the internet.
	Oh, absolutely.
	That's what I mean by self-protection, right?
	Definitely.
	I think I understand that very well now.
	Okay, good.
	Well, I am super happy to have been of help.
	I really appreciate you calling in.
	Has the call been helpful for you?
	More than I could ever imagine.
	Could ever have imagined.
	Fantastic.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	Thank you very much.
	I appreciate your call.
	And who's next?
	Talk to you later.
	Take care.
	All right, Evan, you're next.
	Go ahead.
	Follow that one, Evan.
	Keep people's interest.
	Come on.
	How are you doing?
	All right, Jason.
	Why don't you go next and we'll try and get Evan back for the next call.
	No worries.
	How are you going, Steph?
	I'm well.
	How are you doing?
	Good, thanks.
	First, I just wanted to say I'm a little bit late, but happy birthday, Isabella.
	Oh, I will let her know.
	Thank you very much.
	She will now undoubtedly invite you out for coffee.
	I heard that, and I'll talk about that for a second.
	When you mentioned that, my first reaction was like, oh, how could you let a child do that?
	And I thought about it.
	I was like, oh, I would have been treated if I did something like that.
	Oh, yeah, no, and she was right.
	We had a great day with the guy.
	She wants to have coffee with him again next summer in town, and I think that would be delightful.
	Oh, nice.
	My question is, I'm really anxious now.
	Okay, someone who's failed school and wasted 10 years in a job they hate and have finally just realized, oh shit, that's where I am right now.
	I wanted to know, what's your best advice on someone that wants to...
	I want to go to uni.
	I want to do engineering.
	I've decided that, but...
	And what did you waste 10 years doing?
	Oh, I was very dissociated in school and lacked connection.
	So I was always afraid to ask in maths.
	I was afraid to ask for help.
	And I just kind of...
	I got a job and thought, no, screw school.
	And I've spent...
	Ten years just distracting myself in hobbies.
	Like it was radio-controlled cars, then planes, then photography.
	I would just spend each week's pay to buy a new kind of electronic distraction toy, avoid going dating or doing the things I really wanted.
	And now I've just looked back and gone, wow.
	Well, it's like you've never heard of Dungeons& Dragons?
	That's free.
	Anyway.
	Yeah, I had to pick the most expensive things.
	That's right.
	So, yeah, looking back on that, I was just like, wow.
	Now I'm kind of stuck.
	I'm in debt, about $10,000.
	From the toys?
	Yeah, the latest one was cameras and just credit cards and things like that.
	So I'm in an apprenticeship for a trade.
	I'm halfway through it and I hate going there.
	I don't like it.
	I'm just like, why am I even here?
	Why did I make these decisions?
	So I'll be 27 this year and I really got to do something.
	So what I was asking you is I'm thinking of going to university.
	I want to be an engineer.
	So I've always been good with building stuff.
	But I've kind of written my own destiny saying I was not good at maths.
	I can't do maths.
	Maths is hard.
	Now that I think of it, I use it all the time and I actually quite enjoy it.
	I don't quite know why I said that in school.
	I think I would...
	I'd be too scared to even ask when I got stuck on something.
	And then I wouldn't want the teacher's attention to be drawn to me or I wouldn't want any attention on me like, oh...
	Like it would be negative.
	So I just pretend and then I'd end up dissociating and daydreaming and then going, oh, fuck the test.
	No, I'm just not doing this.
	This is crap.
	And it makes me so angry because all I needed was a little, if I could ask someone for help.
	Do you mind if I ask a question?
	Yeah, sure.
	Were you raised by wolves?
	I mean, where were your parents in all of this?
	You sound so isolated.
	Yeah.
	Like, how do you get to waste 10 years?
	Let's say you did.
	I don't know, right?
	Yeah.
	Take your word for it.
	I mean, how do you get to waste 10 years of your life?
	Do you not have a family around to say, hey, dude, what are you doing with your time?
	My family was fucking insane, Steph.
	The emotional connection I had with my mom was probably the same as someone would...
	Be when they see their pot plant and water it, I think.
	Like, oh, it's wilting.
	I better put some water on it.
	And that was her relationship to you or your relationship to her?
	That's her to me.
	Right.
	Only child.
	I never knew my dad.
	From what I've found out, I was a product of an affair.
	Wait, wait, sorry.
	Yeah.
	Oh, so you never knew him?
	Like, some people mean, like, I was around him, but we never talked about anything.
	But you mean he was just, like, gone, baby, gone, right?
	No, my mum just got pregnant, so...
	And she had an affair?
	Was he married?
	No.
	Yeah, he was with, it was only about a year or two ago I found out.
	I have six different siblings, all the different mums.
	Oh, classy.
	Yeah.
	So I met with my brother from another mother and he kind of explained, he was with my dad and that was the family he had at the time when he had the affair with my mum and so forth.
	But I never found this out until about a year or two ago.
	I am sorry about that, my goodness.
	Okay.
	So, your mom, you know, not exactly the best self-esteem and not exactly the best judge of character, right?
	No, not at all.
	And did your father pay child support or how did that work?
	No, he didn't.
	This was a really touchy thing, but I would ask questions sometimes and the most I got out of conversation was, My mum said when she went to take him to court, he said, how dare you, and got really mad.
	Oh, the how dare you defense.
	Wow.
	That's all I know.
	That's impressive.
	I mean, I can't imagine why we have all these laws and lawyers when just three words can get you off the hook.
	Cool.
	All right.
	Okay, so you never met him?
	You didn't know who he was at that time?
	No idea.
	I know he's dead now.
	He was a lot older than my mom, maybe 20 something years older.
	So he died in 2004-ish, sometime then.
	Alright.
	And tell me a little bit more about your mom?
	Okay.
	As far as I remember, when I was really little, There was a little bit of connection.
	I have two memories of something that was good.
	There was this one game she would play with me where we'd throw the ball down the stairs and another one memory of this game where she would pretend to be stuck to the floor and I'd have to scoop her off but I can remember clearly that this one time I was so excited and then she was kind of like, okay, that's enough.
	I've got stuff to do or whatever.
	But everything else I can remember is yelling and screaming, really.
	Like about what?
	I don't know.
	Anything and everything kind of thing?
	If, if, uh, well, I'll start, I'll start from when I was little and first, uh, I remember being three.
	And there was one time I was just screaming.
	I think I was three or four.
	And I was really upset.
	I was crying.
	And she was getting mad at me for being upset.
	And she would scream, shut up!
	Just fucking shut up!
	And smash something down on the kitchen bench.
	And it was making me more scared.
	So I would scream more.
	And then that would just escalate her.
	I don't have much memory of...
	I can remember these few abstract things, but...
	I know it was a lot like that, and I just played by myself with my stuff, which is where I was comfortable with things, building stuff and immersing in that kind of world of Lego, you know?
	So then, at about age...
	When I was in Grade 2, we moved in with my mum's side of the family, which was my grandma, granddad and my uncle.
	And that's where I really remember some shit stuff.
	They would fight constantly.
	They'd scream.
	It was never about anything.
	It was just always...
	I don't even know what it was about.
	Just those kind of character attacks.
	Like, you're this and you're that.
	There's...
	One time, my mum would always be like, go do this, Jason.
	Do this, whatever.
	And I think for my uncle, like, he saw that in me was part of him when he was little.
	So his way of dealing with his own pain would be to try and lash out at my mum.
	And she was yelling me for me to do something.
	And he's like, well, this is what you do to Jason.
	This is what you do to him.
	And he got all my toys and started smashing them and throwing them.
	He's like, this is what you fucking do to him.
	It's just fucked because, like, It's like you're being horrible to Jason.
	How could you say that?
	Let me show you how bad you are by smashing his stuff.
	I don't know.
	It was just chaos.
	But I was very...
	I think the way I dealt with that was just...
	I'd have computer games.
	I'd have my stuff.
	I was always building something.
	And I just...
	That was my world.
	Right.
	And so, I mean, you've spent 10 years with stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's, it's like I've really, I can really see this now.
	And it's like I had this, I have these, like I'm kind of, I'll be, I'm setting up a photography business or I'll think like, why not just be better?
	All I need to do is buy this thing and then I'll have this and it's like a fantasy of this nice social scenario.
	That didn't make sense, Steph.
	It was very like, if I only had this, I could do this.
	Even now with my whole plans of uni, it's like, well, you know, it'll be great because I can buy a motorbike and then I'll have this particular kind of Image, and I'll be dating, and I'm kind of putting my self-esteem on stuff, physical things, if you get what I mean.
	But stuff with your family, right?
	Yeah.
	Stuff with your connections, stuff with your friends, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, we bond with whatever works for us as kids, right?
	And what worked for you was stuff.
	So the fact that you have a stronger relationship with stuff Than people is because you related to stuff because people were fucked up and scary, right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	So I hope that it makes sense to me.
	I'm tragic as all hell.
	And I'm incredibly sorry for, I mean, all this mess.
	Thanks.
	And how are things with your mom now?
	I don't talk to her.
	I don't talk to any of the family anymore.
	And when did that happen?
	In the last year.
	I mean, it was always heading that way.
	Like, as far as, since I was little, all I could remember was just, if she'd speak to me, I was just like, oh, get away from me.
	And I've felt that since I was five.
	But I think the last, I moved out, I got the hell out of there and just saw her less and less.
	And it got to the point where I just, I said, you know, I don't want you people in my life.
	Yeah, there's no lack of connection quite like proximity without connection, or history without connection.
	I have no connection with most people in the world who don't know who the hell I am and don't care to know, right?
	That's fine.
	But there's no lack of connection like when you've been around people for years but not been connected to them.
	So I get that, and I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry that it came to that, but I can certainly understand it.
	And the question is, of course, I guess, how do you get the next part of your life going, right?
	Yeah.
	It's really scaring me.
	Like, I don't feel so old now at 27 that much, but I know, like, it won't be soon that I'll be 35 and I'm going to hit this point where it's too late.
	Well, you know, I started a new career at 42.
	Um, but I've been prepared, like this one, right?
	This show.
	Yeah.
	But I've been, you know, been preparing for it for a long time, but didn't even know that I was, so I, uh, I wouldn't necessarily say too late, but I get that you gotta get something going, right?
	Particularly if it's gonna involve some education.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	All right.
	Now, what do you most want?
	I mean, you've talked about university and engineering.
	You've talked a little bit about getting a motorcycle to date.
	So I guess dating is something that you'd like to get underway.
	Is there anything else?
	Alright.
	Well, mostly I really want to set myself up financially and I want to be working.
	I don't mind hard work, but I want to be doing something that I like and I'm passionate about, not just surviving through it so I can get the money to do the things that I do like.
	So, as far as the career is, I really think the best thing for me would be engineering because I have a lot of skills with just how things work.
	It comes natural.
	In my trade apprenticeship now, we've had to do some maths and just going back with, I guess, a bit of a more developed mind, it's really easy to do and I love it.
	So, that's it.
	As far as dating, yeah.
	What's kind of hard for me is I'm not happy with where I am in life now.
	Like, I have this job that I don't like doing, and that kind of manifests when...
	It could be my excuse, but I'm not happy with myself, which is not going to be good, and that doesn't show when I'm trying to date.
	Plus, as far as courage is, I've kind of avoided going, facing the fears of asking the girls I want to ask out.
	You know, I've kind of...
	Well, I've been dating one.
	I'm sorry.
	I have to interrupt you.
	I mean, I would not even remotely assume that that's a lack of courage.
	I mean, what's your template for dating?
	A screaming mom with a batshit crazy family and a philandering absent dad?
	Oh, yeah.
	It's not a lack of courage.
	For dating, for you, it's like try and defuse this bomb while being shot at With more bombs falling around you on an asteroid that's spinning round and round.
	Oh, that's it.
	Right?
	I mean, because you have a template that is pretty catastrophic, right?
	Yeah, entirely.
	And you have no innate lived experience of how a happy couple...
	Works, right?
	No, not at all.
	Even my grandparents, they just hated each other with a passion.
	They slept in separate rooms.
	The only thing I saw in that whole family was just a spew of hatred at each other and constant battle.
	Right.
	Right.
	So that's your template.
	Yeah.
	And you kind of know deep down that...
	I mean, God, if you had that, what a complete disaster, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's not what you want.
	Fuck no.
	Right.
	But how do you get something different than what you grew up with, right?
	You know, if you moved to Japan and you wanted to start dating, you'd say, shit, probably better learn me some Japanese, right?
	And then I better learn their dating rituals and all this.
	And how long would it take to become comfortable?
	Dating Japanese girls in Japanese speaking families knowing all the cultural rituals and what was acceptable and what was not.
	It'd be like a lifetime again.
	It'd be years, right?
	And it's not traumatic to do that.
	No.
	Right?
	In other words, you weren't in a Japanese concentration camp throughout your entire fucking childhood and then you have to go back to Japan and assimilate, right?
	No.
	Whereas you have to go to a different culture called sane, called healthy, called happy.
	I can't call it really normal.
	Right?
	So you have to cross to a vastly different culture that's traumatic for you to do that, right?
	Yeah.
	And so this is why I say courage.
	You don't lack courage at all.
	I mean, the fact that you're doing stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
	Okay, so just be kind to yourself about that.
	Right.
	You know, be gentle with yourself about that, in my opinion, right?
	I get you now.
	I was kind of writing my own destiny, too, saying, well, I don't have courage for that.
	Yeah, I'm following you and stuff, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, don't, you know, you've really got to be kind with yourself about that, right?
	Yeah.
	So...
	So that's important to get.
	The distance that you have to go based on where you came from to where you want to get to.
	And that it's not your fault where you came from, of course, right?
	So I think that there's some useful stuff to read for you.
	I mean, I always recommend psychology of self-esteem, I think, is really good.
	Self-esteem is a concept that has some weaknesses.
	I don't want to sort of pretend I never had the interview with the guy recently, but that is a good book to read in terms of self-knowledge.
	That's the Nathaniel Brandon one, hey?
	I just got his book, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.
	I nearly finished that one.
	I haven't read psychology yet.
	I might get that one too.
	Like Leonard Peikoff as well.
	His best stuff was when Rand was looking over their shoulder because, I mean, she was a complete literary genius.
	So their best work tended to be with Rand around.
	But nonetheless, so I would start that.
	Reading books, you know, like happy marriage books, how to have a good relationship and all that, it's really important to study that stuff, to learn that stuff, to read about that stuff.
	I mean, you don't know.
	How could you?
	You've never had it demonstrated.
	Do you know anyone who's got a really happy marriage?
	No.
	You see, all my friends that I've surrounded myself with all have very similar families.
	So you don't have an example.
	No.
	You know, it would be tough to learn the whole Japanese experience living in Japan.
	You couldn't get it if you were living in whatever the opposite of Japan is.
	I don't know.
	Tall, blonde guys who screw constantly.
	And so it's a huge transition to make to try and get to someplace healthy and it requires a lot of study and a lot of knowledge, right?
	You're trying to get used to an opposite culture that's traumatic for you to explore because it's painful when you realize just how functional basic health is.
	It's incredibly painful to realize just how little of it we have, right?
	Yeah.
	So I think recognize the gap...
	You want to achieve something that is the opposite of what you were imprinted with.
	And you don't have examples of it in your life.
	And so study, research, learning, therapy, that's how you cross over once you get a sense of the distance.
	But getting a sense of the distance is really painful, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, for sure.
	I've done a financial plan to pay off my debts.
	I'm going to get a second job.
	I've worked it so next year, by the time I finish this trade, I'll be able to do a whole year of therapy, which I think, I can't wait to get in there.
	Just get on top of this.
	I've put it off for so long.
	Yeah, and listen, I mean, I hope that you won't be down on yourself for these 10 years.
	Because you may say, well, look, I didn't achieve all of these excellent, amazing things, right?
	Yeah.
	But you know what you didn't achieve?
	A shitty marriage with a woman you hate with kids you'll be responsible for.
	For sure.
	The exact thing that my family did do, I haven't done.
	I'm so grateful for that.
	It's better to be in debt for cameras than to be divorced.
	Yeah, sure.
	It's just money you can pay off.
	It's not...
	Yeah, and it's not...
	God, you're not lashed to somebody who's psychotic or neurotic for the next 20 years, right?
	Yeah.
	So sometimes, when you come out of a really bad situation, sometimes...
	A really good achievement is to spend 10 years not doing that.
	I never looked at it that way.
	No, seriously.
	It's really good.
	Dude, you're 27 and you've avoided all the traps that were in your history.
	A premature marriage, a crazy woman, kids, you know, whatever, right?
	Are you not addicted to drugs or alcohol or Whatever, right?
	None of that stuff.
	I mean, even though you're Australian, for God's sake.
	Yeah, that's another reason why I hate job.
	My work that I'm in, I don't know why I'm doing it again.
	But the whole culture that I've surrounded myself in, especially with that trade, it's like, yeah, let's get fucking drunk every...
	You know what I mean?
	It's just ingrained.
	Yeah.
	No, I get it.
	I mean, they're, you know...
	That culture is, you know, they're like apes with licenses.
	So it is, it's rough.
	It's rough.
	I mean, I've been around a whole lot of working class people and they are very petty and shallow and stupid and very kind of bullying, you know, like they have this aggressively self-destructive lifestyle.
	And, you know, the moment you question it, ah, what's the matter with you?
	We're just having fun.
	You're some kind of square.
	Whatever it is, right?
	Exactly.
	What's wrong with you?
	Yeah.
	Ah, come out, have some fun.
	Come on.
	You know, I mean, it's ridiculous.
	I mean, I don't consider the wholesale napalming of my brain cells to be fun, you know?
	Let's go out and cut off some nipples.
	That's fun.
	It's like, no, let's go out and drink so much that we kill our brains.
	That's fun.
	No.
	Let's go out and put some bamboo shoots under our fingernails and pull them out slowly.
	That's fun.
	No, it's really not.
	I don't find my life so unappealing that I have to pickle myself into unconsciousness in order to survive a night without work.
	Anyway, it's just tragic.
	Story of my life.
	So listen, I think you should be incredibly proud at the last 10 years where you replicated no catastrophic examples from your history.
	Yeah, yeah, thanks, Steph.
	Yeah.
	I forget to just stop and think about that or just see it.
	Well, you're comparing yourself to people who come from highly functional backgrounds and saying, well, so many of my peers are further ahead, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, yeah, they started on third base.
	You started, like, in the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the ocean, right?
	Oh, look, I hit a home run.
	No, you were just born on third base, right?
	Yeah.
	Whereas, you know...
	You, and I guess me, got a bit further to go.
	So just recognize that.
	Be gentle and positive with yourself about that.
	I think you've done fantastically.
	Thanks.
	Because if you panic, then you're less likely to make good decisions, right?
	Yeah, I think so.
	Or do something.
	You know, panic is good for, like, yeah, panic is good for, like, an elephant charging at you.
	You know, panic and run, yes.
	But panic is not good for sort of major life decisions, right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	So, yeah, so I think, you know, just recognize what you're missing if you've got stuff for therapy.
	But you know, if you've got a library, just take out books on self-help about, you know, what it takes to be a good marriage.
	Read Parent Effectiveness Train.
	If you're not a parent, it's the best time to read it.
	If you never plan on having children, it's a great book to read because it will tell you where deficiencies may or may not be present in your own upbringing.
	Read that stuff and get a sense of what you missed.
	It's tragic what you missed.
	What a terrible childhood.
	What an absolutely terrible childhood.
	And I'm just so sorry about everything you missed, but man, great job to not replicating it so far.
	And now, you know, kind of out of the woods, right?
	I mean, so good job all around.
	Well played, sir.
	Well played.
	How are you feeling?
	I feel good.
	Good.
	You should.
	You know, it's sort of like a guy goes across no man's land in the First World War.
	You know, and like 9 out of his 10 friends get blown up and shrapneled and machine gunned and all that.
	Guy gets across and says, yes, but I didn't do any gymnastics.
	And it's like, but you're not dead, right?
	And so you cross this trench, right, which is teenage to mid-20s or late 20s.
	You did not make any catastrophic irreversible decisions, right?
	Yeah, you can deal with debt, whatever, right?
	But that's great.
	I mean, holy, like gold medal, first prize, Nobel Prize and everything, right?
	Yeah.
	So I just wanted to really, really reinforce that.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Well, keep me posted.
	Best of luck with the debt and don't drink too much.
	Yeah, exactly.
	No worries, Steph.
	Thanks for your time.
	Thanks for calling in.
	See ya.
	All right, Evan, now you're up.
	All right.
	I think where I left off last time is I was geeking out a little bit.
	Oh, yeah.
	I just want to say, Steph, that I'm middle reading one of your books that I've read.
	I'm middle reading On Truth.
	And I really enjoy it.
	I've enjoyed your podcast for about a year now.
	What I was trying to say is I imagine it's easy to get lost in the magnitude of the impact you have on the world.
	But if it's of any value to you, I want you to know that you've firmly changed my life for the better.
	And I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me today.
	Oh, it's my pleasure.
	Thank you for your kind words.
	I really appreciate it.
	What I called in to talk about today is I come from a military worshiping family who literally has a shrine for me and my cousins for serving in the American military.
	Biological death cult 101.
	And it's only been about a year now that I've been...
	I've converted to a minarchist and for the past few months I've just gone full-blown anarchist.
	Your books have a lot to do with that.
	You and Larkin Rose and Jack Neesneep I think is another person.
	I've been reading a lot of the books.
	And I'm starting to see a moral dilemma in what I do.
	One of my questions I was calling to ask about is Or maybe I should start my scenario out there.
	My current job is I guard embassies for, of all places, the Department of State.
	And my job is just to protect the people that are working inside the embassy.
	And I see no moral conflict with doing that.
	And my job is solely as a defensive role.
	And I refuse to take any type of role that would be directly offensive.
	But I'm starting to see that just Protecting the beast as it goes with this military-industrial complex ravaging the planet and doing things that are very immoral.
	And I'm being paid by the extortion of the people that are very near and dear to me, as well as people I don't even know.
	That's what makes it my paycheck, is people being extorted.
	But the problem is I'm in the middle of the contract.
	I've got a few years left.
	And then after that, I was going to be done with it.
	But when I was talking to my girlfriend who's much wiser and smarter than me about these kinds of things, we were...
	Hey, don't give me that false modesty.
	Come on.
	You know, that kind of false modesty is just praising yourself.
	I mean, she's not that smart if she's with an idiot, right?
	Okay, very true.
	Um...
	But her and I were discussing what type of career field I should pursue after this, and with what I do here, I kind of justify me keeping this job in that I'm getting experience and learning to fill a role as a possible defense contractor in the future, like working for private security.
	And I also have some experience in the IT field for my former job in the military, and I thought about going that route, but I feel more passionate going into the route of Like being a mentor to young people and pursuing an education and philosophy.
	One of the things that I brought to her is I like the idea of becoming a teacher someday because a lot of my ways of thinking things through is because of the way teachers really encourage me to use reason.
	As I was growing up in high school, I had a few teachers that had a huge impact on my life, and I really wanted to do that role.
	But in order to fulfill a job like that, I would again be taking salary from the state if I worked in a public school.
	And what I was going to ask you is, do you see any justification in taking a job, being paid by the state, which already exists, But use that position to try and educate people that a state isn't even necessary.
	I was asking if you go along with my justification of keeping my job with what I have here now, The benefits don't really matter to me.
	There's a lot of great benefits to it, but when that one creature from 300 was bribed by Xerxes, there was a lot of benefits for him to go against his own people.
	So that's what I keep in mind for that.
	Do you see any justification in me keeping the job I currently have, or should I Would you personally believe it would be more moral to look into consciousness or being separated for consciousness objection?
	Well, I don't think that a moral question really exists in your situation.
	And the reason I'm saying that is that we're all participating in the state, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, yeah, so I'm talking to you on a computer whose operating system is protected by a state license and I pay taxes on my income, on other things that I buy.
	You just go on and on, right?
	Yes.
	So there's no you're in it and I'm not.
	We're all in it.
	Now, I mean, there are differing degrees, right?
	I mean...
	If you were a frontline soldier who was shooting people, then I would say you should think about it because it's really harmful to your conscience, right?
	The sort of practical matter of protecting your conscience from doing that kind of stuff.
	But you're not involved in taking lives or anything like that.
	You're defending and so on, right?
	So I don't see that you're in some evil situation that you have to flee from or anything like that in order to retain your integrity.
	The evil is in the people who believe in the system and who are conscious of it, who are aware of it, who've been brought the arguments.
	That's why I suggest people use the against me argument in someone just so you raise people's moral awareness, which they're not going to like, but which is necessary for progress.
	You know, as soon as people stop believing in something, that thing is done, right?
	Nobody believes in slavery.
	Ooh, look, we don't have any slavery, right?
	Yeah.
	There's no way to escape the system.
	Even if you go live in the woods, you're only living in the woods because of your distaste for the system, so the system still wins.
	There is no way out of the matrix, so to speak.
	So I don't think there's anything you can do fundamentally that is going to alter your relationship to whatever, right?
	So I would say that that's not foundational, and I don't think you have to leave where you are To live a moral life.
	I think you need to be conscious of the immorality of the system, but I don't know that there's a place you can go that gets you out of that dilemma.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, it does.
	I was about to say that it's an argument I run against whenever I talk to anybody about anything about living in a voluntary society.
	Their remark is always like, oh, well, don't you want to get paid?
	Yeah.
	That's not important.
	But the argument always goes to that, and it's kind of put in my head that I feel a little bit like a hypocrite, kind of like Ron Swanson from, if you've ever heard of him, from Parks and Recreation.
	Yeah, he's a libertarian, right, who works for the city council?
	Exactly.
	And that's the comedy of that show, is...
	You know, it's the irony of he's working for the government, but he doesn't believe in government.
	And I really feel...
	Yeah, I mean, but the difference is too, of course, that this isn't going to be for the rest of your life, right?
	You said you've got a couple of years to go on your contract?
	Yes, yes.
	And you also chose the job before you woke up to the reality of the situation, right?
	Yes.
	So, look, I mean, obviously you can quit the job if you want and you can go and, you know, and that may be the right thing to do.
	I mean, I can, you know, as you know, I'm really bad at telling people what to do because I don't know what you should do.
	Honestly, there's no particular, you know, if you say, look, I'm going to go strangle a homeless guy, I'm like, don't do that.
	I haven't had one of those calls yet.
	But I think on Tom Likas' show, some woman confessed to murder, but it hasn't happened to me yet.
	But...
	So I can't tell you what to do, obviously.
	But what I will say is that don't let other people's skepticism for what you're doing stop you from making the case.
	And do you have any insight on the...
	Oh, go ahead.
	I'm sorry.
	Jefferson owned slaves, right?
	Does that mean that we dismiss everything he says?
	Of course not, right?
	Now, as it turns out, Jefferson did not father children through Sonny Hemmings.
	Apparently that's all just a myth.
	But, you know, I mean, people can have moral compromises.
	You know, the entire founding of America was morally problematic in that they allowed for slavery after, right?
	Does that mean we just toss out the entire concept of limited government?
	Well, I mean, obviously as anarchists we do, but most of the people you're talking to wouldn't, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Wouldn't do that, right?
	And...
	You know, yeah, it's not, you can be honest, it's not easy.
	It's not easy to wake, to have woken up to immoral questions about your situation.
	It come from, you know, I get you, it's not easy.
	I'm still trying to figure out what to do.
	But, fundamentally, that doesn't matter.
	Because the arguments are the arguments, no matter what, right?
	Yes.
	Yes, thank you.
	So, as long as you're honest about, yeah, I get that it's a challenge, you know, but don't dismiss my arguments just because I'm in a challenging situation, right?
	Yes.
	And the other thing, too, is that you don't have to be the mouthpiece for freedom until you're out, right?
	Well, I try to be.
	That's the thing.
	I feel like I wrote a letter to Adam Kokesh and I wrote a letter to each other when he was in prison this past summer.
	And one of the things he says, I have a great opportunity here to be that beacon of liberty to these Marines.
	Because I live with about 20 other guys in a house right now.
	And it's amazing the ignorance that exists with people that their entire livelihood depends on them not understanding the system itself.
	And he said that it's most important that I try to get these guys to have that seed planted in their head.
	Of who they're really fighting for, or who they should be fighting for, I should say.
	I think the question came up the other day.
	When I was in my last year, when the question came up, like, would you ever fire on American citizens?
	Like, 75% of people said no.
	And here, it was everybody who said yes, they would.
	Oh, nice.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And that just blew my mind at the point where it, you know, how do you talk sense to these people?
	One of them, the other day, my girlfriend or father owned a business, The government just attacked them with workers' comp and tried to bump their coverage from $900 a month to $4,500 a month.
	I was explaining to one of them how she couldn't fly out and see me because the government was attacking her business.
	The only thing he had to say was, oh, so you're one of those guys who doesn't like the government.
	That's all you got out of the whole story I just told you, is that they're threatening to take her house and everything from her.
	If she hasn't come up with money by the end of the week, that's extortion.
	And all you got out of that sentence was, oh, you just don't like the government.
	And that's what I deal with.
	Sometimes I feel like, yes, they do need that seed plant in their head, but I think that the armor of complete and utter ignorance is stronger than I'll ever be.
	Well, look, I mean, it's a different situation when you're talking about people who will willingly shoot civilians.
	Yes.
	I don't know that that's a particularly fertile area.
	Look, Adam Kokesh knows the military obviously a lot better than I do, so take his advice over mine, I would suggest.
	But I don't think it's a particularly fertile area to try and talk philosophy to people who are just willing to shoot civilians for money.
	I mean, pick your battles, right?
	And they're the easier people to talk to than people who are in the military committed to that degree.
	And again, to me, if it's about parenting, then if you talk to them about parenting well, at least as well as parents who are willing to shoot people for money can parent, I think you're going to get more productivity out of those conversations than out of merely political or economic ones.
	Yeah.
	And also the argument technique that you...
	You were just discussing a little bit ago the you versus me.
	I'm sorry, I have trouble remembering.
	Oh, yeah, the against me argument.
	Well, they say yes, right?
	They would say yes, I would definitely shoot you for disobeying what I told you to do, right?
	I mean, it's the military.
	That's kind of what they do, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so I mean...
	Again, talk to them about parenting, I would say.
	But, yeah, against me, our argument isn't going to work.
	And for me, you know, when people are willing to use violence, I wouldn't insult reason by pretending that we can have a rational discussion after that.
	That's actually how I'll remember that.
	That quote verbatim.
	That's something I might be able to say when the conversation comes up.
	And look, I just wanted to say, too, I really appreciate and respect your moral sensitivity in this area.
	I mean, that's really, really important.
	And good for you.
	It's tough.
	It's tough stuff.
	It keeps you up at night.
	You wrestle with it, right?
	Yes.
	What's the right thing to do once you wake up?
	I mean, that's some significant shit.
	I'm so sorry that the show has screwed up your life to that degree.
	I mean, that's terrible.
	I feel terrible.
	God, what a terrible person I am.
	No, but I mean, it's hard.
	You know, it's...
	I was just pulling out of it or just getting to an anarchist position in the business world, and that's a lot less difficult than what you have to face, and I found that stuff challenging as well.
	How well am I going to present this proposal for government work?
	It was tough.
	Yeah, and I was going to throw in there too that you're literally going to make my parents disown me.
	Oh, is that where it's headed?
	Yeah, it's getting there.
	Shoot, I'm sorry about that.
	It's alright.
	That's what it takes.
	But just real quick, I'm not going to keep your show going much longer.
	Where can I get some resources where I could talk to this said girlfriend about the theories you've spoken of of not physically punishing children and how the cycle of violence is Well, I believe that you simply go to the internet and type in spanking.
	No, I'm kidding.
	No, you can go to youtube.com forward slash free domain radio.
	I got tons of interviews, usually with spanking in the title.
	There's the truth against spanking.
	There's interviews that we've done with a variety of experts on the topic.
	But I think that that's...
	Or, you know, fdrurl.com forward slash B-I-B, a bomb in the brain series, I think is also really, really important to talk about with that stuff.
	And we just did an interview, I guess it'll be published in the next day or two, With, oh my god, I'm so close to finding it, Robin, Robin Williams?
	No, Robin Peters Bennett, called Keeping Fists in the Family, which is the family tradition of violence.
	She's a psychotherapist educator.
	And she's really, really good at sort of pinning this stuff down around childhood and stress and abuse and its long-term health effects and all that, so...
	Mike, should we just publish that now?
	Are we waiting for anything in particular?
	Yeah, we can publish it now.
	Let's publish it now.
	Here's your daily FDR spanking.
	All right.
	Okay, yeah, so we just put that one out.
	You can check that one out.
	I would also really recommend, I mean, stuff to the video a couple years ago entitled The Facts About Spanking.
	It's absolutely must watch.
	And if you want to introduce this stuff to people, I think that's a good place to start.
	A lot of great information in there.
	Awesome.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Cool.
	Alright, so does that help?
	Yes, the answer is everything for me.
	And circumcision, right?
	Share that too.
	Okay, alright.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you very much.
	Good job for you.
	I'm sorry that it's so tough.
	I'm sorry that it's so tough.
	I really, really am.
	I mean, just, boy.
	You know, I tell you, people from military backgrounds, like, they don't go halfway.
	I'll tell you that.
	I mean, that's what I do like about people from military backgrounds.
	I mean, you come from, like, all fucking engine pool, right?
	I mean, if you're in the military, you're all in the military.
	If your doubts about the military, you're like, fuck.
	I mean, it's an all-in kind of personality structure, which I actually quite respect.
	So I just really wanted to say how impressive that is and how great what it is that you're doing.
	But I am very sorry that it's so tough.
	Yes.
	All right.
	Thank you very much, Steph.
	I appreciate it.
	Thanks, man.
	Take care.
	All right.
	Drew, you're up next.
	Go ahead, Drew.
	Hey, Steph.
	I was just wondering, oh, how are you doing today, by the way?
	I'm well, thanks.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing great.
	Before I get into what I would like to do is a dream analysis.
	But before I share my dream, would it be okay if I were to plug my website?
	I don't know what your website is, but give it a shot.
	It's Drew's Woods.
	It's basically like an art blog.
	I post poetry and short stories.
	Primarily, a lot of the content recently has been focused on the family and exploring things like that.
	Well, thank you for sharing.
	Drewswoods.com.
	Alright, so what's your dream, my brother?
	Would you like me to read that or would you like to read that?
	Why don't you...
	Can you put it in the Skype window?
	Oh, yes, totally.
	I was going to do that.
	I just put it in your Skype window there, Steph.
	Oh.
	I was out...
	Okay, if you don't mind.
	I was out on a camping trip with my father.
	It reminded me of Boy Scouts.
	We decided that we were going to leave early the night before.
	He was driving home on icy roads, and I was on my laptop.
	I had the fear that the battery life would run out, but I knew...
	That it wouldn't be an issue.
	On my screen, I could see the same view that I could when I was looking out of the windshield, like there was a camera that I was watching through.
	My father had the radio on.
	I felt uneasy because I didn't like my father.
	I struggled to find something to do as I knew that it would be about a four-hour drive.
	I wanted to stay awake during the whole drive.
	I was afraid that my father would fall asleep behind the wheel.
	The clock read about 2 a.m., On my laptop I typed, I don't trust him, but then I quickly deleted it for fear of him seeing it.
	I sat trying to figure out what to do, being bored of watching the road.
	At some point the music stopped playing.
	I decided to fall asleep.
	I closed the lid to my laptop.
	As soon as I made that decision, my father turned the radio on.
	The song playing was Dragon Force's Through the Fire and the Flames.
	I shut my eyes and when I opened them, I noticed that it was about 6 a.m.
	We were rounding a bend that led to my parents' house from the freeway.
	I was very tired.
	I worried about my new job because I had to wake up early the next day.
	I wanted a rum and coke when I got to bed.
	We neared the block but passed it.
	He pulled into a power station.
	I asked him why he parked here.
	And he said that he was worried that people would steal his transmission.
	He told me that he also had a built-in generator out of parts he gathered here.
	I assumed that he stole them.
	I asked him, is this a private power station or a public sector one?
	He said, public sector.
	And I felt okay with that.
	I gathered my belongings and we started climbing up a staircase.
	The power station was down...
	We passed a man and made our way to a grated catwalk, the kind you can see through and is super scary.
	He was behind me and there was a portion where there was a fair drop to the next level.
	I was scared, so I set my belongings down and sat down and hopped off.
	When I landed, I recognized a guy whose name was Rolf.
	R-O-L-P-H-E. It started with an R and ended with an E. He recognized me and I told him that I knew he was familiar, but I was too tired to be able to really try to remember him.
	Then I woke up.
	Interesting.
	And do you go camping with your dad?
	When I was kind of like from...
	When I was growing up, I did.
	I probably stopped camping when I was about 15 or 16, and I started maybe around 7 or 8.
	Right, and what were those camping trips like?
	A lot of the times they would be through Boy Scouts.
	During the ones where I was younger, my father and I, We were kind of close.
	I remember one summer camp, I fell asleep in his arms after a very long hike.
	And they were pretty close times.
	I'm actually remembering now that I'd say probably after 13, I would still go camping, but oftentimes my father wouldn't join me.
	So it was probably around pubescence when the camping trip stopped with him.
	And what is your relationship like with your family?
	I would say that it's not a relationship.
	Every time that I've tried interacting with him, the last few times, He's gotten to angry outbursts whenever I try to be honest and open with my feelings in the moment.
	I haven't spoken to him directly in a few years.
	I asked him recently about what his childhood was like, and he just gave me this short, oh, it was good and it was bad, it was good and it was bad.
	I really got the sense he didn't want to talk to me.
	Why haven't you talked to him much?
	Because whenever I was honest about my feelings, I would say, hey dad, I feel angry.
	He would just shut down the conversation by escalating it.
	He would start shouting and yelling.
	He would take away my phone or ground me from something.
	This was about three years ago.
	Since then, I decided to stop talking to both him and my mother.
	Right.
	Was he like that when you were younger?
	There were times where he was like that.
	It seemed the older I got, the more we would have conflicts like that, the more he would yell at me.
	I kind of get the impression that when I was younger he was a lot nicer and kinder to me.
	But he would get into violent shouting matches with my mother.
	And I have many clear memories of sitting in my room crying and listening to them shout out each other.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Thanks.
	I know, I also have memories of him spanking me when I was little too.
	Right.
	Right, okay.
	So in the dream, it's interesting because there's a lot around trust, I think, in the dream.
	Yeah, it seems that way to me.
	I want to stay awake.
	That way I can keep him awake so that he doesn't fall asleep and crash us in the icy road.
	If I'm awake, I can also prepare as best as I can in the moment for when we slip off the road or something like that.
	Right, and you type on your laptop "I don't trust him" and then you delete it, "fear of him seeing it", which of course is another manifestation of a lack of trust, very explicit.
	"I don't trust him".
	Well, he can't see that, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's interesting because you also feel responsible for running the relationship.
	Like you're thinking...
	Oh my god, you're totally right.
	He's the one that decided that we should go home early.
	I wasn't the one that was like, hey dad, let's go drive at 2 in the morning where there's icy roads.
	We're going to be the only ones out there on the road.
	He's driving the car.
	Yeah, he's driving the car and...
	So yeah, but you feel like it's very much isolated, right?
	So there's lots of experiences you're having that you're not talking about your father with in the dream.
	Like, I'm scared.
	You don't say to him, oh, I'm concerned about my battery on my laptop.
	I'm concerned about you driving off the road.
	It's too late.
	We should get a hotel.
	Like, what are we doing?
	Like, it's very much an isolated dream.
	Like, you're with someone and you're managing them all the time Because dishonesty or topic avoidance is a form of management, right?
	Yeah.
	It's kind of a weird...
	It's not a negative term.
	I don't mean this in a negative way.
	It's kind of a manipulation.
	Yeah, I would say I had to learn that.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, again, I don't mean...
	You've got a grandmother who's religious and you're an atheist and you go over and she says, did you go to church?
	You make some noncommittal answer or you avoid the topic or you say yes.
	I mean, you're manipulating, right?
	I mean, you are managing the relationship, not being honest, right?
	And again, I'm not saying that that's bad.
	I mean, if the cost of being honest is really high, don't be honest, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you're in an aggressive relationship or whatever it is, right?
	So on.
	So there's very much like two solitudes in the car, right?
	Yeah.
	And...
	So the music stops playing, you decide to fall asleep, right?
	Yeah.
	And what's interesting is that your father in the dream only turns the music back on then, right?
	Yeah, it seemed like it was happening at the same moment.
	He realized, oh, he's going to sleep.
	I'm just going to turn on music.
	So the thought reflecting upon the dream was that, oh, he's turning it on to show that he knows to keep the radio on so he doesn't fall asleep or something like that.
	Right, but either he doesn't know you're about to fall asleep or he does.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	And I guess my question would be, does he know?
	Do you think he knows in the dream that you're about to fall asleep?
	Because the music's been off for a while, and then he decided to try and get some sleep, and that's when he turns the music back on, right?
	Yeah, I want to say it really seemed that way in the dream, that he did know.
	Right, so that's kind of passive-aggressive, right?
	How so?
	Well, somebody tries to fall asleep and I turn the music on?
	I'm kind of being a dick, right?
	Okay, yeah, I see it from that angle now.
	I assume your father's name is not Richard, because otherwise I'd be kind of confused.
	But, you know, that's kind of dicky, right?
	Oh, you're falling asleep?
	Let me turn the music on.
	Right.
	And the song itself is like really, really loud and really noisy.
	Yeah, Dragon Force.
	I'm getting a sense this is not Nora Jones covers, right?
	Okay, got it.
	And interesting thing is too, is that he can't communicate either.
	Because he's not saying, hey, I'm upset that you want to fall asleep.
	He's not saying, I'd rather you stay awake if you can help me.
	Yeah.
	I think only just a few short sentences are said between us the entire dream.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so...
	Yeah, so this is a pretty tragic situation.
	I mean, I love long drives with my family.
	We have great conversations.
	We don't have a lot of long drives, but when we do, it's really enjoyable.
	We always...
	Get to tell Isabella all about the shows that I'm doing and, you know, we can play word games and, you know, Isabella can, you know, color and I can chat with my wife.
	I mean, it's really nice to have that kind of...
	Cars are great for conversation.
	You know, at home you get a little distracted, this, that and the other, right?
	But...
	So that is...
	But they're really tragic with non-communicative families, right?
	Yeah.
	Because you really are obviously not communicating.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	And it's also, there's an undercurrent of danger in this, right?
	As we talked about, like your father might fall asleep at the wheel.
	You know, if you're on the highway and you fall asleep for a second or two, like you travel the length of a football field.
	I mean, it's crazy just how dangerous it is to fall asleep at the wheel, right?
	Right, right.
	And what's interesting is that you decide to sleep anyway.
	What that means is the risk of death is preferable to staying awake with your dad in an enclosed space.
	Oh, my God!
	Oh, wow.
	Oh, that's totally right.
	Okay, doesn't sound like something I need to reinforce, but okay, good.
	Good.
	Now, that's important, right?
	That's the stakes, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And what does it say?
	Through the fire and the flames?
	Jesus.
	That's like, I'll sleep through the fire and the flames of my own ending rather than not talk with my father in an enclosed space for two hours.
	Oh, wow.
	And it is.
	There is something unbearable about that proximity and that lack of communication.
	Okay, so you don't even go home, right?
	The dream ends like I'm walking toward my parents' house.
	No, no, but I mean you don't drive home because you say he drives past it, right?
	Yeah.
	We need the block but past it.
	Now it's interesting because you say that you have a new job to start the next morning, right?
	And maybe that's why you're driving home.
	So the next morning, so like if we were to just take the days, the day the dream started would be Saturday.
	We arrived Sunday morning and the job started Monday.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay, so you didn't actually have to go over there.
	Okay, sorry about that.
	I got it.
	I wanted a rum and coke when I got to bed.
	Well, yeah, I mean, it's morning.
	You know, you've got to have that stuff for breakfast.
	We need to block past it.
	He pulled into a power station.
	All right.
	So power, right?
	Yeah.
	It's obviously because we're talking about trust and trust is necessary when there's power, right?
	Yeah.
	You don't need to trust people who have no power over you.
	So trust and power are synonymous in many ways, right?
	The more someone has power over you, the more you need to trust them, right?
	Like when I got my neck operated on, I really needed to trust those guys because, you know, they're operating on my neck, right?
	Yeah, totally.
	Somebody who's, you know, somebody who's cutting my hair, who cares, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Alright, so trust and power.
	I asked him why he parked there.
	He said he was worried that people would steal his transmission.
	Alright, I'm not a car guy, but transmission is like the automatic gear shifting.
	Is that right?
	I have no idea either.
	Alright, so hang on.
	Chat window, people.
	Oh, here we've got...
	In the first part...
	Okay, Through the Fire and the Flames lyrics.
	It starts, On a cold winter morning...
	In the time before the light, in the flame of death's eternal reign, we ride towards the light.
	Nice.
	Okay, transmission is what converts engine power to the wheels.
	Okay, that's just...
	I don't know.
	Yes.
	Okay, I think pretty much the whole engine, it makes the wheels go.
	Thank you very much.
	So yes, somebody has said, yeah, transmission I think is...
	I think you don't even need it.
	Oh no, there's a manual transmission when you're using the gear shift.
	It's automatic when you have an automatic.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	But a transmission, of course, is one of these words that's deliciously multitasked in English, right?
	Right, right.
	So transmission is the engine, right, the gears.
	Transmission is a radio transmission, and transmission is also an illness.
	You can transmit an illness to someone else or transmit an idea, a virus, right?
	I hadn't thought about an illness at all, no.
	Right, yeah.
	Yeah.
	But he also had built a generator out of parts he gathered here.
	So he stole them.
	Yeah, that's what I figured in the dream.
	You thought he stole them.
	Now, in real life, did your father have a history of sort of stealing?
	Stealing?
	Not to my knowledge, but he definitely did have a shady past.
	Okay.
	And why were you climbing the staircase?
	Um, because that was the path to get to my parents' house.
	Oh, okay, okay.
	We passed a man who made our way to a graded catwalk.
	He was behind me and there was a portion where there was a fair drop to the next level.
	Well, see, there's trust again, right?
	Yeah.
	Are you concerned that the guy's going to push you or something?
	Um, no.
	I was afraid that I was going to be so tired that I would fall.
	All right.
	But at the same time, my dad was right behind me, so that fear is like, I'm going to fall and he's not going to catch me.
	Right, right, okay.
	Does your dad work for the public sector?
	I think he's at least done public sector jobs.
	He does union work, except he's been unemployed for ages, so he doesn't work.
	And what does he live on?
	I'm sorry, what was that?
	What does he live on?
	My mother's wages.
	And what does your mother do?
	She works in a hospital in the pharmacy.
	Okay.
	Now what's interesting, so why are you not going home?
	Like he says he's worried that people would steal his transmission.
	But why would it be safer at a public power station, the car, than it would be at home in a garage?
	That's a really good question.
	And kind of the connections on...
	Hello?
	So...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	What I'm thinking is that if a transmission makes the car go, it makes the car power go into movement, then what I would imagine is that I kind of get the sense that my father, in a way, blames my mother.
	No, no.
	Hang on.
	Sorry.
	I'm at a practical level, right?
	Oh.
	Because he says something that makes no sense, and you don't mention anything about it in the dream other than that, and I'm just trying to understand that.
	So he's driving home, and then he goes and parks and leaves the car in a public power generator or power station, right?
	Right.
	And what he means is that, I think what he's saying is, I can't take the car home because people will steal my transmission at home, but it's safer here.
	Yeah, like...
	That makes no sense, right?
	Well, it makes sense in a way, and I see that because there's more people at the power station.
	No, but it's your home, right?
	Yeah.
	So wouldn't you put it in the garage?
	I mean, does he think your mom's going to steal?
	Like, who's going to steal the transmission?
	From your home?
	Our garage is packed with, like, junk, and he would have to have left it outside.
	Right.
	But if he's worried about people stealing the transmission, you clear the junk out of the garage and you park the car inside, right?
	Fair enough, yeah.
	I mean, if that's his issue, leaving it parked in some public place where there's no one around is not the way to keep it safe, right?
	When you have a garage.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So that's a really bad idea.
	And again, it's part of the lack of trust and openness that you can't say, like, what now?
	Yeah.
	Also, he's afraid...
	That people are going to steal stuff from him, and you assume that what he built, he stole from others.
	Oh, totally!
	Yeah!
	And, like, if he did steal that, he would totally be afraid of other people stealing, because that's who he is.
	He's a thief, and so he expects everybody else is a thief.
	Right.
	So that's sort of another example, right, of lack of trust.
	He doesn't even trust the world, because he himself is not trustworthy, right?
	Right.
	All right.
	So this Rolf?
	It's not Ralph.
	No, it's Rolf.
	I don't even know.
	It's a German name?
	I only remember the first letter and the last letter, which would be an R-N-E. It was like a Rolf or a Ralph or a Wraith or something like that.
	I don't remember.
	It sounded like Germanic or foreign or something like that.
	Right.
	Now, it could be that the unconscious just wants you to remember the R and the E, because that stands for re, which is short for regarding, right?
	In other words, something important or something, right?
	Okay.
	You know, I'm sending you this re, this letter, or regarding this letter or whatever.
	All right.
	Sort of a business term.
	I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
	Yeah, I haven't really encountered that much or at least been conscious of it.
	Next level.
	So, yeah, I mean, you're very passive here and you don't actually say anything in the whole dream, right?
	You type one thing, I don't trust him, then you quickly delete it.
	But you don't say anything in the whole dream.
	Yeah, I don't...
	No, all of my thoughts are in my head.
	I don't talk to him at all.
	Oh, no.
	No, I say a few things, which is...
	Oh, you say one...
	You say...
	The only thing you say is at the end, at least in this point.
	Yeah.
	You say, I'm too tired to figure out who this guy is, right?
	But it's interesting because steel transmission...
	Transmission is language.
	It's a way of transmissioning, right?
	Transmitting.
	Sorry, transmitting thought and so on.
	And you say nothing in the whole dream.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And he's concerned that other people are going to steal his transmission.
	But in your relationship with him, you have no transmission.
	You have no way of transmitting anything, right?
	Yeah.
	In fact, to transmit something is negative.
	Because when you transmit that you're tired, you want to go to bed, he turns the radio on, right?
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, I think it's a dream about the fact that you don't have a voice in your father's relationship or your relationship with your father, which is to say you have a negative relationship.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So, like, a negative relationship is worse than no relationship.
	I agree.
	As I said, like, yeah, most people have, like, I have no relationship with most people in the world, right?
	But a negative relationship is where you're losing stuff.
	You're losing voice, you're losing integrity, you're losing connection, and you're developing bad habits in that proximity.
	Or maintaining bad habits that were probably inflicted on you in that, right?
	And this is what's very difficult about problematic relationships, and particularly problematic parental relationships, is that it's not neutral.
	It's not like, well, we don't have a good relationship I don't have a good relationship with most people in the world.
	It's a negative relationship.
	It's harming.
	You're silenced, right?
	Because if I'm just sitting at home alone, I can exercise, I can play a game, I can sit and work, I can daydream, I can read a book.
	No one's interfering with my experience of who I am, right?
	But when I'm with someone, Where I actively have to self-censor, I have to bite my tongue, I have to be wary of what I say, I have to make sure I don't trigger, I have to, whatever, right?
	I have to listen to crazy stuff and I can't even say, wait a minute, that sounds kind of crazy, right?
	Right.
	I can't say any of that.
	Then I am in a very different situation.
	When I'm home alone, I'm not talking to myself, I may sing to myself, I'm not talking to myself, right?
	But when I'm with someone...
	Where in I have a negative relationship, I am constantly talking to myself.
	Right?
	Wait, how are you constantly talking to yourself?
	I'm constantly talking to myself.
	Don't say this.
	Oh shit, I can't say that.
	Oh, they said this crazy thing, but I can't say that.
	Oh, they said this crazy thing, but I better not respond to that.
	And then they're going to talk about this thing, which I better not say that too.
	And this thing, I'm constantly managing myself all the time.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I don't do that at home, sitting around picking my nose, whatever.
	I'm not managing myself, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But when you're in a negative relationship, you become a little fucking North Korean dictatorship to yourself, right?
	It's harmful to yourself, to your relationship with yourself.
	Because you're not connected to the other person.
	You're not connected to yourself.
	You're actually acting against all of your instincts all the time.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	When you're in a negative relationship, you are hostile and self-dictatorial and self-censorious all the time.
	You are biting your tongue all the time.
	All your natural thoughts and impulses, every honest thing that you could say, you have to tamp down.
	So people provoke responses in you that you cannot communicate and that you can't even show them.
	You erase on your computer, I don't trust him.
	The moment you write it, it's saying you have a thought, boom, erase it.
	You have an impulse, boom, suppress it.
	You have a thought, boom, bite your lip.
	You are in a negative relationship.
	You are harming yourself by being proximate and self-censorious at the same time, and that just goes on and on and on.
	You say nothing.
	For hours and hours and hours in the dream.
	Yeah.
	Like my mom would say crazy shit.
	She'd say, like, a car would backfire.
	She'd think people were shooting at her.
	The insurance company.
	And I'd like, you're nuts.
	You're nuts.
	You're a crazy old woman in a welfare apartment.
	Like, no.
	Nobody's, you know, somebody spray painted some graffiti and a A wall that she could see from her window and, you know, it's a message to me, they're coming, right?
	Right.
	I mean, it's like, no, that's crazy shit.
	And what could you do?
	Right?
	What could you do?
	Well, you can say, I think this is really not the case, in which case you get a two-hour scream fest, right?
	It would be four hours.
	Let's not play those Olympics.
	Nobody wins those races.
	Or you can just bite your tongue and say, well, that's terrible.
	That must be very scary.
	So you're put in this impossible situation.
	You have to either speak the truth and be punished in vicious ways, or you have to lie and go along with crazy stuff and hate yourself.
	Like, what a—that's a negative relationship.
	I don't have to do that when I'm sitting around the place on my own.
	Totally.
	Right?
	I don't have to sit there and say, well, I just said this crazy thing, but I don't really—I think it's crazy.
	I should shut up about myself.
	Oh, my God, I can't believe that.
	If I say that, I'm going to punch myself in the head.
	Like, oh, my God.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's a negative relationship.
	You have to attack yourself constantly.
	Shut up.
	Don't say this.
	Oh my God, don't ever say that.
	Oh, don't even look that way.
	Don't pause too long.
	Say it now.
	Don't say it later.
	Don't say it this way.
	Don't say it that way.
	Don't say what you really think.
	Don't say what you really feel.
	And this is relationships.
	Billions of people around the world are fucking stuck in.
	Even some libertarians, and they think it's all about the Fed.
	It's all about the Fed.
	You know, if we order the Fed, I'll be free.
	Yeah, right.
	Are you free in your life?
	Are you free to speak and think what you feel in your life?
	Well, I think in this dream it's saying that there were a whole number of years where this was not the case for you.
	It certainly wasn't the case at all.
	In some aspects of my life, it still isn't the case.
	I started a new job, and I have to remain silent about what my real thoughts are going on.
	Oh yeah, we all have that.
	We all have that.
	Absolutely.
	I get that.
	Nobody is free to speak their mind all the time.
	We don't live in that world yet.
	We don't.
	We don't.
	But there are some areas we have more choice in than others.
	And when I was younger, I just came to that conclusion.
	Once you get that you're not going to live forever, you're like, okay, well, do I want to spend my time biting my tongue in two?
	Because I'm afraid of being attacked for speaking my honest thoughts?
	Fuck no.
	Like, that's really boring.
	And comfortable and stifling and weird and horrible.
	Like, no.
	No.
	And I think that the dream is talking a lot about that.
	And how exhausting it is.
	It is really, really exhausting to...
	Live in a dictatorship of me, which is basically a tyranny of others.
	Like, it's exhausting to be at war with yourself and to bite your lip and to watch your own reactions, right?
	It's just terrible.
	And I think that's why at the end of the dream you're like, oh my god, I'm too exhausted to even talk to someone here.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	I'm...
	Like, I know, like, I've listened to a few dream analysis before.
	Like, I'm just trying to figure out, like, is this dream trying to tell me, like, there's, like, an aspect of my life where this is occurring, where there might be possible change?
	Or...
	Oh, no, everywhere.
	Look, you can choose to speak the truth to everyone, if you want.
	I mean, you know, say the truth and take the consequences.
	Right.
	You said there are areas in your life where you're not speaking the truth.
	Well, if there are relationships, like in your personal chosen relationships where you're not getting paid or paying people, well, you have that choice to speak the truth, right?
	Yeah.
	But that's assuming that it is a relationship and that it's just not like proximity.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, of course, right?
	If it's...
	How do I put this?
	If you've got to eat and there's a job and whatever, right?
	I was just talking to the guy before, right?
	But if it's some guy from high school you know or you're friends with or whatever, fucking speak the truth.
	Jesus, I'm not living on this guy's dime.
	You know, then speak the truth and shame the devil, right?
	But, I mean, otherwise, emptiness, bullshit, tyranny, boredom, the human void of non-connection wins.
	And that's just a special empty spider devil that eats way too many people in the world.
	So, yeah, it could be a prompt to say, you know, the end of the dream is the moral of the dream.
	And at the end of the dream, you're just in a scary place that makes no sense, trudging along behind your dad, too tired to even have a conversation.
	So.
	So, that's the consequence of...
	Yeah, that's the consequence of non-existence, is you're exhausted and you're scared and you're not connected to anyone and you can't even recognize, you're too tired to even recognize people.
	That's a horrible existence, right?
	right yeah does that does that make sense Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
	I'm kind of thinking back a little bit at times where I would self-erase to...
	Well, it's now, right?
	It's now.
	And I guarantee you, when you get older, you will not remember why you silenced yourself so much.
	You just won't.
	And you'd be like, what the hell was the matter with me?
	I had all these beliefs, all these truths, all this passion, and I fucking took a shitty toilet plunger to my own face and shut myself up.
	And for what?
	And that's a terrible regret to have.
	To have a valuable truth and then to withhold it from the world.
	I mean, if you've got a really good cause, yeah, okay, but...
	For what?
	For the sake of the people I don't respect might like me?
	Ew.
	What a terrible reason that is, right?
	I don't think that's the case.
	I think in my personal life, I could certainly be doing a lot more.
	But I do try to speak the truth outside of my living situation and also my work environment.
	Well, but then you also may look at the perspective that the dream...
	Maybe telling you that you are censoring other people.
	That I'm censoring other people?
	It's another part.
	If you feel comfortable that you're not being censored, then the dream could also be that you are censoring other people.
	In other words, that you may be negative towards people who are voicing disagreements with you.
	Huh.
	That's an interesting way to look at it.
	Hmm.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Anyway, something to mull over.
	I do have to move on with the show, but it's certainly something to think over, and I certainly appreciate you bringing that up.
	So, thank you very much.
	Thanks for taking a look at my dream, Steph.
	You're very welcome, Drew.
	Thanks so much for calling in.
	All right, Dirk.
	Go ahead, Dirk.
	Hey, Stefan.
	Hello.
	How are you tonight?
	I'm well.
	How are you doing?
	Good.
	I just had a few questions about, like...
	The future of the economy in the near future and just things I need to do to prepare myself for whatever's going to happen.
	So I've heard from many sources that the US dollar is going to plummet.
	It's going to be basically worthless.
	Is that accurate or...?
	Well, it's hard to say.
	Again, you know, I mean, there's arguments pro, there's arguments con.
	The U.S. has cut its deficit 40%.
	They've done a huge amount, personal households have done a huge amount to rein in debt and so on.
	So, you know, there could be some new invention, 3D printing or something might be a huge boost to the economy.
	So it's hard to say, you know.
	I mean, there are going to be significant challenges to the U.S. economy, but it's true for all Western economies.
	But the Canadian dollar was over and above, stronger than the U.S. dollar.
	Now it's like 92 cents, which means people are betting Canadian dollar, I think, is the worst performing dollar of this year so far, the worst performing currency of this year so far.
	So who knows?
	I mean, it's really hard to say.
	I think hope for the best and prepare for the worst is not usually the worst advice around.
	Okay, so my next question was, how do I prepare for the worst?
	I know the ideal thing is to buy gold and silver.
	Have physical bullion, is that right?
	There's some value in that for sure.
	Here's the problem.
	I'm 17.
	Not a lot of gold in your life at the moment.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But as well, I... A few years back when I was working a job at a factory 10 hours a day, it was brutal, but I made myself $1,000.
	My mom pushed me and pushed me.
	She said, you got to put it in an RESP. That's what I ended up doing.
	Now, the problem with putting it in an RESP is I can't access that until when I'm in post-secondary school, which I'm not in currently.
	I'm just wondering because that means I can't put it into gold and so I was wondering what market should I put it into in case the worst case scenario happens and the Western economy goes to crap.
	Where do I put that money to be the safest?
	Oh, I don't know.
	Honestly, I'm not an investment advisor.
	I mean, I have some gold.
	I have some bitcoins.
	I have some investments.
	And it's, you know, I really, I mean, a good thing to do is, you know, invest in useful skills, right?
	I mean, I think that fundamentally the only security is human capital.
	In other words, it's things that are valuable that you can do that can be of value to other people.
	And so keep investing in yourself as best you can.
	Learn how to do useful things.
	Learn how to do valuable things.
	I mean, there's lots of different things I can do.
	If this show ever ran out of donations or something, there's six million other things that I can do to make a living.
	And so, first of all, don't panic.
	No, don't.
	I mean, don't panic.
	There are scary things going on in the world.
	Yeah.
	But, you know, shit on a stick, there's no world war.
	Well, yes.
	You know, there's not like Nazis dropping bombs on our houses.
	And there's no godforsaken illness running through and decimating the population and stuff, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So I think that is important.
	And so I would really...
	Recommended not to panic.
	Things are tough, but my god, I mean, we've got the internet, we've got computers, we've got all this great technology that can help like-minded people connect and learn and grow.
	And, I mean, I wouldn't want to be living at any other time in human history.
	Same.
	So, you know, take heart, take comfort in the possibilities of the future.
	There's great stuff happening in the world.
	And, you know, this may be the end of the longest shadow in human history.
	The shadow of the state, the shadow of superstition, the shadow of destructive parenting.
	We may be living to see significant blows against these ancient evils, and what a fantastic time to be around.
	I would imagine it would be difficult making that transition, though.
	Of course it would be difficult making that transition, absolutely.
	But no cholera.
	No smallpox.
	You know, I mean, it wasn't more than, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago when you had to really be afraid of polio, which might cripple you or kill you or cripple you for your whole life.
	People stuck their whole lives in iron lungs or being drafted and dying godforsaken jungle wounds, right?
	So, you know, this is a pretty good time to be a young person relative to human history as a whole, right?
	Yeah, I'd be dead.
	I have type 1 diabetes, so...
	Oh, yeah, so you'd be dead.
	So, yeah, fantastic.
	I mean, that's...
	Yeah, I mean, you know, every time a friend of mine just had a toothache and all that, it's like, yeah, it's good to not live in the Middle Ages and die from that, right?
	So, I would really recommend, you know, take heart...
	Where you can put your money that's going to be the safest, I really, really couldn't tell you.
	Harry Brown, B-R-O-W-N-E, has got a pretty good book on investment.
	You can find his stuff.
	He's a libertarian guy.
	He's got a lot of investment shows that I've listened to.
	Doug Casey is also pretty good with investment stuff.
	Jeff Berwick, other people like that.
	Just search for libertarian investors or libertarian investment and there's lots of people who have lots of useful stuff to say.
	I would not really count myself as one of them.
	It's not really my area of expertise.
	Certainly not enough to give advice to others.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	But take heart.
	Don't let fear of the future rob you of the joy of youth and the joy of optimism and looking forward to your life.
	There are some challenges.
	But, you know, I mean, when I was a kid, the challenges were we were afraid of blowing up a nuclear war.
	You know, there were these movies A Day After and things like that that scared the living shit out of you.
	Like, I remember just shaking with fear and rage watching these movies about what life was like after a nuclear holocaust.
	And now it's like, oh, the temperature might change by a degree.
	Really?
	You know, when I was a kid, we were concerned about the temperature changing about 20,000 degrees right over our fucking heads and leaving us as nothing more than nuclear shadows on the wall.
	So excuse me for not being too concerned about it.
	The weather.
	You know, we had a weather composed of irradiated nothingness.
	So, I think I'll just survive somehow.
	So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think learning a little bit about money, learning a little bit about investments is good stuff.
	But, you know, if I can spend money these days, I like to spend it on stuff that's adding to my skill set.
	You know, if I, whatever, can't do the show, I'll, you know, there's six million people I've met doing the show who I'm sure would like to work with me and all that.
	So, that would make...
	That would be my suggestion.
	But, you know, I regret the degree to which I let the propagandized fears of society rob me of some of the joy of my youth.
	And I would certainly recommend not doing that.
	You know, grab the gusto.
	It's the best time to be young.
	It's the best time to be alive.
	Let's really, really enjoy it.
	Okay.
	Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would.
	Would you mind if I shifted gears a bit?
	Because I had another topic I'd like to talk about.
	Well, I'm not sure.
	Mike, do we have somebody else?
	We do have one more person on the line.
	Well, my friend, this has to be quick, because I'm on my marathon calls.
	Okay, I just wanted some advice on different books I should read, because I know you talk a lot about non-violent, non-aggressive parenting, and that's a real problem in my household, because my parents are firm Christians.
	My father is rather Calvinist Orthodox, so, like, he's...
	Man, corporal punishment in the works.
	I think they're technically known as no shit Christians, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Like, Christians, no shit, man.
	Full tilt boogie Christians.
	I'm sorry about that.
	That's tough stuff to live with.
	Parent Effectiveness Training is a book that I recommend.
	I keep meaning to put together a list of books.
	I really do have to try and slow down my production of shows because I've got so many things...
	That need to be done.
	I'm trying to put together a reading list of stuff that's really influenced me.
	All right.
	But yeah, Parent Effectiveness Training is a great book to start with.
	And to me, it's, you know, I mean, how are you a good parent?
	It's like, well, the answer is really no different than how are you a good person?
	You know, I don't abuse people.
	I don't scream at people.
	I don't hit people.
	I don't Make people sit on the stairs when they disagree with me.
	That's how you're a decent person.
	It's not fundamentally different with kids than it would be with anything else.
	So anyway, I would definitely start with that one.
	I haven't read a lot of other really great parenting books, but I think philosophy is a great parenting book.
	It's a great parenting methodology, right?
	Non-aggression principle.
	Respect for property and so on.
	I think you'd go with that.
	And what comes out of that is really cool.
	It's sort of like, what's the best economic system?
	Well, the one that says, don't steal from people.
	If you get that down, don't initiate force and don't steal from people.
	Now, what comes out of that is a lot of creativity.
	With parenting, you don't aggress against children.
	And...
	What comes out of that?
	Who knows, right?
	But once you don't give yourself permission to aggress against children, then you have all of the fertile challenges that come out of a non-violent situation.
	It's like saying, you know, what's the best car?
	Well, I don't know, but we shouldn't be stealing and killing people to make it.
	So I hope that helps.
	Yeah, it does.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	I appreciate it.
	And best of luck.
	I'm sorry about the Christian stuff.
	That can be definitely rough, but you sound like a smart person.
	Uh, young man, so I'm sure you'll be, I'm sure you'll be fine.
	Thank you very much.
	All right, take care, man.
	All right, Adam, you are last today.
	Go ahead.
	Adam should be first.
	Hello, Adam.
	Hi.
	Thanks for your patience, man.
	I appreciate that.
	That's fine.
	Sorry, I'm really, really nervous.
	I've been listening to the show for a very long time.
	We heard that you were nervous, so we thought we'd just wait until you were tired by putting you on at the end of a three-quarter hour show.
	It is almost 5 a.m.
	because I'm in Britain.
	Oh, right.
	Yeah.
	It kind of worked.
	My question is about my life at the moment.
	For about eight years now, I've been very unproductive.
	In the sense that I haven't done anything to achieve happiness.
	Sorry for being slow.
	No, no problem.
	Slow because you're emotional is fine.
	The guy at the beginning was slow and not emotional, which is a pretty deadly combination.
	I've got this really strong, like, throbbing feeling on my heart.
	It feels like I'm about to vomit my words.
	Right.
	Well, take your time.
	No rush, but feel free to keep moving.
	So, at the moment, I'm suffering from a lot of physical health and mental health problems.
	I'm currently, like, twice the normal body weight for someone of my height.
	And I'm also being treated antidepressants and among other things.
	Right.
	And I'm really struggling on being productive and being where I want to be in my life.
	Yeah.
	So I was calling to ask for any advice that you could give me to help.
	So, you said you've been treated for, what are you taking for depression?
	Citalopram, it's called.
	Alright.
	And you said there was a health issue, you mentioned being overweight, was there a health issue underlying that or is that a result of something else?
	I think it's more a symptom of mental problems.
	Okay.
	And what do you think is the cause of being overweight?
	Passing time, being sedentary most of the day.
	Like with basically zero physical exercise for seven, eight years.
	Well, not zero for seven or eight years.
	It progressively got to become zero, probably for about three or four years.
	Were you not overweight as good?
	I've always been overweight, but it's very uncontrollable now.
	It's very uncontrollable.
	Sounds like a demon in your brain.
	You know, I just can't get the ice pick far enough up my nose to solve the demonic possession of cheesecake.
	Alright.
	So, how many calories a day do you think you're eating?
	I would, as an estimate, probably 4,000, something like that.
	And what's your big weakness as far as food goes?
	Well, because I live on my own now, most of my diet is just fast food, easy food that you can make.
	It's not very healthy, just out of...
	Well, but, you know, you can get fast food that's not bad for you, right?
	A lot of fried food, I should say.
	Oh, yeah, okay.
	You're big into the fish and chips, right?
	Yeah.
	You know what it does?
	I don't know if they still serve them in newspapers.
	You know, when you can see the newspaper like it's a pane of glass, it's all clear.
	That is not probably going to be all great for your arteries.
	Anyway.
	Okay.
	Because, yeah, you can get like a salad at McDonald's and stuff like that.
	It's not too bad.
	You can get a lot of better stuff now than you could in the past.
	Anyway.
	All right.
	And what is your dating life like?
	It's non-existent.
	Right.
	I didn't want to, you know, say that, but it seems likely that would be the case, right?
	Okay, okay.
	And is your weight heading up?
	Is it staying stable or is it going down?
	It's very gradually going up.
	Right.
	And you said that you're twice the weight for someone you're height?
	Yes.
	So you're kind of eating yourself into a grave, right?
	Why do you think that?
	Because...
	I'm not ignorant to what being overweight does to your health.
	I'm sorry, can you say that again?
	Like, I know that being largely overweight can lead to bigger health problems such as diabetes and No, no, I know, but why do you think that that's preferable to you than something else?
	I mean, is it that you don't really want to live that much?
	Is your life not enjoyable enough that it's worth staying up, staying alive for?
	At the moment, no, but I would like it to be.
	Okay, so if your life didn't change, it wouldn't be something that would be really worth hanging on to, right?
	That's true, yeah.
	I don't want to tell you that.
	No, no, that's true.
	Is that how you feel?
	Okay.
	And I mean, in a way, you know, if you don't have a life that you really like, then you might as well enjoy the food, right?
	And, you know.
	Yeah.
	I spend most of my days browsing the internet and playing video games, you know, anything that passes time watching movies.
	Yeah.
	Not sure why you need to browse the internet when you already know where Free Domain Radio is, so I'm not quite sure.
	I follow that.
	I mean, there is only one place.
	You could go elsewhere, but why?
	Anyway.
	Yeah, because it's not like you're like, well, I want to look sharp for the ladies, right?
	Or whatever, right?
	So, when was the last time that you remember, if there was a time, being really happy?
	Probably about a year and a half ago, where I traveled across the country to meet someone who I knew from chat rooms where I traveled across the country to meet someone who I knew from chat rooms and talking to on Skype, Thank you.
	We went to a small convention.
	Right.
	And before that?
	I can't really remember before that.
	And As a kid, do you remember feeling happy?
	No.
	So, in your whole life, you've got like one weekend, right?
	Yeah.
	That's not good, right?
	No.
	Yeah, I can tell you, because, I don't know, have you listened to this show much before?
	Yes, yeah.
	Okay.
	I can tell you this, that's not so visible probably from where you are, but whenever I hear about, you know, people who are really stuck in their lives or people who are really bored or lost or whatever, I see, like, we're all supposed to be helping each other.
	You know, as a species, as a tribe, and hopefully as a family.
	Like, I get constant feedback, obviously, from listeners.
	I get constant feedback from Mike.
	I get constant feedback from J.C. I get constant feedback from other friends.
	I get constant feedback from my wife.
	And I get constant feedback from my daughter.
	Because I'm always asking for it.
	You know, what did you like about today?
	What did you not like?
	What could be better?
	You know, how did you like what I did this or whatever, right?
	And...
	I know that I'm not going to go way off course because I'm getting feedback, right?
	Now, when I hear the stories like, oh, you know, I'm in this sad situation, right?
	What I really am hearing is astounding, like, interstellar solitude.
	You know, like when somebody says, well, I'm really...
	Overweight.
	What I hear is there's no one around me who, when I began to gain weight, said, hey, why are you gaining weight?
	What's going on?
	And help me figure it out and prevent it like I'm alone.
	Right?
	So I can just keep gaining weight.
	And nobody in my life who knows me is saying, why are you gaining all this weight?
	What's going on?
	Right?
	Solitude, solitude, solitude.
	Or people who's like, well, you know, I'm 30 and I'm still a virgin and so on.
	And it's like, well, where were the people when you were 20 or 22 or 23 who said, you're not really dating, what's going on?
	Where's the course correction of people around you who care about you, who want to help you achieve what you want to achieve?
	Does this make any sense?
	Yeah.
	And this has to go way back because I don't think you even know what's missing from your life.
	Does that make any sense?
	So you must have been so acclimatized to isolation from such a very early age that I don't think you even know what is missing in terms of people giving you course corrections, which we all need, right?
	Yeah.
	So...
	Tell me about your early life.
	My memory probably goes back only as far as about 10 years old.
	Anything before that I don't really remember.
	But I got bullied a lot at school.
	And it kind of made me bully other people too because After being bullied, the only way to feel better was to bully someone else, which, looking back now, it's...
	It's not the only way to feel better, but it's one way to feel better.
	No, but it's the way that I chose.
	And being so young, I didn't really know any better.
	And obviously, looking back now, that's completely illogical.
	No, no, it's not completely illogical, because it did work to some degree, right?
	Yeah.
	But after leaving school at about 16, I went into college and I thought, okay, this is a fresh start.
	I can get away from it all.
	But it didn't go away.
	It carried on, but in a different environment.
	Okay, so you understand we did 10 to college in about 38 seconds, right?
	Yeah.
	So that's your whole life, right?
	At least to adulthood, right?
	So that's kind of quick, right?
	Now what do you mean you can't remember before 10?
	I don't understand that.
	I don't have any memories of my life before that age.
	At all.
	But what about when you look at pictures?
	I think I've got about two pictures of me when I was before 10.
	There are two pictures of you before you were 10, really?
	I've got them in front of me, actually, because it was one of my birthday presents.
	My family framed them and gave them to me.
	But they're the only two that I can think of, that I can recall.
	Right.
	Now, you know that, this is not proof, but I'm sure you know that memory loss is indicative of trauma or isolation, neglect.
	Okay.
	I didn't know that.
	Yeah, so again, you can sort of look this up.
	Don't take my word for it as an amateur, but my understanding is that where there are memory holes, it's when the brain is undergoing stress.
	So if the child is traumatized or neglected or isolated, then memories have difficulty forming and staying, right?
	Yep.
	So what stressors do you think you might have been exposed to before the age of 10 that might have interrupted memory formation?
	I really don't know.
	Alright.
	Do you know how you were disciplined when you were a child?
	I was hit.
	And how were you hit and where?
	And how often?
	On the legs and the arms and stuff.
	And often, probably...
	Once a month, and if it was for being really mischievous, anything that wasn't deserving, and I do this in air quotes, it was normally having privileges taken away, such as no TV for the weekend or other things like that, or being grounded.
	And when you say that you were hit on the arms, what do you mean?
	Were you hit with a hand, with an implement?
	By the hand.
	By the hand, okay.
	So arms and legs.
	Once a month.
	And then you were punished sometimes by having stuff removed, right?
	And were you close to your parents?
	No, not really.
	Okay, and how would I know that?
	I mean, if I saw them, or saw you with them?
	Because we wouldn't be talking.
	I don't talk to them.
	I haven't talked to them.
	I have no common interests with them or we don't spend any time together and I don't think we have for a very long time.
	Right.
	In fact, I don't really have any contact with them now, particularly.
	They do call me occasionally, but I tend to just ignore the phone calls because to me it feels like it's an effort to talk to them in which there is no Not reward, but I won't get, like, how to explain it?
	I won't, like, get anything out of it.
	If that makes sense.
	Right.
	And how often do they call?
	Once a fortnight, maybe a bit less than that.
	Maybe once every three weeks.
	Right, okay.
	So, like, 10, 12, 15 times a year, maybe.
	Okay.
	Mm-hmm.
	And do you see them?
	Do you see them like Christmases or birthdays or anything like that?
	Yes, I'm at university now, so I go home for the summer break and the Christmas break.
	And what are the summer breaks like?
	I just stay in my room pretty much throughout the whole of it, unless I only really leave my room to eat or to go to the toilet, or if I'm going out anywhere.
	I don't spend any time.
	And you spend time in your room on the computer?
	And are you playing video games as well as browsing?
	Yeah, and watching movies and anything that passes the time, really.
	Right.
	Do you have any close connections?
	Yeah, I have a couple, but they're only online.
	They're not online.
	Face to face or anything.
	They're just people I talk to over Skype and things like that.
	Do you eat in your room as well?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So basically you go home, you go to your room, sorry, you go home, you go to your parents' place and you go to your room, you will spend time on the computer and you come out to eat.
	Sorry, you come out to use the washer and sleep, I assume.
	And are your parents home at this time?
	If they're not at work, then yeah, they'll be at home.
	And do they knock on the door?
	Do they ask you, do they chat, or what happens?
	There's not really much connection at all, but they do their thing, I do my thing.
	Right.
	That's tragic.
	It's tragic.
	I don't know if you know that.
	It's really tragic.
	I don't mean wrong.
	I don't mean bad, right?
	I just mean it's tragic.
	Right?
	Do you get how not healthy that is?
	Yeah.
	I get quite jealous of people, actually, when they have active relationships, should I say, with their parents.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, that's incredibly tragic.
	Um...
	I mean, I was making a joke.
	I was doing a little bit of workup of my study earlier today, and when my wife and my daughter are home, I can hear my wife sometimes, but I hear my daughter all the time.
	Like, she is just talking, like, all the time.
	What she's thinking, what she's feeling, a good idea, let's play this game, here are the rules.
	And I just saw, I came down after a while, and I, just before I exercised before the show, And I said, I gave my wife a big hug and I said, Christina, Christina, I just have to remind you of one thing.
	Please, please, please let Isabella get a word in edgewise just once in a while.
	And she just laughed because it is like trying to catch a hurricane with your bare hands sometimes to keep up with her conversation.
	She is very, very connected, very conversational.
	And if I have to go up to shave, she'll come up and sit and chat with me while I'm shaving.
	And that conversation I consider to be natural.
	That to me is normal.
	And she's interesting.
	And she's got great questions and she wants to know about everything.
	And the idea that when she's, you know, late teens, early 20s or whatever you are, that she would come home for weeks after weeks after weeks having doubled her weight, sit up in her room and nobody would talk to her, it breaks my fucking heart into about 10,000 little pieces.
	It's incomprehensible to me.
	I don't tell her to talk.
	I actually, like, I have to tell her not to talk when I'm brushing her teeth.
	Like, I actually have to tell her, Isabella, hold your thought.
	I'm brushing your teeth.
	I cannot brush your teeth.
	I mean, she does herself sometimes, but when I do it, when she wants me to do it, like, Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, stop talking for literally two minutes of the day so I can brush your teeth.
	And she's like, okay, you talk to me then while you're brushing my teeth, right?
	And she is constant, right?
	So we went to the animal shelter today and gave a donation and fed some kitties and all that kind of good stuff.
	And there was a kitty cage that was empty and clean.
	And so she wanted to be a kitty, so I had to go out of the room, I had to lock her in the cage, I had to go out of the room, come into the room, pretend that I found her and was going to take her home and all that kind of stuff.
	It was so, it was so much fun.
	I actually took a little video of it, hilarious.
	And she makes the most amazing cat sounds, like it is eerie.
	And it's constant.
	The conversations and the interaction.
	I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
	I mean, I'm really not.
	I'm sensitive to the fact that this is sad for a lot of people to hear, but I need it to be sad for people to hear it, right?
	Because it's very dysfunctional to be in a situation where you're in a house with people that you grew up with and not talk to them.
	That's heartbreaking.
	I mean, I think that it's so wrong for parents to have children and withhold connection.
	Parents do not have the right to withhold connection anymore than they have the right to withhold food or medicine.
	Because we know, I mean, we know that connection is essential for children.
	And I'm incredibly sorry that this was not part of your lived family experience.
	And that your connection is with computers and food, right?
	And I don't...
	That makes sense to me.
	It makes sense to me because the people aren't connected.
	So you have to get your sustenance from somewhere.
	And you get it online, and you get it in games, and you get it in food.
	Does that make any sense?
	But unlike...
	Healthy, functional, connected relationships.
	Your connections right now are killing you, right?
	And I don't know what the solution is.
	But I can think of some steps that I think are pretty necessary.
	You got to get out of the room, right?
	As we used to say in R&D, let's go back, let's go into the big blue room and meet the flesh people after we'd spent a lot of time doing coding and stuff, right?
	And what I mean by that is you got to get out and walk, you know, like as far as depression goes, As far as I understand it, exercise and diet changes are as effective as medication, if the medication can even be considered effective at all.
	But you've got to stop self-medicating with food, right?
	You're burying the sadness under fat and carbs and crap, right?
	I'm not telling you anything you don't know, right?
	You just, you have to.
	Now, that's going to make you feel uncomfortable.
	That's going to make you feel emotionally upset, right?
	Which is why I think therapy, if you can get a hold of it, you might be able to get it for free through university.
	But to get into therapy and to just start to just walk around, like literally 20 minutes, just start walking 20 minutes, then half an hour, a little bit, you know, take some podcasts.
	Might want to listen to this one a few times.
	But getting some motion is really, really helpful.
	And you'll be surprised.
	You're young, right?
	Your body can recover.
	You'll be surprised at how quickly you can recover.
	And you can, you know, right now you're killing your taste buds with, you know, fat and sugar and all the stuff that gets rid of more subtle flavors.
	But if you start eating stuff that is more subtle, like a California salad with cranberries or something, you'll get back into different tastes and sort of reawaken your Taste buds to something that's a little more subtle.
	But isn't it a pretty lonely life?
	It's very lonely.
	It's very lonely, right?
	And you know that we're social animals, right?
	I mean, we're not cats or flies.
	We're ants, right?
	We're social animals.
	You need a society.
	You need connection with people.
	You need that.
	You understand?
	Understand that is essential for your health.
	That has to be something that you pursue because this loneliness is going to wipe you off the map, right?
	Thank you.
	Do you feel that you have things to offer people in conversation, in community?
	Yeah.
	So I watch a lot of political and philosophical podcast videos and stuff.
	So I feel I'm fairly interesting to talk to However, a lot of people don't feel the same way.
	For example, I'll express some opinions I'll have about statism, for example.
	And because a lot of people are so...
	What's the word?
	Like stuck in their ways about how governments are good and stuff like that.
	I quite often get dismissed as being part of the loony bin.
	Also because you're talking about abstractions and your body is speaking another language entirely, right?
	Because if you want to talk about virtue and you want to talk about integrity, and I assume with philosophy comes self-knowledge, right?
	But if you're twice your healthy weight, then that is, well, that's what's, you know, your body is speaking something else, else, right?
	So I think it's not just that people are propagandized.
	They are, of course, right?
	But people will try and find any excuse to dismiss you.
	And if they look at a big belly and they say, okay, well, so who is this guy to tell me how to live, right?
	So I wouldn't try to evangelize freedom and virtue and integrity and self-knowledge if your body is saying something else to people.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	Mike, did you want to add anything to this?
	Hello, Mike.
	He's not.
	Yeah, Mike said that he spent some time when he was younger in his room.
	But would you say that the world is fairly comfortable, somewhat alarming, downright terrifying for you?
	Do you mean like how I feel when I'm out and about?
	Yeah, yeah, when out in the world.
	Extremely uncomfortable.
	I've grown up hating the world.
	Oh, I think he's back.
	I think he selfishly took a bathroom break, despite the fact that I'm hanging on to half a river full of logs.
	Mike, are you there?
	Yeah, I'm on.
	Did you want to add, you mentioned in the chat that it sounds like you when you were younger?
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, Matt, I'm just listening to you tell your story.
	It's very similar to how I grew up with extremely isolated people.
	And I know with me, I was overweight when I was younger and food for me wound up being kind of like a comfort.
	If I'd had a bad day at school or, you know, I felt really stressed out about something, you know, I had a fight with my parents, something like that.
	I'd go make a big, you know, make a frozen pizza or a tray of french fries or chicken fingers or just something that I could eat to kind of...
	You know, numb the pain of that interaction.
	I get an insulin response from eating all that food and then I just want to go to sleep.
	And then of course, you know, go to sleep for a couple hours or whatnot and just wouldn't have to think about it.
	And the other days playing video games endlessly or watching television shows and trying to find anything to distract myself from the fact that I wasn't happy with the way my life was going and the path and road that I was on.
	It worked sometimes, but I know for me there was always that nagging pull.
	Even if I was doing something that I kind of enjoyed, I still knew that I wasn't on the right track.
	And...
	I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I know for me, one of the biggest fundamental things was realizing that I was trained from a very young age to be absolutely terrified of the world.
	And I don't know if this is your case or not, but I know with me, whenever I wanted to do something, whether it's a career option or things that I wanted to do, there was people around me that would tell me immediately why it was a bad idea.
	Or why it would go wrong.
	Or why, you know, tell me like, okay, this is a disaster scenario.
	We're a bad side of, you know, just of what I'm even pondering of doing.
	There was never any curiosity or interest in, you know, oh, why do you want to do that?
	So that not only led to me being terrified even more, it led to further isolation because I didn't even want to share any thoughts I had with the people around me.
	So it led to me essentially being pent up in a room, terrified of the outside world, terrified to share anything with people around me, alone in my head.
	And I had food and video games and movies, and that was my life, and that's what I had.
	That's what I had to pass the time.
	And breaking out of that...
	Breaking out of that room, it took a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work in therapy.
	And it took having some good people around me to ask about how I was doing, what I wanted to do, and not immediately shout me down whenever I talked about something that I was interested in or curious about exploring.
	The person who's now my wife made an incredible, incredible impact on me in that way.
	And not that I'd suggest that anyone gets into a relationship that ends up being long-term when they're really working through some heavy stuff, but I met someone who was incredibly helpful and curious and really showed me that I didn't have to be completely afraid of the world.
	And I could open the door and go outside and start pushing boundaries and doing things that made me feel uncomfortable.
	And the world wasn't going to end if someone was mad at me or someone didn't like me or, you know, someone said something nasty about me or I didn't get a job that I applied for.
	And it was really just a whole lot of trudging forward and listening to how I felt and understanding that all the stuff that I had to do to get where I wanted to go was really scary.
	But ultimately it was worthwhile to escape the room that I didn't want to be trapped in 20 years from now.
	So, and here I am, maybe six or seven years removed from that, and, you know, I have an amazing wife, I have my dream job, I have some great friends, and this is all stuff that I couldn't imagine being possible seven years ago.
	Like, you could have told me that this is my life and pinched me, and I wouldn't have believed you, you know.
	But it is possible to escape that room.
	Well, to be fair, you're back in it now, right?
	Steph doesn't let me leave.
	That's right.
	You know, but he's happier.
	Sorry, but what do you think, oh listener of ours?
	It sounds a lot like what I'm experiencing.
	I just wish I knew what to do to get out of the cycle.
	Well, Mike, I'll leave that.
	That's a tough question.
	So naturally, I will leave that to you.
	It's a tough question.
	The answer is tough, too.
	It's up to you, fundamentally.
	It's going to involve doing stuff that's pretty scary.
	The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
	It's an old adage, but it's extremely true.
	And I know with me, it was a lot of just, okay, today I'm going to do something outside my comfort zone.
	And the day after that, I'm going to build on that.
	And I'm going to build on that over a month, over a year.
	And it all adds up.
	It wasn't an extremely fast process.
	And, you know, there were some days where I didn't want to keep pushing those boundaries.
	But sometimes pushing those boundaries can wind up to some incredible moments.
	I mean, I wound up going to a Freedom Inn Radio barbecue back when Steph had it at his house.
	Way back when.
	When the show wasn't as big as it is now.
	And I didn't want to do that.
	I was like, oh man, I gotta drive a couple hours.
	I'm gonna go around all these people.
	I don't know anybody.
	This is gonna be kind of awkward and uncomfortable.
	And I almost didn't go.
	I decided to go because I listened to one of Steph's podcasts where he talked about making decisions from your deathbed back.
	It's still one of my favorite things he's ever done.
	Just looking, alright, I'm laying on my deathbed, I'm going to be dead in an hour and a half.
	You know, looking back at my life, will I be glad that I did this or not?
	And I said, man, of course I'd want to do this.
	Of course I'd look back and go, oh, you had the chance to go meet some interesting people on this philosophy show that's incredibly important to you and you care about?
	Why didn't you go?
	Man, that's a missed opportunity.
	So I thought of it that way and I ended up going completely outside my comfort zone, driving hours, not something I'm used to doing.
	Didn't really know anyone.
	Went to a restaurant.
	I ended up sitting down next to the person who is now my wife, just by pure happenstance.
	We ended up sitting next to each other, striking up a conversation, and because I stepped outside my comfort zone and pushed those boundaries, my life changed immeasurably forever.
	And you don't know if it's going to be step 1, step 7, or step 16, or step 142.
	But if you keep pushing those boundaries, keep going outside your comfort zone, and stay true to your feelings and pay attention to what's going on for you, you're going to wind up in a much more positive place.
	And you might take that step that leads you to finding the person that you're going to spend the rest of your life with.
	Or also that weekend I also met Steph for the first time and now here we are years later working together.
	He's my closest friend.
	Couldn't ask for a better working situation, working relationship.
	And I get to work on philosophy full time.
	And if I wouldn't have made that drive, that scary drive to go up to that barbecue and meet these people that I didn't know, I don't think I'd be talking to you right now.
	But it's because I said, what do I want to do?
	How do I want to live my life?
	On my deathbed, looking back, what decision will I want to make?
	And I knew that that decision wasn't, I should stay in my room for another day.
	Or another two days, or for another week, or just another year.
	And it was terrifying.
	It was absolutely terrifying, and there's nothing that's going to wish away that terror.
	Because it's, I mean...
	Connecting with it now, thinking about it, it's like, man, I didn't even want to pull the covers off when I woke up.
	I just wanted to go back to sleep.
	But there is a world worth exploring and a life worth living outside your room.
	And I hope...
	I hope you take those steps and you experience the cool stuff that you definitely can.
	Because it's so much better than being trapped and locked away.
	I can tell you that right now.
	So much better.
	And you'll be glad that you did it.
	How you feeling, Adam?
	Um...
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I can't really describe it.
	Just talking to someone that's been in the position.
	I mean, I think this is a big step right here, right now.
	The fact that you called into the show.
	You waited almost four hours to talk to someone about this.
	I mean, that's a huge step right there.
	I've been getting to listen to you talk and describe your experience.
	It's an honor to hear you describe it, and I'm so glad that you called in today.
	And tomorrow you can take another step towards being the person that you want to be and living the life you want to live.
	Thank you.
	And it is just these little decisions, right?
	I mean, as Mike is saying, he makes the decision to drive And his life changed.
	If he had never made that decision, yeah, you can say, well, I would have made that decision sooner or later.
	But sometimes the planets align and you just have to do it then.
	Literally, sometimes in life, it is now or never.
	Because every time you reject the now, the never gets stronger, right?
	If Mike had said no, he would have known, right?
	He needed to do that.
	I mean, it was important.
	It's something he valued.
	It was an open invitation.
	It cost him nothing to come for the barbecue.
	If he'd have said no to that, what would he have said yes to?
	What would have been more important?
	It wasn't like he had a whole lot of shit to do in his room, right?
	So every time you say no to what you need to do, the never becomes stronger, and eventually the never just wins.
	Yeah, it's like a muscle.
	Yeah, it's like a muscle.
	Except that muscles almost never completely vanish, right?
	But the never can overcome what is possible to the point where the never becomes physics.
	And that's what I mean when I say, you know, get out.
	Just tomorrow, just Saturday, get up.
	I don't care if I feel self-conscious.
	I don't care if it's raining frozen frogs on my head.
	I'm going to go out for a 20-minute walk.
	I'm going to go see if I can find a meetup group of people that I like, philosophy people.
	Maybe it's a free domain radio meetup somewhere around.
	But it really is going to come down to the decisions you're going to make tonight.
	About, or I guess for you this morning, what it is you're going to do.
	And you do not have forever to make different decisions.
	You do not have forever.
	Habits start as cobwebs and end up as chains.
	And you need to make those decisions now to just know, I'm going to order something healthier to eat.
	I am going to start going for walks.
	I'm going to start getting some lightweights.
	And I can...
	I do leg lifts and sit-ups while we're watching a movie.
	You can still watch your movies, but just do some stuff that's good for your body.
	Because your body is dying right underneath your head.
	When it goes, your whole being goes too.
	So it really does come down.
	Change is not a lifelong privilege.
	You're young, you can recover from the bad health choices, but you need to make those decisions now.
	Does that make any sense?
	I don't mean to be a nag, but I really feel that it's important to be urgent about this stuff.
	It does make a lot of sense, yeah.
	It's very hard.
	I have tried to do it before.
	But any time I go out the house and go out and walk around, quite often You know, someone might pull down their window and have a bit of a joke, shouting stuff as they go by, and it really just makes me not want to.
	Yeah, but you can't let assholes win.
	The whole point of human history, the whole point of human progress, the whole reason that you have anything of value in your life, and me too, is you don't let assholes win.
	That's foundational.
	Right?
	People who wanted to first build home computers, everyone said, ugh, don't be ridiculous.
	Who would ever want a computer in their home?
	Just an idiot.
	Don't waste your money.
	Right?
	Every time you try to do anything in this world, there are about a million assholes all around you telling you it can't be done.
	You're wasting your time.
	It's not possible.
	You're a jerk.
	You're this.
	You're that.
	Whatever.
	Right?
	So, I mean, to listen to the assholes, and I don't mean to diminish that it's unpleasant.
	I get it.
	I mean, the number of insults that I receive on a daily basis, if I gave a shit what assholes think, I wouldn't even get out of bed.
	Right?
	I mean, you can't let jerks stop your life because the jerks will always be there.
	I mean, they are, you know, death and taxes and jerks are like the three constants so far in life.
	You know, we'll figure it out at some point, right?
	But right now, they are physics.
	You know, it's like saying, well, I can't get out of bed because I'm just going to stick to the floor.
	It's like, yes, you are.
	And you can't go out of the house and go try and get anything done in your life without all the idiots in the world either putting you down or making fun of you or ignoring your success, which is sometimes even worse.
	Fuck that.
	I mean, who's got time to sit there?
	And you go ahead and you have a great life and all the jerks end up with their shitty little lives, right?
	Who cares, right?
	Oh, they're making jokes about a guy who's overweight.
	They don't know your history.
	They don't know where you're coming from.
	They don't know what you had to endure as a child.
	They don't know how difficult it is for you.
	They're just cold-hearted little sociopathic bitches who will amount to nothing less than a stain on a fading toilet paper roll of human history.
	Nothing.
	Forget them.
	Forget them.
	They're just, they're noise.
	You know, you step over ants and you don't listen to assholes, right?
	Of course, yeah, it is tough.
	Absolutely.
	But what is your alternative?
	Do you think that the path you're heading on is going to be easier?
	No.
	You're going to get more lonely and more sick.
	It's hard, but it's easier than the alternative, wouldn't you say?
	I don't think it's easier.
	Yeah.
	I'm sorry?
	I don't think it's easier than the alternative.
	Well, I mean, of course, bad habits are always easier in the short run, right?
	Yeah.
	But in the long run, you know.
	I mean, where does this lead?
	To an early unmarked grave, right?
	No, look, you're too smart and precious a guy for that, right?
	For that fate.
	And Adam, you're not just avoiding death through these choices and poor health by these choices.
	You're going towards something that's a lot more positive.
	And I imagine that's pretty difficult to understand and see right now.
	I was trying to think back, I mean, seven years ago, if you would have told me, like, oh, yeah, you know, you could be, like, actually incredibly happy with your life, I would have not believed anyone that told me that, because I didn't know what that even looked like.
	But if you keep taking those steps forward, and keep pushing your boundaries, and, you know, stay true to yourself, You're going to wind up in a situation where you reach levels of happiness that you never before thought possible.
	It can happen.
	The fact that I'm talking to you right now is absolute living proof of that.
	It can happen if you put in the work.
	And it's not easy.
	I mean, tomorrow it's going to be easier to just keep doing what's been going on for the last months and years.
	Absolutely.
	But if you look forward in the future five years from now, if you're in the same spot, If you look forward 10 years from now, do that deathbed thing.
	I found it incredibly useful.
	I think you will too.
	Imagine you're sitting on your deathbed and you didn't take these steps.
	You didn't leave that room.
	You ate the same stuff.
	Your health declined.
	You remained isolated.
	That's not where you want to be on your deathbed.
	You want to look back at the courage and bravery of taking those steps, moving forward, heading in a direction towards what you want. .
	And you'll get it.
	But you have to take those steps.
	And you're the one that controls that.
	And you're worth it, man.
	Thank you.
	You are worth it, Adam.
	I know you've been told by a lot of people that you're not for a long time, but you are.
	You're worth it.
	And do it for yourself.
	Thank you.
	an intervention going to come, right?
	Thank you.
	I'm going to assume you've gone for most of your life without having the chance to talk about these kinds of issues in this kind of way and having sympathy and people who've been there giving you encouragement.
	Do you think that's going to come back around again soon?
	I would seize it now if you can.
	I'm definitely going to try.
	What is it a famous philosopher said?
	Thank you.
	There is no try.
	Do or do not do.
	You're a movie watcher, right?
	So you know the reference, right?
	I believe he was green.
	and very small.
	Was there anything, Mike, in particular that you remember that helped you make the decision one way, not the other?
	That's a good question.
	I think...
	Well, you're like, Steph's house is totally where all the hot chicks are.
	I think with me it was a build-up of a lot of times not taking that step.
	And really just realizing that, okay, I'm down to the nitty gritty.
	If I keep not taking those steps and staying in this room and not going outside my comfort zone, I'm going to be doing the same thing ten years from now.
	And that just sounded like a nightmare to me.
	For me, it had continued for so long.
	I didn't want to do this anymore.
	I didn't want to stay locked in my room, isolated.
	It's time for something different.
	Time for something better.
	I've had enough of the pretty prison.
	It wasn't even that pretty.
	I remember seeing something, I don't know who it was by, but it was talking about how willpower is finite, so you have to use want power, and instead of thinking, I've got to do this, you think about what it will bring you and use that as fuel to get out there.
	I think that's absolutely true.
	I think self-bullying is not the way to go.
	I mean, I think fear of consequences that can be predicted is helpful.
	But, I mean, bullying is not a very productive way to grow yourself.
	You know, you may have to say, oh, I gotta go.
	I said I promised myself.
	Go for this 20-minute walk, right?
	But it can kind of get you started, but it can't sustain you.
	You know, like everyone can diet for a day, right?
	But keeping it sustainable has to do with desire and not bullying, I think.
	But in order to even get to the place where you can begin to desire stuff, you do have to start repairing your health and your nutrition and all that exercise.
	So I think, yeah, I mean, I remember...
	I went through a period where when I was in my early teens where I was overweight and not exercising and this and that.
	I mean, my whole life was a complete mess.
	My mom wasn't getting out of bed.
	My brother was in England for a couple of years and we were getting eviction notices.
	And then what happened was I just was like, oh my God, I don't like the way I feel.
	I feel heavy.
	I feel like my knees hurt and I'm 13 years old.
	And I just started running Around the apartment, this little apartment, but I could sort of run around the living room and the apartment, and then I started running a little more and started running a little more.
	I ended up being a long-distance runner, and I got into swimming and water polo and tennis and squash, and I, you know, ended up, which has been like a lifelong journey.
	Exercise regime for me, but it just comes from that decision of like, I don't like this and I'm just, all I'm going to do is just run around.
	And I spent, I run around for like 15 minutes and I was like, you know, but then the next day I just did it again.
	And I mean, I exercised while going through chemo.
	I mean, it was important for me to maintain that.
	And it's not a burden.
	It's not a chore.
	It's something, it's just something I do.
	I don't really think about it anymore.
	But it just comes from that first initial choice.
	It's a fork in the road.
	I could have gone either way, but it wasn't because I thought, oh, you know, I start running around this little apartment, and I'm going to get Calvin Klein underwear ad modeling gigs.
	It was just, I don't like this.
	I need to move.
	And I just sort of made myself do it, and then it just got easier.
	So I agree with you.
	You can't muscle your way through your whole life, but I think a little bit at the beginning is not the end of the world.
	But that's my thought.
	What do you think, Mike?
	I know that's what it was with me.
	The whole willpower, 100% willpower, that doesn't work.
	It really doesn't work.
	But if you have your eyes on something better, something that you want, something that's important to you, a little willpower at the beginning to kind of nudge you along and get you headed on that path, I think that's sustainable.
	I think that's a good thing.
	That's another muscle that gets built as you use it and flex it.
	Then when you start putting together that positive momentum, the last thing you want to do is stop.
	You start seeing the positive effects that stepping outside your comfort zone has and the relationships you can cultivate.
	And, you know, the weight you can lose and all that stuff.
	Once you start seeing the positive effects, you're not going to want to stop.
	You're going to want to keep going and see how far you can take things and how much you can improve your life and how happy you can become.
	So what you're saying is it's like acceleration, where it starts really hard and then as you go you gain momentum and it becomes a lot easier over time?
	Oh yeah, I mean, that was definitely the case with me.
	The first step was without question the hardest.
	And after that, you know, it's not saying the steps weren't hard, but they got progressively easier.
	You know, this is, I think, as hard as it's going to be right now, making that decision that you're going to go forward.
	I think that's the hardest point.
	And it's not going to be like it is right now forever.
	As you build that momentum.
	And start, I mean, too, there's a certain credibility that you build with yourself, too, when you go like, this is important to me, I'm going to start heading in this direction, and then you do it.
	There's a self-trust that starts to develop there, too, where it's like, hey, you know, I can do this.
	I wanted this.
	I made it happen.
	And, you know, what you think you can make happen starts to grow over time.
	When I was in my room, I wasn't thinking, hey, I could get a job working alongside someone that I tremendously respect, who's had a profound impact on my life.
	I can get that job.
	I can have my dream job.
	I'm just not setting up enough meetings with Joe Rogan.
	That's the problem with where I am right now.
	I think I'm going to do that.
	Yeah, I mean...
	You know, I didn't even think that was an option.
	That wasn't even possible to me.
	But as I continued to build credibility with myself over time and I took those steps forward and I started, you know, accomplishing things that I wanted to accomplish and, you know, bigger goals, bigger dreams, bigger things seemed possible.
	And then it's like, all right, well, I did all this stuff before.
	I can do this.
	And you know what?
	I got to say this, Adam.
	I mean, you've done something huge already.
	And I don't mean just calling into the show.
	But you've survived this shit.
	I mean, that is not easy.
	And as someone who experienced, I'm not saying the same thing, but something with some stark similarities, you deserve a fucking medal.
	Because there's a lot of people that went through what you went through that would not be capable of having the kind of conversation that we're having now.
	They would have never called into this show.
	Would have never wanted to talk about it.
	The fact that you called in, the fact that you've survived to be to the point where you are now, that, I mean, that's fucking impressive as it is.
	And if you made it through all that, and you did, taking a couple steps, pushing outside your comfort zone, compared to the last 20 years of hell that you've been through, taking that next step, that's easy. . that's easy. .
	So as far as credibility with yourself, the fact that you are right here right now having this conversation, that's some serious credibility.
	I don't know too many people that survived, you know, years of bullying and torment that still have that hope and holding on like, I want something better, I want something better.
	Most people just completely give up and fade into the, you know, the fantasy football teams and, you know, the complete nonsense that passes entertainment these days.
	Yeah, but you're here right now.
	You made this call.
	You want something better.
	And here as you talk, you want something better.
	You've already done so much.
	What's one more step?
	Then another.
	And five years from now, you'll look back at this conversation and say, wow.
	Wow.
	That seems like it was decades ago.
	I know I do.
	I look back at conversations I had five years ago and it's like, really?
	Really?
	It's like it's a different world.
	As long as you take those steps and you keep moving forward, stuff can happen.
	It can happen quick, too.
	You just need to keep moving forward.
	Because the life that you want, I guarantee this, you're not going to find it from within your room.
	Thank you.
	Trust me, I looked.
	I didn't find it.
	What do you think the best way to deal with relapsing into your old life is?
	Well, I think just accept the fact that that's going to happen.
	I know with me, there was not like, hey, I'm going to try and eat better.
	And then there was that perfect standard moving forward.
	No, that didn't happen.
	But one thing I didn't do is I didn't – I really tried to – I did self-attack and criticize myself when I did backslide.
	But I really tried not to because, I mean, God, I looked at everything that I'd been through and it's like, yeah, you know, maybe one day if I need that piece of pizza because I had an incredibly tough day and I'm working hard to push myself forward, okay, I'm having that piece of pizza.
	Like, if that's what I need, okay, fine.
	You know, it's, oh, maybe I don't, you know, I've really been pushing myself.
	I don't want to go out today or tomorrow.
	You know, I just, I need some time to sit with my thoughts and kind of acclimate to the fact that I've been, you know, really outside my comfort zone lately.
	You know, I don't know if that's so much a backslide, as long as you still keep moving forward.
	I mean, if you're on a big journey up a mountain, every now and again, you've got to stop to rest.
	You can't just charge up that thing at a full clip, breaking a world speed record.
	You're not going to make it to the top.
	So I think just recognizing that, I mean, you know, it's not really backsliding, as long as you keep moving forward.
	Sometimes you gotta pause, and that's okay.
	You know, and don't criticize yourself about that.
	You know, if you feel like I need to pause, but you don't pause on day one or day two.
	Does that make any kind of sense?
	Yeah, it's kind of like two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, and eventually...
	Yeah, eventually you wind up where you want to be.
	Do you know the people who have the standard of perfection are the people who don't really want to do it?
	Because the standard of perfection is an out, right?
	So people say, well, I want to diet, right?
	And they say, well, I had a piece of cheesecake, I guess I'm no longer dieting, right?
	So that's...
	Mike and I were just talking about this earlier today.
	Some people who were into this conversation, they perceive me as having been imperfect, right?
	Oh, Steph said something.
	That piece of data, I found some opposite piece of data.
	Or he said something and I can think of an exception and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	And they don't give me really a chance to explain myself.
	They're just like, well, that's it, right?
	So they have this standard of perfection, but they have this standard of perfection so that they can opt out Of the conversation, so they can opt out of the progress.
	So, yeah, be wary of the idea that it's a straight line up the mountain.
	No, a mountain, you climb a mountain, you're going up and down.
	It's a jagged line.
	And what's that great line?
	I think it's Shakespeare.
	The search for perfection is all very well, but to look for heaven is to live here in hell.
	And it is not a straight line.
	It is not a straight line.
	But to imagine that it is, is just a way of setting yourself up to bail when you inevitably meet the inconsistencies of life, of our life.
	Yeah, beautifully put stuff.
	I completely agree.
	There's a line
	from one of the characters in my novel, The God of Atheists, comes from a tough history.
	And I don't really have to get into it.
	But he's sort of shallow and vain and manipulative and all that.
	And he writes this pretty ferocious poem in the middle of a story during a time of personal crisis where he's just castigating himself.
	And putting himself down for all of his flaws.
	And he says, the last line of the poem is, I am what remains when history wins.
	I am what remains when history wins.
	Don't let history win with you.
	The history that you were born and bred for.
	Dissociation, absence, sloth, indifference, shallow entertainments, passivity.
	Don't be all that's left like you burn down a tree, there's just a pile of ash.
	That's what's left when the fire wins, the burning wins.
	Don't let all the mistakes of your family and your culture define who you are.
	Don't be all that's left.
	when history wins.
	Thank you.
	Just trying to take it all in at the moment.
	I'm feeling very emotional.
	Go on.
	Thank you.
	Tell us all about it.
	it.
	I just feel as if I'm doomed to fail.
	Technically, that's not a feeling.
	Sorry to be annoyingly precise.
	It is a philosophy show.
	We have to do that here.
	It's so hard to describe it.
	I've hated the world for so long because it hasn't liked me very much.
	And nobody's asking you to love the world. - Thank you.
	Just like yourself, right?
	I mean, don't let the idiots in the world define your relationship with yourself, right?
	You'll always find someone who dislikes you or disagrees with what you're doing.
	Or thinks you're an idiot or whatever, right?
	Or a bad guy.
	Nobody's asking you to love the world.
	That's a big job, and I would say that's that aiming for perfection that's going to, like, I can't be happy until I love the world.
	Well, good luck with that.
	It's a bit of a shit heap sometimes, right?
	Until I learn to love the smell of freshly baked shit, I don't think I can have a good day.
	It's like, well, it's a great way to guarantee you are not going to have a good day, right?
	No, you just have to like yourself enough to start to take care of yourself and change what you're doing.
	Thank you.
	sniff Yeah.
	So will you... go for a walk tomorrow?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Even if it's the middle of the night so that no doofuses...
	Right?
	But no, I mean, seriously, go for a walk tomorrow and just try and at least start cutting back on the junk that you're choking your arteries with, right?
	Yeah.
	Start really small.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Start small, absolutely.
	Just start to shake it up a little bit, right?
	And when you start to feel stronger, start to enjoy the walks more, keep your head up and notice some of the beauty that's all around you.
	I mean, we live in a pretty...
	Pretty lovely planet.
	It's too bad that all the people in it screw up the view sometimes, but it is nice that we live in a relatively peaceful, pleasant-looking planet.
	And, you know, when you get more comfortable, you can find groups that you might like to join.
	You can start to socialize.
	You can start to exercise more if you want.
	You know, there's gyms where you can go middle of the night.
	Nobody else is around.
	Start to exercise a little bit more and start making different choices, right?
	Pastry has a terrible inertia.
	I know all about that for sure.
	Mike does too.
	Even better than me, I think.
	But yeah, you just have to start with something to change and you'd be surprised at how quickly and easily it goes after that.
	And I'm sorry for the conversation being really slow.
	I'm just really, really anxious.
	Oh, no.
	I don't need to apologize at all.
	This is very, very important stuff.
	And this, to me, is what philosophy means, right, Mike?
	I mean, unless you wanted to bring up the Fed again.
	I wasn't planning on it.
	Come on, let's take one more tour around the resource-based economy.
	That's where real change happens in the world, right?
	No, this is what philosophy is.
	What you can do in your own life, here and now.
	You know?
	That's the important stuff.
	We can't change the Fed.
	And even if we did, it wouldn't get poor Adam out of his room.
	No.
	The Fed's not outside your door, isn't it?
	The building isn't blocking your door, is it?
	Is it?
	Should we call someone?
	Oh no, you're in England.
	It's the Royal Bank of blah blah.
	I may help you again.
	Stop helping!
	Stop!
	Okay, Mike, can you remotely mute me to take away the temptation to help it some more?
	And what do you say you call back in in another month, Adam, and let us know how you're doing?
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah, I definitely will.
	It's just going to take some time now, I think.
	I'm going to re-watch the call.
	Right.
	Or listen, I should say.
	And at least ping Mike tomorrow and let him know you went for that walk.
	We'll expect the email.
	Expect it.
	Yeah, and he's going to be obviously staring at the computer.
	He gets a vicious crick.
	Well, maybe you need to host more barbecues.
	Yeah, maybe that's right.
	I hear the barbecues in Amsterdam are very relaxing.
	All right.
	Well, fantastic.
	Thanks, Adam, for calling.
	I appreciate that.
	Don't feel bad at all.
	I mean, and just know that we will haunt your dreams if you don't change.
	We're not very much into mysticism here, but I believe that is possible with the right software.
	I believe it's Linux-based.
	I'm not sure why.
	But, yeah.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	I appreciate that, bringing that stuff up.
	That is...
	That is very hard stuff.
	It's incredibly brave stuff.
	And as Mike has said, you have already started the change.
	Mike, you did such a fantastic job chatting with this guy.
	You should take the show out.
	Alright everyone, that's been the Freedom Man Radio Call-In Show.
	If you've enjoyed the show, FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
	And yeah, Steph will be at a host of events on the Peter Schiff Show next week.
	And I think this is the record for the longest show ever, Steph.
	I think we broke our previous record of 4 hours and 20 minutes.
	So yes, a new longest show in history.
	It's been a great show.

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